Chapter Four
I’d danced with boys before. Many, in fact. Phil may have been my first date, but he certainly hadn’t been the last. Since he’d left for college, I’d learned a few things. I just hoped he would notice.
Phil led me into the throng of dancers, so confident and cool. Kids parted for us as if we were some kind of royalty, and I caught a few girls eyeing Phil appreciatively even as their arms wound around their own dance partners. Phil stopped, and we stood for a second in the middle of all the chaos, just looking at each other. He did nothing to hide the interest and the questions in his gaze.
The music was pulsing all around us. The darting lights were blue now, and Phil’s eyes were dark as he pulled me close, moving with the grace and self-assurance I’d come to expect from him. I didn’t know the song we were dancing to, but the beat was infectious; I’d wrapped my arms around Phil’s neck and was moving against him in a way that a year ago I would have blushed at.
His lips grazed my cheek, and I felt his light stubble against my forehead for a moment. There was no need for words; we said everything and nothing with our bodies. I was still angry, pushing and pulling all at the same time. You changed me, I wanted to rage at him. I’ve never stopped thinking about you, my other side whispered. What was it about him?
Images were flashing past me. Memories from another time, another life. I saw a little girl laughing on the beach with her brother, her father chasing them from far behind. I saw an older girl trying to apply eyeliner in the mirror and snapping at her mom when she tried to help. The girl grew, and she waited by the window for her date. Then the sky turned grey and the city emptied. The people around the girl changed. Her mother became a shadow, her brother worried. But they were always pretending. No one was who they seemed to be. Only one word came to mind with this: Depression.
Phil was mouthing something, resting his chin in the part of my hair. Just one word, just my name. Wren. What were the value of names and words, anyway? They lied, they brought pain. Suddenly I was tired, so tired, and I just wanted it to be over. I wanted to wake up from this dream I’d been stuck in for so long.
I reached up and cupped the back of Phil’s neck. “Make me forget,” I said through my teeth. I ignored all the promises I’d made to myself, to Mattie. They didn’t matter right then.
There was no way he could have heard me, but Phil Hendrick knew an invitation when he saw one. His mouth went down on mine, at first careful and caressing. When I only clutched him tighter, the kiss grew harder, less restrained. His tongue touched mine, experienced and knowing. I squeezed my eyes tight, sighing into his mouth. For just an instant, Mattie’s face came to mind, and I stiffened. But Phil’s gentle coaxing hands, running down my sides and around my back, shoved him back again. And then Wren disappeared, just like I’d wanted her to. She didn’t think of her pale mother or her tired brother, of her cold and lonely house. I just was.
Soon Phil was tugging me back through the crowd, out of the dark, hot room. His hands spoke of new, different promises. Of what was going to happen if I didn’t say something, anything, to discourage him.
I stayed quiet and let him lead me up the stairs.
I never saw Jensen, seething and black, standing in the shadows of the entryway, watching us go.
* * *
Headlights flashed past as Phil’s truck turned onto my street. Everything was still as the world slept, and my house up ahead was the only one with the lights still on. I was curled up against the door, my eyes heavy and fluttering, and Phil’s hand rested on my thigh. The weight of it bore me down despite the fact that a hand could weigh no more than a pound.
“We’re here,” Phil said softly, his voice loud in the ringing silence. Why didn’t he turn the radio on?
I barely moved other than to push his hand off of me. The spot where it had been resting on my jeans instantly cooled, and I shivered involuntarily in the tiny cab. Phil was silent until I opened the door and slid out.
“I’m glad we did this, Wren,” he said, smiling at me uncertainly. Seeing that smile reminded me of where I had been just a half hour earlier. Rolling around in that strange bed with him, seeing that smile above me. I didn’t return it.
“Wren? Can I call you?” He leaned toward me as I turned away, and now he was frowning. I liked that better.
“I’m tired, Phil.” It was all I could manage. My stomach was twisting inside of me, and I would be lucky if I wasn’t barfing in my toilet later.
“Oh… okay. So, I guess, uh, I’ll talk to you later?”
I began walking up the sidewalk. “Sure.” My feet hit the ground with slow, painful thuds. Phil sat there for only a moment more, then he reached over and shut the passenger door. He didn’t even try to be quiet as he squealed out of our neighborhood. I knew I would probably never hear from him again.
The house was eerily hushed when I opened the front door. The lamps in the living room were still on, Mattie’s signal that he was waiting for me. I looked around for him, feeling my shoulders droop with weariness.
“Did you have fun?” His voice came from the doorway to the kitchen, and I turned around to face him. His smile is so different from Phil’s, I thought faintly. It’s real…
I realized that he was waiting for me to answer. Problem was, Mattie could always tell when I was lying. “The party’s over,” was all I could say. I lifted my eyes, looking at the grandfather clock that had been Dad’s. The glass reflection showed a pale girl with a head of tousled hair and darkened eyes. Her lips were swollen and there were three telling red circles on her neck.
Mattie must have seen that something was wrong instantly. But, curiously, he didn’t approach. Instead, my brother stayed a distance away from me, his tone still friendly. “Whose truck was that?” he asked. “It’s not Jensen’s.”
It was then that I saw his smile was strained, tight. He was clenching his fists, trying not to show how angry he really was. He knows, I thought. He knows about Phil. But, really, how could he not? My brother was no idiot, and my appearance said it all.
“No, it wasn’t Jensen’s.” My voice was flat in contrast to his.
“That’s it?” Mattie took a step toward me, and the soft light from one of the lamps illuminated his face. I took in his familiar features, the beautiful lines taut and furious. His brown eyes burned into mine, demanding answers that I wouldn’t give.
“What else do you want me to say?” I rubbed my eyes and turned away to sit down in the easy chair by the window. I was numb, so numb…
Or maybe dumb would be a better word, I thought dryly. Regret sliced through me. No. I couldn’t regret the choices I’d just made. It was too soon. Let tomorrow be the day for regret. Tonight I wasn’t Wren, and the life she had wasn’t mine.
You may be in hard times, that wearisome conscience murmured. But no one else has Mattie. And look what you’ve done to him.
I did. It was obvious for anyone to see—Mattie was so honest, so straight-forward, it was hard for him to hide anything. I’d hurt him. Hurt him deeply. His jaw jutted out and behind the anger I saw, I knew there was deep, confused pain. Just like mine. And suddenly I knew that what I’d done tonight was just as much for myself as it had been for him.
We’re too close, Mattie, I told him silently, agonizingly. “How did you find out?” I asked instead. I directed my gaze to my jeans and began to pluck at a strong sticking out of the side seam. Then I spotted my sewing, discarded on the floor next to the chair. I hadn’t worked on it for days. I’d been making some gloves for Mattie, in preparation for when winter came.
Mattie laughed, and the sound made me wince. “Besides the truck and the driver? Jensen called to see if you got home okay without him.”
I winced again.
Neither of us said anything else. I didn’t know what I could say. I’m sorry? It wouldn’t be enough. I would take it back if I could? I wasn’t entirely sure if that was true. After another moment of the silent accusation and Mattie’s betrayed expression, I stood from the chair. There was barely an indent from where I’d been sitting, as if I hadn’t been there at all.
“I’m tired. I have to go to bed,” I said. My purse felt as heavy as a boulder when I lifted it from the floor, and I went toward the stairs. I couldn’t look at Mattie again, but he finally moved once he saw that I was serious.
“Wrenny.” It was all he said. Just my name. I thought of Phil earlier that night, the blue lights, his mouth forming that word that meant so much and so little to me: Wren.
I saw Phil heaving over me again, felt his hot breath on my face. I made the choice. Now I had to deal with it. Silly me; I’d needed to feel wanted, had to fill that empty space inside of me that Dad had left. Mom wasn’t the only one he’d left cut and bleeding, and no matter how much Mattie tried to fix us, he couldn’t.
But he must have cuts of his own, I realized for the first time. I turned to face my brother, meet those piercing eyes. Eyes so different from mine. Mattie hid nothing. Why couldn’t he try to pretend, like the rest of us did?
I wondered what he felt. What he thought about Dad leaving. In all the days of the past two years, we’d never talked about it. We’d mentioned it once or twice, of course, but the subject was too sensitive to prod or delve deeper into. Now I wished we had.
And suddenly Mattie was there. He gathered me into his arms, smoothing my hair back like I was a small child. He pressed my face tight against his shoulder—it was what he’d used to do when I fell down or came home from school crying. It was a comfortable place, the hollow of his shoulder, familiar and mine. I pressed closer, and realized with a start that I was crying.
“Why am I such an idiot?” I moaned, tears streaming down my cheeks and soaking Mattie’s shirt. I hadn’t solved anything by what I’d done. Hadn’t severed this bond between Mattie and I, hadn’t forgotten anything about Dad or Mom crying in her room. The pain was still there, threefold now, and nothing had changed. Maybe my mistake had even strengthened what Mattie and I felt, somehow.
“I’ll always be here, Wrenny,” Mattie murmured in my hair.
His words only upset me even more. Here I had betrayed all the trust he’d had in me, deliberately set out to hurt him, and he was comforting me.
I tore away, and Mattie’s arms fell to his sides limply. He stepped away, nodding. “I get it, okay?” he said, his voice hoarse. “I get it.”
No, you don’t, I wanted to rage at him. I don’t even get it.
But I didn’t say any of it. Wiping the remainder of my tears away roughly, I turned my back on him for the third time that night. “I’m going to bed, Mattie,” I said. Was that really my voice? That hard, cold voice?
Yes. It was.
