A Breath of Eyre (28 page)

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Authors: Eve Marie Mont

BOOK: A Breath of Eyre
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“Please, can we just stop here for a minute?” I said. “It’s pouring out, and we’re both soaked. Come in out of the rain.” I tugged on his arm, and he followed me in a daze until we were standing under the cover of the bridge. The rain thudded on the wooden roof above us, pounding out a frantic rhythm.
A narrow window ran the length of the bridge so we could see the falls in the distance and the river that coursed below our feet. We stood side by side, looking out at the river, swollen from the heavy rains. Something red sailed by, and I recognized it as a tricycle. Someone must have left it too close to the riverbank.
Gray’s cheeks were damp and pale as he turned toward me. “Emma, I’m a horrible person.”
“No, you’re not,” I said. “I wouldn’t like you if you were a horrible person.” I tried to smile, but Gray’s face was humorless.
“You don’t know me. You don’t know who I was.”
“I don’t care who you were. I only care who you are now.” I reached for his hand, but again, he retreated from me.
“You know, all along I knew it couldn’t last. I hoped. I think I believed you could redeem me or something.” He laughed bitterly. “But I can’t be redeemed.”
“Gray, everyone can be redeemed.”
He shook his head. “No.”
“Gray, tell me what this is all about.”
He inhaled deeply and ventured a glance in my direction. “You remember the night of the dance when you went down to the stables?”
“Of course.”
“There was a guy there. With Amber.”
“I remember. Dan Brockman.”
He nodded. “We were best friends at Sheldrake. The end of my sophomore year, I went with his family to Jamaica for spring break. Dan had a sister, Samantha. She was older than us, and she’d always been gorgeous and wild, guys chasing her everywhere. Anyway, she used to flirt with me, tease me, but I never thought she took me seriously. But this one night in Jamaica, she got invited to a beach party and took Dan and me along.”
He took a long, deep breath like he was preparing himself to go on. “Once we got to the beach, we were having a good time, playing drinking games and getting pretty buzzed. Dan went off with some girl and told me to keep an eye on his sister. Like I had any control over this girl. Hell, I’d already had four or five shots myself, and she’d been way ahead of us at the beginning of the night. I was practically senseless by that point. And then she suggested that we all go skinny-dipping.” He fell silent, and I stared out at the river again, watching a lawn chair race by in the torrent. Lightning continued to pierce the sky, looking oddly like fireworks.
“Before I knew it, everybody was in the water, swimming around naked, diving and splashing, laughing.”
“Were you swimming?”
“No. I told Sam that I swam every day during the year and I’d just watch instead. So she took off all her clothes, really slow, like this goddess or something standing there in the moonlight. I could barely stand or speak, but I knew I wanted this girl. She winked at me and turned around and dove into the water.” I shook my head. I didn’t want to hear any more.
He gripped the wooden sill of the window and kept his gaze forward. “I was out of my head drunk—just sitting on the beach watching like an idiot—and then some girl was yelling, ‘Where is she?’ ‘Where’d she go?’ My instincts told me it was Sam. I scanned the water for her, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything but silhouettes.” His voice was trembling. I placed my hand on Gray’s wrist to comfort him, or maybe to stop him from going on.
“I didn’t know what to do, so I dove in after her. But it was chaos out there, and I was so drunk I could barely swim. Girls were screaming all around me, struggling to get out of the water. I looked for her for at least half an hour, diving under again and again, calling her name, but she was just ... gone. I don’t know what happened. And I knew I was going to drown if I didn’t stop looking for her, and every day I sort of wish I had. When I came back to shore, I threw up about four times before I was able to walk. Dan was just sitting there in the sand in total shock, mumbling to himself. He kept saying, ‘You have to find her. I told you to watch out for her. She can’t be gone.’ I finally had to leave him there so I could get the police.” He stopped talking, like he’d run out of breath.
“So what happened?”
“They searched for her, but they never found her body. It was like she just disappeared.” His head fell into his hands. “God, it was all my fault. I was supposed to be looking out for her!” He was crying now, unabashedly.
“Gray,” I whispered. I wanted to comfort him, wanted to touch his cheeks and wipe his tears away, but something held me back.
When he finally pulled himself together, he said, “The night of the Snow Ball, Dan got drunk and told Elise what happened that night. That’s why I didn’t come down to the stables right away. He blamed me for everything right in front of Elise. I ended up hitting him in the face. I have no idea why, because I really wanted to hurt myself. And once Elise knew the truth, she thought of the worst possible way she could use it. She was looking for a way to hurt me.”
“But why?”
A rumble of thunder rattled so close it shook the bridge. “Because of you. She was jealous.”
“Because we danced together?” I said.
“No, it was more than that. She knew how I felt about you. You did what she couldn’t do.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last summer, I was so depressed, and Elise couldn’t take it anymore. She knew she couldn’t do anything to help me. No one could. Eventually she got tired of my moods and broke it off. That was my lowest point. I even thought about killing myself, but I couldn’t go through with it. I couldn’t do that to Anna. I think I might have done it, if it hadn’t been for her. And for you.”
“Me?”
He nodded. “Everything changed on your birthday. I didn’t even want to go to your party, but my mom insisted it would mean something to you. And when I got there, we fell right into our banter like we always do. And then Elise called and we got into this huge fight, and you came outside, and, bam! All the wind was knocked out of me. Suddenly I could see things clearly. I could see
you
clearly.”
“How?”
“I could see that you were everything Elise wasn’t. Sweet. Innocent. Good. Someone who didn’t want anything from me, who wasn’t always going to be dragging me to a party or getting me wasted.” I felt myself reeling and gripped the window ledge to steady myself. “I knew you were the kind of girl I should have been with all along, not one of those self-destructive girls I always fell for,” he said. “I knew I needed someone like you if I was ever going to pull myself together.” He moved closer to me and put a hand on my shoulder.
I bristled, trying to absorb what he’d just told me. “So you decided that if you dated someone like me, I could fix you? Is that it?”
“No, no, you’re misunderstanding me,” he said. “I mean, I knew there was something different about you. Something I’d never appreciated before. I thought that if I had you by my side, I might be able to live with myself.”
I stumbled away from him, feeling a little sick. “So I was, what, your atonement?”
“No!” he said. “That’s not what I meant at all. I’m not explaining myself very well.”
“So what exactly do you mean?”
“I don’t know, Emma. I want to be with you, isn’t that enough?”
Is it enough? Does Gray only like me because I make him feel better about himself? Am I just some tool he wants to use to redeem himself?
“I want to go home,” I said very quietly.
“Emma, listen to me—”
“Gray, I have listened to you, and I don’t want to hear any more. I want to go home.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Be angry with me.”
“I’m not angry!”
The silence that followed was magnified by the pounding of the rain outside. I knew Gray was fragile, and I didn’t want to wound him by saying something I’d regret later. But I couldn’t process all that he’d told me. “I need time to think. Can you please just take me back to school? Please?”
Gray looked dejected but resigned, like a part of him had known all along this was how I’d react. We walked back to the car through the driving rain and drove back to Lockwood in silence. I was so torn in my feelings. His story was awful, tragic. I understood now the guilt that had haunted him all these years. But Samantha’s death wasn’t his fault. At least not entirely. He’d been stupid to get so drunk, but Sam was old enough to fend for herself. And Dan shouldn’t have gone off and left his sister alone either. It was unfair that he blamed Gray because it was easier than admitting the truth to himself. Not to mention, a dozen other people had all watched it happen—why hadn’t anyone else tried to save her?
As soon as I started feeling sympathy for him, I was reminded of his words: “I thought if I had you by my side, I might be able to live with myself.” Like I was some penance for this terrible mistake he’d made. Like Rochester telling Jane that he’d wandered everywhere, seeking happiness in pleasure, and then he’d come home to find Jane, seeing in her all of the good and bright qualities he had sought in himself. He had asked Jane, “Is the sinful, but repentant man justified in daring the world’s opinion, in order to attach to him forever this gentle, gracious creature?”
I didn’t know the answer. But I knew I didn’t want to be Gray’s consolation prize. Anger and hurt tore through me, and I fought back tears.
Gray pulled his Jeep into Lockwood’s parking lot and shut off the motor. “I have to go,” I said immediately, not wanting to look at him for fear I’d lose my resolve.
“What about us?” he said.
There is no us,
I wanted to shout. Instead, I muttered, “I don’t know.”
We sat there for a few seconds, staring at the windshield as the rain poured down, feeling the weight of our silence and the crushing mass of our disappointment bearing down on us. When he reached out and gently touched my face, something unfroze inside me. He leaned to rest his head on my shoulder, and as much as I wanted to comfort him, I knew I couldn’t. I couldn’t release him from his guilt. Not yet. Some dark part of me wanted him to suffer for it.
I pulled away and stared at him for a long time with a lump in my throat. Feeling sick at heart and tremendously sorry, I got out of the car and ran.
I couldn’t go to an empty dorm room. And even if Michelle was back from her date, I couldn’t face her right now. The last thing I needed was for her to say, “I told you so.” I began running toward the stables, trying to drown out reality in a haze of rain and speed. It wasn’t until I got to the bottom of the hill that I remembered: the stables were nothing but a burnt shell. I wanted to wrap my arms around Curry’s neck and cry into his mane, but he wasn’t here.
Drawing my coat tightly around me, I fought against the onslaught of rain and made my way up the hill, finding myself in front of the chapel. It seemed like the only safe haven on campus. I wasn’t sure if it would be open this late at night, so I raced up to the door, blinded by rain and soaked to the bone. It was locked. I had nowhere to go. Even Papa Legba couldn’t help me now. I was stuck, with no way of escaping my own life.
As I passed the Commons Building on the way back to the dorms, I watched as lightning tore through the sky and struck the giant chestnut tree.
It was split right in two.
C
HAPTER
28
T
he morning of the hearing, Michelle and I both dressed in suits. Michelle wrapped her hair in a prim-looking bun, and I wove mine into a braid. We rehearsed what we were going to say, how we were going to respond to Elise’s accusations and the committee’s hard-hitting questions. Through it all Michelle behaved like a zombie, like someone going through the motions instead of taking responsibility for changing the outcome of her life. This was not the girl who had asked Sarkissian if he believed we could grow a new branch in the space-time continuum. This was someone who had accepted her fate as if it were predestined.
The morning was gusty, the sky threatening storms. Michelle and I braced ourselves against the wind as we walked in silence to Easty Hall. It was a closed hearing, so no other students or parents were allowed in the boardroom. Elise looked unflappable in her sleek gray skirt suit and four-inch heels, and the Disciplinary Committee appeared predictably stern at the raised boardroom table.
Michelle and I both testified to having seen Elise smoking in the barn on several occasions, and Michelle corroborated the fact that the incriminating journal was mine, not hers. When Overbrook asked Michelle why she had lied about the journal, Michelle claimed she had been trying to protect me. I was expecting a barrage of questions and insinuations targeted against Michelle, but the committee seemed more concerned with clearing Elise’s name than in sullying Michelle’s.
In the end, Elise was cleared of all wrongdoing. But there wasn’t enough evidence to prove that Michelle had started the fire either. Elise was still the golden girl, and Michelle and I had salvaged our scholarships by the skin of our teeth. But we were now on a watch list, forever suspect because we weren’t part of the system. We hadn’t inherited instant trust and respect because of our social status or connections.
“Should we go celebrate?” I asked as we left the courtroom, but the impulse to rejoice was short-lived. Elise’s friends stood outside of Easty waiting to pounce on us, and we had to push our way through the crowd and make a run for the dorms to avoid the spiteful and malicious insults they were hurling at us. From our dorm window, we watched as Elise basked in all the attention.
“I want to celebrate anyway,” I said. “You didn’t get kicked out.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Michelle said. “I’m not coming back to Lockwood next year.”
“You have to!” I said. “You foiled Elise Fairchild’s master plan, which was to get rid of you for good. If you leave now, you’ll be giving her exactly what she wants.”
“So what? Pride’s no good if you’re miserable all the time.”
“Wouldn’t you be miserable if you let her win? Wouldn’t you be miserable without me?” I gave her a hopeful smile.
“It’s over,” Michelle said. “This stupid hearing. This horrible year. I want to put it all behind me.”
“And we will. Together.”
“You don’t get it, Emma. They’ll never let us do that, they’ll never let us forget who we are and where we came from.”
“So what? This place is your ticket to MIT. Two years of sacrifice for the rest of your life. Isn’t it worth it?”
“I just want to feel normal,” Michelle said. “Not like some outcast. I feel like no matter what I do, no matter how hard I work to earn respect, I’ll never be accepted.”
“Is that what you want? To be accepted?”
She bowed her head forlornly. “I know I make a good show of seeming like I don’t care what anyone thinks of me. But the truth is, I want a normal teenage life. I don’t always want to be fighting battles. It’s tiring, Emma. I’m just so tired.” She slumped onto her bed, and I saw a few tears slip down her cheeks. I sat down next to her and put my arm around her.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said. “We’re going to get through this together.”
Over the next few days, Elise was faithful to her word. Pretty soon, the campus was buzzing with the news that Gray Newman, Elise’s ex and Emma Townsend’s boyfriend, had let a girl drown on spring break two years ago. A part of me had not believed Elise would follow through with her threat. I should have known what she was capable of.
The story became more and more embellished as the days went on so that by the end of the week, just before we were about to go home for spring break, girls were spreading any combination of the following lies: Gray had raped Samantha; Sam had been pregnant; Gray had killed her and buried her body to destroy the evidence. And the worst part was, Elise and her friends were texting the rumors to their friends at Braeburn, so it was only a matter of time before all of this got back to Gray.
Even though Michelle had “won” her case, we all knew who had really won and who had lost. Michelle and I now walked on campus as social pariahs, people to be stared at and scorned. We kept to ourselves and went straight back to the dorms after class each day. Even Gallagher wouldn’t make eye contact with us. I couldn’t tell whether it was out of disgust or out of shame for the part he’d played in sealing our fates.
Each night before going to bed, I thought only of Gray, of what my testimony had done to his life and reputation. Telling the truth had done nothing to bring about justice; it had only served to increase Elise’s power and to destroy my chances of ever finding happiness.
That Friday my dad came to pick me up for spring break. On the car ride home, he kept peeking at me from the corner of his eye, trying to make sense of my silence.
“Is everything okay?” he asked, finally.
“Fine,” I lied. But I knew he didn’t believe me. It occurred to me that as much as I liked to blame my dad for our emotional distance, I’d been just as guilty of putting up walls between us. But something had shifted that day at the beach when he’d told me the truth about my mom. I owed it to him to tell the truth now.
“Actually, Dad, no. Everything’s not fine.”
I told my father about Gray, about the awful incident during spring break, about Elise’s threat, about my testimony in Michelle’s hearing and how it would ruin Gray’s reputation and future.
“Honey,” he said, his voice taking on a soothing tone, “you stood up for what you believed in.”
“And betrayed Gray! I shouldn’t have done it, Dad. Elise got away with everything anyway. It didn’t make any difference.”
“It did to Michelle. What you did for her took courage, Emma. Look, Gray will make it through this. He’s strong. The best thing you can do for him now is be understanding. Let him know you’ll stick by him.”
I shook my head. “We’re not even talking.”
“Why not?”
“Because, I’m ... confused. He told me something I didn’t want to know. And I don’t know if I can forgive him for it, Dad.” My father drove in silence, letting me find my words. “I thought I was finally going to have a normal teenage life, you know? Boyfriend, dates, the prom.”
“The prom?” he said.
I frowned. “Gray asked me to his prom a few weeks ago. But there’s no way we’re going now.” I was almost crying.
“Emma, you need to talk to him.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Tell him you forgive him. He needs people to believe in him now.”
“But how can I forgive him?” I said.
My father fell silent, then stopped at a red light. “I don’t know what he said that hurt you so much, but you have to forgive him. I forgave your mother, Emma. For a long time, all I could think about was how she’d abandoned us. But it ate me up inside not to forgive her. We forgive; we don’t forget. But we have to forgive or it’ll kill us.”
Thoughts of Gray pressed in on me and made me ache in a way I’d never felt before. I remembered a line from
Jane Eyre
: “That I have wakened out of most glorious dreams, and found them all void and vain, is a horror I could bear and master; but that I must leave him decidedly, instantly, entirely, is intolerable. I cannot do it.”
But Jane did do it. She discovered Rochester’s past and found she could not reconcile it with her future happiness. What he had done was wrong, and no matter how much she loved him, she knew she must leave him and care for herself: “The more solitary, the more friendless I am, the more I will respect myself.” I didn’t know if I could be that strong.
When we got back to the house, Barbara, entirely unaware of all the drama that had unfolded at Lockwood over the past month, was her usual chipper self. She was setting the table for dinner, wearing a purple apron with Easter eggs on it.
“Emma, dear, how are you?” she said. A quick look at us told her something had happened during the car ride home. “Is everything all right?”
“We’re fine, Barbara,” my dad said, mercifully. I didn’t feel like talking about it, especially not with Barbara.
“Good. Then go upstairs and get cleaned up, honey,” she said. “We’re using the nice china tonight. I’m making chateaubriand and slow-roasted potatoes.”
I groaned inwardly and trudged upstairs to my room, flinging my bags in the corner. I wasn’t planning to unpack; I’d just live out of my suitcase for the week. I couldn’t imagine staying here for seven days, and yet I couldn’t imagine going back to school either.
I felt myself being drawn to Jane’s world again, wanting to surrender myself to another life, let someone else do the thinking for me. But Thornfield was gone.
I came downstairs in the same jeans and T-shirt I’d been wearing, and Barbara grimaced when she saw me. “Now honey, I thought we’d have a special dinner tonight. To welcome you back home. Hurry up and change. Everything’s almost ready.”
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
She shot a cryptic look at my father. “Look, your father told me what happened. And I surely do sympathize. I’ve had my share of heartache. But let’s all sit down and have a nice family dinner and chat about it.”
“I don’t want to chat about it,” I said, gritting my teeth.
“You’ve got to talk about it,” she said. “Your father and I might be able to help.”
“There’s nothing to be done,” I said. “Besides, what exactly do you think you can do to help me, Barbara?”
Her mouth went tight and she glanced again at my father. “Maybe we should call Dr. Reese,” she said.
“No!” I shouted. “You’re going to have to deal with me this time. You, Barbara! You want to be my mother? Well, here’s your chance!”
“Emma!” my father said, trying to intervene. “I know you’re hurting, but don’t take it out on Barbara. She’s only trying to help.”
“You always take her side, Dad. I’m upset, okay? I can’t be like Barbara, turning my frown upside down and pretending everything’s fine. I’m not built that way.” For once Barbara kept silent, watching me like I was some wild creature whose behavior was not governed by the laws of nature. My father frowned, frustrated that the two women in his life could not bring themselves to get along. “I don’t want to feel like every time I get depressed, you’re both going to turn around and call the therapist. I get depressed sometimes, okay? So does everyone. Just because Mom was sick doesn’t mean I am. Don’t force me to sit and talk to some stranger in a padded room. If I want to talk about it, I’ll talk about it. If I don’t feel like talking, I won’t!”
My father gaped at me, but Barbara stood up from her chair and took a step toward me. I was as angry and defensive as a feral cat; I didn’t know what I’d do if she touched me. But she reached out and touched my chair instead.
“Sweetheart,” she said in a soft, soothing tone. “I know I’m not your mother, and I could never fill the void left by her. And I also know I don’t always say the right thing. But please know I’m here for you if you ever want to talk. Go ahead and be sad if that’s how you need to feel right now. If you don’t want to eat, don’t eat. I’ll make a plate for you in case you get hungry later.” And then she walked quietly into the kitchen.
My eyes followed her, and I saw for the first time, not an interloper, not a conniving vixen trying to weasel her way into our lives, but a woman—perhaps with larger hair than anyone in New England had a right to, but still a woman just trying to find love and acceptance with a new family.
“I’m sorry,” I said to my dad. “I’ve been so edgy lately.”
He came and put his arms on my shoulders, then leaned down and kissed me on the top of the head, like he used to do when I was little. “You’ve had a rough time,” he said. “You can go on up to your room if you want.”
I gave him a relieved half smile and turned to leave. When I was halfway up the stairs, I heard a scream. I ran back down and into the kitchen in time to see Barbara pulling a smoking pan out of the oven.
“My beautiful chateaubriand,” she said like her heart was breaking. “It was going to be my masterpiece.”
My father’s mouth drew taut, and for some reason, I couldn’t help myself. I started to laugh. And then my dad’s shoulders started shaking, and even though his back was turned to me and he wasn’t making any noise, I knew he was laughing, too.
“You’ve never liked my cooking,” she said. My dad shook his head, unable to speak without losing it completely. I was bent over now, my stomach doing convulsions from laughter.

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