I’ll Meet You There (33 page)

chapter twenty-nine

Everything hurt. Even my fingernails. The sun was driving stakes into my eyes, and
my head … oh, God, my head. Picture me in Edvard Munch’s
The Scream
, and you’ll have the right idea.

“Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Marge pulled open the curtains, and I let out
a shriek.

She grabbed the pillow I was trying to put over my eyes. “Nope. Time to join the living.”

I heard her walk across the room, then the sound of the shower being turned on. I
was pretty sure something had died in my mouth, and my throat was raw, like I’d been
screaming or something.

I felt strong arms around me and then I was standing. I forced my eyes open and gave
Marge a bleary glare.

“I can’t.”

She nodded. “Yes, you can. Let’s go.”

Marge pulled me to the bathroom, then went back out into my bedroom. “I have a hangover
cure at the pool, when you’re ready. I called in for you at the gas station, but don’t
even think of going back into that bed.”

I grunted and pulled off the clothes I’d been wearing the night before and left them
in a dirty pile on the linoleum. The hot shower pounded my skin, and I stood under
it for a long time. The night came back to me in flashes: the whiskey bottle, my car
in the ditch, someone holding back my hair while I barfed. Who was—

Then I remembered.

“
Fuck
.”

I sat down in the bathtub and let the water pummel me. It was too hot, but I wanted
it to burn. I deserved it.

How could I have gotten in a car after what had happened to my dad? I could have died.
Worse, I could have killed someone else. I stared at my hands, raw and bright red
from the hot water. I had no idea who they belonged to.

It took me forty-five minutes to shower, brush my teeth three times, and put on clean
clothes. My bones felt like someone had tried to grind them into dust. I never knew
you could hit rock bottom so literally.

I pushed on my sunglasses and stepped outside. I had to cover my eyes as I made my
way over to the pool—the sun was so blinding. From where it was in the sky, I could
tell we were well into the afternoon. I could see Marge between my fingers, sitting
at her favorite table with the large umbrella over it.

“Well, sweet pea, you really screwed up, didn’t you?” she said.

I’d pieced enough of the night together in my head to know that I had become the world’s
biggest hypocrite.

“Marge, I—” My voice broke.

She looked at me over her John Lennon sunglasses. “You remember.”

“Enough,” I whispered.

“Good.” Then she patted the chair next to her. “Some people get second chances,” she
said. “I know you won’t waste it.”

I wasn’t so sure. My judgment had become seriously impaired since I’d graduated high
school.

She pushed a glass of thick red juice across the table. “Hangover cure.”

“What is it?” I asked.

“V8.” She held up a white bag. “And crackers.”

I swallowed the bile that was tickling the back of my throat. “I’m good, thanks.”

“Sit. Drink. Eat.
Now
.”

I groaned as I lowered myself into the chair next to her, then I held the glass up
and took a tentative sniff. “Blended brains?” I asked, with a grimace.

Marge glowered, so I plugged my nose and drank. She nodded and handed me two white
pills. “Excedrin,” she said.

I popped the pills and finished off the juice. She opened the crackers, and I put
up a hand to ward them off.

“You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she said.

I couldn’t imagine feeling any worse, like
ever
, but I took a cracker and nibbled on it.

“Josh?” I asked.

“He took really good care of you, Sky.”

So much of last night was a blur, but bits and pieces were coming back to me. The
fear in Josh’s eyes when he first saw me, the way he’d picked me up to put me in the
truck.

“Did he yell at a doctor?” I asked. I had flashes of the ER and Josh getting in someone’s
face.

Marge chuckled. “Yeah. They wanted us to wait for over an hour, and he pulled rank,
so to speak.” She looked over at me and patted my hand. “You don’t have to fight it,
you know.”

I finished the cracker and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. “Fight what?”

“It’s not every day you get to watch the two people you care most about in the world
fall in love.”

I moved my head—too quickly—to glare at her. The patio flipped upside down, and I
held my stomach, clenching my teeth as the V8 threatened to come back up.

“That’s not exactly what’s been happening,” I said.

“Sky. Give me a little credit. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m blind. That’s
exactly
what’s been happening.”

I looked at the freckles on the back of my hands, tried to find constellations in
them. “He really hurt me,” I said.

“I know.” She sighed. “After Josh finished getting your car out of that ditch—”

“Oh, God, the
car
.” I’d actually forgotten about it.

“—he told me what happened between the two of you. I’m really sorry about that, sweet
pea. You must be pretty cut up about that Swenson girl.”

Just hearing her name made me want to go on a rampage. Real violence, maybe with machetes.

I grabbed another cracker and focused on scratching the salt crystals off it while
Marge looked at me in a shrinkish kind of way.

“You up for a little walk in the orchard?”

I was up for lying down and dying, but I followed her through the back gate and into
the orchard behind the Paradise. Marge hooked her arm through mine, and we stepped
over weeds and tree roots until we got to the neatly raked paths between the trees.
The shade protected us from the heat, and for a while we just walked under the small
green apples that clung to the branches above us. The sun felt good, for once, and
a hot breeze whipped around our ankles and tossed our hair. The Excedrin was kicking
in, and I started to feel a little more human.

I tilted my head back and looked at the dusty green leaves dangling above me. I felt
like I was in another world, a planet of trees. I drew closer to her as we walked
and laid my head on her thick shoulder. Marge rested a hand against my hair for a
moment. We kept walking to the sound of her labored breath and hundreds of trees shaking
in the wind—all of them whispering, pleading, crying.

“Josh said he told you about my son.”

“Yeah.” I looked up at her, frowning. “I hope that was okay.”

She smiled her sad smile. “Of course, sweet pea. I could only tell the story once,
and Josh was the one who needed to hear it. But I’m glad you know.”

Marge sighed, and the sound was so lonesome.

“When he came home, Kyle wasn’t himself,” she said. “I’m guessing Josh isn’t always
himself, either.”

“I don’t even know who Josh
is
,” I said.

There were three Joshes: the asshole from high school, the gentle, generous guy who
wanted to protect me, and the soldier who would forget where he was, staring off into
space, lost in a country thousands of miles away. I still had no idea which was the
real Josh—or was he all three?

“He doesn’t know either.” She stopped and faced me. “Have you ever thought that maybe
you’re helping him figure that out?”

I shook my head. “No. And I don’t want to. I can’t…” My eyes filled, and I turned
away.

“You’re so young,” Marge said. “Both of you. But you have old hearts.”

I think I knew what she meant. Still. He’d broken mine.

“Marge, there’s no way I could ever trust him. And I don’t think he even wants to
be with me. He’s … lonely. Bored, maybe.”

But the words sounded hollow, rote. It didn’t make sense, how Josh ran from me. What
he did with Jenna. But neither did all the good stuff—the way he’d stood up to Billy,
how he taught me chess and bought me food because he knew I was hungry.

Marge reached up to run her fingers over one of the apples. “When Kyle left Iraq,
it was almost like … almost like he was battling with something all the time. Sometimes
it won, and sometimes he won. What Josh did to you: well, I think he’ll have to explain
it himself. But you should give him a chance to do that. I’m not making excuses for
him. I just thought you should know what he’s up against—and what you’re up against.”

“Me?”

“Even just being friends is going to be a burden sometimes, hon. But he could sure
use a good friend like you right now. As for more than that … you’ll have to go with
your gut. It’s not going to be easy.”

I looked at the dead grass around our feet, at the haze that made the sky look sleepy.
“I’m leaving soon,” I said.

“Yes, you are.” She leaned against a tree, giving me one of her soul-searching looks.
“But it’s not one or the other, sweet pea.”

I threw my hands up. “I don’t know what to do. About this or about anything. Marge,
I don’t know what to do
.”

She put her arm around my shoulder and held me close. Her familiar rosewater scent
was comforting, and I breathed it in. “You’ll do whatever the right thing is. Except
for last night, you always have.”

But that was the problem: I didn’t know what the right thing was anymore.

JOSH

Every time I close my eyes I see you. The way the ground flies up and how you’re in
the air, like a giant threw you, with your back against the clouds. That face. Every
time I close my eyes I see your face looking down at me. Just for a second. All surprised
like someone’s playing a fuckin’ joke on you. And I feel and I don’t feel—everything—all
at once and then it’s just blood and dirt and people shouting and that kid still holding
the soccer ball Marlon gave him and I wonder if he thinks we’re gonna take it away
now that it isn’t a good day anymore. Gomez running around saying
fuckfuckfuck
and me shouting,
Where is he? Where’s Nick? Nick! Nick!
And nobody says anything and all I can see is the medic’s face and the sky so blue
God it’s not blue like that at home and the poppies everywhere red red blood and poppies.
The reporter’s saying,
IED, IED
. No shit it’s an IED. Then Gray’s above me saying,
Stay with me, Josh. C’mon, soldier, wake the fuck up. Tourniquet,
he yells.
I need a fucking tourniquet
, and then he slaps my cheek.
Stay with me, dammit!
Me screaming,
Nick—my leg—Nick—my leg
, and then the drill sergeant’s voice in my head, shouting all the damn time, us running
for miles and miles at Camp Pendleton singing,
I don’t want no teenage queen / I just want my M14 / If I die in the combat zone /
Box me up and ship me home / Pin my medals upon my chest / Tell my mom I’ve done my
best
, and I hold my rifle close to me and I’m not letting it go until someone pries it
out of my dead hands and then the helicopter, looking like an alien insect dancing
in the sky, and dust everywhere and the Navy corpsman’s saying,
We’re getting you out
, and someone crying because it’s true Marines do cry and then they put me on the
stretcher and I can’t feel my leg my leg what’s wrong with my leg and before I pass
out I say,
Morphine give me morphine
.

Doesn’t that come from poppies?

chapter thirty

It was late afternoon by the time I decided to look for Josh. I borrowed Marge’s car,
but since my phone was buried in the ditch, I couldn’t call him once I’d started driving.
So I went by his house, then Market, and finally down to the creek. No Josh. Panic
started to settle in by the time the sun turned orange. I couldn’t remember what I’d
said to him last night, but I knew none of it was good. And I kept thinking of Marge’s
son. What if Josh wasn’t through the worst part and I’d pushed him over the edge?
When was the moment when her son couldn’t handle it anymore—what had set him off?

The ironic thing was, I’d kept pushing Josh away in the beginning of the summer because
I didn’t want this feeling I was having now, this horror that I might lose someone
else I loved. There was nothing worse than that: a hurt so bad it feels like someone
is ripping off hunks of your soul like it’s a loaf of bread.

I pulled into the turnoff for the creek and slowed down at the ditch. The only evidence
of my accident was a deep gash in the field my car had crashed into. I touched the
tips of my fingers to my forehead—it felt like a golf ball had been surgically inserted
under my skin. It must have been a bitch to get my car out of there in the middle
of the night. I figured Josh had earned a little bit of the forgiveness I was willing
to give him: not just for getting the car, but for how he’d taken care of me. It was
hard to admit, but I didn’t know what I would have done without Josh last night.

Now I just needed to find him. I idled near the ditch, trying to think of places he
might be. My head was pounding: from the hangover, from the fear that I was too late
to tell Josh … something. I still wasn’t sure what I wanted to say. I just knew I
needed to find him. Now.

On a whim, I drove toward the field used for fireworks on the Fourth. My hunch paid
off—Josh’s truck was parked close to the little path that led to the train tracks.
The train tracks.
I could see the look on his face as he watched that train go by, and suddenly I had
to get to him, as fast as possible.

Give me a little credit, Sky. I’m not gonna try to do it in the dark.

As if on cue, I heard a train whistle, not too far off. I jumped out of the car and
flew through the brush, tripping over roots and slapping away the dry branches that
smacked my face. I could hear the train now, chugging along, coming closer. Faster
than me.

A train horn blasted the air, and I hurtled forward, screaming Josh’s name at the
top of my lungs. If he tried to jump, there was no way he would make it. If his prosthesis
got caught under him …