Finding Hope (20 page)

H
e
was inside. I watched him move around the house, his shadow behind the blinds, a glimpse of him going upstairs, picking up a little girl in pink pajamas.

How long had I been sitting outside? Maybe if I stayed here, I'd sink into the ground and disappear. Decompose.

I wished I'd gone to see Hope. She'd have talked me out of this. But now I was here. And completely fucking confused.

He had a family. A wife and a kid.

What was I? A weird bruise in his past that had faded. Or were there others? Was he still coaching? Maybe a whole string of boys were in line behind me, working up the guts to do what I wanted to do.

I could write a letter and leave it where his wife would find it. Then she'd know what he really was. Take their kid and divorce him.

Taking out one of the bottles, already stuffed with a ripped-up rag, the gasoline sloshing inside, I held it in my hands. How easy would it be to light it and throw it and then walk away?

I wanted to hear him scream, terrified, like I had, the first time.

See how it feels, Coach Williams.

 

M
y
fingers trembled, racing to finish what I'd started. I had to find Eric, but first, I had to do this. I wasn't leaving Ravenhurst like a hunted animal. In fact, I wasn't leaving Ravenhurst at all.

I'd tell them everything, show them the photos, let them read the emails and texts, lay all my secrets bare so they'd know the truth.

Lizzie wouldn't be able to hide anymore. And neither would I.

A cluster of girls sat in the common room. I had to walk past them to make my way to the gates. It was night, late to be leaving the school.

“Where are you going?” Lizzie asked, looking up from her phone. She gave me a wicked smile. “Going to meet your meth-head brother?”

Any chatter in the room died with her words. I'd been waiting for her to unleash this final nail in my coffin. She'd known the truth about Eric since the first night I'd gone to her room, but only now, when she'd exhausted her arsenal of tricks, was she resorting to using it. I forced myself not to react and took a deep breath.

“Or maybe you're going to meet your boyfriend,” she said quietly, so only I could hear. “
Devon
.” Hearing his name on her lips, dripping with sarcasm, was like an ice pick through my heart. It took every ounce of self-control not to launch myself across the room at her.

“You think you won, don't you?” I truly wanted to know. Why was she like this? Manipulative and cruel, forcing people to dark places. She must have gotten some satisfaction from it.

She just arched a condescending eyebrow and picked up her phone.

“There should be an email in your inbox, Lizzie. I sent it to Ms. Harrison and copied you on it. A string of emails between me and Devon. All of them.” Her expression didn't change. Nothing I said scared her.

“So? Those emails have nothing to do with me.”

I trembled, a hot flush spreading up my cheeks.
Don't back down
. “I did some research. Whoever sent out those photos can be charged with distribution of pornography.” A flicker of concern flashed across her face. “There's a whole team who can figure out the IP address of anyone who uses the Internet. Whoever did send the photos will be getting a visit from the police.”

She gaped at me, speechless.

“And yes, I
am
going to see my meth-head brother,” I whispered to her. “And then”—I leaned in close—“I'm coming back to Ravenhurst, because you don't get to win.” I slung my backpack over my shoulder, my footsteps loud in the silent room. I met Cassie's eyes, wide with shock, and gave her a jubilant smile.

The security guard buzzed me out right away. Mom's car was parked at the end of the driveway, blinding me with its headlights.

A
nd
then a car. A familiar car in unfamiliar surroundings. Out of context, it was like a dream. Maybe I was imagining it.

And then a voice. Someone was calling my name, shouting it across the street.

It was Hope.

They'd left. An hour ago, Coach Williams' car had reversed out of the garage. His wife sat beside him in the front seat and, in the back, his little girl. I'd stood and watched, paralyzed. The car moved slowly, cautiously to the road. I could have called to him then, ran to the street, broken the months of silence. But I'd stood mute, frozen in the darkness between houses.

I closed my eyes and felt Hope's hand on my arm, squeezing. Tears rolled down my cheeks. And then a loud, low moan as I fell against her. She pried the plastic bag of Molotov cocktails out of my hand, like a mother coaxing a toy from a child.

Tiny Hope, my body curled up against hers. Her bones felt as fragile as a bird's, but still she was holding me up.

“I couldn't do it,” I sobbed. “I wanted to, but I couldn't.”

She sat quietly, rubbing my back, like Mom used to do.

“The fucked-up thing is, I wanted to see him. It felt good to see him.” My words were garbled, chewed up by emotion.

“I called them,” she whispered. “I told them to leave. I didn't know what you were going to do, or why.”

I squeezed my hand into a fist and jammed it into the ground. The soil was packed down, solid under my knuckles, but there was give there, a release as the earth cracked under my weight.

“He left,” I spat, shaking my head. “You see that?” I pointed at the house, now encased in darkness. “An innocent man would've stayed.”

Hope's face fell. She took in the broken shell of a person that sat in front of her and she crumbled. She clutched me, held me close, and I felt her body shake with sobs.

I heard another car door slam. Mom. She sank down beside us, gripping me.

Not letting go.

 

Broken,

My brother sits beside me

Twisted and used, both of us.

Tangled together

We will find our way

Jumping over

Remnants of our lives,

Making a new path

Together.

 

T
here
are things I never saw before. The way the snow piles on branches of trees, threatening to spill off in a gust of wind. How the sky glows with colour in the morning and how snow sparkles in the moonlight. I catch myself noticing these things, like out-of-body visions, and shake my head. I'm no poet, not like Hope, but part of me wants to capture those moments, savour them.

All of this I see through the window of my room. I stare out of it for hours, letting my mind drift. Twenty-eight days in a hospital, sixty-seven days and counting as an outpatient, and I still crave the high meth gave me, gritting my teeth sometimes for the want of it. Some days, I miss it like a friend who's died, mourning its absence. And other days, I fly into rages, ranting against what it did to me. I don't remember the ugly days and nights of withdrawal in the hospital, and I won't let Mom tell me about them. It's all just a fog of pain now, a black hole I don't ever want to go back into.

Mom rented an apartment in the city. Close to Hope and close to the hospital. A furnished place, nothing in it feels like ours. We're just placeholders, waiting in limbo until I get back to normal. Normal: a finish line that's always out of reach. Richard drives in on weekends. It's hard for him to look at me sometimes. I see him holding his fork tightly at dinner, angrily chewing his food and biting back comments. Mom says he'll come around, but it takes times to forgive.

And forever to forget, I want to add.

I'm trying to move on, face what happened, but the meth left me with paranoia. I hear noises in the night and every time I leave the apartment, I look behind me, convinced I'm being followed. People from my past pop up in unexpected places: closets, cupboards, frozen-food aisles of grocery stores. My breath comes fast and my rational self explains them away. But always, there's hunger for something to take away the fear.

Through the thin walls of the apartment, I hear Mom on the phone. Her voice rises and falls in an unnatural cadence. “Eric!” she calls. “Eric!” Her voice is urgent. I peel myself off the bed and open the door. She's there, the phone held out to me. “The police want to talk to you.”

I take it. The receiver is still warm with her breath. It's Officer Donaldson. He skips the pleasantries. “Eric, we need you to come down and answer some questions.”

“Why?” I ask. And in my head,
Again?

I'd already made my statements, admitted to the pharmacy break-in. I was out on bail for it. The sentence would come later, when the case went to trial. “Does my lawyer need to come too?”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. “It's not about the break-in.”

After I'd made my confession, I'd told the cops about Coach Williams and what he'd done to me. It took hours piecing it all together. Mom had sat beside me, sobbing, clutching her chest like her heart was breaking.

“It's about the other case. We've had someone else come forward.”

His voice thuds in my head. “About—about Coach Williams?” I stutter.

“Yes. I can't give you any details, but we'd like to ask you a few questions.”

I nod dumbly and hand the phone back to Mom. She'd work out the details. The nightmare that I'd lived wasn't just mine. There was another one, maybe more. The reality made it hard to breathe.

Mom's eyes were wet, the pain on her face as fresh as the night I'd told her everything, sitting outside his house. Shame isn't a weight or something that gets worn. It's elastic, stretching and strangling anything in its reach. But slowly, slowly, the noose was being loosened.

Each day would get better. I had to believe that.