Facade (4 page)

I think about how small Mom looked in that hospital bed. Maybe we deserve it. Maddox seems to think he does. Maybe it’s all our faults for trusting in Dad or sticking by his side before we knew how bad things were. For not looking into his lies and treasuring the time he was home.

Maybe we’re supposed to continue living with it.

Adrian stands but doesn’t look at me. I never gave him his ticket, but right now, I don’t care. I’ll cover it and pretend he paid. Whatever I have to do to make this right.

He stuffs his book in the pocket of his black hoodie. The other pocket belongs to his spiral notebook. Without a glance in my direction, he walks out. I wait until the headlights swing across the wall before I walk to his table.

There’s a twenty-dollar bill and a single piece of paper. The paper trembles, an extension of my hand.

I fall into his seat. Clutch the paper to my chest. And cry.

* * *

I get off work at 6:00 a.m. and head to the little apartment my brother and I are sharing. I guess that’s the good thing about not having many ties anymore. We can pack up and move at any second. Maddox hates that part because it made it easier for me to come here. He’ll be glad when he finds out I don’t think I should go through with it.

Maddox is passed out on the couch when I get home. We could only afford a one-bedroom place and it’s just like him to give the room to me. I guess it’s just like me to take it too.

After the fastest shower in history, I throw on my sweats and a sweatshirt. I climb into bed, my body tired. Even my mind is, but it’s not shutting off enough to get any downtime.

I read Adrian’s poem what feels like five million times. It’s so strange how you get it in your head who someone is before you meet them. Or even after you meet them, you get that one look and know how they are. It’s bullshit ninety-nine percent of the time, but that doesn’t stop people from doing it.

The words on this paper aren’t who I saw when I thought of the boy who’s tied into my life so much, yet doesn’t know it. Questions rain down on me in a powerful thunderstorm: Does he write often? Does it help him deal? Is this something he shares with everyone?

Curiosity swims inside me, filling up every nook and cranny it can find. I shouldn’t be curious about him. It almost feels morbid in a way, but I can’t help but wish that maybe knowing each other would be a step toward healing us all.

“Stupid.”

I look over at the clock. It’s one of the only things unpacked in my room. Bringing in money is much more important than making the place homey.

It’s 10:00 a.m. and I haven’t slept a wink yet. I roll out of bed. My brother’s out on the tiny patio smoking a cigarette. It takes two tries to get the glass door to slide open right. “Hey,” I say, tucking my hands into the sleeves of my sweatshirt and leaning against the wall.

“You’re up early.” I can tell by the scratchiness in Maddox’s voice that he just woke up too.

“Couldn’t sleep… Have you called to check on Mom today?” I know the answer to that question before I asked it.

“Did she worry about us when things got bad?”

“Mad—”

“Laney.”

“Stop it.”

“You stop it.”

I swat him on the back of the head. “I’m not twelve. It’s not going to help to mimic me.”

He takes a drag from his cigarette and lets the smoke out slowly. “Think we’ll be here long enough for you to register for a class or something? You should.”

“So should you. I don’t have the money or the time right now.”

“I’d make it happen.”

I sigh, hating the fact that my brother feels the weight of our family on his shoulders. That he would do anything for me but nothing for himself. That he blames himself so much for everything falling apart that it’s the real reason he struggles with Mom. It hurts too much to see her. And… well, I think it’s the way she treats me, too, that makes me feel like crap. He shouldn’t lose his only parent because she can’t seem to stand the sight of me. “I know you would… I met Adrian last night.”

At that he whips around to face me. “That fast? What happened?” His voice is a mixture of concern and annoyance.

I shrug. “He was the guy who tried to… help me with the boxes yesterday. I didn’t know it, though. Then he happened to show up at the diner last night and I figured out who he was.”

“Fuck,” Maddox groans.

I’m pretty sure there’s a small tint of curiosity in his gray eyes. He’ll never ask, though. Not Maddox.

“He of course doesn’t know who I am.” I pause for a second, trying to build a coherent thought from all the bits and pieces and fragments in my mind. “He’s broken, Maddy. I don’t know how I know it, but I do.” I kneel next to him. Drop my head on his shoulder. I hear the deep breath he inhales and exhales, knowing I’m hurting and hating it.

“Do you think it’s our fault, somehow? I know that sounds stupid, but did we do something? Wrong someone? Should we have known what Dad was doing earlier? Are we being punished because we were blind?”

Another curse. Maddox doesn’t move, doesn’t wrap an arm around me. “None of it’s your fault, Laney. You were just a kid.”

“You too,” I point out, but he chooses to ignore that.

After a pause, he asks, “Did meeting him make you realize this is a shitty idea? That it’s not going to change anything?”

“I don’t know… maybe… probably… I don’t know.”

He chuckles. “Typical woman. Doesn’t know what she wants.”

That makes me hit him again before I stand up. “Who knows? I don’t know what I want, remember? I don’t want to hurt him. I don’t want to hurt anyone, but… we’re all tied in this together. Maybe there’s a way we can help each other? I keep thinking of his sister. How much she misses him. What if there’s a way we can help? What if we can bring them back together?” The truth is, I couldn’t imagine being in this without Maddox. Adrian and Angel need each other like we do.

“You can help, Laney. Not me. My only concern is my family.” His cigarette has almost burned to the end now, but he takes a drag anyway before stubbing it out.

I want to tell him Mom’s family also, not just me, but I don’t. I’m not in the mood to fight with him today. “I’m not sure what to do, but I’m not ready to leave.” And then I add, “I just want everything to be okay.”

Maddox stands and shakes his head at me. “You’re too much of an optimistic, little sister. We’ve gone too far for everything to be okay.” He walks into the apartment, leaving me to stand there alone.

I have no idea what the hell I was thinking when I left my poem at the table. It feels like a slipup. No, more like I took a razor to my skin, like I cut myself open and left a small piece of myself behind for her. I don’t do shit like that, but seeing Angel at Ashton’s grave not long before that, plus the girl at the party with his nickname—maybe I hadn’t needed to cut myself open at all. Maybe they’d already done it for me and I was open and raw when I went in.

Maybe I had no choice but to leave that piece of me there.

Or it might be the ghosts in her eyes. The dark shadows that lurk there and make me wonder what’s chasing her when the lights go out.

Hell, I might just need to let laid. No matter how I look at it, she’s gorgeous and I want her.

Whatever the reason is, I don’t like it. Don’t like giving people a glimpse inside me to see what lives there.

Even when it was Angel who found some of my shit and read it, I felt under the microscope. Like a rat that people study. When I was young, I was the quiet kid who didn’t talk but left his heart on paper. Now she’ll see me as the flirtatious, fucked-up guy with a hidden depth that’s not really there. It’s nothing but an optical illusion.

Smoke curls around my living room like a dense fog. I haven’t done anything but sit on the couch since I kicked everyone out of my place today.

The blinds and windows are all closed, so it’s almost like it’s nighttime, even though the sun has been up for hours.

My head hurts, but I haven’t taken anything. Don’t like all that unnatural shit in my body, which some people think is ironic since I medicate in a completely different way every day.

Pushing to my feet, I see the paper on the table this morning. My hand itches to grab it like I’m still back in that sea-colored diner and still have a chance to keep that one smoke screen in place. I think of her curves and her eyes and that little black mark painted on her face.

I have to fix this. Pull that mask on tight to make up for the glimpse I left behind. It’s not like it won’t be fun. Even through all the fucked-up feelings that swam through my head when I saw her this morning, I still felt the burn of her beneath my skin. The part of me who sees a challenge and wants to overcome it. I want to turn her into a girl at a party who wants to pass the time with me as much as I want to pass it with her. A flicker of a moment when we’re nothing but hands, and lips, and tongues, together and nothing else matters, before we go our separate ways.

I need a distraction and the girl with ghosts in her eyes is as good as anything. And while I play the game, maybe, just maybe I’ll be able to forget the rest of it.

When I can’t rub the sandpaper out of my eyes, I go to my room, unlock my closet, and look at the picture of the little boy with the big, brown eyes. “I’m sorry, Ash,” I tell him, like I do every day. I might not be able to say it to Angel and I know I’ll never repent enough, but I need to do this.

Closing the door, I kick off my shoes and fall into bed. My hand latches on to the tiny shirt under my pillow. I hold it tight and close my eyes.

Tonight, I’ll again lock the demons away that have showed their faces too much since the morning at the cemetery.

* * *

Oscar, one of the guys I hang out with, is always down for a good time. He’s different than Colt. Colt might not have known it, but he hated the way we lived our lives. There was this sort of sadness inside him that wanted more for himself. He didn’t always act like it, but he knew right from wrong. Knew what he wanted for himself but had to pull his head out and go for it.

I don’t have that problem with Oscar. I tell him I want a girl, he goes with me to find one, no questions asked. I tell him I’m having a party, he makes sure people are there. Hell, half the time, he doesn’t even wait for my invitation and I usually don’t care either.

So, when I need someone to chill with tonight, someone I know will go along with whatever I want, he’s the guy I go to.

“What’s up, man?” he asks when he shows up at my place.

First thing he does is take the bong from my table and fill his lungs with smoke. I don’t tell him what’s up and he doesn’t ask again. He takes a few shots and I laugh and talk shit and it’s like every other night of the week except I keep running over poetry lines in my head.
Thank you. I shouldn’t have ended it with thank you since she wanted the same thing as me.

But then, who the hell am I to pretend to know what she wants?

I kick Oscar’s ass on the PlayStation and the whole time he doesn’t shut up.

“Where’s Colt been lately?”

“Happy.”

“Did you see that chick in the red dress last night?”

“Yeah.” What I don’t say is I didn’t give a shit.

“You disappear with some girl?”

“You know it.”
My memories, is more like it.

I wait until about eleven before telling Oscar I’m hungry and that we should go out. He’s too blazed out of his mind to drive. Since I didn’t drink, it’s a no-brainer that I’ll be the one behind the wheel.

I don’t even know if she’ll be there or not, but the closer to the diner we get, the more the competitor in me amps up. With the ghosts in her eyes, she got me to show a part of myself that no one else sees. The next score will go to me.

The second I walk inside, my eyes find her. Her dark hair is pulled back and she’s speed walking through the place. There are more people in here than there were last night, so I know it’s going to be a little harder to do what I want to do.

The hostess gives me a shy smile when I walk in. “What’s up?” I wink at her, playing the game that’s engraved in my memory.

“Um… hi. Just two?” Another smile.

“Depends. What time do you get off?” I ask her. “My buddy here wants to know.” I slap Oscar on the shoulder and know he’s not going to argue. He’ll get her a whole lot easier if I help him than he would on his own.

“An hour.” The blonde looks at Oscar, me, then back at Oscar again.

Which means that’s probably when the diner slows down, leaving only Delaney and the cook. It’s a Thursday night and I know they’re busier and staff heavier on the weekends.

“We’ll be here,” I tell her.

“Okay.” She leads us to our seat.

“Fuck yeah,” Oscar whispers in my ear, and I fight the part of me that wants to tell him it’s ridiculous. That all of it’s fake and not important and that he’ll forget her name in a week, but since I’m an illusion, too, I have no room to talk to him.

“Have a good meal,” she says before walking away.

I turn and catch her looking at Delaney, fanning herself and then nodding toward us. Delaney’s eyes follow hers. When she sees me, her feet plant to the floor, grow roots like an old tree, growing for all of eternity.

I nod. Smile.
Game on
, I want my look to tell her.

We sit in the booth and Oscar mumbles about the blonde and it being his lucky night, but I keep my eyes on Delaney. Watch her as she fills glasses of water. See her shiver and wonder if she knows my eyes are on her. Then as she comes toward me, there’s this confused look on her face. Maybe it’s not her who’s confused, but me. All I know is that I can’t read her, but she keeps coming and I know whatever it is, she’s going to play through it.

Good for her.

“Coffee?” Her voice cracks slightly. It’s still that sweet, girl-next-door tenor that tells the story that she’s always been good. That she’s fresh and innocent. If it weren’t for the ghosts in her eyes, I might believe it.