The Struggle (The Things We Can't Change Book 2) (2 page)

Hearing the name almost sends me into a blind, floating panic, but I shift on my legs and the cuts sting as they brush the fabric of my shorts, keeping me centered. I look at Hunter as disdainfully as I can and say coldly, “None of your business. You don’t know anything of what went on this spring, so stay out of it.” I start to go around the other side of the counter, but Hunter is there to block me again.

“I know more than you think. My mom kept me completely informed while I was away at school. I also got the full scoop when I went to the club this morning for a round of golf. Tell me, how’s the sex with Zeke Quain? And how does it feel to have driven Tony to attempted suicide?”

I’m trembling now, furious with him for not stopping, even though I know he can see my face is red and my hands are shaking. My breath is coming in quick pants, and I just want to run away, but I can’t get past Hunter without touching him, and I’ll die before I touch someone willingly ever again, aside from my dad.

“You don’t know
anything
.” My voice is hoarse and I almost don’t recognize it.

Hunter only laughs and finally steps aside, freeing me. I rush on through the kitchen and nearly sprint up the stairs, even though my heavy, jarring steps set my ribs on fire once more. Despite the added pain, I can feel myself floating, my head entering the clouds, literally, and I know that this time I won’t be able to stop it.

Tony’s message from that day is echoing, ringing round and round in my head, and I can’t seem to make it stop.
Your fault, your fault, your fault.
I can hear his voice, the sobs he’s not holding back, the panic and fear, and those poisonous words. Dr. Gottlieb, my dad, everyone tells me that it’s not my fault, what happened to Tony, what he did to himself.

But I have the message to prove them wrong, and I know, deep down, that everything is my fault and I’ll never be able to change that.

I love you, Evie. I love you and if you don’t want me, then I don’t want to live.

I collapse on my bed and don’t fight this time as I escape into my own head.

Ezekiel

25

“Cindy!”

My sister stops in the middle of the crosswalk, looking over at me. The last I see of her face is a small, puzzled smile. Then Tony hits her and my world erupts into chaos. Brakes squeal, glass shatters and I hear my sister’s fragile little body breaking.

I’m screaming. I don’t even know what I’m saying but my throat is raw and hurting and finally I can move my legs and I’m running. I can see one slim brown hand dangling over the side of the hood from where Cindy is lying on top of the windshield.

I can just make out Tony, where he’s freaking out in the driver’s seat. He’s on the phone, but I don’t pay attention, not to him, not to Uncle Alex or my dad behind me. The soles of my worn shoes skid on the glass and then I have Cindy in my arms.

My hands are trembling uncontrollably as I gather my sister’s limp body against me and pull her off the hood.

“Cindy! Shit, Cindy!”

I carry her off the street and lay her down on the soft grass by the sidewalk. She’s cut up, not nearly as bloody as Evie was but somehow the picture before me is even more horrific. I keep saying her name, over and over, and then I look down at the tangled wreck of her legs and almost vomit.

I take her face into my hands and am dimly aware of Tony taking off down the street, tires squealing, smoke and glass flying into the air. My fingers are shaking so badly that I can barely keep hold of Cindy’s head, but I look into her eyes, my voice shaking just as much as the rest of me.

“Don’t worry, Cindy. Don’t you fucking worry. Don’t look down. Don’t worry about your fucking legs. You’re going to dance again, do you hear me? You’re still going to be a dancer, dammit!”

But as Cindy’s head lolls to the side and her eyes stay open, vacant and unblinking, I realize that my sister will never dance again. And it has nothing to do with her legs being broken.

“Shit!”

I jerk upright in bed. I’m shirtless, only wearing gym shorts, but I’m still drenched in sweat. The sheets are all tangled up around me, in my legs and choking my torso. I fight my way out of them, only escaping when I roll off the bed and hit the floor.

My cheek hits the hardwood, but I lie with it resting on the floor, welcoming both the sting of pain and the cool relief of the unforgiving wood. I can feel a deep gauge in the cheap imitation oak, and I know without looking that it’s from the time I caught Cindy playing with my Hot Wheels six years ago, and she threw a big CAT truck at me when I yelled at her.

Cindy.

Tears sting my eyes, my hands tremble and my heart beats so fast I feel it will explode from my chest. It’s too much, all too freaking much, and I push up suddenly from the floor. I don’t bother changing my shorts, only pull on socks, a white t-shirt, and my battered Nikes and then I’m out the door. I pretend not to notice the door to Cindy’s bedroom, dark and tightly shut, as I pass it.

I’m quiet on the steps, not wanting to wake my dad even though I doubt I could, even if I thundered down them. He’s been picking up just as many extra hours at the construction site as I have been at the country club. That’s a Quain for you; don’t feel, don’t grieve, just hide all your emotions behind a hard-ass attitude and bury the rest in work. It’s worked so far, but since today is the last day of school, I know we’ll be seeing more of each other and I can’t help but wonder how that will work out. I can’t help feeling that I already know.

Badly.

I push these thoughts away as I let myself out the front door and take off running down the sleepy street. It’s Friday morning at four AM, so the only people outside are a few runners just as focused as I am, though probably on different issues. They respect my space and I do the same. I go at top speed, tearing down Grandview Avenue, turning right on Fifth Avenue instead of left toward the old bridge and Riverside Drive, where Evie lives.

Evie Parker. I can’t help but wonder how she’s doing, if she’s having trouble getting over what Tony did to her or having a good old time being out from under his control, being free. Well, maybe not totally free. Tony may be laying in a bed at Grant Hospital in a coma, but he is still alive, still breathing, and I doubt Evie will ever feel truly free of him until he’s dead.

I wish the son of a bitch was dead. If he wasn’t utterly helpless, basically a vegetable, I would kill him myself. Kill him dead, the same way he did to my sister. Maybe then I would finally get peace from my own demons. Then again, I know deep down that killing Tony won’t bring Cindy back. Nothing ever will. All I can do is try to stop
feeling
, try to stop missing her, thinking about her, wishing she was back.

The feelings are all roiling around inside me, crashing and careening through my chest, invading my heart and brain, and I’m gasping for air by the time I’ve gone almost three miles and am at the bridge near Olentangy River Road. I stop, mouth wide open as I suck in the heavy, humid air. It’s already so sticky out I may as well quench my thirst this way, with all the water hanging around in the pre-dawn gloom. I bend over and place my hands on my knees, waiting until I have control of my breathing and my hands are no longer shaking.

The bridge before me is covered in graffiti, most of it mine, which was all done in the past month, mostly in the early morning. This is a pretty dead zone for cops at this time of day, I’ve discovered, and in the month and a half since Cindy’s death, I’ve found myself here five mornings out of seven, struggling to get everything out of me.

I dig in the shallow dirt at the base of the bushes near the bridge and finally unearth the cans of spray paint I’ve left there. I can’t keep them at the house because I know my dad will pitch a fit if he finds them. The handful of times we have interacted, it’s deteriorated into a yelling argument where one of us storms out of the house, and I’m not trying to push my luck with that.

I take another quick look around, but the streets are dead, not a soul around, and so I lift up the can of spray paint and get the feelings out the only way I know how. I put it all into the painting; my grief over losing Cindy, the tears I haven’t been able to shed, my concern for Evie, rage at my dad, and most of all, the guilt that I failed to save my sister, and the underlying anger that Evie and Tony survived, and Cindy did not.

As dawn breaks, I run back to the apartment, and even though I rush my shower and just throw on the first shirt and pair of jeans I find on the floor, I’m running late for school. It doesn’t really matter; not only is it our last day, but my interest in school the past month has been nil. It’s hard to pay attention when everyone is staring at you, whispering about you, and I’ve begun to wonder if I should even return for my senior year. If school hadn’t always come so easily to me and I hadn’t had such good grades all year, I would be a lot worse off now since I haven’t done a bit of homework since Cindy died.

I stroll into the school building just as the bell for first period rings, but hearing it doesn’t make me walk any faster. I just continue to walk leisurely down the hallway, passing the front offices. As I glance inside them, my eyes are immediately drawn to a small, short figure with long dark hair, almost down to her waist. She turns slightly so I see the curve of a face, and I know without a doubt that it’s Evie Parker.

Something inside me clenches, anger battling with some insane kind of… longing. I find myself torn between the urge to go up to Evie, to talk to her and see if she’s all right, and the urge to yell and scream and rage at her, even though for the most part, she is just as much a victim in this as Cindy was.

Evie looks up right then and our eyes meet. Hers widen in surprise, and for a long moment we both stand stock still, unsure. The rage ends up winning, and I turn away from her abruptly, continuing on down the hallway to my class.

She
wasn’t
a victim,
I tell myself furiously.
If she’d just told someone about Tony, I wouldn’t have been involved. Things would have happened differently, and Cindy would still be alive. Remember that, Zeke.

I stride away down the hall and don’t look back.

By lunch my emotions are back under control, despite another run-in with Mr. Bryant. He’s still trying to get me to join the art classes next year and keeps telling me that I only have a year left if I want to get some kind of portfolio together for college. I just nod my head and tell him no. The last time I drew, it was my pictures of Cindy, when she had begged me. I don’t ever want to tarnish that memory, change that she is the last thing connected to that part of my life. And I know, without a doubt in my mind, that the door is closed on both those parts of my life; drawing and Cindy, gone and done forever.

What I’ve always believed is true; everything you care for gets taken from you. Cindy’s death just confirms it for me.

I’m the first one into the cafeteria and sit at our usual lunch table. I had thought, a month and a half later, that the news would die down and people would have stopped talking. It hasn’t, probably because it was turned from a bonfire into an inferno by Cindy’s death and Tony’s accident, although that’s part of the rumor; that Tony’s ‘accident’ wasn’t an accident at all, but attempted suicide. After all, you’d have to be pretty crazy, or drunk, or mad with grief and hysteria, to veer off Grandview Avenue and over the railroad tracks and put your car into one of the old stationary train cars there.

I’m not sure what to think. I’d seen Tony’s craziness for myself, and I know that he is more than capable of that kind of erratic thinking. And Evie herself had told me that he always threatened to kill himself if she left him. With the impending law suit, and the fact that he had just come from the hospital where Evie had been, it’s entirely possible he did it on purpose. All I know is, it’s made the rumors even worse, and with that one act, Tony gained the final vote of sympathy he needed for everyone to be on his side, and they have rallied behind him and against me accordingly. I don’t blame Evie for not returning to school for the remainder of the year, even though it was probably more due to her injuries than peer pressure. I wonder what it will be like if she—and I—return in the fall.

I realize I’m thinking about Evie yet again and am grateful when people finally join me at the table, even though it’s Cameron. I can’t say I mind too much though, because I’ve been hell bent on a path of self-destructiveness in order to not think or feel, and Cameron is an excellent tool in this. Over the past month, we’ve been hanging out a lot more, and we aren’t just spray painting or drinking anymore. No one is depending on me any longer, and so I’ve thrown any caution to the wind and begun to embrace everything I used to stay away from when Cindy was depending on me.

“Quain, you coming out tonight to the party?”

Cameron’s eyes are bleary and red-rimmed as he looks over at me, a sure sign that last night’s party hasn’t quite ended, and tonight’s has already begun. He smells like an overload of Axe body spray, but I can still pick up the faint traces of weed.

“Where is it?” I ask as Koby and Dominic take their usual spots on either side of me, cautiously watching the exchange between Cameron and me.