As Dead as It Gets (5 page)

My car was just a short walk up the sloping hill. I stumbled the few remaining feet to the grass and fell to my knees, somehow feeling safe now that I was off the soil. But even though I knew the attack was over, I was too frightened to look back out at the field.

The car was still running, thank God. I got in and checked the clock.

Five minutes. I’d only been out there for five minutes.

A racking cough forced its way out of my lungs, and the effort made my throat feel like someone had lit it on fire.

In the rearview mirror I could see blood mixing with rainwater on my forehead, where something had scraped the skin at my hairline and turned my white hair pink. A red line crossed my throat, and a bright pink semicircle decorated my jaw. I was pretty sure they’d both be revolting purple-and-black bruises before long.

I couldn’t go home like this.

T
HE SOUND OF THE DOORBELL
echoing inside the house almost made me dash back to my car. But just as my nerve totally abandoned me, the porch light came on, illuminating me like an actor on a stage. And it was too late.

Jared stood at the open door, a big confused smile on his face. The edges of his dark hair were still damp from where the rain had crept under the hood of his poncho. His wide brown eyes settled on me.

Then came the pause I’d been dreading.

Then:
“Alexis?”

I was too cold to speak, so I stood there dripping all over the welcome mat, pretty sure the blood from my forehead had tinted my entire face pink.

Jared grabbed me by the arms, and his fingertips squeezed a sore spot on my shoulder, making me flinch. He let go like I’d tried to bite him.

“What happened?” he asked. “Who did this to you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but it felt like there was a wad of cotton blocking my vocal cords.

“Should I call the police?” Jared asked. “Alexis? Why won’t you answer me? Are you in shock?”

“No,” I finally managed to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?” He looked out into the night as if something might be following me. “Come in—you’re freezing.”

“I can’t, I’m all wet,” I said.

He herded me inside, a protective hand on the back of my neck, and led me to the dining room, where he flipped on the light and pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

A minute later he was back with a washcloth, a roll of bandages, and a bowl of water.

“Now,” he said, “tell me what happened.”

I stared at the gleaming surface of the table. “I can’t.”

But I did let him push back the hood of my sweatshirt and press the warm, wet washcloth against my hairline. “This cut needs stitches,” he said.

“No.”

“But it’s going to leave a—”

“No,”
I said again. And then, aware of how utterly childish and ungrateful I sounded, I softened my voice. “Thank you, but it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

He sat back and gave me an incredulous look. Then he went into the kitchen and turned on the faucet. I looked around the room, which was immaculate.

I hadn’t known anyone could be as obsessively neat as my father and I, until I came to the Elkins house, which hardly even looked like anyone was living in it. At worst, you’d spy a clean dish or two in the drying rack, not yet put away. Pretty impressive for a single dad and a teenage son. Especially since Jared didn’t have the look of a neat freak. He was slightly scruffy; his unkempt dark eyebrows made him look incredibly serious even when he was joking. (To be honest, sometimes it was hard to tell when he
was
joking.)

Jared came back and went to work on my face. He put a bandage over the cut on my forehead and gently dabbed at my cheek. “Was it a car accident?”

“No,” I said.

“No, I didn’t think so.” He traced his finger in a short line under the smaller cut.

The simple chandelier over the dinner table was the only pocket of light in the house. Even the kitchen was dark. I felt oddly like Jared and I were the only two people in a hundred-mile radius.

He sat back and neatly folded the bloody washcloth. “People don’t do this, you know.”

“I know.”

“You think there’s something you can’t tell me.”

“Jared,” I said. “It’s bad.”

“Whatever it is…” His voice died out. “Alexis…you…you lost someone. I know that.”

I took a sharp breath. I don’t know if you could say I “lost” Lydia. I’d never
had
her to begin with—I mean, we weren’t friends, or anything. I just happened to be there when she died a horrible, scary, painful death. And now she was out to destroy me.

It would probably be more accurate to say I’d lost myself. But how lame is
that
?

“What I mean to say is, you’re not the only one who—” He shifted in his chair. “I mean, I feel connected to you because…I know what it’s like.”

I stared at him, wondering whether he’d gotten his deep brown eyes from his mother.

He got up and walked out of the room.

I studied the crisp, white crown molding and waited for him to return. But he didn’t.

I got up and went into the kitchen. Empty. The blank silence pressed in on my ears as I walked through the kitchen into the living room, which looked like a page from a furniture catalog. But he wasn’t there.

Where did he go?

“Jared?” I pulled my hoodie tighter around my body and tucked my hands into the sleeves. I briefly considered leaving. I even started backing toward the foyer. But something stopped me.

Running out—just as unexpectedly as I’d run in—wouldn’t accomplish anything. It wouldn’t solve the current awkwardness—it would just set me up for double the awkwardness in the future. And possibly cost me the only friend I had left.

Not only that, but it wouldn’t be fair to Jared. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

Behind me, the refrigerator began to hum, startling me and setting my nerves on a knife-blade edge.

“Jared.”
In the darkness, my voice sounded like the woof of a frightened dog.

Fair or not, I turned and took another slow step toward the front door.

Behind me, there was a soft sound—a rustle, like someone had crossed the hardwood floor in socks.

I spun around. The room was empty.

A pair of windows overlooked the backyard, which was still buffeted by torrential rain. Lightning struck nearby—and in the brief instant of light, I saw a figure silhouetted against the windows—right up next to them, like it was watching me.

Then the house was dark again.

And again, no thunder.

I was past taking Lydia’s powers for granted. My breath forced itself out in a gasp, and I turned to run, colliding with Jared.

“Whoa, whoa.” He switched on a lamp that sat on a side table. “What are you doing?”

“I saw—” I looked back toward the window. “I mean, I thought…”

There was another flash of lightning, a real one. This time all I saw was the yard. No eerie figure looking in.

You’re imagining things,
I told myself.
You’re seeing what you expect to see.
There
was
a tall shrub that waved and swayed under the falling rain.

See? That’s all it was. A shrub.

Not
Lydia.

He glanced at the window, then held out a bundle of fabric. “I brought you some dry clothes.”

“Thank you. That’s sweet, but I can’t wear those home.”

He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t have to leave yet, do you? Put them on for now.”

I hesitated, then took the clothes and headed toward the bathroom, where I had a chance to look at my injuries in the light.

The bruise on my jaw was a well-defined purple line, but I could probably cover it with makeup. The line across my throat could be hidden with scarves or turtlenecks. The gash on my forehead would be under my bangs. And the cut on my cheek was really just a glorified scratch—I could say I’d petted an unfriendly cat or something.

It wasn’t great, but it was manageable.

Jared had given me a pair of plaid flannel pajama pants, a T-shirt, and a baggy sweatshirt. The idea of changing out of my wet jeans into warm, comfortable clothes for a little while was too delicious to pass up. After I was dressed, I balled up my own clothes and carried them back out to the living room.

Jared was sitting on the arm of the sofa, staring into the yard. He jumped up when I came into the room. “I’ll take those,” he said, gesturing to the bundle under my arm. “If I put them in the dryer, you should be able to wear them home.”

“I should probably shake them out,” I said. “They’re covered in dirt. I should have thought about that before I came into the house.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I can go outside and—”

His brown eyes flashed with hurt. “Alexis,
please
.”

So I handed my clothes over. He went past me to a door in the hallway, and his footsteps thumped down a flight of stairs. A minute later, I heard the
whoosh
and tumbling of the clothes dryer.

He came back, closed the door behind him, and sat down on the chair next to the couch. I faced the yard. He faced the wall. We studiously avoided looking at each other, and for a long time, neither of us spoke.

Finally I found my voice and said, “Thank you.”

“No.”

I looked up in surprise.

Jared raked his fingers through his hair. “No. You don’t
do
that! You don’t show up here looking like you got jumped in an alley and refuse to tell me anything and then
thank
me. I don’t want your thanks.”

I didn’t have any fight left in me. Besides, he was right. I drew in a breath.

“Stop.” He held up a hand. “I don’t want an apology, either. I just want…”

I knew what he wanted—the truth. But that wasn’t an option.

“I just want to know you’re okay.”

Oh.

He stared at me, at all my bruises and cuts. “I’m trying
so hard
to understand what’s going on. Just tell me, please…are you okay? Are you really okay?”

“Yes,” I said. And I was, in the way he meant.

Beyond that, who could say?

He sighed. The air settled around us.

“I’ll leave if you want me to,” I said. It was more of a question.

“You think I want you to leave?
God
, Alexis.” Jared shook his head and looked at me. “Just hang on for a minute, all right?”

He disappeared, and I heard the sound of liquid pouring into a glass. Then drinking and the clatter of the glass being set on the counter.

A second later, he came in, rubbing the back of his neck, and sat down. The room filled with silence again. We didn’t talk, because we had nothing to say. I laid my head on my arm and closed my eyes.

I heard movement, and I felt Jared’s weight press on the sofa cushion next to mine.

I leaned into him and felt his arms wrap around me. It was a friendly gesture, although I could feel the tension in his muscles.

“Jared?” I said, looking up at him.

“What?”

I felt the weight of my unspoken apology like an overfilled water balloon. But he didn’t want to hear it, and I wasn’t in a position to impose. So instead I said, “What happened tonight…”

How could I explain it?

Suddenly, my whole life seemed like a never-ending succession of things I couldn’t explain.

And in that moment, it hit me:

Enough.
Enough secrets. Enough of living this way.

It was time to conquer my fear—and take care of Lydia for good.

I stared up into his eyes. “I can’t tell you what it was, but it’s not going to happen again.”

“Well…” He looked around helplessly. “Good, I guess. Because seeing you like this—I mean, I thought somebody had attacked you.”

“No,” I said.

“I’m serious, Alexis. I saw you standing there, and I wanted to
kill
whoever did this to you.” His whispery voice held the smoky scent of whatever he’d drunk in the kitchen. His eyes were soft and deep and brown, like the saddest puppy in the world. His jaw was tight with worry. Under my arm, his was solid and unmoving. He was like a suit of armor around me.

Nothing could get past him.

“I wish you could trust me,” he said, his lips brushing against my hair.

I sat there, in shock from the heat of his breath, wrapped in warm flannel and soft cotton and strong arms.

And in that moment, it all seemed so pointless. All of the lonely, empty nights. Isolating myself at school and at home. Always holding Jared at arm’s length—and why? Because I thought Carter might take me back?

Even if he weren’t dating Zoe, he would never come back to me.
“Do you even know how to trust?”
he’d asked me the day of Lydia’s funeral—our last day. The day he’d broken up with me.

Everything I’d been doing for the past two and a half months was about being afraid. It wasn’t living. It was just…hiding. Hiding from ghosts. From my family. From people at school. From the reality that Carter had moved on and left me behind.

From Jared.

Suddenly, desperately, I needed to stop hiding. I needed to do something real and new and meaningful.

“Jared…” I said.

He turned to me, perfectly attentive and gentle. “Yes?”

The small cuckoo clock on the dustless mantel began to tweet.

Midnight.

“Happy new year,” I whispered.

Then I kissed him.

Our kiss was like a stormy night—the end of something and the beginning of something else—hungry, almost frantic. After a minute, I pulled back, and we stared at each other, my heart pounding all the way up to my ears.

Tears fought to escape my eyes. I pushed my fingers through Jared’s hair and turned my face into his chest. For a few minutes, I let myself be tangled up against him, listening to the distant buzz of the dryer as it finished tumbling my clothes, trying to comprehend what I’d just done.

What I’d started.

Jared didn’t speak or move. After a minute, our breathing aligned. I must have drifted off, because the next thing I heard was Jared’s voice.

“Alexis.” His whisper was quiet and intimately close to my ear. “What time do you need to get home?”