Charm & Strange (11 page)

I’m
selfish.

“Can I ask you something, Win?” Lex whispers.

“Sure.”

“The night you told me about your family…”

“What about it?” I ask.

“You said it was your brother who explained it to you?”

“Yes.”

“Why him?”

“He was older than me. I think it was his, you know, job to teach me.”

“Why not your father?”

My back curls and the hairs on my forearms rise.

“It was my brother’s job,” I repeat.

“So you were close with your brother?”

“Of course.”

“But he never, you know?”

“No. He never changed. He was only fourteen. He didn’t get to.”

“Then how do you know what he was?”

My face turns hot, my stomach, violent, but I look right at him. “You really need to back off talking about my brother, Lex. I mean it. You of all people should know better.”

His eyes widen and his lips frown. The last time Lex and I talked about my brother was the night he almost died. He couldn’t handle it then and he shouldn’t bring it up now.

I continue to stare. I want power. I want the upper hand. I want to see the fear again on Lex’s face, like I did when I was on top of him in the biology lab. But I don’t. I see pity. I see sorrow.

“Win,” he says quietly and with more sincerity than I would ever have believed him capable of, “what if you don’t change tonight?”

There are wants and needs in this world, I think. There are hopes and guarantees. There are the things that are true and the things we need to believe in. And I’ve seen enough in my life to know I don’t believe in much. But I do not waver in the words I say to Lex:

“I will.”

chapter

twenty-two

antimatter

Mind followed body.

First my eyes opened.

Then the fear sluiced through me.

I did not know where I was.

The view from the window on the opposite wall pulled me from the unfamiliar bed where I lay. But I stood too quickly. My head became a buzzing cloud. I swayed, came close to falling, but the dizziness cleared. I walked across the room and gazed outside.

It came back to me in a tumbling rush. I was in New Hampshire, the White Mountains. That made sense. Everywhere, all I saw were trees and steep angles. A certain alpine grace. I reached out, unlatched the window, and let in the breeze. No mugginess. It felt good. I began to hum, an old jukebox song springing into my head without warning.

“Hey,” a voice said. “You’re up.”

I turned to see Phoebe. She leaned against the doorway, one matchstick leg hooked over the other like a 4. The end of a lollipop stick jutted from her mouth, and her lips were stained red.

“Hiya,” she said.

I ignored her and took my first look around the room. It had a nautical theme. There was white wicker furniture and a framed display of knots hanging on the bare wood walls. A blue rug in the shape of an anchor covered the middle of the floor. A second door stood to my right. I peeked. It was a bathroom.

“Excuse me,” I said to Phoebe. My bladder hurt. I ducked in, shut the door, and stood over the toilet for a really long time. After flushing, I went to the mirror.

Ugh. I looked terrible, with drooping bags beneath my eyes and cracked lips. I ran my fingers over the neck bandages. Those, along with my matted hair, pushed me into mental patient territory. I swallowed hard. Well, considering what I’d done, I guess that wasn’t so far from the truth. I’d totally lost it. The glass. The blood.

I walked out of the bathroom and crawled onto the bed. Maybe I could will my life away with sleep. Wake up a different person. This was one of my common wishes, along with discovering the power of invisibility and winning a grand slam title. Phoebe crept over to peer down at me. Her hair had been braided in a way that showed off her enormous ears.

“You okay?” she asked in a hushed voice.

“
No.
Gram is going to kill me. I broke a bunch of stuff in her house.”

“I heard about that. You went seriously apeshit.”

I pursed my lips. Phoebe was right, but I didn’t approve of swearing.

“Yeah, well,” I said. “I think I’m crazy.”

“Hey,” she offered. “At least you didn’t get carsick on the way up.”

I squeezed my knees. “That was kind of the point, wasn’t it?”

“Mmm, maybe that was only part of the point.”

“What do you mean?”

She didn’t answer. Her face looked paler than usual. She shivered in a restless kind of way and began cruising around the room, touching things.

“Wait,” I said. “What are you doing here?”

Phoebe’s eyes widened. “We’re all here. My family. Gram and Grandpa. Your dad.”

“Oh.”

“Phoebe.” This came from Keith, who’d stepped in without knocking.

I tensed at the sight of him. Phoebe streaked from the room like a cat.

Keith came and sat beside me. I retreated into the corner of the bed with my back against the wall. Despite his familiar “Got Soy?” T-shirt, I hardly recognized him. He didn’t look like my brother. Downy hair coated his arms and legs, and his eyes, which had always been the same dull brown as mine, had taken on the coppery tone of his hair. Fiery sparks of red floated in the irises. His strangeness felt untrustworthy. But when Keith looked right at me, I softened.

“Drew, you really scared me.”

I continued to watch him.

“Why did you cut yourself like that?” he asked.

I wanted to die.

“I don’t know,” I said.

I didn’t react when I saw his tears well up like a summer storm. Not until they spilled over, ran down his cheeks, and mixed with his snot. Then I got scared and felt a desperate lump build in my own throat. I didn’t want to have to comfort him. I didn’t know
how.

“God, Drew, just—just don’t do anything like that again. Come to me if you’re sad, all right? Or angry. I love you, I can’t watch you hurt yourself.”

I crept forward and laid my head on his shoulder. I felt horrible. Black guilt pinched my flesh. Everywhere. Hard.

Keith said, “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know how to respond.
I
was the one who felt sorry. Not in the apology kind of way. In the I-hate-myself-and-deserve-to-suffer kind of way.

“Come on,” he directed. “Let’s go for a walk.”

*   *   *

The muscles in my gut tightened as Keith and I left the bedroom and walked down the hall. I half expected my grandmother to jump out and hit me again. But she didn’t. We stepped outside without incident.

The sky was brilliantly clear, a turquoise template of summer. The surface of a nearby lake sparkled at us through the trees.

I breathed deeply, inhaling mountain air and sweet, sweet relief. I’d escaped punishment. For now.

Keith read my mind. “Everyone’s down at the water. Grandpa got a new boat or something, and I said I’d stay with you. I don’t get why Phoebe decided to stick around.”

She wants to spy on us, I thought, but said nothing. I looked back and gaped at the cabin. Actually, cabin wasn’t a big enough word. The place loomed like a castle, all stone and glass, reminding me of the photographs my mom had shown me of Ireland, the lush mountains where she’d grown up, ones that looked like a different world. I turned and followed my brother. He led us into the woods, away from the water.

“You know,” Keith said as we walked, “I haven’t done right by you, Drew. I’m sorry for that.”

I thought of him and Charlie, all their sneaking around. I nodded. Around us, trees closed in. Everything grew darker. Colder.

“A long time ago, when you were just a little kid, I promised myself I would always take care of you. Siobhan, too. It’s like, I was put here to protect you two, because Mom won’t. Or can’t. Or isn’t strong enough or whatever.”

I nodded again, not wanting to think about our mom, who could be cold and distant in ways that made me feel empty. Instead I pictured Siobhan, with her pigtails and her laughter and her eternal smile. But even that image stung, burning some tender part of me. I remembered how I liked my sister so much more than Phoebe, because Phoebe was rude and never listened to anything I said.

I glanced up. Keith was staring right at me.

“I’m hungry,” I said. The words came out whinier than I intended.

He reached into the pocket of his nylon shorts and handed me a package of orange crackers and orange cheese. I tore the plastic too hard and the flat red spoon went flying. I didn’t see where it landed, so I used my finger to get at the cheese.

“Don’t you worry about her?” Keith asked softly.

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t sure who he was talking about anymore. Siobhan? Phoebe? The only girl who
worried
me was Charlie. She’d single-handedly ruined my brother. Ruined this entire crummy summer. But I couldn’t say that. I needed Keith back on my side, and to get him, I had to agree with him. I had to show him I could be cooler than some long-legged girl whose butt wiggled when she walked.

We pressed through an alder thicket. And beyond. More dark. More cold. Above and on every side. Vines and branches grabbed at my shirt and bare legs. The eggy stink of a peat bog hit me. I pinched my nose tight.

“I should have told you he was coming. I know that. Seeing him like that wasn’t fair to you. But I’ve been … preoccupied. So I’m sorry. Really sorry. This morning, I guess I didn’t think about how upset you’d be to see him.”

Why did Keith sound so shrill? I put all my attention into watching the way his mouth moved as he spoke. His thin lips. That mole between his nose and cheek. The sun backlit him in such a way that if I blurred my focus, he reminded me of a talking moose.

Keith swallowed hard. Gasped for air. “I’ve wanted to talk to you about it for so long. It’s the reason I arranged for you to come away with me this summer. But it’s not easy. It’s not. It’s the kind of thing that eats away at you. Secrets are toxic, you know? But it’s not you, Drew. I need you to know that. It’s not your fault. I tried so hard to protect you. But I couldn’t. And last summer when—”

The grunting of the bullfrogs drowned out the rest of his words. That was unfortunate. Keith had asked a question or said something important. I was sure of it.

“Did you even hear what I said?” Keith hissed.

I sidestepped through mud. My feet stuck to the ground and made sucking noises as I forced them free. “Uh, yeah, I heard you.”

“Did you ever talk about it with your counselor?”

“My counselor?”

“The one you got sent to last year.”

“Did we talk about Soren?”

Keith stared at me. “Not
Soren
. What happened before. With
Dad
.”

Before.

Ssssnap!

nevertelldrew

promiseme

“Oh,” I said.

“So you didn’t talk about it?”

“I—I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember what happened or you don’t remember if you talked about it?”

“I don’t know!” I stuffed the rest of the crackers into my mouth. Why didn’t he just tell me what he wanted me to say? Speculation was not in my nature. Reaction was. I peeked over. Keith was crying again, like full-out sobs that made his whole body shake.

The high-pitched trill of a tree frog drew me in. I inched to the very edge of the swamp before I saw it, a summer peeper, bright green with brown spots. It sat on a moss-draped trunk and sang to me.

I tried singing back.

Tiny bubbles …

Keith yanked me around by the sleeve, a violent motion, until I faced him again. “Damn it! You can’t do this. It’s what you always do.”

What was?

“You have to have some sort of reaction, Drew. This shutting-down thing of yours, the spacing out, it’s bullshit!”

“Bullshit,” I echoed. I leaned around him to see the frog again, but it had hopped away.

“We can’t change what happened, but we can change ourselves if we talk about it. Look how messed up we are already! Half the time I feel like I can’t breathe, you know? Like someone’s stomping around on top of my chest. It
hurts.
And you, you’re always so angry. The way you’re always fighting. How you don’t have any friends. You’re like a bomb waiting to go off, I know you are!” He ran his hand through his thick hair. More sobs escaped him.

An alarm bell went off in my head. Uh-oh. Did he know about those cars I’d scratched up? The bad words I’d written? Would I go to jail?

Keith’s nostrils flared. A sick fervor gleamed in his eyes. “Remember those wolves we saw last year, Drew? Their pack mentality? That guy, he said the lone wolves usually die, so you can’t be a lone wolf, all right? We’re like that pack. We have to stick together, no matter what. Promise me that.”

“I promise,” I said quickly, although I didn’t understand what he was talking about. Wolves and bombs? I felt jumpy and uncomfortable, as if I’d begun to leave my own body, as if I had a leaky soul. The words I’d said to Phoebe ran through my head:
I think I’m crazy
. But new words came to me, like a second language.
I think Keith is crazy, too.

“You know what scares me the most?” His voice dropped, morphing into a low whine that joined with the drone of the dragonflies hovering above the bog. “That we might become the same way. That
we’ll
hurt people, too. I learned about it in school and I read about it online. This kind of thing, this
sickness,
it probably happened to him when he was a kid. Maybe Grandpa did it … and now it’s—it’s like a cycle that gets passed down from one generation to the next. Unless we stop it.”

He was starting to sound weird, like creepy weird. I had to do something. I had to change the subject.

“Hey, Keith, are Mom and Dad related? Like cousins or something?”

Keith took a deep breath and shook his head. “No. What’re you talking about? Where’d you hear that?”

“I dunno. Someone said something to me.”

“Well, forget about that. It’s stupid. I’m trying to talk to you—”

“What about you and Charlie? You’re cousins. Is that stupid, too?”