Gone, Gone, Gone(28)

I nod and look out the window. Amelia’s in the woods, alone.

She is probably, probably, probably not going to get shot.

Unless she gets shot, I don’t think I’ll remember her in a few years. But if she gets shot, I’ll remember. I’ll regret it forever. I’ll get f*cked up again.

Breathe.

Statistics. It is statistically impossible that she will die.

This is how I calm myself down.

Breathe.

Theo was a fluke.

Cody’s dad shouldn’t have died.

What do two flukes make?

“Dad?” I say.

He glances at me while he drives. His eyebrows are all together.

I say, “Are you scared?”

He nods. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” I look out the window again.

He doesn’t ask me if I’m scared. I hope that’s because he knows, not because he thinks I already have a therapist and he doesn’t need to know.

He reaches underneath my cap and messes up my hair. I haven’t had a cigarette in days, and it’s really getting to me. But I’m too scared to step outside and smoke one. If my dad knew I smoked, he’d eat me alive. He’d cry.





CRAIG

I SLEEP.

I sleep.

Heavy, breathless, unbelievable, I sleep.

I sleep.

That was a horrible dream.

I look at my clock: 3:27 a.m. As soon as I swing my feet onto the floor, cold floor cold feet cold Craig, Kremlin starts pawing at my leg. No time like the present, so I hook the dogs up to their leashes and disable our new fancy burglar alarm. I make sure the cats don’t get out, and we go for a run.



I wish I were a good runner.

In my dream, Cody was screaming at me to run faster, and I don’t know what the metaphorical significance of this is because nothing about running ever happened to us. I could make it into some extended thing about me running into the Pentagon, but that feels like a stretch. A huge stretch, like a full stretch further than a regular stretch, even.

I don’t think he and his father were that close. They never seemed to be. Once I saw them scream at each other so hard Cody’s throat went raw, and that was when I was there, when company was there, and even though I didn’t like to think of myself as company in my boyfriend’s house, his mom kept going, “Quiet, quiet, we have company!” but they didn’t listen. God knows what they did when I wasn’t there. One time Cody showed up with a big bruise across his mouth and asked if he could sleep over, but that and the time he hit me are the only evidence I have, and even evidence isn’t proof.

For a while after September 11th, it looked like he was going to be okay. Once they gave up hope that Mr. Carter was coming home—and that took a long time—he and his mom squished together and supported each other. Cody came over to my house all the time, and that was nice, to see him, to have a chance to make things right. He was sad. We’d bake cookies. We’d have sex. We’d watch stupid movies, we’d cry, we’d fall asleep. We slept, in my bed upstairs, in my room upstairs.

Then around January he started to forget where he’d put things, kind of like Dad does, except Cody never had a head injury. And then he was returning phone calls I never made, and then he stopped sleeping. Stopped sleeping completely, and that was the beginning of the end, I guess. He lost his mind and maybe it’s never coming back. At least, it’s probably never coming back to me.

He hasn’t emailed.

Why am I such a slow runner?

If I continue not to sleep, maybe I’ll totally lose it and get shipped out to where he is. And I’ll see what he’s seen, and it’ll be like I’m being him, like I understand. And someone will finally, finally, bring me to him. I’m so lame. Someone has to bring me to him? I’m not a damsel in distress. I could go. I could hop on a bus or go with his mom next time she invites me or I could beg Mom and somehow I could go.

I’m not going to go, but maybe I’ll go insane.

My neighborhood is eerie and dark, but it’s familiar, and I’m only circling it over and over. And, to be honest, more people have their lights on than I would have expected at this time of night. It’s like they set out beacons for me.

The dogs are faster than I am. I’ll never understand how dogs can be so fast. These dogs could outrun me forever. I should have tied them up out back. They’re going to get me so tired and I’ll pass out and die, and then what?

Then what?

I stop in front of a house I don’t know and pant with my hands on my knees. I feel my shoulder blades pressing against my sweater every time I breathe in. Maybe they’ll turn into wings and I can fly away. Then I’d beat the dogs.

It’s not that I really want to beat the dogs, it’d just be nice to know that I could.

I hear a soft growl, and I look to make sure the dogs are okay, but it’s a car, old and slow, trembling its way across the block.

Its lights are off.

It comes toward me. It has tinted windows and I can’t see the driver.

I straighten up.

It drives past me, wheels clanking. I can hear the torn-up tar on the sides of the sidewalk crunching under the tires. It gives me a half second of a heart attack, and then it’s gone. That’s what it left me with, a f*cking half-second heart attack and then my heartbeat back and loud and clear, going you’re stupid you’re stupid you’re stupid.