Текст книги "Come to Me Quietly"

Автор книги: A. L. Jackson

Соавторы: A. L. Jackson
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

FOUR

Summer 1997

“Come on, Christopher, just let her come. She’s not hurtin’ anyone.”

Jared stood facing away from her at the end of the sidewalk. Aly hung back by the front doorstep, wondering why Christopher hated her so much. She was always nice and she never told when he did something bad. It wasn’t her fault that she was only five.

Christopher dragged a fat stick along the pavement where he walked in the middle of the street in front of their house. It clattered along the pebbles. “Fine,” he said with an annoyed sigh. “But if she acts like a baby, I’m gonna make her go home.”

Jared looked back at her with a smile. “Come on, Aly,” he said before he turned away.

Ahead of her, Jared darted up behind Christopher and flicked him in the back of the head. Jared laughed and took off running. Christopher chased him. “You’re gonna pay for that one, Jared.”

“Only if you can catch me.”

Aly didn’t worry too much. Christopher wasn’t really mad. They always acted like this.

She trailed them, pushing her little legs as fast as they could go to keep up. Christopher and Jared ducked through the hole in the wooden fence that blocked the neighborhood from the empty land behind it.

“Wait for me,” Aly called, feeling a little stab of fear that she would find herself alone.

Jared peeked back through the hole. “Don’t worry, Aly Cat, I won’t leave you behind.”

FIVE

Jared

I gripped my head in my hands, kicking at nothing while I stormed in small circles in the middle of the parking lot, trying to make sense of what the hell had just happened upstairs.

Aleena Moore was like a fucking trigger.

I hadn’t been prepared for her. I rasped a snort as I yanked at my hair. As if I could have done anything to prepare myself for her.

In what felt like a small miracle, I’d dozed off last night, drifting along the fringes of sleep as my mind swam through a dreamlike state. The pain had come, but it’d ebbed as I floated, this calm coming over me before my eyes had popped open in awareness.

And the girl standing over me was some sort of goddamned vision.

Waves of long almost-black hair fell down around her face, so close I imagined them brushing along my chest. Her chin was sharp and her cheeks high, although a distinct softness pulled at her full lips.

But it was those penetrating green eyes that had shot through me, bolting me straight up to sitting.

Once my sight adjusted, my eyes had raked over the perfect curves of her slender body. She wore shorts and a little red tank top, and the straps of a bathing suit peeked out to wrap around her neck. Her smooth olive skin glowed golden in the dim light. The girl was all legs and undeniably the sexiest thing I’d ever seen. Yet there was something about her that appeared delicate and soft.

It’d taken a few seconds for the awe to wear off, for me to come to my senses and realize it was Aly. I found myself whispering my confusion. “Aly?”

Then she’d mumbled some kind of apology as if she was intruding on me when I was the one camped out on her couch. She stumbled into her room, the sharp click of her door shutting me out, leaving me completely unable to comprehend that the gorgeous girl who’d just stood in front of me was the same one who’d clung to my shirttails for the better part of my life.

I palmed the back of my neck and lifted my face to the sun. Even at nine in the morning, the heat was scorching, searing my skin. My lids dropped closed to shield my eyes from the blinding light, and I harshly shook my head.

Motherfucking trigger.

She’d triggered memories, ones I didn’t want to remember. Memories of when I was happy and free. Memories that taunted me with what I could no longer have.

But worse than that was what she’d triggered in my body. I could blame it on leaving Lily behind at the bar after I’d planned on spending the night burying my aggression in her, but I’d be a liar. No one had ever caused a reaction in me like Aly had.

Last night, I’d lain awake for hours, fighting it, berating myself that I’d even for a second allowed my brain to trip into those types of thoughts. She was Christopher’s little sister, for God’s sake. And she’d been like a little sister to me. I’d dug out my journal, intent on hashing out my disgust on its pages, but ended up writing some fucking cheesy shit about a Siren’s call.

When dawn had finally crept up to the windows early this morning, I had stepped out onto the balcony for a smoke and watched the sun slowly rise. By then, I’d gotten it under control, had chalked it up to my surprise at how the passing years had changed her, at the fact that Aly was no longer a child.

Then that trigger hit me just as hard when I slipped up behind her in the kitchen. Messy waves of black hair flowed down her back, and she wore a pair of tiny sleep shorts that exposed her long legs, and all I could think about was propping her ass up on the edge of the counter, my hands on her knees as I pressed them apart, my palms on her thighs.

A wave of guilt had flooded me just as soon as that fantasy had popped into my head. I’d whispered a regretful “Good morning,” knowing I had to get my shit together because there was not one single thing kosher about the way I was looking at her.

But then she’d looked at me. No. Not looked. Gawked.

Judged.

Stared at me as if I were some kind of freak show.

That was the trigger to a different gun. It provoked the roiling anger that was always smoldering at the ready in every cell of my body. Hate had slipped through my gritted teeth as I unleashed it on the girl, although really, it wasn’t directed at her at all.

The only person I hated was myself.

Still she had no right to look at me like that. I didn’t come here for her pity, for her eyes to wash over me as if she understood. As if she cared. No one cared. People just liked to make themselves feel better with their meager shows of compassion.

And I sure as hell did not care.

My fists clenched at my sides.

Shit.

But I couldn’t elude the nagging that tugged at me somewhere deep inside. I hated seeing her that way, shaking and nearing tears. Hated knowing I’d caused it. I’d scared her.

But it was for the best. I wasn’t lying when I told her she didn’t need my shit. And after the reaction she managed to work up in me, I most definitely did not need hers.

I hunched over the desk, filling out what felt like the hundredth application I’d worked on today. Most of my day had been eaten up racing from one construction company to another, chasing jobs that didn’t exist in this suck-ass economy. Next to no one was hiring, and I’d spent half the day questioning my sanity. Who the fuck just left their home and a decent job without any plans? Dumb-asses like me, that’s who.

I finished the application and stood.

“You done?” The owner, Kenny Harrison, sat behind a large desk on the other end of the room, rocking back in a grungy fabric office chair.

“Yes, sir,” I answered as I crossed the room, passing the application to him. Of course I hoped for a position similar to the one I’d left in New Jersey, but I would take just about anything.

He scanned my information, suddenly turning his face up to me. “You originally from around here?”

I just nodded, couldn’t speak.

“Hmm,” he continued, “your application looks good. We don’t have a lot going on right now, but I could maybe fit you in somewhere. You’re not going to be close to making what you were at your last job, though.”

Disappointment hit me, but I shook it off. “That’s fine.”

Kenny laughed. “Desperate, huh?”

I shifted my feet, feeling uncomfortable and on display. I forced myself to stand still. “You could say that.”

“All right, then. Why don’t you come back here Monday morning and you can fill out some paperwork to get you started?”

“Thank you, Mr. Harrison.”

“Call me Kenny.”

I shook his hand and began to back away, mumbling my thanks once again before I headed out his door.

I knew I should feel relieved, grateful, but the only thing I felt was the anxiety that had ramped up during the day. I felt it buzzing under the surface of my skin. I jumped on my bike, slipped onto the freeway, pegged the throttle, and hoped to outrun it. Hot air blasted my face and whipped through my hair, stirring the aggression higher. I darted in and out of cars. Ran.

Today the adrenaline from the speed didn’t do. It only wound the anxiety tighter through my chest, made it hard to breathe as I pushed harder and faster. As the late-evening sun began to set, I cut across rush hour traffic and took the exit not that far from Christopher and Aly’s apartment. I found I couldn’t go back, but I was incapable of going far.

I ended up behind a deserted building with a bottle of Jack. I figured if I couldn’t run from it, I’d drown it. I tipped the bottle to my lips, welcomed the burn as it slid down my throat and coated my stomach. I brought it to my mouth again and again, rested my head back on the coarse stucco of the old building, and listened as the night began to crawl through the streets of the city.

I never understood why sounds became more distinct at night, why I could hear the churn of an engine from miles away, the rustle of birds as they settled in the trees, the echo of an argument happening behind closed doors down the street. It all penetrated and seeped, bled into my consciousness as if each sound belonged to me. What some would consider peaceful felt entirely overwhelming. Tonight, those old cravings hit me hard, the intense desire for complete numbness, a moment’s reprieve. I just wished that for one goddamned night I could block it all out. I drained the rest of the bottle. My head spun, and I squeezed my eyes shut tight.

But I could never outrun it. Could never drown it.

I would never forget.

My hand tightened on the neck of the bottle, and I staggered to my feet. I roared as I chucked the bottle across the lot. It shattered. Glass burst and pinged as it scattered across the ground. The sound stoked the memories, and all I could hear was glass breaking as it rained down all around me.

I spun and my fist connected with the building. Skin tore from my knuckles as it met the jagged, pitted wall. The tissue whitened and blanched before blood seeped to the surface. I welcomed the frenzy it created inside me.

I slammed my fists into the wall again and again and again until I was panting and the blood dripped free, wept from my skin in the way it should have instead of hers. Rage curled in my chest and erupted from my mouth.

It should have been me.

It should have been me.

Exhausted, I dropped my forehead, pressed my palms to the wall as I gulped for air. Heat rushed down my throat and expanded like fire in my lungs. My head rocked and my body shook as the aggression finally spiked, broke, and the effects of the alcohol brought me to my knees.

“Fuck,” I groaned, slumping onto my stomach with my cheek pressed into the hard ground.

I never should have come here. It was all too much, this place that echoed my past and thrummed with familiarity. I refused to take comfort in it. Most of all, I fought against the desire to stay.

SIX

Aleena

I drove toward the old neighborhood. I had an hour before I had to be at work, and after Jared left this morning, I had an urge to go home. It wasn’t as if I never visited or spent long spans of time without seeing my parents and my younger brother, Augustyn. I saw them often. But right now I felt the need to be back in the old neighborhood where I’d spent so much time with Jared when we were young.

I turned left onto the street where I’d grown up. It was an older neighborhood with a lot of families. I smiled, thinking of how quiet it always had been unless Christopher and Jared had been causing some kind of upheaval in the middle of the street.

Pulling into the driveway, I parked in front of the closed garage that fronted the modest house. Mature trees grew tall in the front yard. My mom, Karen, had planted them when Christopher was just a baby to remind her of her home in Idaho. Mom had met Dad when she was just nineteen, married him when she was twenty, and was expecting Christopher by the time she was twenty-one. She said she never thought twice about leaving her home behind to be with Dad, but that didn’t mean she didn’t miss it.

They bought this house when Christopher was nine months old. They met Helene, Jared’s mother, the first day they moved in. Mom said she’d never forget the blue eyes on the six-month-old baby Helene had held on her hip when she rang the doorbell to welcome them to the neighborhood. Mom and Helene had latched on to each other, those kinds of fast friends who felt as if they’d known each other their whole lives, and all of us kids had literally grown up together.

I trailed up the sidewalk and rang the doorbell once before I let myself in. The door creaked open. “Mom?” I called.

“Aly?”

I followed her voice, stepping into the foyer and through the living room. I walked through the arch leading into the kitchen just as she yelled, “I’m in the kitchen.” Her attention was all wrapped up in the cookie dough she was spooning in small mounds onto a cookie sheet.

I slinked up behind her and poked her in the side.

She jumped and I laughed when she spun around. “Oh God, Aly. Do you have to do that every time?”

“Um, yes, because you fall for it every time.”

I think I startled her nine times out of ten, even after I gave her a warning I was there. She was such a jumpy thing.

She laughed and pulled me into a hug. “This is a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting to see you today.”

I shrugged. “I had a little extra time, so I thought I’d stop by before my shift starts.”

She turned away to slide the cookie sheet into the oven and punched a few buttons to set the timer. I leaned back against the counter. She turned back with a gentle smile. “Well, that was really nice of you to take the time to come all the way over here. I’ve been thinking we need to have a mother-daughter shopping day. Maybe grab some lunch?”

Mom and I didn’t resemble each other all that much. Christopher and I both took after our father – all except for the height that we’d inherited from Mom, who was just two inches shorter than my dad. She’d been a knockout when she was younger, and the years had been good to her. She’d always dyed her hair every color you could imagine and was the first to try a new product or new look. My shopping partner in crime, she knew every fashion that was coming before it hit. She also knew when to save something because it was going to come back around again. And I loved her with all my heart.

“Yeah, I’d like a shopping day.” Then I frowned as I finally focused on the mess that had exploded in the kitchen. “And you’re baking? Why?”

She rolled her warm brown eyes, although it was as good-natured as an eye roll could get. “Ugh… Aug’s football team is having a bake sale, and he signed me up for ten dozen cookies.” She kind of smiled and inclined her head in the direction of the hall. “They already started tryouts for his senior year… Looks like he has a pretty good chance at making first-string quarterback this year.”

“Is he home?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m going to say hi really quick.”

“Sure.”

I pushed off the counter and headed down the hall. I knocked at his door.

“Come in.”

I cracked the door open just as Aug sat up in his bed. He pulled the headphones from his ears and tossed his magazine aside. “Aly, hey.” He was all smiles and dimples. Of us all, he favored our mother most. “What are you doing here?”

“Just was missing you and thought I’d stop by to say hi.”

He pushed his large frame to standing, his dark brown hair falling over his eyes. His hug was warm, and I buried my face in his chest. “It’s good to see you,” he said.

“Well, if you weren’t practicing all the time, maybe you’d have time for your big sister.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.” He pulled back with a grin. “So, what’s going on? Anything new and exciting in the world of Aly and Christopher?”

I hesitated for only a second before I said, “Nah. Just working and hanging out with Megan a bit.”

Aug’s brow rose just as high as his interest. “Megan, huh?”

I slugged him in the shoulder. “You’re so gross, Aug. I already told you, Megan is totally off-limits.”

He laughed as he turned away and flopped back down on his bed. “Well, that’s a shame because I’m bored with all the girls I know.”

“You think because you’ve run through all the girls at school I’m going to set my best friend up with my little brother? Did you hit your head during practice?”

He turned so he could see me, his eyes playful. “What? She’s hot.”

I picked a football up off the floor and chucked it at him. “Gross,” I mouthed as I ducked out the door. He was laughing when I shut it.

I paused when the latch clicked, standing out in the silent hall, my hand still gripping Aug’s knob as my nerves escalated. I glanced down the hall toward the kitchen. A whisk clanking against a metal bowl assured me Mom’s attention was occupied. Why I felt as if I was on some sort of secret mission, I didn’t know. But I did. I slipped inside my old room, quietly shutting the door behind me.

Mom had left it mostly the same, except for the stack of boxes she had stashed up against one wall. A dark paisley bedspread covered the daybed that was tucked up under the window, and my walls were tacked with pictures of my friends from high school, my tickets from the prom, and little keepsakes I thought I’d always cherish. Funnily enough, I didn’t cherish them enough to drag them to my new apartment.

I ran my fingers along them, thinking of those years when Jared had been away. So much of my time had been spent in here alone, imagining the day he would walk back into my life.

I bit my lip, remembering the bitterness that had lined his face this morning. Turned out his return was something I couldn’t fathom, something like thunder and chaos.

I climbed down onto my knees and dug my arm deep between the mattress and the box spring of my bed. My fingertips grazed the book, and I maneuvered my hand around to pull it free. Sinking onto my butt, I rested my back against the bed. It took me a couple of seconds to get the courage to open it. My grandmother had given it to me when I was young, right before she passed. She’d told me to save it for something that meant the most to my heart. The old hardbound pad creaked when I lifted the cover.

His face was on every page. All except for what I’d drawn that night.

I traced my fingers along the lines, studying what I had seen then. Though the years had hardened him, his eyes were not so different now than they’d been during those days.

Sighing, I tucked the book into my bag and walked back out to the kitchen. I came up behind my mom and wrapped my arms around her waist. “Love you, Mom.”

Her expression was tender when she glanced at me over her shoulder. “Love you, Aly.” Then she frowned. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah.” I shook my head as I twisted up my mouth. “I’ve just been tired.”

She nodded, but it was more in appraisal than real acceptance. I could tell she didn’t believe what I’d said. Mom knew me well enough to see when I was lying. “You know I’m here, whenever you need me.”

“I know, Mom.” I squeezed her again before I stepped away. “I’ve got to run.”

She blew out a breath of disappointment. “Fine, then, leave your old mom here all alone with your stinky brother.”

I laughed because Mom never seemed old.

I opened the door. Mom’s voice called after me, “And let me know when you’re off from work next so we can go shopping.”

“I will,” I promised before I shut the door behind me.

The sun stood proud at the center of the sky, its heat soaking me through in a matter of seconds. I walked back toward my car, but I passed it by. My attention drifted two houses away and across the street to the one that had been Jared’s.

Making a quick decision, I turned and strode down the sidewalk, to its end where the rickety fence still stood. I’d be late for work, but today, they were just going to have to wait. Sweat pebbled up on the nape of my neck, and I pulled in a breath as I ducked down and wedged myself through the small hole in the fence that had once seemed like the center of my universe. Wood splinters tugged at my shirt, and I twisted so I could fit through.

On the other side, I straightened as a slow chill crept up my spine. Weeds grew high across the vast expanse of the vacant lot. In the distance, a fence rose to enclose another neighborhood to the south of ours, but in between were six acres of uninhabited land where we’d spent so many hours as children. The trails our play had tracked were no longer visible. The trees that had once housed our fairy tales now seemed out of place, tall and full in the backdrop of this barren desert. Stickers pricked at my legs as I trudged across to our tree. I hadn’t been out here in so many years.

I stood beneath the rotting wood, the small pieces of two-by-four that had been nailed to the trunk still offering their escape. I found my footing on the lowest one and gripped a branch as I hoisted myself up. Tentatively I took the next step, and the lower level of our fort came into view.

I yelped when the third step gave, but I managed to hold myself up on a solid branch, pulling myself up the rest of the way.

I settled onto the stretch of plywood that we had so carefully hammered into the safety of the tree. This little fort had seemed so massive when we’d built it. I drew my knees to my chest and rested my head back against one of the large branches that grew up from where the trunk had segmented into four.

And I closed my eyes.