Life Before (22 page)

“No problem,” she says. “Thanks for the conversation. Most of my casual chitchat is with Sophie, so this is a nice change of pace.”

The change of pace is welcome. I bite through my cone and consider how our respective lives have merged into this moment. “Kat, your job is really hard.”

“Some days. But, you know? I don’t mind. And I sort of owe her.”

“How so?”

Kat stares at the brick facade across the street. “My parents are weird. I was this sort of, I dunno, commodity to them? They were always trying to craft this life that took them all over the place and when we moved here, my life slowed down. Sophie’s house, the old house, was like a sanctuary to me. I mean, it wasn’t peaceful. There were always a lot of people around, but it felt like a nest. Everything was always in the same place—furniture that had been there for ages, always comfort food in the cupboards, that kind of thing—and there was a routine. I really needed that. A sanctuary. Nevermind. It’s hard to understand.”

An inner tug-of-war erupts between my desperation to tell Kat I understand completely and my deeper desperation to keep my ugly childhood secret.

“I understand. Jill’s house is like that for me. It’s like breathing space. A homey place away from my family.”

Something clouds Kat’s expression.

Without divulging any of my family’s secrets, I describe Jill’s parents and brothers, and explain that I’ve always been like their fourth child. “I have breakfast there every Saturday. And, well, basically, whenever I can get away from my own house.”

Kat nods. “Does Jill understand you?”

“God, yes. I mean, she gets why I need to leave my own house and we just—we connect on a really deep level.”

Kat analyzes the asphalt. “That’s nice.”

“Sounds like we both are very lucky.”

She shrugs. “I guess. At this point, Sophie just thinks she needs to save me from a life of abandonment.”

“That sucks. Any time someone wants to save you, that sucks.”

Kat stares at me, wide-eyed. “Yes! As if I need saving!”

When she stands, I stand, too. She chucks a sticky napkin in the trash and we wander toward the library.

I ask her about college.

“There’s less bullshit than high school, you know?” Kat wants confirmation from me, but I’m not sure which bullshit she’s referring to. “Okay, so we read Hardy senior year in English lit. I don’t understand why Hardy can’t just make his characters long for sex instead of talking about feeding a woman strawberries. It’s bullshit. And poetry is worse.”

I couldn’t disagree with the poetry bit, but there’s something about imagery that appeals to me. Surely Kat, who doesn’t wear her heart on her sleeve by any means, understands that sometimes a message should be muted. Or veiled.

“Now I can study whatever I want. It’s awesome.”

“And you’re studying microeconomics and American lit.”

“Yeah. Nursing, eventually, but I have to get some core courses out of the way first.”

“Why nursing?”

Kat definitely heard me, but pretends she didn’t.

“Kat?”

“It’s going to sound ridiculous.”

“Tell me anyway.”

She’s quiet. “I feel like people don’t see me, you know? One of the worst things we can do to people is not see them. Sophie thinks I need to be saved and Curt used to think I was a nuisance. People at school think I’m too busy for friendship or, worse, they see me as a threat to them, academically. No one really sees me.”

That makes no sense.

Kat unlocks her bike. “I know I’m going to have a small life, and that’s fine, but I want to really see people. I want people to know they matter to me, at least. I want them to feel seen and heard. Who gets to touch lives like that? Social workers, which would depress me to no end. Teachers, which would probably drive me mad. And nurses. Maybe a geriatric nurse.”

I get it. “Hence your tolerance for Sophie.”

“Hence my
enjoyment
of Sophie. She’s really quite fascinating. She had a great life a long time ago, and she changed it completely to raise four boys almost singlehandedly. And she did the bravest thing ever in divorcing Big Curt. When MS started taking over her body, she didn’t run back to that marriage. This is a strong woman, and hardly anyone notices.”

I certainly hadn’t.

“So, in this world where she often is tethered to her house or, worse, her own bed, I’m still interested in her stories. I still want her opinion. I notice her. I value her.”

Kat is proud of this. She also is proud of her T-shirts. Today’s Sharpie art is a caricature of Gene Kelly, who I am told was Kat’s very first crush. She lights up when she talks about him, even now.

And she loves her hair. Every girl I know covets someone else’s locks, but not Kat. She calls it her best feature.

“Other than my feet,” she says. “I have great feet.”

I can’t tell. Feet aren’t really my thing.

At the bike rack, Kat’s shorts don’t cover a millimeter of leg when she straddles her bike. Her legs are great the way Gretchen’s are great: lean and strong.

“I feel like taking the afternoon off from studying,” Kat says. “Where should we go?”

I’m not lugging around all my crap today, so it’s high time to go exploring. I have nothing to show for my eighteen days in Burlington. “Treat me like a tourist. Show me all your best stuff.”

“You’re on,” she says, and we’re racing again.

Hanging out with Kat is exactly like hanging out with Jill … except she’s not Jill.

To the beach, around campus, to the south end of the bike path and then the north, we see it all. A seedling sprouts in my mind: I can do this. Kat and Curt could be my people—my real friends, not just temporary stand-ins for the ones I’m missing. We could hang out and eat at the deli and maybe the university would accept me and I could live here. And what is four more winters, really? Burlington has everything I need: pick-up soccer, a free-ish library, thousands of potential new friends.

Burlington also has a science center.

“Let’s go on my next day off,” Kat says.

“When’s that?”

“Sunday?”

Sunday is definitely a day for friends. “Sounds like a plan.”

Over burgers at a little cafe, I pepper Kat with questions about her classes and how she spends her free time.

“What free time?”

That’s obviously rhetorical, so I veer us back to college-related conversation.

Two hours later, Kat leads me back to Curt’s house.

“See you in the morning,” she says.

After she speeds away, I change into my Chucks and go out for a jog. A few miles later, my legs start complaining about how I’ve treated them today, but I don’t care. I can breathe again. I feel like I’m back.

Or maybe I’m me for the first time.

T
HIRTY-TWO

Thanks to Curt’s computer, I haven’t been to The Byte for days. And thanks to Curt, I have a little extra money and a whole lunch break to catch up with news from Laurel Woods.

The Byte is just the same.

Jill’s Instagram is bare, of course. In two days, it will be full of recaps from swim camp. I love debriefing her after camp. I’ve always secretly—or not so secretly—envied Jill’s weeks at camp. It sounds like one huge party, with grueling practices sprinkled between. Being a counselor is probably even better: no practices required.

Internet news is slow today. Gretchen is away in New York until tomorrow. Tucker doesn’t mention Jill at all, which is weird. He does share news about Grant, though:
Doctors expect Grant to recover fully. Now let’s hope OSU coaches think he’s been punished enough.

Oh man. If Grant can’t play next year, he’ll be a wreck.

I need to head back to the deli in five minutes. Nothing from Gretchen, but a new one from Gary is staring me in the face:
I Forgive You
.

He
forgives
me?
This I have to see. It won’t change anything, but I have to know.

I once read about a spy who could read letters through sealed envelopes. I wish I could hold a candle behind the monitor and see what he wrote without seeing what he wrote.

Sitting on this side of fear—where I feel like he can’t find me, and I know I have been smart about staying hidden—I just want him to disappear. Cease to exist.

I am so over this. There are some things in life you can’t take back: things you say, the way you make people feel, your youth when you’re sixty-five and can’t get out of bed by yourself. Gary can’t take back what he did to Mom. I can’t take back abandoning Gretchen in Jill’s kitchen.

But
he
forgives
me?
My fingertips brush the keyboard, flirting with the letters.

It’s kind of disturbing that he’s emailing me at all. Nothing will eclipse the fear I felt after he murdered Mom. Even an empty threat can’t make things worse. If he can’t track me through this email, there is no point in not opening it. Morbid curiosity lurks at my fingertips. I open the message.

A little pop-up box reads
This image has been downloaded in HTML
, but I can’t find the image. Instead, Gary has written pages of bullshit justifying everything from slapping me to murdering Mom. His lengthy exposition blames everyone—his parents, his old bosses and colleagues, our neighbors, my mother, and me—for everything he’s ever done. When I get to his forgiveness—for my horrid, irresponsible behavior, including scaring off Renee—I stop reading and log off.

The man is delusional. Then again, if he’s forgiven me, maybe he’s done with me.

Halfway to the deli, I realize I am a complete dumbass. If Gary could track email I send, I can track him, too.

One thirty-cent printed page later, I’m headed to Curt’s with my best—only!—clue to Gary’s whereabouts. At the convenience store, I borrow a Sharpie to blacken out my email address.

Curt takes the page and tools around on his iPhone for several minutes.

Not for the first time, I think Jill would love Curt. He’s totally into this Gary stuff, which is just a game to him. Who cares that he doesn’t know how dire the situation may be?

I can’t help butting in. “What are you doing, exactly?”

He points to a row of numbers and periods. “I’m tracing that.”

“Could you maybe explain like I’m five?”

“An IP address is kind of like a phone number. I got this number, and want to see who it belongs to. I did a reverse lookup, not helpful.”

Curt goes through the motions and flashes his smartphone at me. “Hostname is a T-Mobile hotspot, so not like a company or residence or something. Dead end. So, we’ll try Googling for geolocation based on the IP address. Could pinpoint his location.”

Awesome. If Curt can find Gary, I can tell Jill on Friday, and be on my way home this weekend!

It could happen.

It probably won’t, but it could.

Curt taps around on his phone again. “Yup!” He faces his phone toward me. “Spokes Coffee in Elyria, Ohio. Any idea where that is?”

Elyria, Ohio, obviously.

“There ya go,” Curt beams.” Now you know he’s not here.”

What a huge relief! Jill was right. Of course she was right. He’s not coming after me at all. I can’t wait to talk to her. Well, to apologize and talk to her.

“Can I borrow that a sec?”

I could call Dale, but I really want him to find Gary before I reveal my location. It has to be Jill. She isn’t allowed to have her cell at camp, and she’s probably locked it away somewhere so the little boys can’t play with it. My call goes directly to voicemail.

“Hey, Jill, I found Gary. I mean, in theory. I didn’t find him in person. I found him through an email he sent me. It’s a long story. Tell your dad he’s been using Spokes Coffee in Elyria. When they find him, use your Instagram time stamp thing and I’ll call you. Hope camp was fun! Home soon! Infinite Summer! YAY!”

This is awesome. We know exactly where he is. Or where he was at 1:37 p.m. yesterday.

It’s only a matter of time.

He’s cornered.

T
HIRTY-THREE

In 46.25 hours, Jill will be back from camp.

After a long day at the deli—when someone smeared shit on the walls of the girls’ bathroom—Curt has coerced me into keeping an ear out for Sophie while he goes on yet another date. Kat stays to keep me company, but she’s so immersed in her microeconomics notes that I can easily steal peeks at her still-radiant face. Every few pages, she pulls an Oreo from the long sleeve between us.

She offered me one, but eating Oreos with Kat feels like cheating on Jill.

Shortly before eight, Kat closes her book quietly, looks me straight in the eye, and says. “Done!” Two Oreos are her reward. She’s a twist-and-licker, like any normal, self-respecting person.

Kat says, “So. Graham, we covered my stuff. What’s your thing? What do you want to do with the rest of your life?”

Stay alive. Catch a killer.

I don’t like being on the other end of questions. “Travel, I guess.”

Kat throws her head back in a round laugh. “Been there, done that. It’s overrated.”

“You’ve lived in several places. I’m talking about going everywhere. I want to travel the whole world.”

“I’ve seen some of that, too. I went to India with Habitat for Humanity when I was twelve.”

Kat describes the house she helped build and how she made friends with children despite the language barrier. I want the whole story—how they got there, why they went, what they saw—all of it. Her eyes sparkle as she describes the family whose house she was building. She talks about the games the children played, and I realize she was wrong: she would be an excellent teacher. But nursing will do.

“Were there goats in the road in India?”

She stares at me like I’m a goat.

I raise my hands in defense. “I’m sorry, I’ve never been to India. But I read
National Geographic
, and there are always goats in the road in India.”

“No, Mr.
National Geographic
, there were not. Not everything is as it looks in magazines.”

“Hey, I wasn’t trying to offend you. I’m just fascinated. And jealous of your travels.”

“Why, where do you go?”