Blackbird (6 page)

12:22
A.M.
You haven’t gotten more than an hour of sleep and your heart is still drumming from the dream. You check the locks on the motel-room door. You check the windows, making sure they’re still closed, the latches turned shut. You’re on the fifth floor but it doesn’t make you feel any better. You only notice the fire escape, the landing ten feet under you, the roof that could be reached with a ladder.

The dream felt so real. You can still hear the cracking of branches as the animal came at you. It was massive, its agile body darting through the trees. What was it? Where were you? And who was the boy with the tattoo? Even as you try to remember him, his image is already fading, slipping back into the unknown with everything else.

You pull the notebook from your pack and copy down the details—the skull tattoo, a scar that ran along the bottom of his back, just above his belt. His knife blade was bent. You write down anything you can remember about the forest. The air was heavy, the trees lush and tropical, as if it was another world away. It seems impossible, and yet as you write down the final detail—
some kind of wild animal attacked me
—you reach up for your scar, running down the length of it.

When you’re done you set the notebook next to the rest of your things, but you’re still not any closer to knowing whether or not the dream was real. You lean back against the bed but your body hurts. Your arm bleeds, the scab pulling against the skin, catching on the rough, pilled blanket. The muscles on your shoulder and side are tender to the touch. At some point you scraped the knuckles on your left hand. They burn when you make a fist.

You spot the receipt with Ben’s number, tucked inside the notebook’s front. You think of his hand on your wrist, how his face changed when he saw the gash, wincing as if it were his arm that had been cut. How earnest he had seemed writing that number on the receipt, pressing it to your palm, telling you to call if you needed anything. You’re not
sure if you want to see him, or if you just want someone here, if it’s the loneliness that’s wearing on you. You pick up the phone, dialing before there’s time for more questions.

When Ben walks into the diner he smiles—this easy, everyday smile—and it makes you think of that word
carefree
, and what it really means. You are trying so hard to be normal. You’ve ordered a milkshake. Sitting in the booth, smiling back at him, you can feel the muscles in your face, how strange and stiff your skin is.

He chose the place—House of Pies—just a few blocks from the motel. It’s mostly empty, but there’s a guy in a sequined jacket and tie a few booths over. You’ve chosen the table in the back, against the wall, near an emergency exit. You feel better when you can see the entire room.

As Ben comes toward you his expression changes, his brows drawing together, his mouth set in a hard line. “Why are you wearing those glasses? What’s with the hair?”

He slides into the booth and you can’t help but be offended, your hands swiping at your bangs, adjusting the glasses so they sit straight on your nose. You’ve looked in the mirror so many times but now you feel like you missed something.

“I always wear these, just not the other day,” you say.

Ben tilts his head, squints. “It doesn’t have anything to do with that picture of you on the news?”

You watch him, waiting, realizing. He knows. Your eyes go to the door, out the front windows, scanning the street. You slide out of the booth, take two steps, but he reaches out for you, his hand resting on your arm. “I didn’t tell anyone,” he says. “I’m not stupid.”

“If you know . . . why are you here?”

“Because you called me. It sounded like you needed help.”

“I think I said ‘Want to meet up?’ What about that sounded like I needed help?”

Ben scans the empty booths beside you. You sit down, his hand still on your arm. He’s lowered his voice and he’s leaning in, his face right in front of yours. “So that’s why you needed a ride? To rob that place?”

“I know how it looks,” you say. “And I know how this probably sounds to you, but someone set me up. That person I called from your phone—they told me to meet them there. It was all . . . staged.”

“Right . . . you were set up. . . . Okay. . . .”

“Please . . . I don’t need the judgment, Mr. I-Sell-Pot-in-Supermarket-Bathrooms. It’s the truth. And now this man, some guy I’ve never seen before, is following me.”

Ben glances behind him, out the restaurant’s front windows. “He followed you here?”

“I’m not stupid,” you repeat his words. “I lost him. I’m sure, otherwise I wouldn’t have
called you.” You’ve been puzzling it out, and your best guess is that the man started following you after you went to the office, that he trailed you from downtown to Hollywood, where he saw you at the diner. After that, you’re not sure. You thought you lost him at the record store, but what if he was there all along, following at a distance? Is that how he found you near the bus station?

Ben pulls the salt and pepper shakers from the side of the table, sliding them back and forth between his hands. “Where are you staying now?”

“Some motel.”

His nose is sunburned. A dusting of freckles covers his cheeks. In his hooded sweatshirt he looks younger than you, which makes his tense expression a bit funny, like a kid trying to play grown-up. “If you’re not careful they’re going to find you,” he finally says.

“Who?” Just the word
they
makes you think of the woman with the gun, the man in the silver car.

“The police . . .”

“They haven’t found me yet.”

You glance around, making sure no one heard what he said, what you said. A pop song blasts from a speaker in the ceiling. You suddenly regret inviting him here, wishing you could have just fallen back to sleep in the motel room.

“I didn’t do anything,” you say.

“I didn’t say you did . . . but why do I feel like you’re not telling me the whole story? Is your name even Sunny?”

You pause before answering and it gives you away. He lets out this low, rattling breath, his forehead falling to his hands.

“I would tell you the truth if I knew what that was,” you say. “But I don’t.”

“You don’t know your name?”

“No. And I don’t know the man who was following me, and I don’t know why.”

A man walks through the front door and you fall back against the seat, your hand jumping to the side of your face to hide your profile. He has thinning brown hair and a white button-down shirt. You watch the back of his head, waiting for him to turn, but when he does he has a beard and mustache. It isn’t him.

“What’s wrong?” Ben asks.

Your breaths are too short to reply. You don’t realize your hands are shaking until Ben’s staring at them, watching your fingers fold around one another, pressing down into the table to steady them.

“This guy . . . you’ve never seen him before the other day?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you—I don’t know. I don’t remember anything from before a
few days ago.” Ben knows there’s more, you can tell from the way he grabs the shakers again, sliding them back and forth, back and forth. The waitress comes over and he shakes his head, telling her no, he won’t get anything.

“So you’re just going back to that motel?” he asks after a long pause. “You’re just going to wait there until he finds you again? Or the police find you? What about your family? There must be someone looking for you.”

You think again of the memory, the funeral, the few silhouettes in the front pews. Was that real? How can you be sure? “I’m going to try to get to the truth . . . I just haven’t figured out how.”

“What if this guy comes back?”

You shrug. You’re not afraid of the man anymore, not really, but how can you say the truth out loud? That after setting you up, after following you, he saved your life. That a woman was trying to kill you, and for some reason he killed
her
. “Like I said . . . I haven’t figured it all out yet. Or any of it, really.”

You stand to go, dropping some cash on the table.

“Maybe you should stay with me,” Ben says. “I’m supposed to be at my aunt’s while my mom is getting better, but that fell apart already.”

“What do you mean?” you ask.

“She caught me selling pot and . . . ‘asked me to leave.’” He makes quote signs in the air when he says it. “Kicked me out Beverly Hills style. So I’m back at my house now, which is closer to school anyway. There’s a bungalow in the back. No one will know you’re there.”

“I can’t.”

“It’ll be safer than at some motel.”

“Nowhere is safe.”

“I said
safer
.” As you walk he scans the room, the way you have been for the past few days. He glances over his shoulder at the back exit. You can see how it’s changing him, how he already seems on edge. He’s involved now.

“You don’t want me there.” But what you really mean is
You don’t know you don’t want me there
. There’s too much you haven’t said. It’s not fair.

“It’s just me anyway. My mom isn’t coming back for another month at least.”

“Where is she?”

His face changes, and you can see he doesn’t want to answer, but you stay silent, waiting. “This treatment center just north of here.”

Something in you recognizes it—the way he doesn’t look at you when he answers the question. His mom is sick, and you wonder if part of you has gone through the same thing. It feels too familiar . . . too real.

“It’s just that . . . I’m in enough trouble,” you say. “I can’t be responsible for anyone else.”

“I know.”

But when you get into the parking lot he points to his Jeep. It’s not a good idea, not even an okay idea, considering what happened this morning. But here Ben is, chewing his bottom lip in a nervous gesture, digging the toe of his Converse into the pavement, grinding down a few stray rocks. His face is becoming more familiar—you could probably picture it if you closed your eyes, you could probably hear his voice even if he weren’t here.

You should go back to the motel, back to the impersonal room with the beige wallpaper and empty drawers. But when he shrugs and steps away, you follow. And for the first time all day, you don’t look back.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF–NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

WHEN YOU STEP
out of the shower the steam is so dense it clouds the air. The mirror is fogged up and you’re relieved not to see your reflection. For once there is no scar, no tattoo on the inside of your wrist. You pull on the clean T-shirt and pajama pants Ben gave you, wearing your sports bra underneath so you don’t feel as exposed. When you walk into the bungalow something is burning.

“I got hungry,” Ben says. He moves around the narrow kitchen, flicking on a vent overhead. It sucks up the smoke coming off the frying pan. “Two grilled cheeses, well-done.”

You get a second look at the pool house now that all the lights are on. It’s just one room, the kitchen island jutting out, separating the couches from the stove and tiny fridge. The coffee table has been moved into the corner. The loveseat is folded open, the thin mattress covered with a few blankets. There’s nothing on the walls—not a single framed photo, not a painting or poster. The furniture doesn’t match.

“You don’t use this place much?” you ask.

“Not really,” Ben says. He pushes the sandwich down with the spatula, the smoke rising up around him. “When my grandma was alive she’d stay here when she visited. That’s about it.”

You go to the window, pulling the shades aside so you can see the main house again. The back wall is all glass. There’s a single lamp on to the right, revealing a sleek modern kitchen, a few metal stools lined up in front of a counter. The upstairs windows reflect the stars. Beneath it, the pool is just a puddle on the brick patio, the lights out, the surface still. “So you’ve been living here alone?” you ask. “Where’s your dad?”

Ben grabs two plates from an upper cabinet. He doesn’t look at you, instead wiping the plates with a dish towel, working at them as if they aren’t already clean. “He died a few years ago.”

You want to ask why, what happened, but Ben’s expression has changed to something you can’t quite read. He sets the plates down and goes back to the stove. You think of the view from the altar, how there was only one bouquet, barely a dozen people there. You wonder who he was. The memory could be of your own father. It’s strange to think this might be something you share.