Dead to You (17 page)

It’s amazing how everything can change just like that.

At school, I know I won’t see Cami, because I never do, but I look for her anyway. And, of course, I don’t have any trouble finding J-Dog. But we haven’t actually talked since his apology, and I think he’s figured out that no matter how cool he is, he’s never going to get me to go to another basketball game again in my entire life. So at least he’s smart enough to give up on me.

I watch him walk around school being all jock and joking around with his friends and flirting with other girls, and he doesn’t even look sad. He looks exactly the same. And I think about Cami, how I’d feel if she dumped me, and I can’t even imagine it. I definitely wouldn’t be walking around like nothing happened.

The best part of the day is when I walk out of school after the bell rings and there’s no J-Dog making out with Cami by the bus. She’s standing there, though, hair flipped to one side, backpack over one shoulder. Waiting. Waiting for me.

It’s a good week. Midterms keep Cami and me both busier than we want to be, and I have extra punishment chores like cleaning out the garage, which has got to be the worst job ever. The garage floor is disgusting. Big stalactites of filthy slush build up behind the car wheels and drop off, getting smashed again when the car goes out—Gracie calls it car poop. I shovel it up and toss it all on the side of the house.

But I also start driver’s training and that’s probably the most fun I’ve ever had. I am a natural at it—that’s what my instructor says. Finally, I have a talent. Maybe I’ll become a race-car driver. That would make my dear, protective Mama happy. I laugh a little just thinking about it.

Blake stays holed up in his room every night working on a school project, or so he claims. I think he’s just being emo, but I don’t really care as long as he stays away from me and isn’t planning to blow up the house or something.

I do my homework at the dining table now. It feels nice to be close to people. I don’t know how Blake can stand it, being alone in his room all the time. I like the normal house noises. I like hearing Gracie laugh at cartoons or Dad running the vacuum cleaner or Mama reading aloud something outrageous from the newspaper.

And it finally starts to feel okay that I miss Ellen now and then, but also that I’m done with her. I mean, if I saw her on the street, would I talk to her? Yeah, I would. But now I feel like home is here, not there. That’s a first. And it’s scary. It is. But it’s good. It’s so, so good.

On Thursday, Mama downgrades my groundedness from “indefinitely” to “one week,” so that means on Saturday, I’ll be free if I can avoid getting into more trouble.

Which is almost impossible because I can hardly stand not seeing Cami. On school nights she can’t be out after ten, and here everybody but Gracie is awake until at least that, so it’s too risky for her to sneak over. Plus, somebody’s bound to see the footprints in the snow if they just think to look. I’m sure Blake would jump at the chance to turn my ass in.

So even though it’s a great week, it’s horrible, because all I get of Cami is a few minutes at the bus stop and on the bus, where we pretend nothing’s going on. And by Friday, I’m dying to touch her and hold her, just be close to her and whisper with her in the dark. Instead, after school we sit in our bedrooms four houses away from each other, texting each other like mad and dreaming about tomorrow.

After dinner Friday, Dad decides it’s guys’ night out, and he takes Blake and me to a movie. Some lame
Star Wars
look-alike, I guess. Blake doesn’t speak to me, but I catch him staring at me throughout the movie. It’s really unsettling. It is. It’s like he thinks I’m behind a one-way mirror or something and he’s watching an interrogation, like a cop. I think he’s doing it on purpose to try and wind me up. Get me in trouble again. I just want to punch him.

But I’ve got only a few hours until I’m free, and there’s no way I’m going to screw that up. Besides, I promised Cami I wouldn’t mess this up. I send a text message to her now and then, though Dad’s frowning on that tonight.

After the movie, we go for something to eat, and Blake’s all embarrassed because what if his friends are here and he’s out with his dad rather than the Crips or Bloods or whatever. Jeez, he’s so immature. He doesn’t have a clue what it’s like to never have this chance. To not have a dad to go out with. I wish he’d just grow up. It’d be great if he got to be homeless and abandoned for a while, just to see what it’s like.

Anyway, I play the good son and I hope it gets me points. I’m going to want a lot of points saved up just in case. But the weird thing is, Dad is not so bad. He’s interesting and has a lot of cool insights about the movie and the graphics and junk like that—stuff you’d never think he’d care or know anything about.

Back at home, Blake slithers to his room. I sit down at the kitchen table with Mama and Dad and we talk about the movie. Mama has to keep shushing Dad and me because Gracie’s asleep and we’re laughing too loud about the bad special effects. But all the while I’m sort of itching to text with Cami. I finger my phone in my pocket.

Then Blake comes out of his room. He’s carrying a red folder. And he’s got a creepy look on his face, almost like he’s a little bit scared about how evil he really is.

Blake walks up to the table and our conversation
stops.

“Hey, Blake,” Mama says cheerily, because we’re all pretending we get along today. “Pull up a chair. Did you think the movie was cheesy too?”

Blake doesn’t sit down. Instead, he puts the folder on the table and says, “I can prove that he isn’t Ethan.” His voice cracks when he says my name.

And for a moment, it’s completely silent.

I stand up, feeling the blood rushing to my head. “Sorry. I can’t deal with this crap anymore.” I step aside as calmly as I can and push my chair in, but Blake moves to block me as I round the table.

He stands there inches from me. I can feel the heat coming off him. He’s scared shitless. “No,” he says in a surprisingly even voice. “I want to see your face when I prove to my parents that you’re a fake.”

My jaw aches, but I clench it even harder. Thinking of Cami. Hours away from Saturday. “Mama,” I say, not taking my eyes off Blake. “Will you ask Blake to let me through, please?”

“Blake, honestly,” Mama says. Her voice is sharp.

“I need him to see this,” Blake insists.

“Guys, sit down. Let’s work through it,” Dad says. When we don’t move, he says it louder, more forcefully. “Both of you. Sit down.”

I hesitate a minute longer, but the mantra is in my head. Cami. Cami. Cami. I can’t allow myself to react. I can’t get myself grounded again. If he throws a punch, I won’t move. I’ll take it and let them deal with him. And so I sit. Numb. The ticking of the kitchen clock sounds like a time bomb. I make my eyes dart around the room in time with it.

Blake sits too. And he looks at Mama and Dad. “I know you don’t believe me,” he says. “I know you think I’m just angry. And I’m sorry for causing trouble. But you’ve got to listen to me. Just . . . please. Listen to me for once.”

Mama rubs her temples. Dad sits quietly. My chest is tight and I can’t take a deep breath. Anticipating rejection is the worst. But all I allow myself to think about is Cami. Get through this, and I get to see her tomorrow. Fuck it up, and I don’t. I focus.

“Go ahead, then,” Mama says with an impatient sigh. “Just know that you are on really shaky ground, mister. So watch it.”

Blake wets his lips and I can see his fingers shaking. “Okay, so in science, we’re doing genetics, right? Dominant and recessive genes. I had to do the eye color thing and the earlobes, remember?”

I wince as pain shoots through me, remembering how bad that made me feel.

“Yes, we remember,” Dad says. His face looks tired.

“Well, first there was all the stuff Ethan said about the woman, but I saw two men in the car, and that didn’t make sense . . . and him not remembering things—”

“That’s perfectly normal,” Mama interrupts.

“I know,” Blake says quickly, a little too loudly, but he holds his temper in check. “But then I noticed something.” He glances at me with such enmity in his eyes, it’s stunning.

Blake opens up his folder and pulls out a photograph. It’s a slightly blurry, blown-up snapshot—the one of me and him and Cami and the sno-cone machine.

“You stole that from my collection, you little f—” I cut myself off just in time, but neither Mama or Dad notice. They’re looking at the photo. I bend forward a little, suck in some air.

“Look at his . . .” Blake’s voice cracks again. He clears his throat and points to my head in the photo. “Look at his ear,” he says, softer, his voice losing a little of the confidence he had before. His face turns red, and his lips press so tightly together they turn gray.

And I’m sitting here with that boot in my gut. Making its steady climb up my ribs again. Fuck. I try breathing steadily but I’m gulping air.

“What about it?” Mama says.

“He looks different,” Blake says. “Do you see it?”

Mama sits back in her chair, exasperated. “Blake, of course he looks different. That’s normal. And Ethan looks almost exactly like the age-progression photo that NCMEC created. You look different from then too, because your body and features change a little as you get older.”

“Mama,” Blake says, and I can tell he knows she’s about to blow. “My looks changed, I know. But my earlobes didn’t. Earlobes don’t change. They are either attached or detached, and they stay that way for life. Ethan’s is detached in this picture, see? Now look at him.”

Dad leans forward and stares at the photo. He takes it by the corner and pulls it closer so he can see better.

And then he stares at me. At my ears. All the color drains from his face. And his eyes . . . his eyes.

I turn away, but it’s too late. His rejection is suffocating, my lungs searing as if I’ve been underwater too long. I’ll never forget that look on his face.

I struggle to my feet as the first wave of hysterics washes over me. I’m falling out of a fifty-story window, I can’t breathe, can’t do anything but grasp at air and wait for the impact to kill me. I stumble blindly around the table to the basement door and hang on to the handrail in a silent scream as Mama says in a trembling voice like death, “Blake, you have pushed this too far. Go to your room.”

I sit in the dark in my old familiar spot beneath
the vent, curled up with a blanket, my teeth chattering. Numb. Mama and Dad arguing. And I can hear Blake up there too. Yelling and throwing crap around in his bedroom, stomping around. And then he’s crying, big coughing, angry sobs as Dad tries to talk to him.

“Give me the original photo!” Dad says.

“No. Then I don’t have any proof!”

After that, they lower their voices and I can’t hear them anymore.

Mama and Dad fight long into the night, and this time, they’re not even trying to keep their voices down. I can hear every word.

“It’s clearly photoshopped,” Mama says, her voice ragged. “And this is a horrible game. It’s not funny. I can’t believe he would do something so . . . so . . . mean. What kind of boy have we raised? Paul?”

“I don’t know,” Dad says. “He won’t give me the original picture.” And that’s about all he says. Over and over as Mama rants, he can’t answer her and he can’t support her. And when she finally winds down, he says wearily, “Maria, sweetheart. I know it’s really him. But what if it’s not?”

It’s eerily quiet for a moment. And then Mama speaks. “I. Know. My. Son.” She pauses. And then, “Get out.”

I hear footsteps above my head. The mudroom door closing. And the car starting. Finally, there is silence.

I have seven text messages from Cami and I can’t even comprehend them. I’m sick, my whole body aches, and I lie here on the floor, unable to move. Hating Blake with all my heart. Wishing I were Gracie, asleep and oblivious.

But knowing only one thing for certain. That truly, I am Ethan Manuel De Wilde, son of Paul and Maria Quintero De Wilde, born on May 15 in Belleville, Minnesota. I live in a white house on the corner of Thirty-fifth and Maple. And nobody’s going to drive me out.

I am Ethan De Wilde.

I am.

I wake up, drool sliding down my chin, and all
my muscles ache. I’m twisted up in a blanket on the floor in my original basement spot, and it’s quiet in the house for a bright Saturday morning. I wipe my mouth. My unbrushed teeth taste like cigarette ashes.

I hear a noise and look up. Mama’s sitting on the edge of the pool table, watching me. Her hair is a mess and she’s still wearing her clothes from last night.

“Sweetheart,” she says, and then her eyes flood. “I’m so sorry.”

My face screws up, and I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to be upset anymore and I don’t want to remember it. “Go away,” I say, softly. Gently. “Please don’t look at me.”

Mama brings her hand to her face and sucks in a shuddery breath. “Dad and I have no doubt that you are our son. And we’re dealing with Blake. He is being severely punished. I’m so sorry—I know it hurts.”

I roll over and look at the wall.

“We both love you very much. And so do Blake and Gracie.”

She needs to be quiet now or I’ll never believe another word she says. “Please, just go. I’ll talk to you later. I can’t talk about this right now.”

She’s quiet, and after a minute she slides off the pool table. “Okay.”

Later, I hear her on the phone with the therapist, setting up another appointment. As if the weekly visits weren’t wrecking things enough.

I have no thoughts. I just lie there for a long time, like I’m in a trance or something. Not feeling anything. Not knowing what to think. I hear people waking up, moving around upstairs, and I feel a buzzing in my pocket. But I don’t move. I can’t.

Gracie comes down when Mama’s not paying attention, and I don’t have the energy to send her away.

“Mama says you don’t feel good today.”