CHAPTER 22
Nastya
It amazes me how people are so afraid of what can happen in the dark, but they don’t give a second thought about their safety during the day; as if the sun offers some sort of ultimate protection from all the evil in the world. It doesn’t. All it does is whisper to you, lulling you with its warmth before it shoves you face down into the dirt. Daylight won’t protect you from anything. Bad things happen all the time; they don’t wait until after dinner.
***
I’ve never been to Josh’s house during the day. It looks different in the afternoon. I wouldn’t be here now if my car battery hadn’t been unjumpably dead when I left school today. I live close enough to the campus to walk, but I don’t walk anywhere in the afternoon. Mornings I can deal with, but there’s a period of hours in the afternoon when I hate being outside. Even nighttime doesn’t bother me so much. The dark doesn’t breed fear in me the way the daytime does. The afternoon sun has a way of following me, burning memories onto my back. Josh always offers me rides home from his house. He thinks it should make me nervous, running alone at night, and it does. I’m not stupid enough to think I’m ever safe outside, anywhere, at any time of day. It’s just that I’m more nervous during the daytime.
So now I’m here, on Josh Bennett’s couch at 3:15 in the afternoon, watching General Hospital. Josh spent the last commercial break patiently filling me in on as much of the past decade’s worth of storylines as he could in three and a half minutes while I ate as many Twizzlers as I could. When the commercials were over, he stopped abruptly and told me he’d tell me the rest during the next break. I don’t think I’ve spent much time actually watching the television. Mostly I’ve been looking at Josh and trying to figure out who the hell he is. I’ve developed a theory that, perhaps, Josh is really twins and there are two of him, because I’m convinced, from day to day, that he’s not the same person.
It’s like that Christian Bale movie where the twin brothers share the same life and you never know which one you’re with.
That’s how I feel with him.
I crumple up the empty cellophane wrapper and walk into the kitchen.
“Where’s your trash?” With as much time as I spend at this house, I never actually come inside. We pretty much live in the garage.
“Under the sink,” he says, not looking away from the TV. “Do you ever eat anything other than sugar?”
I mentally tally what I’ve eaten today: two protein bars, two bags of peanut M&Ms (but they were the small bags so it’s really like eating only one), plus the recently
consumed
Twizzlers.
“Sometimes,” I answer. Really, I wouldn’t even bother with the protein bars if I didn’t need them after working out. When I lived with my parents, we actually sat down and ate meals, real ones, like the way we eat at Drew’s on Sundays. Margot doesn’t cook, plus we always have to eat early so she can get to work and I’m usually not in the mood. Maybe when I’m eighty I’ll like eating dinner at four o’clock in the afternoon, but now, not so much.
I sit back down on the couch next to him and we watch the rest of the show. By four o’clock I know more than I ever cared to
know
about
Quartermaines
and
Spencers. I shouldn’t mock. While I was stuck recovering all those months, I watched my share of bad soap operas. And bad game shows. And bad talk shows. I was an expert in all things daytime television. I just didn’t watch General Hospital. After today, I know enough that I can pretend like I did.
When it’s over, we climb into Josh’s truck so he can take me to buy a car battery. We have to stop back at the school parking lot on the way, because I know the make and model of my car but that’s the extent of my knowledge. Apparently that’s not enough information to tell me what kind of battery I need, so we have to detour back to campus. Josh looks at my car, writes something down and then takes my keys and pops the hood. I’m still holding onto my backpack with all my books, so I jump out to throw it in my car so I won’t have to keep carrying it. As soon as I do, I wish I wasn’t so lazy, because that’s when I see Tierney Lowell walking towards us in the parking lot. She’s not the only one.
There are quite a few students exiting the building and I realize that it’s just after four and most of the practices and club meetings are finishing up. She’s the one I notice though, because for some reason she seems to hate me. OK, most of the girls don’t like me and I’m an easy target because of the clothes. I get that. But she shoots daggers at me like she just caught me feeding chocolate to her dog. Normally, that’s cool, because it’s all easily ignorable and I can avoid her without much effort. However, right now, I’m jumping out of Josh Bennett’s truck and he’s standing next to my car and in a minute we’ll be leaving together and that’s an act of exhibitionism I wasn’t planning to put on just yet.
We get back in the truck immediately, with the shared, unspoken need to get out of there as quickly as possible. Once we’ve driven away, I look out the window, scanning the cars around us. Josh’s windows are tinted, but I still won’t take any chances. When I feel safe enough that we’re not being watched, I ask the question I’ve been holding onto since we left his house.
“You watch General Hospital?” I don’t really need confirmation. I know for a fact that he watches it. He doesn’t look at me but I see his lips turn up in the half-smile he gets when he’s embarrassed about something, which is really just a real smile he’s trying to drown.
“Yes,” he says. OK, he did answer my question, but what I really wanted to know was why or how or something that will explain it to me because come on. But if there’s anything more surprising to me than the newfound knowledge that he’s a closet soap opera addict, it’s the fact that he actually keeps talking and offers me an explanation; one I didn’t have to ask for.
“My mom used to watch it. Religiously.
Never missed an episode. My dad and I made fun of her all the time. When she died, I kept thinking that maybe she’d come back, and when she did, I wanted to be able to tell her everything that had happened so she wouldn’t have missed anything. So I watched it. Every day. After a while I realized she wasn’t coming back but I was pot vested by that point. I just never stopped.” He shrugs like he’s accepted this fact; only I’m not sure if it’s the fact that his mother isn’t coming back or that he watches General Hospital that he’s accepting. Maybe he’s not sure either.
“How old were you?”
“I was eight which I guess is old enough to get it. I just didn’t really want to… I don’t know… My dad tried to make it make sense for me, but there really isn’t a way to explain how a person you’ve seen every day of your life just isn’t anymore.
Someone just hit delete and she’s gone. I had a hard time grasping that I could come home one night and find that the person who was laughing and hugging me that morning just stopped existing. I didn’t believe it was possible. I didn’t want to believe it was possible… so, yeah, General Hospital.”
I didn’t look away from him once while he was telling that story. It’s the first real thing he’s ever told me. It makes me feel ashamed because I’ve never told him anything real. Not even my name.
He turns and looks at me for a second with what is almost a look of apology on his face. Resignation, maybe? Then he shifts his attention back to the road and we pull into the mall parking lot a minute later.
I have one of Josh Bennett’s secrets now.
He gave it to me. I wish I could give it back.