Burned (24 page)

Family secrets stay behind these doors.

Like I didn't know that.

But I simply nodded and kept my mouth shut.

Come straight home.

Your mother needs help.

Like I wouldn't come

straight home. Like I didn't

know she needed help.

I want the house picked

up. Groceries put away.

He'd bought them the day

before. The canned goods

still sat in bags on the floor.

Keep the youngsters

out of your mom's hair.

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Yadda. Yadda. She needed her rest. Poor Mom. Having a baby sure took it out of her.

You do remember how
to change a diaper, don't you?

Every answer I came up with would have gotten me into trouble. So I just smiled.

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By Lunch My Fingernails Were History

I got hold of Ethan on the first ring.

He asked me where
I'd
been since Thursday.

I tried to think where to begin. . . .

He asked if everything was okay.

I told him no, choked on my words. . . .

He said to tell him the whole thing, he had all day.

I started with the Kotex episode. . . .

He kept completely quiet as I outlined my injuries.

I moved on to driving Mom to the hospital. . . .

He didn't say a word as I segued into the drive to the störe.

I broke down into quiet tears. . . .

He begged me not to cry, to I'finish my story.

I confessed that I was pregnant.

He promised it wasn't the end of the world.

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I whispered that I was scared.

He said not to worry, it would all be okay.

I might have believed him, had I not glanced behind me right then.

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C
armen and Tiffany

Had heard the whole thing, or at least

enough of it to know my predicament.

Oh God, the gleeful look on their faces.

Now they possessed a powerful weapon.

If you've never been on the wrong end of gossip, spread by malicious girls, you'd be surprised how fast they can

disseminate reputation-crushing information.

By the next day, practically everyone in school knew.

I could see it in their eyes, hear it in their laughter.

Even Jackie found out through the grapevine.

She came to me, asked if it was true.

What could I do but admit everything?

When she asked what I was going to do,

I still didn't have an answer. But when

I called Ethan again, he had one.

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Marry me, Pattyn. You know I love

you. I'll love the baby, too.

And I'll love and take care of both of you until the day I die.

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He
Wanted Me to Tell

Mom and Dad, but when

I considered what happened over a flushed Kotex, I couldn't do it.

We can't get married
without their permission.

"Then we'll wait until I'm eighteen.

The baby won't care. Please,

Ethan. Come and get me."

I was asking him to kidnap me.

Pattyn,
l
don't know ...

"Ethan, if my dad finds out, he's

liable to kill me. Or you. Let me

tell you a story. ..."

He listened to an ugly recitation about my dad, his dad, and Aunt J.

"I didn't want to tell you, but you

have to understand what kind of man we're dealing with."

He promised to come pick me up from school on Thursday.

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"Why Thursday?" I wasn't

sure it could wait another day.

"Why not tomorrow?"

I
can't bring you back to the dorm.

I have to find a place for us to stay.

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T
hat Night I Prayed

Härder than
I'd
ever

prayed before.

"Please, God, give us the chance to be a family. The right kind of family."

In answer, overnight, He delivered an Arctic Event. A freezing cold

air mass moved in from the north, bringing early snow to the mountains.

Down below we got sleet, which

froze overnight into oceans of black ice.

The temperature hovered just a bit over twenty degrees. Winter, in October.

Meanwhile, word continued to spread.

When Trevor picked me up that day,

I knew he'd heard. He clamped his hands on the steering wheel as his

516

old Chevy fishtailed on the ice,

"Careful, Trevor," I urged.

You mean careful like you

weren't?
he jeered.

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I Knew He Was Hurt

So I pretended ignorance.

But ignorance, real or imagined, could not halt the ugly rumor mill.

It was dejä vu all over again.

Trevor told Becca and Emily.

Becca couldn't wait to tell her mom.

Her mom went straight to

Sister Rhinoceros Crandall, who shared the good news with her husband.

That evening my mom got a call. I saw her face turn paper

white and knew it was all Coming down.

But instead of telling Dad

right then, she called me into her room.
Tell me it isn't true.

One day. I only had to punt for one day. So I said,

"Tell you what isn't true?"

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She really didn't want

that kind of trouble.
Pattyn,
tell me you aren't. pregnant.

I mustered up a look of sheer disbelief. "Why would

you even ask such a thing?"

She bought the whole

package. I had punted eighty

yards. But it wasn't quite enough.

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S
omehow I Made It

Through the next day, and when

I saw Ethan's Dodge turn into the parking lot, I ran, almost slipping on the ice.

I flew through the door, into his arms, and the warmth of his kisses. As we drove

off, I noticed Trevor

standing there, watching.

What I didn't see was him

taking down Ethan's license

plate number.

Rather than waste time driving to Reno to reach the interstate,

Ethan chose the more treacherous

route over the mountain, into California.

The highway had been plowed, but not well, and even in four-wheel

drive, the tires spun a bit on the steeper

Stretches of icy pavement.

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Suddenly, Ethan said,
Oh shit.

I turned to see red and blue lights

coming up quickly behind us.

"Don't stop!" I commanded.

Instead, Ethan picked up speed, a bad thing to do in those

conditions. My heart raced as we went sideways around a curve.

Ethan corrected, the Dakota

skidded sideways. He turned into the skid, but too hard.

Hold on!
he shouted.

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It Was the Last Thing

I ever heard him say.

I floated up into a cloud of white.

Were we in California?

"Ethan?" I heard myself ask.

Movement.
She's avoake,
someone said.

Pattyn? Can you hear me?

Did they think I was deaf?

"Where am I?"

Barton Memorial. You were in an accident.

Accident? The Dakota . . . "Where's Ethan?"

Silence. Way too much silence.

Where were the faces that went with the voices?

There. I screamed at them. "Where is Ethan?"

I'm sorry, honey,
said a nurse.
He didn't make it.

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Didn't make it? They couldn't mean . . .

No! He's not dead! He can't be dead! I won't let him be dead!

Oh God, not dead!"

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But He Was

And so was the baby.

Dead.

Even that precious

piece of Ethan.

Dead.

All because of Trevor.

Dead.

Trevor, who called my mom.

Dead.

Mom, who called Dad.

Dead.

Dad, who called his buddy the highway patrolman.

Dead.

Everything I loved.

Dead.

Everything I had to live for.

Dead.

Why couldn't I be

dead

too? It was the least

God could have done.

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I Was in the Hospital

For over a week.

They said my head

had to heal. I

knew it never would, not inside.

Mom and Dad

didn't visit me once.

Dad had to work.

Mom had a new baby to take care of.

Bishop Crandall

came by. He said with prayer and perseverance,

God might one day

forgive me.

Might.

One day forgive me.

I didn't want

His forgiveness.

I wanted Him to let me die.

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But He wouldn't

even do that. No, He

wanted to punish

me for loving Ethan.

Forever.

Aunt J was wrong.

God wasn't love, couldn't

be love.

Because for me, love was a corpse.

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When I Finally

Did come home, no

one was allowed to speak to me. Dad had officially

disowned me.

He wanted me out.

But I had no place to go.

Aunt J's was not an Option. I could never look

Kevin in the eye again.

I only hoped he wouldn't blame Aunt J for the sins of her niece.

His only son's death was all my fault.

The two of them needed

each other more than ever, needed their own forever

love to quell the pain of such loss.

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Jackie tried to intercede on my behalf, but Dad wouldn't

listen, and Mom knew better than to say a word.

Dad had a new

son. He didn't need

just one more daughter, especially not one as obnoxious as I.

And so, with nothing at all to lose, nd not much to gain but revenge, I began to form my plan.

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See, as Far as I'm Concerned

My life is over.

My one forever love has been snatched away, condemned by my own

father's rules to die, just because he loved me.

I am without a home, without a Single person to love.

And after having

discovered love, lived for a short

while surrounded by love, that is too much to bear.

I am a pariah, at church, at school. The few people

I once called friends have

betrayed me and caused the death of my husband, our innocent child.

And so they should die too.

All of them. Dad. Bishop

Crandall. Trevor, Becca, Emily.

With the pull of a 10mm hair

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trigger, their lives will end at sacrament meeting.

Such lovely irony!

And when I finish there,

I'll hide in the desert, reload, and go in search of Carmen and Tiffany, who started the rumors.

And Derek, just because.

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Plans Made

I am sitting on the hard cement

railing of a freeway overpass.

Legs dangling,

I watch the unrelenting motion of normal people in daily transit.

Mind-boggling, how so many separate lives travel in such remarkable unison.

Soul searching,

I know that I will never squeeze into such a common mold.

Brain racing,

I struggle to reach a decision.

God, whoever He is, only knows which way I'll go.

Heart breaking,

I think that if Dad, staring down the sight of a 10mm, would only tell me he loves me,

I could easily change my mind . . .

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. . but he won't.

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A
uthor's Note

This book is fiction, but much in it is true--in particular, the sto-

ries about nuclear issues in Nevada. Those "downwinders" still

alive--and their children--suffer health problems directly related to the aboveground nuclear testing that took place at the Nevada

Test Site in the middle part of the twentieth Century. People really were encouraged to have "blast parties," or otherwise to sit out-

side to watch the mushroom clouds. The radiation badges they

wore were later collected to gather data about radiation levels. I

didn't want this information to die along with the remaining

downwinders.

Parts of Nevada are desert. It is also the most mountainous

state in the country, and there are beautiful rivers, lakes, and forests. It is much more than "sand and sagebrush"--not a waste-

land at all. Pattyn, the protagonist in this book, comes to love rural

Nevada, where the spirit of the Old West lives on in its people. It is my hope that the portrait I paint of this rugged land will help

you come to love it too.

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DON'T MISS Ellen Hopkins newest novel:

IDENTICAL

Coming Fall 2008

Raeanne Mirror, Mirror

When I look into a mirror, it is her face I see.

Her right is my left, double

moles, dimple and all.

My right is her left, unblemished.

We are exact

opposites,

Kaeleigh and me.

Mirror-image identical

twins. One egg, one sperm, one Zygote, divided, sharing one complete

set of genetic markers.

On the outside we are the same. But not

inside. I think she isthe egg, so much like our mother it makes me want to scream.

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Cold.

Controlled.

That makes me the sperm,

I guess. I take completely after our father.

All Daddy, that's me.

Codependent.

Cowardly.

Good, bad. Left, right.

Kaeleigh and Raeanne.

One egg, one sperm.

One being, split in two.

And how many

souls?

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Interesting Question

Don't you think?

I mean, if the Supreme

Being inserts a Single soul at the moment of conception, does that essence divide

itself? Does each half then

strive to become again

whole, like a starfish or an earthworm?

Or might the soul clone itself, create a perfect imitation of something yetto be

defined? In this way, can a reflection be altered?

Or does the Maker, in fact, choose to place two

separate souls within a Single cell, spark the skirmish that ultimately

causes such an unlikely rift?

Do twins begin in the womb?

Or in a better place?

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About the Author

Ellen Hopkins has been writing poetry for years and has also

published several nonfiction books. Her first novel,
Crank,
released in 2004 and quickly became a word-of-moufh Sensation, garnering

praise from teens and critics alike. Ellens other novels include