“There’s nothing to talk about.” He turns to me and his eyes narrow.
“I’ll never forgive you for taking away my—” He chokes up, tears streaking his face as he stutters out, “m-my little girl.”
I don’t say anything.
He grabs his bags and heads out the door.
I lean my head back and start counting the cracks in the ceiling while Mom throws plates against the wall in the kitchen.
? ? ?
I scream at the train and spew everything I wanted to say that day out of me. I’ve relived that day in my mind so many times. I just sat there. “You fucking piece of shit asshole!”
The train barrels toward me. It’s still a few miles away. I have plenty of time to move. It starts blowing its horn as it sways on the tracks. The squealing of the wheels pierces through the night air. I keep screaming. “I didn’t want her to die!”
I raise my arms into the air and let everything out of my lungs until the train gets close enough that the headlights are two beams on my chest.
“Ellery!” Dean yells.
I move out of the way as the train rolls by and honks its horn. “Scream, now,” I tell Dean as loud as I can, my breath sputtering out of my lungs. My voice is practically hoarse after yelling.
He shakes his head and backs away from me as the train continues to rumble by. “You’re crazy.”
I laugh. “Well, yeah? I thought we knew that about each other already.”
He creases his eyebrows and scrutinizes me. “You have a good life. A mom who loves you. Jackson. Why give that up?”
Irrational anger threatens to pour out of me. “You have a good life, too,” I snap.
He laughs. “Not really. It gets old having to prove your worth every second of your life.”
“It’s not about who gets left behind. You know that. I want to get rid of the pain. I thought, of all people, you’d understand that.”
“I do. More than I can say. But I keep picturing that little girl and her pink bike and it makes me wonder if . . . .” He shrugs, avoiding the rest of his sentence. Maybe he realizes the same thing I do about him—that we don’t want each other to die, just to die ourselves.
“Well, the boy who made that joke about ketchup just to make me stop crying makes me wonder if, too.”
“I gotta go,” he says abruptly, backing farther away from the tracks. “Bye, Ellery.”
“Bye,” I whisper. My voice is gone.
I hope Dean doesn’t kill himself tonight, is my last thought before going to bed.
22
15 Days
Janie and I pick a booth at the back of The Beanery, the same place Colter and I were last week. It’s Grand Creek’s best coffee place that isn’t that other place that’s on every corner. I grab a white mocha and Janie comes back with her coffee, a huge piece of apple pie, and two plates.
She sets out the plates in front of us. “This is an intervention.”
“A what?” I ask, getting up to grab forks.
I hand her one and she scrutinizes me. “Interven-tion,” she says slowly.
I take a bite of pie and try to ignore her.
She cuts into her piece and starts sawing at the crust. “I just don’t get you.”
I chew the chunks of cinnamon apple and crust, and they are the best thing I’ve tasted in my life. I forgot how much I loved pie. “What’s to get? And what is this an intervention for?”
“You know, Colter and I are good friends. He lives down the street from me.” She gives me a knowing eye, while scooping out a bite.
“Oh, yeah?” I take a bite of my pie and try to stop my fingers from shaking the fork.
“Come on, Ell. Talk to me.”
The pit in my stomach grows to apple-pie size. What if he told her what I wanted to do? What if he sent her to me to stop me? “Look, I don’t know what he told you, but it’s not true.”
“How do you know?”
“What?” Now, I’m confused.
“He likes you.”
I stop my fork halfway to my mouth. “He doesn’t know what he’s doing.”
Janie flashes a smile. “I think he does.”
“Did he tell you that?”
She looks to the side and bites her bottom lip. “Not exactly.”
She has no idea. He’s only trying to save me. We have a deal and it doesn’t include feelings for each other. Although the more I hang out with him, the harder it gets for me to separate my feelings from the truth.
“I’m going to tell you a story,” she announces, breaking my thoughts.
“Oh, boy.”
She glares at me, but it’s playful. “In second grade, this girl … Cara, I think her name was. She had these shiny black shoes and a bright red dress that she wore almost every day. She got picked on. All the time. They called her Orphan Annie and some other names. One day she was cornered by a group of girls. They were being so mean to her, pushing her around and stuff. Colter stepped in front of Cara and told those girls off. I watched it happen.”