Playing Tyler (27 page)

“I've tried so hard, so hard to beat this. To beat this for you, for Mom,” he says, words garbled. “But I can't. You don't know, don't know what it's like. I'm not strong enough.”

“Bullshit.”

We walk in silence. Silence that's wound like livewire. Silence that says everything and nothing all at the same time.

We go down to the street. We walk together to where Ani's going to pick me up. Streets are pretty empty, no sign of suits. Or even nice khakis. Should be clear.

He says, “They won't stop, Tyler. They won't stop until they kill you.”

“So?” I say, feeling draining from my arms, from my fingers.

“So let them think they killed you.”

And then he meets my eyes. What is that supposed to mean? My heartbeat picks up. Ask no don't ask just walk just do this he's still pretty high and isn't making any sense is all.

He then turns to me, lips moving up a little in the corners. “You have your license?”

“Um, yeah. Just got it a month ago.”

He takes a deep, halting breath. “Still have a copy of your permit on you? Library card?”

“Why do you need my wallet?” I pull it out, stomach contracting. Just to see, maybe he needs some of the cash back maybe he just wants to see if I'm using Dad's old one.

He opens it, looking at my library card, the pictures of us as kids that are stuffed in there from forever ago, the driver's permit and the new license. He hands the license back to me, and slips the wallet in his pocket. “Take this.” He pulls out his own wallet and hands it over to me.

“No.” My throat's tight. Like someone is grabbing onto it and squeezing and I don't know how to stop them. I don't like this. This is wrong. Very, very wrong. He can't be doing this he can't he can't he can't.

“Take it. Please.” His voice wobbles and I slip my driver's license in my back pocket. My social security card is in my wallet, though, which he just took. Put in his pants. He opens the door to the car. Blue car, girly, probably Kelly's.

“Where are you going?” I ask, I know, but I can't. Can't let him…

“Going home, Ty.” Tears. Tears redden his eyes.

My eyes burn, heart like a fist. “You can't… they'll have it staked out…”

“You need the time, Tyler. You'll never make it to the border without a diversion.” The hair, he cut his hair to look more like me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

“I've got a diversion. My cell phone is riding on the back of a Greyhound and my bank card is about to take a trip to Florida or some shit. Ani's, too, B, we don't…” Hell no.

“It's not enough. You know it's not. But if they think that they've got you, then you might have enough time to get to Todd.” Tears falling, eyes begging, pleading, for what? Permission? Redemption? No no no no no. “You've always been the only one, you know. The only one who was there for me. You never once stopped believing in me, even after I had. You have to let me do this for you, Tyler.”

The trees lining the street, dead and twisted and stuck into pools of dirt so old that it's gray, stuck in the middle of a sidewalk in the middle of a city where the cars and people and shops all line up to watch the world fall into itself. The trees seem to come together, hang closer, hang over where we're standing. So close to the street. So many people walking by. And none of them can stop this.

“No.” I kick my foot into the ground and slap the wallet out of his hand. “No, fuck no I'm not going to let you do this, Brandon, you can drive out of here and find a new place and you can still get better I know that if you just…” The words come out frightened, barking.

“You have to let me do this for you.” His voice is strong. “Let me have one thing, one choice that I can be proud of. Let me be your brother again, just this once.”

“No.” Deep breath. “No, no, no, no, no.”

“Listen to me, this is not your choice, this is mine, I can't save myself anymore, Tyler.” His hands grasp me around my face, pulling me towards him, forcing me to look him in the eyes. Blue and endless and wet. “But I'm going to save you.”

Heart stuck, caught like a fly in my throat. “No, please,” is all that comes out. Can't talk. Three thousand things to say. One syllable is all I get. “No.”

His hands wrap around my shoulders, and he pulls me to him, hugging me. Words need to come out, I need to tell him, I want to tell him, I want to stop him but I can't do or say anything because everything seems to be moving around in my head at once.

“You get to Canada. Get to Canada with that girl. You bring this whole thing down around them. There's more in you than anybody ever sees, Ty. But I see it.”

Oh no. Fuck no. This can't be happening.

Shit. Have to tell him, have to… “B,” I call, voice broken, undone.

“There's no shame in dying for people you love, Tyler.” He looks back. We stand there, staring at each other. Crying.

Three thousand things. Three hundred thousand things flow in the air between us as I look at him, my big brother, my hero since like forever until he fell. And now, everything else, the time I caught him smashing oxy, the time I found him lying unconscious on the floor of the bathroom, all that just disappears and all I can see is that kid, my hero, one last time.

But I can't get anything out. My eyes feel like they are bleeding and my heart is being hacksawed and my legs can't stay steady. But I can't get one fucking word from my head and out through my mouth. Not one.

“I know, Ty.” He smiles. “I've always known.”

He shuts the door and drives away.

 

CHAPTER 29

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3

TYLER

We drive Christy's Corolla three hundred miles up to Newport, Vermont. The worst ride ever. Long, quiet, waiting. Wondering if they found him yet. If he slipped out the back of the house when they came in, if he ran and is going to call. My only hope is that he flaked and pulled the junkie card, went to buy more H instead of doing what he meant to do. But I know that didn't happen. And I'm just waiting for the news. Flipping through channels on the radio, waiting, like they would run a broadcast of my brother's death. Like a junkie found shot in his house would make the news. Well, maybe, since we're in the burbs. Still.

Huge, racking thrusts of nausea pound on me. But I won't get sick. Can't. Don't have time. Need to drive. Need to drive faster. Every car, every truck behind us is a potential threat. Every guy on his way to work and every family on vacation sets me on alert. I don't think I can do this. Don't think this will work. But I have to try. Have to try for her, for him. Shit. When did my life get so complicated? So wrong?

We left B's place around 7pm and we took the long way up, so it's like 1am when we roll into Newport. Looking behind us, I check to make sure we're the only car getting off at the exit. Only car rolling through town. Ani sees the place first. A place that rents kayaks and canoes, right on the lake. Closed for the season. Perfect.

We park in the center of town. Leave the car in front of some grocery store and hop out into the cold pre-dawn air. Pulling on major backpacks, all that we own, the sound of the gravel crunching beneath our boots sounds too loud, like they can hear us.

We walk. It's not far, still, it feels good after such a long car ride and as I watch the clouds of frost around our breath decorate the still morning before us, my stomach trembles. We're close. Just have to get there. Stay focused. Steady. Faster. Walk faster.

The rental place is closed, of course. We find a two-person green kayak that isn't tied as securely as the rest and slip it out of its carrier and onto the bed of pine needles covering the ground. I write a note, apologizing for taking their boat, and leave a hundred bucks, figuring that's probably enough to cover the cost of it. I sign the first note, which, thankfully, Ani catches and makes me rip up and stuff in my pocket, so I write another one and slip that one along with the money up under the door.

“C'mon,” I say and grab her hand.

 

Ani

“Tyler… I don't know. What if this doesn't work?” I ask as I move towards the boat. He's carrying the awkward kayak over an outcrop of rocks and sets it near the water. The moonlight catches in his hair, and I can only see half of his face as he turns to me.

“Ani, look.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We can't think like that. We have to do what needs to get done. Right now we're putting the kayak in the water, OK? So let's do that. Focus on that.”

He's pushing the boat towards the water that sloshes around his feet just above on the shoreline. It's hard to see if his boots are actually submerged or not. It's hard to see how I got here, to see what I'm really doing.

What am I really doing? Mr Anderson's program is wrong, so wrong on so many levels, but why should we have to be the ones to bring it down? We could both lose everything. Am I ready to leave school, my mom, Julie, Dad, everyone, for what? What do I gain by doing this when I only see negative consequences? Mom won't see this as doing what's right, she'll see it as me being impulsive, see it as me falling for the wrong guy.

A big splash and a quiet curse from Ty indicate that now his boots are wet for sure. Oh God, is this right? Once I get in that boat there's no going back. If I cross the border then I have to finish this. “Ready?” he asks, standing in the quiet of darkness, starlight pooling in his eyes.

I look at the lifejacket he's holding out towards me and stare. I have to take it. If I don't, Mr Anderson will kill me, it's as simple as that. And right here, right now is a chance for me to live life on my terms, to write my own future, to write our future. “Tyler.”

He looks up, voice gentle, “I know it's not comfortable, but you kinda have to wear it…”

“I love you.”

Eyes wide, he says, “I… I…” He drops the lifejacket down by his side and wraps his hand around the base of my chin and kisses me. Slowly. His breath hot, the kiss is like silk, soft and decadent and real. He pulls back before I can part my lips, but his hand, strong and warm and tender, stays around my face and I push my cheek into it, wanting him to say the words, knowing that it's hard. “Love you,” he says. The words sound like a prayer. He pushes his forehead into mine and drapes the lifejacket across the back of my shoulders. “Now get in the boat.” He smiles.

The smile dies with the sound of tires screeching on the road behind us.

Tyler

“Duck!” I pull her behind the nearest rock. My heart's pounding so loud I'm pretty sure that they can hear it in the car. Depending on whether the car follows the lake road around, there's a good chance they'll see us on the other side. Her whole body shakes and I hold her but oh fuck what if it's that guy who was following me in New Haven and we're dead but can't think like that. We have to get the hell out of here.

It's cold. The rock is as cold as her hands and I rub them to warm them for her. We listen. Nothing. The car keeps on driving. Thank God.

I nod to her and stand up, legs stiff. “C'mon.” Too cold to be doing this, but it's not far to the border and it's the middle of the night, so we might make it in unnoticed. Might make it.

We double-wrap our packs in the garbage bags we brought with us, grab the paddles, and push out into the lake. Ani's not so sure what she's doing. Thank God. Explaining how to kayak gives me something to focus on, something to do. She picks it up quick and we move out at a pretty good clip. It's cold, but the sound of the paddles cutting through the water and the waves beating on the side of the kayak is comforting, almost. The sound of good memories.

Lake Memphremagog is a deep glacial lake, and I tell her stories as we go, always with one eye up on the sky and the other searching, looking for that light of the border patrol boat. Telling myself that it's cool if the boat catches us, telling myself that it would be so miserably ironic if Rick launches a drone over the border and blows me out of the water. So I tell her the stories that my dad told me as a kid, about Memphremagog, the lake monster rumored to be living beneath our paddles, about the different fish I used to catch here, anything to stop my brain from spinning too much, to keep my arms moving even after they start to scream, to keep my eyes off the sky.

There aren't a lot of boats roaming around at night, but when we see one, we hide. Tuck ourselves down low in the kayak and hope the shoreline hides us. Hope that we're invisible under the moon. For every movement on shore I pray. Pray that it's not people or at least that they don't see us. Or they don't care.

Finally, as the sky brightens and we hide in the brambles along the shore from another large boat, hoping not to get turned in their wake, she asks, “Is that a town?”

I push off, looking out ahead of us, “Yeah, let's hope it's Magog.”

We paddle over to a clearer patch of shore, legs aching as we disembark, and I practically fall over as she hugs me. “What do we do now?” she asks, voice breathless.

“Try and get to Montreal, I guess.”

 

We take the bus. I sleep until Ani wakes me up, my head a blur of the sound of wheels and hydraulics. Cloth seats with those little rags draped over the top and emergency aisle lighting. What are those rags about, do they ever change them? Pointless. They started out white and now they're dirty from hair grease and drool. Stupid. Donovan Jones from the
Times
hasn't emailed. Whatever. We've got Todd, right? The conductor calls over the intercom that we're an hour outside of Montreal. Good. One hour to go. Wish the bus would go faster.