Waiting (14 page)

“You’re getting wet,” Nice Smile says.

“Sure am.”

They don’t get out of the car. The rain has saved me. The talker just hangs his tanned arm from the window. They back up like I pull them along on a rope. Rain water starts to puddle. That’s a Florida storm for you.

Taylor drives up then. How did he see me in the rain?

His car lights are on.

All the cars’ lights are on.

When did it get so dark?

How did I not notice?

Taylor gets out of the Toyota, walks like he’s going somewhere important, taking big steps, right up to me.

Then he pulls me in to his body, and I feel the dryness of his clothes.

He just holds me. Tight.

I work my hands out of my pockets and to his waist.

Grip the material of his shirt.

“You’re getting me wet,” he says into my hair.

His voice is so different from Nice Smile’s.

“I’m sorry.” I say this into his shoulder.

There’s rain in my eyelashes. I think it’s rain.

He pulls in a breath. “You remind me so much of your crazy brother.”

The car of
guys must leave, but I don’t hear them. I just stand in the rain with Taylor not that far from where my dead brother is buried and remember how Zach loved the rain.

After Rachel moved,

after Zachy died,

I tried to get ahold of Rachel maybe a thousand times.

But she never called back.

She loves the rain too.

Once, the four
of us picnicked on the beach.

We watched as the sky grew dark out over the ocean, watched as the storm drew closer, then closer, watched as the rain pelted the sand almost like bullets.

I sat there on a blanket, arms around my knees, Taylor so close I was warm down one side. He rested his head on my shoulder, and every once in a while he kissed my face and muttered sweet words. After a bit—we were already wet—he held a second blanket over us, to shield us from the stinging rain.

Closer to the surf

Rachel and Zach ran at the waves

and away,

laughing like maniacs.

Taylor said, right after I thought it, he said,

“They’re crazy together, London. Did you ever think he’d find someone as crazy as he is?”

“I never did,” I said.

Taylor looked at me then. He pressed his lips to my forehead. “I love you, London Castle,” he said. His breath
was warm, and I felt crazy happy myself.

In fact, I felt

right then

that everything in our world would have a happy ending.

“What are you
doing out here?” Taylor asks. We’re in the car, and I’m dripping all over everything. My hair has turned to ringlets.

I look at him side-eyed. “You know.”

“Yes, but why alone?”

When I open my mouth, the words are trapped, and I have to cough to dislodge them. “There’s . . .” Can I tell him? Can I say,
The whole family is gone? We’ve disappeared with Zach? Been buried with my brother?

I shake my head.

Without warning, Taylor pulls the car over to the side of the road. There’s a ditch next to us, filled with fast-running water.

“Look at me, London.” His voice is stern but not angry.

Was I staring at my hands? I think so. I turn my gaze to Taylor.

“I’m here.” He taps his chest. “I’m here. I’m always going to be here.”

He shakes his head. “You said we needed a break. I didn’t want a break.
You
said.”

I nod. I asked for that when things started to crumble.

When the yelling started. Before it was all over.

“I don’t want to go anywhere,” Taylor says. “Didn’t want to.”

“You’re not even eighteen.” Those familiar words are in my head, loud. And I say them to Taylor.

He looks out the window, which has gone all steamy. “I know what I know. I know how I feel.”

I wasn’t allowed
in for The Talk.

Zacheus wanted me there. Wanted Rachel. But Daddy and Mom said no—like they already knew where this was headed.

And then the words came.

“I’m a religious writer! A missionary! You’re the son of a religious writer. Of a missionary! You’re not even seventeen!”

“So what! So what! What does age matter? I love her.”

“You’re too young to love anyone.”

Mom’s words were like a slap to Zach. He told me so, later.

“How will you take care of three people? You’re not even out of high school.” Mom’s voice was razors. I could hear that myself where I stood hidden in the hall. And then after a thousand beats, “What will the neighbors think?”

“Where are we
going?” Taylor asks.

We creep along, that’s how hard the rain comes down.

We’re blind.

“Your house?”

I don’t say anything. I’m exhausted. Limp from almost-living. From trying to live in a place that is crooked, where I can’t get a grip on anything.

“Mine?” he says.

“Yours.”

“My mom’s not home.”

Mine is, I want to say, but that’s a lie. Bodies that don’t speak aren’t a presence. They don’t count.

Zach on the
hospital bed.

Slight bruises on his neck.

His lips tinged blue.

Hooked up to everything.

Already looking gone.

Is he gone?

How can I stand it? How? My legs won’t hold me up, and I fall, catching myself at the foot of his bed.

Across from me, Daddy has given up praying that Zach will make it. It’s three days later.

My brother’s an organ donor. “We can’t let the organs fail,” the doctor says.

“Right.” That’s my father’s voice. It comes from a tin can.

It comes from a different world.

Right?

And Mom, screaming at me as the time comes to let him go, screaming at me!

We are a
family, lost.

I’ve never told
anyone about all of it.

Not about all of it.

Not Zach talking to me before.

Or him telling me about the baby.

(Or the fight. Oh! The fight!)

Or how my lungs felt so crushed inside that I couldn’t let any more than a gasp of air between my lips

when it was finished.

“Do you remember
the first time we met?”

I sit on a bar stool in Taylor’s kitchen. The storm rages on outside. I have on a pair of his shorts and a giant T-shirt of his. Even his socks are too big for me, the heel hitting up above my ankle.

I shake my head.

He slices two BLTs in half, puts them on creamy yellow plates.

“What? The girl
always
remembers. It’s the guy who doesn’t.”

I offer him a bit of a smile. “I can’t keep a lot in my head. Sorry.”

Taylor pads over to the fridge, pulls out a big bottle of Coke, and pours two glasses full. “Want ice?” he asks as the Coke reaches the tippy-top of the second glass.

“No, thanks,” I say.

He brings the drinks over, sets one in front of me, then slides the sandwich over too. He settles on the other bar stool. Lightning changes the colors of the kitchen to an odd white-blue, then thunder rocks that whole house. The lights go out. We’re in the dark.

(I’d still be walking if Taylor hadn’t picked me up. Would Mom care if I was struck dead by lightning coming home from my brother’s grave? Or hit by a car? Or picked up by a bunch of rapists? Would she care?)

“We were over, a bunch of the football team, for hamburgers. Remember? Your dad was cooking them.”

“What?”

“When we met. The first time. And you got that weird round brush caught in your hair, and your mom thought it would have to be cut out. But your dad and Zach got it free and burned a whole grill of burgers.”

Lightning splits the sky again, and it sounds like the thunder might be right on top of us this time.

I cover my ears. Close my eyes. “You were there?”

Taylor laughs. “Yes. I was the guy drooling all over myself.

I thought you were so pretty, London.”

More lightning. More thunder. And me saying, “Oh!”

Sometimes I cannot
swallow for the pain.

Even here, with Taylor, where I know I’m safe.

Sometimes I feel
like I’m still stuck in those last few days.