Indigo: The Saving Bailey Trilogy #2 (11 page)

My stomach has that feeling you get when you’re on an airplane and it drops during turbulence. My hands are clammy, and even the rain can’t hide the nervous sweat that is pouring out of me.

I go through a pair of gates and am pointed in the direction of the visitors’ center by a guard. There is a waiting room with plastic molded chairs of various colors and styles, a mismatch of whatever the community donated, or what could be picked up at thrift stores. I’m about to sit down on one of the sturdier looking ones when a large lady at the front desk calls me up. She asks me where my parents are and who I’m here to see. I shyly slide my fake I.D. under the glass window that separates us.

“You don’t look twenty one,” the woman says, cocking an eyebrow.

My heart pounds.
Look twenty one, look twenty one!
I scream from within. “I have a baby face,” my words squeak out of me like an invisible hand has a stronghold on my throat.

“Mhmmm,” she says, winking. She pushes a clipboard at me with a pen and an official-looking document attached to it. “Sign this, sweetie, and then you can go back and see your boyfriend.”

“Oh, no, you misunderstood—we’re just friends,” I say.

“Sure thing, sweetie, just sign here.”

I scribble the fake name Clad made up for my driver’s license: Sherry Williams.

Is that his idea of a romantic name for me? Does he dream of making love to Sherry, only with my body?
Shivers run through me.

“What’s wrong?” the woman asks.

My eyes automatically snap to her nametag, “Nothing,
Sherry
.”

Now, I really might vomit, never mind that my stomach was already churning because I’m about to see Clad for the first time in six months.
Can vomit cancel out vomit?

“Do you have anything on you? Jewelry? Cellphone?” Sherry asks.

My hand goes to my neck, reaching for the locket that’s not there. “No,” I say.

“You can go on through the metal detector then, but take your shoes off, first.”

I turn to my left and there is a single metal detector set up and a couple of bins laid out, a smaller version of the security measures at airports before boarding a plane.

I pull my boots off and put them in a bin, and trying to hide the holes in my socks, I scuffle along to the metal detector. The guard waves me through and a light above turns green as I make it clear to the other side. I shove my feet into my boots, and then another officer escorts me through a hallway that smells like someone peed the length of it.

The officer takes me into a room full of people. There are the inmates in their orange ensembles, and then the normal people, the family and friends who are visiting them.

“I get to touch him?” I gulp.

The officer chuckles.

“I thought he’d be behind glass.”

“We can put him behind glass, if you want,” he says. “Who are you here for?”

“I… uh—I,” I choke up. “Clad, I’m here for Clad.”

“Yeah? Gun Boy, huh? He’s real popular around here,” the officer says. “I’ll go get him.”

I take a seat at one of the empty tables; my legs have started to shake and I doubt they will hold me much longer. The officer returns shortly, with his meaty hand tight around Clad’s bicep. Or at least I think it’s Clad; it must be, because he shares the same vibrant green eyes. But his most easily recognizable trait, his hair, is gone. All that remains of his once unruly mop of curls are dark brown bristles.

What have they done to him?
I think in a panic
.
What have
I
done to him?

He pulls out a chair, and leans back in it like he used to in high school. “Look at me,” he says. “I can’t see your eyes.”

“You got a haircut,” I say, raising my head.

“Yeah, do you like it? It’s easier to maintain this way.”

“It’s different.”

Different—there’s that theme again. I’m beginning to grow sick of things being
different
. I slide my ponytail holder out of my hair.

“You look beautiful, as always,” Clad says.

“Thanks.” I force a smile.

I reach across the table and grab his hand. Partially out of my seat, I fight the impulse to fling myself at him. “I missed hearing your voice…” I say. “Clad, I missed every little thing about you…” My voice fades away.

“I truly thought you were going to visit me sooner,” he says, not squeezing my hand back. “It hasn’t been a cakewalk and seeing you could have made things more…bearable.”

My voice leaves me completely. It’s in another world, along with all my senses. I have only one feeling and aspiration right now: to be in Clad’s arms.

“At first, I didn’t mind the bad smells and bland food. I was on a high because I had saved you. But Bailey, you must know I’ve come down from that high.
Hard
.”

He lets my hand drop on the table. “Do you have anything to say?”

I shake my head mechanically.

“Okay, then just listen,” his voice lowers to a whisper and he looks around the room before saying, “I saw them kill a guy. They dug a well in him.”

“
Dug a well
?” I say, my voice returning.

“You take a toothbrush and grind it down to a point, then you stab it in the gut of whomever you’re trying to kill and dig out their organs,” he pauses, “
you dig a well
.”

“I didn’t ask for you to save me,” I say.

“You didn’t have to. I was bound to, the minute I found your Bullet List.” He smiles to himself, pleased with this one bit of knowledge he has held onto for six months.

“
That’s
how you knew,” I say. “You snoop.”

“I saved a lot of people… not just you.” He pushes his finger into my chest “It was my choice. And now I’m dealing with the consequences. I just wish you would have been there for me all along, like I was for
you
.”

“I wanted to, Clad, but I was in a bad place mentally and physically.”

“What kind of state do you think I was in, being handcuffed and pushed into the back of a police car—a criminal for doing the right thing, for doing the only thing I could, saving you and everyone else?”

“You’ve changed.”

His voice rises, “Of course I’ve changed! You don’t witness a gruesome murder and stay the same person you’ve always been. Prison changes people and never for the better.”

“You’ve completely lost yourself!” I say in disbelief.

“I tried to hold on to who I was, but everybody took a piece of me, until I had lost every part of my being.”

His words are still wise but they lack all their previous comfort, they are hateful now. Turned sour, like milk left out in the sun.

“Do you hate me for not coming?” I ask.

“No.”

“Do you hate me at all?”

“If I hated you, would I have gone to prison for you?”

Good point
.

“Have they hurt you?”

“No, I met somebody… a friend who’s always got my back. He won’t let anything touch me.”

“What’s his name?” I ask trying to small talk my way into a lighter subject.

“Angel,” he says.

“That’s a coincidence, my dad’s—”

“No, it’s not.”

Way to make small talk; this conversation just gained a few thousand pounds
.

“He’s your dad.” Clad pulls a wallet sized picture out of his jumpsuit. He puts the picture on the table in front of me.

It’s me—well, three year old me—with short black curls and my eyes as large as the sea, my smile not yet tainted by the cruel world.

“Really?” I ask. “You know my dad?
You’ve seen him
?”

“I share a bunk with him,” he says, blasé.

“How is he?”

“He misses you, talks about you every night before we go to bed; I try to fill him in on what he’s been missing. He calls out your name in his sleep.”

“Will he see me?” Tears blur my vision until Clad looks like he could be the same boy that gave me his cookies at recess and pummeled T-rod.

“I thought this might be too much for you,” he says, squeezing my hand at last.

“What does he look like?” Questions that demand answers flood my mind.

“Long, black hair, dark blue eyes. He looks like you, just in male form,” Clad says. “He wants to see you, but he doesn’t think your mom would like it. He doesn’t want to upset her.”

“Fuck my mom,” I croak. “I have to see him. Clad,
I must
.”

“We just knew you’d say that.”

“She can’t keep me from seeing him… not anymore,” I say.

A bell rings, like we’re back in high school and it’s time for our next class. Only this time, Clad won’t be coming with me when I leave.

“Time’s up,” he says. “If I don’t get back to my bunk, the screws will put me in the hole.”

We both stand and push our chairs in. I hold my arms out like I’m stretching, but I’m really offering a hug. Clad doesn’t take it.

“See ya round, kid,” he says.

“Clad,” I say, before he walks away.

“Yes?”

I’m going to ask him for a hug but it seems like too much, and I think he will reject it anyway. “See ya, Gun Boy,” I say and turn for the door.

I barely make it to my car before the screaming starts. I stand out in the downpour, my mouth open, letting the rain fall into it.

I cry out in anguish because Clad doesn’t want to touch me and his hair is gone, and I am all my dad thinks about.

Then, I remember the dead birds and I lose all resolve. I’m on the asphalt halfway under my car clutching my stomach. My teeth knock against the road; I can’t control my body with the sobs that are racing through me. As soon as one ends another begins, fiercer then the previous, like birthing pains they intensify.

I uncurl myself and open my car door, twisted on the ground I pull out my vodka. I chug until the bottle is empty and then smash it against the road. Picking up a shard of glass, I hold it to my wrist.

Voices, Spencer’s and Sarah’s, speak to me. They strain to be heard over the pounding of my heart and peals of thunder that rock the ground.
Why would you hurt yourself?
You really outdid yourself this time, Bailey
.
Pretty girls shouldn’t self-harm.

With reluctance, I toss the piece of glass, reasoning that I had better wait for the vodka to kick in before doing anything rash.

I think about the birds and how the mound of dirt must be being washed away by the rain, their flowers drooping. I worry that they will be exposed for squirrels and raccoons to nibble at their bodies. I hate Spencer for not digging the hole deeper, even though I hear his song now—the one he sang at the birds’ funeral.

The rain slows to a drizzle. I rise once more, hoping this will be the last time I will be picking myself off the ground for a while, Spencer’s wet shirt sticking to me like a tight hug from him.

On the long drive home, I entertain the thought of my worn tires hydroplaning on the slick road and killing me in an uncontrollable crash.

Mom keeps calling. I turn my cellphone off.

Fort Myers lunch-hour traffic is horrendous; it’s a miracle I make it back before dark, just as the sun bursts creating a cotton candy sky.

I get into the house and swing my head around, searching for Mom. On my second scan, I see she is at the table, waiting for me. I didn’t see her the first time because her head was bowed, her eyes wandering across a page in her AA book.

I drop my cellphone on the floor and she starts. “Not good?”

I shake my head tersely.

She looks at me with sympathy but it isn’t right, not the motherly concerned look it should be; forced because she has had to use it many times before. Leaving her book open on the table, she comes to me and puts her hands on my arms.

“He wouldn’t even hug me,” I say, staring at my open bedroom door where Angel is standing, hesitant to greet me. He doesn’t know me, anymore. I have made him lost by taking away his purpose in life—to comfort—replacing him with Spencer’s arms and chest.

“I saw Clad today. Please, don’t be angry I didn’t tell you. I was scared you wouldn’t let me go.”

Her hands leave my arms and I fear she might strike me. Instead, she starts to unbutton Spencer’s shirt. I pull my arms out of the sleeves; she rolls it up and places it on the table. “You should have told me,” is all she says. Leaning back for a moment, she studies me. She sighs and goes into my bedroom.

“He wouldn’t even hold my hand,” I say following her around as she searches my room for something. “He saw a murder…the food is tasteless…he’s a totally different person, now.”

She opens my closet and pulls out my favorite Winnie the Pooh nightshirt, the tag faded from being washed too many times.

“All because of me,” I say.

“Put this on,” she says, “and give me your wet pants, so I can put them in the dryer.”

I put the nightshirt on and then change my expression to show I mean business. She tries to leave the room to dry my pants but I block her. “Mom, why couldn’t I just let Miemah kill me? Why did I have to hurt everyone I love?”

“How were you supposed to know he’d bring a gun to school?” she says, throwing her hand out, as if she is holding Clad’s gun, displaying it for emphasis.

“I could have known, if I hadn’t been too stupid to see how much he loved me.”

“Even if you had known, what would that have changed?”

“I would have gone about things differently… I wouldn’t have let him go to prison for me.”

“You can’t give back a sacrifice of love, Bailey.”

“But I didn’t deserve it,” I say.

“Clad thought you did.”

I walk into the kitchen, grab Spencer’s shirt off the table, and take it to the floor with me, digesting what Mom has said.

“You hang in there,” Mom says, pulling my hair back from my face. “You’ve gone too long to suddenly just give out. You are my light.”

I rest my cheek against her thigh.

“Things went dark for me, too, when your father left.”

She strokes my hair.

“You never talk about him.”

“It hurts too much. I loved him…more than you can imagine.”

“Every light burns out eventually,” I say.

“Then be an LED.”

“You know I’ll try and last for you… as long as I can.” I yawn. “And my baby brother.”