Contents 16 страница

A nurse comes in, a stout, middle-aged black woman with gray streaks in her curly dark hair. Her tag announces her name to be Shawna. “All right, ya’ll. My patient needs to sleep. I’ve let you disturb him long enough. Now shoo. Let the boy rest. ” She’s friendly and polite, but firm, hustling everyone out. Except Kylie, who remains where she is, nestled against me.

I say goodbye to everyone, hugging Mom, and then they’re gone, trooping out silently.

Shawna shuts the door and then stops in the middle of the room, staring at Kylie and me. “A’ight, honey. If you promise me you’ll let Benjamin sleep, I’ll let you stay here for a few minutes. ”

“Oz. My name is Oz. ” I mumble it, more out of habit.

“I promise, ” Kylie says to Shawna, then turns to me. “So you’re still going by Oz? ”

I shrug, a weak lift of one shoulder. “It’s who I am. It’s the name I chose for myself a long, long time ago. I’m not Ben, or Benjamin. I’m Oz. ”

Shawna is checking leads, the monitor, fiddling with various things. “You need something for the pain, sweetie? ”

So much has been raging in my head and my heart that I’ve almost forgotten about the pain. “Yeah. It’s starting to catch up to me. ” It’s not a lie. Aches ripple through me. My head pounds, and a thousand pinpricks hit my arm and leg.

She bustles out of the room, and as soon as she’s gone, Kylie lifts up, cradles my face in her soft, trembling hands, and kisses me, hard and deep and desperate. She kisses me with the frantic need of someone who thought she’d lost her one true love. I kiss her back, holding on to the back of her shirt with my good hand.

“God, Oz. I thought I’d lost you. Again. It hurt so bad. I was so afraid. I couldn’t live if I lost you. I can’t lose you again. Please, Oz. Promise me, promise me you’ll never leave me. Thinking you were dead, not knowing if you’d be okay, if you’d wake up, it was just…hell. It was hell. I love you, so, so, so much. Don’t ever leave me. Promise me, Oz. Promise me. ”

I wrap my arm around her neck and hold her face against mine. We’re both trembling, shaking, and she’s crying, and yet a-fucking-gain I’m trying not to. “I promise you, baby. I promise. I’m yours, Kylie. I’m not going anywhere. Ssshh. I’m okay. I’m okay. ” Rhythmic reassurances flow from me, nonsensical and repetitive, and she eventually stills, breathes in.

“How did I fall in love with you so hard and so fast? ” Kylie pulls away to look into my eyes. “It’s crazy. I don’t get it sometimes. I don’t know how it happened. It’s not just the sex, it’s…you. ”

I can only shake my head. “I don’t know, Ky. I wonder the same thing. ” I sink farther back into the pillows and let my eyes slide shut. “I remember everything. I remember knowing I was dying. And my last thought was you. That I loved you. That I didn’t want you to be sad for me. I remember how cold I felt. Seeing a…a light. And not wanting to go to it. I don’t fucking know. Maybe I was…imagining it, but that’s what I remember. Seeing a light and knowing it meant death. Dying. Giving up. Leaving you. And I couldn’t. I wanted to hold on, to come back. I fought it, Kylie. I fought so hard, but I…I couldn’t fight it. It pulled me under. Waking up was a surprise. ”

“Thank you. ”

I have to think about that one. “For what? ”

“For fighting. For coming back to me. ”

I can’t summon the energy to respond. I just try to squeeze her, so she knows I heard her. The door opens, and I hear soft footfalls nearing me. I force my eyes open, let Shawna help me take the pills, and then I fall under the spell of sleep, holding tight to Kylie.

A week in the hospital. Tests, scans, more tests, more scans. All making sure the blunt force trauma to my skull didn’t scramble my brains. It didn’t, it seems. Finally I can go home. Mom drives me, with Kylie sitting in the back seat of the pickup. She spent nearly every waking moment with me, as much time as she could. She’d come after school, before school, during lunch hour. She’d skip classes. Talk her way back to see me after hours. Slip into my bed with me, lie there with me and talk to me, hold me, kiss me when no one was looking.

Going home means a wheelchair, since I’m now a fucking invalid. Thank fuck the elevator in our apartment got fixed. The cast on my leg goes from above my hip to my toes, keeping me totally immobilized from the waist down. With my re-broken arm, I can’t use a crutch, and probably couldn’t with the size of my cast anyway. So I’ve got be pushed around everywhere. Helped from bed to chair and back. I’ll need help to go to the bathroom. To take a shower. Everything.

It sucks.

But as the days pass, Kylie stays with me, basically living with me now. She’s made arrangements to do most of her schoolwork here, so she almost never leaves my side. I make her go out every once in a while. I make her go see her friends. But she does everything for me. It was insanely awkward at first, but eventually Kylie and I both have become used to her being my nurse.

One of the most annoying things about the whole accident and surgery was that they had to shave the back of my head, just above the hairline. I still have my hair, but it looks weird if I keep it tied up, so it’s down all the time and gets in my eyes. Kylie showed me how to just tie back the front so it doesn’t get in my eyes, but then I look like some stupid elf or something. Whatever. Nothing to be done about it yet.

Ben came over once, on a Saturday afternoon, a few weeks after I got home from the hospital. It was supremely awkward, incredibly tense. Neither of us knew what to say, and being family doesn’t erase the conflict between us.

I’ve got family. An aunt and uncle. A cousin. A cousin with the same name as me is weird. I mean, I don’t go by my first name, but it’s still weird. Having family is weird. I don’t know what to do with it. Am I supposed to just forget the way Ben acted, simply because he’s my cousin? What is a cousin, really, anyway? I mean, are we supposed to be friends now? Is it like having an almost-brother? I don’t know. Seems silly if you’re not me, but I just don’t know what to do with family. I’ve never had any. But when Ben came over we just sat, talked. Listened to music. Turns out Ben likes similar music to me—hard rock and heavy metal—so we have something to talk about at least.

His eyes still watch Kylie a little too closely, a little too sharply. Follows her every movement. Checks her out. I mean, she’s gorgeous, so what guy wouldn’t check her out? But I don’t know how to deal with it. It makes me crazy. She’s mine. But can I stop him from looking, from watching? I know he still wants her. He’s still in love with her. You don’t just get over something like that all of a sudden. So what do I do? Let it go and hope he moves on eventually? I don’t know. I don’t have any answers, and I’m hesitant to bring it up to Kylie. He’s her best friend still. They’ve known each other their entire lives. I feel like maybe I need to leave it up to her. Let him look if he wants. Let him hold onto his feelings for her in secret if he wants. She’s with me, and that’s not changing.

I’m not sure what the future holds. Being injured, for both of us, has put an indefinite hold on our musical ambitions, which Andersen says he understands, and the offer will be there when we’re ready. Does that mean I’m staying here in Nashville? Possibly. I mean, for once, I have a reason to stay. A family to hold me in one place. Mom and Becca have been spending time together, which is good. She comes home with red eyes, as if she’s been crying, but for the first time she’s open to my questions, and I have a lot of them. She’s talking to Becca about my father, I think. Remembering who he was, and she tells me stories. Good ones, and bad ones, too. She tells me about his mood swings, his cycles. How he’d get depressed more easily and for longer in the fall and winter, and be more manic in the summer and spring. He’d have mini-cycles, swings within swings. Manic days during winter depressions and vice-versa. She tells me how sweet he could be, how talented he could be, if he wanted. I get my music from him, apparently, which is something not even Aunt Becca knew. My dad—I still have a hard time deciding how to think about him: Dad? My father? Ben? I don’t even know—but I always harbored a desire to be a musician. He taught himself guitar, wrote songs. Never went anywhere with it, never believed in himself enough to try. My capacity for math is from Mom. She’d thought about going to college for physics, but life got in the way. She never went, never had the money, and then she met my dad and had me, and it never happened.

We got a bill in the mail for my two hospital stays. Mom’s never put us on Medicaid, never had health insurance. Mom sat at the kitchen table, hand over her mouth, staring at the paper. I tried talking to her, but she ignored me, just stared at that astronomical six-digit number, shaking.

And then, a week later, I find her with her cell phone in her hand, sobbing, sitting on the kitchen floor.

“Mom? What’s wrong? ” I hobble over to her, dragging my now significantly smaller walking cast along behind me.

She lets me help her up, sets her phone on the counter. Kylie is gone for the moment, handing in our assignments to the school. Mom sucks in a deep breath. “The hospital bill. It’s paid. Someone paid it. All of it. ”

I felt the world spinning around me. “What? Who? ”

Mom shook her head. “They wouldn’t tell me. But…who else could’ve, or would’ve, but Jason and Becca? ”

I wobble in a circle, move toward the door. “Come on. We’ve gotta go talk to them. ”

Mom drives us to the Dorseys’ house, and I send Kylie a text to meet us there. Becca is on her front porch, sipping iced tea, waiting for us, Kylie sitting next to her, laughing and holding a sweating glass of tea. I make my way slowly up the driveway and up the two shallow steps to the porch, lean back against the wall beside Kylie. Mom stands on the sidewalk at the bottom of the steps, staring up at Becca with emotions shining in her eyes.

No one speaks for a long time.

“Let’s get one thing straight, ” Becca says. “There will be no talk of not accepting charity, or paying us back. You are family. Oz is my nephew, the only one I’ll ever have. So just say ‘thank you’ and be done. ”

Mom sniffs, wipes at her eyes, head bowed. “‘Thank you’ can’t even begin to express it, Becca. Not even close. ”

“Kate. You’re family. There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you. ” Becca descends the steps, takes Mom by the shoulders, looks up into her eyes. “You should never have run, Kate. I could’ve…we could’ve been like sisters, all this time. I would’ve helped you with Oz. ”

“I was so scared. Of everything. I didn’t know what to do. I’ve never had family. I ran away from home at fourteen. ” Mom turns away, arms folded across her middle, staring into the blue afternoon sky, her voice distant. “My parents were…well…not parents. I don’t think there’s a living person on this earth who knows any of this. They beat me. My father…did things. Bad things. To me. To my sister. I ran away on my fourteenth birthday. I stole a hundred and fifty dollars from the coffee can on top of the fridge and took the first bus out of there. Ended up in a homeless shelter in Kansas City. I got a job in a Chinese food restaurant, washing dishes. Soap, water, a sponge, and a sink. They let me sleep in the kitchen at night. I used the sink to take sponge baths. I saved my money for two months, and then I took a bus out of Kansas City. I—I never stayed anywhere for more than a couple months after that. At least not until I met Ben. I was always afraid my father would catch me. He was an evil man. I know he looked for me. He told me once, when I was twelve, that if I ever told anyone what he did to me and Kaylee he’d hurt us. He said we’d never get away from him. Kaylee was four years older than me. She ran away when I was eleven. ”

Shock, surprise…there are no accurate words for how blown away I am by Mom’s revelations. I didn’t know this. I had no idea. Not a single clue. “What—what happened to your sister? ”

Mom shrugs. “I don’t know. She’s probably out there somewhere, if she’s still alive. Teenage runaways…well, they don’t often make it. They end up on drugs, prostitution. Sex slaves. I saw it happen. It almost happened to me. I got…taken, once. In Fisk, Missouri. Just snatched off the street in broad daylight. I waited until they were getting me out of the van, pretended to be unconscious. Then I started kicking, biting, punching. Managed to get away, hid in a dumpster until the next morning. So…Kaylee? I don’t know. I always thought about trying to look for her, but…” Mom shrugs. “I never did. Never could. I’ve Googled her name a few times, but nothing ever came up. ” She turns to glance at me. “That’s why we moved so much, Oz. It’s what I knew. I lived in Michigan longer than I ever lived anywhere, and that was because of Ben. I thought I’d found a home, a family. Someone to love me. Someone to care. Four years. That’s the longest I’ve ever stayed in any one place in my life, that and Dallas. It’s just habit now. No reason to stay, so why bother? ”

“Holy shit, Mom. ”

She twists her torso around to smile at me. “It’s old news, honey. I’m just sorry you had to be born to someone like me. You deserved a better life, and I just couldn’t give it to you. ” She shifts her gaze to Becca. “I didn’t know how to trust you. I wanted to, but…I’ve never trusted anyone. I never even told Ben about how I grew up. ”

“Well, maybe it’s time to try, ” Becca says. “Stay here in Nashville. Put down some roots. ”

Mom laughs, a slightly bitter sound. “People always say that. ‘Put down roots. ’ I don’t even know what that’s supposed to mean. ”

Becca moves to stand beside Mom. “It means…let us be your family. Come over for lunch. Have drinks with me. Don’t run off. Just…stay here. ”

Mom doesn’t answer for a long, long time. When she does, her voice is hesitant. “Family. You really want to be my family? ”

Becca laughs, pulls Mom in for a hug. “We already are, Kate. ”

“Oh. ” Mom glances up at me. “Oz? ”

I lean toward Kylie, who wraps her arm around my waist. “I’m not going anywhere. I’ve got at least one reason to stay here. ”

Becca turns to me, frowning. “Only one? ”

“At least one, I said. And…I like the idea of family, too, honestly. ”

Six weeks later, and I’m out of my casts, back to normal. And I’m nervous as hell. I’m sitting in a barber’s chair, an apron around my shoulders. A pretty, friendly woman has her fingers in my hair, waiting for me to give her the signal to start. I stare at my reflection in the mirror, staring at my long auburn hair. It hasn’t been cut since before junior high. I let Mom trim the ends once, two years ago.

Kylie doesn’t know I’m doing this. She thinks I’m looking at effects pedals. Which, I did. I even bought a new one. I’ve got a new job, working for Andersen Mayer at his office. I’m his assistant’s assistant. I also work at the garage, with Colt’s friend. It’s a good job, pays well, and I’m learning some useful skills. It’s good to be busy, to be done with college. I know an associate’s degree doesn’t do shit, but it’s a degree I earned, on my own. I might go for my bachelor’s, might not. Kylie graduated high school with crazy honors, obviously, and is thinking about where she wants to go after she finishes her degree at NSCC.

Kylie and I are still planning on pursuing music, but we feel like we shouldn’t rush it. Let it happen in its own time. In the meantime, I’m working a lot, playing guitar and learning new songs, even messing around with writing my own. I haven’t burned in months, and I haven’t smoked pot since before the accident. I don’t even have any. Kylie watched me throw it away, watched me give my pipe and papers to Dion.

“You have beautiful hair, Oz, ” the stylist says to me. “Maybe you’d think about donating it? ”

“Donating it? ” I ask.

“Yeah. Locks of Love is a charity that takes hair like yours after it’s cut and turns it into a wig. ”

I shrug. “Sure. Sounds good. ”

She smiles. “Cool. ” Her fingers run through my hair once more. “So. Ready? ”

I take a deep breath and let it out. “Yeah. Let her rip. ”

I watch as the scissors snip through my hair, watch as a huge hank of hair flutters to the floor. Holy shit. My head feels so light all of a sudden. She’s not done, though. She cuts and cuts and cuts, until I’m sure I must be bald. I’ve got my eyes closed, refusing to look until it’s over.

Finally, after trimming the hairline at my neck and above my ears with a pair of clippers, she steps back, blows my skin clean with a hair dryer. Styles it with some kind of paste. Fiddles, blow-dries, twists, plays. Finally she unsnaps the sheet and turns me around.

“So what do you think, Oz? ” Even she sounds nervous.

I open my eyes, and I’m honestly stunned. It’s short. Like, there’s nothing at all on the sides, buzzed close to the scalp. There’s a messy ruff on the top of my head, artfully mussed, dark, spiky. Holy shit, I fucking love it. I run my hands past my ears, down the back of my neck, up the back of my head, feeling the soft bristles under my palm.

“It feels like my head is ten pounds lighter. ” I turn my head from one side to another, pluck at a strand of hair, play with it. “It’s amazing. I feel like a different person. ”

“You had a lot of hair. ” She sounds almost wistful. “You had a gorgeous head of hair. I mean, it was thick and you had, like, no split ends or anything. But you look amazing, I have to say. You do look totally different. ” She tilts her head, touches my shoulder. “Now you just need a less…icky shirt. ”

I’ve got a metal shirt on, of course. I don’t think I own anything else. This one has a spray of blood that turns into a flock of birds, and the name of the band written in barbed wire–style font. It’s pretty graphic, I guess.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right. If I’m gonna look clean-cut, I might as well go all the way, huh? ”

“Exactly. There’s a resale store a few doors down that has some nice stuff. You should take a look. ” She leads me up to the counter and cashes me out.

I thank her, leave her a tip, and step out into the late spring warmth. I check out the resale shop and find a short-sleeve button shirt, plaid and preppy and ugly as fuck, but it fits and doesn’t look half bad on me. Especially after I find a pair of faded, well-worn blue jeans, just tight enough. Add a plain tan leather belt, and a pair of Doc Martens, and I look like someone totally other than the metalhead punk who left my apartment this morning. I toss my old clothes onto the passenger seat of my truck and let the engine idle as I send Kylie a text.

Yeah, my bike was pretty much totaled, so I used the insurance money to buy an old black F-150. Colt helped me fix it up, replacing and souping up the engine, beefing up the exhaust, switching out the tranny. The truck is almost as old as I am, but it’s smooth and powerful and rumbles like a beast.

Meet me at the park, I text Kylie. I have a surprise for you.

       I head out, and a few minutes later, my phone chimes. I wait till I’m at a red light and then read the message. Sure thing. C U then.

       It drives me nuts when Kylie uses text-speak, so of course she does it just to fuck with me.

       I find a spot for my truck in the parking lot and shuffle out across the overgrown soccer field, an old quilt under one arm. We found this park a few weeks ago. It’s hidden at the back of a subdivision. There’s a few swings, an old merry-go-round, some benches and a play structure and some splintery picnic tables gouged with initials and swear words. No one ever comes here, so we like to lie in the field and talk, write songs, kiss. A bit more than kiss, late at night, sometimes.

       I spread out the blanket and lie back on it, drowsing in the warm sunlight until I hear the quiet purr of Kylie’s car. I hear her door close, listen as her footsteps get closer. I tilt my head to one side, see her legs approaching. I stand up, face her.

       “Holy—holy shit, Oz! ” She covers her mouth with her hand, hiding a stunned grin. “You look—holy shit! Is that even you? ”

       I scrub my hand through my hair, still amazed at the way it feels. “You like it? ”

       She moves closer, brushes her palm over the close-cropped hair at the back of my head, giggling. “Like it? I love it. I mean, I loved the way you looked before, but this…you look so fucking hot I can’t stand it. ” She steps back and takes in my outfit. “Even your clothes? God, Oz, what got into you? ”

       I shrug. “I dunno. It just felt like it was time for a change. I got the haircut, and then figured I might as well do it right, you know? So here I am. I feel weird, though. I can’t get over the way my head feels. ”

       She laughs and runs her hand across my neck. “I bet. I got my hair cut really short once. It was in junior high, I think. I got, like, six inches cut off, and it felt like my head was going to float away. ”

       I nod. “That’s pretty much it. ”

       “You didn’t do this for me, did you? Like, you didn’t feel like I wanted you to—to change for me, did you? ”

       I frown. “No, not at all. It’s not about changing myself. I’m still me. I just don’t need the metal shirts and black jeans and long hair to be me. I’m me regardless of my appearance. ”

       “So wise, yet so young, ” Kylie teases.

       “Hey, kid, I’m older than you. ”

       “Not by much. ”

       “Still older. ”

       She smirks at me, then slips her hand up under the hem of my shirt, touches the skin on my back. “Why are we still standing up? ”

       We sink to the blanket together, and she leans back on her elbows. Her lips part in expectation, her eyes closing as I lean in for a kiss. She’s wearing a loose white button-down blouse and a pair of skin-tight blue jeans, and I rest my hand on her hip, touch her lips with mine, taste her vanilla lip balm, smell soap and lilac something and faint perfume. Her hand slides up my back, clutching the back of my head. The kiss deepens, and I can’t help but free the top button of her blouse, and then the second. In moments, both of our shirts are open, her hands roaming my side and my palms cupping her tits.

       We lose ourselves in the kiss, in the exchange of heat and passion, and though we won’t let it go any further than kissing, it’s intense and overwhelming.

       She pulls away, bites at my lower lip. “God, if we don’t stop now I’m going to jump you right here, in broad daylight. ”

       “That would be bad…. right? ”

       “Yeah. I mean, I do hear kids. ” She smiles at me. “Let’s go home. ”

       “Home? ” I ask. “Where’s home, for us? ”

       “For now? Wherever we can be alone. Wherever you are is home. ”

       FOURTEEN: Creekside Wisdom

       Colt



       I’m tinkering with the Triumph, putting the finishing touches on it. It just needs some fine-tuning on the brakes, some polish all over, and then she’s done. I’m already planning my next project. I want to try something a little different. I’ve got my eye on a 1935 Studebaker President Eight. It’s little more than the shell, but I know a guy who can get me parts for Studebakers.

       I catch a glance of Ben across the street, hand-washing his truck. He’s scrubbing hard with the round yellow sponge, a little too hard, I think. He’s turning his head every once in a while and glaring in this direction, and the pain and anger in his eyes is rife and hot. I realize Oz and Kylie are sitting on our porch, watching Netflix.

       Man, Ben’s got it bad. I thought maybe after the accident he’d back off a bit, but it doesn’t seem as if he has. Months have passed, and he’s still pining away. Still hoping, maybe, watching and waiting. I sigh, and sit back on my heels. This has got to end. I know Jason’s talked to him about it, but what kid Ben’s age ever wants to hear what his dad has to say? Especially about matters of the heart.

       As I watch, Ben throws the sponge down onto the ground, splattering soapy water everywhere. I can almost hear him cursing as he grabs the hose and sprays his truck. I put my tools back in the box and make my way over to Ben. I glance back, and I see that Oz and Kylie are doing that almost-kissing-while-they-whisper thing, prompting Ben’s tantrum.

       I stop at the bottom step of the porch. “Hey, you two. I got no problem with any of this, ” I say, gesturing at them. “And I know you can’t tiptoe around Ben’s feelings all the time, but don’t be cruel about it, huh? Just…at least try to be a little considerate. ”

       Kylie sighs. “Ugh. You’re right. I hate it, but you’re right. I just…I hate this whole situation with him, Daddy. I don’t know what to do. It’s like he’s not even trying to move on. ” She stares across the street, meeting Ben’s gaze. “I’ll go talk to him. ”

       “What are you gonna say? ” Oz asks.

       Kylie shrugs as she stands up. “I don’t know. Something. Anything. ”

       I wave her down. “I don’t think there’s anything you can say, Ky. I’ll talk to him. Might be nothing I say will make any difference either, but…it’s worth a shot. ”

       I duck inside the house, let Nell know where I’m going, grab my keys, and head across the street. Ben is drying his truck with a rag, and I wait until he’s done. He ignores me until he’s dried the last quarter-panel.

       “Yeah? ” He tosses the rag into the now-empty bucket, along with the sponge, and then sets the bucket in the garage.

       “Come on, ” I say. “You and me gotta talk, kid. ” I head back across the street, not waiting to see if he’s following. He will, if he knows what’s good for him.

       I climb into the driver’s side of my truck, close the door, start the engine, and wait. After a minute, Ben slides in, closing the door with a slam. I back out, and it doesn’t escape my notice that he stares at Kylie and Oz as long as he can, until they’re out of sight, at which point he continues to stare out the window, chin in his hand, brows furrowed, visibly brooding. The radio stays off, and I’m silent. I pull into the parking lot of a convenience store.

       “Sit tight, ” I say, and head inside.

       I buy a six-pack, and hit the road again. I head out of the suburbs, into the countryside. Find a back road and burn up the dirt. Follow the twists and turns until we come to one of my favorite spots. It’s little more than a grassy knoll overlooking a creek, but it’s secluded and beautiful and quiet. There’s a fallen tree by the bank of the creek, perfect for sitting on and watching the water flow. I grab the six-pack from the back seat, step out of the truck, and make my way to the tree.