Lock and Key(115)

An empty room, Gervais had said, and at first I tried to picture white walls, a wood floor, a generic anywhere. But as my mind began to settle, something else came slowly into view: a door swinging open, revealing a room I recognized. It wasn’t one in the yellow house, though, or even Cora’s, but instead one with high glass windows opposite, a bedroom to the side with a dry-cleaned duvet, sofas that had hardly been used. A room empty not in definition, but in feeling. And finally, as my mind’s eye moved across all of these, I saw one last thing: a root-beer cap sitting square on a countertop, just where someone had left it to be found.

I opened my eyes, then looked back down at the one blank spot on my paper, the problem left unsolved. I still had three minutes as I quickly jotted down an answer, not thinking, just going on instinct. Then I brought my paper to the front of the room, handed it in, and pushed out the door onto the green, heading toward the parking lot. I could just barely hear the bell, distant and steady, as I drove away.

In a perfect world, I would have remembered not only where the apartment building was, what floor to take the elevator to, but also the exact number of the unit. Because this was my world, however, I found myself on the seventh floor, all those doors stretching out before me, and no idea where to begin. In the end, I walked halfway down the hallway and just started knocking.

If someone answered, I apologized. If they didn’t, I moved on. At the sixth door, though, something else happened. No one opened it, but I heard a noise just inside. On instinct—call it Zen mode—I reached down and tried the knob. No key necessary. It swung right open.

The room was just as I’d pictured it earlier. Sofas undisturbed, counter clutter-free, the bottle cap just where it had been. The only difference was a USWIM sweatshirt hanging over the back of one of the island stools. I picked it up, putting it to my face as I breathed in the smell of chlorine, of water. Of Nate. And then, with it still lingering, I looked outside and found him.

He was standing on the balcony, hands on the rail, his back to me, even though it was cold, so cold I could feel the air seeping through the glass as I came closer. I reached for the door handle to pull it open, then stopped halfway, suddenly nervous. How do you even begin to return to someone, much less convince them to do the same for you? I had no idea. More than ever, though, right then I had to believe the answer would just come to me. So I pulled the door open.

When Nate turned around, I could tell I’d startled him. His face was surprised, only relaxing slightly when he saw it was me. By then, I’d already noticed the marks on his cheek and chin, red turning to blue. There comes a point when things are undeniable and can’t be hidden any longer. Even from yourself.

“Ruby,” he said. “What are you doing here?”

I opened my mouth to say something in response to this. Anything, just a word, even if it wasn’t the perfect one. But as nothing came, I looked at the landscape spread out behind him, wide and vast on either side. It wasn’t empty, not at all, but maybe this could inspire you as well, because right then, I knew just what to say, or at least a good place to start, even if only because it was what Cora had said to me back when all this began.

“It’s cold,” I said, holding out my hand to him. “You should come inside.”





Chapter Nineteen


Nate did come in. Getting him to come back with me, though, was harder.

In fact, we’d sat on the couch in that apartment for more than two hours, going over everything that had happened, before he finally agreed to at least talk to someone. This part, at least, I didn’t even have to think about. I’d picked up his phone and dialed a number, and by the time we got back to my house, Cora was already waiting.

They sat at the kitchen table, me hanging back against the island, as Nate told her everything. About how when he’d first moved back, living with his dad had been okay— occasionally, he had money problems and issues with creditors, but when he took out his stress on Nate it was infrequent. Since the fall, though, when Rest Assured began to struggle, things had been getting worse, culminating in the months since Christmas, when a bunch of loans had come due. Nate said he had always planned to stick it out, but after a particularly bad fight a few nights earlier—the end result of which were the bruises on his face—he’d had enough.

Cora was amazing that day. She did everything—from just listening, her face serious, to asking careful questions, to calling up her contacts at the social-services division to answer Nate’s questions about what his options were. In the end, it was she who dialed his mom in Arizona, her voice calm and professional as she explained the situation, then nodded supportively as she handed the receiver over to Nate to do the rest.

By that night, a plane ticket was booked, a temporary living arrangement set. Nate would spend the rest of the school year in Arizona, followed by working the swim-camp job in Pennsylvania he’d already set up through the summer. Come fall, he’d head off to the U, where he’d recently gotten in early admission, albeit without his scholarship due to quitting swim team midyear. Still, it was his hope that the coach might be open to letting him try for alternate, or at least participate in practices. It wasn’t exactly what he’d planned, but it was something.

Mr. Cross was not happy when he found out about all this. In fact, at first he insisted that Nate return home, threatening to get the police involved if he didn’t. It wasn’t until Cora informed him that Nate had more than enough cause to press charges against him that he acquiesced, although even then he made his displeasure known with repeated phone calls, as well as making it as difficult as he could for Nate to collect his stuff and move in with us for the few days before he left town.