“I thought I wanted to work there,” he said listlessly. “Someday.”
“But now?”
“Now I don’t want to anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because sometimes trying to make a difference is worse than not trying at all.”
“Oh.”
“What did you want to talk about?”
“Siobhan.”
Keith blinked at me. Those coppery eyes.
“What about Siobhan?” he asked.
I told him how she had come to my room. How I let her sleep in my bed. The things she’d tried to do to me. Her hot tears on my back and small hands on my body, all over, everywhere, becoming more desperate the more I pulled away. Until I felt like my rejection was hurting her. Until I didn’t know what the right thing to do was anymore.
Keith turned very pale. Then he got up and ran inside the house.
Should I not have told him? I followed Keith. I found him locked in the downstairs bathroom. He stayed in there a long time. The noises he made meant he was either really sick or really sad. Or both.
He wouldn’t look at me when he came out.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said. “I’m so sorry.”
chapter
thirty-three
the sea
Jordan climbs up onto the rock first. I don’t look, but I know it’s her. The clues are there. She’s quiet, contained, so different from Lex and his blundering movements. And she must have seen more of my charm than my strangeness tonight, because she’s kind. She’s gentle. Jordan touches my arm. My back. The bruise around my eye. I let her. It’s okay. I’m lying down now, so it’s not like she sees too much of me.
My panting increases in her presence. I guess that’s why she’s touching. She wants me to stay calm. But she keeps saying, Win, Win, and that’s what makes me shake and pant more. She doesn’t know I hate my name, that every time I hear it, I’m reminded of what I’ve lost. My family. My identity. My innocence.
I’m reminded of him.
She keeps talking, a sad little soliloquy. She tells me she’s from California and that she doesn’t fit in here. She tells me she’s never really fit in anywhere, but that the money and elitism at our school intimidates her. She says this embarrasses her in ways she doesn’t understand. She tells me about life in California, about public school and kids who ride the bus and who hang out at strip malls or in front of liquor stores. She tells me about doing too many drugs and making too many bad decisions and deciding to come here so that she could be in a place where her past didn’t have to define her. She says earning a scholarship made her proud until she got here and realized it was something to be ashamed of. She tells me about her mother and visiting family in Guadalajara at Christmastime. She talks about something called Las Posadas, a Catholic tradition in Mexico where families walk door to door, pretending to be Mary and Joseph looking for a place to stay before Jesus is born. And she sings to me in Spanish, sweet, lilting words I cannot understand. She does not talk about her father.
I don’t answer. I can’t and I don’t want to. The moon is leaving, very quickly, a pale shadow slipping behind the neighboring mountains. Has it taken part of me with it? I haven’t changed, and so yes, I think, yes, it has.
Eventually Lex scrambles up, too. He sits on the other side of me. He smells of cigarettes but doesn’t light up. He says nothing, which I appreciate.
Together we wait for the sun.
after
We do not say that possibly a dog talks to itself. Is that because we are so minutely acquainted with its soul?
—Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
chapter
thirty-four
half-life
The night is gone.
Extinguished.
Extinct.
The sun is barely visible, but the ripe colors of the sky blossom, bright and welcoming. The memories rip through me, along with that nostalgic pang of mourning, the kind that marks both a beginning and an end. I do not move. I remain on the rock, on my stomach, and I do not move. I can’t.
Jordan and Lex both leave the summit. They have to pee, they tell me, which I don’t doubt, but they’re gone such a long time that I’m pretty sure their motives are multiple.
What do I do? I creep to the edge of the boulder, past the scrub brush and a hive of carpenter ants, almost to the point of no return. I’ve failed again. I’ve failed like I’ve always failed. The disappointment and self-loathing push me ever closer to the drop. Spite makes everything easier, and in this moment I feel like I could do it. I could take this leap of faith that I failed to take all those years ago.
But the wolf won’t let me.
Come out, then, I plead with it. Show yourself. Don’t hide.
I can feel it inside of me. It is feral. Hungry. But it doesn’t come out. Instead, the wolf inside me turns around three times, tamping down hope and healing and grace like soft meadow grass. Then it lies down. It tucks its tail. It closes its eyes.