Beastly: Lindy's Diary (9 page)

He handed it to me.

It was a mirror, a silver mirror, ornate, like something from another time. I stared into it, and I saw my face. I looked worried.

He told me it was a special mirror. “By looking at it, you can see anyone you want, anywhere in the

world.” I laughed. Of course I didn’t believe him. But then he took it from me. He held it up, saying, “I want to see Will.” And then, it was the most bizarre thing, the mirror or spy cam or whatever it was

changed to a picture of Will. Or not a picture, but the actual moving Will, up in his room, wearing the

same clothes he’d had on before.

How was this possible? Magic? Of course not. It must be some incredible technology. He had everything

money could buy, after all.

“Can I try it?” I asked.

He nodded and handed me the mirror, telling me that, by asking, I could see anyone. I said, “I want to see .

. .

Sloane Hagen.” I wanted to choose someone Adrian didn’t know, in case it was a trick, and Sloane’s was

the first name that popped into my head.

But sure enough, there was Little Miss Perfect . . . and she was popping a zit!

“Ew!” I said. Adrian laughed too.

And then I wanted to see more people. In particular, I wanted to see Kyle. I’d always wondered what had

happened to him.

But Adrian reminded me about Dad, so I asked to see him.

The image changed from Sloane’s brightly colored bathroom to a gloomy New York street, far from the

lights of Times Square. At first, I couldn’t make out anything but gray snowdrifts and garbage.

Then, the garbage moved. It was a man! He coughed.

My father! He was homeless, on the street. He was sick!

My throat clenched, and, despite my resolve not to care, my resolve to live my own life, I started to cry. I started crying, and I couldn’t stop. I had been wrong to think he could survive without me, wronger still to think I didn’t care. This was all my fault. No, not all my fault. My father’s fault too, and Adrian’s fault for making me stay, making me care about him, making me think I could be anything but some junkie’s

daughter. Making me think things could be different when they can’t.

He tried to put his arms around me, but I pushed him away. It wouldn’t work. Maybe he could live in this

fantasy world, but I couldn’t. I had to have cold, bleak reality.

So I was surprised when he said, “You should go to him.” And then, in minutes, it was settled. I would

leave.

Tomorrow. Today, now. On the first bus. He would give me money, and I would go to the very street

where my father now was. I would rescue him once again, as usual.

Then, later on, I’d come back to Adrian, maybe once he got to the city. I wasn’t really mad at him. I love him. But it doesn’t matter. I can never be the same. Clearly, I can’t leave my father. I can never have my own life.

I know it’s the right thing to do, the humane thing. Still, I didn’t want Adrian to know how close I’d come to chucking it all, to staying with him forever.

So I said, “I’ll miss you. You are the truest friend I’ve ever had.”

I could see that my words were a knife in his gut. Yet, it I could see that my words were a knife in his gut.

Yet, it seemed kinder than the alternative, for him to know I love him, but that I’m leaving anyway.

It hurts me, too. But what else is there to be than my father’s daughter?

January 1 (Still)

Now, in my room, I envision some “deleted scenes” version of our story playing out. In it, I tell Adrian I love him. Our eyes meet. Then, our lips. I take his hand and lead him upstairs. I tell him I’ll never leave him. I mean it.

If this was a DVD, I’d love that alternate ending.

January 1, Later

I’m gone. I left on the first bus. I’m on it now. I didn’t even see Adrian before I left. He said that if he came down to say good-bye, he might not let me go. He couldn’t handle it.

I guess I understood that at the time. But now, by daylight, as I speed back to a city I’d never left before but which I was willing, for a moment, to leave forever, it makes me sad and lonely. I always have to

handle stuff alone.

I’ve been staring out the window for about an hour. I get to see the mountains by daylight, and the Hudson River, sparkling in the morning sun. But the mountains look cold and mournful, and the sun off the river

hurts my eyes and makes them tear up. I wonder if I’ll ever see Adrian again. The past week, the past five months, seem like a kind of dream, one from which I’m being painfully wrenched awake.

I pass some boys, one pulling another on a sled, and I remember how, just yesterday, that was me. Now

it’s over. In a way, I hate Adrian for taking me out of my life, for making me think anything could be

different . . . and I hate him for sending me back too. Maybe if he’d said,

“Don’t go,” it would have given me the excuse I needed to stay. But I know that’s wrong. I have to go. He was good to let me. He was always good to me.

January 1, Even Later

I’m back in NYC, and I’m in a limo!

When I reached my station, I saw a man holding a sign that said, “Linda Owens.” I asked him what he

wanted.

“I’ve been instructed to pick you up and also to give you this.” He handed me an envelope.

When I opened it, I found an ATM card and a note that said, Stay safe and come back.

Maybe I’m not actually angry.

January 1, Much Later

I found my father. At first, when he saw me, he started yelling—yelling!—at me to leave. And I was ready

to! I knew it was because he thought Adrian would turn him in.

But once he let me talk, and I explained that Adrian had released me, that he’d never forced me to stay,

that he wasn’t going to the police, my father stopped screaming and let me take him to a clinic.

Then I went to the bank and checked the balance on Adrian’s ATM card, and it’s enough for rehab, rent,

whatever I need. I didn’t want to take the money, not when I’d left him, but I had to, for my father.

Money sure does fix things, doesn’t it? Except for things that can’t be fixed.

Like broken hearts.

January 8

It’s been a week since I came back to the city. My father is in rehab, so I don’t have to deal with that, and I’m staying with our old neighbors, the Lesters, while I look for a place that will have us once my father comes home.

Every time I see the kids playing with their Christmas toys, I remember Adrian.

I haven’t heard from him. I guess I didn’t expect to. I know he was upset that I called him a friend and

nothing else. I understand, but it still hurts.

I enrolled in a school near here. The magnitude of its suckishness goes without saying. I called Tuttle, but since I basically just didn’t show up for school, I lost my scholarship, and they’re not really sympathetic.

So everything’s pretty much horrible, as expected.

January 10

I miss him.

January 11

I miss him. I wonder what he’s doing right now, if he’s off in the woods, walking in the snow, or skating without me.

If I close my eyes, I can picture him, gliding around and around the lake, faster and faster, maybe fast

enough to forget all about me.

January 12

I found an apartment. It wasn’t easy as a teen, and my dad’s not exactly a safe bet. But it got easier when I offered to pay cash.

Adrian hasn’t tried to contact me. Is that because he doesn’t care? Or because he thinks I don’t?

January 13

I wonder if he watches me in the mirror ever.

School is an epic fail. Someone made fun of me yesterday for answering a question about The Great

Gatsby, and it’s supposed to be Honors English.

I miss Will too, and Magda.

January 14

It’s strange how quickly my life with Adrian became my life, how wherever he was became home. I miss

home.

This isn’t it.

January 15

Dad’s back, full of promises to stay straight, get a job, do better, be a father. I wish I could believe it. I’m going to try to.

still nothing from Adrian.

January 22

Dad’s been clean a whole week, which is nothing, but it’s a lot for him. Maybe losing me and being on the streets was a wake-up call. Maybe it inspired him to do better.

But what that tells me is, I need to be here for him now, taking care of him, not off somewhere with

Adrian.

It’s hard because I know Adrian needs me too.

And because I love him.

January 25

It’s probably not helpful to sit around wall owing in what might have been. I need to worry about what is.

I’m not going to write for a while. I have no time.

March 1

My father didn’t come home last night. His bed hasn’t been slept in. There have been other things,

including some scary-looking guys on our doorstep. Funny how those guys can find you, even when you

move.

Or, probably, my father found them.

But maybe I’m wrong.

March 10

I’m not wrong. He’s using again.

March 30

He’s using again. I can’t deny it anymore. He says he doesn’t have to work just because I want him to, that he liked it better when I was gone. It’s like my old life all over again, only worse, because now I’ve

tasted something different. It’s like spending years watching nothing but reality TV, then someone gives

you a ticket to a Broadway show.

The night before I left the house upstate, I talked to Will.

He was upset that I was leaving. “To paraphrase Mr.

Bennet in Pride and Prejudice,” he said, “without you, the conversation will lose much of its animation

and all of its sense.” Will ’s so like that.

I had laughed, though I didn’t feel it. “Flattering,” I said,

“but Adrian and Magda are perfectly sensible.”

“I know,” he said, “but we’ll still be lonely without you, all of us, but especially Adrian. You can come back, if not here, then in the city. We’ll be there in spring, no matter what.

Will you come to us then? In the spring?” I assured him I would.

Spring. It is bitterly cold now, colder still in our apartment.

Yet, the vernal equinox—the first day of spring—was last week, and the forsythia is beginning to bud, if

not bloom.

He should be here soon.

I will go to him. I realize I should never have left.

April 7

I don’t remember where the house is, which sounds crazy, but every time I saw it, it was dark and

someone was leading me. I never thought about having to find it.

Now I do. I want Adrian. I asked my father where the brownstone is, but he won’t tell me.

I’ve decided I’m going to go to every subway station in Brooklyn and look for a house with a greenhouse.

I know he was near a station. I could see it through the window. I just have to find the right one.

It’s April now, spring by anyone’s definition. He must be back.

I will find him.

April 8

I started looking today, after school. No luck. I’ll keep looking, though. I’ll find him.

April 9

Nothing today. And we got a notice on the door for unpaid rent. Adrian’s money ran out, and even though

I’m working, without my tutoring jobs, it’s hard to make ends meet. Have to beg the landlord to wait.

April 12

I found a house today I thought was it. But when I knocked on the door, an older woman answered. Wrong

house.

April 15

Some good news. I applied back to Tuttle, and they approved my scholarship. I can go there in

September.

If I last until September.

April 20

Today, I saw a house I was sure was it. It was in Park Slope, near a train station, and also near a church that looked like the one where we saw the live nativity. It had a greenhouse in back.

I knocked on the door. No answer. Yet I was sure it was his house. I knocked and knocked and called and

called.

Finally, I climbed up a tree across the street. The branches were shaky, creaky, but I had to check.

When I did, I saw that all the plants in the greenhouse were dead. I knew then it wasn’t the right house.

Adrian would never let anything happen to his roses.

Have to keep looking.

April 25

Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe it’s time to give up.

May 22

My life is falling apart.

My father is gone. He said something about laying low, and I haven’t seen him in a week. And yesterday,

there was an final notice of eviction on the door. So, soon, I’ll be on the street.

And through it all, the thing that worries me most is . . .

does he still remember me? He meaning Adrian. Does he still even care? Does he love me? Does he

know I love him?

May 23

I never sleep in school. I just don’t. But today, I’m just so tired, so WEARY, that I actually fell asleep at my desk in English class.

That’s when I had the strangest dream, the type of dream I used to have when I lived with Adrian.

The setting of my dream was like The Persistence of Memory, that painting by Salvador Dalí, the one with

the melting clocks. There were clocks everywhere. More than that, everything in the room was melting,

the desks, the classroom door, even the blackboard. The room was empty, like my smarter classmates had

already evacuated. I started to leave too, careful not to touch the lavalike desks.

That’s when I saw her. Kendra. She was dressed in a red jacket and gray pants, like the White Rabbit in

Disney’s Alice in Wonderland. She held a giant pocket watch. She sang:

You’re late! You’re lateAnd if there’s anything I hateIt’s girls who say they are in loveBut won’t

substantiate!