Even If the Sky Falls (17 page)

I
AM NOT HALLUCINATING.
M
Y WRIST IS BARE.
A
ROUND ME, THE
wind picks up every piece of scrap whirling it like a blender. Sound is a banshee, hunting and beating on us; alive, screeching in our ears as the rain chills us to the core. This is why hurricanes have names—they are alive, beasts of anger, power and force. Gods reshaping the world as they please.

“You okay?” Miles tugs at my hand, and I keep looking back at the space where his bracelet used to be.

“It's gone.”

“What?” He inches closer, unable to hear me over the sound.

“It's gone!” I point to my wrist. “Your bracelet. I just had it.”

There's a flash of sadness in his eyes before he shakes his head. “It's okay, it doesn't matter.”

“It's not okay.”

Miles trusted me with it. His grandfather friggin' made it. It was full of his memories and now our own, and I let it slip away from my wrist.

I reach to my own necklace, imagining the loss I would feel if it disappeared. “Please.”

Miles seems to understand that I'm not going to move until we at least try to find it.

“One minute,” Miles says, knowing we might have less than that. We both drop our heads, searching the area around us. I panic; the wind is grabbing every little leaf, cup, and torn newspaper that isn't nailed down and twisting it up to the sky—what if it took the bracelet with it?

Miles spots it first, a glint in the middle of the pier, just a few feet from us.

“There.” Miles drops to his knees and pulls the delicate chain out from between the planks, fixing it back on his wrist.

“Time to go,” he reminds me.

I nod and he moves to rejoin me. One step and his foot breaks through the wood, caught on a rotten plank. I move toward him, but he holds up his hand to keep me at bay. He tugs his leg up, ripping his jean. The pier creaks, a death gurgle, whatever resistance it had against the storm gone.

It gives, shattering into the rage of the Mississippi and swallowing Miles whole.

This isn't happening. Miles was standing in front of me and now he's gone. I hurtle myself to what's left of the pier, not caring that it could take me with it. All I see is darkness, muddy water, hundreds of ripples across the surface.

No, no, no, no.

I want to scream and shout but I am silent, searching for something, anything. This is my fault. I should've kept going. I should've sucked up the blame and guilt over the bracelet and gotten us back to the hotel.

I shake off the voices, concentrating on the water. Where are you, Miles?

Then a flash of color. Miles's shirt.

It's all I need to dive in after him.

I don't think—just wish to be stronger, faster. The water wrenches him away from me—dangling him like a prize out of my reach. I wish I was a better swimmer—I'd hoped I was a better swimmer.

I want to scream for Miles, but the water invades my mouth before the words can come out. I carry dirt into my belly with every stroke. The water rushes in my ears, covering up the yowl of the wind before it bleeds back in at full force. I can still feel the ground below my feet but I can only balance for a second before I'm carried farther out.

Then Miles is next to me, and I can reach out and touch
him and he is real. The Mississippi is playing with us, but I won't bite.

We try holding on to each other as we swing toward the shore, but we can't. We knock against each other, slowing down. We have to let go.

“Sunshine,” I hear him say, a brush of a hand.

“No,” I reply. “Keep swimming.”

We inch forward. Progress. Before we were slogging. My foot touches the ground underneath and relief comes like a flood, before a wave drags me under. I sputter, continue paddling. I hear Miles calling my name somewhere. The sound is too far away, and I'm too afraid to turn my eyes away from the shore.

“Almost there,” I tell myself, Miles, the river. “Almost there.”

And I am.

I can just barely stand. Miles is to my right; he shouts my name to let me know where he is. The river carries branches with it; they hit me as I go. I push them away; they can't slow me down. I will drudge myself through the mud and twigs and every stupid thing you throw at me.

“We can do this,” Miles shouts from a few feet ahead of me. “We can do this.”

I feel stones beneath my shoes, and I use them to move forward.

But the river is not ready. It sneaks around me, branches
tangling in my shoe like hands pulling me under. Will the damn world stop kicking?
Just let us get to shore, just this one thing and you can keep beating me up, I promise.

“I'm caught—keep going,” I say. When I don't see Miles move, “Go!” I yell again—no time to waste on waiting. We aren't far from the shore and the water is now at my waist. I reach down—blind—feeling for the tangling thing. The rain pounds against the river, against my face, howling, a declaration of power.

I look up. Miles has turned back and is coming for me.

“It's okay,” I say, finding the branch that has its hold. “I'm almost free.” My hands are clumsy and the water is not. It thrashes me down, each wave hitting its target, chipping at what little strength I have left. It wants to rip me from the tangle and take me away.

The fighting is so hard. My eyes shut and I think of sleep, of drifting off and just letting go. I'm back on that sidewalk, taking that corner, walking into the street.

“Sunshine!” Miles is the horn, blasting me back to the present. I keep fighting.

Another wave pulls me down.

The river tosses me around like paper in the wind, amused, ready to teach me how little I mean to it and the universe: a speck in the current, easily carried away. I slip under the water, bringing my hands forward, then back. Move, move, move. When I come back up, I am no closer
to safety but Miles is closer to me. I focus on him.

The water hits my face.
Why do you even try, little girl?

Please,
my muscles say,
please.

“Please,” I say back. I feel the necklace along my neck, the water whisking it back and forth. It holds.
“Sigue, sigue.”

The current pulls me under, my eyes open, the world out of focus, muddy, fading. I think I see Miles swimming toward me. I shouldn't be able to. I blink and he's gone, and she's there. Abuela Julia. She reaches for me, and our hands meet.

My lungs burn. I swim toward her, and she fades.

Enough.
I yank the branch up and out of the riverbed. When my shoe still won't budge I pull it off and then the other in case it has any ideas of getting caught as well. I can't see Miles anymore, just sheets and sheets of rain. If I wasn't scared I would marvel at the patterns the water makes as it slams down into the river.

“I'm late,” I hear to my left. Miles is back at my side.

You turned back, you idiot,
I try to say, but only “Idiot” comes out.

A grin; he spits out water, gripping my hand so tight his nails cut through my skin. The river rips through us, wrenching us farther from the shore. Where is the shore? Oh God, where is the shore?

Stow the panic. There is still some ground below my
feet, and I use it to push myself toward where I think the shore is.

Miles falls first, dragged away from me by the current until I pull him up. The pattern of the rain shifts, a moment of clarity, and I can see our destination. The shore is so close, so close. And the more I say it, the more it is so. Because that is how life works, isn't it?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a long dark shape under the surface of the water, it's too big to be moving as fast as it is. The word “crocodile” flashes in my mind, and I am suddenly so angry.

But it's too misshaped to be a crocodile. Either way it's coming toward us, but my mind doesn't understand how close it is, that it's in our path. The river is all around us. It fights us, we push through, we continue to pay no mind to this shadow, we don't move from its path. I will keep—I will keep against the water.

But it is not water, and when it slams into me it takes what little strength I have left, except for Miles. His hand is still around my wrist, keeping me anchored. He would hold me there forever if he could. But the river has other plans. It slips between our fingers, inching them apart, it pushes into me, insistent.

There are much better things down the way, chéri, we promise
.

The river's promise feels like a melody. The kind my body, beaten and tired, needs right now.

The water reaches down my throat and pulls out memories, dangling them before me. When I was eight we visited Puerto Rico with my grandmother. I met far too many family members I could never keep track of. We went to the beach, filled with families just like ours. My parents lazed by the palm trees, and I don't remember where my grandmother or brother had gone. I skipped off into the water, on my own, a little confident fool swimming out by myself. The waves took me down to the bottom and dragged me for a ways before I even thought to fight them. When I broke the surface, I was farther out than I'd ever been. I was too tired to make it back. But I did, somehow I did. Not all the way, but far enough where they would see me, far enough to matter.

Come on now,
the river says.
Come on.

I am slipping out of Miles's grip, but I hold. With my other hand, I push away what I can now see is the splintered body of a tree and give it over to the current, certain I am free, when the ground disappears below me. My grip slips, but Miles does not, his hand remains. I am screaming and coughing and screaming, my wrist in agony, ready to pop from its socket.

“Don't stop kicking!” I hear Miles yell. I find his eyes, and I can see how scared he is. And then my hand is out of his and I am battling the river on my own. The water, carrying earth and so much more with it, comes toward me. I dive under to avoid the debris and push through. I will
make it, and when I win I will be in another state perhaps, but I'll make it.

The rain slaps me across the face.

Jerk.

I go down again. I push back up. I keep going. I hear Miles yelling, but I can't place how far he is from me. I am smacked around by half of New Orleans's trash, which floats with me in the Mississippi. I feel my skin open, water pouring in. It burns and I use the pain to live.

My feet find solid ground again until something slams against me and pulls me up. It's Miles. “I'm sorry, I was trying to get to you.”

I search for his hand and find it. Together we battle the current, feet finding earth, one foot in front of the other. We pull each other up whenever the river decides to play with us. The water is at my waist now, and I can see the shore, the gathering of rocks that will welcome us back.

We are there; we are there.

Then I am under. Miles's hand tight around me, slamming me into the water and away from the shore. I turn to him, the wave swallowing him, a gash on his forehead pouring blood.

“Miles!” I scream, but he's not moving. I try and pull him closer to the shore with me, but he's heavy and the water is trying to carry him away. “Wake up, wake up.”

Both hands on him now, dragging him out of its clutches, praying my hands won't slip, wishing I could get a
better hold. If I could just wrap my arms around his waist, but I can't risk getting caught in the current, ever waiting to snag him back. I feel my way back to the shore until I hit the rocks, almost dropping him.

We are there, but we aren't safe. Everything presses against us—the wind, the rain, the debris, pounding, pounding, pounding—and I drag myself and Miles onto the shore.

I collapse on the rocks, Miles at my side, unmoving but breathing. My vision blurs, the darkness creeps in, but it doesn't scare me.

I am good. I fought. I am free.

W
HEN THE GLASS HIT THE GROUND IT SHATTERED MY CONCENTRATION;
the stanzas I was trying to remember for AP English shocked right out of me.

My parents weren't home—they'd left to visit a friend of my mom's for the day. It was a few days after my mom and I had our talk about Adam and nothing had come of it yet, but it felt like everything was going to be okay. Like it was just a matter of time.

I ran down the steps, the smell hitting me first. The closer I got to the kitchen, the stronger it was. Adam was cursing as he threw a hand towel over the spreading amber liquid on the floor. When he saw me he held up his hand. “Don't come in here—it's already a mess.”

“Need help?”

“No.” He threw two more towels down and moved them around with his foot. “I'm fine. It just fell; that's all.”

“What was it?”

“Whiskey.”

The smell—I would recognize it now, but then I was still pretty new to the different kinds of alcohol and my repertoire only extended as far as beer and tequila.

“Dad's whiskey?”

“Yes.” He was irritated, shoulders bunched, picking up the larger pieces of the bottle and tossing them in the sink. “Dad's whiskey, all right?”

Adam dumped the soaked towels in the sink and shook out the smaller pieces of glass. “I'm fine, Jules, just go.”

I stayed, wetting a paper towel and moving in to help. As I bent down to gather the smaller pieces of glass, Adam grabbed my hand. “I can do this, Jules.” He was so fast that I slipped a bit, planting my hand to balance myself, and a glass shard sunk into my skin. I wrenched my hand away from Adam. The blood was slow to gather and the shard was only halfway in, but man did it hurt.

I felt Adam hovering behind me. “I'm sorry,” he whispered, his voice taking me back to when we were younger and he'd broken something of mine or teased me until I cried. “Julie. I'm sorry.”

“I was just trying to help.”

“Yeah, I know. I . . .” He was gripping the towel in his hand like he was going to rip it to shreds. Then, just like
that, all the tension was gone, his shoulders slumped and he extended his hand. “Let me see.”

I hesitated. I didn't want to but I did. When I put my hand in his it felt like a test, but I wasn't sure who was taking it. Adam was gentle then, guiding me toward the kitchen counter, placing my hand over the sink. “It's not that bad.”

Drops of blood ran down the drain. “Still hurts.”

“I believe you.” The corners of his mouth lifted.

Adam retrieved the first aid kit Mom kept in the kitchen.

“I don't think we'll need stitches,” he said in a mocking tone, but his eyes were worried.

He ran water over the wound. I tried very hard not to wince when the cold hit my hand, but I jumped anyway. In one swift movement, Adam pulled the glass out with the tweezers and it felt worse than it had going in. Blood flowed down my arm, and Adam pressed down on the cut with a piece of paper towel before cleaning it with the alcohol and putting a Band-Aid on it. Within a minute the Band-Aid was soaked, and we changed it for a new one.

“I need stitches.”

“You need stitches,” Adam echoed. He threw the shard into the sink so hard I jumped again.

“Don't worry, it will stop eventually. It's not that deep.” The cut was deep, but I didn't want to cause a fuss. I watched the blood pool below the second Band-Aid, and I pressed down to slow its flow. I could feel Adam's eyes on
me. He grabbed a paper towel, folded it, and placed pressure over the cut.

I noticed the small tremor in his right hand. “Why don't you let me help? We can finish faster and replace the whiskey before Dad figures out it broke.”
It broke—not you dropped it.
“We can put the towels in the washing machine and mop the floors. It will be like nothing happened.”

Adam checked the paper towel on my hand, the blood was already slowing. “Okay,” he said, and we set about erasing the last couple of minutes. Once the kitchen was scrubbed, we dropped the whiskey-soaked towels in the washing machine and headed out. Adam looked more animated than I'd seen him in a long time—like he was getting a second chance to redo this morning. And me, I was on his side, making it happen, partner in crime.

At the strip mall I stayed in the car watching as he went in and came back out with a new bottle and something else. I didn't catch what it was before he shoved it beneath his seat and started up the car. I picked at my cut for the rest of the trip, gauging how much pain I could take before I flinched.

“Checking to see if it still hurts?”

The bleeding stopped but the cut was open, gaping, and raw below the paper towel. “Yes.”

“And?”

“It does.”

Adam kept his eyes on the road. “Good to know.”

“Think it will scar?”
Like yours,
I thought.
Tell me how you got those scars
. The voice inside my head was so clear and strong, nothing like the one I used to speak out loud.
Tell me the whole story
, it said.

“Probably.”

I ignored the voice and lightened my tone. “Think it will make me look badass?”

The side of his mouth twitched. “Sure, kid.”

From beneath his seat came the sound of glass meeting glass.

“What's in the bag?”

“Whiskey.”

“And . . .”

“Whiskey.”

I nodded. “In case you drop another bottle?”

“Yeah.” He paused, hands tightening around the steering wheel. “Sure, kid.”

Something clicked. I was staring out the window, watching the thin strips of white on the road fade below the wheels, the trees blur, all to the soundtrack of the
clink, clink, clink
of those damn bottles.

I hadn't wanted to see it. I thought the smell was from the broken bottle, hadn't I? Had I really?
Clink.
And what, he'd just dropped it accidentally?
Clink.
And how much liquid did I actually see on the ground?

Clink.

And what about that tremor?

I reached back under his seat, and the bottles smacked against each other as I placed them on my lap. I took a bottle out, feeling the weight of it.

“What, do you want some?”

I pulled the other bottle out. “How much did you have before it fell?”

Adam didn't answer.

I pressed down on my cut, feeling the rush of pain that overpowered the fear. “How much?” I asked again.

He let out a breath, quick. “Just let it go, kid. I'm fine.”

The bottles clinked in my lap, mocking me, their joyful sound triumphant. I hated them.

“You aren't fine,” I said. I opened the window and dropped both bottles out, watching them crash into the road. The sight of amber liquid staining black delighted me.

Adam slammed on the brakes—we were lucky there wasn't anyone behind us and that we were wearing seat belts.

“What the fuck, Julie?”

“What the fuck, Adam?” I replied, taking off my seat belt and rubbing my neck. Adam was out of the car and opening my door in seconds, pulling me by the arm.

“What the hell is wrong with you? Do you have any idea how much that cost?” He pointed at the smashed bottles a few yards down the road. “I thought we were in this together!”

I nodded, not in agreement, but to settle the thoughts
in my head. The sight of the broken glass, the sound of his rage, spurred me forward. I decided to let everything go before doubt or fear caught up to snag the words from my mouth. “That would require both of us to actually try, Adam.”

He turned away from me, building his own walls taller, thicker, stronger than mine.

I needed to attack those walls, and I needed to do it now. “Why won't you try, Adam?”

“You think I'm not trying?” His voice was thick and coated in anger and shame.

“I don't. I think you're falling and you're not picking yourself up. I think you're shutting us out.”

I waited for a reply but one didn't come.

“I want my brother back, jerk. I want the motormouth who used to talk all the time about the stupidest crap, so much stuff I didn't care about, just to torture me.”

A ghost of a smile.

I kept going, encouraged. “Like that one time you talked to me for thirty minutes about how they discovered Velcro, just out of the blue, with no segue into the conversation at all. I miss that. Or the way you used to pretend you didn't like it when Abuela beat you at poker.” Deep breaths. “Where are you, Adam? Where did you go, and why do you refuse to come back? It can't be that nice of a place. Not if you have to drown in whiskey.”

He rolls his eyes. “I don't drown in whiskey.”

“You swim in it.” My hands started to shake. “I'm afraid of you, Adam. And I'm afraid for you. I think you need help, and I asked Mom and Dad to find you help and—”

He rounded on me. “You did what?”

My voice was losing its ferocity. “I told them you need help.”

“Are you deaf? I don't need help, Julie.”

“You do.” Tears streamed down my face as I continued. “You do and they see it, even though they're afraid of losing you.”

“I'm fine; they aren't going to lose me. You aren't going to lose me. You're being a child.”

I stomped my foot on the ground just like I used to when I was younger. “You aren't fine. And that's okay, you just did a tour—God, Adam that HAS to have done something, and I think you have PTSD.”

Adam laughed and that was worse than a foot stomp or tears. He'd dismissed me. “Don't, don't talk like you know what that is.”

The street was still dead silent. I prayed for a car to drive by, to cut the tension.

“I looked it up on the internet and—”

Adam's smile was cruel, a face I didn't recognize. “Oh, amazing. Please tell me everything you've learned from the internet.”

“Emma and Kara—”

“Do not tell me you brought your friends into this, Jules.”

There was something to his voice, a callousness, that sent shivers up my spine. This was not going the way I'd hoped. Adam should've wanted help, he should've wanted to get better. Things were supposed to get better. Instead he pushed his fists against the hood of the car until the metal gave.

“You tried to choke me.” The words were out of my mouth before I knew I'd said them.

“I—” Whatever he meant to say died.

“Come back, Adam.” I steadied my voice and wiped the tears from my eyes. “I miss you, and I know, I know I won't get you back, not a hundred percent, but I'm afraid that if I don't fight for you now, that if you don't fight, I won't get any of you back.” I walked toward Adam to meet him halfway. “Please let us help you.”

“I am back,” he said, straightening up, pulling the keys out of his pocket. “This is all that's left.”

He got in the car and took off, leaving me on the side of the road.

I probably made that damn cut worse than it was. I pressed my thumb into it until it throbbed. I peeled off the scabs and scratched until it was raw, over and over again. I needed it to still be fresh, to still hurt, because then I hadn't wasted time. I hadn't let Adam down. I still had time to help.

My dad tried to track him in his car but never found him. My mom and I called all his friends, begged them to let us know if Adam had stopped by, but nobody had seen him. I wandered around the neighborhood searching for his car, praying that he had just driven down the block and parked someplace nearby while he cooled off.

It was not the first time I prayed to Abuela Julia for my brother's safety, but it was the first time I felt guilty for doing so.