Glass Girl (A Young Adult Novel) (27 page)

“Why is he such a prick?” Tennyson said.

“You know why,” Sara said. “Remember that whole thing with his mom and dad? The whole town knew and he could barely look anybody in the eye in eighth grade.”

“It was jacked up,” Matt said. “Sara and I remember—the girl Grayson’s dad messed with lived on our street.”

“Remember how cute Grayson was when he was little?” Tennyson said. “He was just a nice kid. So sad.”

The hair on my neck, even damp, stood up. Here was a perfect example of why it was so difficult to leave the past where it belonged. No one, even friends, had any intention of letting people move on. I didn’t want to know anymore of Grayson’s history. “I’m getting kind of pruny.” I made a show of examining my fingertips, which actually looked normal.

I stood and reached for the top towel on the stack, shivering while I dried off. Instead of taking time to put my sweats back on, I wrapped up in the towel and skipped to the door, welcoming the warmth of the condo’s heater. I heard voices in the loft, but I focused on ignoring them. I was sure whoever had gathered around Grayson to talk preferred privacy.

Retrieving my bag with clothes and makeup, I locked myself in the bathroom for a shower. There, in the spray of warm water, under the glaring bathroom light that doubled as a heater, I cried. Mostly for Grayson, as crazy as it sounded.

Whatever he’d gone through had turned him into an attention-seeking abuser without much of a conscience and it broke my heart. He was just protecting himself. We all had to find our own way with that.

I ran a comb through my hair and put on a pair of jeans and a sweater. When I finished in the bathroom, I opened the door slowly, listening for activity. The house was silent but, through the wall of windows, I saw everyone outside. Those who weren’t in the hot tub, including Henry, were bundled up in coats.

I turned to put my bag up and ran into Grayson in the hall. “Oh, sorry, Meg,” he said. “Didn’t hear you coming.”

His shoulders hung crooked as he veered around me, holding my elbows to make sure he didn’t crush me on his way to the stairs. Laughter reached into the house, curling around me and probably intimidating Grayson. I’m sure he felt alone now. Because I have no gene for self-preservation, I set my bag down and followed Grayson.

He lay on the floor, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling. I knocked on the wall that gave the loft its only privacy. “Yeah?” he said.

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay.” I sat on the edge of an old futon. Henry’s duffel bag was by my feet so I knew he’d slept near.

Grayson chuckled darkly. “Wanna piece of me, too? Your boyfriend chewed on me enough earlier.” His voice was razor-edged but underneath I heard honest longing.

“I’m sorry.” I watched his shadow moving on the wall. “I just wanted to say I don’t hold any grudge against you for what happened that day in the locker room. I mean…it hurt my feelings, but I’m okay.”

He pointed at me. “That, I can honestly say, wasn’t my fault. You were the one who tripped.”

I tried not to get angry again. “I know. I was upset over how Thanet looked, though.”

Grayson sighed. “That was probably my fault. I’m sorry.”

I smiled. “I forgive you. But you should probably apologize to Thanet.”

He chewed on his bottom lip. “I really do feel bad for talking about your brother. People in this town have a sick desire to dig up old dirt. I know that as well as anyone. I shouldn’t have done it.”

I nodded. “It’s okay. I needed to talk about it and I guess that was kind of the icebreaker.”

He closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his stomach. “Henry’s all yours. You know that, right?” He looked like he wanted to drift off to sleep.

“Yeah,” I whispered. “I know.”

“You’re all right, Meg.” He yawned so I stood up to leave.

“You are, too, Grayson.”

When my foot hit the first step, I paused to listen to Grayson’s steady breathing.

“
Mercy,”
I whispered.

Dear Wyatt—

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. I wish you could see Chapin right now. Winter was cruel to this place—crueler than it ever was to Pittsburgh. Here, the snow piles up until the drifts are taller than me and everything turns gray. Trees, birds, my complexion. All gray. The sky gets bleak. So when March rolled around and tiny little shoots of green started appearing everywhere, I’d never been so happy to see spring in my life.

I can’t believe nature survives and tries again, over and over. Mom planted bulbs before she left and yesterday, I ran my fingertips over the ground where they’re buried. I couldn’t believe it—you almost need a magnifying glass to see them—but a centimeter or two of thick little leaves are poking through the ground. One of these days we’ll have yellow flowers there and they’ll surprise us every morning for days. We’ll say, “Remember when everything was gray?”

I had a weird dream last night. We were all together at the beach house. You and Mom were flying a kite and Dad and I were building a sandcastle. Your kite kept taking a nosedive into the dunes, and the waves kept dissolving our castle. And none of us could figure out what we were doing wrong. Finally, we all got frustrated and walked away. You left your kite tangled up on the dunes, and the castle washed away. Instead of walking away together, we went in different directions, alone. And none of us looked back. It felt so real.

I talk to Mom every Friday. She’s sounding more like herself. For a while, she sounded hammered, slurring every word and bringing up people she insisted I knew. But that fog seems to be lifting. She says things that make sense. She talks about painting. She cracks jokes here and there. I’m going to Pittsburgh for spring break. I’ll see her then.

I love you.

Meg

P
ittsburgh International Airport was empty at eight o’clock on a Wednesday night. I’d made plans to spend the last half of spring break with my aunt and uncle because Henry was busy moving cattle around for spring grazing and birthing cow babies. He was literally up to his elbows in it. And I needed to check on my mom. She’d submitted a visitor request form and I’d made the cut.

I waited alone at the carousel in baggage claim and texted my Uncle David to let him know where I was. Within minutes, I heard little shoes pounding the floor, coming my way. I smiled as my cousins, Audrey and Ana Kate, barreled toward me. David and Catherine laughed and tried to keep up. I laughed, too. It felt good to be welcomed.

On the drive to their house, I sat up front with Uncle David. We passed all the familiar places from my childhood—my old dance studio, my elementary school, Harris’s house, our favorite restaurant. Finally we turned down the drive of their house.

The old stone house built in the 1920s was always my idea of the perfect place. I have this memory of seeing it for the first time right after they bought it. I danced around inside the empty rooms for hours before their movers arrived. This had been our second home.

Wyatt built a tree house in a huge old tree in the backyard. He must’ve worked on it for a year. A little bit here and there each time we visited. He’d build a part and then rip it out if it wasn’t perfect. He even made a little table and chairs and hauled them up with a rope.

We’d spent hours and hours sitting in the tree house with our feet dangling off the edge, talking about important things. When the headlights raked across that tree, my throat tightened. The tree house was intact.

David smiled. “Wyatt was like a master carpenter or something. Our girls pretend it’s a fairy house. They want to paint it pink and purple.”

“I’m glad it’s still here. The girls will remember him for that.” I smiled at Catherine and the girls who sat quietly in the back seat. Seven-year-old Audrey was one of those kids who stared at people who interested her. Sometimes it was unnerving. Ana Kate, the five year old, was more oblivious to others. She believed we were all just like her so there was no need to stare.

The girls helped with my many bags, lifting things twice their size to get me in the door faster. They had months’ worth of toys and clothes to show me. I dropped my suitcase off in the guest room, and then joined them on the rug in the room they shared. The fashion show began right away and included everything from leather shorts that made me question Catherine’s judgment to ruffled pink tutus.

After we played a princess board game five times and had a tickle fight, I gathered them both up and sat them in my lap. I had forgotten how little kids wiggle constantly and how they all kind of smell alike—a cross between corn chips and sweat. I kissed their moist cheeks and set them free.

Catherine called me from the kitchen. “Come have hot tea with me. I need a girlfriend.”

As I passed David in the hall, he smirked. “I’ve tried to satisfy her need for girl talk, but she doesn’t like what I have to say,” he said. “She’s missed you and your mom.”

She pulled up a chair for me and set down a mug, into which she poured hot water over a chamomile tea bag. She made one for herself and then curled up on the bench on the other side of the table, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders. Their kitchen was like an old farmhouse kitchen—comfortable and scuffed up and soft with yellow fabrics and cushions on the chairs. Chipped white pottery lined the shelves of the hutch behind the table. Their sink made me feel connected to my predecessors when I washed dishes.

“Now,” she said. “I need to see pictures of Henry.”

I laughed and scrolled through the hundreds on my phone, looking for the one that would make her jaw drop. It was Henry sitting on Ben with a sunset behind them. I held it up and she said, “Shut. Up. He’s gorgeous.”

She took my phone and looked through all my pictures, laughing at some and clicking her tongue at others. Tennyson had probably photo bombed my phone. “Saucy child,” she said. Definitely Tennyson.

“I’m really glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here,” I said. “I’ve missed you.”

“Do you miss Pittsburgh?” She leaned down and picked up one of the several smallish dogs they owned. Peanut, I thought.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really don’t think so. Right now, I miss Chapin.”

She smiled. “It’s good to hear you say that.”

I touched a family picture on the counter behind me. “The girls are so cute. And you’ve sheltered them well from my crazy family.”

Catherine put her elbow on the table and rested her chin, watching me intently. “Your family isn’t crazy, Meg. If it is, we’re crazy, too. And I haven’t told them a lot about your mom. Just that she was really tired and needed to rest in a quiet place for a while.”

“Which is true.” Although describing what we’d been through as a simple need for rest seemed sad.

“Yes.” Catherine laid her head on her arms.

Their chocolate lab, Stewart, meandered over next to me and laid his enormous head in my lap. I rubbed his velvet ears.

Catherine slid a sack across the table to me. “I bought this on our last trip to Boston. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to give it to you.”

“Thanks.” I recognized Harvard’s colors and the bag design from Harvard Book Store. I smiled. “I can already tell you this will infuriate my dad.”

Catherine shrugged one slender shoulder. “Can’t please everyone.”

I found a Harvard crimson hoodie in the bag and unrolled it. A university application dropped out with a
thunk
onto the table. “Subtle,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve never been known for that.” She stood. “More tea?”

I shook my head. “I love the hoodie. I’ll wear it proudly in Wyoming.” I put it on and shoved my hands in the fuzzy pockets. “People will think I’m elitist, though.”

“You could never be elitist. You smile too much and you don’t say, ‘
Hmm,’
after other people talk.” She filled her mug with hot water and set the kettle down on a tile with a tiny blue handprint on it. “I just want my only niece to apply so I can visit campus again. I still have a ton of friends there.”

“You know Dad would never let me pick Harvard over Penn.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Penn,” she scoffed.

I chuckled and pointed at her. “Elitist.”

David slipped in and scooted onto the bench with Catherine. “Girls are asleep,” he said. “You coming to bed anytime soon?” He reached for her shoulders to massage them.

Catherine moaned. “Do you feel those knots?”

“
Mm-hmm
,” he said.

“Gotta talk to Meg about Adele first,” she said. “And then bed.”

David looked up at me. The wrinkles around his eyes seemed deeper. “You tell her to come up before midnight for me.”

I nodded and swallowed the lump in my throat. It hurt to see them together and so in love when my parents were thousands of miles apart physically and light years apart emotionally.

David rapped his knuckles on the table a couple of times and then went upstairs.

“I talked her doctor into letting me visit last week.” Catherine stretched her arms over her head. “It was…strange.”

“How so?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” She looked out the window and toyed with her blanket. “You know I can’t explain how it feels to see my big sister in a situation like that. It’s not like she was spaced out or rocking in a corner. But she’d lost all her sharp edges.”

I nodded. “That’s a good way to put it.” My stomach twisted with nerves. “Her doctor said I could come by on Friday. Do you think…do you think it’s a good idea?”

“Of course it’s a good idea.” Catherine twined her long, graceful fingers into mine. “While I was there, she put on her own makeup. I watched her.”

“Wow, I can’t remember the last time she cared about that.”

Catherine tilted her head and a frown pulled at the center of her brow. “And it’s not a hollow victory.”

I nodded, a blurry, faded thought curling in my mind like smoke that wouldn’t materialize. “What do you think final victory will look like?”

“For your mom?”

I dragged my fingertips over my bottom lip and said, “Yes.”