And then it’s there. Another image. A different one. Like double vision for my heart:
Slick rocks bite into my palms. I crawl along a pile of them. Sea spray rockets into the air in great plumes. Someone’s behind me, calling my name. “Lake! Lake!” And when I look back it’s my brother standing on two legs. But I don’t listen. I love the roar of the ocean like I love the sound of my own heartbeat and I can hear it best out here on the jetty. Best when I stand and tilt my head back, close my eyes, and let the ocean boom around me.
Slowly, the terror quells. I lift my face. Ringo won’t let go of me. Behind him, the spot in the window is empty. Logan’s gone.
I wake up sore and hours before dawn. The scabs on my wrist are stiff beneath the bandages. Mom didn’t come in to check on me after the shiva. I wonder if she’s mad that I yelled at her. Dad came to sit on the edge of my bed last night. He stroked my hair while I pretended to be asleep and cried into my pillow. He might have known I was bluffing.
The black outside is still thick. I was dreaming about Will coming back to me. He would give Penny a eulogy at her real funeral, one that would be funny and bittersweet and would make people laugh and cry in exactly the right places. He would shower me with flowers and thoughtful cards. Maybe we’d get married after college and have Maddie over for sleepovers with her friends.
Even at night, I feel the minutes ticking by—tick, tick, tick—leading up to my eighteenth birthday. I pull my bare feet underneath me and stand up. Sleep is out of the question.
Propped beside my mirror, I spot the ignored envelope.
“‘Clue Number Two,’” I read softly to myself, pinching the edges between my thumb and forefinger. I’ve been saving it, holding onto the untouched seal, scared to open it. I press it to my chest. I promised Matt I wouldn’t open it without him. But it’s late.
Quietly, I push open the door to my bedroom and pad down the hallway. I’ve always thought that the ocean sounds louder at night. Here, it thunders through the walls when I pass by the great room. Through one of the windows I can just make out the ghostly form of the jetty marker, cast in gray by the nighttime that is punctured by a spray of stars.
I tread through the house, the floor cool against my toes. At Matt’s door I raise my fist to knock. He’ll be sleeping at this hour. I hesitate, then slowly turn the knob and tiptoe inside.
“Who’s there?” The question is instantaneous.
I freeze. For a moment, I consider creeping back out the way I came without saying a word. It’s not like he could follow me.
“It’s me.” My voice rasps. “Lake. Sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you.” I slink farther into the room until I’m standing at the foot of his bed.
His eyes gleam in the darkness, staring straight up at the ceiling. “You didn’t.”
“It’s the middle of the night, Matt.”
“Aren’t you observant.”
“I just mean—”
“You just mean what am I doing staring at the ceiling in the middle of the night when I’m supposed to be sleeping? Well, Lake, this might surprise you, but my days aren’t exactly filled with the sort of stimulation that tuckers me out and sends me crawling to bed exhausted but satisfied from a hard day’s work. But after Mom and Dad are sick of me, they put me to bed. Once I wake up, here I am till morning. And, since you asked, it doesn’t help that now the sole purpose of my legs and back is to torture me with pain that makes me want to peel the skin off my face, only I can’t even take up skin peeling as a pastime because—oh yeah—my hands don’t work.”
I curl the envelope in my fist selfishly, wishing I hadn’t come. “So you just lie here in the dark like this?” Matt grunts. “For how long?”
“It depends on when I wake up. I’d guess four or five hours.”
I feel sick to my stomach. “Matt, we have to tell Mom and Dad.”
“Christ, Lake.” Matt sighs. “It’s—it’s not a big deal. It’s not every night. I don’t need you or anyone else feeling sorry for me, okay? I was just…venting. Now tell me, to what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”
“I couldn’t sleep. So I was just thinking and, well, I saw the envelope and thought we might open it together.”
“Hmmph, you sure it’s not already opened?”
“I swear. It’s not.” I tap the crisp envelope on my palm. “Still sealed.” He’s quiet. I take that as a good sign, a sign that he’s interested. “May I turn on the light?” Matt makes another noncommittal noise that sounds enough like a yes to me, so I flip on the lamp.
He looks frail stretched out in the center of his bed like that. I watch the mound of his torso crest and fall. His knees form two shallow hills under the sheet. I nervously crawl onto the foot of the bed and wait for him to yell at me to get off. To my surprise, he doesn’t.
“Well?” he says, peering down his nose at me. “Are you going to read it or not?”
“Right.” I run my finger through the seal. The paper tears. I pull out the card and swallow hard before I begin. “‘Clue Two,’” I read. “‘Atlantis was the theme of the night, dress, tux, roses, the mood just right, Go to our place and ask for the key. There you’ll find the next clue from me.’”
“Can this guy get any lamer?” Matt scoffs.
I stare at the words, read them over again.
“I mean,” he continues, “what’s wrong with a card and one of those little heart necklaces—you know the silver ones?—girls your age seem to like so much? Something less…showboaty.”
I wince at the implication that Matt doesn’t know he has made, that all this really is just for show. Instead, I look up. “I know this one. I actually know this one!”
I guess Matt finds this sufficiently interesting to stop his silver-necklace vent dead in its tracks. “Where is it?”
My shoulders droop. I play with the fabric on the bed. “I don’t want to tell you.”
“That was the deal. I give you the first clue. You include me. That was it, Lake. Those were the terms.”
He doesn’t have to include the subtext. That I don’t keep up my end of bargains. That I’m a cheat. A fraud. Disloyal. A girl who breaks promises. Even the important ones. Especially the important ones. But this is different. I’m just too embarrassed to tell him how.
Yet.
“I’ll bring you,” I say. “But you have to promise not to laugh, ridicule, mock, or pretend to throw up. Deal?” He resumes looking at the ceiling, stonewalling me. “Those are the terms.”
“Fine,” he huffs as though the inability to mock is a huge compromise. “Deal.”
“Great. Let’s load up.”
“Now?”
“I’m sorry. Did you have something better to do?”
***
Matt weighs less than I do.
I’m surprised at how light he is in my arms as I lift him and set him in his wheelchair. The landing isn’t graceful. I don’t have Mom’s help this time and I’m sure that I’ve hurt him somehow even though he doesn’t say so.