Our Crooked Hearts(3)

Slow and steady I unlocked the front door, holding my breath as I opened it just wide enough to slide through. Then I let it all go in a strangled yelp, because my mom was sitting on the stairs waiting for me.

“Mom!” I dipped my head, bringing a hand to my lip. “Why are you awake?”

She leaned into the patch of moonlight falling through the window over the door. Her bright hair was tied up, her eyes safety-pin sharp. “Bad dream.” Then she snapped to her feet, because she’d seen my mouth.

“What happened? Were you in an accident?”

My lip beat like a second heart. “No! I’m fine. I mean—it wasn’t really an accident…”

The beam of her focus felt physical. “Tell me. Tell me exactly.”

“Nate—swerved,” I said. “His car went off the road.”

“Then what?”

I thought of the stranger in the woods, slapping at her chalk-colored skin. “Then nothing. Then we drove home.”

“That’s it? That’s all that happened?”

I gave a shallow nod.

“Okay.” Her unnerving intensity was draining. The corners of her mouth twitched up, conspiratorial. “But Nate was drinking tonight, wasn’t he?”

I swayed a little, trying to think. She’d seemed less dangerous a moment ago, when she was outright pissed. “Um.”

She gave a curt I knew it nod. “Go to your room. Now.”

I edged past her, up the stairs and into my room. Skipping the lights, I fell onto my pillows and closed my eyes. When I opened them she was above me, pressing an icepack to my mouth with her scarred left hand.

“Did you hit your head?” Her usual reserve was back; she could’ve been asking for the time. “Do we have to worry about a concussion? Tell me the truth.”

I leaned into the icepack’s chill. When was the last time she’d tended to me like this? When I tried to remember, blankness pressed in like an ocean.

“My head’s fine,” I mumbled. I’d entered that terrible purgatory place where you’re still drunk yet somehow already hungover. “I told you, it wasn’t a big deal. Nate’s not even hurt.”

“He’s not hurt.” Her voice was soft, and veined with rage. “While my kid looks like a prizefighter.”

“Dana.” Suddenly my dad was there, hand on her arm, his steady shape blocking the light from the hallway. I fought to keep my eyes open as he stepped forward and she retreated, out of sight.

“We taught you better than this,” he was saying. “What made you get into a car with a drunk driver?”

“I don’t know.”

A heavy Dad sigh. “I’m getting a little tired of hearing that. Do you have any idea how much worse this could’ve gone?”

My eye kept catching on the ceiling fan spinning over his shoulder, trying drowsily to count the blades. “I don’t know,” I repeated. “Lots?”

I wasn’t being a smart-ass, not that he believed me. His voice went on and on, patient and pissed. By the time he’d finished impressing my stupidity upon me, I was half asleep. I dropped into blackout land and stayed there till morning, kicking off the first day of summer break with a hangover and a busted lip.

And a mystery, waiting on ice in the back of my brain. But days would pass before I’d see the girl in the water again.





CHAPTER TWO



The suburbs

Right now

My phone rang and the sound of it drilled into my dreams, disguised as the screech of Nate’s brakes, as the scream I didn’t have time to let go of, as the cry of some night bird flying above me, keeping pace as I followed a girl pale as a fallen star through the black woods. Finally it tugged me toward consciousness, sleep receding like salt water.

I lay there a second, blinking the images away. I never remembered my dreams. Ever. No one believed me when I told them that, but it was true. I peeked at my phone screen through one eye before answering.

“Look who’s not dead.” Amina’s voice was acid bright. “Were my fifteen texts not enough? Did you need twenty?”

“Don’t yell at me,” I said pathetically. My mouth ached. The dream still coated my skin like Vaseline. “I had a long night.”

I drained the water glass left by the bed, then told my best friend the story. The party, the breakup, the girl in the road. My failed attempt to sneak in. I could feel her getting worked up as I talked.

“I’m gonna kill him!” she said when I was through. “Did you see what he was drinking last night? Absinthe.” Her voice dripped with good-kid horror. Amina had big tattletale energy. “To be fair it was probably vodka with green food coloring, but still. Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I’m fine. Seriously.”

“Yeah. You sound fine.”

There was a note in her voice I couldn’t quite read. “So? What’s wrong with that?”

“Just … you can be pissed, you know? You should be. He could’ve killed you.”

“I am pissed,” I said. Wasn’t I? I poked at the feeling like it was a toothache.

She sighed. “Anyway. Nate sucks. I can’t believe your mom caught you coming in. Was it awful?”

I scrubbed at my eyes. “It was fine. Why is everyone so scared of her all of a sudden?”