Authors: Susan Vaught
Freaks Like Us (21 page)
The room wants to gag me with musty old clothes and dusty old books, but I ignore that and a heartbeat later, the only thing I notice is the sweet, sweet smell of Sunshine. She’s so beautiful, even in the light of the dusty old bulb hanging toward us from the ceiling.
We’re sitting together on a stack of wrinkled shirts and jeans, and she’s right in front of me, and I’m staring into the bright black of her eyes. Her hair’s short. Cut and dyed with blond streaks to make her look different and she’s wearing makeup she doesn’t need with her perfect soft skin and the lipstick makes her mouth seem bigger when she reaches up and touches my cheek with her
fingertips and says, “I knew I’d miss you but I never knew I’d miss you this bad.”
And she tries to apologize for leaving and upsetting me, but I don’t let her, and I try to apologize for remembering everything she told me even after I promised I wouldn’t and for remembering what we—
But you know, it’s hard to think past what we did, to think past touching her—
And she won’t let me apologize, either.
“It’s done now, Jason,” she whispers, her words like rippling grass in my head, swaying and shooshing and soothing everything. “It’s okay if you remember. It’s okay if you remember everything.”
I tell her about the search, about Linden and Roland going to jail. She tells me about how Eli found this underground network for her, how he scoped it out and got people lined up to drop her off with a woman who did pickups for Women and Children in Peril when things got too bad for Sunshine to stay home one day longer, when she just couldn’t take another second of—
Of
him
.
Farkness Biter
, my head whispers, only I’m pretty sure that’s my actual voice and not my alphabet. Evil tree, evil bastard—whatever, it all fits, and I hope Karl Franks and his sad mopey face and his sad mopey mustache get eaten by something more terrifying than anything my crazy can dream up. No amount of knives or black clouds will keep
me from knowing what he is now—total filth, not even worth the air he breathes.
“I couldn’t tell you about leaving. I just couldn’t.” She holds my hands in hers. “It’s the rule here. It’s the deal we sign and if we don’t keep our word people could die,” and she tries to apologize again but I don’t let her because it’s okay, it’s really okay and everything is completely okay now.
“Agent Mercer will get your stepfather,” I tell her, wishing I could kill him myself and not go to prison and have to be away from her.
“You really think so?” she whispers.
“I know so. You and Eli, you might have to testify, but Agent Mercer will get him.”
She glances down. Away. Then back at me. “You trust him that much?”
“Yes.” And to prove it, even though she might not totally understand the full history of it, I slip the locket out from under all my coats and my shirt and I unfasten it, and I slip it back around her neck, right where it belongs.
“There,” I tell her. “It’s because of him you have it back. It’s because of him that I’m here.”
“No,” she says, and she doesn’t move. “Agent Mercer might have helped you, but I know if you’re here, it’s because of you.”
She keeps her gaze fixed on mine the whole time, and my hands shake, and I’m pretty sure I’m not drooling, at
least I hope I’m not, and I finally, finally manage to get the locket fastened.
The second it’s done, she seems to relax into herself, to be even more Sunshine than she was the second I saw her running out from behind that cash register. Her fingers brush the gold of the locket, and a smile brushes the edges of her mouth.
“I knew you’d find this, Jason. I think I hoped you’d find me, too, even if it broke all the rules. If you trust Agent Mercer, then I’ll trust him… but… I need to stay here for a while. They’ve got counselors and they’re helping me, and I’m getting my GED and everything.”
Oh.
Um.
Oh.
My ribs and chest aren’t as busted up anymore, they’re lots better, but it hurts again, all of a sudden. I had thought that if Mr. Franks went to jail, that she’d come back home, that she’d come back
To me
.
But… that’s okay, too, because I could come here, maybe.
“Can I—” I begin, but she shakes her head.
“No. Please don’t ask. If you do, I might leave here with you and then—”
Then she’d always be an alphabet, like me. And she’s not like me, not completely. She can get better—a lot
better. And my heart twists and tears into tiny pieces but I tell her, “No. You’re right. You have to stay.”
A breath passes.
And a tear. Hers. Maybe mine.
“I’ll come back to you.” She touches the locket, and then she touches my face again. “I promise.”
“You don’t have to.” I didn’t want to say that but I had to say it and I have to mean it. It’s the right thing, and this is Sunshine, and I have to do the right thing no matter how it chews me up and swallows me whole.
“That’s what I want,” she tells me, and she leans forward, and she kisses the freckles on my cheek, the ones that don’t taste like chocolate. “When I’m ready. If it’s what you want.”
YES
. But…
But…
I close my eyes.
“Sunshine, I’m not—I’m never going to be—”
“Normal?” She laughs. And then she says, “Good.”
And then she doesn’t kiss my freckles. She kisses my lips like she did before we—before we—
Before we were together.
The weekend before she left, when she told me she loved me, when she told me she needed me, when she asked me to show her just once, just one sweet time, that love could be soft and beautiful and right, and I showed her. It happened. It really did happen, it wasn’t my
imagination, and it was right, and I hope I was all she needed me to be.
She kisses me again and again, and in between the whisper-sweet, quiet-soft touch of her lips, I get my instructions, which go like:
Take care of Drip and explain all this to him if the bastard really does get arrested, but don’t tell Drip or anyone else where I am.
Give your dad a break.
Make your mom help my brother join the army.
Graduate.
Pick a college because yes you are going to college because state schools have help for alphabets.
Don’t study engineering because you suck at math so bad.
“Jason.” Agent Mercer sounds gentle, almost like a dad when he comes to the door. “Son, we need to go now.”
But I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go but I should I know I should and—
Someday somewhere I’ll get there Jason I’ll get better and I’ll meet you along the way when I’m ready when I’m able it’ll be okay Jason because you have a future and I have a future and somehow we’ll find a way because we always find a way and
—And I can’t pay attention to the last kiss, to the last hug, because that really would kill me but I listen to every
breath and heartbeat and every word she says and I watch out the back window of Agent Mercer’s car until the place cradling my Sunshine is nothing but a blur, then a speck, then a bright, soft place in my mind.
When she’s able. When she’s ready.
I push my fingers under my coats and my shirt and I touch my throat, touch the tingly warm spot where I wore the locket, and I’m scared and I already miss her, but I touch the spot, and I touch it again, and—
It’ll be okay Jason because you have a future and I have a future and somehow we’ll find a way because we always find a way and
—And I smile, because she’s Sunshine—
And because she’s Sunshine, I believe her.
No book comes whole into life without many people working hard and making sacrifices. My family and my parrot stoically allow me to be absent from responsibilities and the world for hours and days at a time, my agent works on the contract, my editor reads and advocates and suggests (then tolerates my attempts at) revisions, copyeditors get involved, cover artists struggle to find the right image, marketing works on visions and strategies—and I know I’m leaving out dozens whose labors get even less recognition. Thank you all for your effort and patience.
Massive appreciation to teachers and librarians and bloggers and reviewers, who scour dozens of novels every month and talk them up to teens and anyone else who will listen. Books have to compete with movies, gaming, sports,
music, and other entertainment vying for attention and dollars. Without advocates, books might fade into history. I hope the printed word will always have a place in society, and book warriors work to ensure that. You’re the best, even when you hate my stories.
As for my readers, you’re why I write, and thanks for reading. You know the real secret—that we’re all Freaks at heart, and there’s nothing wrong with that, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.
Stormwitch
Trigger
My Big Fat Manifesto
Exposed
Going Underground
The Oathbreaker saga
with J B Redmond
Part One: Assassin’s Apprentice
Part Two: A Prince Among Killers
Copyright © 2012 by Susan Vaught
All rights reserved. You may not copy, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (including without limitation electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, printing, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages
First published in the United States of America in September 2012
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
Electronic edition published in September 2012
www.bloomsburyteens.com
For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
Permissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Vaught, Susan.
Freaks like us / by Susan Vaught.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
Summary: A mentally ill teenager who rides the “short bus” to school
investigates the sudden disappearance of his best friend.
[1. Mental illness—Fiction. 2. Missing children—Fiction. 3. Love—Fiction.
4. Mystery and detective stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.V4673Fr 2012 [Fic]—dc23 2012004227
Book design by Nicole Gastonguay
ISBN: 978-1-59990-959-2 (e-book)
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