Stand Alone (3 page)

Em’s brows drew down fiercely.

“You’re grounded, for one. And I’m going to talk to Dr. Morton about this. You’re going to have to do chores to work this off.”

“Oh, you’re going to tattle to Dr. Morton?”

“I’m looking for a way to help you, Justine!”

“Talking to that quack doesn’t help me. Has he been able to help me in the last ten years?”

Em looked at her for a moment, the angry look starting to fade.

“I think he was helping you for a while there,” she said slowly, “but then
  
…”

Justine’s anger rose at the insinuation that she was sick and they could make her better.

“There’s nothing wrong with me,” she challenged. "You’re the one with something wrong with you. You think you can just order me around and if I’m not a nice compliant child, that there must be something wrong with my brain. And Dr. Morton is happy to take your money for you and to keep telling you how messed up my brain is. It’s a scam, Em. He’s just a quack. All of those stupid therapies—holding time, play therapy, the stupid dog training tricks—you think that you can change me, but you can’t!” Em opened her mouth to interject something, and Justine shouted over her. “You can’t!”

“You were starting to do better,” Em pointed out. “You and I were starting to be able to get along better, to have a relationship. And then
  
…” she shook her head, eyes teary. “What happened, Justine?”

“Nothing happened,” Justine said firmly, staring her directly in the eyes. Em opened her mouth. “Nothing happened,” she repeated again, her voice harsh, her throat sore from shouting. “Nothing.”

Em shook her head. Her eyes were sad, the rage over the stolen money gone. She had that loving, pitying look that made Justine feel trapped. Em came across the room, and Justine shrank back, not because she was afraid of being hit, but because she knew what was coming.

“Don’t touch me,” she warned.

Em sat down on the bed and put her arm around Justine. Justine stiffened, and didn’t return the gesture.

“I love you, Justine.”

“No, you don’t.”

“I’m your mother. You’re my baby. And no matter how much you try to push me away, I still love you.”

Em’s grip tightened, and she rocked slightly. Justine squirmed in her grip.

“I’m not a baby any more,” Justine protested. “You can’t hold me!”

“You’re still my daughter. I still love you. And I know that you need hugs, even if you tell me you don’t.”

Justine pushed her away, squirming out of her grip.

“Just keep your hands to yourself,” she objected, “or I’ll call Child Protective Services.”

“And tell them that I gave you a hug?” Em questioned with a short laugh.

“And tell them that you touched me when I said no and made me feel uncomfortable. You’re not allowed to touch me like that. I know my rights. I don’t have to let anyone hug me or touch me. Not even you.”

Em’s expression darkened, and Justine knew that she had struck home. But Em remained calm and firm. She would have made Dr. Morton proud. She forced a plastic smile, love no longer shining in her eyes.

“As soon as Child Services talked to Dr. Morton, they would understand. Nothing would happen,” Em said with studied unconcern.

They both stared at each other, daring the other to make a move. Eventually, Em stood up and headed out the door.

“You’re grounded,” she reminded Justine as she retreated. She pulled the door shut behind her.

Justine sat looking at the closed door, and swore at Em under her breath.

C
HAPTER
2

J
USTINE
SKATED
AROUND
TOWN
aimlessly. Em would be expecting her home, but since Justine was grounded, there was no way she was going home, or she wouldn’t be allowed back out of the house again. She still had money in her pocket, and that was destined for junk food. Justine wasn’t about to starve to death with Em withholding food. She would at least have a good supper tonight.

Justine turned a corner into an unfamiliar area, eyes sharp on the look out for any good hills or jumps or interesting areas to hang out. She was pretty far from home, so she wasn’t sure what was around. There were benefits to not going at home at night. She had a lot more time to range farther afield and make new discoveries. After a few more blocks, Justine found herself on a street which appeared to have once been main street of a smaller town, before it was swallowed up by the city. The drug store, pizza parlor, and theater looked ancient. There were a few other storefronts on a tiny strip mall now occupied by an acupuncturist, an accountant, and someone named “Albert Farcourt” who only had his name, and no profession, stenciled on the window. Justine slowed and looked around. She ground along the curb before jumping her board onto the road, and performed a wide circle on the street to return to the pizza place. Her stomach was already rumbling, and this quaint little place smelled so strongly of fresh bread and cheese that she couldn’t resist it. No one knew her here, and she could pretend that she was an adult, her own person, instead of just a school kid out breaking curfew.

There was a bell dangling at the top of the door that rang as she entered. The restaurant was dim after the brightness of the afternoon sun outside. There were rotating racks in heated glass cases that displayed several different varieties of pizza available by the slice. Justine glanced at the prices on the chalkboard menu up on the back wall. The prices were a steal, and every order included a can of pop for free.

An Asian woman bustled through the kitchen door to the order counter, smiling.

“You want pizza?” she questioned brightly. “For you, I give Hawaiian or pepperoni half price. They’ve been out for long enough, I don’t want them to get dry. Okay? I get for you?”

Justine sucked at the extra saliva washing her mouth, considering the possibilities.

“Yeah,” she agreed, “one slice of each.”

“And I get you a pop. You want Coke? Mountain Dew?”

“Coke,” Justine said.

“Regular? You no want diet, right?”

Justine smirked.

“No diet,” she agreed, nodding.

The little woman dished her up the biggest slices of Hawaiian and pepperoni pizzas into a takeout container, and took a can of Coke from the fridge and placed it on the counter in front of Justine. Justine handed over the cash, and the woman busily rang it into the till and handed Justine her change.

“There you go, skater girl. You come again.”

“I will,” Justine agreed, beaming, and exited with her dinner.

She liked the Asian lady. So many of the businesses that were around the school and her house hated skaters. They wouldn’t allow skateboards inside their stores, eyed her suspiciously like she was a delinquent intent on stealing from them or vandalizing their stuff. They sent security to follow her around the store. All because she had the sense to use wheels instead of just feet, or chose not to pollute the environment with a car. For that she was automatically a criminal?

Justine ate her pizza rather messily as she skated slowly around looking for a park to sit down and eat at that might also have some playground equipment or furniture to challenge herself with. Instead of a park, she came upon a dead-end street. She was turning around to go back the way she came when she saw the house. Justine’s eyes went over the house slowly as she assessed it. Too-long grass in the front yard. One window that was boarded up. Unclaimed flyers and mailers in the mail box beside the door. The house was obviously uninhabited. Empty.
 

Justine looked over her shoulder for observers, then made a slow circuit around the street for anybody who might be paying attention to her. There was no one. Some houses had lights and TV’s on, but no one was standing by the windows looking out at the street. There was no one getting into the cars, or walking strollers or dogs down the street. It was more than just quiet, it was deserted. Justine stepped off of her board and flipped it up into her hand. No point in making more noise than she had to. People might remember the sounds of a lone skater out there in the evening. On tip-toe, Justine approached the house, examining the front windows carefully from a safe distance, and going directly to the gate that let her into the back yard.

The back yard was a mess, not even tidied up like the front was. There was a rusted wheel rim from some long-forgotten junker. There were stones and bricks arranged in a rough circle for a fire pit. There were lots of crushed, empty beer cans and other debris around. Justine walked along the back of the yard, eyes alert for any burglar alarm or surveillance equipment and examining the door and windows to see just how secure the building was.

There was no sign of any electronic surveillance. Justine peeked in the windows. The house was empty. It was so empty and lonely, Justine’s heart immediately welled up with the desire to own it, to occupy it. To make it hers. No one else lived there, so why not? Who would claim that the house was better off sitting there empty than having her occupy it? Using her shirt as a glove to avoid getting fingerprints on anything, Justine tried each of the windows and the door. Of course, they were all shut up tight. Justine tried a few kicks under the door handle, but she wasn’t strong enough to kick it open. Looking around the yard for some sort of pry bar, Justine’s eye fell on the rocks and bricks around the fire pit. Hefting one of the bricks, Justine threw it at the lowest window as hard as she could. In her experience, glass was a lot tougher to break than it appeared. Her throw was good, and the brick landed somewhere inside of the house with a crash of shattering glass. Justine just stood there for a few minutes, listening. Had it been heard by the neighbors? No one came to investigate. Justine pulled the wheel rim over to the window and used it to help boost herself up. She brushed the glass off of the windowsill with her board and then with her shirt, hoping to avoid cutting herself climbing up. She slid her board in through the window. With a count to three, Justine grabbed the ledge, walked her feet up the wall, and then pushed up with her legs to get up to eye level, then waist, then over. She clambered over the sill, and jumped to the floor.

Looking around, Justine brushed her hands off on her jeans to get rid of the small crumbs of glass. Some of them didn’t brush off, and she had to pull slivers of glass out of her hands. They bled in thin red trails, but weren’t serious. No stitches needed, and her tetanus shots were up-to-date. As a skater, she was well aware of when she had her last tetanus shot.

Justine explored the little house. It was dusty and bare, but she thought it had character. There were small signs of the people who had once lived here. Little bits left here and there. Cute wallpaper in the kiddie room. A motif of white ducks in red aprons in the kitchen.

Justine sat on the floor in the living room. She looked at the blinds covering the window, and felt irritated. Something wasn’t right. If this was her house
  
…
 
She would have no blinds, just curtains. It was okay if the sun intruded on the room in the early morning. It made it more
  
…
 
rustic, more homey. The rug on the floor was the wrong color, but in the dim light of the room, it didn’t matter so much. Justine tried to visualize it with furniture. The comforting drone of a TV. Somewhere to sit. A blanket spread out on the floor for the little one. It was so clear when she closed her eyes, she could almost touch it. But when she opened her eyes, the room was empty; it was wrong. She felt tantalizingly close, but frustratingly unable to reach it.

Maybe when she was grown up, if she ever managed to make it to adulthood, she would become an interior decorator. She loved the way she felt in an empty house. She saw in her mind so clearly how it should look. She knew absolutely how to make it right. But a client would probably have his own vision, his own idea of how things should look, and it would not match the picture in Justine’s head.

She lay down on the floor and stared up at the ceiling, streaks of orange, late-evening sunshine making long lines across the stippled ceiling. It wasn’t quite right. It should look
  
…
 
How should it look? Justine closed her eyes to visualize it.

Justine’s phone buzzed in her pocket, startling her. She knew without looking at it who it would be. Em. Demanding to know where she was and why she wasn’t home. Justine had disabled the location broadcasting on her phone. Em had bought her the phone, thinking that she’d be able to use it to track Justine’s movements. What was she, stupid? Every teenager knew that trick. Yet parents still insisted on trying. Some students left their location tracking on when they were at school or places they were supposed to be, only turning it off on rare occasions when they needed to escape, claiming GPS blind spots when questioned about it. Justine couldn’t be bothered. She just turned it off.

After the call went to voicemail—unfortunately Justine’s voicemail box had already been filled with Em’s other messages, and Em wouldn’t be able to leave a new one—Justine swiped it on. She opened up a power draining app; a program that was handy when you wanted to condition your battery. She started a discharge cycle, and sat and watched the meter getting lower and lower until the power blacked out.

So sorry, Em, my battery died.

She laid back down on the floor, and closed her eyes, visualizing how she wanted the room to look. As the room darkened, she fell asleep.

Justine had restless dreams, always reaching for what she could never grasp. She awoke a few times, growing cold and uncomfortable on the floor. But she just closed her eyes again, visualizing her house, the house as it should look in her imagination, and went back to sleep.

She awoke with a start to the sound of the back door being opened. Justine rolled over sleepily and tried to orient herself and figure out what was going on. She was in an empty house. The room was dark, just a little light coming in through the cracks in the blinds from the street light outside. There was somebody else there. Somebody had just come into the house. Forcing herself to move, to prepare to escape or protect herself, Justine slid across the floor to the wall, staying low and in the darkest shadows. Footsteps moved through the kitchen toward her. A flashlight played along the floor, occasionally flashing off of the walls or in another direction as the burglar explored the house. Justine pressed herself into the wall, trying to avoid the flashlight. If the beam of light caught her
  
…