Clearer in the Night (14 page)

But Wes. He made me tingle. He made me smile with anticipation. I didn’t believe in fate or destiny, not really, but maybe he was the reason I hadn’t yet left this town, turning it into the canvas on which I could paint my womanhood. Maybe I was waiting for him, and I just hadn’t known it.

And maybe not. Maybe we’d have fun for a few days, and then I’d start to get itchy again. And if I did, I’d go. And maybe for real this time.

But first, I did have to help Mom get everything straightened out. I couldn’t leave things like this. I’d left before and been okay because she was fine, in her own weird, broken way. Now, she was a disaster, a train wreck. She was turning into a hoarder, and a conspiracy theorist, and a drunk to boot. Or maybe she’d always been all those things, and I just hadn’t seen. Maybe there were all sorts of things I hadn’t seen.

I sat still in the house and tried to listen. The walls might tell me what I needed to know, if I just listened hard enough. Carefully enough. I closed my eyes and tried to hear.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 1

I woke up after a night of restless and confusing dreams. I didn’t feel any more rested than I had when I’d finally tumbled into bed last night, yearning and lonely. Mom had barely spoken when she’d gotten home from work. It was like I wasn’t even there. She just stared through me while we ate takeout, and then retired to the living room with a bottle of whiskey and a don’t-talk-to-me expression. I stayed away. I went to bed to read when her silence became too heavy for even me. I fell asleep without a clear transition, and woke up in my jeans and shirt, with a sour taste in my mouth, like I was the one who’d been drinking.

Mom was already gone by the time I got downstairs. I had a moment of cold joy at the fact that she hadn’t left a note, either, but it was unlikely I’d bring it up to her. As much fun as that might have been. I ate a muffin, cold, with butter, and drank some juice. I had a shower, hoping that would wash off the fidgets that had settled in my shoulders and knuckles. My skin felt like it didn’t fit. I couldn’t decide if it was too tight or too loose, but it was certainly too mine.

I found myself reaching for my running shoes without really deciding to do it. I had my proper running clothes now, and I slid into them with a deliberation that felt out of place for me. I pulled the door closed behind me, and started to walk, to warm my hips and my knees up. I managed it for maybe a minute before breaking into a jog. So what if I pulled a muscle? I’d fixed worse. Injuries clearly didn’t need to be as high up my priority list as they were in the past.

Two days ago, I’d felt heavy and lumbering. Today was better. Not perfect, but there was a rhythm again. It was too slow, and my movements weren’t as efficient as they’d been when I was a track star—or in my dreams, for that matter—but it was an improvement. I ran for three minutes before I slowed down to a walk. I didn’t need to; my muscles felt strong and steady, without shaking, and my breath was easy in my chest, but the programming was too strong in my brain. If I pushed too fast, I’d hurt myself. I needed to move slowly, break my body back in. Gently.

But there was another voice now. Or, not a voice exactly, but a feeling. A longing, to keep running, to keep moving forever. To keep up this pace for days, and to sleep, curled up, under the stars. Under the moon. That urge wasn’t mine, and it was. It was so close to mine, it was difficult to tell where I left off and it began.

I managed to keep myself walking for half a chorus, and then I was running again, the ground-devouring lope that I’d worked out in high school. That had won me medals. I could do this forever. Forever.

And there were feet behind me, pacing me. Chasing me. Wonderful. I laughed and sped up, to see if he would increase his pace as well, and he did. I didn’t look over my shoulder; there was no point, I knew who was there, and what he wanted, and he had to earn it, to prove that he deserved me. There was no fear in me at his closeness or his pursuit, just anticipation, and delight, in alternating waves. I wanted him. The heavy weight in the bottom of my torso wanted him.

We ran out of my neighborhood, down the road, towards downtown. I could hear his breathing roughening behind me, as he got tired. Disappointment spread through me; if he couldn’t catch me, he couldn’t have me. I wanted him to have me. Maybe I’d let him catch me. Maybe he didn’t have to outrun me.

There was a little park up ahead. Not a playground, but a little green space, a small oasis of peace and wildness in our wannabe city that held farmers’ markets on alternate weekends. I ran into it, heard him following me, then stopped, and let Wes run straight into me, turning my face up for his kiss. Only it wasn’t Wes that ran into my arms, and the lips that pressed to mine seemed to land there more through accident than design, though once they found mine, they didn’t seem likely to complain.

When Wes kissed me, it was like being set on fire; this was like being plunged into cold water. I gasped in shock, and felt strong hands rest lightly on my waist. He didn’t try to deepen the kiss, just left it teasing on my lips and sparking over my skin. My entire body lit up with bright laughter, and that dark weight didn’t try to strangle me. The world fell into sharp relief; there was him, and there was me, and there was him kissing me, and I could feel every blade of grass and every molecule of air on my skin.

And then he pulled away, and he was too-skinny Eli, and I was just the same old broken Cait. He was smiling, grinning, almost giddy. “Well,” he said, and a mini-version of that same frisson ran down my spine. “That was unexpected.”

He shouldn’t have smiled at me. He shouldn’t have been excited. You just had to look at him to know he was the settle down, picket fence, two kids and a dog type of guy. I didn’t want that guy. I didn’t get to have that guy. I was the fuck-them-and-leave-them type, and it was tattooed onto my forehead freshly every day, Nathaniel Hawthorne does Prometheus. He was no good, not for me. “I thought you were someone else,” I said, making my voice as cold and distant as I could, so he wouldn’t hear my heart quivering.

I watched his eyes crumple like foil, though his smile didn’t falter. “Sorry about that,” he said. “Although you definitely read my mind right there, because that was exactly what I hoped you’d say.” Wow. Apparently I wasn’t the only one in the room who spoke sarcasm as a first language.

“Sorry,” I said, because I was, but he cut me off.

“No, you’re not, and that’s okay,” he said. “It’s foolish to apologize for the truth, even if someone else doesn’t want to hear it.”

“I was running,” I said, because the look in his eyes made me want to slice my guts open for him, “and I wasn’t thinking, or I was, but I thought—and then I was kissing you, which was—” I choked off the words just before I told him about being kissed like I was made of spun wire and starlight.

The silence echoed between us for a long moment, and then the smile started to creep back into his eyes. “There’s worse things than starlight, I suppose.”

Panic. Flashing through, heating my skin. The rumbling started up in my belly. “I didn’t say that.”

“Didn’t you?” His grin slipped sideways. “You’re getting stronger. It’s affecting you, isn’t it?”

“What are you talking about?”

“I thought we weren’t going to kid each other anymore, Cait. You’re running like you’ve been doing it for years, when two days ago you were puffing like a train. You’re hearing more from people, aren’t you? And they’re starting to hear you.”

“Do people actually like you? Because you irritate the shit out of me.”

“Your gift isn’t an easy one to cope with, Cait. I’m surprised it hasn’t bothered you more before now. Unless,” and his eyes darkened, chilled, suddenly, “there was something that happened recently. To trigger its sudden expansion.”

He knew. He knew what was happening. I squeezed out a laugh that did nothing but make it clear how scared I was. “I saw your grandmother yesterday,” I stuttered out suddenly.

He raised an eyebrow, but followed me down the conversational U-turn without pause. “Oh? Was she well?”

“Yes. She brought us a shepherd’s pie.”

Had he taken a step closer to me? I was looking up now, just a little, to meet his eyes. “She loves to take care of people. Keep an eye on them.”

“It was kind of her.” He was drifting closer, a moon pulled in too close by gravity, leaving orbit and crashing together with the body drawing it in. His thumb, out of nowhere, brushed over the fullness of my lower lip. His fingers slipped in under my chin, and my body was trembling, because everything inside of me was still and quiet and listening.

“Did you try the book yet?” he asked, just as his lips brushed against mine again.

It was not a kiss that shook the earth or stopped the stars in their tracks. It didn’t alter the course of history. If one were grading on style, it was perhaps a touch staid, a fraction dry, and a hint hesitant. But for sheer contained, controlled passion? It beat everything else I’d ever experienced right out of the water. A sound came from my throat that would have shamed me if I’d cared at all. My hands were on his waist, and I tried to pull him closer to me. The hand of his not holding my chin was flat against my stomach, and it tightened, holding a modest distance between us. “Eli,” I whispered, my lips moving against his, silk and satin. I liked the taste of his name on my tongue, so I said it again.

And then he slipped away from me, his fingers lingering on my chin for one more second, stretching, and then he stepped back from me. His mouth worked for a moment, but no words came. His eyes were full of a deep, world-eating longing for one strained moment, before he closed them, squeezed them shut. And then they opened again, and were back to neutral, like it had never happened. My guts twisted, my eyes burned. No good. I needed to remember. “I’m—I’m sorry?”

He shook his head again, his cold-ocean eyes deep and sad. “I told you before. It’s silly to apologize for things that are true. Cait, I—”

I waited, but he had nothing else for me. He offered me one last small, crooked smile before he walked away. I locked my knees and watched him go, and repeated my mantra. Not for me. Not for me. And then I turned and ran, ran until my legs burned and my lungs were hot. Until all I wanted was to sleep. And then I got home, and crawled into my bed, sweaty and exhausted, and still wide awake, still dreaming of things that I was not allowed to want.

After an hour of trying to force myself to sleep, even though my eyes wouldn’t close, I shoved myself back out of bed. I showered, waiting for the muscle fatigue and soreness to show up. It didn’t happen. I put myself through a hundred sit ups, push-ups, and planks. My body did whatever I asked it to, without complaint or argument. Just quiet strength and efficiency. I showered for the third time, even though I hadn’t sweat, and ate lunch.

I sat down on the couch and forced myself to try and read, turning the digital page every so often, even though the words hadn’t registered in my brain at all. When my phone rang, I almost jumped out of my skin.

I stared at Shannon’s picture on my screen for a moment before I picked up the phone. “Sorry,” I said. “Weird morning. How are you doing?”

There was a long silence, and I was just about to say hello again, when Shannon exploded. “Are you seriously being casual right now? No ‘Sorry for scaring you half to death, Shan, but don’t worry, I’m being treated for my suicidal tendencies? What is even wrong with you?” I tried to speak, but she was still going. “Yeah, you can shut your mouth and wait a minute, here. I’m done watching you self-destruct, Cait, you get it? We’ve been friends since preschool, and I can’t do this anymore. Mom said I had to wait for you to realize that you needed help, and that anything I said before that would be counterproductive, but I have come to the studied conclusion that she’s an idiot who doesn’t deserve her degree, and this is your one-woman intervention.” The silence was filled only by her heavy breathing for a moment, and then she heaved a huge sigh. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”

“I thought you were still talking.”