Don't Breathe a Word (10 page)

Chapter 19

Creed and I downed the coffee May made for us one morning as he thumbed through the paper she'd snatched on the way. I avoided looking at newspapers, as if by avoiding them I could ignore what was happening outside of my cozy new world.

“The worst thing that can happen,” Santos once told me, “is losing your squat.”

“Getting kicked out by the police?” The thought made me shudder.

“Or worse. Getting the shit kicked out of you by someone taking over—if that happens, you're fucked. You lose your house, you lose your stuff, and if you're really lucky, you only lose an eye.”

I pondered this.

“No shit. I had this friend . . . anyway, he lost an eye, and it wasn't pretty. Bled all over the place . . .”

He laughed, but underneath, I could sense the threat—that all of this could evaporate and leave us scarred for life.

After our coffee, Creed and I cautiously climbed out of the squat together. It was getting colder at night, now that it was late September. A layer of frost surrounded the entrance. Even though I hadn't come in or out of the house by myself yet, I still looked around each time. I couldn't stand the thought of losing it. Losing
them
.

The leaves were starting to turn—even in this sparse neighborhood of chain-link fences and ratty, weed-infested lawns. Higher up the hill, you could see the waterfall of colors—gold to orange to red, all the way to plum, exactly like the trees in my parents' yard.

“So tell me,” I asked Creed, hoping he'd take me along. “Santos spainges. May does modeling and stuff. What do you do during the day?”

“Well . . .” He grinned. “I would think
this
might give you a hint.” He tapped the guitar case—battered and frayed on the outside but like new on the inside.

“I had a feeling, but, you know, I didn't want to make any assumptions.” More than anything, I wanted to hear him play again—play for me, like he had outside Hot Topic so long ago. “So, can I come with you?”

“What else were you planning to do?”

I thought of what Santos said, that everyone contributed. But Creed's expression wasn't angry. If I didn't know better, I'd think he was flirting with me.

“Well, I was kind of thinking of maybe joining Maul and his gang . . .” I teased.

“Not funny.”

“Okay, then—I'm getting pretty good at picking up supplies—”

“I heard about the bread train wreck.”

“How about getting a job at the Rite Aid? They probably won't kick me out if I can find some clean clothes and don't steal anything.” I flashed Creed a smile. “I clean up nice, I promise.”

He glanced at me oddly, making me wonder if he was remembering the old
me
, too.

“Where do you come from, Triste?”

Thud
. My heart, going into my stomach. I shrugged. “You know. I . . .”

Creed came closer, bumping his arm against my shoulder. The thought of it . . . his skin beneath clothes on the other side of my clothes, my skin . . . made my nerves explode.

“You don't have to tell me, it's just, there's something about you. There's more, isn't there?”

“You saw,” I said, pushing the thought of
that night
out of my mind. “Trust me—there's a reason I left.”

The scars were almost healed now, hidden under my clothes. All that was left of
her
and what she let herself become.

Creed was staring at me. “Triste?”

Suddenly there wasn't enough wind in the city, enough slope in the hills to contain whatever I was feeling, only that I wanted to run up Madison as fast as I could.

“Come on!” I shouted. Creed was a quarter block behind me now. My hair blew every which way, the air flowing through me with its sunny almost-rain.

Behind me, Creed laughed and started running, too—a gangly, tall kind of running, with his long legs and the guitar thumping, sun rays reflecting honey streaks in his hair.

“Wait a second,” he called. “Do you even know where we're going?”

I stopped. Let him catch up. Both of us caught our breaths in front of a bright, graffitied bus stop.

“No,” I said, my face close to his.
Alive,
my heart pounded. I wasn't quite alive enough to hold his face in my hands and kiss him. But maybe someday.

“Well, then.” Creed took my hand and placed it inside the crook of his elbow. “I'll have to show you.”

We caught the free bus downtown and headed toward the nexus of urban commerce, Westlake Center. I knew exactly where the BCBG store was, Betsey Johnson around the corner, Barneys New York. But I had never really noticed all the homeless people hanging around on the steps and napping on benches.

“I have a spot staked out—right outside the front door,” Creed said. “I used to play at the food court until security kicked me out. That was a pretty good gig while it lasted. . . .”

I was thinking of the times I'd been here with Jesse and Neeta, before I'd met Asher. I hadn't paid much attention to street musicians before. Not until Creed.

A squawk of crows put me on alert. They chased pigeons away from a sandwich some exec had carelessly dropped. He would never pick it up again, but the homeless crowd eyed the sandwich like it was caviar on a platter. No one made a move as long as the suit was there. Only the crows cackled and dove.

Crows are among the most singularly focused life forms,
Asher would say,
creating hierarchies, histories, and their own society through a complex system of communication. . . .

Watching them made my lungs ache. I needed to get rid of that crow bracelet soon.

“You okay?”

“Yeah—sorry, I was just . . . noticing things I hadn't noticed before.”

Creed nodded. We sat down on the steps and Creed started to unpack his guitar. “Hey, we don't have to stay here if you don't want to—I mean, if there's something about this place—”

“No. No, it's nothing. It's just . . . you know. Memories.”

“I know what you mean.” He played the chord on the guitar. “I think about it every day. The price of doing what you have to do.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

He carefully avoided eye contact with me as I watched him tune the strings. “Did you . . . leave something behind?”

He shrugged. “We all did, didn't we? The bad
and
the good.”

I thought of Jonah and the Lego car and driver I'd stepped on the night I left. Stench had him now.

It was easier to forget when Creed started to play. His fingers, grimy and ragged like mine, became something more when strumming the guitar, as if the strings themselves were connected to places we'd hidden.

His voice came out deep and soft, like I imagined his kiss would be. He sang a song I didn't know, one about living like waves on top of water, a new current against the depths that had been there for all time. There was loneliness there, and uncertainty, and freedom. All the things I'd been feeling, captured in a breath.

It was the music. His music spoke to my most basic components—nerves, spine, heart.

I wasn't the only one. People had gathered all around us on the steps of Westlake Center. Creed captured them before they could be lost. He was capturing me, before I could be found.

While people dropped change into the guitar case, Creed played another song, and then another.

Later, he bought me an ice cream cone at Molly Moon's—bubble gum, so the flavor would linger after the ice cream melted.

“I should bring you every time. That's the best take I've had in weeks.”

My heart jingled along with the coins. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Save it,” he said. “I save most of it, whatever I don't have to use for a coat and maybe some new boots.” He kicked a stop sign pole, and I noticed the wear on his soles. “That reminds me—you're going to need something warmer. The squat'll be leaky as soon as the rain hits.” He paused, deep in thought, as if the weight of our survival were on his shoulders alone.

“Where else would we go?” I asked.

He shrugged, kicking another sign. “Another squat, if we can find one. Though I've been looking and haven't found anything empty. A shelter—”

“
No!
I mean . . .”

“You don't have to explain. When the time comes, we'll find something. Just keep your eyes open, okay? And don't talk to May and Santos about this.”

“Why not?”

“They've been through enough. I don't want them to have to worry about it, too.”

I savored the last little bit of ice cream on my cone. His—salted caramel—had already disappeared.

I wanted to ask him more, but he stopped short on the sidewalk and took my hand with the ice cream cone.

Slowly, he lifted it to his mouth. Closed his eyes. I wondered if he could feel my frantic heartbeat just by holding my hand. He took a taste and let out a sigh of pleasure. I could feel the echo in my own body.

“Mmmm. I haven't had bubble gum in a long time.” He nibbled a bit, releasing my hand. Was he nervous, too?

“Listen,” he said. “I don't want you to worry either. Come on.”

“Where are we going?”

“You'll just have to trust me.”

I did. Far more than he knew.

Chapter 20

The last of my ice cream cone was gone by the time we reached the Experience Music Project, known as the EMP to locals. The museum, built by Seattle mogul Paul Allen, was an enormous undulating mass of colored metals on the outside and twisted, reflective angles on the inside—supposedly to imitate the rolls and waves of music. It was made from sheets of airplane aluminum riveted together. I knew this because Steven Valen was among the major donors.

But Asher had never taken me there. Music—and any feeling it might inspire—was a mystery to him, and Asher didn't like mysteries. He liked things he could touch. Manipulate. So walking into the EMP with Creed at my side, I felt utterly free.

“Follow me.” Creed headed for the entrance. We had to walk through a giant hall of lights and a screen made up of millions of tiny links like chain mail, a vast sheet of armor. The space converted into a dance club for private parties and events, but right now it glittered with a
Matrix
-like stream of colors and numbers.

“Wait, Creed—it isn't cheap to get in,” I protested. “I mean, yeah, you had a big haul today, but what about—” He put a finger to my lips as we stood under the raindrops of light. “I . . . ”

I couldn't go on. It was all I could do not to fall into him.

“Shhh,” he whispered. “Just come.”

I followed him to the ticket guy, a music junkie-turned-EMP polo shirt wearer who seemed to light up when he saw Creed. Did they know each other? They shared a low conversation, something about “show” and “gig” and “score,” and before I could ask about any of it, the guy was looking over his shoulder and motioning for us to go ahead.

I'd never paid much attention to the hundred-foot guitar sculpture swirling up to the ceiling in the main corridor. But with Creed, it felt like approaching a shrine. There were acoustics, electrics, and basses in every color and shape imaginable mounted on a web of scaffolding, a tornado of instruments like a stairway to heaven. Creed's heaven.

We stood there speechless. And I understood, without him even saying it, that here was the reason he would do anything, go anywhere, to get to the place he was meant to be.

“You'll get there someday,” I said quietly, as if anything louder would shatter the connection between man and music.

Something flickered across his face. “Yeah. I hope so.”

We spent the next couple of hours haunting the museum like we haunted the streets—sucking every bit of music from every room. The jazz room. The guitar room. The garage rock exhibit. The history of the Northwest scene. Long before Nirvana and Pearl Jam and Modest Mouse, there were Jimi Hendrix, Heart, Ray Charles.

Creed knew more about Northwest music than anyone I'd ever known—all the way down to Oregon and what was on the walls of Icky's Teahouse in Eugene, where tons of bands had come through before getting their big break.

“How do you know so much about Oregon?” I asked, licking the last bit of stickiness from my fingers.

Creed shrugged. “You learn a lot about a place when you grow up there.”

I ruminated on this new piece of information, trying to fit it in with what I knew about Creed, which actually wasn't all that much. “I never really pictured you anywhere but here, in Seattle.”

“Everyone has to start somewhere. It was Seattle or Olympia for me. Can you picture me in Olympia?”

The only thing I'd ever done in Olympia was attend a state dinner with Neeta and her family—my mom let me have carte blanche at Nordstrom for the most perfect dress—and we spent the entire time flirting with a guy who turned out to be a married campaign assistant. “No, I can't. What's in Olympia?”

“Well, there's K Records, for one thing. And Kill Rock Stars . . . ”

“Kill Rock Stars?”

“A record label—then there's all the bands coming out of Olympia. Bikini Kill, Sleater-Kinney, Some Velvet Sidewalk . . . the whole riot grrrl movement, straight edge . . .”

Watching him talk about it, I felt a sinking feeling in my heart. He had something—a passion. A truth. Like Santos and contributing, but . . . more.

My only instinct had been safety. It made me nervous to wonder beyond that. Would Creed see deeper than I wanted him to and be disappointed?

“ . . . but I thought I'd have a better chance of making it here.” His eyes brightened with the hope of the future, and it broke my heart to think how I could hurt him.

“I . . . I'll help you, if I can,” I stuttered. “That kind of dream deserves to come true.”

Creed grinned. I hadn't even noticed the tiny chip on the edge of one tooth, whiter than any homeless boy's teeth should be. Even in the squat house, he made sure everyone had a toothbrush. “I have an idea—can you sing?”

“Uh, no.”

He grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the sweeping metal staircase. “I don't believe it. You sound like music to me.”

His words spread on my skin like sun. “Wait, Creed—seriously, I can't sing.
Can't
is an understatement.”

He was laughing, still pulling my hand, and the absurdity of it struck me—two homeless kids at the EMP on a date. Was this a date? Maybe, if I could impress him with my vocals. If I could somehow convince him I had a dream as big as his. Outside of Joy's prison, maybe I could find one.

We entered a dark room shrouded in a cacophony of sounds—a preschooler and her parents sampling her voice in one corner; a guy and his girlfriend plucking out “Chopsticks” in another. In the middle of the room stood a giant table where kids and their parents pounded on a huge electronic drum.

Creed pulled me along to the far wall, where sound booths lined up like library carrels under red-tinted lights. Each room came equipped with instruments and the dreaded microphone.

“Oh, no,” I said. “You're not dragging me in there.”

“I know you—you're being modest.”

“No, no, no. No modesty here. Please!”

If I hadn't been fighting for my last shred of dignity, I would have stopped to savor the words:
I know you
.

But he had already dragged me in and shut the door, like we were in high school and hiding out in the janitor's closet. I almost fell into his lap right there with momentum and lust. Somehow, here in this little room with a window, it was different than being on an old, moldy mattress. Naughtier. Real. I put my hands around his waist, threatening to attack.

He slipped out of my grip and spun me onto his lap, grabbing the mike.

“Don't do it!” I giggled. “Save your eardrums! Save yourself!”

“No. Come on. I'll play, you sing.” He still had one arm wrapped around me, pinning me into his lap. I twisted until my face nearly brushed his.

I could hardly breathe.

“How are you going to play guitar if you're busy holding on to me?” I was whispering, I realized. Not even able to meet his eyes except through the protection of my lashes. Did I look as warm as I felt?

It took him a second to reply, to shift my weight from one leg to the other. “I hadn't really figured that out yet.” He was whispering, too. Eyes still bluer than blue, even under the red lights. “I was hoping you would choose to sing of your own volition. You could be a rock star and not even know it. I could discover you.”

His eyes strayed to my lips. I licked them . . . waited . . .

Any second. Oh, God . . .

But he didn't. Instead, a flash of fury passed over his face—almost imperceptible, but still there. He tilted me onto the other knee so he could take the guitar into his arms. “So, um, what should we play?”

It took us a few minutes to figure out something we both knew. He knew pretty much everything indie, and I knew enough not to reveal my limited knowledge of the music scene.

“Okay, let's go for something basic. Like . . .”

“‘I Will Follow You into the Dark,'” I interjected.

“Death Cab for Cutie?” His eyebrow rose. “Aha. Definitely Seattle indie.”

The truth was I knew it by heart because of Asher. Not because he liked the song, but because he made fun of it—a song about loving someone so much that you would follow them anywhere and make the ultimate sacrifice. It was something Asher would never understand.

“Yeah. Don't laugh! Come on, it's true Seattle.
And
I know the words.”

“All right.” A grin pulled at the side of his mouth.

“What?”

His eyes softened. “It's just . . . I kind of like that song, too.”

He started to play, as if he knew what I'd choose, effortlessly changing the key to my range when I started to sing—not quite alto, not quite soprano, not quite on key.

I knew the words, but the tune was something else entirely. As he plucked out the notes with ease, I sang—no, warbled—the lyrics.

People were standing outside, looking into the booth as Creed ran his hand through his tumble of hair.

It would have been wonderful if I could have stunned him with my singing. And I guess I sort of did.

“It sounds so much better in my head,” I offered.

He was trying to be kind, I could see, but it wasn't working. The key, the warbling, the sheer horribleness of it—he couldn't take it anymore, and we were both laughing. “I should have listened. You
are
bad.”

“Terrible. I told you!”

“Yes, you did.” He snorted. “That was my fault. I should have listened.”

“No, wait,” I said. “If you want, I can try again.”

“No!”

“No, really!”

“Stop. Please.”

“But I could be a rock star and not even know it!” I turned around to face him. “You could discover me,” I whispered, batting my eyelashes.

He turned red, redder than the lights shifting onto the booth. “Right.”

I was wounded. “Okay, then. Show me how it's done, Mr. Rock Star.”

He started to play the chords, then the words, singing them like I'd always heard them in my head.

His voice, wispy and gentle and then deep and true, caressed the words as he closed his eyes.
If there's no one beside you when your soul embarks, then I'll follow you into the dark
. . . .

When he was finished, he was holding his breath, too.

Bang bang bang
.

“Hey, you've been in there a half hour!” A fanboy hovered outside the window, peering in through his Buddy Holly's.

“Find your pause button!” I shouted through the glass, but the moment was broken.

When we emerged from the EMP, it was colder, and the ice cream boost was wearing thin. “Wanna find food?” I asked. Pike's Place Market, a dozen blocks away, had rows of fresh produce, cheese samples, even chocolate.

“Yeah—something hot.”

I pulled my hoodie closer around me while Creed stuffed his hands into his pockets.

“We could find a corner down here and play for a bit. I could sing.” I grinned.

Creed smiled. “That's okay. I figure we should get some food
in
us, not thrown
at
us.”

“Hey! Hey, hey. Now that was totally uncalled for.”

“So is your singing.”

“You called for it.”

“Never again.” He shook his head. “Never again.”

We found a bakery tossing out day-old breakfast sandwiches and made our way down to the park. The wind coming off of the Sound had autumn on its heels.

I must have been so focused on Creed that I hadn't been paying attention to my own breathing. A cold ribbon of air whipped into my lungs and seized me into a long and racking series of coughs. I tried to hold them in until I thought I would burst, remembering the times I had bruised ribs, coughed blood, and stopped breathing altogether.

The emergency inhaler Santos got for me was in the backpack, and I whipped it out for two desperate hits.

Creed watched all of this, first with concern and then with alarm.

“Are you all right? Do we need to go to the hospital?” He stood there helplessly as I tried to get control, his hand touching my back and neck.

I held up my hand to say no.

“No, I'm fine,” I gasped, as soon as I could speak again. “It just happens once in a while, it's not a big deal.”

He knew nothing about my history, so he seemed to accept the lie easily. “Where did you get that?” he asked, indicating the inhaler still clutched in my hand. “Santos? Did he get that for you?”

I nodded, and he grunted. “Hmm.”

This conversation was going in a dangerous direction. “You were pretty amazing today,” I said. “I mean, your music. It really speaks to people.” I pulled out my sandwich and thoughtfully popped it in my mouth.

Creed blushed, and even though I meant the compliment sincerely, I felt a little guilty for distracting him.

We walked through the market to a strip of park teetering on the edge of a downtown cliff. Cargo ships and ferries tore through Puget Sound, leaving long white trails in their wakes.

“So what's your skill?” Creed asked.

“Skill?” I thought of street powers—music, disguise, invisibility.

“Yeah. Everybody has one. You need one to survive. I can sing. You . . . ”

“Don't say it!”

“ . . . cannot. So what is it?”

I thought for a minute. Sacrifice was a skill. I did it with Asher, sacrificing myself until there wasn't anything left. Now I was sacrificing in another way—my entire previous life gone. But being able to sacrifice wasn't exactly the kind of skill he was looking for.

“I'd have to think about it. But I'd say . . . leaving.”

He nodded, as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. “Yeah. That's a talent we've all had to perfect.”

We found a place in the park and munched on our sandwiches. “So . . . you came from Oregon and ended up here,” I began. The sun was setting behind the Olympic Mountains across the Sound, a smattering of clouds in the sky—the kind of day that made me think Seattle was the most beautiful place on earth.