Just Like Home(73)

Maybe there’s still time.



* * *



She doesn’t think he’s going to show up. It’s cold out but not too cold. There’s a September kind of chill that promises colder nights to come, and the air still smells more like grass than like woodsmoke. There aren’t any clouds to drift across the moon and there’s no moon to hide behind those nonexistent clouds, either. There’s just the clear night sky with all the stars it can muster. Vera squints up at them and wishes hard on each and every one: don’t let it be too late for him.

He gets to her house at midnight just like the note she dropped in his locker said. He leans his bike against the side of her house, right under the mudroom window, not bothering to put down the kickstand. He’s not wearing a helmet. The moonlight catches in his hair, making it shine.

A little black flashlight on a lanyard bounces around his neck. He’s come prepared.

“Are you serious?” he hisses through the dark, his whisper only just loud enough for Vera to hear over the din of insect buzzing. “Like, for real? We can go down there?” His eyes are brighter than she’s seen them in days. He’s not mad at her, not even irritated. He’s just excited, because she made him a promise and the promise she made him is the most thrilling thing they could possibly share.

He looks like his old self again. Vera’s heart thrills: she knew it. She knew the old Brandon was still in there, the one who wanted to be her friend, the one who liked her. She knew there was still time.

“I would have told you before, but you were too busy being an asshole,” she whispers back. And then she reaches under her collar and tugs on the chain around her neck until it’s free of her shirt. She holds up the chain to reveal the key that hangs at the end of it. “I took it,” she says with a wicked grin. “I took it off his keychain and copied it. It’s so cool down there,” she adds, and she means it, and she can see Brandon believing her, she can see it in the way he bounces on the balls of his feet and glances between her and the house.

He has no idea, Vera thinks. He’s broken, and that has to be hard, but he’s going to be so happy once he finds out that she can fix him.

“Let’s go,” he whispers, an unselfconscious smile already starting to spread across his face at the thought of what secrets the forbidden basement might hold.

So they go. They slip off their shoes in the mudroom and they pad across the dark entryway until they reach the pair of doors that sit under the stairs. Vera uses her secret key to let Brandon into the place his father was never aware of leaving.

Vera always forgets how smart Brandon is. How fast. She always forgets, and tonight, for the first time, she recognizes what a mistake that is. He realizes all-too-quickly that the basement isn’t what he thought it would be. He asks questions that he doesn’t really seem to want answered, questions that come faster and faster, questions about the function of the big X and the rings in the floor. Then he points the white beam of his little black flashlight at the dark stains on the cement floor, and he doesn’t ask anything at all.

He just looks up at Vera with wide, blank eyes, breathing hard through his nose. He looks at her like she’s a stranger in a van, like she’s a big barking dog with no leash, like she’s a car driving too fast down the street where they’re riding their bikes.

He looks at her for just long enough that Vera knows they aren’t friends anymore.

And then he bolts.

Vera doesn’t shout. She knows better than to shout. She darts after him, her sockfeet slipping on the cement. He’s faster than she is and he runs up the stairs, taking them two steps at a time. But he’s afraid. His flashlight beam is bouncing so fast it’s like a shiver. He slips on the steps, one foot shooting out behind him. He catches himself on his hands, he drops his flashlight, he starts to push himself up but thank goodness the fall slowed him down.

It’s enough. It’s just enough.

Vera is right behind Brandon. Before he can get his feet underneath him she’s got both hands around his ankle. He looks back at her and she gives him what she hopes is a reassuring smile.

Then she pulls as hard as she can and he goes sprawling. His arms flail out to catch him again but his hands land a stair too low, and his forehead meets the corner of a step with a sound like a carton of eggs hitting a sidewalk.

Vera tugs gently on Brandon’s feet. He slides down the steps, limp as a dishrag. She stands over him at the foot of the stairs, rolling his dropped flashlight beneath her foot so the light plays across his smooth, expressionless face.

“Don’t worry,” she whispers. “I’m going to help you get better.”





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX


Vera is thirteen years old, and there are things she didn’t consider when she made her plan to fix Brandon. Things her father must know from experience. Things she didn’t realize would be tricky to figure out on her own.

First of all, she didn’t think ahead about having to turn on the overhead lights. She’d thought she could work by the beam of her flashlight, but it’s too hard to juggle it while she gets everything set up. After a long period of queasy consideration, she decides it’s worth the risk to flick the lightswitch at the top of the stairs. She just has to hope that no one gets up for a midnight snack and notices light beneath the door to the basement.