“Okay, so no bottle rockets. Not,” Luke added, throwing me a wicked grin, “that I’d be too upset if your shirt went up in flames.”
I glared at him. “Please don’t set me on fire just to get a glimpse of boob.”
When Luke laughed, the air seemed lighter. It was so rare that he completely let his guard down, threw his head back, and just laughed. It made me wish I were wittier so I could hear that laughter over and over. I wanted to record it and put it on repeat; Luke’s laughter was a song I could dance to.
“So, are you going to tell me where we’re going?” I finally asked.
“Not a chance.”
“Do you even know where we’re going?”
“Not a chance.”
I liked that Luke was sarcastic and smart and a little sad. Today, I liked the dark pools I could see beneath his eyes. I liked that he was a little broken. I was a little broken myself. Luke seemed to know me without having to strip me bare. He didn’t seem interested in taking me apart and putting me back together in a way he thought worked better.
“Pull over,” I ordered.
“Why?”
“Because obviously I need to be captain of this little adventure, otherwise we’ll never get anywhere.”
He eased the truck onto the shoulder of the road. “So where are you taking me?”
“A secret place,” I said. “I never take anyone there.”
“Should I be afraid?” he asked as we got out and switched places.
I adjusted the seat and rearview mirror. “Probably.”
“I normally don’t let girls drive,” he told me. “Be gentle.”
I grinned at him. “I’m always gentle the first time.”
Jenna drove us to the old train yard. “Um, I hate to break it to you,” I said, “but this place isn’t exactly a secret.” Graffiti was spray-painted on several of the buildings, and there was trash everywhere. Bottle rockets exploded somewhere in the distance.
Jenna hopped out of the truck. “I run here all the time, and I’ve never seen anyone else. It’s private property.”
“So we’re trespassing?” I grinned.
She ignored my obvious enjoyment of her lawbreaking. “Sort of,” she said. She dug around in the backseat of the truck, and I had no idea what she was looking for until she pulled out the blanket from our picnic.
“Is that for my dead body?” I asked.
“Maybe,” she said. “It depends on your behavior.”
Those odds were never in my favor.
We walked through the huge train yard. It had its own water tower. There were warehouses and walls that were once buildings but now seemed to defy gravity by remaining upright. It was a shame they’d let this place fall apart rather than finding some other use for it.
Jenna stopped in front of a large, dilapidated building at the far corner of the property and climbed through the window. I followed. It was dark and damp inside. There were piles of leaves in the corners, and an old metal desk with two legs. It didn’t really look like a place many people would enjoy hanging out. Jenna walked through it like she owned it, ignoring the dirt and rot; I wondered what she saw instead. She climbed a rickety staircase.
“So, this is where the cute girl-next-door lures the unsuspecting hero to his death.”
Her laugh echoed off the walls and swirled through the cavernous space. “I would hardly classify you as the hero.”
“I saved you from torture and certain death not even an hour ago. Would you like me to drop you at that party?”
“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” She held up her hands in surrender. “You can be the hero today.”
I’d take it.
The second floor was even more damaged. The floorboards were warped and swollen with moisture. There was an enormous hole in the roof, the edges ragged, the sky peering down at us. Something—a tree, a tornado, neglect—had worn it away, leaving a gaping hole large enough to fit a car through.
I helped her lay out the blanket. “Is this like your seduction kit or what?”
She pushed me and grinned. “Sometimes I come here to escape.”
We sat in the middle of the room and watched the sky darken. Without my self-revulsion to cloud everything, we talked. About everything. About absolutely nothing.
We talked about music and books, places she wanted to go and places I’d been. About stupid things we’d done when we were kids—I had more of those than she did. I loved watching her. Most of the time, she had this perfectly crafted poker face and I had no idea what she could possibly be thinking. But sometimes everything was in her face.
Jenna was hell-bent on escaping Solitude, but this place seemed created for her. Not the town or the people, but the landscape. She seemed sculpted to run through these woods and dive off the cliffs and sit cross-legged in a condemned building that only made her more beautiful. I wanted to capture and bottle her, because I knew that the world would try to tear her apart, and I couldn’t imagine her losing all the possibility she had built up inside her. I wanted to build her a new world, construct it from everything she thought the world was, so that when she emerged from this place, all bright and shiny, it wouldn’t tarnish her. I didn’t want Jenna to have to become something else. I didn’t want this Jenna destroyed. I knew enough of the world to know it was a very real possibility.
Jenna’s head nestled into my shoulder as we stared at the sky through the wide-open ceiling. Jenna was so still and silent. I felt her heart pounding against my side, listened to her breath come and go in rhythmic simplicity. There was a faint rumble of thunder in the distance as the day faded away.
“This is nice.” Jenna sighed. “Peaceful. No one knows where we are. I can kind of forget everything else that’s out there.”
I was trying to. I didn’t want Ian’s presence, real or feared, to break the spell. I just needed Jenna all to myself for a little while longer.
Thunder rumbled again, and a few raindrops plopped on the roof while a few more found their way through the hole, splashing on the floor and echoing through the building. I loved summer storms. This one was easing up on us, just a smattering of rain, a riff of water, which played off the percussion of our breath. My chest felt tight, like my ribs had shrunk, and while I couldn’t be positive, I was fairly certain that it was happiness. I was a little surprised that it would visit—I thought I’d killed it for sure.
The cicadas began a low murmur, which rose higher and higher until it was a roar. When it started to rain, the frogs joined in. An uncivilized symphony. The chirps and croaks of the frogs replaced the strings of the crickets and rattle of the cicadas; occasionally, the bullfrog added his bass. Bottle rockets popped closer to town, repeated over and over in a chorus of destruction. I took Luke’s hand. This feeling was unknown to me. It was anxiety and contentment and rightness all spun together like a colorful thread. I wanted desperately to hold on to it forever; I prayed the thread wouldn’t break.
This perfect moment hadn’t been made or created—just found. It wasn’t pulled off a shelf or chosen off a menu. We’d discovered it, stumbled over it without having known it was even there. Like swimming in the lake on a summer day when the water was flat and hot under the sun, then unexpectedly swimming into a cool spot. It was the goose bumps that appeared, brought on by the thrill because it felt so good, and the fear that came with not knowing how deep it went or how long it would last. It was exactly like that.
There was an explosion of color, a flicker of red on Luke’s face, followed by dull pops. The fireworks had started. I saw the bursts before I heard them, multicolored flowers that branded the sky, briefly illuminating the room where we lay, a room which had slowly gotten dark as time passed, oblivious to the fact that there were two people who wanted it to take its time and not move so quickly. I closed my eyes and saw colors on the backs of my eyelids.
The fireworks didn’t last very long. They died out in a loud, fiery finale; red and silver sparkles reached their pinnacle, scattered, and trailed down the night sky, leaving Luke and me in complete darkness. I listened to his breathing, slow and deep, and imagined a world where I didn’t have to worry about anything. I didn’t have to worry about tearing brothers apart. I didn’t have to feel guilty that I was the kind of person who would do that sort of thing to begin with. I didn’t have to worry about scholarships or tendonitis or my mom. Especially not my mom. In my fictional life, I had a mother who still wore birthday tiaras and was so busy being proud of what I could do that she didn’t even notice what I couldn’t. In my fictional world, my mother didn’t drink. She didn’t gulp whatever liquor was handy when she thought I wasn’t looking. She didn’t fall asleep on the couch with her mascara running down her face. In my imaginary world, I wasn’t pursued by that demon. In my imaginings, I could breathe.
It started raining pretty hard, dripping then pouring through the roof, so we threw the blanket over our heads and raced to the truck. The packed dirt had turned into slippery mud, and it splashed my shins and coated my shoes. Rain found its way around the blanket, wetting my hair and running down my face like tears. I laughed as Luke slid through the mud, righting himself at the last second. His hair was plastered to his head and his shoulders were soaked and the grin on his face defied the weather. By the time we were in the truck, the rain had already tapered to a drizzle. It stopped completely as we pulled out of the train yard, as suddenly as if God had shut off a faucet.
I was craving onion rings, so we headed to Jimmy’s Dairy Bar. It was packed. Luke pulled his truck into one of the last open slots.
Red speaker boxes shone under lighted menus. Eighties music played through the speakers in the eaves of the narrow building, but it was hard to hear over the car radios and the yelling back and forth. It looked like the majority of the senior class was there. A lot of them had just come from the lake. Melanie Overton was strutting around in very short shorts and a bikini top. She’d finally gotten boobs, and she was having a hard time corralling them.
“Ian, man, where you been hiding out?” Steven stuck his head in the truck window. “We’ve been at the lake all day,” he told me. “You guys should have come.”
“Actually,” I said before I even really thought about it, “this is Luke. Ian’s brother.”
Luke’s hand tightened on the steering wheel, then relaxed as he forced a smile. “Hey.”
“No way!” Steven hollered. He leaned in to get a closer look. “That’s freaky identical.” He turned and shouted across the parking lot. “Amber, Kyle, come see.”
I wanted to beat my head against the dashboard. I should have kept my mouth shut. But Luke was going to have to meet everyone eventually.
“Dude, guess who this is?” Steven pointed at Luke like he was some freak of nature.
“Um, Ian, right?” Kyle asked. He looked bored.
“Nope.” Steven was enjoying this way too much. I rolled my eyes. “It’s his brother.”
“No way,” Kyle said. “Weird.”
“I believe twins are fairly normal,” I said. They were being ridiculous.
“I guess,” Kyle said. Dani and Amber were sizing Luke up. I didn’t like it.
“Where’s Ian?” Dani asked me.
I shrugged. I didn’t feel like explaining myself to them. I shouldn’t have to. Luke still hadn’t said anything; he looked really uncomfortable.
“Having your cake and eating it too?” Dani asked. Amber giggled. Luke’s jaw clenched. “I guess it
would
be hard to decide.” Dani gave Luke a suggestive smirk. “Are you two completely identical?”
Kyle grinned. “Dude, you’d better hurry and pop that cherry before your brother does.”
Luke was out of the truck before I knew what was happening, way before I had time to get offended or embarrassed. Dani screamed as Luke reached over and grabbed Kyle around the throat. He picked him up off the ground and slammed him against the side of the truck. Kyle’s eyes were wide, his face red. No one had ever gotten the best of Kyle before.
“Apologize,” Luke growled through clenched teeth.
Steven tried to step in, but Luke pushed him away.
“Apologize,” Luke said again, quietly.
“Luke, really, it’s fine,” I said. “He’s a dick. I don’t really expect him to act any other way.” Luke was really scaring me.
We had a crowd now, and it was pretty telling that no one else tried to help Kyle, not even his friends. I didn’t blame them. Luke looked crazy.
Kyle pulled at Luke’s hands.
“Luke, seriously, put him down,” I said. “He can’t breathe.”
Luke set him back on his feet and let go of his throat, keeping a hand pressed tight against Kyle’s chest. Kyle coughed. “You’re an asshole.”
“Let’s just go,” I said. Luke’s silence was more unnerving than anything he could have said. “Please?”
Luke let Kyle go. He looked surprised to see me standing there. Kyle swung at him then, but Luke stepped out of the way and punched Kyle in the stomach. He folded in half.
“Break it up!” The manager came out of the building and eyed Luke. “Or I’m calling the cops.”
“We were just leaving,” Luke said. He climbed back in the truck and started the engine. Everyone backed away fast—they weren’t so sure the crazy new guy wouldn’t run them over. I wasn’t so sure he wouldn’t either. I realized there was a lot about Luke I didn’t know.
I blew it. I knew I would. I lost my temper and turned into the old Luke. Give me a tiny bit of joy, and I’ll shatter it.
It took me awhile to calm down. I tried to relax, taking deep breaths and trying to rid myself of that shadow, the ugly Luke who was always lurking in the corner. The one who had destroyed his life and the lives of everyone around him. Jenna didn’t say a word. After a few minutes of quiet, I managed to push that other Luke back into his hiding place. I wished I could kill him, get rid of him forever, but I knew better. He was always going to be just over my shoulder, watching for his opportunity to step in and screw everything up. Or maybe that was the real me, and this “nice” Luke was just smoke and mirrors. I wasn’t sure anymore. About much of anything.
“I’m really sorry,” I told Jenna. She had no idea how much, and I couldn’t explain it to her.