S.W. Tanpepper's GAMELAND, Season One Omnibus (24 page)

He leans over me to kiss me goodbye.

I turn away. I get out of the van and go inside the house, leaving him sitting at the curb. I don't feel anything, neither guilt nor anger. I'm totally numb by then. I don't even stop when Mom passes me in the hallway. She actually looks halfway sober, which is an improvement. She says something, but my mind refuses to translate it. I just go straight up to bed and crawl beneath the covers.

Eric calls me down for dinner later. I go down and eat and come back upstairs. It's like a dream I'm watching. I lie down and squeeze my eyes closed. I just want to sleep.

But no matter how tired I am, no matter how worn down, I just can't stop thinking about Jake.

Hours pass. Finally, I get up and wander downstairs. The house is dark. I find Mom's Link on the table and sit staring at it for several minutes. Before I realize what I've done, Kelly's voice comes through it.

“
Jess? Is everything all right? Why'd you ping me? I saw it was your mom and thought something bad happened.”

I blink and stare at his worried face on the screen for a moment, wondering why I'm talking to him. Didn't I leave him behind?

“
Are you…home?” he asks.

“
Kelly?” I hear myself say. Like listening to someone else speaking, except in my own voice. “Can you come over? We need to talk.”

He hesitates a moment, then nods. “I just put Kyle to bed. He's feeling a little better than he was this morning.” He peers through the Link at me, studying my face. I know he's searching for something there, guilt or relief. But I don't know what he sees. I don't even know how I feel. “I'll be right over.”

Five minutes later, he's knocking on the front door. I expect my mother to get it, but the house is silent and I realize I'm the only one still awake. Mom's almost certainly gone out, otherwise she'd be in front of the TV watching
Survivalist
. She's forgotten her Link again. She does that a lot.

I wonder if Grandpa's gone out, too. Probably. He comes and goes as he pleases, sometimes at odd hours, and never tells me where he's going. For an old retired guy six years past his life-expectancy—owing to a rare LSC waiver from the government because of his previous service to the country—he keeps himself busy enough. He's always here for dinner, though, always reminding me to eat right and take my medicine, which I do now, since I forgot earlier.

“
Grandpa?” I call down the hall, quiet enough not to wake Eric, but loud enough that if Grandpa's awake, he'll answer. But the house remains silent.

I open the door and Kelly comes in and wraps his arms around me as soon as he sees me. I breathe in his smell. He's showered, so it's mostly just the strong scent of soap. But he's there, too, his particular scent, faint, familiar, comforting. I hold him tight. Then we're upstairs and in bed and my skin feels two sizes too small. He's in me and all I want to do is lose myself in the moment. I want to forget everything: my anger at the world and this feeling of helplessness I've carried around inside of me for as long as I can remember.

And when it's over, he lies beside me. He combs my hair away from my face, breathing with me, his exhales flowing over me like water.

“
I love you so much, Jess,” he tells me. “I don't ever want to lose you.”

I close my eyes. He knows how much I hate when he says things like that, especially right after sex. But I know he isn't like that. He says what he feels deep down, not what's just right there on the surface.

“
You won't lose me,” I say. “I promise.”

I hear him take in a breath and hold it. The word promise holds so much meaning for him right now—so
many
meanings—that I know he's wondering exactly which of those meanings I intend. He lets the breath out. It caresses my cheek and my skin tingles.

“
A promise is not a guarantee,” he says. It sounds like a line from a song. I almost groan.

“
There are no guarantees in life,” I say. But as soon as it's out, I regret even thinking it. I want to pull it back inside of me again.

“
I wish I could tell you how much you mean to me, Jessie,” he says. “How much you mean to all of us.”

I pull my head away to look at him better. He holds my cheek in his hand, rubbing his thumb across my chin. He looks deep into my face. At first I just see myself in his eyes, my sun-bleached hair, my narrow face. Then I feel myself slipping into the muddy depths of his brown eyes, losing myself in him.

“
You're our rock, Jessie.”

He laughs a little when he sees the look on my face. “What I mean to say is, you're so well-grounded, so…so solid.”

I shake my head. “Me? You're the one who's going to become someone someday. You'll go to college and make lots of money and—”

“
And marry you.”

I sigh and turn my head away, but he gently pulls it back.

“
You care about us all. Even people you barely know.”

He's talking about Jake.

I shake my head. “You're the one who cares deeply, Kel. Not just for me, either. Look at Kyle. Look at everything you do for him.”

I feel him tense up against me. The line of his jaw hardens and he doesn't meet my eyes for a moment. He's always found it hard to talk about his brother. He's convinced that if they just had a little money they could fix Kyle. He might be right, but it's a moot point at the moment. That's why he pushes himself so hard, so he can go to college, so he can have money. That's why his parents push him, too.

“
I'm not like that,” he whispers.

“
Yeah, well, I'm not as solid as you think I am, either,” I say. He knows about my temper. He knows that's one reason I take hapkido. It's cheaper than counseling, anyway, and probably a hell of a lot more effective.

“
I feel like I've barely kept things together lately,” he says. “If it wasn't for you, I probably would've given up a long time ago.”

“
Don't say that, Kel.”

“
It's true. I mean, we're all graduating this year and you're so sure of yourself, going to work for ArcWare—”

“
We serve the people,
” I joke. “That's not being sure, Kel. That's facing reality. College isn't for me.”

“
Yeah, well, I'm not so sure about it being for me, either.”

“
If anyone can do it, you can. Certainly not Reggie.”

Kelly laughs and shakes his head. “I look at him and, I'm sorry, but all I see is a little kid wearing a man's body. He wants to be liked so badly, to be accepted. He wants to be in charge, but he's too scared of responsibility. You're not. You're fearless. I still can't believe how well you dealt with all that shit today.”

“
I'd rather not think about that.”

“
And Ash,” he says, going on. “I thought for sure she was going to crumble to pieces. Literally. She's like Reg in a lot of ways. She wants to be grown up, but she's got a lot of growing up to do.”

“
Growing up's overrated.”

He nods and rubs my lips so gently with his thumb that it sends shivers through my body. Desire for him overwhelms me. I can't believe just an hour ago I was so tired I was ready to pass out, so fragile I thought I'd crumble to pieces. I can't believe just a few hours before we were trying not to die.

Jake's face flashes before my eyes.

And now…

Now I never want to leave this bed. Or Kelly. Or this moment.

“
And then there's Micah.” Kelly sighs. “I mean, he's definitely got it going on. But what exactly it is he's got, I don't know. He scares me sometimes. He's so damn smart and capable that I often wonder what the hell he's doing with his life, sitting in a dark, dank basement playing video games. Getting high and drunk. Hacking government computers, or at least trying to. He's self-destructive. I'm afraid he'll end up dragging us all down with him. I wouldn't be surprised if he gets conscripted by the time he's forty. Probably a lot sooner.”

As soon as he'd said the part about being scared of Micah, I had gasped. I didn't think anyone else felt the same way about him as I do.

“
But you,” Kelly continues, not noticing, “you just keep chugging along.”

“
Chugging? Really? That's the best you can come up with to describe me?”

“
You know what I mean. You are our base, Jessie. You're the one who holds us all together. We all rely on you to keep us focused. That's why I did what I did in LI. That's why I do what I do now. And why I'll continue to do what I need to do so I won't lose the people I love. I'd rather die first.”

“
You won't lose me.”

“
I know. You promised.”

I don't answer. I know he's waiting for me to bring up marriage. But how can I tell him it's the thing I so dearly want when I have all these tiny little doubts—not about us or him, but of me? I'm so afraid if I tell him yes that it'd be like he's settling for something less than he deserves. How can I tell him that?

We make love again. It's awkward and hesitant this time. And yet despite that, it still feels right. Maybe that's what matters in the end, that it doesn't always have to be perfect. It just has to feel right between us. Maybe that's how he knows for sure.

Maybe that's all I need to also be sure.

Afterward, when our breathing has slowed and our hearts have once more settled back into their comfortable rhythms, I finally yield to exhaustion.

“
I love you, Jessica Anne Daniels,” he whispers into my ear, even as the welcome darkness flows over me, consumes me. “I need you.”

I want to tell him Jake needs us, too.” But my lips are numb with sleep. His words and my thoughts melt into my dreams. It's not until the next morning, when my dreams are shattered by Ashley's frantic banging on my door, that the full impact of his final words hits me:

“
That's why I have to let you go.”

“He's gone,”
Ashley tells me, and I know immediately who she means. “He took Jake's van. He's gone back to Long Island. Alone.”

By all rights, she should sound frantic, but she only sounds relieved. She thinks Kelly's going means the rest of us won't have to. It means
she
won't have to.

She nudges my foot with her toe as I stand there numb with shock. “Hey, girl, you still with me?”

“
This can't be happening,” I manage to gurgle. I feel like I'm suffocating beneath a mountain of sand. “Kelly wouldn't do a fucked up thing like that. He told me— He said he was going to let
me
go.”

Even as I say it, I realize that's not what he meant. He wasn't saying I could go back to LI to save Jake. He was telling me he was letting me go for good. By sacrificing himself. but the last thing I want is for him to let me go!

The betrayal is especially painful after our night together.

“
Let
you go?” Ash says, incredulous. The old Ash returns in a flash, defiant and indignant, fiercely self-reliant, yet hopelessly dependent. “Since when do you need his permission?”

“
I don't, damn it! That's not what I meant.” I rub my face, trying to wake myself. “Son of a bitch! I'm going to kill him!”

“
You, kill? Ha, right! You have a hard time killing bugs.”

“
I killed zombies.”

“
That's different. They're not alive. Besides, Kelly's just trying to protect you. You know that, don't you?”

“
I don't need to be protected!” I slam my fist into the wall by the door. Somewhere, in the back of the house, I hear a chair squeak. I sense Grandpa leaning forward at his desk, tilting his head and listening. Fine, let him hear. I don't care! “It's Kelly who needs protecting. I can take care of myself!”

Ashley glances nervously into the depths of the house. She grabs my arm and leads me upstairs and into my bedroom. She sits me down, then goes back to close the door. I pop right back up and start to pace.

“
Listen, Ash, are you sure?” I ask her. “Did you actually talk with him?”

“
I stopped at his house on my way over this morning,” she tells me. “He was gone and his mother asked if I knew whose van was he driving. What could I say? I said it was a friend's he was helping out. I think she knew something was going on. She was acting all nervous and kept asking me questions. She kept asking about you and if you knew anything. I got away as soon as I could and pinged Micah, but he wasn't answering.”

“
What about Reggie?” I doubt Kelly would say anything to Reg, but Ash's answer surprises me.

“
Turns out he spoke with Kel about a half hour before. Said Kelly had pinged him from the road and told him to make sure we all just sat tight. He said he'd be back sometime this afternoon.”

“
Reggie knew and he didn't say anything to anyone sooner? He didn't ping me?”

“
He couldn't.”

I wince. Without my Link, I'm shut off from the world.

“
He could've told me in person.”

Ash shakes her head. I can see it in her eyes, the knowledge that Reggie's a coward. He was all too willing to let Kelly go and take all the risk himself. Just like her. At least she had the guts to tell me in person.