A Fork in the Road
We barely spoke as we drove back to my house. I didn’t know what to say, and Lena just looked grateful I wasn’t saying it. She let me drive, which was good because I needed something to distract me until my pulse slowed back down. We passed my street, but I didn’t care. I wasn’t ready to go home. I didn’t know what was going on with Lena, or her house, or her uncle, but she was going to tell me.
“You passed your street.” It was the first thing she’d said since we left Ravenwood.
“I know.”
“You think my uncle is crazy, like everyone else. Just say it. Old Man Ravenwood.” Her voice was bitter. “I need to get home.”
I didn’t say a word as we circled the General’s Green, the round patch of faded grass that encircled just about the only thing in Gatlin that ever made it into the guidebooks—the General, a statue of Civil War General Jubal A. Early. The General stood his ground, just as he always had, which now struck me as sort of wrong. Everything had changed; everything kept changing. I was different, seeing things and feeling things and doing things that even a week ago would have seemed impossible. It felt like the General should have changed, too.
I turned down Dove Street and pulled the hearse over alongside the curb, right under the sign that said welcome to gatlin, home of the south’s most unique historic plantation homes and the world’s best buttermilk pie. I wasn’t sure about the pie, but the rest was true.
“What are you doing?”
I turned the car off. “We need to talk.”
“I don’t park with guys.” It was a joke, but I could hear it in her voice. She was petrified.
“Start talking.”
“About what?”
“You’re kidding, right?” I was trying not to shout.
She pulled at her necklace, twisting the tab from a soda can. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“How about explaining what just happened back there.”
She stared out the window, into the darkness. “He was angry. Sometimes he loses his temper.”
“Loses his temper? You mean hurls things across the room without touching them and lights candles without matches?”
“Ethan, I’m sorry.” Her voice was quiet.
But mine wasn’t. The more she avoided my questions, the angrier it made me. “I don’t want you to be sorry. I want you tell me what’s going on.”
“With what?”
“With your uncle and his weird house, that he somehow managed to redecorate within a couple of days.
With the food that appears and disappears. With all that talk about boundaries and protecting you. Pick one.”
She shook her head. “I can’t talk about it. And you wouldn’t understand, anyway.”
“How do you know if you don’t give me a chance?”
“My family is different from other families. Trust me, you can’t handle it.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Face it, Ethan. You say you’re not like the rest of them, but you are. You want me to be different, but just a little. Not really different.”
“You know what? You’re as crazy as your uncle.”
“You came to my house without being invited, and now you’re angry because you didn’t like what you saw.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t see out the windows, and I couldn’t think clearly, either.
“And you’re angry because you’re afraid. You all are. Deep down, you’re all the same.” Lena sounded tired now, like she had already given up.
“No.” I looked at her. “You’re afraid.”
She laughed, bitterly. “Yeah, right. The things I’m afraid of, you couldn’t even imagine.”
“You’re afraid to trust me.”
She didn’t say anything.
“You’re afraid to get to know someone well enough to notice whether or not they show up for school.”
She dragged her finger through the fog on her window. It made a shaky line, like a zigzag.
“You’re afraid to stick around and see what happens.”
The zigzag turned into what looked like a bolt of lightning.
“You’re not from here. You’re right. And you’re not just a little different.”
She was still staring out the window, at nothing, because you still couldn’t see out of it. But I could see her. I could see everything. “You’re incredibly, absolutely, extremely, supremely, unbelievably different.” I touched her arm, with just my fingertips, and immediately I felt the warmth of electricity.
“I know because deep down, I think I am, too. So tell me. Please. Different how?”
“I don’t want to tell you.”
A tear dripped down her cheek. I caught it with my finger, and it burned. “Why not?”