The clash of shouts on the field draws me back to now. I open my eyes and scan the field until I see the two boys—Jack and someone else—pummeling each other on the ground while the rest of the team tries to pry them apart. I jump out of the car and sprint straight for the gate, but by the time I get there, Stephen Lehman has already pulled Jack clear of the other guy and Coach is shouting at them both, pointing off the field. “What happened?” I ask, voice tinny, as Jack stomps right past me and gets in the Jeep, slamming the door. I fling the door back open. “What the hell was that, Jack?”
His chin is smeared with mud and grass stains, but he has no visible injuries. Even so, his face is all screwed up in anger, and he doesn’t look like my little brother. “Nothing,” he spits, slamming the door again.
I stalk around the car and get in. “What’s going on?” I say more softly. I reach over to him, but he swats my hand away, and turns toward the window.
“Don’t tell Mom and Dad.”
“Fine, then talk to me.”
“If you tell them, I’ll tell them about that guy who picks you up in the middle of the night.”
“Jack, that’s not . . .” I shake my head but don’t go on. My phone’s buzzing in my pocket, and when I slide it out I see MOM on the screen. Jack swears and drops his forehead against the window. “Your coach must’ve called them.” Jack doesn’t reply, and I answer the call.
“Is he okay?” Mom says.
I glance sidelong at Jack, face impassive and eyes unfocused. “Physically,” I offer. “Yeah, he’s fine.”
Mom sighs, a mix of relief and blossoming concern. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, well, I can’t leave work right now, but Dad’s going to take off early. He’ll be right home.” Jack’s eyes flick to mine when he hears her words through the speaker, then away again miserably.
When I hang up, I stumble over an apology. “I’m sure they’ll understand if you tell them what happened.”
Jack says nothing, doesn’t look at me. As soon as we get home, he storms inside, and I follow him up to his room, but the door’s already shut, his and Coco’s whispers spilling through the cracks around it. I stand with an ear pressed to the door until I hear the soft squeak that escapes when you hold tears in. Jack, definitely. There’s nothing scarier than hearing someone you love cry, and the smaller the sound, the deeper it can burrow into you.
“. . . . just don’t want this sometimes,” Jack’s saying.
“Don’t want what?” Coco murmurs gently.
“Don’t want to be.”
I step back from the door and lean against the wall, mind spinning and dark splotches floating across my vision.
Three months to save him.
There’s nothing scarier than hearing someone you love cry, except imagining a world where that sound stops. Suddenly I can’t breathe. Can’t be here. There’s nothing scarier than loving someone.
Beau and I sneak out to the studio every night until my next appointment with Alice, and every night’s the same. We’re jittery and tense on the car ride over, every inch between us thick with our heartbeats. We talk and flirt while I stretch in the center of the studio floor. Then we turn off the lights, Beau closes his eyes, and I dance. Every song is beautiful, but none is mine. I wonder if I’ll ever hear that song again, or if telling Beau not to wait for me means he’ll never finish writing it. Toward the end of our time in the studio he always ends up watching me while playing, but by then I also feel comfortable and relaxed. Then, once we get into the truck, the tension falls again with a renewed fervor.
Every glance across the dark cab, every moment of eye contact, of almost touching, is overwhelming. Every early morning when he drops me off and we whisper goodbye, I run back to my house, push Gus off my pillows, and collapse into bed feeling wired.
But when I sleep it’s deep and dark and warm and dreamless. I only have a week and a half until we leave for our trip, and while our nights at the studio don’t seem to bring me any closer to Grandmother, I covet them. Every moment with Beau drowns my fear out, but when I wake up from my late-afternoon nap, and the buzz of spending the previous night with him has faded, dread fills me to the brim.
Someone is going to die.
Someone is going to die, and here I am worrying whether Beau and Rachel are back to Whatever They Were since I told him not to wait for me and we don’t see each other outside of the studio.
My Tuesday appointment with Alice goes horribly. I can’t think clearly, and Alice is irritated by my long pauses and short answers. When she asks me to talk about my relationship with Mom, and I respond after thirty seconds with “She’s nice,” Alice slams her notebook shut though we still have half an hour together.
“I can’t work with this, Natalie.”
“Work with what?” I say, at least as annoyed as she is.
“Every session, your emotions cyclone around you like tornadoes, and all you’ll give me is she’s nice. You have to really cut yourself open for counseling to work, and you won’t. You’re trying to kill your feelings to make life easier. You’ve given up. And don’t get me wrong, I appreciate all the new insight you’ve lent to this. But if you’re really so convinced Grandmother is a prophet, or deity, then you know someone’s going to die soon if we don’t crack this. This may be about science for me, but a girl with your already fragile psyche is going to fall to pieces when she lets someone she loves die.”