The Hand on the Wall(41)

They were alone. Deeply, unnaturally alone, in a rugged, very serious way.

Stevie fought the wind to pull the window shut, then shivered and brushed the snow off herself. She climbed back into her bed.

She did not see the figure that reemerged from the shadow of a tree just outside.





13


IT DIDN’T WORK. IT WAS NEVER GOING TO WORK.

First of all, it was frigid in her room, and Stevie kept having to get up and put on more clothes—warmer pj’s, then a second pair, more socks over her socks, her black hoodie, and then her robe. She got into bed, squashed into all of these layers like a human burrito.

Then there was the noise—the whistling outside. It was like being in a room with a dozen teakettles going full blast, spitting steam and hot water. The blizzard had arrived, and its rage startled Stevie. The wind put its fingers through the edges of the window. She put in her earbuds and tried to listen to a podcast to distract herself, to bring herself back to some kind of normal, but the familiar voices felt strange. The walls of her room made her nervous.

Why had he denied her a tablet? Why come back and then not let her do the one thing he needed everyone to do? Was this a test? A game? A lesson? All of the above?

She itched from it.

It would be a mistake to go upstairs. That’s what he wanted. It was also what she wanted.

Why were humans wired like this? Why were we built with a current that could short out our powers of reason and judgment at any time? Why were we filled with chemicals that made us stupid? How could you feel so excited and enraged and like you were being pierced with a thousand emotional needles in the brain all at the same time?

She would not go upstairs.

She would just get up, that’s all. But she would not go upstairs.

She would go to her door, but no farther.

Definitely no farther than the hallway.

Bottom step of the stairs. That was the limit.

Halfway. Top of the stairs, then turn back.

So she was at his door in the dark of the hall. There was no light from underneath the door, no sound inside. She strained, trying to pick up any noise, any sense of what was going on. There were no other voices. She shifted from foot to foot, her body coursing with anticipation.

No. She had to go back to her room. Don’t give in to this.

“Why don’t you come in?” she heard him say.

She heard a sharp intake of breath and was surprised to find that she was the source of the noise. Bodies, constantly betraying us. Stupid meat sacks. She put her hand on the doorknob, cursed everything, everywhere, and cracked open the door. David was on the bed, on top of the covers, fully dressed, bent over a tablet.

“You want something?” he said.

She didn’t know what she wanted. She had come with some vague notion that once she arrived in David’s doorway, all would become clear. Nature would move her, and him. Words would not be necessary. But nature had missed the memo, so she found herself wobbling in the threshold like a vampire.

David’s room was filled with things ordered from catalogs by someone who didn’t look at prices. These items created a blank canvas that set off all the things that were evocative of him. The battered backpack, the lingering smell of illicit smoke, his Sherlock coat flung carelessly on the floor, a cup of ramen noodles, his banged-up phone. She was looking for clues to explain him, and everything she found made her synapses dance with activity.

“You didn’t give me a tablet,” she said.

“That’s right.”

“Why?”

“You’re so busy,” he said placidly. “I don’t want to keep you.”

The glass rattled in the pane. The light from the tablet was enough that she could see the contours of his face, the hollows of his cheeks, the sharp peaks of his eyebrows. She wanted to walk over to the bed now, stretch out next to him. Do something. Anything.

She took a few more steps forward, hesitantly. He set the tablet down in his lap.

“Oh, did you want to make out?” He folded his hands neatly on the tablet and crossed his legs at the ankles. “Really go for it? Hit those bases?”

There was no edge in his voice. This was a dull knife.

“Could we . . .”

“No,” he said. “We couldn’t.”

“What did you come back here for?” she said. “You could have read this stuff on your own.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” he replied. “And I’m slow. Better to get a few big brains on it.”

“Bullshit,” she said.

“You think I came back to see you?” he said. “Is that it? You, the person who worked for my dad, who came back to spy on me—”

“I didn’t spy on you,” she said. “I don’t like your dad either. My parents work for him, and I do everything I can to stop that. . . .”

“Yes, you told me. You put SeaWorld on the call list. Well done.”

“Your dad,” she said, “put a giant, racist billboard up down the street from where we live. You think I’m going to work for that guy?”

David remained in his same casual pose—legs long, body relaxed. But his manner grew tense.

“Let’s run through the facts,” he said. “My dad brought you back here on his plane, with the agreement that you would keep an eye on me, keep me on the straight and narrow. I trusted you. I confided in you. I told you about my mom and my sister, what my dad did to us.”