Rhythm & Clues: A Young Adult Novel (11 page)

A
fter Gavin and I left our picnic table at the free outdoor concert, we weaved through the crowds. I gave him a darting sidelong glance, trying to interpret his drooping eyelids, furrowed brow, and ruler-straight lips. Would he ever speak to me again?

A dirt path curved into a hiking trail between the trees. I headed down the trail, not looking back to see if he followed. That was his choice. He could break free of my grasp right now and save himself. But if he decided to go along with me down this path, I’d know it would be safe to tell him everything.

Even though the crunching sounds coming from behind me indicated that Gavin did in fact follow, I didn’t want to get my hopes up. So I imagined a very gentle, very obedient deer latched onto me.

Trees surrounded me, shade cooling me down. Sounds of the concert and the gabbing crowd gave way to chirping birds.

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” Gavin asked, the hurt evident in his voice.

I turned around. He stood in the center of the path, his hands balled into fists. Sunlight escaped through patches in the trees, illuminating rays that guided my path, like the lanterns that first day in the warehouse.

“You have to understand what it’s like to find someone who doesn’t know about my mother,” I said, trying to get enough courage to look him in the eye. “When we’re together, I can be myself. You don’t judge me for her choices.” I swallowed and met his stoic expression. “I didn’t want that to change.”

“Your mom? I don’t care about that.” He kicked a stone as he continued walking, this time side by side with me. “I wish you could’ve trusted me. You didn’t even tell me you’re real name.”

I bent and picked up a long stick, which I used to help me keep a more brisk pace with Gavin’s long legs. “I hate it. It’s just so…not me.”

“You could make it your own, though. I think Jan could suit you if you owned it like you do Moxie.”

I shook my head. “Jan just has too many negative connotations to me. Krystal—my mother—picked the blandest name she could think of for her daughter. Jan. Plainer than Jane. The ignored Brady. It’s everything unwanted and forgotten.”

“I’m not following.” Gavin ducked underneath a low branch I didn’t even notice.

I took a deep breath. “Krystal always feels her lot in life had been determined by her stripper name. When she turned eighteen, she got the job. Soon after, she had me.” I tapped my fingertips on my chest.

“When did your dad pass away, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Oh.” He would have taken that quick excuse I told to his mom as fact. I’d never given him reason to think otherwise. “Actually, I don’t know who my dad is. Krystal won’t tell me. I’ve decided she must be embarrassed because he was a client. Or maybe she doesn’t know who he is.”

“Maybe you should give her the benefit of the doubt. Like, what if your dad was this great guy who got shipped off to the army or something and never returned, and your mom is too sad to talk about it?” He stared at me with big, hopeful eyes.

“I wish the truth was that romantic.” I sighed. Before Isla showed up at the picnic table, I’d made the decision to tell him everything. But I’d been about to tell him for the wrong reasons. I wanted to avoid the same mistake I’d made with Isla. Now, as we walked, I justified telling him my secrets for the right reason: I trusted him.

“I was born premature. With a heart condition. The doctors didn’t think I’d make it. I don’t know the exact details, Krystal’s memory is fuzzy and that’s all I have to go on. I always wonder if she made this part of the story up, if she ever told my dad about me. But sometimes, you have pick out the facts and decide your own truth.”

He whipped his head toward me. “If you believe that, then why do you focus on only the negatives about your mother? Couldn’t you
decide
on only positives?”

“Don’t get me wrong. For every bad mother thing she did, she balanced it with something good. She always put my health before herself. She gave me freedom so I could grow up and make my own choices. She treated me more like an equal than a child.”

I could have listed more, but suddenly the words stuck in my throat. The trail started to blur, clouded by the charging tears. I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, hoping gravity would force them to seep back into my eye sockets.

“If this is hard for you, we don’t have to talk about it. I understand now why you didn’t tell me before.”

“No, I’m okay. I want you to know.” I opened my eyes and battled the tears with a smile, winning the war. I brought the conversation back to what I hoped was a less emotional topic for me. “My dad came to visit me in the hospital when I was fighting for my life in the NICU. He took one look at me…” My voice broke unexpectedly. The tears charged out of my eyes, undefeated. Talking about my dad never usually made me break down, but I doubted any topic would keep my eyes dry right now. “He looked at me and said, ‘that kid’s got moxie, she’ll make it.”

Gavin reached out for me. I stopped walking, but didn’t move closer to him. He closed the distance between us and wrapped his arms around me. I leaned into his chest, breathing in the scent of fresh laundry detergent.

“He never came back again,” I said into his shirt. “This name, Moxie, it’s the only piece of him I have. Even if the story’s not true.”

Gavin stroked my hair and let me catch my breath. It didn’t feel romantic. It felt like friendship.

I let go and noticed my tears had left zebra streaks on his shirt. I swiped at them with my arm, but I’d left my permanent mark on him. “Don’t you know not to get a girl crying when you’re wearing such a light color?” I laughed, hoping he would follow suit.

He just smiled and shrugged his shoulders at the same time. “I’ll just say the book club got into a raging argument over Mr. Darcy. The fight got so out of hand, the only way to solve it was with an ink battle. Some books were lost in the process. We’re all in mourning.”

My spirits lifted into a smile. “Very funny.”

We continued on the trail. He stopped to pick up a funny shaped rock. “Looks like a gnome.” He handed it to me.

It kind of did, with a pointed peak and a bumpy part that resembled a beard. “Cute,” I said, then set the rock down again. I didn’t want to remove it from his natural habitat. Not when it’d have to face new surroundings all alone.

The path opened up to a large space, about the size of my doublewide bedroom. We both sat down on a small grassy patch in front of a large oak tree, our backs leaning against it, the sides of our hips pressed together.

I didn’t necessarily want to get back on the topic of heavy stuff, but I did want to apologize. “Gavin, I really am sorry. I know you said you understand, but there’s another reason why I didn’t want to tell you. I was…” I hated to say the next word. Hated to even think it. But if I was confessing everything, I couldn’t lie to myself either. “Scared. That you’d run away from me.”

“Moxie, I wouldn’t. You of all people should know that.”

“It seems to be the natural reaction when I’m around. My dad just split. My mother has multiple jobs and men, but never any time for me. And I can’t run. Physically or emotionally. I can’t get away from who I am.”

“Maybe your mom’s working so many jobs to try to give you a better life, not to avoid you.”

I stared at him incredulously. “I know Krystal has to work so much to pay off all my operations. Keep this thing ticking.” I pounded my chest. “And I’m grateful, but it doesn’t excuse the rest of it—the sudden absences for days at a time.” I shoved my hands underneath my butt to stop them from shaking. “The things she says about me.”

His hands tensed as if he might spring up and flee. But he didn’t. “You want a relationship with your mother, but you’re also trying to break free. Could you be sending her mixed signals? Maybe she thinks she’s giving you what you want.”

I’d never thought of it that way before. I picked up a tiny branch and twirled it in my fingertips. “That’s part of the problem. I don’t know what I want.” I tugged gently on one of the leaves, straining the fragile connection to the stem. “I try to free myself from Krystal, then I yearn for more details about my dad and my past. I’m constantly pulled in opposite directions. Like this leaf; yank too hard and…” I increased my hold on the leaf, splitting the leaf into two sides.

Gavin picked up a leaf next to him. He spun it in his fingertips, and then retrieved his mp3 player. He flipped open the clear plastic case and placed the leaf atop the device inside. “What you need to do is press it. Then it’ll stay whole.” He closed the mp3 player and put it back in his pocket. “By removing the outside elements, you stop the tug-of-war.”

I got what he was saying. Figure out how to preserve myself without relying on my past and future to define who I am. “Maybe you should be writing the song lyrics, not me.”

He laughed, and I was grateful for the change in mood. “Lyrics are too finite for me. Once they’re written, they stay the same. But music can be rearranged. Your lyrics are preserved like the leaf.” He patted his pocket.

I smiled at him as something occurred to me. “You know, we both grew up with rules that defined us. Your rules might have been more specific than mine, but I still had to live by the standards set for me.”

He playfully jabbed my side with his finger. “Wanna trade?”

“Really? You want my life?” I did kind of want his.

“I want the freedom you have. I’d like parents who make mistakes. Mine are always too perfect, it’s annoying.” He shrugged. “People always want what they can’t have.”

“You can though. Easily.”

He turned away from me, staring out at a bird fluttering in the tree beyond our immediate vision. “How? By sneaking out more? Lying to my parents? Calling Isla and getting some gigs I can’t tell them about?”

My breath caught in my throat. I wasn’t even thinking about Isla. But Gavin obviously was.

I’d meant by continuing to hang out with me so I could corrupt him. I didn’t feel like risking more than friendship with him, and it wasn’t fair of me to keep both versions of Gavin to myself.

“Yeah, by calling Isla.” I finally said.

Gavin spun back to me, his face melting before my eyes. This wasn’t what he expected me to reply either. And as we stared at each other, I realized that even though we’d opened up so much today, we were still holding so much back from one another. With one wall crashed, we’d put up a screen door in its place.

Present Day

A
fter Sabrina’s parents and the silver Ford Focus speed away, I ask, “Did you see who it was?”

She shakes her head. “I was watching my parents’ car.”

“Let’s follow them.” I put the car into drive, but before I can press my foot to the gas peddle, Sabrina slams her shoulder against the door, gets out, and sprints up her driveway.

I put the car back into park and wrench my door open. “Sabrina! What the hell? This is our chance to follow!”

“There’s a note.” She runs up her porch steps.

I follow her up the front walk, biting back angry curses. She tears a note from the front door. Her eyes move across the words, and then she gasps. She thrusts the note at me when I meet up with her.

Sabrina, Daddy has a work emergency. We’ll be out of town a few days. We’ve arranged for you to stay over at I.G.’s house.

“They abandoned me!” Her hands ball into fists.

I tap the note. “What intrigues me is they only addressed this to you, as if they know Gavin won’t be coming home today.”

“No kidding.” She grabs her keys from her purse but stops short before sliding it into the lock. “That’s weird.”

“What’s weird?”

“This lock.” She points to the dead bolt. “It was always silver.”

Not a single fingerprint or scratch mars the shiny gold lock.

“Try your key.” She’s probably so panicked, she’s remembering wrong.

She pushes the key into the entry. Only the tip clears the hole. She jiggles it in several directions, trying to stuff it into the slot by force. Her hand falls limply at her side. “They changed the locks on me?”

“Now aren’t you glad we didn’t tell your parents?”

She continues to stare at the lock, dumbfounded. “Do you think it’s connected to Gavin’s disappearance? To the Ford Focus? Why is everyone in my family acting so strange?”