33
Wyatt
The sun had finally risen high in the sky, stretching its fingers through the many branches and lighting the room. I tried to make myself comfortable, but I couldn’t. There would be no comfort for me. Telling this story might help, but probably not. Probably, only doing something would help.
“I used to have this friend named Tyler,” I explained. “He lived next door, and he and I were best friends, almost like brothers. You know what I mean?”
Too late, I realized of course she didn’t. She’d been locked in a tower her whole life, no friends, nothing. Which was mind-blowing, when you thought about it. Locked in a tower. You could say it a hundred times, and it still seemed like something not real, like something from a book you read a long time ago, before you were old enough to question how crazy it was.
She’d been locked in a tower. Oh, and her tears had healing powers. That too. What else? Maybe, if you dropped her out the window, you’d find out she could fly.
I looked at her. Her skin was the same translucent white as the snow outside, and her eyes saw right through me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know you don’t really know what I’m talking about.”
“Don’t be. I’ve read books. My favorite was called A Little Princess. There was a girl named Sara, and she had to stay in an attic, which was like a tower. She thought she would be so lonely, but then, she discovered a little girl named Becky in the next room. They became friends and had so many adventures. I used to long for a friend like that, just on the other side of the wall. In fact, at night, I pretended there was someone there. Was that what it was like?”
“Sort of.” I didn’t want to say it was nothing like that. Tyler wasn’t some theoretical soul mate, some pretend friend like in a book. He was a real person, a person who let you copy his homework if you left yours at home, a person to throw a ball with. When Tyler and I went out for the travel baseball team in seventh grade, he made it and I didn’t. So he said he wouldn’t do it either because it wouldn’t be fun without me, even though he really wanted to do it. That was the kind of friend he was. “Yeah, it was like that. We were best friends. His parents were divorced, and after his mother got remarried, we became even better friends. He was over at my house all the time.”
“That’s so nice,” Rachel said. “I always dreamed of having a friend like that. You must miss him, being away from him.”
“I do.” I felt a lump forming in my throat, but I swallowed it. “Anyway we always hung out at my house. Tyler said we couldn’t go to his anymore because his stepfather worked the night shift. I wished I could go over his house more so I could see his sister, Nikki.”
“Nikki?”
“Yeah, Nikki. Nicole. I’d known her since we were little kids too, and I never really thought of her like . . . well, you know. I never thought of her. But last year, I suddenly started noticing that she was, you know, pretty. I’d known her my whole life, and she should have been like a sister, but suddenly, she wasn’t.”
“I understand. Like Laurie and Jo March.”
“Exactly.” Even though I had no idea who Joe March was, he sounded familiar. I thought maybe he was from one of those girl books like Nikki had liked. I’d look on Wikipedia when I got back. “Anyway, one day I decided I’d go over there, just to say hi to her. And Tyler too, of course. I wouldn’t make any noise or disturb their stepdad. We’d pretty much had the type of friendship where you could just walk over without knocking, so I didn’t tell Tyler I was coming.
“But when I got there, Tyler’s stepdad was awake anyway. I knew because he was screaming and yelling. I could see them through the little window in the front door. Just barely, but they couldn’t see me.”
I could still picture the scene, through the thick, mottled glass shaped like a flower. Tyler’s stepfather—his name was Rick—was mad about something. Maybe someone had already woken him up. Anyway, his face was practically purple, and I knew I didn’t want to knock.
“I started to back away. He was calling Tyler’s mom all sorts of names, and then, he hit her. I couldn’t believe it. Tyler sort of freaked then, and they got into it, struggling on the floor. I couldn’t move. I didn’t really know what to do.”
“I wouldn’t either,” Rachel said. “It sounds terrifying.”
I remembered it so well. I had stood frozen, both figuratively and literally, in the November cold, while Ty and Rick were hitting each other. Nikki and her mom ran for safety. I was glad at least for that. Finally, it was like a spell had been broken. I ran home.
“I didn’t know what to do,” I told Rachel. “If I should call the police or something, but I thought Tyler might call them, and it was over anyway, so I didn’t. After a while, I called Ty on his cell phone.” I realized she probably didn’t know what a cell phone was. “It’s a little phone where you can talk to people privately. Like this.” I took out my phone and, even though I knew it wouldn’t work, I turned it on, so she could see the lights. Weirdly, it had bars. Maybe because I was up so high. Josh had told me his phone worked in the hills. There were three texts too, all from my mother. “I asked him if he wanted to come over, hang out, or go to the mall—that’s a place a lot of teenagers go, to buy stuff and hang out. He sounded a little weird, and I knew why. He said he’d see if he could go. A few minutes later, he called me back and asked if Nikki could come over too. Of course I said okay.
“So we went to the mall, and all the way there, Tyler was quiet, and Nikki was sort of crying, and I didn’t know what to say, what to do. Part of me felt like I’d seen something I shouldn’t have, and if Tyler wanted to talk about it, he would have told me himself. It felt like spying. But another part said that Tyler was my best friend, and he was in trouble. I wanted to know how often this happened, though I sort of knew. That was why I wasn’t allowed to go over there. Part of me was angry at him for not telling me. I mean, he was my best friend.”
“It was probably hard for him to talk about it,” Rachel said. “He was embarrassed. At least, I think he might have been.”
“No, you’re right,” I said. “And, eventually, when I decided to break down and ask him, that’s exactly what happened. He got mad at me, for knowing, for spying on him. I said, ‘I wasn’t spying. I was just coming over your house like a normal person. I can’t help what I saw, man. I want to help.’ And Nikki took my side. She said she was glad I knew, that it was hard, not having anyone to talk to about it. She said she’d wanted to tell one of the counselors at school but their mom said not to. If they told the counselor, the counselor would have to tell the police or something. Then, they’d come and take them away.”
“‘Isn’t that a good reason to tell someone?’ I said, ‘So they’d come and get you some help, arrest that bastard?’
“Nikki looked at Tyler, and I could tell they’d had the same conversation before then. Tyler said, ‘My mom’s worried about us all getting separated, that they’d put me and Nikki in foster care. She says she’s going to leave Rick as soon as she can get enough money together to take us to live with my aunt Mel in Florida.’
“‘Do you believe her?’ I asked. Tyler’s mom didn’t even work anymore. She used to be a nurse before she’d married Rick, but then, she’d quit.
“‘Sure,’ Tyler said. ‘Why not? In any case, I don’t want to get separated from Nikki.’
“I told him they could move in with us, but Tyler shook his head. ‘I have to stick around to protect my mom.’”
Rachel was sitting, hands folded in her lap, staring at me, and I knew she understood. I said, “I know now there were things I could have done. If I’d told my mom, maybe she would have given them the money for the ticket to Florida. Or maybe the police would have arrested Rick, and then, it would have been over.”
“But you didn’t do that?” Rachel said.
Her voice didn’t sound judgmental. I shook my head. “I didn’t know what to do.”
“I wouldn’t have either.”
“I just figured—I don’t know what I figured, that it wasn’t my place. I knew Tyler would be mad at me if I told. Now, I realize he was too scared, they all were, too scared of what might happen. Sometimes, people are more comfortable with sticking with what they know, even if it’s bad, instead of taking a chance on something that would probably be better but might be worse.”
She nodded. “Like this tower. I’ve been here for years. Obviously, I could escape. I left when I saw you fall through the ice, when I needed to leave. But I’ve always thought that maybe, there’d be something really bad out there, or someone, someone who’d hurt me, kill me. Or maybe I’d just starve to death. Here, Mama feeds me every day, like a . . . pet. I have no idea what’s out there. So I stay.”
She stood then, and paced the room, perturbed. “We all like to think we’d do the right thing, the heroic thing if we had to. But usually, we don’t because that’s not the comfortable thing. The easy thing is to stay put in your comfortable tower, even if that tower is actually a prison.”
“But you saved my life.”
“Because I couldn’t just watch you die, drown in the icy lake. Sometimes, you have to act. It’s a matter of life and death.”
I felt my stomach drop. “It was a matter of life and death with Tyler. I just didn’t know it. I didn’t recognize it.”
“What do you mean?”
I shivered, remembering what had happened next.
“A week went by, then two, and nothing changed with Tyler. They didn’t move out. Their mom didn’t leave their stepdad, and I didn’t say anything because I didn’t want Tyler to be mad at me or whatever.” I shook my head. “Like that would be a big deal.”
It was hard to go on. I drew in a deep breath, and even though it was cold in the room, and my feet were wet, my face felt hot.
Rachel touched my hand. “Are you okay?”
I shook my head again. “No. No, I’m not, but I have to tell you anyway.”
She took my hand in hers. “Okay.”
I breathed in, then out. I could picture the scene, like it was frozen in time, my mom and I at the breakfast table, English muffins and I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter. I couldn’t see that table without remembering. It was a big part of the reason I’d left.
“We were eating breakfast. It was a Saturday. Tyler and I had played a big game the night before, and my muscles ached. Football. I was going to call him at nine, you know, to rehash it. But suddenly, there was this really loud noise.
“My mother and I looked at each other, and she was, like, ‘What was that?’ and I said, ‘I don’t know,’ but I did, and suddenly, I was screaming and running to the door, and my mother was pulling me back. She was saying, ‘Don’t go out there.’ She’d call 911—the emergency number. Then, there was another loud noise and a woman screaming. I could tell it was a woman, maybe Nikki or Tyler’s mom, and somehow, I knew Tyler was dead. I knew he was dead, and I was crying, screaming, yelling to my mom to call the police, and she did, but it was too late. It was too late. Then, the door to their house opened, and Tyler’s mom came running out. She was covered in blood, and I knew it was too late. But my mom was on the phone with the police, and I let Tyler’s mother in. I waited a second to see if anyone else was behind them, if Tyler . . . or Nikki . . .”
I stopped, unable to speak anymore. Tears were streaming out of my eyes, down my face and into my mouth. These tears didn’t heal anything at all. They were salty, and they hurt. I looked at Rachel, and she was all wavery like one of those weird paintings at MoMA, and I saw that she was crying too. She put her arms around me, her face against mine, her tears, her magical tears, blending with my own, and I didn’t know if it was the tears’ healing powers or just having her near me, but I felt a little bit better. A little bit.
We stood there a moment, clinging to one another, weeping. Finally, I said, “He killed them. She said she was leaving him, and he killed her kids. He killed Tyler and Nikki, and when the police sirens started coming, there was another shot, and he killed himself. And I knew all about it, but I did nothing.”
The room felt so cold, and I started to shiver, shiver uncontrollably, worse than the day I fell in the lake. Rachel held me tight. She said, “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known. You couldn’t have seen it coming.”
“You don’t think so?”
“No. I didn’t see it coming, even when you told me. To believe that would happen, you would have to be so negative. You would have to think people are evil. You’re not like that.”
I shook my head. “In the days after that, I felt so many different things, sad, angry, guilty, but mostly just numb, like part of me was dead. But other times, I felt like I could just go over there, just go and change it, see Tyler and tell him to run, tell him to leave. A couple of times, I started out the door before I noticed the police tape, before I remembered the ambulances that had come for their bodies. And on the day of the funeral, I felt like if I just told someone, maybe I could fix it. I knew it wasn’t true, that nothing was going to bring Tyler back.
“Still, I felt so guilty. I told a friend, this girl in my class, Megan. I told her how guilty I felt, like I could have prevented it.”
“What did she say?” Rachel stroked my back.
“Nothing. She didn’t say anything at all.” I remembered her stony face, then her back as she turned away. “I’m sure she hated me.”
“I bet she didn’t,” Rachel said. “That would be so unfair. It wasn’t your fault.”
“Do you really think so?”
“Of course it wasn’t. You couldn’t have predicted the future. No one else even knows what they would have done. Everyone thinks they’d do the heroic thing, but you never really know.” She pulled away from me, angry and fierce. “The person whose fault it was is dead. It wasn’t your fault.”
“I wish I could be sure.”
“You should be sure.” She stroked my hair. “You’re a hero. You came out here, all this way to find me. Who else would do that?”
“Lots of guys.”
“I haven’t seen any of them.” She walked to the window and opened it. “Helloooooo! Are you out there? Hellooooo?”
I laughed. “They must have fallen in the lake.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Okay, maybe not that many guys have the same kind of time on their hands as I do.” Though, in Slakkill, that probably wasn’t true.
“So you just came to rescue me because you had time on your hands?” She glanced out the window again. “Maybe I should look for those guys.”
“That didn’t come out right.”
“Try again, then.” She closed the window, looking at me the whole time. Then, she walked toward me and put her arms around me.
“You’re so incredible,” I said.
She kissed me, my cheeks, my eyes. I kissed her back, stroking her hair, her hair, and for a moment, holding her, I forgot.
She took my hand and led me to a little sofa in the corner, the type of sofa my grandfather would have called a settee. She placed her arms around my neck and pulled me down, down with her until I was on top of her, feeling her beneath me. I felt alive, alive for the first time since Tyler had died, not just pretending like with Astrid, just going through the motions. I felt that finally, there was something worth living for. She pulled me toward her, my mouth on her mouth, and I felt her heartbeat beneath me. I was alive.
“I think . . . I love you, Rachel. I know it’s too soon. I’ve only met you twice. But you saved my life . . . twice.” I really felt like she’d saved my life today too, like I’d been dead, but now, I wasn’t.
“I know,” she said. “I feel the same way. And you will save my life too. You will.”
“Let me save it,” I told her. “Please come with me.”
“Not now.” She kissed me again. “But soon. I love you. Soon.”