The Opposite of Love (16 page)

39

CHASE

Something doesn't make sense.
Chase presses his face against the cool glass, thinking.

Daniel's hand-me-down Ford pickup pulled up thirty seconds after Rose's taxi turned left on New L.A. Avenue. Chase hopped in, and they'd been trailing the taxi ever since, like some kind of wannabe detectives.

He recounts the conversation for Becca and Daniel, as close to word for word as he can remember. He knows he's missing something. Like she's dropped some major clue and he just hasn't seen it.

“If she's not going to kill herself, I bet she's hiring someone to kill her parents. If that's the case, I'm not sure whether or not we should try to stop her. I might even like to help her.” Becca sits wedged between Chase and Daniel in the front seat of her brother's car. Her fingers hold an unlit cigarette, and she fiddles with it, reluctantly obeying Daniel's rule of no smoking in the car. “Next thing we know, we'll see her story on
Dateline NBC
, and then there'll be a
Law and Order
episode based on it. I wonder which actress they'll get to play Rose.”

“She's heading the wrong direction if she's planning a double homicide.”

“Unless she's setting up an alibi. Shit. I can't breathe in here.” Becca leans over Chase and out his window, sucking in the night air. She sits back down. “How sad is it that we are her best friends, and not one of us has a clue what crazy thing she is going to do?”

Chase inches toward the window on his side. “No offense, Becca, but can you just be quiet for a little while? I need to think.”

“I'd be plenty quiet if I could just light up this damn cigarette!”

“Dream on,” Daniel says, rummaging in the space where the CD player should be. He pulls out a pack of gum. “Here. Chew five or six of these in a row. You can barrel through the whole pack if you want. Just stop talking.”

“Nice. You'll give me TMJ.”

“You're talking,” Daniel reminds her, keeping his eyes on the road. “Besides, TMJ is better than throat cancer.”

Chase presses his palms against his temples. His head aches. The jostling of the truck and being pressed up against Becca's side doesn't help. He thinks about Rose. What did she mean when she said there were things that wouldn't ever be okay? Was she talking about the Parsimmons and the way they treated her? Was she talking about what she planned to do? If it wasn't something she could make okay, then why would she do it in the first place? Unless she thought she
had
to. And what would she feel bad about … but have to do?

The truck speeds up as it nears the freeway on-ramp, still trailing the taxi. When Chase closes his eyes, he can almost see her, wrapped in that winter coat like she was, his old Nike sweatshirt peeking out from underneath. Rose Parsimmon is as beautiful as they come. She would have looked pretty wearing army fatigues and dreadlocks.

But today Rose had seemed puffy and pale, and the sparkle seemed to have dulled from her eyes. She looked like someone had soaked her in water for days, and she moved like she had a broomstick up her ass. Like she hurt. Maybe her old man had been beating her. Anger bursts in his blood, hot as fire, at the thought of Rose being used as a punching bag … or worse.

When he thinks about Rose silent and staring at the walls for eight months, it's amazing she looks as good as she does. No sunlight. No exercise. That girl has stubborn in her blood. She'll do anything in her power to defy her parents. Hide that cat in her room. Sneak out in the middle of the night. Sleep around. Stop talking. Rose had told him once about the cocktail of medications, vitamins, and whatnot they handed her every morning and how she pretended to take them. She told him how they'd put her on the pill long before she was ever having sex, that they'd probably have neutered her if it were legal.

With his eyes still closed, Chase feels the shifting of the truck as it changes lanes and decelerates slightly to exit the freeway. In a flash, Chase remembers the warmth of her skin against his. The subtle saltiness of her lips. The way she kissed him with her eyes open. The way she wanted him to hold her for hours afterward. Thinking of her that way makes him sort of hot and petrified all wrapped as one. He opens his eyes. Chase has figured something out, but he doesn't know what.

And then like a lightbulb has switched on in his gray matter, he
does
know what. And it scares the freaking shit out of him.

40

ROSE

Mr. P. poked his head into Rose's bedroom. She'd heard his work-boot footsteps squeaking down the hall, so she'd had plenty of time to scoop Nala off her lap, shove her under the bed, and pull the Pepto-Bismol-pink bed ruffle down around it. She'd never been so thankful for that bed ruffle in her life. The Parsimmons had no freaking clue about Nala. Cats were easy to hide.

Mr. P. cleared his throat and edged his whole body around the corner of the room.”I brought you something,” he told her, holding a large and rectangular object behind his back.

Mr. P.'s eyebrows furrowed as he took in Rose's puffy eyes and tear-streaked face. Okay, so she'd been crying, and Nala had been meowing on her lap and chasing her tears with her rough, warm tongue. She'd been missing Chase and Becca and generally feeling sorry for herself. So what? Even tough girls cry.

“You're going to have a lot of time on your hands,” he said cautiously, bringing the object in front of him. A laptop computer. “And homeschool assignments, I'm sure,” he added, more business-like. “You'll need your own computer.”

Mr. P. went on to explain that he'd purchased it from a fellow Daily Drip regular, a guy in pharmaceutical sales who'd decided to upgrade, so he'd offered Mr. P. a good deal to take the old computer off his hands.

Rose nodded, wiping her eyes in a way she hoped looked casual. It was hard to stop crying on a dime.

Mr. P. waited a moment, his face softening. He looked like he wanted to say something, but he didn't. Instead he busied himself with setting it up on her desk, plugging it in, and sort of humming a tuneless nothing.

Nala chose just that moment to meow, scraping her claws against the rug underneath the bed. Maybe she had to pee. Rose shifted on the bed, trying to make the bedsprings squeak to cover up Nala's sounds below. Mr. P. turned slightly and met her gaze. His eyes darted down to the Pepto-Bismol bed ruffle for a moment, then back up to hers, and there they stayed for at least a minute, unblinking.

Rose kept her gaze steady. She'd won every staring contest she'd ever had in elementary, and she wasn't about to lose this one.

Finally, Mr. P. shifted his attention back to the computer. “It was a good deal,” he explained again, almost apologetically, like he somehow had to justify this financial splurge. “Can't pass up a good deal.” Nala meowed again, but this time Mr. P. didn't turn back, just pushed the on button and let the laptop hum to life.

41

ROSE

Summer at Walter's wrapped around Chase like a caterpillar's cocoon, although he sure as hell wasn't going to turn into a butterfly. Before he knew it, July came and went, and August brushed past in a hurry.

The day-to-day hard physical labor of the roofing had torn up his back and arm muscles over and over again. Sometimes, he ached so bad it felt like someone had put his entire body into a vise and squeezed. And yet, he liked this kind of pain. The soreness made him feel real. And the increased definition of the muscles beneath his newly tanned skin didn't hurt either. He came home so worn out that all he wanted to do was lie down on Walter's couch and watch reruns of
The
Simpsons
.

At least every other night, Lex came over so that she and Walter could hit a meeting. She usually slipped in carrying a bag of takeout. Thai and Indian seemed to be her favorites. Both foods Chase had never even smelled, let alone tasted, before meeting Lex. If someone had ever told Chase that his father would wind up dating this serene little yoga-teaching, pad Thai–eating pixie, Chase would have laughed.

Chase kept waiting to see the old Walter, but all he got were pieces of the old mixed with the new. Like the time Walter was irritated with a roofing assistant who spoke no English. He started to cuss him out, to work himself up—veins sticking out in his neck. But then Walter stepped away, muttering to himself. Made a phone call to his sponsor and came back to try again.

Or the time Walter stormed around the house because someone used the last of the soap without telling him. Not pounding anyone or throwing anything. Just yelling and stomping around like a little kid. But those things were like single grains of sand on a beach—they were nothing. Before, Walter had been an out-of-control monster, terrorizing his wife and kids. And now he was just a roofer with a temper. Go figure.

Every other night when Walter and Lex traipsed off to seek their higher power, Chase lounged around, enjoying his privacy. Tonight Chase grabbed a soda from the fridge and set himself up on the computer. Walter's television and computer faced each other in the living room, so Chase could channel surf while he Internet surfed. The only thing that would have made the setup more perfect (besides a hot Rose Parsimmon on his lap) would have been a bag of Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Chase resolved to get himself some.

Daniel instant-messaged Chase every couple of days, and called about once a week. In typical Daniel Stein style, he sent gossip-filled updates, funny YouTube videos, random Buddhist sayings, and the occasional political cartoon. And inevitably, every once in a while the discussion turned to Rose. Chase had been trying so hard not to obsess about her, but she'd been popping into his dreams, uninvited, nearly every night.

Chase:
Her parents probably have her locked up in that house. There should be a law against that. Isn't it child abuse or something?

Daniel:
Yeah, well, so is beating your kid, and we all know how often parents get arrested for that.

Chase:
Ouch. Point taken. Besides, I bet they'd just say they were keeping her in for her own good, or some crap like that. I wonder if I should contact her. I haven't since I left. I figured she wouldn't want to hear from me.

Daniel:
Who knows? Who knows if she even gets her messages? Becca's been trying to get hold of her. I keep telling her to forget about it already, but you know my sister. She gets obsessed.

Chase:
Walter keeps talking about letting go of the things you can't control. He'd say we can't control Rose, so we need to let it go.

Daniel:
Yeah, right. Try telling that to Becca.

Chase IMed Daniel back and forth for another hour, but his heart wasn't in it. His heart stayed stuck on Rose. Missing her seemed like a deep, dark abyss of churning water. Once he allowed himself to think about her, he'd be pulled under by the current and unable to get back up.
You're just like all the rest … Don't you ever freaking touch me.
Her eyes flashed before him then, the hate burning through her pupils.

Chase set down his soda. It suddenly tasted sour. He leaned his head back against the swivel chair. He had pushed her. Why? What was wrong with him? Did he inherit a bad temper from Walter just like he'd inherited his height and his eyes?

Chase remembered the quote Daniel had emailed last week: “Anger will never disappear so long as thoughts of resentment are cherished in the mind.” Had Walter magically rid himself of a big, old bag of resentments?

Chase tried to figure out who he resented, who he had to forgive. Walter—for hurting them, Candy—for not protecting them, Rose for being so damn self-destructive, and last year's English teacher for assigning books to read over the summer. Suddenly, like a blast of cold air, Chase realized who he resented the most.
Himself
.

Slowly Chase typed in Rose's email address with plunk-plunk fingers.
I am thinking of you
.
He felt like his fingers were marching into battle.
I'm sorry for the way we left things. I want a do-over. What do you say?
As he pressed Send, he wondered if Rose even had access to the Internet. With her parents, he couldn't be sure.

42

ROSE

Rose would have bet every Prozac capsule in the bathroom cabinet that Nala understood her better than any human ever would. Too bad she didn't have any funky Alice in Wonderland pills to take her to a far-off land crazier than her own.

They think I'm nuts. Certifiable, in fact
. Nala tilted her head just slightly to the left, watching Rose, then curled up in her lap. Rose could hear the Parsimmons talking in worried tones from the living room. They seemed to think that just because she'd stopped talking for the last three months, she somehow couldn't
hear
now either. They didn't even bother to lower their voices.
Hello, people. I still have ears
.

Mr. P. hemmed and hawed for a minute, revving up his vocal engine. “I wonder if it was a mistake to keep her out of school. I've never seen her this bad.”

“I know it's hard to watch her this way,” Mrs. P. said softly. “But you have to remember that it's for her own safety that we keep her here. And your health. She's liable to give you a heart attack with all the chaos she creates.”

My own safety? What, I'm going to set fire to myself or walk in front of a train?

“I just worry about her all alone every day. She's been wearing that gray Nike sweatshirt for weeks. I think it's from that boy Chase or Chuck, or whatever his name was. But now it's August and a hundred degrees out there, and she doesn't even seem to care.”

“Maybe we should call Dr. Gutman and have him up her meds again.”

Bring it on!
Rose wanted to taunt—that is, if she had been talking.

Nala pawed at her gently, her claws catching on Rose's Nike sweatshirt, like she was trying to tell her something.

What? I know what you're thinking. You're wondering why I don't just disappear. I could run away. I've done it before.
Rose didn't say the words out loud to Nala on the off chance the Parsimmons might overhear. Didn't seem to matter, though. Nala seemed to get what she was thinking about even without words.
Well, maybe I will. And this time, if I leave, I'm never coming back
.

A flash of anger raced through her chest. It was time to take control of the situation and make some decisions herself. Stroking Nala's back, Rose repeated to herself,
I'll end things here one way or another
.