Oblivion, page 16
He’s part of me now, as if he, like the ring on my necklace, has been with me since long before I can remember.
Lindsey’s going to smell him on me, read him in my face, hear him in the catch of my breath, if she doesn’t first notice that I’m wearing his watch, which he lent me, so I could show my mother the next time I see her. This secret John and I keep from Lindsey puts more pressure on me, and makes my situation even more unmanageable than it was before John reached over that pew to collect the note I wrote on my sister’s behalf. I can’t keep up with this charade. I have to come clean.
When I approach the foot of the driveway, a weird sort of energy hits me. I already know something’s wrong. For the thirtieth time, I sniff my hands, my shirt, the handles of my backpack, searching for any trace of John Fogel. I know I’m immune. I can’t smell him on me if I smell like him, too.
As I near, I realize Lindsey’s parents aren’t home. When they are, their bedroom light is on—always—but now, their window is dark. I glance toward the garage and see one of the two double doors is open. Only Lindsey’s car is inside, but neither her mother’s nor her father’s is parked there.
“Hey.”
I practically jump out of my skin.
Lindsey’s seated on the steps leading up to the front door, tapping her Keds against the asphalt. She’s bundled in green cargo pants snapped at the shins, white cable-knit leg warmers, a white waffle-knit T, and a blue-and-yellow tie-dyed hoodie with Ask Alice scrawled across the top of the hood. While her fingernails looked flawless for last night’s dance, she’s now gnawed them to nubs, and her eyes are rimmed red, suggesting she’s been crying.
Rivet.
“Hi.” I brace myself for the shellacking that’s undoubtedly about to come my way. But nothing happens, save the two of us staring at one another.
Rivet, rivet, rivet.
Finally, she breaks the ice: “Let’s take a walk.” She pushes herself up from the steps and yanks on my arm as she passes me.
I fall in step beside her. As much as I want to keep my mouth shut, I can’t handle the suspense by the time we round the corner to exit the neighborhood. “Where are we going?”
“7-Eleven.”
“You want a Big Gulp?”
An exasperated laugh—something between a snort and a sigh—escapes her. “I want a cigarette.”
“Oh. Why?”
“Gotta smoke something.”
While I don’t understand why she suddenly wants to acquaint herself with nicotine, I do know that she didn’t have to wait for me if she wanted to buy a pack of smokes. Not only does she have countless connections to supply her with whatever contraband she wants, be it grass or Seasonique, her fake ID is a near perfect match. She can buy a pack on her own.
“Linds?”
She hooks her arm through mine, and shivers a little as she rests her head against me. I’m far too tired to walk another half mile, let alone hold up her weight while I do it, but because I know this may be the last time she leans on me, I endure the burden.
She pets my arm.
I wonder if she can feel the outline of John’s watch.
When our destination is in sight, Lindsey straightens. “Elijah’s been looking for you.”
“I know.”
“Do you? Because it used to be you’d jump when the phone rang.”
“I’m mad, that’s all.” And distracted. And confused. And busy with the guy she thinks she’s in love with.
“I talked to him about eighteen times today.”
“Elijah called you?”
“Yeah.”
“And you talked to him?”
“Well, no one else was calling.”
She pushes the door open, and gives me a shove toward the counter.
I look over my shoulder at her.
Her eyes widen and her jaw clenches.
All right. I suppose I owe her twenty cancer sticks. One for every time her pseudo boyfriend breathed my name.
“Camel Lights,” I say. It feels funny to ask for cigarettes after nearly sixty days without them. In anticipation, I drum my fingers against the laminate surface. “Box.”
The clerk slaps them onto the counter without asking for my ID, which is good, as I no longer have the one Elijah gave me at County. The Hutches confiscated it when they took away my last pack of smokes.
In some Pavlovian response, my fingertips tingle when I grasp the pack, just like they do the moment I inhale. This is when I know: I’m going to smoke one. At least one. Not more than two. Or three.
As we exit, I slap the box against my inner wrist to pack the nicotine. I don’t know why I do it. I suppose a cigarette would burn just as well without the extra effort. But it’s something I’ve seen my mother do since my infancy, so I do it, too.
I hope I won’t always blindly mimic her actions.
“Light one for me.” Lindsey produces a fuchsia-and-orange lighter.
I slip two sticks from the pack and bring them to my lips. Flip my thumb over the flint ball to make fire. Savor the sound of crackling paper and tobacco leaves. Breathe the poison into my lungs.
Rivet the shore.
I hand a cig to Lindsey, who brings it to her lips and puffs on it, as if she’s sending smoke signals.
“I think I fucked up with Jon.”
Speaking of John, he really should’ve called her by now. “Why?”
“The lesbian shit,” Lindsey continues. “Obviously, it doesn’t work for every guy.”
“Probably works for most.” I shrug. “Elijah seems to really like it.”
“You ever … you know … ménage with him?”
“No.”
“Come on, you can tell me.”
“I haven’t.”
“Not what he says.”
I dart a glare at Lindsey, who’s holding the cigarette like she would a sparkler on the Fourth of July. I think she’s writing J-O-N in the air. “I may not remember everything I’ve done, but know I’ve never been part of a threesome.”
“C’est la vie.”
“Whatever he told you wasn’t true. If he had a threesome, it wasn’t with me.”
“I drank too much last night,” she says. “Been hurling all day. I should just stick to pot.”
“Maybe you should quit it all.”
“Maybe you’re a whore who can’t keep her legs together.”
Her words knock the wind out of me. I drop my cigarette and pick up my pace. Tears sprout like twin waterfalls.
Rivet the shore.
She’s a few paces behind me when I hear her phone ring.
Her hello is an echo.
I’m running now. The town fades to nothingness, to a day last autumn, and I’m running, running, running through back roads of gravel and muck at night.
My hands sear with cuts and abrasions.
My legs are bruised, my back burns with slashes.
Rivet the shore with celebration of the dead.
I’m wet with sweat, tears, rain, holy water.
Blood.
Footfalls threaten behind me.
I can’t run fast enough.
The gravel path becomes asphalt becomes iron.
I don’t know how long I’ve been running, but the spiral motion of the staircase dizzies me, and I have to sit.
My breaths come in short hiccups.
The earth spins before my eyes.
The staircase jounces, as if someone’s climbing up.
Coming for me.
Wants to tear at my clothing, my trust, my sanity.
I hook my fingers into the iron grid on which I’m sitting.
Steady.
I’m going to faint.
He’s going to have his way with me.
I don’t have breath enough to scream.
“Baby.”
Through a curtain of my hair, I spy Elijah crouching in front of me. My surroundings bleed into view. We’re at the door to the apartment above the Vagabond. I’m freezing. It’s getting dark. How long have I been out here?
I wonder if this is the longest blackout I’ve had since the night Palmer took Hannah. Maybe it is possible that I don’t remember an entire trip to Holy Promise, and maybe I did write on the garden house wall.
The fingers on my left hand hurt from interlacing with the iron-grid platform, while the fingers on my right are closed tightly around a red felt-tip pen. Heaving, attempting to catch my breath, I release my grip on the platform, finger by finger.
My journal is open on my lap:
Rivet rivet rivet rivet rivet.
Rivet the shore with celebration of the dead.
Celebration of the dead dead dead dead dead dead dead.
I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him I killed him. IKILLEDHIM.
Rivet rivet rivet.
Celebrate him. Celebrate Him celebrate celebrate celebrate the dead.
He brushes aside my hair. “You okay?”
I shake my head, and through my sobbing, manage one word: “Lindsey.”
“Yeah, I know.” He chucks me under the chin. “She’s pissed.” He stands and goes to work on the lock.
I pinch my eyes shut to gather a few thoughts, and promptly shove my notebook back into my bag. The moment I’ve pulled myself together, I punch Elijah in the thigh.
“Ouch!”
“Well, what did you expect?” I’m on my feet now, honing in on his space, as if I can physically squeeze an apology out of him. We’re practically nose-to-nose.
“Give me some fucking room.”
“You want space? Room to feel up some other girl right in front of me? You got it, Elijah. You can have the whole fucking planet.”
The lock gives way. I shoulder my way into the apartment, dig for a lollipop, but turn up only my new pack of Lights. I wander into the kitchen. Maybe the stove still works, maybe I can burn through the rest of this pack instead of eating tonight.
“Look, I took things too far last night.” He takes the pack from me, helps himself to a cigarette, which he lights with a purple lighter produced from his pocket.
I lock my gaze on it. Purple. Probably belongs to a girl.
“How’d you know to come here?” I turn the knob on the 1982 stove, the newest thing in the place. It hums. I smell the gas; the utilities are on the same meter as the café below. But no flame is produced. Old appliances. Out of use for too long.
“I’ve been checking back here all day, waiting for you.” He offers the purple lighter, which I refuse on principle. “Saw you and Mr. Tight End cleaning up last night after the bash, counted every second of the seventeen minutes he took to service you—”
“Shut up.” I want to correct him, to explain that nothing happened on that boat, but I bite my tongue. Explaining would imply that I think he has a right to know the details. And as of last night, I don’t think he does.
A smile plays on his lips. “Callie, I get it. I understand why it happened. It’s what you do when I run around on you, and I deserve it, yeah. But you chose the wrong guy this time. This is Lindsey we’re talking about.”
“That’s what you think this is? Revenge? You think I’d sacrifice Lindsey to get you back from Ms. D Cup?”
“Did you enjoy it? Was he good?” He offers me the smoke.
“Yes.” I steal the cigarette from his grasp and look him in the eye. “God, yes.”
“All seventeen minutes of it, huh?”
“That was round one. You didn’t stick around for the finale.”
He presses his lips together and looks away. I see the twitch in his jaw muscle. It’s the same tension I see when he’s about to wallop some poor soul in a fistfight.
I retort with a sniff and: “Did you enjoy her D cups?”
“No.” He glances at me.
“Right.”
“This doesn’t have to be over between us, you know.” The muscles in Elijah’s forearms tense when he pulls himself up onto the countertop. “We both fucked up. It happens.”
I exhale a long stream of smoke. “I guess.”
“Love you, baby.”
I roll my eyes, wipe away tears.
He kicks his heels against the white, aluminum cabinets. Dink, ding, ding.
“You have a connection with this guy?”
Dink, ding, ding.
My glance hardens. “None of your business.”
“You still love me?”
I weigh responses in my mind and settle on “Yeah.” I don’t know what I’m going to do about that love, but I know he’ll always be in my heart.
“Then, yeah, it is my business. Think about it, Callie. Does it make sense? Does it make sense that suddenly he’s into you, just when you happen to be into him?”
“Not sure it made sense that you were suddenly into me, either. I mean, how does it happen for anyone? Paths cross, flames ignite, right?”
“God, Callie. Don’t make him out to be more than he is.”
Is that what I’m doing?
He takes the smoke. Drags. “So, what’re you gonna do? Go back to Lindsey’s?”
“I don’t know. Probably not. Not tonight.”
He returns the cigarette, which I don’t really want anymore. But I bring it to my lips, anticipating it might carry a trace of him. His lips were wrapped around it, after all. But there’s no remnant of his kiss, which I suddenly, fiercely miss.
Elijah is slipping out of my grasp, like fine-grained sand. Slipping away.
“Well, if you’re going to stay here for a while,” he says, “lock the door when you’re in. If you accidentally lock it on your way out, call me, and I’ll come let you in again. You need anything else? Cash? Food?” Before I can reply, he says, “Think you can sneak back home for some clothes? You’ll need a blanket. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thanks.” I flick some ashes into the sink.
I stare at the cinders of tobacco against the faded pink porcelain receptacle, and my peripheral vision begins to darken.
Something’s familiar.
Visions dance in my head: cold water raining down on me. Muddy water circling the drain in a pink tub.
I showered when I came here the night Hannah disappeared. What evidence did I wash down the drain?
I’m almost late to school. While everyone was preoccupied last night—Lindsey in the shed, Mr. and Mrs. Hutch still gone, doing whatever it is they were doing yesterday—I sneaked home to gather as much as I could carry back to the Vagabond.
Our old apartment is only a temporary hideout. I know I can’t stay there indefinitely. Someone’s going to catch on if I keep coming and going, for one thing. But until Lindsey cools off, there’s nowhere left for me to go.
And make no mistake: she’s pissed. So pissed, in fact, that she hoarded every last one of my uniform skirts. I managed to scrounge an oxford and a sweater, but I couldn’t turn up a skirt for the life of me, so I had to snare one of hers. It is, of course, an inch or so too short, and I can’t get the button to close, but it’ll have to do.
Elijah came through for me. He brought me an old Star Wars comforter with Yoda front and center. He brought a large brown paper bag containing a few books of matches, two pillar candles, some snacks, two packs of smokes, and toiletries. Additionally, he lent me a heavy, wooden baseball bat that I’m supposed to keep next to the door when I’m out and next to me while I’m in. Now that I have my small reserve of cash, clothes, and my most recent notebooks, I’m set for a while.
I stow my coat in my locker and head to homeroom. Along the way, a group of girls laughs as I pass. I have the distinct feeling they’re laughing at me. Maybe they’re amused that I took a Pace bus to get here today, when they’re all driving Daddy’s luxury sedans. Maybe they’re snickering because I’m showing more thigh than Jesus in his loincloth. But I have bigger worries.
By the time I arrive at homeroom, however, I’ve dodged more than a few dirty looks. It seems Lindsey’s done some damage in the twenty-four hours I’ve been gone from her life.
“Where’ve you been?” John’s inquiry is upon me before I even take my seat.
“Surviving. What’s going on here?”
“If you’d return a damn text, you’d know by now. Damn it, Callie, people worry about you, you know.”
Marta Atwood is whispering to Gianna Watson behind me. I hear my name: “Lindsey says she’s a lesbo. She tries to crawl into Lindsey’s bed all the time.”
Gianna retorts, not so quietly: “I hear lots of lesbians, if they’re trying not be a lesbian, sleep with lots of guys. You know, to snap themselves out of it.”
“Well, that certainly fits the description of her.”
One guy.
I’ve slept with one guy at Carmel, and one guy before him, and these idiots classify that as “lots.” Not to mention, wasn’t I the only girl on the boat not acting like a lesbian this past weekend?
I’m not surprised at their feeble attempts to bully me. Lindsey’s queen to their court, after all, and she doesn’t do her own dirty work. I dart a glare in Marta’s direction.
She presses her lips together, but when I turn away, the two of them giggle at my expense.
I sigh. Finally meet John’s gaze.
He subtly brushes the back of my hand. “I’ve been worried, you know. I didn’t hear from you at all last night, and I called you a hundred times.”
“I’ve been a little confused.” It’s my best attempt at explaining, but I know to unknowledgeable people, it appears I’m talking about the one thing about which I’m not confused: my sexuality. Marta’s giggle erupts into a boisterous laugh.
John’s blue eyes penetrate me. Memories bedazzle my every nerve, flushing my system with warmth, like a fluffy blanket and a blazing fireplace.
“See me tonight,” he whispers.
I part my lips to answer in the affirmative, but the bell tolls, silencing everyone.
Mrs. Kenilworth gives me a slip at attendance. Dean Ritchie wants to see me. Big fucking surprise.
“During your study hall,” she tells me.
Cleanse.
