We'll Never Be Apart (15 page)

CHAPTER

I
LET SARA HUG ME WHEN
I
CLIMB BACK INTO THE CAR.
She holds on to me tight even though I'm wet from the sleet. I'd been in the cemetery for more than my allotted thirty minutes, and I'm touched and grateful that she trusted me enough to wait, didn't sound the alarm as soon as the clock ran one minute over. I allow myself to weep into her neck, which almost feels like home. I pull away before she does. She starts up the car and turns up the heat.

“You loved him a lot.” She cranks the wheel and pulls out of the cemetery.

“Yeah.” I can only get out that one word.

“I loved someone like that too, once.”

“Like how?” I wipe at my nose. I'm not a pretty crier. My cheeks get puffy and my eyes turn red.

“Bottomless, consuming. In high school, when I was about your age. Our circumstances weren't nearly the same as yours. But our breakup was painful.” Sara sighs and seems lost in a memory of her own. “First loves are always special.” She pats my knee. “You've had a rough afternoon.”

I lean my head against the cool glass of the window. I think about Jason and the night of the fire in the barn and his happy smile when he'd said
Shit, baby. I'm burning up.
It triggers something in me. I've seen that smile before. The type of smile that starts manic, then tips to glee, and ends in a wash of tranquility, the kind of smile that is equal parts pleasure and pain. Everything suddenly weaves together like the heavy braiding of a rope.

I remember the way he loved watching Roman's house burn. I remember the forest fire and his unicorn tattoo. And I remember, for the first time, that Jason liked fire just as much as Cellie did. I can't believe I didn't see it before. Or maybe I did and chose to ignore it because I wanted to love and be loved so badly.

By the time we get back from Jason's funeral and I've been reprocessed, dinnertime has come and gone. Nurse Dummel says she'll get me a sandwich from the cafeteria, but the last thing I want to do is eat.

All this time I was blind to Jason's darkness, so blissfully unaware, and now everything is flooding back to me like a burst dam: the way his eyes glazed over with pleasure at the sight of a fire, the way he licked his lips, hungry for the heat. Sometimes he'd even put out a cigarette just so he could relight it.

I go to my room. I have a little time before my one-on-one with Dr. Goodman, and I need to sort this out, chop it up into little pieces, and figure out how I could have missed something so important.

I lie on my bed. My stomach churns and my head begins to throb. It's too quiet in the room. And I don't like it. Amelia still isn't back. The paper mouse on her pillow remains undisturbed. I stare at it until my vision blurs. My headache makes everything pulse, as if the air has a heartbeat. I stand up and steady myself against the wall. My face is too hot and the room is too cold.

I make it into the bathroom and splash cold water on my face. I lean against the sink and grip the porcelain. A lock of hair falls in my face and Jason's words come unbidden,
I love your hair wild like this.
It's all too much. I squeeze my eyes shut. My hair. A shackle that binds me to Jason.

Before I know what I'm doing, I've hauled myself out of the bathroom. Kneeling on the bedroom floor, I rip the middle drawer from my dresser and dig through the hole in the wall. It doesn't take long to find what I'm searching for. A pink-handled Bic razor.

I go back to the bathroom. I take a lock of my hair and hold it away from my head. Cellie never wanted me to cut my hair. She wanted us to look the same, and she insisted that long hair was the prettiest. And once, when I tried to cut it, she had painfully grabbed my hand and called me a deceitful little witch.

Wielding the razor like a saw, I hack at the lock until it slips through my fingertips and falls to the floor. I don't think about what I've just done or what it means. All that matters is that Jason's memory and his words are fading. I continue on, crying ugly tears from somewhere deep in my body, a place I didn't even know existed. It takes a long time.

When I've finally finished I look in the mirror. My hair hangs in jagged edges around my shoulders. The new cut makes my face look more angular and my eyes seem bigger. I smile softly and touch the reflection in the mirror. I like the way I look now. Different from Cellie. Distant from Jason.

A beep comes from behind me, followed by the soft whoosh of my bedroom door opening. Donny's voice calls out, “All right, Allie, time to see Dr. . . .” He pauses, his mouth registering shock, then disbelief. I must look like a madwoman, standing in a pile of my own hair.
What have I done? What have I done?
The radio is off his belt in an instant. He's that well trained. “Code red, code red,” he says into it.

I want to move toward him, grab his forearm, and tell him that it was a mistake. Cellie's the impulsive one. Not me. This isn't me. I'm not crazy. But there's no time.

The response is almost immediate. In seconds the room is flooded with techs and nurses. Even Dr. Goodman is there, rushing in behind them. I'm overcome with fear, paralyzed by it. And underneath all that fear is helplessness. Everything I thought I knew about Jason was a lie. The crushing weight of the truth leaves me without an ounce of fight. There's no negotiation like there was with Amelia. No soft voices urging me to come out of the bathroom. No quiet invitation to talk it out. Something jabs into my arm, and I think it would hurt if everything else didn't hurt so much more. I go limp and clutch my heart as I fall to my knees.

A part of me wants this. It's punishment for turning the other cheek to Jason's darkness and Cellie's madness. I deserve this.

A numbing heat runs into my neck and down my sides. It feels like I'm drowning, but the sensation is not entirely unpleasant. They've given me something—some heavy drug that will banish the black by plunging me into it.

Then there will be silence.

Then there will be
nothing.

F
ROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
A
LICE
M
ONROE

 

The fire was quick and violent. I only had a second to shield myself from the backdraft. Up to this point, the fires Cellie had set were natural burns, slow burns, but this one was explosive. It burned at the velocity of a scream.

Instinct kicked in and I ran through the dry grass and into the back alley behind the house. It dawned on me that for the first time, I wasn't running
with
Cellie and Jason. I was running away from them.

I continued until the roar of the flames faded. I stopped four or five blocks away, when my legs refused to go any farther. I stumbled and fell, scratching my knees on the asphalt. Little rocks and dirt tore into my palms. I sat up slowly and leaned against a rickety fence. Fireworks still lit up the sky, but they were partially obscured by a huge black cloud of smoke. Sirens wailed and someone shouted. From this distance, it sounded like they were yelling underwater.

It took another couple of minutes for me to catch my breath and regret what I'd done. I had run away from Cellie and Jason in fear and panic. Left them behind. What if they got caught? Or worse, what if they got stuck in the blaze? I had to go back. Make sure they were safe. I owed it to them. Owed it to myself. I wouldn't abandon them like so many others already had.

I circled back, this time approaching Roman's house from the street rather than from the back alley. A mass of fire trucks and police cars was already there. Yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the area. I dodged through the crowd, anxiously searching for Cellie and Jason. Two firemen were trying to hack through the walls, but the blaze was too big, too hot, and they had to turn away. All they could do, all anyone could do was try to contain it. The whole neighborhood had shown up to watch.

Arms slipped around my waist and I jumped. “Shhh,” Jason whispered. My body responded to his soft reassurance. Despite my conflicting emotions, dark gratitude crept in.

“Where's Cellie?” I asked him.

“I sent her away. She's safe. I thought we could be alone for a while.” He held me from behind and rested his chin on the top of my head. “Don't be mad,” he said, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “I did it for you and Cellie. For us. We're free now. It'll be so much better, you'll see.” He kept talking, kept murmuring in my ear while we watched the house burn. He told me he'd take Cellie and me to California after graduation and we'd always be warm. He told me that he would buy us a house with a bathtub and closets big enough to sleep in. He told me he'd do anything for me.
Anything.

I closed my eyes and inhaled gasoline and ash. The backs of my eyelids were washed in an unnaturally bright orange. Jason kissed the hollow of my collarbone but then abruptly pulled away. I opened my eyes. Roman's wife, Susan, stood next to us. She wore a white nightgown covered in soot. The hair around her face was wild, electric, forming a halo in the heated wind.

“I remember you two,” she said, her voice haunted and dreamlike. I thought maybe she was in shock and didn't realize what was happening. Then I realized that she knew
exactly
what was happening.

“He's still in there,” she said flatly. “Do you think he'll make it?”

I opened my mouth but was too stunned to say anything.

“Ma'am, we need to take you to the hospital.” A firefighter approached us and wrapped a blanket around Susan's shoulders. “Please stop wandering away.”

Susan let the firefighter take her arm. But before he led her away, she leaned toward me. Her cheek grazed mine, and I felt grainy ash rub onto my skin. Her breath was sweet and warm and conjured images of candy and a rock baking in the sun. She whispered so only I could hear, “He was asleep in his chair.”

I remembered that armchair, its scratchy patchwork fabric. He would throw beer cans at us from it when we blocked the television.

Susan's lips curved into a smile against my ear. “I walked right past him.”

CHAPTER

I
'M NUMB.
E
VERYTHING IS A BLUR.
A white haze of techs, nurses, and doctors shuffles in and out of the seclusion room. They fill me with medication until I'm full and pump me for information until I'm drained.

“Alice,” Dr. Goodman says. My vision is hazy, and it's like I'm seeing his reflection in a fun house mirror. “We need to know where you found the razor.”

I mumble something incoherent and try to turn away from him, but my limbs are heavy, too heavy for my body, my bones too dense for my skin.

“It's very important that you tell us, Alice. Where did you find the razor?”

I moan and close my eyes. Even in my overmedicated state, I hesitate to betray Amelia. But her name lingers on my tongue. It's only a matter of time before it accidentally slithers out. “Amelia,” I say, and it tastes like bitter treachery.

Doc pulls away and speaks to Nurse Dummel at the foot of the bed. Their conversation is muted, but there are threads of discomfort and concern. I can hear only a few words. “Search the room.”

I fight sleep—a dark tidal wave that wants to pull me under— for as long as I can, but eventually I succumb. When I wake up again, Doc sits beside me. He checks my IV line and flips through my chart.

“Alice?” He says my name, then calls out behind him, “She's waking up.”

It feels as if my heart is shedding a two-hundred-pound weight. My vision blurs and then narrows. Everything in the room is coming back together. I try to lift my arm but something holds it down. My wrists have been bound to the bed.

“Alice,” Doc speaks. “The medication you were on is wearing off. Breathe deep. Be calm. You're in a safe place.”

I do as he asks because I don't really have a choice. Even though his voice is gentle, there's an underlying threat to it.
Breathe Deep. Be Calm. Or Else.
I flex my toes and move my legs, relieved that they aren't shackled like my wrists. The blood in my veins feels as if it's reanimating, as if it's been set on slow motion and all of a sudden someone has pushed play.

“How are you feeling?” Dr. Goodman asks me.

I take in my surroundings. The room is bare, nothing on the walls and no furniture aside from the bed I'm in and the stool where Dr. Goodman is sitting. There's a small window at the very top of the wall, and I can just make out a square of sky. Dark gray clouds are converging. Raindrops pelt the window, fat and heavy. Donny is standing in the corner, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed.

“Alice, how are you?” Dr. Goodman asks again. They must teach this technique in psychologist school—ask the same question over and over again until you get a response. Waterboarding for the mind.

“Thirsty.” My voice is hoarse and it hurts to talk, though not half as bad as after the fire. Still, my throat feels raw and uncomfortable.

“We can take care of that.” Doc nods to a nurse who I didn't notice before. She brings a small cup of water to my lips and I murmur, “Thank you.” As she tips the cup to my mouth, there's a flash of scarlet in my peripheral vision. I've been red-banded. Super.

While I sip, I take stock of the rest of my body and notice that they've removed my street clothes and dressed me in ratty scrubs again. When I finish the water the nurse hurries away, like I'm going to spit or start throwing knives at her.

“Do you know how long you've been in here?” Dr. Goodman says. He's got my chart in his lap, even though I'm sure he's got it memorized by now.

I search the room again, this time for a clock or a calendar, but there's nothing. Then my eyes land on Donny. He's holding up two fingers. At first I can't understand why he's making the peace sign, then I get it. Two. Two days.