“Please. I need to be alone.”
I close my eyes, hearing and feeling nothing but the growing rage within me. I’m drowning without water, under the pressure of something larger. It hangs over my head, waiting for me to break.
When I have enough strength to open my eyes again, she’s gone.
My door is open, and a cool breeze comes from somewhere down the hall. I follow it with my feet on the cold floor and my hands in fists so they won’t shake. I think of nothing, because if I do, I’m sure I’ll explode.
I’m teetering on the edge of sanity.
The house is darker now, the day coming to an end. A day that started so well.
I go down the stairs, one at a time, counting each step to keep myself in control.
I can’t do it anymore.
I can’t act like nothing is wrong. Because everything is wrong. Just this morning, with Harper in the car next to me and wind breezing through my fingers, things were finally starting to look up. I was happy.
Now death presses in around me. Shattering the smallest hope of the future I might have had. Gone. Not even there to begin with.
I hear something crash to the floor and I look down. A broken lamp lays at my feet. I don’t know if it was an accident or if I did it on purpose. But it feels good breaking something. I’ve always been this controlled and relatively calm person, never losing my temper or acting out, even when I was young. I always keep it together.
I’ve been a shaken bottle, and now I’m ready to burst.
The sounds of crashing and breaking echo off the walls, shared with a raging yell that I don’t realize is coming from me until my throat is sore. Ripping at things the moment I see them. I can’t see straight, my vision dotted with red and black spots.
I’m in the kitchen now, and I don’t know how I got here. The table is tipped over, the chairs thrown across the room. I whip my arms across the counters, everything tumbling to the floor. I grab dishes and throw them into the wall. Hearing every break and wanting more.
It’s not enough.
When everything around me is broken and silent, I finally stop. My chest is heaving and I’ve ruined the entire house.
But I’m still shaking. My hand stings. I look down to see I’ve cut it on one of the plates. There’s a long gash across my palm.
I sink down to the floor. The cabinets press into my back. The refrigerator chooses this moment to kick on, as though telling me it had witnessed nothing previously. My hands hang over my knees, and I watch the blood drip from my fingertips.
I’m going to die.
And there’s nothing I can do to prevent it. The only thing I can hope is that recorded history is wrong. It’s been wrong plenty of times before, so it could be wrong about me, too.
It’s the only thing that will save me.
When I was in the bathtub earlier, I was so close to leaving. I could have if I wanted to. I could have let go without trying. But I didn’t because I promised Harper I wouldn’t. For once in my life, I had an ounce of control—just enough to delay my leaving.
Now, I’ll do anything to stay longer, even just one more day. One more hour. I don’t want to go back where it’s winter. Where there’s blood on the snow and screams in the night. My nightmares have been full of empty foxholes and shadows that come through the trees when I’m not ready. Death from the ground and death from the sky. It will kill me all the same.
I’m still shaking. From what, I don’t know.
The front door opens and shuts, followed by Dad’s voice. “Kale? Kale!”
There’s movement in the doorway, and I look up to see Dad taking in the scene around me. His eyes move from me, to the mess around me, and back.
I can’t stop trembling. At some point, I started to cry.
My hands and shoulders shake as if they aren’t connected to me at all. I am someone I don’t know. I don’t want to think about tomorrow or the day after that. I don’t want to think about leaving again. And I don’t want to think about what will happen to me when I do.
Dad doesn’t say a word. I don’t have to say anything for him to know something is wrong. Something very wrong.
He steps over a broken chair and some shattered dishes and sits down next to me without hesitation.
And then he’s holding me—his arms wrapped around me with my head pressed against his chest.
I’ll never be too old to be held by him.
His shirt becomes wet with tears I’ve held in for months. His warm hands are on my back and behind my head, making the world safe again. Even just for a little while. I don’t ever want him to let go. And I’m scared he will.
“It’s all right, Kale,” he murmurs. “It’s all right.”
And for that small moment, it really is.
36.
Harper
I walk home after Kale told me to leave. I hesitated at first. He wasn’t acting himself, and something in his voice sounded off. Still, I couldn’t stay, either—I felt like he needed to be alone. I’m on autopilot, feeling numb and thinking of things too fast to make sense of them. I want to wake up and have all this be a dream—a horrible, horrible dream.
The house comes into view, and I go in through the back door, slipping off my shoes on the mat. The kitchen is dim in the fading light with the lingering smell of frozen pizza. I follow the low sounds of the television down the hall and into the living room where Uncle Jasper sits in his usual seat, staring but not really watching.
He looks up when I enter. “Hey, Harp, I was wondering where you’ve been. Were you over at Kale’s?”
I nod numbly.
“I know I said I don’t mind you being out of the house,” he says, “but could you leave a note next time so I know where you are? I don’t like worrying.” I nod again and Uncle Jasper’s carefree smile drops away. “Did something happen?”
I let my eyes drift to the television, not wanting to relive what I told Kale. “Yeah.”
Uncle Jasper stands up, not taking his eyes off me. “What’s wrong?” he says. “Tell me. Are you hurt? Did something happen to Kale? Harper—” He steps in front of me, forcing me to look at him and think of things I don’t want to. “What is it?”
“It’s Kale,” I say, barely audible.
Uncle Jasper’s eye flash. “Did something happen?”
I close my eyes, feeling light-headed. I back up and sit down on the bottom step of the stairs, not knowing how to tell him.
“I looked something up on the Internet earlier,” I say. Uncle Jasper pauses, trying to make sense of what I’m telling him. He sits down next to me. “Let me rephrase that. I looked up Kale.”
“Kale.” I look up at him in time to see realization settle in. “You mean, you looked up the Kale in the past.”
“Technically, Kale in the future.” I don’t smile and neither does he. What might have been funny this morning no longer is. “I needed to know if he was going to be all right. You know better than me how hard it is when he’s gone. I had to know. And now I’m wishing I didn’t.”