14
Wyatt
I fell asleep with the diary in my hand. When I woke in the morning, the clouds were white and so thick they looked like drifted snow. That was how my head felt too, and I wondered if I was drunk. Had I imagined the singing in the night? The light?
I started to pick up the diary again, to see what had happened. But then, I heard Mrs. Greenwood in the hall outside and stowed the notebook under my mattress.
“I thought maybe we could go to a movie tonight,” she said when I opened the door.
“There’s a movie theater around here?” It didn’t seem like there was much of anything here.
But she nodded. “In Chestertown. It’s a bit south of here. They have movies every Friday and on holidays.”
Now, I remembered my mother mentioning it. She said she’d grown up in a town so small the closest movie theater was thirty miles away and only showed movies on weekends and holidays.
“I understand if you don’t want to go,” she said.
“Of course I want to.” I didn’t.
“It’s just such a long drive for me to make by myself. I haven’t been since Danielle . . .”
“Of course I’ll go.” I was a jerk to even think of not going.
“I checked the paper. It begins at eight. It sounds like some sort of space thing.”
“And you really like that?” I remembered her watching Star Trek.
She clapped her hands. “I love it. After I introduced Danielle to Star Trek and The Next Generation, she told me about the Terminator films.”
My eyes widened. “You liked all those machine guns and cursing and stuff?” My own grandfather got mad when I watched a movie with the word freaking in it.
“I liked Ahnold—before he became a politician or whatever he’s doing now.” She laughed. “Does that surprise you?”
“No. I used to know a girl who loved all those movies.”
“Your girlfriend?”
“Not really. I mean, I’d have liked her to be, but it was complicated.”
“Everything with your generation is complicated. When I was young, you just fell in love and got married.”
“We were old friends. If we’d started dating and it hadn’t worked out, it would have been awkward.”
She nodded. “What did you finally do?”
I looked away. “There was an . . . accident. She died.” I knew Mrs. Greenwood knew what had really happened. I just couldn’t say it.
“Oh, yes, your mother told me about your friends. I’m so sorry.” She looked like she wanted to put her arms around me or something, but she was waiting for permission.
I didn’t give it to her. “Yeah, me too.” Change the subject. I needed to change the subject. “Hey, I was going to go to the hardware store today, pick up the hinges for your cabinets. Then, I could work on them tomorrow, or later if there’s time before the movie.”
“I don’t think the hardware store will be open. It’s New Year’s.”
Of course, she was right. I should have accepted Astrid’s invitation to go skiing. Yet I realized I didn’t want to, didn’t want to be around happy, bright people, people who didn’t know all the bad things that happened, that could happen if you weren’t careful, and sometimes, even if you were.
I could probably tell her I was going skiing or make some other excuse to leave, but when I looked at my watch, it was after noon, and it seemed easier to wait until tomorrow. It had probably just been the wind anyway. At least, no one else seemed to hear it. Which was the story of my life lately.
“Is there anything else I can fix for you? I did everything around our house. I’m actually pretty good with electrical.”
“What a good boy you are. I can probably find you something to do, but let’s have breakfast first.”
I reddened a bit at being called a good boy. I didn’t feel like one lately, especially since I’d been planning to sneak around on her. “Let me just put on some jeans first. It’s cold.”
“You’re a good boy, Wyatt,” she repeated before she left.
I wondered why she had repeated it, but I shrugged it off. Just something old ladies said, I guessed. If you weren’t actually committing a carjacking that they knew about, they thought you were a great kid. I put on jeans and a sweater.
Before I went downstairs, I pulled the diary out from where I’d hidden it. I had left it open to the last page I’d read. I meant just to hide it better, but first, I flipped it over. I had to see what happened next.
But the next page was blank. All the remaining pages were.
I knew they would be, but I hoped they wouldn’t. Just like part of me hoped Danielle was still alive and writing her diary someplace else.