What We Knew Page 2
“How did he get all this here?” I whispered.
“People have been using the woods as a dump for years,” Trent said. “I swear that’s my grandmother’s old couch. I remember the stain.”
Adam scratched our initials into the piano with a key and then we moved on, following the carpet scraps to a kitchen. The glow from my phone skimmed over something that looked like an ancient washing machine. Lisa tripped over a step stool. We shuffled along in the near-dark, bumping into tables and chairs, the black walls sucking up the light, until Adam found a battery-powered lantern. He flicked the switch, flooding the next room—the bedroom—with harsh brightness. I counted four sleeping bags on a musty mattress. A cardboard dresser sagged in the corner and the carpet squished underfoot—the bedroom leaked.
“Maybe it’s a family,” I said sadly, thinking of that kid Lisa’s sister was friends with, the one who lived in a minivan with his dad and two sisters because the bank took their house.
“Think he’s got any booze?” Lisa asked.
“Already checked,” came Trent’s voice from the next room over, and then the sound of water. Lisa went to investigate.
“Nice, Trent,” she said.
“Are you peeing on the floor?” I asked, shining my phone at his backside. Sometimes I hated Trent. I thought of my brother and how different he was from my friends. Scott would’ve emptied his pockets for this guy, giving what little he had for someone who had less.
“There’s no toilet,” Trent smirked, zipping his fly.
Adam shook his head and moved on. In the kitchen, Lisa poked through boxes of crackers and oatmeal and pancake mix. “Maybe he’s got some cash stashed in one of these,” she said, dumping a jar of instant coffee in the dishpan. “Help me look, Trace. See what’s in that cooler.”
I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching. What if the place was booby-trapped? I wasn’t about to get my face blown off for a couple of bucks. I nudged the red chest with my toe and listened. Just water sloshing, so I carefully lifted the lid. My hand flew to my nose as if I’d been punched. A bulging milk jug, rancid hot dogs, a black peach, all floating in a gray slurry. I kicked the cooler and the lid slapped closed.
“Maybe he’s dead,” I said. “Maybe whoever was living here died.”
I still felt uncomfortable, but it wasn’t fear. More like pity, a gnawing sadness. I felt like a witness to something tragic. No one lived here, not anymore. It was in the air—the stench of hopelessness, loss. I know it sounds strange, but you can smell sorrow. The year before my parents divorced, scorched dinners and cologne and burning rubber permeated our house. I wanted out before the misery of the place took root, like an infection in my bones.
“Can we please go?” I asked Lisa. “This place is a downer.”
“In a minute,” she said, shining her phone inside a sugar bowl. “Check the bedroom again.”
I could hear Adam in the living room, banging on the piano. I put my phone on the dresser and pulled the top drawer, but the handles came off in my hands. The whole thing was waterlogged, the cardboard disintegrating into a mildewy pulp. I tore the front off and shone the light inside. Nothing. No letters, no photos, no newspaper clippings. I checked under the bed and then checked the bathroom. A bucket for a sink and a bar of white soap. A grimy towel on a crate. There was nothing personal anywhere. I felt suddenly trapped in a creepy diorama of a home. No story, no history, just stuff, junk. Even the homeless have their keepsakes. Who would care that Trent had peed on the floor? Who would care that Lisa had smashed all the plates? Who would care that Adam had carved up the piano?
Just as the knot in my stomach began to loosen, Trent made us all go into the last room, the one jutting off the back like an afterthought. The whole reason he’d brought us there, he said. Gray plastic barrels lined one wall, bald tires lined the other. The guy must’ve run out of carpet—the floor was pine needles. My light grazed a large rusty toolbox, a stool, and a workbench cluttered with cigar boxes. Adam picked one up and shook it. It sounded like marbles. He lifted the lid.
“What the f—”
Trent started laughing. “Is this guy a freak, or what?”
“It’s like that horror movie!” Lisa screeched. “The one with the brother and sister driving home from college. There’s that monster that plucks people’s eyes out.”
“Banana Man wasn’t a monster,” Adam said. “He was a child molester.”
Lisa shrugged. “Same thing.”
“They’re glass,” I said, rolling a blue one between my thumb and forefinger. “My grandfather had a glass eye.” I fished out another one. Green, flecked with gold. “Why would he need so many?” I asked. Trent didn’t care about the eyes. He wanted to know what was in the barrels. He tried using a screwdriver, but the lids wouldn’t budge. While Trent was off searching the other rooms for something resembling a crowbar, Adam found a six-pack hidden beneath some oily rags.
“Look what Trent missed,” he said. “Who’s thirsty?”
Lisa raised her hand.
Adam grabbed a can, but then dropped it like he’d burned his palm. As he stumbled back into one of the barrels, his face twisted in fear.
“Are you trying to give me a heart attack?” I whispered, frightened.
But Lisa was frozen, too. No one moved. We all just stood there, staring at the rising tarp wall. The pit of my stomach knew. I knew. A moaning shadow ducked beneath the plastic. Its long arms rose higher and higher, clawing the musty air. My knees buckled. Lisa grabbed my arm and cried out for Trent. The shadow lunged sideways, around the workbench, and then doubled over, howling at Lisa’s shrieking. Adam clutched his chest. “Goddamn it, Trent!” He hurled a beer can, but Trent, laughing, escaped between tarps.
Running wasn’t possible, not in the dark, with the trees and the rocks and the roots. We chased Trent out the back way, toward Parkwood instead of Bradley, avoiding the stairs. My chest was still swollen with panic. I couldn’t get enough air. Tripping, gasping, I clawed at Lisa’s heaving shoulders. I couldn’t tell if she was laughing or crying. We were moving fast. Too fast. Trent smacked his head on a tree limb. His glasses went flying. We stopped to find them, and that’s when Lisa realized she’d lost her necklace, the one from Gabe for their anniversary. She stumbled in circles, cursing and flailing, until something crashed behind us. A residual scream crawled up my throat, and then my phone rang.
“Go! Go! Go!” Adam shouted, pushing forward.
I glanced at the screen: MOM. I had a signal. A connection to reality. My mother waking me from a stupid nightmare. I was instantly safer. The spell was broken. Through the trees—finally, finally—blazed the lights from the grocery store where we shopped.
I could breathe again.
“Holy hell!” Lisa screamed, slapping at Trent. “I’m never going anywhere with you ever again! Never! Ever!” She stopped slapping when she noticed his forehead. “You’re bleeding,” she said. And then to her feet: “Ow.” She was missing a flip-flop. “I’m so telling Gabe about this,” she said, touching the spot on her collarbone where her necklace used to live.
“You should’ve seen your faces!” Trent howled. “It was just like the movies!”
Pulling a twig from my hair, I said, “Is this the part where we kill you?”
Adam poked Trent in the chest. “I’m gonna kill you.”
Trent snorted. He tried lighting a cigarette, but his hands were shaking. Above his eye an impressive bruise was forming. Lisa sacrificed one of her two tank tops to mop the blood streaming down his temple.
While Lisa played nurse, I bummed a smoke off Adam and wandered over to the employee picnic table to call my mother.
“You forgot your key,” she said.
I felt my pocket. She was right.
“I’ll leave the back door unlocked. Where are you?”
I watched a guy in a Day-Glo vest herd stray shopping carts into a corral, and said, “Trent’s.”
“Lisa with you?”
“Yeah. I’ll be home in a few minutes. Don’t leave the door unlocked. Put the key where Scott used to hide it.”
“Are you okay?”
Lisa jumped on Trent’s back. Adam stole her surviving flip-flop and made for the Dumpster. I watched my friends joking, laughing, chasing each other around the parking lot, and said, “Yeah.”
But not really. My stomach churned with guilt and fear about what we’d done. You can’t just destroy someone’s home—even if it’s not a real home. There are always consequences. For everything. I was spooked, but nobody else seemed worried. Trent galloped over with Lisa, who stuck her foot in my face. “Kiss my boo-boo,” she said.
I flicked her big toe. “C’mon,” I said. “We’ve got to go.”
Adam tossed her flip-flop in the air and then fit it on her foot.
“Wait,” Lisa said, frowning down at me. “I left my bag at Trent’s.”
Grunting, Trent hefted her higher. Lisa squealed. “I’d drive you guys, but I’m almost out of gas,” Trent said. “I’ll loan you some socks, though. To wear home.”
Lisa rode Trent back to his house. Adam wanted to give me a ride, too, but I’d had enough excitement for one night. I wanted my feet solidly on the ground. Adam and I waited on the porch while Lisa hobbled upstairs with Trent.
“I’ll get to hear about her foot for days,” I said.
I smoothed Adam’s hair out of his eyes, kissing his forehead.
“How’d we escape unscathed?” I asked, kissing him again.
“Have you seen your knees?” he asked, smiling softly.
I sat on the steps and stuck my legs out straight. Under the porch light—red and raw and streaked with dirt—they looked worse than they felt. Tomorrow, if Lisa and I took Katie swimming, they’d sting like hell. I checked my phone: 10:38. The night seemed endless, like when Lisa and I stayed out until dawn at the diner where her mom waitressed. Getting wasted on candy-flavored drinks, eavesdropping on Trent and Rachel’s fight, getting stopped by a cop for the improper disposal of a taquito—it all felt like days ago.
I brought my ugly knees up under my chin. Adam kissed one and then the other. I picked a pine needle from his hair. “You think he’s real?” I asked.
“Banana Man?” He shook his head. “I feel like a jerk for what we did back there.”
“Me, too.”
Then he kissed my cheek and kept going. My eyebrows. My eyes. My nose. I cupped his face and pressed my lips to his until Trent’s mom let their cat out, ruining the mood. I compulsively checked my phone. Time was working again. If we hurried, Lisa and I would make it before my mom sent out the search dogs.
“How long does it take to find a pair of socks?” I said.
“In that room?” Adam scoffed. “Days.”
“I’ll be back.” I kissed the top of his head and jogged upstairs. Trent’s door was closed. I threw it open. I froze.
Lisa was on Trent’s bed.
Under Trent.
In her lacy peach bra.
My face burned. It was that jerk from Troy all over again. Only Lisa wasn’t there to save me. Wait … No …
I could practically feel him on top of me again, holding me down. My tongue tripped over the words screaming in my head.
Stop … Please …
“Spit it out, Trace,” Trent laughed as he rolled off the bed and grabbed his shirt. There was a reason why our drama teacher cast him as the devil in our last production. I grabbed Lisa’s tank top, holding it out to her, but Lisa crossed her arms and shook her head.
I looked at the tank top in my hand. It was the wrong one anyway, the one she’d used to wipe Trent’s face. I rubbed the stained ribbing—stiff and coppery—and thought: the blood in our veins runs blue. Not red, not until it comes in contact with air. How many things are like that, the opposite of what you thought to be true? You spend your whole life thinking things are one way and then something comes along and destroys the illusion. But then you find out that’s false, too: the blood in our bodies is red. Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe. Lisa needed saving, but not from Trent. She wanted to be there.
You had, too.
Invisible fingers, his fingers, tightened around my throat.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” Lisa said, nodding her head toward the door pointedly.
I tried to say okay, but my voice failed again. Clinging to the banister, I stumbled down the stairs. Outside, Adam was kicking a soccer ball around the yard.
“Lisa’s staying,” I nearly cried. Adam looked confused. I shook my head. “My knees hurt.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he said, offering his arm for support.
“No. I’m fine. Can you make sure she gets home?”
The second it left my mouth, I was sorry I’d said it. I didn’t trust her that night.
“Maybe you could call her a cab,” I said, digging through my pocket for cash I didn’t have.
“I’ve got it,” he said. He gave me a quick kiss and tapped my nose. “Go, before you’re late.”
It was stupid, walking alone so late at night, taking the shortest route instead of the safest. I never go that way. It’s too dark. But that night I was too busy being angry, angry with Lisa, angry with Trent. After what my father did to my mother, it hurt to think they might be the same. I was wondering whose betrayal would hurt Gabe worse—his girlfriend or his best friend—when I heard it: the whisper of rubber on concrete, a whirring chain spinning. Too close to outrun. A shadow rose up sharply, swallowing mine. Brakes squealed. A hand clutched my shoulder. My body did it again, just like that day in Troy when my arms and legs seized up instead of lashing out. Frozen, I braced for the black pain of a knife in the ribs until a familiar voice asked, “Why so tense?”
My limbs relaxed, softening, and I turned. It wasn’t some jerk in a hoodie. It wasn’t the monster from my nightmares. Soft brown curls. Warm brown eyes. My heart took on a different rhythm, beating out Foley, Foley, Foley. I never know what to call him—Michael Foley. There needs to be a word for someone who straddles friend and soul mate. He was there for me when my parents split up. Lisa talked to me, but Foley listened. He’s one of those rare people who make you feel like you’re the most important person in the world. That he cares for no one more than you. And he means it. That’s why everyone loves him. And because everyone loves him, I can’t. I hate that he makes everyone feel special.
I don’t like to share.
“How’s it going with Adam?” he said. He hopped off his bike and ran his fingers through his hair. I could remember the way it felt running my own through it. I used to love his hair, especially when he let it get a little too long. Now I loved Adam’s.
“Good! Great! Amazing!” I groaned internally—I sounded shrieky and stupid, but I couldn’t stop. “We’re so good together! I’m really, really happy!”
“Really, really?!” Foley mimicked. I rolled my eyes. But then in that intense voice of his—the one I secretly wished was reserved for me—he said, “If not, I want to know.” After what happened with Jerk Face, Foley started keeping tabs on my boyfriends. He’s the only one who knows what really happened. Not even Lisa knows.
“I’m a little stressed right now,” I said. “It’s been a really weird night.”
“I’m supposed to meet Jeff Hollenbeck,” he said, shifting his weight. “Come with me and we’ll talk on the way.”
I checked my phone. The only way I’d make it home now was if I sprinted.
“I can’t,” I said. “Call me, okay? You never call me anymore.”
“I will.” He smiled and my insides went soft and fluttery. “Hey, it was really good to see you,” he said, flicking my collar—Adam’s collar. “Really, really.”
Watching him bike away, I kicked myself for not going with him. He looked back before he turned the corner and the wind caught his curls and I imagined twisting a soft lock round and round my finge
r. Foley’s never been my boyfriend, but we’ve fooled around. The last time was a couple of weeks before I started dating Adam. We were in the cemetery. Creepy, I know. But my mother always says it’s not the dead you have to fear, it’s the living.
Suddenly the street turned darker and quieter. Everything stilled. It was the same feeling I’d had in the woods. Someone was watching. I could feel eyes everywhere at once. Leering, lurking. From the rooftops, the storm drains, the alley. Under my skin, inside my thoughts. My stomach twisted as my heart sped up. I started running, my eyes focused on the stoplight—green, yellow, red, green, yellow, red—not wanting to see what was behind me, above me, beside me.
I spent a lot of the summer running from things I didn’t want to see.
three
I was still lounging on the couch in my pajamas, working on my second bowl of cereal, when Lisa and her little sister, Katie, came in already dressed for the pool.
“Knock much?” I mumbled through a mouthful of O’s. I waved my hand for Lisa to move. She was blocking the TV, and they were about to do The Big Reveal on my favorite home makeover show.
“I’ve been texting you for an hour,” she said crankily, crossing her arms.
I glanced down at the phone next to me and lowered my cereal bowl, trying to hide the blinking light I’d been ignoring all morning.
“Miss Thang wants to go swimming,” Lisa said.
“It’s hot,” Katie whined. “I’m sweating my boobs off.”
“You don’t have any boobs,” Lisa said.
Katie stuck out her chest. “More than you.”
“Sad but true,” Lisa conceded, gesturing to Katie “Look, she fits in my old bikini.”
“I thought you said bikinis are gross,” I asked Katie.
“Ryan’s gonna be there,” she said, cocking her bony hip.
“Isn’t that the kid that lives in a van?” I asked.
Katie ignored me, plunking down in the recliner and staring at the TV.
“You and I need to talk,” Lisa said, grabbing my hand. She tossed her sister the remote and then dragged me to the kitchen where my eyes snagged on the list of chores stuck to the fridge, punishment for coming home late. Laundry I could handle, but making me scrub the toilet was just mean. My mom knows touching it—even with gloves—makes me gag.