Counting Backwards (9 page)

“I’m not scared.”

“Maybe we could help each other.”

“How?”

“We could start by being friends.”

He wants me for a friend, but is he willing to tell me his
secrets? “All right, Adam Junior, let’s be friends. Tell me what you did to get in here.”

He draws a long, deep breath and lets it out again. “I will if you will.”

This feels a lot like the game we played last night, the one where I lost. But I’ve already told Margo about my arrest, which means it’s already out there in the atmosphere, and at least he’ll be getting the true version, if it’s coming from me.

“What we say in here, stays in here,” I say to him.

“Agreed.”

“Okay, then. You go first.”

He shifts on the couch, getting comfortable or maybe just stalling. I don’t mind. I’ll wait.

“My father died when I was eight,” he says. “It was hard. On me and my mom.”

“Oh,” I say, and then shut my mouth, because I know this is only the beginning.

“My mom was depressed for a long time after that. We got to be pretty poor and almost got our land taken away. Then she met this man who was . . . no good.”

He stops there as though deciding whether he wants to go on.

“Whatever you tell me, I’ll keep to myself.”

I wait in silence, counting the seconds in the dark. At last he continues. “He beat her. When I interfered, he beat me, too.”

He takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. I can’t see his face, but I can hear the pain in his voice. And the shame. I know what it’s like to be ashamed of something, made worse by saying it out loud. This is the thing he doesn’t want anyone to know about.

“She tried to kick him out, but he—” He pauses. “The police got involved. She got a restraining order, but it didn’t end there. He threatened her on the phone and followed her—almost ran her off the road. Then one night he . . .”

“A.J., you don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”

“No, it’s only fair.” He takes another deep breath. “He came to our house with two of his buddies—real white-trash lowlifes. They were drunk, and just from the craziness in his voice, I knew he meant trouble.”

I think about my mother when she’s drunk, how she becomes a completely different person. But she’s never been mean. Never.

“We lived out in the country,” he continues. “The police wouldn’t get there in time. I told my mom to hide while I grabbed what I could find—a baseball bat. We’d gotten a dog since he left. A sweet yellow Lab named Daisy. She went after them and they . . . killed her.”

“Oh my God,” I say. I wish this were the end of his story, but somehow I know it’s not.

“I hit his buddies hard enough to send them running,
then went to find my mom. He had her in a choke hold—what kind of man does that? I pulled him off her and just started swinging. I was fourteen then and so full of rage. I just . . . couldn’t stop.”

He’s silent after that and though I fear his answer, it’s a question I have to ask. “Did you kill him?”

When he answers, his voice is filled with sadness and remorse. “Yeah, I did.”

I stay quiet, letting the weight of his confession sink in.

“We went to trial,” he says. “His buddies were there as witnesses. My mom was a wreck, and I wasn’t much better. The jury ruled it manslaughter. The judge wanted me in a psychiatric program. I’ll be here until I’m eighteen, with probation after that.”

“But wasn’t it . . . self-defense?”

“No. There was a point where I could have stopped it. But if I’d let him go, he would have come back. And I might not be there.” He pauses. “I already lost my father.”

We’re both quiet. I don’t know what to say. It’s such an awful, awful thing to have to go through, for him to have to live with for the rest of his life. I don’t know if what he did was right or wrong, and I decide it’s not my place to judge him.

“I accept it,” I say, not quite sure what I mean by it, but hoping he’ll understand. I reach over and find his hand in the dark. I hold on tight, and he does too.

“I was really angry when I got here,” he says. “Any little thing would set me off. I got in a few fights and decided one day to just stop talking. My therapist wouldn’t allow it, but everyone else got used to it. And I did too.”

I think about my own anger, how it causes me to say and do things I regret later. But to shut everyone out so completely . . . he must get lonely.

“How long has it been since you’ve spoken to anyone other than your therapist?”

“Almost two years.”

“A.J., that’s a long time.” Maybe that’s why he asked me down here, because he has no one else to talk to. Except his therapist, but that isn’t the same—talking to someone who’s being paid to listen. Then I think maybe our first meeting was a test, to see if I could keep a secret.

“Sometimes I think I deserve it,” he says. “The silence.”

“Does your therapist think so?”

“No.” He laughs. “He doesn’t.”

“Are you afraid of people finding out about your past?”

“Yeah. Maybe that, too.”

I realize then how similar we are, because I do the same thing, by not getting close to people in the first place.

“You should talk to Victor. You guys are friends, right?”

“Now you sound like my therapist.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

He’s quiet for a moment, and I hope I haven’t pushed him too hard. “It’s your turn,” he says at last.

I take a deep breath and remind myself that this is what it means to be a friend. To reveal things about myself to another person, even if it’s uncomfortable. Even if I’m ashamed.

“I stole a car. It belonged to this guy my mom brought home. He was passed out on the floor, and the keys were on his belt. I only meant to take it for a ride . . . just to get out of our apartment for a while. But then I hit the interstate, and the thought of never having to go back there made me so happy. I could just leave everything behind. Forever.”

I think about that moment, driving down the highway with the sun rising over the horizon, painting the sky with streaks of purple and orange, the most beautiful sunrise I’ve ever seen. The day seemed so full of promise. I had no idea where I was going, no money, no
phone
, no nothing, but I was free. I’d never have to go back to my mom and her drinking or my dad and all his disappointment in me. I could start over in a new town. Be a new person. Whoever I wanted to be.

“What happened?”

“My mom called my dad, and he called the police. They caught up with me at a gas station where I stopped to fill up. I ran from them, and they chased me through buildings and parking lots. I almost got away. But they cornered me in this alley and arrested me. I got charged with motor vehicle theft
and resisting arrest. The judge gave me probation, but my dad had my probation transferred here.”

“Why’d you run away?”

I think about the last year living with my mother, all the nights she went out drinking, all the mornings I had to get her up, dress her, and drive her to work, sometimes while she was still drunk from the night before. She was such a mess and it was so hard, seeing her like that, worrying she was going to crash her car and kill herself, or someone else. I should have thought ahead, gotten a job and saved some money. But I didn’t want to leave her.

“My mom made me a promise.” I see her face in front of me when she said it, so earnest and true, so . . . sober. “She told me she would stop drinking. For good. And she would take care of me. But she broke her promise . . . again and again.”

And where is she now? Probably drinking at one of her usual dives, letting some creep with a beer gut hit on her just so she won’t have to go home alone. But she was never alone. I was with her. Through it all, I was there.

I feel a flash of anger at her weakness, her
illness
. But it isn’t an illness, it’s a choice. Every time she puts that poison to her lips, she’s choosing
it
over me.

Tears burn in my eyes, and I squeeze them shut. His arm circles around my shoulders, drawing me nearer. I press my ear to his chest, listening to the steady drumming of his heart.
I hate crying in front of people, looking weak. I hate playing the victim.
Just like my mother.

“It’s late. I should get going.” I ease out of his arms and start to stand.

“Taylor, wait.”

But I can’t, because my head’s caught up in a cloud of all the crap I’d rather leave undisturbed. I wish I could sever these feelings completely, erase all the bad memories from my mind and begin fresh. No bad dreams, no hard feelings, no anger. Just me and my happy, smiling thumbs.

I cross the room blindly, feeling my way along the hallway and onto the stairwell. I climb the stairs two at a time. Only when I’m back in my room am I able to breathe normally again.

He tries to talk to me through the vent, but I need to be alone right now. Completely alone. I stuff some dirty clothes into the vent and drop my duffel bag on top of it.

I hear Sandra’s footsteps coming down the hallway.

“What’s going on in here?” she asks me, hands on hips.

“Nothing.”

“You are the worst sleeper I ever met.” She points at my bed and waits for me to crawl up into it. After she leaves, I bury myself under the covers with the pillow over my head and Tatters against my cheek. I feel something pointy jabbing my heel.

I still have his key.

I see him the next morning on walkover, staring at me from across the lawn like I betrayed him, and in a way, I have. I walked out on him after he shared so much of his own painful past with me. But I don’t want to explain myself, and I can’t tell him it won’t happen again. As far as his key goes, he can always make another one.

In first period Sulli tells me the story of how I assaulted a safety, then tried to flee by climbing the fence, then had to be tackled and carried, in submission, to the first floor. The last part, at least, is true.

“Baby, you are
for real
,” he says, raising one hand to fist-bump me. I stare at his tattooed knuckles,
H-A-R-D
. Hard what? I leave him hanging, because I’m not proud of what I did. In fact, it was pretty dumb. Now all the safeties will be watching me for the first sign of flight. Not the kind of attention I wanted.

“So, you want to go with me to the dance?” he says. “I could give you a boost over the fence.”

I’m temporarily thrown by his offers—both of them. “What dance?”

“The Harvest Ball, baby. You and me. What do you say?”

In front of me Brandi stops what she’s doing and listens. The last thing I need is for her to think I’m trying to make a move on her man, if they’re even together.

“No thanks, Sulli. I’m not going.”

He nods and smiles knowingly. “Playing hard to get, huh? I like it.”

This dance business seems to be all anyone can talk about for the rest of class. Who’s going with who, what the theme will be. I wouldn’t think they’d have dances here at all, but I guess it’s just one more way to make Sunny Meadows seem like a normal high school. More pictures for the brochure. More lies.

Later that day I stand with Margo in the pen while she lectures me on how dumb it was to try to run away in broad daylight.

“Seriously, T, I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I wasn’t trying to run away.” At least, not on purpose.

“Well, the upside is that your popularity is off the charts. You’ll have no problem getting a date to the Harvest Ball now.”

I groan. The Harvest Ball again. The last thing I want is to go to a school dance, to be looked at or laughed at or gossiped about. I’m used to keeping a low profile in school—that’s how I survive being the new kid all the time. I also
don’t feel like dressing up or acting happy. Because I hate it here. So I tell Margo the same thing I told Sulli. “I’m not going.”

“T, don’t be silly. Of course you’re going. This is my year to be voted Autumn Queen. You don’t want to miss my crowning. Victor can smuggle us in some drinks. It’ll be the most, to say the least.”

“I don’t drink, Margo, and you can take a picture of your crowning for me.”

“That hurts me, T, it really does. So who do you have in mind? For a date, I mean.”

My eyes flick over to A.J. standing with Victor and another guy across the pen. Only for a second, but that’s all it takes for Margo to pounce.

“I knew it,” she says, and links her arm with mine. “Come on then. Let’s go make all your little dreams come true.”

I still feel awkward about last night. And I like him—as a friend—but I’m not about to put myself out there with all these people around. Besides, there’s no telling how he might feel. “Margo, he’s not interested.”

“Of course he’s interested. You’re totally hot and you’re
my
friend.”

I try to physically resist her, but she’s stronger than she looks. I’m so nervous about what she might say to him and how he might react that I can hardly look up, but it doesn’t
matter, because he and Victor are already in the middle of something, and it doesn’t look good.

Margo and I stop a few feet away. The tall kid Victor’s talking to has a snarly look on his face, and his movements are jerky and ragged. Victor’s trying to talk him down, but the kid’s only getting more and more worked up, gesturing wildly with his long, skinny arms.

“Oh no,” Margo says as the kid shoves Victor back. In a flash A.J.’s there between them.

“What are you going to do about it, retard?” the kid yells at A.J. with his nose right up in his face. They’re the same height, but A.J.’s got about twenty pounds on him, and I can tell he’s ready, his shoulders and arms tense. A.J. stares the kid down while safeties shout from all directions, closing in fast. The kid falls back like he’s going to walk away, then comes back with a fist. A.J. deflects the punch and the kid swings wildly. A.J. hooks one arm in front of him, ducks down low, and swiftly jabs the kid in the gut. One well-executed punch sends him to his knees, gasping for breath. A.J. takes a step back and examines the results. I watch his face for any sign of emotion. Nothing.

He glances up to see me watching and gives me a strange look. I don’t have the chance to decipher it, because the safeties swarm him. One pushes him back while two more hook him by his upper arms. A.J. doesn’t resist, just turns around and lets himself be led out of the pen.