The Storm King(66)
Nate’s great-great-grandfather had built this place over a century ago. His fingers had mixed the mortar between its bricks, and his hands had helped plane the supports that held up its ceilings. Nate’s great-grandfather had polished the black bar every night for forty years. When his grandfather’s polio-warped legs gave way, he’d roll from one end of the place to the other on a wheeled stool, leaving grooves in the floor that seared through decades of varnish. Nate’s own father had swept clean those floors each night of every summer of his youth.
Meg and Livvy had never seen this place, and now they never would. It was gone, and the people who’d spent their lives here were now more absent than they’d been before.
In the bleak weather, the only color came from the bright lines of caution tape strung around the building’s perimeter. Even the rain couldn’t keep the scorched smell from the air.
Nate stared through the empty front windows and imagined his grandmother lifted by the force of the blast from the kitchen and tossed across the room. If he went inside, he wondered if he’d be able to trace the arc of her transit through fire and smoke.
“You can’t go in,” Tom said. “It’s a crime scene.”
Nate glanced at Tom then back to the remains of the pub. He let his gaze loiter more for Tom than for himself. Stress poured from his friend as palpably as the whiskey fumes. Micro-expressions quaked across Tom’s face like wires trembling under tension. Nate was sure it wouldn’t take much more for them to snap.
He closed his umbrella and rolled up the window.
Tom put the cruiser back into drive without another word.
The church was only a few blocks away. The stone edifice of its bell tower blended with the ashen palette of the sky. A spindly maple swayed on its lawn. There were perhaps two dozen cars in the lot, but the building looked as lifeless as everything else in the besieged town.
They parked and sat, watching the rain shatter against the windshield.
“Are you mad at me, Tom?”
“What would be the point?”
“Your dad said I abandoned you,” Nate said. “You and Johnny. When it all happened, I had to get out of here. I’m sorry I didn’t see you as much as I promised I would once we were down in the city. Every reminder of this place was—” He shook his head, making sure that his brow was furrowed with sincerity and that his eyes welled with feeling. “If you felt abandoned, I’m sorry. There’s no way to make up for it now, but I’m so sorry. You’re a good friend. The best friend I’ve ever had. Hurting you is the last thing I’d want to do.”
He watched his friend’s hands bloom white on the steering wheel. It took a few moments before Tom met his gaze.
“Why don’t you just shut the hell up for once in your life?” Tom said as he opened his door. A mist of spittle clouded the air between them.
Nate had expected anger, but the vehemence in Tom’s voice was more than he could have hoped for.
Tom left in a fury of movement, slamming the door behind him so hard that it rocked Nate in his seat. He watched through the windshield as Tom raised his hood against the storm and stalked to the church’s side door.
The maple rooted on the church’s lawn continued to rock. Its sway counted the seconds, and its trunk creaked in the onslaught. When the storm returned to full force, Nate suspected that what was now bent would then break.
June 19
Sometimes I don’t know if I can do it anymore and be everything he wants me to be all the time.
Some days the two of us are the best thing I can imagine, but other times it’s like being buried alive. They’re piling dirt on me shovel by shovel, covering who I’m supposed to be. We keep talking about how things’ll be great when we’re in the city, like it’s a perfect future just waiting for us. But what if things aren’t perfect? Because we’re going to be the same people there. Even Tom the Spineless Wonder will be there, sulking and filling the place like a thundercloud. Nate’s always so sure of everything, and I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
Sometimes I think I love Nate. Some days I’m almost sure of it. Other times I wonder if I only love the way people treat me because I’m with him. The Lake’s own son. The Boy Who Fell. He’s special, and being with him makes me special, too. So am I using him, or is he using me? Is that what love is—two people using each other?
There’s no escape, though, and I don’t think that’s how love’s supposed to work. Always watched. Always judged. It’s not just Nate. Whenever I’m away from him, the Lake’s eyes are on me. Is she worthy of our perfect boy? Does a murderer’s daughter deserve our golden son? Would it be that much worse in Ogdensburg with Dad?
Maybe I’ll miss this old pier. The one place I can be by myself, away from those eyes.
At least no one in the city knows my story. There, I can be anyone. I wouldn’t have to fight for every inch. I could leave Nate, and no one would care because in the normal world this happens all the time. No one would skewer me with dirty looks from across the street or tell the twins what a legendary bitch their sister is. I think I could be kind if I wanted to be. I think I could be just about anything if I could just be free.
Tonight, I forgot for a second that I wasn’t free. I could blame the alcohol and all the other stuff, but that’d be a lie. Yeah, Adam’s done me worse than just about anyone in this town ever did, but he also liked me and not because he was afraid of me or because of who I’m dating. He liked me for me, back when I had nothing but myself to offer. And yeah, maybe I did want to remind Nate that I’m more than just some item on his checklist for a perfect life. That my needs and wants aren’t always going to be the same as his. I guess it was stupid, flirting with Adam right where Nate could see us. A real bimbo move, trying to make a guy jealous like that, but everyone else is allowed to make mistakes, so why not me? It shouldn’t have gotten out of hand the way it did.