Carry Me Home (3 page)

“Thanks. Figured they could use a little Laura Ingalls Wilder influence.”

“Who can’t? I love those books. That Pa, he’s delicious, isn’t he?”

“Sorry, I’m Team Almanzo.”

She gives a resigned shake of the head, knowing she’ll never convince me. “I sent them two Penny skateboards. Last time we spoke, Delilah said they were interested in learning.”

I try to tune out listening to Tanner landing trick after trick outside, but it’s not working great. “How can anyone skate in the desert?”

Mimsy shrugs, the smile slipping from her face. “Who knows what their home is like?”

“True.” We haven’t seen my mom in years, since the twins were born. Hoss—even thinking that bastard’s name sends my stomach into a sickening free fall—has never allowed us to visit them in Nevada, and a string of warrants keeps him from setting foot in California. I have a photo of freckle-faced babies framed on my nightstand, and I wish them sweet dreams every night before bed.

Strange the way you can miss people you don’t even know.

I can hear Tanner’s wheels going ’round, like the cogs in my freaked-out brain. I can’t deal with him on top of everything else in my life. Why, oh why, did one of my least favorite people in the world turn me on? I reach into the pint of strawberries on the counter, cramming two in my mouth. “I’m beat—got to crash,” I say while still chewing.

Mimsy strums a C then a B minor, brows knit in concentration. “Sweet dreams, Sunshine.”

More like sweet nightmares if Green doesn’t go home.

M
ost people can’t stand to be alone. Solitude scares them. Like, if they’re not seen, they don’t exist. I’m the opposite. Not sure if I’ve become nocturnal, an insomniac, a hermit, or all three, but night skating is the only time I ride since the championship. In the dark, I travel the concrete by feel and memory, hoping to lose myself, lose the memory of what happened with Sunny tonight.

Derby Park’s been my second home since I was six years old. Mom could barely afford the rent for our piece-of-shit trailer, let alone cover a sitter’s wage. During weekends or school breaks, she’d send me here with a PB and J and two juice boxes before heading to clean motel rooms on Ocean Street. All day I’d practice the basics until they came as easy as breathing. The idea of running away never entered my mind. Mom dealt with enough crap. She didn’t need her only kid being a punk.

She had been sixteen when my dad rolled into town for big winter waves and split by spring, leaving one hell of a good-bye gift. When Mom was my age—twenty-two—I was already in kindergarten. I had a second family at the park though. Some were cool, urged me to rip hard, and had a ready fist bump and kind word when I nailed a move. Others were dicks, cutting me off or hollering for me to get out of the way. I owe the sideliners a bigger debt. Every time a dude tore me down, I got hungrier to go bigger, ride harder. At one point, social services paid Mom a visit because of all my trips to the ER.

I landed an amateur spot on a local team by high school and turned pro right after graduation. I hung with dudes who pushed themselves, understood that for every make, there are hours, days, even months of failure. I took hits and smiled. Sometimes, yeah, I’d get frustrated, but I’d adjust, go again. Hit me. Hit me. Hit me. I learned to fall like a cat. Get up.

Always get up.

No matter what else was going on in my life, that simple motto got me by.

Word started going around that I was gifted, special—a golden boy. I had the golden girl, the career, and lost it all. I let down my girlfriend, Pippa, before she died in a senseless car accident, and now she’s ashes in the Pacific Ocean. And after all the shit that went down a few weeks ago, the night before the championship, my ambition—the last thing that kept me anchored—has crumbled to coal dust.

These days I don’t feel anything. At least, I hadn’t until tonight.

A lamp flicks on over the fence, filtered through a colorful Indian print doubling as a curtain, and I’m drawn to the brightness like a stupid bug. That’s Sunny’s studio. My throat thickens. This girl is a hurricane, thrives in the center of chaos. She’s nothing like her mother, and yet seems hell-bent on heading down the same self-destructive path.

The thought curdles my stomach.

Sunny and I spent one crazy summer together when we were thirteen and our moms had a fleeting, fucked-up fling. I know her roots, and they are as twisted as mine. Part of me wants to put things right, but the pieces between us are so broken, I’m not sure how to start. And what if I make everything worse? An ache spreads through my chest, an irrational longing to go back in time, to be a kid, before that night at Delilah and Sunny’s—a time when everything felt simpler.

Her light hits my body and bounces to the concrete, casting a long shadow. Liszt’s “Totentanz” blasts into my earphones, an orchestra on fire. Classical music gets me in the zone, channels creativity. Beethoven, Bach, Rachmaninoff are good, but Liszt thunders through me in an intense, aggressive wave. I’m not sure if it’s the composition or my proximity to that hot-as-hell smart-ass, but I bail on an easy trick, wincing when my ankle rolls. Nothing serious, but it sucks my breath for a second before I drop back in.

Falling is normal. It’s what we do here, how we recognize our tribe. We fail and try again until the act’s instinctive. People on the outside don’t understand, adrenaline’s not what makes skating addictive—it’s the getting back up.

But sometimes, if you fall hard enough, you don’t get a do-over. Once upon a time, I used to be able to reach into the unknown, but that courage is gone. I’ve lost my way, my nature, myself. I never used to be afraid, but now every morning I wake up with the same dull fear swimming through my stomach. The quickfire adrenaline is gone from my veins, replaced by sludge. All I keep wondering is what’s the next thing that’s going to go wrong? Everyone thinks my life is great, that I survived the loss of my girlfriend and triumphed in the face of adversity.

Everyone is wrong. Everyone except Sunny.

She at least knows I’m no golden boy and that I’ve done messed-up stuff that I can never take back. Some hurts cut too deep to be forgiven.

I tug out my earphones, sensing movement in my peripheral vision. Is it her? Sunny? For a split second my heart forgets its job. Did she come out to make peace or ream me some more?

I exhale slowly and turn my head. Nah, not her, just two kids staring from the sidewalk. My heart gives a strange double beat as if it can’t decide whether to be relieved or disappointed.

That makes two of us.

“That him, really?” the short one asks his friend.

“Check it, he’s goofy-footed, and did you see how he pumps his arm? That’s Tanner Green for sure, dude.”

I’ve done this arm-pumping thing since I started riding. Guys use to razz me for it all the time. Now it’s a signature, or calling card, or whatever. I should stop and shoot the shit, but I’m not a role model, nobody worth admiring. I tear past them into the gathering fog.

In order to achieve greatness, you have to push through the pain. I thought I had the guts—wrong—the push through hurts too damn much.

I
can’t sleep, which is odd, because narcolepsy is my usual MO. Normally, all I need is a horizontal surface and it’s all aboard the night-night train. Tonight, however, Tanner’s face appears every time I close my eyes, the way his gaze locked on my body like he was an explorer, lost in tundra during white-out conditions, and suddenly, ahead, a cabin appeared with a candle burning in the window.

I’d be liar to say it didn’t feel good. Because while tossing and turning alone in bed, it’s okay to admit awful truths. I grab a pillow, slam it to my face, and muffle a loud groan.

Tanner used to come to our apartment during that long-ago summer. His mom, Lydia, would waltz in carrying a pack of wine coolers. He’d trail behind, clutching Chips Ahoy! or Lucky Charms. Mom dropped all her normal rules about no processed sugar during those visits, so he and I would sprawl on a couch, watch cable, and gorge ourselves into diabetic comas while our mothers hung in the back bedroom with the door locked.

“What do you do with Tanner’s mom?” I asked her once. They’d already worked all day together, cleaning motel rooms near the boardwalk.

Delilah opened the sliding-glass door and stepped outside, lighting one of her skinny menthol cigarettes. “Talk.”

“You must really like talking,” I said. “You guys do it a lot.”

“Lydia’s a good talker.” Delilah managed to keep a straight face. I remember feeling relieved that she was happy, and also how Tanner used to save the shamrocks in his Lucky Charms because he knew they were my favorite.

Gah
. I punch the pillow and roll over, pressing myself into child’s pose. A trip down memory lane never leads anywhere good.

Eventually Lydia did what everyone does—got sick of Delilah’s bullshit, the dysfunction that follows her like a little gray rain cloud. The day Lydia broke things off, Mom smashed our shitty dishes while Tanner and I huddled in the kitchen doorway. When I tried to stop her, she backslapped me across the face. Not the first time she ever struck me, but the hardest. Tanner tried to help me to my feet and didn’t get why I shoved him away. My cheek stung far less than the dawning realization in his expression, that he’d glimpsed the worst parts of my life, the things I kept hidden. That fact is what set my teeth on edge and caused hot tears to well in my eyes.

On sudden impulse, I scooch to the edge of the bed, reach under and rummage through a shoe box, pulling out the diary I kept as a kid. I used to record stupid stuff like which girls I got into fights with on the playground or the boy bands I crushed on.

I stopped writing in it after that night with Tanner.

The cheap lock never worked, so it’s easy to open. I wipe my eyes and turn to the last entry.

That was the last time I ever wrote in my diary.

That was the night I decided it was better to have Tanner’s hate than his pity.

I sit up in my bed, toss my old diary on the nightstand, and run my hands through my hair until it falls wild around my shoulders. Although I never saw Tanner that night, I’m sure he saw me, and as good as the sugar rush and that stranger’s kiss felt, settling tonight’s score was even better.

But in hurting Tanner, I hurt myself more. Funny how that works.

I climb off my mattress and step around my half-packed suitcase. I’m going to Comic-Con tomorrow, saved for months to afford a ticket and spent the last few weeks putting together the perfect Maleficent costume, right down to the spiral-horn headpiece. I pad to the kitchen, turning on the electric teakettle. While I wait for the water to boil, I grab a pen and start sketching on the back of my phone bill. The lines come together and look suspiciously like a tall, well-built guy facing in the opposite direction.

I cross it out with a big
X
and glare out the window. At least it’s quiet outside. Tanner’s long since left the skate park.

After that night at the boardwalk, I didn’t see him again until the school year started. By then he was going steady with Pippa, the perfect Disney caricature, all wide-eyed with spun-gold hair. She had this breathy voice that sounded like you’d interrupted her in the middle of something indecent, but she looked so innocent, you felt dirty for thinking it. And then there was the Pippa smile, a hint of melancholy, a vague sadness that made you want to give her a hug, promise everything would be better.

Tanner got a princess who needed rescuing.

I couldn’t resent her, so I resented him instead.

The Maleficent costume is folded in the suitcase. Despite my name and outwardly bright demeanor, I know I’m not good enough for any golden boy. I attract darkness.

But just because shadows haunt me doesn’t mean I need to keep my thoughts black. Not when distraction is only one click away. I grab my laptop and crawl into bed, burrowing under the covers before flicking to an online movie site. A stark image stands out among the thumbnails, an evocative shot of the Golden Gate Bridge disappearing into fog. I click, and the synopsis slams me in the guts. A documentary about people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge? It gets high critical reviews and I find myself pushing play. For the next hour and a half I’m riveted, goose bumps prickling every exposed inch of my body.

The film doesn’t help me sleep. If anything, the line from one of the few jumpers who survived the fall into San Francisco Bay loops in my mind.

“I instantly realized that everything in my life that I’d thought was unfixable was solvable—except for having just jumped.”

Sleep is the last thing on my mind, but at least I have an idea for where to take my graphic novel.

“Blair won’t poop. It’s been three days.” The woman at the coffee shop table beside me stares at her friends, who all share matching sympathetic frowns.

“Jacob used to go only once a week,” one woman says.

“Phoebe is the opposite,” pipes another. “I changed her three times this morning.”

Ugh, kill me now.

I made a grave tactical error. It’s a nice day, so I chose a spot to write outside and ended up next to a mommy brigade. In addition to poop, I’m now well versed on their spawns’ sleep schedules, or more specifically, lack thereof, not to mention the minutiae of chapped nipples and incontinence. Yep, I’m officially happy to avoid breeding forever and ever amen.

Don’t get me wrong—I love kids. One of the varmints faces me from his oversized jogging stroller, digging for gold in his tiny nostril. I chuckle because no one ever accused me of being a good influence. My search engine’s open. I’ve scrolled through a few pages about depression signs and symptoms. It’s not that I’ve never been down—I’m no emotional robot—but real depression is a whole other monster. This is a way to try to better understand the condition so it’s easier to write about. At least that’s what I tell myself. But another whisper is louder.

You are procrastinating again. There’s no need to research the same facts for hours. You don’t need a PhD in psychology, you’re just looking for an easier option than writing.

Well, I can think of one easy, not to mention delicious, alternative to negative self-talk—a third soy cappuccino. Time to go full-blown caffeine spaz and wrecking ball my writer’s block. I stand up, shoving my chair into someone’s foot.

“Oh, no! Sorry…” My apology is cut off by Tanner Green’s direct gaze.
Shit the bed.
What’s he doing creeping behind me? And why does he look like he expects something? Nowadays his line of friends stretches around the block. People love to be close to success, like it’s going to rub off or something. “So…we meet again,” I say.
Ugh.
Way to sound like the star of a bad movie, in a scene where the villain is confronted.

Or maybe I’m the villain.

“What are you working on?” He glances over my shoulder, frowning at the National Depression Foundation website displayed on my screen. What am I supposed to say?
Just doing a little research for a fictitious suicide note when my character toys with the idea of jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge?
She’s not going to. In the end she’s going to quit her destructive behavior, but even still, not exactly a conversational icebreaker.

While inwardly I’m cringing that he’s caught me trying to write, I keep my gaze steady, don’t allow a single extra blink. He can’t know the effect he has on me. “About yesterday—”

“Jacob!” One of the mommy brigade ladies gives an alarmed shriek.

I turn and my nose-picking buddy in the jogging stroller is rolling backward. The sidewalk’s on a slight angle, and he’s going faster than I’d like, toward the busy street. His mom tries to stand, but she’s got an infant strapped in a sling, so she moves awkwardly. A utility truck makes a turn, and I don’t think—it’s go time. Within a few paces, my hand closes on the stroller handle and I set the break.

I exhale a relieved sigh as an alarmed voice shrieks, “Hey! Look out! On your left—”

I’m not sure if the moment lasts one second or five, but my gaze locks with a pudgy middle-aged woman wearing a terrified expression, leading a Segway tour, one of those two-wheeled public nuisances that roll around Santa Cruz on the weekends. My ribs take the brunt of the collision, the pain so sharp it’s almost sweet. I’m off my feet, soaring long enough to wonder if this is how the jumpers feel, going airborne off the Golden Gate. The back of my head meets sudden resistance. There’s no time for shock because the world goes black.

“Sunny? Sunny? Come on, open your eyes, darlin’.”

Wait. Have I died and heaven is Mississippi? Because that accent is peanut-butter thick. I take a deep breath and unlock my lids. Hurts. The light is bright, but that’s not what makes me wince. It’s the face, nearly nose to nose with mine.

The nurse straightens and adjusts the IV on my arm. “How are you feeling? You look as if you’ve been rode hard and put up wet.”

It’s like someone’s driving a railway spike into the back of my head with a mallet.

“Can you remember what happened?” she continues.

“I was typing. Not much after…Something happened, followed by other somethings.” A siren. People moving me. Was Tanner there? Weird, I really feel like Tanner was there. My head pounds way too hard to go there. “Can you please call my grandma? I don’t want her to worry.”

“She’s been notified. She’s on her way.”

“Why are my ears ringing?”

“Eyewitness reports say you struck a parking meter. Went and gave yourself a grade-three concussion.”

Is that good or bad? Is three better than four or worse than two? Ugh, it hurts to think, and how much is all of this costing anyway? I don’t have the kind of money that can cover a hospital stay. “I need to go.” My body is jittery, restless. “My health insurance is so crappy that I’ll probably owe this place my firstborn. Anyway, I have to finish packing. Comic-Con is tomorrow. I already paid the registration. It’s—”

Her smile increases, though it doesn’t reach her eyes. “Sorry, sugar. I’ll tell the doctor you’re awake and talking. In the meantime, Janice will sit with you.”

A gray-haired woman in blue scrubs perches in a plastic chair across the room. She gives me a wave more cheerful than the situation dictates.

This doesn’t feel right. The aide is too upbeat, the nurse overly chipper. It’s not that I expect her to be Nurse Ratched, pursed mouth and dour attitude, but let’s face it, this is a job, and jobs don’t make people act like they’re about to tap-dance unless they are Dick Van Dyke playing that chimney sweep in
Mary Poppins.

The memories after my accident are full of holes, like a puzzle that has only half the pieces, and I have to fill in the gaps with my imagination. I’m barely hanging on to consciousness. I don’t remember the ambulance ride or being in the ER per se, but I’m aware they happened.

Nausea rolls through me. “I’m going to be sick,” I gasp. A bedpan is fetched, and my breakfast dispatches in a violent bitter wave.

“Sit tight with Janice and the doctor will be in to see you shortly.” The nurse is going to strain a muscle with that smile.

I haven’t been a patient in the hospital before, but this doesn’t make sense. “No one needs to sit with me. I don’t want to make trouble.”

“Part of routine hospital protocol.”

“To have people sit and observe patients?”

“If you’re a 5150.”

“A what?”

Her smile fades as she moves toward the door. “That’s a code we use around here.”

“Code?” But she’s gone. “Code for what?” I ask Smiley Janice.

She nods like I speak a foreign language. I can raise my voice, but that will just make me an ugly tourist. Better to hold tight. Apparently the doctor will—

“Sunny Letman.” A doctor swoops in, tall, thin, angular. She’s smiling, too, but in a less intense manner, more “I’m here to help, but we aren’t trading BFF lockets.”