Like I hadn’t understood him the first time. It’s a good thing there’s a bed between the two of us. “You psychopath.” I reach my hands up and tear at my hair. Pain shoots through my elbow. Matt’s eyes go wide. “What is wrong with you?” I screech. “That is maybe the last message I’ll receive from Will ever, and you—you—” I catch my reflection in the full-length mirror nailed to the wall. Red splotches dot my cheeks. “You took that from me.”
“Stop, Lake,” he barks at me and for some odd reason I obey. “I needed…insurance. And,” he scoffs, “let’s face it, clearly, I wasn’t wrong. But, I’ve memorized it. Okay? Calm down. I know the whole thing by heart.”
I feel uncomfortable, like all of a sudden my clothes are two sizes too small. “Memorized it,” he says.
The words aren’t computing. Why? How?
I begin to pace, panting and agitated. I consider the effort it must have taken to use that damn robotic arm that he has hardly bothered to learn to maneuver since he first got that wheelchair. It could have taken him hours. That’s how much he hates me. Right there. Remember this, Lake, if nothing else.
Matt’s eyes don’t waver from my face. Not even for a moment. “I’ll tell you, but I’m going to need something in return first.”
“No. I’m not promising you my resurrection.”
He laughs. “No, of course not. You already promised that, so a new promise of your resurrection would be altogether redundant, don’t you think?”
I close my eyes and think about sweet Will and how he painstakingly put a scavenger hunt together to lead me to something because he thought it was important, and now I do too.
I open my eyes and there’s Matt. Cruel. Bitter. Mean. Matt.
“Don’t you want to know what I want?”
I stare hard at him. Testing, thinking, Think, think, think, Lake.
Mom pops her head in to my room. I haven’t even heard her coming. “Everything okay in here?” The corners of her eyes show worried creases.
“Everything’s fine,” we both say in unison.
When we don’t say anything more, she just taps the doorframe. “Lake, I’m going to make some chamomile tea. I’ll make you some.” And then she disappears.
And as soon as she’s out of earshot, I tell Matt to go to hell because I don’t want him going anywhere near Will and Penny. Because their memories, at least, are still mine.
Before I even consciously know where I’m headed, I’ve almost arrived at Southshores, a white-stucco apartment complex with red-tiled roofs and a massive parking lot. I’m pleased to find that anger and adrenaline get me most of the way there at a normal rate of speed and that, while my heart has taken up residence somewhere at the top of my throat, the fear of driving hasn’t seemed to have gotten any worse. At least not yet.
For the first time since becoming friends with Will and Penny, I felt like I had no escape hatch. And it sucks. Because every time I need my family the most, I’m reminded of how the air between us, stuffed into that ocean-view home, has condensed into a hotbed of need and dysfunction. In that moment before I grabbed my car keys, I truly believed that if I breathed in one more lungful of that air, the toxic fumes would smother me dead.
And then I happened to think of Ringo and it felt like finding the release valve on a teakettle, and it was here or drive around or home and so I chose here.
I pass through the white-painted wrought iron gates of the community and drive straight to Ringo’s building, where I knock on the door.
“Ringo! It’s me, Lake!” I call. My pent-up anger has me bouncing on the landing out front of his apartment, number 102. I’m relieved that after only a few seconds there is shuffling behind the door, the clink of a chain being slid back, and then Ringo’s half-and-half face peering out at me from the crack. “Tell me again that my life sucks.” I stomp my foot and curl my fists into balls at my side.
“Lake,” he says. “What are you doing here?”
I press my hand against the outside door, push it open, and barge inside. “You were right. Cosmically unfair. Have I mentioned that I hate everything? Because if not, I feel like I should mention it again. I hate everything.” Just like on the beach, it feels good again to say this, out loud, and to Ringo. He is the only person whose face I have seen in the last four days who hasn’t wanted something from me. No, needed something from me, and it turns out needs are at least ten times more oppressive when applied to somebody’s soul.
Ringo hovers near the entry. “You should have called.”
But I already feel lighter now that I’m unloading some of that added weight onto him. I spin on my heel. “My brother, do you know what he did? He destroyed the first clue. Destroyed it. Do you know how messed up that is?” Ringo’s cheek twitches. He’s not moving into the apartment with me. I look over my shoulder, suddenly self-conscious. There, in the small, poorly lit living room is a middle-aged woman sitting on the couch staring fish-mouthed into the television. “Oh. I’m sorry.” It’s midweek during the day. “I didn’t think—”
Without blinking or taking her eyes off the screen, the woman reaches for a Big Gulp sitting on the TV tray next to her, finds the straw with her mouth, and takes a long sip.
She doesn’t acknowledge me.
“Are you going to introduce me?” I ask Ringo through gritted teeth, nervously twisting the hemp bracelet around my good wrist.
He sighs, finally taking a few steps toward me. “Sure thing. Lake, this is my mom, Renetta Littlefield. Mom, Lake Devereaux.”
“Nice to meet you,” I hasten to say.
Nothing. No signs of life but for the squeaking of the straw in the lid. Ringo raises his eyebrows at me. One disappears into the angry red birthmark.
I bite my lip and shift my weight. “Did I come at a bad time?”
He gives a noncommittal shrug. “You should have called.” I remembered now Ringo entering his number into my phone before he got out of the car following our near accident. Then he told me to take care and was gone.
Well, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to take care of myself, I’m trying to stay afloat, to cling on to the only lifeboat there is. But now my clumsy fingers clutch around the shape of my cell phone stuffed into my back pocket.
“I—I—” I press my palm to my forehead. “I’m so sorry. I’m an idiot. What is wrong with me? Just showing up like this.”
Ringo is more tense than when I last saw him and he has a sour look on his face, like he’s just swallowed five lemons whole. “No, it’s fine.” He casts a sidelong look at his mother. “Let’s go somewhere else to talk, though, okay?” He’s keeping his voice low.
The actors on the television babble on against the backdrop of dramatic instrumental music.