Crazy Love You (31 page)

Meanwhile I was dropping pounds pretty quickly. After dark fell, I had started running. I didn't want anyone to see me lumbering, red and sweaty, breathless and suffering, through the streets of The Hollows. So I waited until night, after dinner, to get out there. I started working out with the weights Old Brian kept in the storeroom of the bookshop. There was a bench and a rack of free weights that he'd bought, hoping to get in shape, and never touched. He said I could use them anytime. So I started coming an hour before my shift, working out and then showering in his apartment over the store.

Without all the junk food, my skin cleared up. There was, though, a lot of scarring and I wouldn't exactly say that I looked good. But I looked better. My mother was the first one to notice, since she didn't see me every day.

“I'm so proud of you,” she said. “It's so hard to change yourself. Are you in love?”

By the time prom season rolled around, I'd dropped fifty pounds, had some decent muscle tone, and could actually look at my own face in the mirror without blurring out my vision. My dad never said a word about the change. But he started running with me at night. He just turned up in the driveway while I was stretching one evening, wearing his sneakers, an old pair of gym shorts I'd never seen, and a “No Paine Construction” T-shirt.

“Thanks for dinner,” he said. “It's nice to have some home-cooked meals.”

We'd had chicken and broccoli with rice. I wasn't a world-class chef, but at least it wasn't burgers and fries, or fried chicken, or pizza or subs or whatever my dad picked up on his way home from work. Even my dad was slimming down a bit.

I drove to Marley's house on a Saturday to ask her to go to the prom with me. I couldn't stand the idea of asking her at school and having her turn me down, or laugh at me or run screaming or any of the other myriad humiliations I had imagined. I figured the rejection would be better if it happened off campus; that way I could spend the weekend licking my wounds before donning the emotional armor I put on to survive school.

But I
was
liking my chances; she'd hugged me on Friday when I told her that I'd been accepted to Parsons School of Design for the fall. I could still feel her hands on me, as if she'd left warm little imprints on my broad back.

Her mother opened the door, and I could see immediately where Marley got her charm and good looks.

“Oh, Ian,” she said, bright and enthusiastic. “Marlena has told me all about you. You were her first friend in The Hollows. Come in.”

She welcomed me into her sunlit, flower-filled foyer and called for Marley, who bounded down the stairs.

I hadn't seen Priss in a while. I'd stopped going out into the woods to look for her, and she wasn't waiting outside my window at night. It was a bit of relief, even though I missed her. But at least I didn't have to lie to my father and Dr. Crown about her. I was starting to wonder if maybe they were right. Maybe she wasn't real after all. Maybe Eloise Montgomery was a fake or a nut job. I didn't dwell on this too much; because if Priss wasn't real, then I was as crazy, maybe even crazier, than my mother.

Seeing Marley on the stairs, I felt like my throat and mouth were filled with cotton.

“Ian,” she said. She gave me one of her signature quick little hugs. “What a surprise. Want a soda?”

I followed her to the kitchen, where she started to pour me a Pepsi. I lifted a hand.

“Just water please,” I croaked.

Arnold said absolutely no soda ever, it was poison for muscles. His bodybuilding book was like my new Bible. I was quoting it at home until my dad told me enough already. Then I saw him reading it one night after he thought I was asleep.

“So what's up, Ian?” she asked when we sat down at the kitchen table.

I cleared my throat and looked down at my hands. I felt myself redden and start to sweat a little, a real Prince Charming just sweeping the girls off their feet. I took a deep breath, the way Dr. Crown had taught me.

“I was wondering if you would like to go to the prom with me.”

It came out in a tumble, an avalanche of words that crashed into nothing. Of all the reactions I imagined, surprised silence was actually the worst. It was a kind of purgatory, neither outsized nor cruel. Asking her to the prom was the last thing she expected of me; it hadn't even crossed her mind that I might have a crush on her. Her face—surprised, empathetic, sweetly embarrassed for me—was a real heartbreaker.

“Oh, Ian,” she said. She put her hand on my hand. “That's so sweet. But I've already agreed to go with Mikey Beech.”

I felt like God was laughing at me. He'd played some kind of cosmic joke. I didn't even know Marley
knew
Mikey Beech. But, of course, captain of the lacrosse team, homecoming king, school heartthrob—everyone knew him. He'd had a high-profile breakup earlier that year with a blond goddess named Juliet. He'd broken up with her for reasons no one could explain. Certainly, there was no one richer, more beautiful, more perfect and empty-headed than Juliet. And all the girls had been wondering who he'd set his sights on next—Jodi, Tami, Grace? Nope. Apparently, it was Marley.

“I'd have
loved
to go with you, though, Ian. Really,” she said kindly, even though we both knew it was a bald-faced lie. “Thank you
so much
for asking.”

Her cat rubbed against my leg.

“Aw, look,” she said. “Spunky Doodle likes you.”

I hated cats. I felt that ugly heat I knew too well. I imagined taking Spunky Doodle by the tail and twirling him over my head while Marley looked on in horror. I could see him, released from my grasp, sailing through the picture window that looked out onto a perfectly manicured lawn and pool deck. I could hear his terrified yowl, the shattering of glass, the sickening thud as he landed on the concrete. I pushed myself away from the table and stood. Spunky Doodle hissed and moved away, startled by my sudden movement.

“That's cool,” I managed. Why hadn't she just hit me in the head with a sledgehammer? At least then I would have had the gift of unconsciousness.

“Ian,” she said. She put a gentle hand on my arm. “I'm sorry.”

She meant it; I could see that. She liked me, and maybe she was really my friend in some easy, superficial way. I couldn't wait to get out of there.

“Oh, yeah,” I said. “No problem. I just thought since you were new, maybe you didn't have anyone to go with.” Lame, I know. I felt suddenly like I was going to throw up.
Oh God, please don't let me.
“I guess I'll see you in chemistry.”

I moved quickly down the hallway lined with smiling pictures of Marley, and pushed out through the heavy oak door. I don't remember what she said as I was leaving, just the sound of her voice—sweet, apologetic, soft—as I closed the door behind me.

I stumbled past the pink-and-white perennials and managed to get into my car before puking on the passenger-side floor. What a loser. Seriously.

I drove home and headed straight into the woods, where Priss was waiting by the hollowed-out oak tree. Interesting, isn't it, that she's always there when times are dark, when I'm at my loneliest, saddest, angriest, most despondent?

“You're kidding me right?” she said. “Prom? What a crock. A rented tuxedo, sluts in cheap dresses thinking they're princesses for the night, only to get their cherry popped by some steroid-eating loser. Come on. You're better than those people.”

She'd grown stunning—taller, fuller. Her body belonged to a woman even though she was only a teenager. I found myself mesmerized by her and the sound of the Whispers. It was a white noise all around me, hypnotic and strange.

She moved in close to me, and the next thing I knew I was in her arms. And then her mouth was on mine. My first kiss—and it was a fire starter. Then she breathed into my ear, soft but fierce, “I love you. I'll always love you.”

She set me on fire inside.

“Stay with me, Ian,” she said. I was trembling as she took my hand. “Don't leave me here alone.”

I didn't know what she meant, wasn't even listening, so overwhelmed was I by her touch, by her heat. I followed her deeper into the woods, where she made me feel things I'd never felt before.

•  •  •

Marley wasn't in school on Monday. And by the end of the day, we all learned that she was missing. All eyes turned to me again. Something horrible happening after an altercation with Ian Paine.

Her mother claimed that our conversation had ended badly, with me storming angrily from the house. It hadn't been like that; I
knew
it hadn't. I'd been in therapy; I'd done my anger therapy homework. I was better. But by the end of the day, the police were at the school and I was being hauled in for questioning.

I remember feeling numb, disaffected, and I don't recall having any feelings of fear or worry for Marley. I was just stunned that something like this was happening again after I had worked so hard at keeping my head down, keeping away from people. So I think my affect was very flat the day they brought me in, and this came across as indifference. The interrogation, the desperation of the police and Marley's parents was grueling.

Tell us where she is, Ian. Is she still alive? Take us to her and things will go much easier for you.

After hours of this, the shell I was in cracked and fell to pieces. At one point, I put my head down on the table and started to cry.
I don't know where she is. Please. I don't know.

My father got another lawyer. The police released me due to lack of evidence to charge, but then followed me everywhere, searching the woods behind my house. Flashlight beams danced like will-o'-the-wisps, and voices rang out through the night, urgent and loud. Dogs barked and bayed. I waited for Priss to come, but she didn't.

What have you done? What have you done now, Priss?

I saw my dreams of college and New York City slipping away. I remember what Priss had said.
Don't leave me here alone.
If she had done something horrible to Marley, I would be charged and convicted. Of that I had no doubt. Is that what she wanted?

They found Marley two days later. She'd been out in The Hollows Woods and had fallen down an abandoned mine shaft (something that happened quite a bit in The Hollows—usually to little kids ignoring warning signs). She'd broken her leg, but she was alive.

How did she wind up in the woods? She'd been driving out to see me. She felt so bad about turning me down for the prom that she wanted to apologize again. On her way, on the isolated rural road, she'd turned the blind corner and almost hit a little girl with bright red hair who'd been darting through the gloaming.

The little girl looked so lost and afraid in her cotton shift that Marley pulled her car off the road and called out to her. When the girl didn't stop, Marley followed in her vehicle, pulling farther down the path off the main road. But the little girl disappeared into the woods. Finally, Marley followed, until she caught sight of the girl again.
I realized that it wasn't a little girl after all. That she was more my age, more like me. She was crying, though.

Marley called out to her:
What's wrong? Can I help you?

Because that's the kind of person Marley was. The girl stopped running, and Marley moved closer. Then she felt the ground break apart beneath her feet, almost rip like paper. And she fell down the shaft.

I could hear her laughing
, Marley said.
I called for her, but she never came to help me.

Eventually, the police had spotted Marley's abandoned car and that was how they found her. Obviously, I was cleared and the police surveillance rolled away without apology. Even though I had nothing to do with what happened to Marley, it was another nail in my social coffin.

When I went in to work the next day, Old Brian let me go.

“I'm sorry, kid,” he said. “It's hard enough keeping this business afloat. People have stopped coming because you work here. I don't think this latest incident is going to improve matters, and I'm barely surviving as it is.”

He gave me two weeks' severance, and I left his shop—not angry, just sad and lost. But I had already been accepted at Parsons and I knew my days in The Hollows were coming to a merciful end anyway. I wondered if I could take my GED and opt out of the rest of the year. New York City was a clean slate, a new life. I was eager to find my way there.

When I arrived back home after getting fired, Jones Cooper was waiting for me in front of the house. My stomach bottomed out at the sight of him leaning on his maroon SUV, looking up at the trees.

As I climbed out of the Scout, I heard the Whispers. They chattered, nervous and grim, like voices at a funeral. Did he hear them? Did they speak to him, too? He seemed like the kind of person who might be able to hear them. I had come to understand that there had to be some kind of darkness in you—sadness or fear or anger. You had to believe that there was more to the world than just what you could feel and see and taste. You had to be the sort of person who thinks some places might have a soul, just as a body might.

“What now?” I asked him.

He told me what Marley had said about the girl in the woods. I felt something like relief. Someone reliable and solid had seen Priss. She
was
real.

It was cold, and spring was making no sign of itself. The trees were barren, and the sky was a charcoal lid above us.

“I don't know who she is,” he said. “Or
what
she is. But I've lived in this town a long time. There are lots of things about it that I don't understand.”

He had on a strange look, sad and faraway. Jones Cooper was revealing himself to be someone I wouldn't have thought him to be. I had thought of him as a hardcase; he was like my father, no give. I still hadn't said anything.