Ghost Time (18 page)

I watched my mother take out the trash the next morning, and I watched as the garbageman threw her into the back of their garbage truck and drove off. Why?
Because I can. Because you will never hurt me as much as I can hurt myself, so try all you like
, I thought. Still, I had nightmares after that, all the time. And in my nightmares, I heard Lola crying, alone, in the dark. A couple weeks later, right before we moved here, my dad woke me once, hearing me crying for her. He turned on the light and he told me he’d get me another doll, even better than Lola, but that only made waking worse than the nightmare. I started yelling at him: How can you say that? You don’t understand: you’ll never understand! I screamed even louder than before. I was hysterical by that point, so he called my mother at two, three o’clock in the morning, waking her up. He told her it was an emergency; she needed to come and pick me up; there was nothing he could do for me.

When my dad drove me home, he took me inside, and I heard him whispering, talking to my mom in the other room. Dad said
they needed to do something, and my mom said exactly what I was thinking, Do something? What should we do? Like what? she said. Dad snapped, Renee, Thea was hysterical—she threw away a doll for god’s sake. It’s not normal, he said, and for the first time in my life, my dad sounded like Nanna, his mother. I came so close to walking in and telling him to his face, What’s normal, exactly? Besides, it’s not about whether her heart was as real as mine, it’s about my heart—
my
feelings were real. I loved her. My love made her real.

How could I explain it any more plainly to the man? She was my favorite doll, you understand? She was my
best girl
, and I threw her away. Just to prove I could. To prove there was nothing my dad could do to me that was worse than what I could do to myself. I told Cam everything about her, everything I could remember; I confessed all my sins. People talk about pouring their heart out, and I did. I’m just not sure if I opened my mouth that whole time. But, really, does it matter if I said it in words or a drawing of Lola Crayola, standing in a truck-stop parking lot in the middle of nowhere, no place for a pretty little doll with a girl’s bloody heart?

(FOUR WEEKS LATER)

6:47 AM

In my dream I open my eyes, and I’m standing in a green field, in front of a small white house, and Cam’s car is parked in the grass, and he’s calling my name. At first, it sounds like he’s inside, calling me, so I run inside the house. There’s graffiti all over the walls, endless rows of 1s and 0s—just like the pages of our notebook that Cam used to fill with 1s and 0s, and it all seemed so random and garbled and insane, but he’d say he was just tagging reality. All the walls, the entire house is tagged, and it’s exactly the same as what he wrote in Hubble, only bigger, much bigger. I know his writing—I even know his writing when it comes out of a spray can—I can see his left hand from a mile away.
He’s here
, I thought.
Cam’s here! It has to be him.
Cam! Cam, where are you? I check every room, but he isn’t there. I can feel him everywhere, but he isn’t there, and I keep wandering around, knowing I just have to keep looking, and then he calls my name again.

Now it sounds like he’s outside, and I start laughing, running to find him. I run back to the front yard, I run all around the house, but he’s not there. It’s dark by then, and in the distance, I see this car approaching, and I can’t make it out, but it looks like an SUV, coming straight for me. I think maybe it’s Cam, but then, as it pulls up the drive, I can’t see who’s behind the wheel, because the lights are so bright, I have to shield my eyes, and I try to cover my face, but I can’t block out the light….

Bright—too bright—there’s light, shining in my eyes. It’s annoying, too, like I fell asleep with the light off, but then I turned over, opening my eyes, and it was pitch dark. I had no idea what time it was, but I was awake. So I stumbled to the bathroom, and sat down to pee, and I opened my eyes a crack, and there it was again, the light, this green light, shining in the bathroom mirror. But I couldn’t see where it was coming from, so I stood up, and then I almost started screaming, because the light wasn’t behind me, it was
on me
. There was this thing, this, this—it was like a tattoo—that’s exactly what it was. It was a tattoo, on my shoulder blade. And it was
glowing
.

I tried scrubbing, and it wouldn’t come off, whatever it was. So I just sat in bed, staring at it in the hand mirror, and then, when it started getting bright, it started to fade. The fluorescent light went out, and you couldn’t even see it. I’ve been so tired, I’ve been so stressed out, I thought… I thought maybe I dreamt that, too. I didn’t say anything to my mom, of course, but when I got to school, I called Knox, right away, and he goes, What is it, Thea? I go, I have to see you, and he goes, When? And I go, Now. He goes, I’m still at home, and I said, Knox, it’s an emergency,
and he said all right. I go, I’ll be there soon as I can, and I ran all the way over, couldn’t even breathe, when I rang their doorbell.

He opened the door, and I walked in, catching my breath. I looked in the living room, but she wasn’t there. I said, Where’s Melody? He said, She’s got physical therapy this morning, and I was really disappointed to hear that. I wanted to see her, I said, and he said, I’ll tell her you stopped by. So what’s this all about, Thea? I said, I have to show you something—you’ve got to see it with your own eyes, and he goes, What is it, Thea? Tell me what’s going on, and I go, Do you have a basement? Somewhere dark? Knox nodded, not understanding. I go, Knox, I just need a dark room, okay? And he goes, Oh. How’s the guest bathroom? I go, Perfect.

So we walked to the end of the hall, I went in, and he stood there, at the door, and I said, You have to come in. So he came in, with me, and it was tight, like big enough for a sink and a toilet, and I said, You aren’t going to believe this, and I started unbuttoning my shirt. And he goes, Whoa—whoa, don’t, don’t—what are you doing? I go, Please. I have to show you my shoulder. Now turn out the lights; give me a little privacy. He goes, Thea, tell me—tell me this isn’t going to look as bad as it looks right now? I go, No, it’s not. It’s going to look a lot worse. Now would you just turn out the lights? So he did, leaning as far away from me as he could, and then I pulled my shirt down, showing him my shoulder blade.

I couldn’t even see him. You couldn’t see anything except my tattoo, glowing even brighter than I remembered it in the middle of the night. Then, finally, Knox goes: What, what, what is that?
Is that like some sort of highlighter or paint? I said, It’s not a highlighter or paint. I have a scar on my shoulder, and it’s a heart with an arrow drawn through it. It’s a glow-in-the-dark tattoo, right through my scar. He goes,
Wow
, I never heard of a glow-in-the-dark tattoo, and I go, Probably because they don’t exist! You saw it, right? And he said, I saw it, all right. I go, Good. Now look, I said, turning on the light and pulling my shirt down again, so he could see. He leaned forward, looking, and I go, You can’t see it now, can you? And he goes, Calm down, and I go, Knox, don’t tell me to calm down, you aren’t the one who’s fucking glowing in the dark here!

He winced, and then he goes: Does it hurt? And I said, No. No, I can’t feel it at all, and then he said, Thea, we need to take you to a doctor—. No, I said: no doctor, no lawyers, no trouble. And he said, Thea, please, we—. I said, We what, Knox? He shut his mouth. No means no, I said, ending the discussion. All of a sudden, he snapped his fingers, and he goes, Hold on, hold on a second, shading my shoulder, then he goes, Holy shit. And he turned out the light, and I go, What are you doing? The bathroom flickered green a bunch of times, and then he turned the light back on. That’s what I thought: dash, dash, he said. Morse—it’s Morse code, Thea. I said, You know Morse code? And he goes, Used to. I was in the military. I go, You were in the military? Knox goes, Iraq, one, and I go, Can you read it? He goes, I’m a little rusty, but let’s see. Dot dash; dot dot dot; dash dash dot dash… A, S, Q, he said, and I said, U? A, S, Q, U, right? And he said, Yes, how’d you know? Then I turned on the light, and Knox goes, I’m not done, and I go, No, but I
know what it means, and he goes, You do? And I said, A, S, Q: A squared plus B squared equals C squared, and if the length of both A and B are known, then C can be calculated as follows…. Knox nodded his head, with no idea what I was talking about. I said, It’s a message, and he goes, What’s the message? Then I pulled up my shirt and opened the door. He’s alive. For the first time, I felt happy again, this surge in my chest, because I knew it was true. I go, It means Cam’s alive.

(SIX WEEKS EARLIER)

2:34 PM

Let’s get lost, that’s Cam’s favorite game. I’m serious, he’s in love with the idea of getting lost. Like, I’d get into his car, and he’d give me a kiss, and then he’d say, You know what we should do today, babe? We should get lost—let’s just get lost, huh? And then I’d smile and nod my head, like, sounds great, Cam. Give it your best shot. Because, see, the problem is, Cam has this innate sense of direction. Cam’s never gotten lost in his life. Seriously, he has no idea how that feels, how scary it is, not knowing where you’re going or where you are. For him, it sounded like a great time, like what a blast.

We were in their kitchen, talking, once, and Karen told me about this time they took him to London when he was a little boy and his dad had some conference there or something. So Karen and Cam had the day to explore, and the first day they went out, they got on the Tube, and it was so crowded, Karen got confused
and they missed their stop somehow. So they got out at the next stop, and Karen tried turning around, but she was so disoriented, she got on the wrong train. So they got off at the next stop to turn around, and she walked them over to check the map, and Cam couldn’t even read the names of the stations, but he read the map, following the lines, and he got them right back to their hotel. Karen said he was really happy, because he got to save the day.

Close as you ever got to being a Boy Scout, I’m sure, I said, laughing, seeing he was still proud of himself for saving the day.
NBN
, he said, looking all smug, and I just nodded, refusing to take the bait. Go on, ask, he said. Ask me, Thea—ask me what NBN stands for? I was just like, No, it’s all right, and Karen got up from the table, mumbling, Oh, here we go, and Cam goes, Natural Born Ninja: invisible. Even when I’m standing
right behind you
, he said, before standing up straight, fanning both hands at himself, like, what can you do? Then he stood up from the table and did a jujitsu punch-block move or something, then bowed at Karen, and then bowed at me. I mean, for all his humility and his quietness, sometimes, he’s just too much, you know?

Saturdays, whenever we’d go for drives, sometimes he actually tried to get us lost, taking random back roads, no GPS, no map in his car, nothing—almost like he wanted to know how it felt, because he couldn’t do it. Kind of reminded me of all the times in the ocean, when I’d lay back, floating, and I’d try to sink to the bottom, but couldn’t sink in the saltwater. Really, when they moved from California, Cam drove almost the whole way, Karen said, and he didn’t look at a map once. Got the GPS right here, baby, he’d say, tapping his temple, and I was just like,
Ohmygod
.

Anyhow, he’d just stop at a stop sign on some dirt road, and he’d say, What do you think, Thee? Left or right? I hated him asking me that, too, because I knew I’d get us lost, except I’d be the only one in the car who was lost; Cam would be fine. In the woods, too, when we’d park somewhere, get out to hike around a bit, I always let him lead. I’d follow behind, with my camera, able to space out, watch the trees, the leaves, the back of his head, his neck.

Then this one time, we were walking on this hilly path; it was pretty narrow, and there were bushes on both sides of the path, and I stopped, because I was shooting film, and I wanted to check on something. But when I looked up, Cam was gone—vanished. There was this hill, and he’d been walking up it, like fifty feet in front of me, so I walked to the top of the hill, up the path, and I called his name, and he didn’t call back. I started walking, and I told him to come out, because it wasn’t funny, but it was silent. It was only two minutes, maybe, but I kept calling him, and then he jumped out at me, scaring me half to death. So I screamed at the top of my lungs, and then I couldn’t even hear my own voice, my heart was pounding so fast.

Cam was so pleased with himself, too, I wanted to punch him, but I didn’t, I just glared at him. He goes, You want to hit me? looking at my fist, still clenched, and I said, Yes, and he goes, Go on, stepping toward me, offering his arm. I go, No, I’m not going to hit you. Because violence is not the answer. Deeply satisfying, but not the answer, I said, turning around and walking away. I’m sorry, he said. Thea, come on—I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t think it’d scare you so badly, but I was still so scared, all I could do was be
angry, while he kept calling me. Finally, I just wanted him to be quiet, so I turned around and I go, What? What, Cam, what do you want?! And he goes, You’re going the wrong way. The car’s this way, he said, cocking his head in front of him. Oh, I said.

I walked past, quiet the whole way. When we got in the car, closing both doors, I just sat there, staring straight ahead. Still, watching him back out, heading back down the dirt road, wherever we were, I realized something. One of the differences between us is getting lost has never been a problem for me, really. My problem is getting found.

(FOUR WEEKS LATER)

5:32 PM

I can’t figure out what it is, exactly. I mean, is it really just chemicals that give you that giddy, tingly feeling when you meet someone, when you make a new friend? I felt that for Cam, but it’s totally different with girls. It reminds me of that cotton candy smell that you never think about, and then, out of nowhere, when you smell that sugar in the air and you see the man spinning a big pink cloud on a white cone, it’s the happiest smell in the whole world. That’s how I felt, and I just couldn’t stop thinking of Melody all week, and I kept wanting to give her something, share something.