Lock and Key(57)

“You didn’t try,” I said, and now my voice was cracking, loud and shaky, rising up into the huge space above us.

“I did,” Cora said. Distantly, from outside, I heard a beep: Nate, getting impatient. “For years I did. Even when she told me to stop, that you wanted nothing to do with me. Even when you ignored my letters and messages—”

My throat was dry, hard, as I tried to swallow.

“—I still kept coming back, reaching out, all the way up to the wedding. She swore she would give you the invitation, give you the choice to come or not. By that time I had threatened to get the courts involved so I could see you, which was the last thing she wanted, so she promised me. She promised me, Ruby. But she couldn’t do it. She upped and moved you away again instead. She was so afraid of being alone, of you leaving, too, that she never gave you the chance. Until this year, when she knew that you’d be turning eighteen, and you could, and most likely would. So what did she do?”

“Stop it,” I said.

“She left you,” she finished. “Left you alone, in that filthy house, before you could do the same to her.”

I felt something rising in my throat—a sob, a scream— and bit it back, tears filling my eyes, and I hated myself for crying, showing any weakness here. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“I do, though.” And now her voice was soft. Sad. Like she felt sorry for me, which was the most shameful thing of all. “That’s the thing. I do.”

Nate beeped again, louder and longer this time. “I have to go,” I said, yanking the door open.

“Wait,” Cora said. “Don’t just—”

But I ran outside, pulling the door shut behind me. I didn’t want to talk anymore. I didn’t want anything, except a moment of peace and quiet to be alone and try to figure what exactly had just happened. All those years there were so many things I couldn’t rely on, but this, the story of what had happened to my family, had always been a given, understood. Now, though, I wasn’t so sure. What do you do when you only have two people in your life, neither of whom you’ve ever been able to fully trust, and yet you have to believe one of them?

I heard the door open again. “Ruby,” Cora called out. “Just wait a second. We can’t leave it like this.”

But this, too, wasn’t true. Leaving was easy. It was everything else that was so damned hard.

I’d only just gotten my door shut and seat belt on when it started.

“What’s wrong with you? You look like crap.”

I ignored Gervais, instead keeping my eyes fixed straight ahead. Still, I could feel Nate looking at me, concerned, so I said, “I’m fine. Let’s just go.” It took him another moment, but then he was finally hitting the gas and we were pulling away.

For the first few blocks, I just tried to breathe. It’s not true, I kept thinking, and yet in the next beat it was all coming back: those moves and new schools, and the paperwork we always fudged—addresses, phone—because of bad landlords or creditors. The phones that were never hooked up, that graduation announcement my mom had said was just sent out automatically. Just you and me, baby. Just you and me.

I swallowed, keeping my eyes on the back of the bus in front of us, which was covered with an ad reading IT’S A FESTIVAL OF SALADS! I narrowed my focus to just these five words, holding them in the center of my vision, even as there was a loud, ripping burp from behind me.

“Gervais.” Nate hit his window button. As it went down he said, “What did we just spend a half hour talking about with your mom?”

“I don’t know,” Gervais replied, giggling.

“Then let me refresh your memory,” Nate said. “The burping and farting and rudeness stops right now. Or else.”

“Or else what?”

We pulled up to a red light, and Nate turned around, then leaned back between our seats. Suddenly, he was so close to me that even in my distracted state I couldn’t help but breathe in the scent of the USWIM sweatshirt he had on: a mix of clean and chlorine, the smell of water. “Or else,” he said, his voice sounding very un-Nate-like, stern and serious, “you go back to riding with the McClellans.”

“No way!” Gervais said. “The McClellans are first-graders . Plus, I’d have to walk from the lower school.”

Nate shrugged. “So get up earlier.”

“I’m not getting up earlier,” Gervais squawked. “It’s already too early!”

“Then quit being such a pain in the ass,” Nate told him, turning back around as the light changed.

A moment later I felt Nate glance at me. I knew he was probably expecting a thank-you, since he’d clearly gone to Mrs. Miller that morning to talk about Gervais because of what I’d said, trying to make things better. But I was so tired, suddenly, of being everyone’s charity case. I never asked anyone to help me. If you felt compelled to anyway, that was your problem, not mine.

When we pulled into the lot five minutes later, for the first time I beat Gervais out of the car, pushing my door open before we were even at a full stop. I was already a row of cars away when Nate yelled after me. “Ruby,” he said. “Wait up.”

But I didn’t, not this time. I just kept going, walking faster. By the time I reached the green, the first bell hadn’t yet rung, and people were everywhere, pressing on all sides. When I saw the door to the bathroom, I just headed straight for it.