Some of the Parts (22 page)

I give her my phone number.

Text me your address,
I tell her,
and I'll come to you.

I refuse to worry about how I will explain that I am not my mother. Maybe someone who calls herself SparkleCat76 lacks a firm enough grip on reality to notice. Or maybe she'll have just enough kindness to talk to me about the boy who allowed her to stay alive.

After I send the message, I think about what else I should do before I leave. I've withdrawn most of the money from Nate's bank account, enough for the bus from Molton to Worcester and the train from there to Boston, enough for some meals and some cab rides. I will buy a map of Boston so I don't have to use my phone to find my way around. I will ply Jennifer with flattery and the promise of sympathy from strangers, which is its own kind of currency for people like her. Like Margaret, the legendary liar. But not like me.

And I will find his heart.

I do not let myself think about all of the other possibilities. That Nate's heart went somewhere else. That whoever got it isn't even alive anymore. That Dr. Fikri's group of patients will not be where they are supposed to be. That I will be caught and dragged back home before I even get to Boston to find out.

I do not let myself think these things, but they are all around me anyway. I wander through the house, feeling it tilt and rock like an unmoored boat. In the kitchen, the red circle on the calendar shouts at me and I have to look at it. Four days away.

On Monday, when my parents leave for work, I will watch them go. I will gather my things and walk to the door and step out toward something new, my own escape, a girl Houdini. I have called it a plan but even I know (though I suppress the words) that it's not a plan—it's the pushing of a rock down a steep hill, and once the rock is tumbling, it will go where it likes.

I just hope I can keep it in sight.

I hope I don't disappear.

Suddenly the risk of running away without anyone knowing why seems like it could erase me altogether.

I text Chase:

meet me @ atm next to cg tmrw 10 am

sunday
10/12

T
he next morning Dad knocks quietly on my door and invites me to come to church with them—part of his repair work on the family—but at the risk of it being used against me later I tell him that I'd rather not. He doesn't argue.

I have at least an hour, more if Mom and Dad go to the parish hall after Mass for coffee and cookies. I picture them there, standing in a corner together, hands huddled around the chipped, ancient mugs that the church offers every week. Then I draw them out into the crowd, paint smiles on their faces, give them things to say.

There,
I tell them.
You're okay.

The wind tickles my cheeks on the ride to the bank, and rattles the leaves on the trees. The sun fights the chill in the air but there is no denying it. Fall cannot hold the battleground for long. Chase is standing outside the bank, shoulders hunched against the cold, a skateboard tucked under one arm.

“New wheels?” I ask, leaning my bike against the bank's brick wall.

“Old ones,” he says. “I think my dad forgot I had this. Not ideal for the weather, but he won't let me drive. So.”

Dr. Abbott has Chase on his own version of parole. He calls at random times and Chase has to answer his phone or Dr. Abbott adds two weeks to his sentence. If he brings home any grade lower than an A
−
, he gets two more weeks. Misses his eight o'clock curfew? Two more weeks.

“Doesn't he care what you do before eight o'clock?” I asked when Chase told me the terms of his punishment.

Chase shrugged. “I think this is more about asserting his control, y'know? Twisting these particular screws. And it's not as if he's ever home before then. Who's going to keep me out of trouble? My mother?”

It makes me sad that Chase knows already that he can't depend on his parents. I mean, I can't depend on mine either, at the moment. But I could before. And some part of me assumes that I will again, someday. After this is all over.

I use Nate's card to unlock the door into the ATM, and Chase follows me inside to get warm. The flourescent lights are giving me a headache but I finish the transaction and stuff the cash and the receipt in the front pocket of my backpack. Chase and I head back outside.

“There's thirty-four dollars left,” he says. He must have been peeking over my shoulder at the screen. “Want to come back tomorrow and get the rest?”

I shake my head. “I should leave a little something.”

I feel a bit like I did before I fainted in school, so I try to glide smoothly over to the bench in front of the bank, but I trip on the uneven pavement and lurch to it instead.

“Are you okay?” Chase asks.

“I'm fine!” I snap.

He puts his hands up like I'm pointing a gun at him. “Okay, okay. Just asking.”

“I'm sorry,” I tell him. “I'm just…That question. I'm sick of it.”

“Understandable.”

I laugh, even though it makes my head hurt more. “Why are you so reasonable all the time?”

“Fear of conflict.”

“C'mon.”

“Are you afraid there's a Mr. Hyde behind my Dr. Jekyll?”

I'm afraid of all kinds of things. All the words I want to say pour into my mind like water into an empty bowl.
You don't know me. I'm a mess. Why haven't you tried to kiss me?
But the words just float, and my mouth can't shape them.

“What do you want to hear?” he asks.

“Did you look for me?” I ask him. “Because of who I am? The girl whose brother died?”

“No. I've never looked for anyone from the binder. Most people aren't as interesting as you expect them to be.” He touches his fingers to his hair, and my heart twists, and he says, “But I found you anyway.”

Through the front window of Common Grounds, I see Martha and Andy behind the counter. A world I used to inhabit, preserved behind the glass. “Did you feel sorry for me?”

Chase puts his hands in his pockets—they want to get out, I can see them struggling, but he keeps them trapped. “I talked to you because it seemed like a sign, like there was some message I was supposed to understand. And then I kept talking to you because…because you're you.”

We both watch his feet take one step toward me and then our faces lift, line up, dare each other to touch. Something inflates in my chest, pressing against my heart, something slippery and fragile that will explode if we continue poking it, and then all our secrets will come flying out.

“Okay,” I tell him.

And we could leave it at that. But we don't.

“What are you going to do with the money?” Chase asks.

“I'm going to Boston.” The wind tries to steal the words, drown them out. But I've said them and now they're true.

“Why Boston?” He asks the question, but his voice is flat. The question is a formality. He knows why.

“I want to see where they took Nate. Retrace his steps.”

And he knows this isn't exactly the truth—not the whole truth, but the hole truth—but he doesn't call me out. Instead, he says, “I'm coming with you.”

“What about your father?”

He pulls his phone out of his pocket and waves it in the air. “As long as there's cell reception, we should be okay.”

“And the GPS?”

He wakes the phone up, makes a few screen trails with his finger, and puts it away again. “Taken care of. I don't think my dad actually knows how to use it anyway. But I can always tell him it got turned off by accident.”

“He won't believe you,” I point out.

Chase shrugs. “What's another two weeks on my sentence? There are thousands of biographies just waiting to be read.”

“Okay,” I say again.

And I say, “Thank you.”

And I say, “We leave tomorrow.”

The clouds dip and swirl above us, and I watch Chase get smaller as he rolls away, and I pray for enough time to finish this.

monday
10/13

I
don't wake up because I never fell asleep. I lay in my room all night, listening to the sounds in the house, holding my anticipation like a bird in a cage. Paying attention. Not wanting to miss anything.

I get up before my parents, shower, and get dressed—I laid out clothes last night but change my mind at the last minute and put on Nate's green flannel shirt. It doesn't smell like anything anymore but it still feels good, soft from hundreds of days on his body, and it feels like the right thing to wear.

And then I wait, still listening, for Mom and Dad to make their coffee and eat their toast and put on their armor for the day. I hear their cars cough and growl in the driveway, then roll away, cutting through the cold air like knives. I count to one hundred, to make sure they are gone, and that feels good, too. I send Mel a text:

sign me in

Time to go,
I tell myself. I say it again, out loud, and my voice bounces against everything in the house, every object throwing the sound back to me as if it's saying goodbye. I tuck the note for my parents under the bright yellow sugar bowl on the kitchen table, touch it once for luck. Pull my jacket on and my backpack over it, buckle my helmet, unbuckle my helmet and set it down gently on the floor. Climb onto my bike, and go.

The air thrums in my ears as I pedal faster and faster, then slow for the stop sign at the corner, and I'm just about to turn toward the bus station when Mel pulls up next to me in her car.

“Get in,” she says.

“Did you get my text?”

“Yep. No deal.” She reaches down and pulls the lever to open the trunk, then stares at me, waiting.

“Mel, I—”

She slams her hand against the steering wheel, a slap like a gunshot.
“Get in.”
Then she takes a deep breath and says, “I will do whatever you need, I will cover for you, I will lie and cheat and steal, but before you do whatever it is that you're about to do, you need to come with me.”

Underneath her promise, there's a threat.

I lay my bike carefully in the trunk, but it doesn't entirely fit. The back wheel sticks up into the air and will not submit to my pushing at it.

“Leave it,” Mel hollers. She's leaning out her window, watching me. “It'll be fine.”

It's only a few silent blocks to school. Mel pulls into the parking lot at her usual speed, whirling into her assigned space so quickly that the trunk lid thumps against my unfortunate bicycle. The only good thing about not having been able to close it is that I can take the bike out again without needing to ask Mel to pop the trunk, without saying a single word as I walk it to the rack and lock it up.

“Be right back,” I whisper, even though I don't know why Mel insisted that I come here or how long it will be until she lets me go. I check my phone while we're walking to the front door.

I'm supposed to meet Chase at the bus station in half an hour.

All I can hear as we navigate the hallways is the ticking of clocks.

Ms. Pace's room is empty except for us. There's a flock of plaster skulls lined up along the shelves, casts of students' faces painted for Halloween. They will fill the case in the front hall when they're dry, empty eyes greeting us in the morning and watching as we walk to class, our footsteps echoing in their hollow cavities.

Mel beckons me to the back of the room, where a row of easels stand waiting, covered with drop cloths.

“What are we doing here?” I ask her.

“Okay, okay,” she says. “Keep your pants on.”

She walks behind the easels, gathering the ends of the drop cloths together like a bouquet. “Ready?”

The sound of the cloths sweeping through the air is like a flock of birds lifting into the sky and then I am looking at something both familiar and completely strange.

Each easel holds a square canvas. Each canvas bears a close-up black-and-white image, a section of a photograph. An eye and the curve of a nose. Half of a mouth and chin, a cheekbone and an ear. The pieces are out of sequence, so it takes me a minute to realize what I'm looking at.

Nate.

“Do you like it?” Mel asks quietly.

“What…” My voice is hoarse, the way it was the night of the séance.

“I made them. For you. I took his yearbook picture and blew it up and cut it into a grid, and then I mounted each square onto its own canvas. It was pretty simple, actually.”

My brain is reeling, trying to make sense of what my eyes are seeing. I look at Mel. Is she crazy? Is she messing with me? “Is this a joke?”

The pride on Mel's face begins to slip into something else. “No. It's…I saw your father in town a few days ago and he told me about your brother. What you found out. At first I was mad that you didn't tell me, but then I thought of this project and—”

“This is not a project,” I say. “This is not like your fake band or your farm sculptures or your art installations.”

“N-no, of course, this is d-different,” she stammers. “I did this for
you.
To help you.”

“Help me what?”

“Face the truth. He's dead, Tallie.”

“No, I know, but—”

“Your brother is dead.”

“He's
not.
I mean, he is, technically. But in another way, he's not.”

“Do you know how crazy that sounds?”

“Since when have you cared how anything sounds? You love crazy. You collect dead animals and stuff them and dress them up. How is anything I'm doing weirder than what you do?”

“Because,” she hisses, “what I do, I've been doing for years. I've always been this way. But you…you were so normal before. Even when I first came to see you and it was right after the accident, you were totally normal. And now…”

I ask calmly, “What?”

“You're…different.”

I smile.

“Of course I'm different,” I say. “What kind of person would I be if my brother died and I stayed exactly the same as I was before?”

“I thought we were friends. So why didn't you tell me about…” She glances at the pictures, Nate's face divided. “Why didn't you tell me?”

I hurt her,
I realize. But I can't linger, there's no time. So I have to hurt her a little more.

“It's none of your business,” I tell her. “I have to go.”

I turn to leave, but Mel runs across the room and grabs my arm. Her fingers are like iron. She pulls me until I'm looking at her. I expect her to look angry but she doesn't. She looks hurt, frantic. “I bet you told Chase, though, didn't you? I bet he knows all about this.”

“Again,” I tell her, keeping my voice even, “none of your business.”

“Why not?” she asks. “I was the first one to come see you after it happened. I was your only friend all summer and when school started. I took you to the séance and let you in the barn and I told you things about my parents.”

“I know,” I tell her. “And I'm sorry. But I have to do this on my own.”

“Bullshit,” she snaps. Then her tone shifts, becomes a furious creature. “I looked at your phone, y'know. I saw all the texts to Chase, I saw the playlist for Amy.
For Amy.
She doesn't even
like
you anymore, but I
love
—” She claps her hands over her mouth.

The stairwell. The pictures she took. I thought I was a novelty to her, a fascination. But it was something else. A story she wrote and I misread, and maybe this is one of those chances another Tallie could have taken but that I—at least for now—will waste.

I can't explain everything now, make her feel better, walk her through how I decided to do what I did, or whether it was even a decision. Retracing the steps of how we got here would be like running backward through an obstacle course. Life isn't designed for rewinding.

Ms. Pace's clock gazes down on us. I'm going to be late.

“I'm sorry,” I tell her again, and I am. So I make a small concession.

“I'm going to Boston. I don't know when I'll be back. You want to be part of this? Text me if my parents are looking for me. I'm sure my dad will call you first, since he confides in you now.”

“Okay, but…”

I pull my phone out of my pocket and take a picture of the canvases. Then I hold it up and show it to Mel.

“But if you tell them where I am, I will send this to everyone in school, and your whole wacky-girl-who-doesn't-care-about-anyone thing will be completely blown. Got it?”

She nods. I don't feel good about making threats, but I need the insurance.

Nate's eye watches me leave. I run through the maze of hallways that I know so well, relishing the pace of my feet hitting the floor, the sting in my lungs. My bike is waiting for me on the rack outside, an obedient pet, and I'm sure that if I looked up at Ms. Pace's window, I would see Mel, but I don't look up because it's time to leave. And there's just enough doubt in my heart that the sight of her might convince me not to.

We catch a bus from Molton to Worcester. No one tries to stop us. And it's the same thing at the train station—even though I feel like there's a searchlight shooting up into the air from the back of my head, giving me away, no one even notices that we're there. It's like we're cloaked by something invisible.

I talk to Nate inside my head, replaying conversations we had before he died.

Will you go to UCLA if you get in?

Probably.

But it's so far away.

I'll pack you in a suitcase and take you with me. You can clean my dorm room and write papers for me.

I pretend he's along for the ride, to distract myself from all of the questions that I should be asking myself. Doubts slice at my gut like razor-sharp butterflies and I pray, almost, that I will get through the day without another sinkable episode.

It's nearly noon by the time we get on the train, and my nervous edges are dulled by the steady bumping motion of the seats and the rattling of the windows and the occasional hiss of the heating vents. A kind of fog brushes over everything in front of my eyes. When I look at Chase, slumped and dozing in the seat next to me, it's like I'm watching a movie of him.

I think about what he said outside the bank, how backward everything has become. He wasn't looking for me, but he found me. A treasure hunt without intention, an
X
across both our hearts.

But I don't have a map for this, and there are so many reasons this will not work. We are running away, we are trying to fulfill an impossible mission, we are completely unprepared, and we might not be anywhere near as smart as we think we are. Doubts are scratching at the door.

I look out the window. The trees are dressed in their bright colors and all of the cars coming into Molton are full of people seeking the beauty of this change, but I can see it better. I see it for what it is: the slow, unstoppable death of innumerable leaves.

Storm clouds are gathering and they darken the landscape, changing the shapes outside into more menacing things. The metal towers that connect the high-tension wires look like giant dressmakers' dummies. Water towers become alien ships landing among the trees, and the trees themselves blur and merge into one continuous mass. The train holding me and Chase and strangers hurtles past unseen details, toward everything that awaits us. My mind lifts, lightens, hovers. Time is suspended. There is only this, only us, only the crosshatched track on which we ride.

I hear tapping nearby and I close my eyes to hear it better.

“What's that?” Chase asks. “Morse code?”

Oh my god,
I think.
He hears it, too.
For a moment I am elated, and then I realize that the tapping is my own finger on the metal arm of the train seat.

“You know Morse code?” I ask him, tucking my blabbermouth finger and all the others under my leg.