Temptation: A Novel (7 page)

18. The World Will Be Yours

Do you ever wish you were someone else?

I hear people say this, but I’ve never once wished I was someone else.

I just wish I were me living in someone else’s life.

Because it’s not me that I hate so much, it’s the stuff surrounding me. Like all those bags of groceries full of crap. Just so much stuff that came out of nowhere. That’s what my life is right now.

I don’t want to be Ray Spencer, the homecoming king who graduated and I’ll probably never see again. I don’t want to
be
him,
but I sometimes wouldn’t mind his life.

Parents and friends and yes,
Mother,
a drama-free life.

Maybe I would have less drama if I hadn’t moved to this dramatic little town.

Ever think about that, Mom?

The overly dramatic sixteen-year-old is on his motorcycle and driving to get away.

To maybe come along a side road that takes him to another life, another place, a place called hope and happiness. To a place called home.

But I keep driving, and that road never shows up.

Mom had the right idea about going sightseeing. That’s exactly what I’m doing in Asheville now. I’m browsing in a Best Buy store when I think of something else I miss about living in Illinois.

Apple stores.

It’s not that I ever did a lot of shopping at them, but I used to go there with my father. Back in the days when he actually spent most of his time working at the law firm. Maybe he thought of it as a father-son outing, but it was really just an excuse for him to go check out the latest Apple gizmos. The store itself looked a lot like an Apple computer: white and futuristic with that logo front and center. It certainly didn’t look like any of the other stores surrounding it. But I guess that was the point.

Thinking about those half-hour trips to the Apple store makes me think of my father.

And of his apology after he found God.

I’m sorry for neglecting my duties as a father, Chris.

I was fifteen and had already spent most of my days as a son living under his roof. Even if he and Mom didn’t divorce, I’d only have a few more years to see him suddenly try to step up to the plate and assume his duties.

I didn’t say anything at the time, good or bad. I just nodded and felt a bit embarrassed for both of us. The man was on his knees as if he’d done something criminal or something. The man—this guy who’d always been so controlled and so tough and so unemotional—was on his knees, in tears, asking for my forgiveness.

Looking at the latest iPhones at the Best Buy store, I’m thinking of my father’s tear-filled apology.

I try and shake the thought as I play with the phone. I think of Lily and Harris texting each other. I think of all the other thousands of times in the past year when it would have been nice to own a cell phone.

At least it would provide a little temporary escape.

“Picking up a new phone?”

The voice chills like a screech on a chalkboard. I look up and see Jeremiah Marsh standing at the counter next to me.

For a moment I’m stuck back at the falls, facing him down in some kind of possessed rage, forgetting who I was and what I was doing as I took the knife and stabbed him.

But of course you didn’t really do that, Chris, because if you had, how could he be standing here?

“I love my iPhone, I have to tell you,” Marsh says, showing me his in a black case. “Though it is a bit addictive.”

I look around us to make sure that I’m still here in this Best Buy, surrounded by others.

I haven’t seen him since the moment I walked into graduation and saw him speaking on the platform.

A voice from the grave.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost, Chris,” he says. His pearly white smile strangely seems to match his bleached-out hair.

I can’t think of anything to say. A part of me wants to bolt, but another part can’t move. And that includes my lungs and my heart.

“How’s your summer going?”

“What do you want?”

He looks perplexed, as if he just can’t quite understand my attitude at the moment.

“Well, to be perfectly honest, I came here for a CD. But that’s the thing about technology—it just keeps changing. I remember when Best Buy had thousands of CDs. But not anymore. Everything is a download these days. Everything is electronic. And it’s a bit sad, because I believe there’s a really impersonal nature about that. People don’t ever have to leave their rooms to buy or sell or communicate. So what does that ultimately mean?”

I can’t tell if there’s a point to what he’s saying or if he’s just talking to sound deep.

He glances at me with those eyes that feel about as warm as the flatline on a heartbeat monitor.

“I keep thinking we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot, Chris.”

He says this as if—as if there’s actually a chance that there could be any kind of
normal
relationship between us.

“I can understand your feelings,” Marsh says. “I’ve been there.”

I don’t think he understands anything about me.

“I was sixteen once. But then again, you’ve got a birthday coming up, don’t you? This summer, right?”

I nod. I can’t help it. This is surreal.

I saw you drop over the falls. I saw you fall to your death.

“What if I made a peace offering?” He points at the iPhone. “How about I give you one of these as a token of our starting over? A clean slate. Let the past stay in the past.”

An iPhone? He seriously wants to buy me an iPhone?

That wouldn’t cover one strand on Jocelyn’s head.

Perhaps he can see my reaction from the flushed feeling my face suddenly gets. He smiles, so calm, so smug, so pastorlike.

But I no longer think of him as a pastor. Not anymore.

“Chris—let me ask you something.”

“No.”

“Just wait. Please. Then I’ll let you go. You’ve been here—how long?”

“Since October.”

He chuckles, shaking his head. “Of course. Don’t you understand—I know the exact date you and your mother came to Solitary. I know pretty much everything about you, Chris.”

“Okay.”

“But you still don’t know the reasons
why
I know about you. Aren’t you mildly curious?”

Anger is bubbling inside of me.

I spent six months being curious until that curiosity killed the cat. Until my nine lives were shot and I was sent into sweet denial.

“You continue to fascinate me, Chris. You really do. I’ve been wrong about certain things. That’s been my fault. But I just want to say this. What if you didn’t have to just look at that phone? What if you didn’t have to wait and wonder if you could ever own something like that?”

He’s talking in his pastor voice, so soft and sweet, like some kind of poisoned candy.

“What if you could have anything—and I mean
anything—
your heart desires?”

The way he says
anything
makes a wave of bumps cover my skin.

I feel locked in this store. Locked in place. Locked in fear and frustration. I want to lash out at the man across from me, but I already tried that. And look where it got me.

I think of the “anything” he could give me. I picture Jocelyn. I picture the way she looked when I found her last New Year’s Eve all bloodied and gone.

“Clean slate,” he says again, as if reading my mind. “Chris—she was not part of the plan.”

“Who?”

“You know who. The reason you’re still so angry. The reason you still can’t let go.”

I shake my head. How can he read my mind?
Is
he reading my mind?

“A mistake, for sure. But I never thought—I didn’t foresee that happening. But that was yesterday, and this is today.”

He’s still talking like a man speaking in another language, making no sense whatsoever to me. Slowly he reaches out his hand and holds out his palm. As if he’s holding something in it.

“If you let it go, Chris—if you let
her
go—and if you just let things happen, you will see.”

“See what?” I ask.

“See what you can become. See the person you can be.”

“I don’t—I can’t—I don’t want to be you.”

He smiles and puts one hand in the other. “That’s the thing, Chris. The thing you don’t understand. I know you don’t want to be me. But I’ve always wanted to be you. To be the
you
you’re meant to be. And I mean it when I say that if you just … let … it … go, then the world will be yours.”

“The what?” I laugh. This is crazy. “If I do what? What do I have to do?”

“Just ask, Chris. Just ask.”

19. The Fantasy

As if seeing Pastor Jeremiah Marsh put a hex onto my summer, everything suddenly seems to turn gray and stale.

The weather shifts from blue skies to dark overcast and thunderstorms.

Mr. Taggart seems to shift too. He seems to realize suddenly that his life hasn’t worked out the way it should, and he decides to take it out on us. Not with homework or anything like that, but by being irritable and coming down on everybody for random things like taking too long of a break or not paying attention or wearing something “inappropriate.” Brick gets the worst of it, but then again it seems like Brick doesn’t really care.

I find myself alone on one side of the room. Harris moved over to where Lily is sitting. Now the closest person to me is Gin, and she’s several rows back and probably doesn’t know that regular school is over and this is summer school.

Things get even better when I overhear that Roger is going out with Lily on Friday night. And I hear about a July Fourth party tomorrow. Neither of which I’m invited to. It’s not like I should be surprised or jealous or anything. My one big chance consisted of her driving me home on my bike.

Yeah, nothing says love like drunken stupor. Right, Mom?

Mom misses a couple of days of work, but I’m just ignoring her like the tunnels I found underneath the cabin. I know they’re down there, but I’m ignoring them.

Everything suddenly seems darker and meaner, and it all starts to come back.

The bitter taste.

The bitter feelings.

My anger and hurt and frustration.

Midway through Friday’s class, I’m sitting in my old seat behind Roger and Shawn. I see Roger texting Lily and the rest of the students looking bored and oblivious. Meanwhile the creepy pastor’s voice continues to go off in my head.

See what you can become. See the person you can be.

All my heart desires.

Yeah, right.

Sounds like an invitation to join the army. To be in Marsh’s legion of doom.

In the shadows of this room, while Mr. Taggart does a horrific job of trying to explain algebra to us, I look over at Lily.

She’s in this sleeveless light blue dress that has a slight band at the waist and stops a few inches above her knees. It’s the perfect dress for a girl like her to wear while frolicking in a field. I’m not sure exactly what
frolic
means, but I think it has Lily’s face and body beside the definition. Maybe this is the dress Lily will wear while she frolics around with Roger.

Then again, my mind imagines that she’ll dress up for tonight. The frolicking girl will become the wild girl, the sexy girl.

She’s really truly oblivious to the guy sitting a few chairs back and a few rows over.

Yeah, that would be me.

And as I think of Lily, I can hear what Marsh said to me. About having anything my heart desires.

Yeah, sure. That’s what I want.

But it’s not just Lily.

It’s the idea of Lily and me.

It’s the notion that I am the kind of guy who lives in Lily’s world. That I can be someone who just goes up to her and talks and we hit it off.

Lily is in a different world and a different league. And yeah, maybe it’s that world and league I want to be a part of.

Maybe I know that a girl like her is never going to be into a guy like me.

Kinda like Jocelyn?

But I shove the thought away. Jocelyn was different.

What about Poe? What about Kelsey?

These thoughts only make me angrier. Poe moved away, and Kelsey is out of town. And in either case, it wouldn’t have worked out anyway.

And it would with Lily?

I shake my head.

I don’t want something serious, something real.

What I want is the fantasy—something that won’t end in heartbreak and tragedy.

I just want something that will feel good.

And that will make me forget about all the other things that are so stinking bad.