Where the Staircase Ends(39)

That night, my mother read to us—something she hadn’t done in many years. Sunny climbed beside her on the couch, still desperately clutching Miss Violet Beauregard under her arm, and rested against my mother the way I did when I was little, so I could listen to the words echo inside her chest. My mom held her like she was holding something together, and brushed the hair out of Sunny’s eyes so she could see the words on the page.

Now I stood behind myself at the window, watching Sunny drive away. How could I have ever convinced myself she wasn’t crying? It was so obvious. Her face was as pink and swollen as it had been the night her mother left, and her cheeks were wet and tear-stained. All the while Frank looked calmly ahead, acting as if she wasn’t there at all.

As I watched the car turn down the road and out of view, the window, my younger self, and the frame of my house slowly started to fade away, replaced by a sea of blue and gray.

Wait, not yet.

I wasn’t ready to leave yet. I wanted to hear what Sunny said to Frank, and know what she was so upset about. I wanted to go back into the kitchen and watch my parents clearing the dishes, to sit at the table and listen to the lulling sounds of my mother’s humming. I wanted to lean into my dad’s broad chest and let him fold me into one of his back-cracking bear hugs.

As the last flicker of my house faded from view, a hollow opened up inside my chest, so deep that even my father’s caulking gun couldn’t fill it.

Please, God, don’t make me go back.

But then I was back on the stairs, as if I’d never left them at all. I could feel the familiar flatness of the steps beneath my flip-flops. The gray stone zigzagged upward, and the sky was the same cloudless blue it had always been. A few snowflakes still fell from the sky, landing among the piled drifts that glittered diamond-like in the sunshine.

My father’s words mingled with Sunny’s in the back of my mind. Lucky, lucky, lucky, but I shook my ponytail to shake the memory of them away.

I scooped up a handful of snow and threw it at the edge of the stairs, not surprised when it didn’t stick to the invisible wall. Then I hopped onto a snowdrift, caught my balance, and hopped onto another one.

It was easier that way—easier to return to the mindless hopping and snowball throwing from earlier. Easier, at least, than thinking about everything I’d been forced to leave behind.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


CHICKEN FIGHTS, ROOFTOPS, AND OTHER THINGS THAT HAPPEN AFTER PARTIES




People were already hovering outside Sunny’s house when we pulled up, a few of them holding six packs and other things they’d smuggled back from The Fields. Sunny sauntered up to the front door, hips swinging and grin wide. She loved hosting parties.

Miss Violet Beauregard was a terror as people filed into the house, running around like she had a jetpack attached to her tiny body, yipping and growling at anything that stood in her way.

“Say that again and I’ll knock your ass out,” Sunny scolded when someone called the dog a cracked-out rat. “If anyone says one more word about my dog, you can get the hell out of my house,” she shouted to the room, the dog tucked protectively under her arm. The look on her face was serious enough that no one offered a challenge.

She shuffled everyone out toward the pool, cheering words of encouragement as some of the guys stripped off their shirts. I followed slowly, listening to the boys as they cannon-balled into the water and watching the girls whisper and giggle shyly about whether or not they should get into the pool in their underwear.

“What’s the big deal?” Sunny said to them with an eye roll. “Bras and panties are basically the same thing as bikinis. Don’t be such prudes.”

Several of the guys clapped after Sunny’s speech, and Sunny used the opportunity to egg everyone on by starting a rousing chant of “Take it off! Take it off!”

The girls finally nodded and stripped down, diving into the water to a torrent of hoots and whistles. Once they were all in the water, Sunny snuck off to the bathroom to change into her bathing suit.

“You coming, Taylor?” Jenny slurred as she struggled to pull her shirt over her arm cast. She was a little unsteady on her feet, and her eyes looked glassy and out of focus.

“Are you sure you should get that thing wet?” I asked her, nodding at the cast.

“Yeah, it’s fine. Don’t be so lame. What crawled up your ass and died tonight, anyway? You’ve been in a bad mood, like, all night, and it sucks.” She slurred the word sucks so that it sounded more like sucths.

The look in her eye was reminiscent of the night she broke her arm, which also involved Sunny’s pool and too many beers. If I was a good friend, I would have tried to stop her from jumping in. But I wasn’t feeling like a very good friend that night, and the last thing she said pissed me off.

I smiled my phony smile and said, “Nothing is wrong, Jenny. And you’re right, I’m being lame. You should absolutely hop in the pool with your cast on. It’s a fantastic idea. Best one I’ve heard all night.”

She either didn’t hear the sarcasm in my voice or chose to ignore it. Instead she nodded and fumbled with her shoes, then shouted “Cannon Ball!” right before diving into the deep end, cast and all.

When I turned to go back inside the house, Logan blocked the door. His face looked a little swollen, and dried blood crusted around a cut above his left eye.