Flutter (17 page)

So I told him.

“The way you drew my hair, the curls.”

“It gives something away? It betrays you somehow?”

I nodded.

He shook his head. “I don’t get it.”

“I know.”

“So tell me, Emery. I want to know.”

I saw something flash across his face again, remorse maybe. I didn’t know him well enough yet. But I knew he wasn’t without his demons.

“You tell me something first,” I answered.

“Okay.” His jaw set hard. He tapped his foot under the table, a nervous rhythm. “I’ll tell you something.” He motioned to my watercolor on the mantel of the stained glass. “That is really something.”

“Does it look familiar to you?” I asked.

“No. Should it?”

I shook my head. “It’s stained glass from a church.”

Ash shook his head. Okay, so maybe he didn’t have
all
my answers.

“You painted that?” he asked.

I nodded, not willing to let him off the hook here. He was going to answer some questions. “Why do you
still
sleep out in the clearing? I’m sure the Wingings would let you—”

“To make sure you’re okay,” he answered plainly.

My stomach leaped into my throat, and I felt the blush rush up to my ears and into my cheeks. It took me several seconds to regain my composure.

“A harder question,” I said. “How did your mom pass away?” I thought of the picture he had drawn, the horror in the woman’s face.

I watched his face and waited for him to respond, and I realized that I had already developed a habit of being completely still when he spoke so that I wouldn’t miss a thing, wouldn’t miss the low timbre of his voice, wouldn’t miss the hint of gravelly-ness in it. It was too rich, too sparse to ignore. I wanted to memorize it.

“She was killed in a car accident. Drunk driver.”

“Oh, Ash.” I thought of the pain in that drawing. My heart sank for him. “I’m so sorry.”

He nodded and looked away.

“Does it have anything to do with why you’re running?” I asked.

“Are you so sure I’m running?”

“Hiding?” I waited and he didn’t answer. “I have some
experience.” I gave him a little grin then. “I’ve watched a few movies, read a few spy novels.”

He smiled then and leaned forward. “And Next Hill is a place near where I grew up.” He looked me in the eye. “How you know that, I don’t know.…”

I offered no answer. Not yet. Some things you really couldn’t get at straight on. I sensed this was one of them.

Ash rubbed the stubble on his chin, and with his other hand, he grabbed my hand across the table. “I’ll probably tell you all my story, Emery, someday. Whether I should or not.”

I wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but with the heat of his roughened palm against my knuckles, I could think of nothing else. His touch made me feel like when I’m about to pass from the loop back to my normal self. It’s a dreamy, swimmy sensation, when I
feel
all the colors around me. It was close to that—but better.

“Your turn,” he said, and took his hand back. “Tell me why you’re here.”

I considered lying. I opened my mouth, about to give him the college story again, but I thought of Dad then, the older version of Dad, telling me I was going to be scared. It made me change my mind somehow. I wanted to be brave, take a chance.

“I’m running away from my dad, the doctor. From a scientific course of experiments.”

“So the college thing?”

“Not true.”

“So you are some kind of scientist?”

“No, I’m a lab rat.”

He considered this. He didn’t flinch or squint his eyes in judgment. And I almost started to go on, to finish it, to tell him everything. Part of me wanted to, but I didn’t. I got up to clear the dishes, unsure if I had said too much. He stood to help me, or was it to leave? I closed my eyes at the sink and steadied my breath.

He can’t leave—not yet. This can’t be done. I wanted him to stay. I felt my eyelids flutter a bit. Dala appeared at my feet, meowing, clawing at my legs. Ammonia stung the back of my throat.

No, not now. Not now! I fought with my consciousness. I felt my eyelids flutter once again and steeled myself, grabbing the edge of the sink, white-knuckled. No! I willed myself to stay here—to be here, with Ash.

“Scrabble?” he asked from behind me.

I pushed the flutter back. I took a big breath, then gritted my teeth. Not now! I pushed back with every muscle in my body.

Ash had gotten up to grab the dusty, unused Scrabble game off the cabin’s bookshelf. I laughed a quiet laugh to myself. The thrum and swell behind my eyes diminished then, deflated like a balloon. I felt my breathing pattern slow back to normal. I had controlled it.

I had stopped myself from looping. I felt the exhaustion in every single muscle wash over me. But I had stopped it.

Holy shit! This was red-letter. I had stopped myself from looping. I stood at the sink and took a deep breath, letting my grip on the counter loosen.

So many times I had tried to do exactly this, so many failures, so many hash marks in my little pile of notebooks. I picked up Dala, nuzzled her nose.

But tonight, I had fought it and won. I had fought back the loop. I was not naive enough to think that this was the end of it, that I’d always be able to beat the loop. But it was a first. And if I could do it once—

I realized then that I had been silent for too long. Ash was saying my name.

“Are you okay? Emery?”

I turned to face him. “Scrabble?” I said. “You must be a glutton for punishment.”

He studied my face for a moment, and his hand flinched at his side as if he might move forward, reach out. He didn’t.

He settled himself on the floor in front of the hearth, spreading out the Scrabble board before him. He folded his large frame and sat cross-legged. “You know, I’ve never lost.”

He gave me that smile again, and I did believe him.

“H-a-r-b-o-r,” I spelled triumphantly, laying the letters down on a triple-word score, shooing Dala away from the board.

I jumped up then and celebrated with a quick pirouette.

Ash laughed. I liked how his face looked when he laughed,
and it was a deep laugh, one that came from way down in his chest.

He gave me a smirk then, and scanned over his letters. He placed them slowly, triumphantly, using his own triple-word score.

“Awry?”
I said. “You are a sneaky bastard.”

He let out another laugh.

“So tell me about your family,” I said, hoping against hope that I wouldn’t see that dark cloud come back to his face.

I watched his face carefully, the shadow briefly crossing it. But he ignored my question and the shadow went with it.

“Do you believe in God?” he said instead.

“Umm,” I started, thinking this was an interesting beginning to a conversation, but I was learning that Ash was nothing short of direct. “I don’t think so,” I answered. I watched him carefully. “I have never been taught about God. Science, yes. Darwin, yes. Nietzsche, yes. God, not so much, except for …” I let my voice trail off.

“I believe in God,” he said, filling in the silence. “You don’t except for …?”

“It’s so easy to find the reasons why not. It’s easy to find the reasons why he can’t be. Or she!” I looked up at him then, not knowing if I should continue. “But sometimes, in the moment, sometimes it’s hard to discredit an almighty being, when there is so much organized beauty in the world … experiences, certain people, certain feelings of the heart … 
it’s hard to credit such beauty to formulas, to science, to anything but God,” I finished quietly, self-consciously.

“I know exactly what you mean,” he said. My cheeks and ears flushed. He watched me in the firelight, and I could feel his eyes on my face.

I fidgeted with my Scrabble tiles, embarrassed.

He cleared his throat. “I was raised in the church, in the traditions that go with it, the rules, the stipulations, the guilt.…” He let his voice trail off.

“Where did you grow up?”

“Southern Illinois, near Bloomington. And you?”

So Next Hill was in Illinois. I filed this away. “Ann Arbor, mostly. My mom died when I was young. And Dad, he’s a neurologist.… He is …” I considered this. “I don’t know how to finish that.… He’s my father. We used to be tight, but so much …”

“You don’t have to tell me,” Ash ventured.

I shook my head, continued. “After Mom died, it was just us against everything. But this thing that’s going on with me. This thing …” I repeated it as if it left a bad taste in my mouth. “It’s kind of come between us. Dad had always believed it was something exceptional. And for a while, I thought he was coming around to believing my theory, but …”

I so badly wanted to spill it all, tell him everything that had transpired, that had brought me to this place, this cabin, this moment.

But I was scared.

It startled me as I sat here in the firelight with this boy, because I wasn’t sure for which reason I was hedging my bets—because I was scared I wouldn’t get his help to figure out what was needed for my boy in the loop, or because I was afraid I would scare him and his crooked smile, his perfect stubble, away from this cabin.

“Some things can’t be explained,” Ash said.

I snapped out of my reverie then and looked at Ash. Our eyes locked. “Exactly.” I waited a beat. Then, “Like how I know about Next Hill.”

I knew at that moment it had gone too far. I wasn’t sure why. But I knew he would leave.

“We need—I mean,
you
need firewood.” He got up quickly then and grabbed his jacket. He stepped out into the clearing and headed toward the stump that he used for splitting.

I watched him out the window, my arms crossed over my chest, unsure whether he would come back, unsure how much crossing that line had cost me.

As I watched him, big fluffy flakes of snow began to fall, coating everything in a white cottony blanket.

Ash’s breath came out in a heavy cloud of steam against the frigid night air. The faint light from Fischery Lighthouse began to swoop past him every few seconds, lending a rhythm to my view out the window. The thud of the ax, a heavy puff of breath, the shining funnel of light. Thud, breath, swoop of light. All the while, my mind kept returning
to the look in his eyes when I had mentioned his family, the firm, hard line of his jaw, the deep, dark sadness of his eyes, the soft, gentle gracefulness with which he moved his large hands. All of these memorized with only stolen glances in the firelight.

And he had bought a bike for Lily Winging. And probably had given his hard-earned money to the Cranes’ golden anniversary party. I just had a feeling.

I was so hungry to know there was still good in this world. And here he was.

He placed the ax on the ground and lifted one knee up onto the tree stump, wiping his brow with his gloved hand. There was a slump to his shoulders, a way that he carried himself in moments like these.

I was almost certain that what was bothering him was guilt. If I had to guess, it would be guilt over something with his family.

I wanted to go to him, run out there and shake him by his shoulders and make him tell me all his secrets, and, likewise, give mine up to him. But my gut told me otherwise, to let things unfold with Ash, to let him learn to trust me. And vice versa.

He didn’t come back in that night. And I didn’t go out after him.

I’m walking through the garden labyrinth near the aquarium in Ann Arbor. Precisely pruned green shrubs act as the walls of this intricate Michigan-famous maze. I have been here many times before in my home loop
.

I walk quickly, hoping I might find Dad here. I try to run a bit, but I flail and pitch forward around a corner. I get up slowly, telling myself to settle down, although the sky is getting darker now, creepier. I walk along a pathway and hear whispering, tiny, distant voices, and I round another corner, certain that I will run into someone
.

This happens once, twice. The seeds of panic begin to take root in my belly. Why can’t I catch up with them? What will I do when it is completely dark?

I stand at a T-intersection in the labyrinth now. The voices are
hard to hear, the darkness seeping in around me quickly. I choose left for no reason and pick up my gait
.

The voices sound as if they are behind me now, and I don’t like it, childlike whispers and a deep, guttural laugh. I begin to run, throwing one foot in front of the other. But my body can’t handle it. I lose my footing, trip forward. I yell out as I fall
.

“Slow down,” a voice says. I look up from the ground, startled, then instantly calmed. It is my dad, my older dad
.

Before I can answer, the colors emerge in the edges of my vision. “No, wait,” I say, reaching my hands up toward him, trying to push my mind against it, but I have no success
.

“Slow down,” he says again
.

Back home
.

I took Dad’s advice.

I slowed down.

I softened my interrogation tactics and just let Ash and me get to know each other. It became easy to fall into a pattern with Ash, to play house, together with Dala. He spent the days at work at the stables, and I went to the library or the locksmith’s, trying hard to get somewhere with my key or the stained glass, finding nothing.

And then Ash and I would meet at the cabin for dinner. I made myself slow down. We played Scrabble or backgammon. We read—he read Wells’s
The Time Machine
, which I secretly snickered at, and I read Austen. He was nearly as well read as I was, and we talked forever about books and movies, about lots of things. We talked about things, yes,
but not yet the real things, not the things that mattered, the things that were tethering us to each other, yet holding us back. We circled around things. Circled them, coming closer each day, each night.

For whatever reason, my loops hung back as well, slowed down. I enjoyed the rest, and I forced myself not to spend too much time trying to figure out the reasons for this short break. Because, really, I knew the loops were there. Circling. I wasn’t kidding myself. I could feel them building up inside me. They were coming. They were going to be strong. And I didn’t have that much control.