Fracture Page 10

“Well, you were in a coma and I was in a coma and there was brain damage, right?”

  He spun around. “Been checking up on me, I see.”

  “No,” I said, flustered. “It’s just . . .”

  “Delaney,” he said, “I don’t do doctors. Not anymore.”

  Didn’t he get it? Neurological could be diagnosed. Neurological could be researched. Neurological could be cured. This didn’t have to be permanent. I continued, “There was this cat in a nursing home that could tell who was going to die. They think it could smell something in the urine.”

  “You think we can smell their urine?”

  I ignored him. “And there was a dog that could detect cancer.”

  “Humans can’t smell that wide a range.”

  “Well, maybe not normally. But there are always people outside the normal range.” Like anomalies. “There are even people whose brains misinterpret senses and see sounds and feel smells. Maybe, after our comas . . .”

  Troy clenched his fists and a dark wave of anger flashed over his face. Then he relaxed his hands, and his face looked normal, friendly again.

  “After our comas, maybe things healed wrong.”

  He peered out at me from behind his brown hair. “Things shouldn’t have healed at all.”

  “But they did.”

  “They shouldn’t have, don’t you get that? We should’ve died. I was supposed to die. I wanted to die. This, this”—he waved his arms around his body, trying to capture the entirety of Earth in his gesture—“is a punishment.”

  “For what?”

  “For me, for driving that goddamn car off the road.” My stomach clenched. That hadn’t been in the article. “For getting stuck. For killing my entire family. For not being able to help them. God wouldn’t let me die. So, you tell me, what did you do? Why didn’t you get to die?”

  Decker didn’t let me die, only he didn’t do it out of hate. But I didn’t tell Troy that. I let him keep his grief. It was all he had left of them.

  He ran his hands down his face and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that. It’ll just be easier for you if you know it now and don’t have to figure it out for yourself.”

  “Troy?”

  “What.”

  “You work here. With sick people. You’re a good person, you know that?”

  “I’m not that good. I’m just trying to earn my way out of hell.”

  “You’re a good person.”

  He took a strand of hair that had fallen over my face and brushed it behind my ear. Then he left his hand there, fingers in my hair, thumb at my jawline, his blue eyes looking darker in the faint light. The door swung open, and I squinted from the harsh fluorescent lighting. A skinny woman with thin, greasy hair crossed her arms over her chest and looked at us, frozen against the wall.

  “Teresa will fire your ass if she finds you like this.” She took a box of plastic syringes off the top shelf and left the room, like we didn’t matter to her at all.

  Troy stepped back. “I’m on break now. Want to grab some lunch?”

  I nodded. I was just glad to get out of this room where everything felt so serious and close and charged. Like I didn’t want him to move his hand away, but I didn’t want him to move any nearer either.

  So we walked down the street, against the pull, to get some food. The pizzeria didn’t even pretend to be authentic. There were peeling laminate tabletops instead of checkered tablecloths, table legs made from metal instead of natural wood. The restaurant was illuminated by fluorescent lights embedded in the ceiling instead of the low-hung, dimmed lights of the pizzerias in the movies. There weren’t even waiters. The cook, who was the only thing authentically Italian in the restaurant, shouted the orders from behind the register when the food was ready.

  It didn’t matter. Johnny’s Pizzeria was the only sit-down pizza joint in town, it was across the street from the movie theater, and it was affordable for teenagers. The place was always packed.

  I should’ve considered that before agreeing to go with Troy. As we walked in, bells jangling over our heads, my friends were heading out. Justin, who narrowed his eyes at me. Kevin, who ruffled my already messy hair on his way past. And behind them, Tara and Decker. Tara didn’t even glance at me as she passed, but Decker stopped.

  “Hey,” he said. Troy stood a foot behind me, but Decker didn’t seem to notice him yet.

  “Hi.” We were pathetic.

  “So, I got you a Christmas present.”

  “Oh, me, too—I mean a Hanukkah one, but I think I missed it.”

  He smirked. “You always do. Okay if I stop by tomorrow around lunch?”

  I nodded, and then Tara seemed to realize Decker wasn’t beside her any longer. She circled back and looped an arm through his. “Come on, we’re gonna be late for the movie.” She looked right at me as she said it. I tried not to look as nauseous as I felt.

  Troy stepped beside me and put his arm around me. His hand rested on my hip, which in any other circumstance I’d find too intimate, but right now seemed just perfect. I leaned into his side. “Are these your friends?” he whispered into my ear.

  Decker looked back and forth between us. “Do I know you?”

  “Don’t think so. I’m Troy.”

  “Decker.” Neither reached an arm out to shake hands. “You look really familiar.”

  Troy shrugged. “I come in here for lunch a lot.”

  “Come on,” Tara said, tugging at Decker’s arm.

  Decker followed her, though he watched Troy closely as he passed. He had that look I knew too well, like he was trying to figure something out, and he hadn’t quite gotten there yet.

  Troy paid for the food even though I protested. “Do you work, Delaney?” I didn’t answer. “That’s what I thought. I do. And I owe you for yelling at you. I don’t usually yell.”

  We sat at a booth along the window and ate in silence. I heard sirens in the distance and shut my eyes against the painful memory. “Troy? How did we know the man was going to die in the fire?”

  Troy’s eyes bulged and he whipped his head to the side to see if anyone had heard. Nobody was paying attention. He leaned forward and whispered, “We didn’t. He was sick. You saw it at the mall. He was sick.”

  “But he died in the fire. I know it.” I looked at my palm and felt tears rush to my eyes.

  “He was really, really sick. He was dying. You could feel that, right? He must’ve been so sick he left the stove on. Maybe he passed out before he could turn it off.”

  I stared out the window across the street, where the old cinema stood. “Don’t worry,” Troy said between bites, “you’re prettier than her.”

  “What? Who?”

  “That girl with your ex.” I looked at him sideways. “You know, pathetic in her too-tight clothes, desperate for attention.”

  Despite myself, I smiled. Then I laughed. “I can’t stand her. But he’s not my ex.”

  “Then what is he?”

  I searched for the right word to define Decker and me. To define what we were. “He’s my neighbor.” We went back to eating in silence, like that was a perfectly logical explanation for the awkward encounter.

  Troy held on to his soda as he dumped the rest of his food in the trash. He pulled a pill out of his pocket, tossed it into the back of his mouth, and took a sip from his straw. Then he reached into his pocket again and held a pill out for me. “Do you need one?” he asked. “For the headaches.”

  I cocked my head to the side. “They’re not that bad. I only get them when I read too much.”

  Troy narrowed his eyes. “You don’t feel like someone is squeezing your head all the time?”

  Not since waking up in the hospital without my medication. “No. Maybe you should see a doctor for that.”

  He stared out the window, a faraway look. “Already told you, I don’t do doctors.”

  Troy scuffed his boots on the sidewalk as we walked back to his work. He walked so close our arms kept brushi
ng. “I’m glad I found you, Delaney Maxwell.”

  I didn’t say anything, but I smiled at the concrete.

  Troy tapped on the passenger side window when I started Mom’s car. I stabbed at the automated buttons on her door, opening every window but the right one. Troy opened the door and stuck his head in. “Come back Monday, okay? So I can check out your hand.”

  When he closed the door, I successfully raised all the windows and drove home. Mom looked immensely relieved, probably because I made it home with plenty of time to spare before church.

  Chapter 10

  A stream of people filed into the old stone church. In the summer, tourists posed for pictures here. There was even an old-fashioned bell, still rung on the hour. And it was large enough to hold the population of my entire town and the surrounding three. Today, it probably did.

  The church made me uncomfortable. Not church in general, just this one. Mom said it was classic, Dad said historic, but both terms were just code for old. I didn’t like old things. Old turns to ruin and decay. Decker went to Greece a few summers ago and showed me pictures from his trip.

  “Aren’t these awesome?” he had said, pointing out photographs of the ancient ruins.

  “Awesome,” I agreed, but I felt dizzy. The ruins were just a reminder that what had been was no longer. That everything we are will be gone someday. That I will be forgotten.

  Old is dangerous. Our house wasn’t old yet, but it was getting there. There used to be a creak on the third step of our staircase, but over the years it had turned into a painful groan. I started skipping the step after that. One day, the ruin would begin and the house would crumble.

  I recognized the irony. It was the new that almost killed me. New, barely formed ice, not solid enough to hold my weight. I couldn’t shake it. Last time I was at church, many months before, I’d spent most of the service staring upward, not toward God, but toward the rafters. Looking for signs of weakness. Knowing where the exits were in case the walls started to crumble around us. That was back in the spring. A lot of erosion could’ve happened since then.

  I didn’t much like old people either. Nothing against them personally, but just like everything else, they would crumble and decay. They reminded me of what I’d become, and then unbecome. Maybe if I’d really known Dad’s parents it would have been different, but I never really had the chance. They used to visit from Florida in the summer, and we’d go down for Christmas, but since my grandma broke her hip three years ago, summer was out. And this year, my parents decided it wasn’t safe for me to travel. Lots of things weren’t safe anymore.

  So when the elderly started filing off the buses, I hid behind Dad. The first bus shuttled them in from the retirement village in the town where Dad worked, so he had on his accountant face. He greeted several of his clients, but I stayed tucked safely behind his back. Their arthritic hands reached out to pat my shoulder. Their faces peered around Dad, but I tried not to look at them. Mom called her wrinkles “laugh lines,” but these people had deep and cavernous frown lines. Even when they smiled at me, I could see the frown hiding just beneath the surface.

  I kept getting this prickly feeling, like goose bumps in my brain. Like chills on the inside. I looked at the ground, calling out cheerful Merry Christmases in hopes that my enthusiasm would make up for my rudeness.

  Then I heard a much younger voice. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell.” I peered out from behind Dad’s back. “Hi, Delaney.”

  “Nice to see you again, Troy,” Dad said.

  Mom looked him over. She eyed his dark jeans and black leather jacket and black sneakers, mentally ticking off the ways in which he was not in appropriate Christmas Eve attire. “Oh, Troy, I’ve heard so much about you,” Mom said, taking his hand in hers. Embarrassing even if I had mentioned him, which I hadn’t. I shot her a look, but she wasn’t paying attention. “Where are your parents? I’d like to meet them.”

  Troy’s face dropped. I pinched the back of Mom’s arm hard. “Ow, Delaney, what in God’s name has gotten into you?” She rubbed at the back of her arm.

  “Later,” I mouthed, but I’m sure Troy saw it, too.

  “It’s okay,” Troy said. “Delaney’s trying to tell you not to mention my parents because they’re dead. But it’s okay, really.”

  Mom rapidly sucked in air. “I’m so sorry.”

  “Wasn’t your fault.”

  Her watery eyes scanned the crowd behind him. “Are you here with anyone?”

  Troy looked down. “No, ma’am.”

  She straightened her back and clapped her hands together. “Well, you’ll be joining us tonight.” Problem fixed.

  We started walking up the steps, and I leaned into Troy. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  “Me? I’m here every week. What are you doing here?”

  “Oh.” We Maxwells became practicing Catholics two days a year: Christmas Eve and Easter. And today barely counted. Really we’d just listen to the children’s choir perform and the priest tell a few Christmas stories.

  We settled into the middle of an aisle, fifteen rows from the crucifixion. I felt a tug toward the front of the church. I looked at Troy. He nodded at me and leaned into my ear. “Second row. Woman in the blue scarf.” I craned my neck and saw her. Her wrinkles stretched from her face down the back of her neck. The blue scarf was tied around her head, and her bony shoulders jutted out through her black shawl.

  “It’s not that strong,” I said.

  “Not yet.”

  “You think we can help her?”

  “Look at her. Cancer. The only thing we can do is make the pain less.” He said it like he hurt just to look at her. I leaned into his side as we waited for the choir to begin.

  “Delaney,” Mom leaned into me from the other side. “Take off your jacket. It’s sweltering in here.”

  I froze. The Christmas Eve attire that Mom selected did not have sleeves that I could pull down over the bandage on my hand. Troy looked over at me and seemed to understand exactly what I was thinking. “Let me help you,” he said. He pulled the sleeve slowly off my arm, and as soon as it was exposed, he took my right hand in both of his and held it in his lap.

  Mom looked at my hand in Troy’s lap, and I felt the heat rise from my neck to my face, but she didn’t say anything. She cleared her throat and turned to the pulpit and the singing began. The children’s choir sang “Silent Night” and “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing” with heads turned upward. With the singing in my ears and the warmth of the room and Troy’s hands on mine, I knew Troy was wrong. There was no way this was hell.

  After mass, after I put on my jacket and we filed out and stood in the parking lot, Mom placed her hand on Troy’s shoulder. “What are your Christmas plans, Troy?”

  Troy had been looking over his shoulder, following the woman in the blue scarf as she made her way to the bus. Her face was hollow, her eyes sunken, and the driver had to help her up the steps. He turned to face us. “The place where I work is having a potluck.”

  “A potluck!” Mom spit the word with distaste, as if she could think of nothing more appalling on Christmas. “Join us for dinner tomorrow. Three o’clock.”

  “Oh, I can’t. I couldn’t . . .” He turned his head again, watching the bus close the door and rumble to life.

  “We insist,” Mom said.

  Troy looked around at us all. “Thank you for the offer but—”

  “Come,” I said. He met my eyes, the word no hanging from his lips, but he turned his head as the bus started moving. He squinted as he watched it pull out of the parking lot and disappear down the road.

  “Okay,” he said, sharp and quick. Then he spun around and jogged to his car.

  I sat in the backseat with my eyes closed. I could deal with this. With Troy around, I could deal with it. Mom twisted around from the front seat.

  “How old is he, Delaney?”

  “What?”

  “Troy. It just occurred to me that he said he worked. Do you know how old he is?”<
br />
  “Nineteen.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Who does he live with?”

  “I don’t know.” I looked out the window. If she knew he lived alone, I’d never be able to see him unsupervised. I’d never be able to take the car without telling her where I was going. I’d never be able to talk to the only person who knew what was going on with me. I’d be trapped. Hands tied to my bed, drugged to sleep, trapped.

  She lowered her voice. “Do we need to have a talk?”

  “Oh my God,” I said. Dad groaned.

  Mom straightened herself back up. “Well excuse me for saying what we all were thinking.”

  “He has roommates.” I said it so low I thought it barely even counted as a lie.

  * * *

  I replaced the gauze on my hand with a wide Band-Aid. “Paper cut from wrapping,” I explained when Mom pointed it out. We opened gifts under our artificial tree early Christmas morning. I got clothes in the next size up and a new cell phone to replace the one that drowned in Falcon Lake. Dad’s parents sent me fifty bucks, which brought my net worth to fifty-three dollars. Mom wore her new sweater, which didn’t look half-bad. Another small miracle in my life.

  I lugged everything up to my room and started the process of putting my new clothes away and coming to terms with the fact that the clothes in the back of the closet didn’t really fit anymore. I pulled them out and threw them on the floor.

  I was assessing the heap on the ground when someone knocked.

  “Come in.”

  Decker swung the door open but stayed in the hallway. I stayed by my closet. “Merry Christmas.” He rocked onto his heels and, after a moment of contemplation, stepped into my room and shut the door.

  He stayed near the entrance. “About the other night—”

  “Let’s not,” I said. I might say something stupid, and he might say something worse. I just wanted to fix things. I wanted to go back to normal. So I spoke again before he could say anything else. “I got you something. It’s perfect.” I fumbled around under my bed and pulled out his gift.

  He sat down on the rumpled comforter and squinted at the wrapping paper. “Did you try to draw something on here?”