Reclaimed (27 page)

“I can’t do this by myself!” she shouted. She was sitting in the living room, lights off, blinds closed. Her back was to me, her shoulders bowed and trembling. Sobbing now.

“Mom?” I said, slipping into the living room.

She jumped like she’d been shot. “Ian!” She wiped at her face and tried to smile. “I didn’t hear you come in.” She listened to the phone. “He just got home. Fine,” she said, “but be careful.” She handed the phone to me. “It’s your father.”

“Hello?”

“Ian.” Dad’s voice was clipped and sure.

“Sir?”

“I have good news,” he said. “I convinced the board to let you play ball next year.”

“That’s great,” I answered, trying to sound more enthusiastic than I felt. I should have been happier. Everything was falling into place.

“I’ve already talked to Coach Hall about sending those tapes from your sophomore year. I don’t know if that coach there knows what he’s doing. He’s probably never coached someone with your ability before.” I could hear the pride in Dad’s voice. The pain in my head dulled.

“But,” Dad warned, “none of this matters if you can’t get your act together.”

“Sir?” I’d been the only one keeping my act together. I was the one making sure things didn’t fall apart completely.

“Ian, we need to get some things straight.” There was danger in his voice, a combination of sorrow and threat. “Your mom and that doctor don’t think we should tell you. They believe this whole split-personality bullshit. But you and I know better.”

I had no idea what he was talking about or where he was going with this.

“I’ve let them have their way,” Dad continued, “and their way hasn’t worked. So I’m going to do this my way, because I’m your father and you need to deal with this like a man. Ian, Luke is dead.”

I inhaled and exhaled as if nothing had happened, as if the world was still on its axis and the sun was still going to come up tomorrow. But it wasn’t going to be easy to get a grip on the fact that my dad had completely lost his mind.

“I know you remember,” Dad was saying. “You went to the funeral. You said goodbye. He was drunk. He was driving too fast and he wrecked. He and Mandy died, but you didn’t.” Dad sounded angry. “You didn’t die! Quit living in your fantasy world. Stop pretending to be Luke. Let him go and move on with your life before you destroy everything your mother and I worked so hard to give you.”

The room tilted, and I smelled dirt, grass, gasoline—and blood. Headlights on a broken tree. Fence rails scattered like leaves.

“Ian, do you understand me? Just stop it.”

Stop it. Stop it. I could stop it. I could get everything to lie flat. I wanted Mom to be happy and Dad to be proud. All I needed to do was get rid of Luke.

“Yes, sir.” I didn’t recognize my own voice. Mom reached over and took the phone out of my hand.

“What did you say to him?” She listened. “You bastard,” she whispered. She threw the phone on the couch.

I wandered into the hall. There were roses scattered all over the kitchen table. Their red petals were wilting, and several had fallen off, pooling on the floor like blood.

“Ian?” Mom’s voice was careful. “Honey, are you okay?”

I rubbed a petal between my thumb and finger. It was velvet. “Jenna was here,” I said.

“Yes.”

“To see Luke?” I asked. A fist gripped my heart.

“She wanted to see you,” Mom said.

“Not Luke? She’s in love with him. Not me.” I stared at the roses. She’d let them die. I scooped them up, ignoring the sharp thorns, and dumped them in the trash. “Luke killed Mandy.”

“It was an accident,” Mom said.

“Now you’re sticking up for him?” I shouted.

Her eyes were feral. “He’s dead, Ian. Dead!”

But I knew better than that.

I didn’t feel dead. Not anymore. Jenna had seen to that. There had been a few months where I was pretty sure I was. I’d stayed in my room and not talked to anyone and tried to keep out of Dad’s way. But a person can only stay locked away for so long. I wanted out. I wanted to build. I wanted to breathe.

Dad had come home in a horrible mood the night we left. FUBAR—that was the word. Ian was in his room and Mom was cooking dinner while Dad stewed in the den. I went to the garage and started working on a shelf for Mom’s cookbooks.

I’d been working for about a half hour when I felt someone watching me. I’d turned and saw Dad standing in the doorway, his shoulders slumped. I think that was what had surprised me the most. I’d never seen Dad not at attention. But then I’d looked up at his face, and there was so much grief.

“You shouldn’t be out here, Ian,” he’d said.

I corrected him. I usually just pretended and went along with whoever they thought I was, but I corrected him and told him I was Luke. He’d jumped down the steps and grabbed me by my shirt.

“Stop it,” he’d shouted. He shook me until I thought my teeth were going to fall out of my head.

Glass shattered in the kitchen, and then Mom was in the doorway, her face pale.

“Scott, leave him alone,” Mom said.

“Back off, Ruth. I will not have my son fall apart. You’re making it worse, encouraging him, taking him to that quack doctor. Luke is beyond our help now,” he said, “but Ian isn’t.”

I didn’t know why I snapped. Dad loosened his hold on my shirt and I hit him in the face. His head snapped back, and Mom screamed. And then I was on the floor, blood pouring out of my nose.

Mom was shouting at Dad, calling him a bastard and crying and Dad was in her face, and then we were packing and gone. Just like that. Funny how it only took minutes to destroy something. Mandy had died instantly. My family dissolved in fewer than five minutes. All because of me.

The fight had been three months ago, but I hadn’t spoken to Dad since.

Ian was standing outside my bedroom door when I opened it. I didn’t know how long he’d been there.

“Dad says you’re a figment of my imagination,” Ian told me.

I stood just inside my room and glared at him. “Wouldn’t that be convenient?”

Then Ian grinned. “Mom told Jenna.”

My lungs tightened. “Mom told Jenna what?”

“Everything,” he said.

The word was a fist in my gut, and it jarred me awake.
Everything
.

But Mom didn’t know everything. I was the only one who did.

Jenna was the one person I wanted to know the truth. If she believed I was dead, I would be. I might disappear completely. And while a year ago that had been my plan, I’d changed my mind. I’d dug my own grave, but now I was afraid to climb in. I wasn’t ready to go yet. I no longer wanted to die.

I headed to Jenna’s house on foot. It was a long walk, but I needed the time to think. It felt good to be awake and lucid and aware. It was agonizing to know and remember and feel. The smell of blood and gasoline was a pungent memory. I remembered the squeal of tires, the shattering of glass, the sickening crunch as the car wrapped around the tree. And Ian. Oh God, I remembered Ian.

Humans liked to avoid pain. If they could forget it, if they could push past the hurt, then maybe they could be whole again. But it never worked that way. No one could ever be whole again—with or without the pain—because it defined them. And even when the pain left, if it ever did, there was always a scar to remind them.

I had scars, and every single one of them had a hand in making me who I was. Every regret formed me. I’d believed that becoming someone else, forgetting what happened, would make everything okay. Would somehow erase that horrible mistake. Would free me. But I was so completely wrong. I ruined everything. And I lost my brother and myself in the process. I had to tell the truth, because in a few hours I might not even know what it was. I clung to my shred of knowing as if it were my very last possession. And maybe it was. I had to tell the truth now—I wasn’t guaranteed a later.

Jenna was sitting on the porch swing in her backyard, a moving shadow in the dusk. I wanted to cross the space between us, but I no longer had that right.

Being away from her hadn’t helped at all. I wanted to wrap my arms around her and bury my face in her hair, but I couldn’t. I didn’t deserve to. I should have stayed away from her to begin with. I knew I was going to hurt her—and me. The truth made me ache. I was never going to be able to be with her. Ever. Because of what I was. Because of what I wasn’t.

I’d fallen in love with Jenna. I was going to tell her everything I knew while I was still me. And lose her completely in the process.

She saw me as soon as I stepped out of the trees. The swing stopped moving. The world itself seemed to stand still. I hated to ruin it. But that was who I was.

“Hey.” I stepped closer to the swing and she tensed. “It’s okay,” I said. “I just want to talk.” The sadness in her eyes made me want to go to her. But the fear in her face kept me away. “I need to tell you the truth.”

She looked away. “I know it already.”

“No, you don’t.”

I couldn’t stand the heaviness in her voice. “Your mom told me everything.”

“My mom doesn’t know the truth.” I was the only one who really knew what had happened that night, and even I didn’t remember it very often.

“Why should I believe anything you say?” Jenna asked. “You’ve done nothing but lie.”

“I’ve never lied to you,” I said. I hadn’t.

She clenched her jaw. She didn’t believe me. She thought I had control over this.

“Just listen. That’s all I ask.”

She looked like she wanted to get up and go inside, but she didn’t.

I took a deep breath and sat down on the top step. I’d never told anyone this story. I’d been keeping it from myself for a year.

“Everything I’ve ever told you is true,” I began. “Ian and I were best friends. We did everything together. But once we got to high school, things changed. I didn’t want to be like him anymore. I was tired of trying to please my dad. Nothing worked anyway. So while Ian was making straight As and helping the football team to a championship, I was getting arrested for underage drinking and breaking and entering. I don’t know what was wrong with me or what I was trying to prove. I hated it—and myself. But I couldn’t stop.

“Maybe I resented Ian. I don’t know. But one night I talked him into going to a party with me. He brought his girlfriend. I drove my truck, although Ian took my keys. He knew I would get drunk, and I did. It wasn’t new. I spent a lot of time drunk.”

I remembered everything about that party. It was in Lee Davis’s backyard. His parents were out of town and half the school showed up. It was mostly upperclassmen, but Ian and I were popular enough to hang out with the older guys. There had been so much booze. Ian’s girlfriend, Mandy, had gotten really drunk, too.

I didn’t want to tell Jenna the rest. I remembered the lights and the keg. The lack of responsibility I felt once I was on my seventh or eighth beer. I’d been looking for Ian and found Mandy instead. She and Ian were fighting. “I kissed Mandy,” I admitted. “Mainly because I was so pissed at him and just wanted to see what perfect Ian would do.”

Saying it out loud made it sound even worse. I’d destroyed so many people over absolutely nothing. Jenna hadn’t moved, and I didn’t want to look at her. I didn’t think I could stand to see the disappointment that must have been there. I should have been used to it. Except Jenna was the one person I didn’t want to disappoint.

“Ian saw us kissing. He told me he’d trusted me. I told him he shouldn’t have. Ian got really drunk after that, and when it was time to go, he wouldn’t give me the keys. I was furious—I hit him. His lip was busted and he just sat on the ground, blinking up at me, accusing me. I took my keys and ordered them both in the truck. Mandy sat in the back and cried, but Ian didn’t say a word. I tried to apologize, but I couldn’t, because we were spinning. The next thing I knew, I was waking up with a pounding headache. I was covered in blood—and only some of it was mine.”

That smell. It had been so strong—blood, gasoline, burning rubber. The roof of the car had flattened, and we’d smashed into a huge tree two hundred yards off the road.

“I knew Ian was dead.” My voice cracked. It was hard to say those words out loud. I’d pretended it wasn’t true for so long that the lie became the truth and his death became the lie. “I knew he was dead because a piece of me was missing.”

Jenna was crying. I didn’t know if that meant she believed me or not. My throat was tight.

“I wanted to die. I screamed at God. I was furious that he’d taken my brother and not me. Ian deserved to live—I didn’t. It was all my fault. I’d screwed up my life. I was failing most of my classes and was pretty sure I wasn’t going to be able to get into college. I was on probation for the next six months. I was a screw-up. But Ian wasn’t. Ian was going to get a scholarship. Ian was going to be something. I wished I’d died instead.

“And then I realized I could. I could kill Luke. I could keep Ian alive. I could step right into his life and bury the bad twin. When the paramedics came, I told them I was Ian McAlister.”

Jenna interrupted, shaking her head. She didn’t believe me. “Your parents would have noticed the difference,” she argued. “Surely they can tell you two apart.”

My parents. “They believed what they wanted to. Luke’s death made sense. He’d been too much trouble, brought it on himself. And Ian was easier to love. It didn’t take much to convince them I was Ian.”

Her eyes hardened. “I was pretty easy to convince, too.”

She still didn’t get it. “No. Please. You don’t understand. At first, I was only pretending to be Ian. It was harder than I thought. I missed him so much. And the guilt—it felt like I was being ripped apart. And then he was there, and I forgot he was ever gone.”

She shook her head. Of course she didn’t believe me. It was impossible.

“Right now, I’m clear. I remember the party, the accident, the fact that Ian is,” I took a deep breath, “gone. But right now won’t last forever. Tomorrow, hell, an hour from now, Ian will show up and I’ll think he’s alive again.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense!” she snapped.

“I know. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m asleep and I’m awake. I don’t know how it feels to be Ian, because I’m not. I go into the bedroom in my head.”