Nate leaned up on his elbow, looking down on me as the backs of his fingers swiped at my tears.
“But this—this is different. It’s like small flames burning a hole in my memory, one flicker at a time and I don’t actually realize I’m missing something, or longing for it until something sets it off. Like now, I guess,” I whispered, struggling to find my voice. “I miss the cold wind against my cheeks, the dewy grass beneath my feet. I miss the moon and the stars, the sun and the sky. And I miss air.” I sniffed back a sob, my hands fisted at my side as Nate sat up and looked down at me, but I couldn’t look at him. So instead of facing the truth—the hurt that I knew I’d be causing him (because he’d done everything, everything, so I didn’t feel this way) I kept talking, kept piercing another knife through his heart. “It’s so stupid that I miss air, but I do. I miss the sounds of the birds calling out every morning, and the trains and the cars, and the smell of the trains and the cars and the people. I miss people, and I didn’t even like people.”
I inhaled a much-needed breath as I let my body catch up to my mind, and when my heart settled somewhere near my stomach, and my breaths had slowed, I looked up at Nate, eyes on mine, worried as always, and I wondered if he ever thought about it. If he even still cared? Or was this it now? Was this his plan?
I’d heard nothing on the missing persons report. Nothing about PJ. Nothing about my freedom. I tried to convince myself that it was his way of protecting me.
It’s better this way. The less you know, the less you’ll be accountable for if anything happens. Those were his words.
And as my eyes drifted shut and he kissed away the tears, silent promises created with forgotten regrets, I wondered if this was his plan now.
Me.
Here.
Trapped in the chaos of the silence.
Nate lay back down beside me, his hand holding mine as we stared up at the leaves. “I get it,” he finally said. “You have leaves, and I have hickory. That’s the color of her eyes. My mother’s. I know because after she died, I tried to match the color from my memory to all the paint samples on the walls at the hardware store and months later, I finally settled on one. Hickory. But if fear had a distinct color, I’d definitely call it that. It’s strange… that you can be so young… so naive… but the moment there’s something wrong with the person who created your heartbeat… you know. At least, I knew. I knew she was down here and when she saw me… the fear wasn’t just in her eyes, it was in her entire body… and even when the man—a man I’d recognized—slammed her against the wall with his hand on her neck, she kept her eyes on mine. She was mouthing something. Something I couldn’t make out and all I could remember was when it happened a few years earlier, I’d sat in my closet, singing that stupid song while I listened to her cries from her bedroom. But I believed I was bigger and stronger then, and my dad had shown me the basics of a gun. He’d wanted to teach me, but I didn’t want to learn. I was ten. I didn’t like guns. I liked to read books and learn languages and do science experiments. I wasn’t a criminal.” Nate spat out the last word like it was poison on his tongue. Then he shifted his weight, his hand coming up to rub his eyes, and when he was done, he sniffed once and looked up at the ceiling again, his breathing even. He was the epitome of the perfect calm, right before the most dangerous storm. “I remember my mom’s eyes widening when I came back down with the gun. The guy had his hand over her mouth, his pants to his knees…” Nate choked on his words, while I choked on my broken, barely beating heart. He sniffed again, and then turned to me, eyes red and raw and filled with a lifetime of tears. “I wasn’t aiming for her, Bailey, but when the gun went off, she fell to the ground, and the guy ran out of the house. Blood poured from her stomach, pooling at my shoes, and leaked onto the tie of my catholic-school uniform when I lay down beside her. I didn’t say a word. I just moved into her chest and made her put her arms around me. Then I looked up and into her eyes and all I saw was Hickory.”
34
Nate
“I bet she’s a real good fuckin’ whore for you.”
“It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, I guess… You are a DeLuca after all.”
“And everyone knows your mother was a whore.”
35
Bailey
Two thousand five hundred and sixty-eight. That was the number of tiles on the wall.
One day I counted that exact number three times in a row. If I could explain in words my rise and fall, my success and demise, it would be two thousand five hundred and sixty-eight.
“I’ll be back later tonight, okay?” Nate said, squatting down next to the bed, his worried eyes filled with pity.
I nodded as I lay in bed, refusing to look at him, and pulled the covers closer to my chest.