Resigned not to hurt him any more, I decide I must tell him that we need a break. I need a break, until things are clear.
Still resting against his chest, I open my eyes and yelp. It’s impossible that I will ever get used to her appearing. She shocks me, rippling mirage-like from the motorcycle’s round handlebar mirror. Electric currents of fear rove over my skin. Her eyes, my eyes, are full of pain, watching our embrace. I stumble out of his grasp. “You?—?you can’t love me anymore.”
Dom holds up his arms in supplication. “What? You don’t get to tell me I can’t love you. I do. You know I do. More than anything, Ry. Besides my brother, you’re all I’ve got. We screwed up, made a colossal mistake. Don’t let it break us.” He pierces me with his astute gaze, perhaps seeing for the first time how altered I am. “Don’t let it break you.”
Thirteen
DON’T LET IT BREAK ME?
I’m already broken. Mashed up, like I’ve been pushed through a steel strainer. The cuts aren’t just on the outside. I’m cut on the inside, too. I’m afraid of my own reflection. I’m afraid I don’t know what’s real. I’m afraid to touch the shiny brass knob on the front door for fear the surface will become a face. I close my eyes and turn the knob, envying Gran’s blindness. I can’t tiptoe through life wondering when my ghost will appear.
But you will.
The words ring out loud, spoken as a bitter promise, but I don’t know if they’ve come from me or her. I will myself to stay calm. If I react, if I stumble every time I hear her voice or see her face, people will feel like they have to follow me around with their arms outstretched.
Gran is slumped in a large chair in the living room with the sun on her back. Tufts of hair escaped her loose bun during the motorcycle ride and hang like streamers around her face. I move behind her, gently pull the soft strands back and tuck them in, hoping she doesn’t feel my hands shaking. I need to touch something real. It’s a few moments before I trust my voice to speak. “You want me to make pancakes, Gran?”
“No need. We just ate breakfast,” she says, as if I’m silly to offer. It’s late afternoon, with the sun baking the desert into a hard crust outside, but I don’t correct her. All the excitement has probably worn her out, created a swirling dust devil of thoughts in her head.
“Did he go?” she asks, and I think I’ll never know how her brain slides so quickly from muddled to lucid, though more and more I know how she feels. Honestly, I was hoping she’d forget the whole episode so my parents would never have to know I lost her for a while. Wouldn’t have to know they can’t trust me.
“Yeah. He left.”
“What’s troubling you? Speak on it.”
Besides almost losing her to the desert, hearing whispers on the road, and seeing the face of a ghost? I tell her the only thing I can. “I’m not sure about anything anymore. Even Dom. He’s . . . intense.” I haven’t moved from behind Gran. Seems easier to talk freely from behind her.
“Mmm-hmm.” She chuckles. “Like a certain girl we all know.”
She pats my hand, which is now resting on her shoulder. “Only boy a girl like you is safe with is Joe.” This makes her erupt into laughter, bobbing forward, slapping her knee. Laughter is pushy, tickling you from all sides, until you’re infected with it. It feels good to laugh. Yet the thought that burrows in my brain, waiting for the laughter to subside is: A girl like me?
“That’s a good sound.” My mom’s voice comes from behind. She plops her straw bag on a chair and kisses both Gran and me on the cheek, then gives me an appraising look. “Might want to throw a wrap over that hair,” she says. “You haven’t let it go so wild since you were a small thing.”
I touch my hair self-consciously, unable to remember the last time I looked at it. Mirrors haven’t exactly been my friend.
“We’d better head out soon for Dr. Collier’s office. Besides, I don’t think any of us want to be here when your father gets home. They raised prices again on aviation fuel. This world is conspiring to drive us out of business.”
“What would we do then?”
“Oh, honey, I’m sure we’d figure something out, but I don’t want to think about what that would do to your dad. That place saved him.” Ayida grabs Gran’s hands and helps her up. “C’mon, Mama. Let’s get you ready to go.” Her eyes narrow. “You look tired. What excitement have you two had today?”
My stomach clenches.
“Ryan played me a song on the piano.”
My mother’s eyes widen. “Did she, now? You finally wore her down, eh? Extraordinary.”
“It was that, yes,” Gran says with an ill-omened tone.
After a bit of fussing over what to bring to entertain Gran during my appointment, we head to one of the only psychiatrists in this small, impoverished desert town. Dr. Collier opens the door and asks my mother to speak privately.