Swear on This Life

“Okay.” I put an extra bounce in my step as I left the room, hoping Brian wouldn’t see how totally heartbroken I was that he didn’t try to kiss me. I guess that would have been pretty wrong for a guy his age.

  In the living room, Jax was asleep on the couch. I put a blanket over him, and he stirred.

  “What are you doing?” he murmured.

  “I’m leaving. I just wanted to put a blanket over you,” I said.

  He popped up to his feet, suddenly awake. “I’ll walk you.”

  “Next door, doofus? You don’t have to walk me.”

  “I want to.”

  He yawned about five times on our thirty-yard trek. At the doorstep, he shoved his hands into his pockets.

  “Tomorrow’s Saturday.”

  “Yeah?” I said.

  “You wanna play explorers out on the rocks?”

  “That’s kind of a kids’ game, don’t you think, Jax?”

  “Oh, right,” he said. “Well, you wanna go read by the river? My mom picked up some new books from the library for me.”

  “Maybe. I have to see how I feel.”

  “Of course,” he said through a yawn.

  “I better go.” I searched his eyes for a sign.

  He just smiled, unaware. Jax wasn’t where I was emotionally or physically, and I was too young for Brian. Damn. “Night, Em.”

  “Night, Jax.”

  My house was dark, and my father and Susan were passed out in their underwear on the living room floor. I had a bag of granola bars, some Fruit Roll-Ups, a package of maxi pads, and a worn-out copy of Tuck Everlasting. I went into my bedroom and stared at myself in the mirror behind my door.

  For the first time, I noticed that my hips were wider and my breasts were finally larger than peanuts. I was a woman. That was the moment I started hating my mother. Even though it had been a couple of years since she’d left, the pain of her absence was searing. I had never felt her abandonment as sharply as I did the day I became a woman. Maybe it was Leila’s flawed attempt at kindness that made me miss the tenderness of a mother. My own had been kind and gentle when she was around, but she couldn’t handle the life she’d been given. Burned bread in the oven would send her into a fit of tears. I didn’t know where she’d gone, and I didn’t know any of her extended family or if she even had family. She had just vanished one day, and there was little impression of her left in our home . . . almost like she had never existed.

  3. I’m Running

  By one p.m., I had to stop reading. Frankly, I was drunk, emotional, and torn.

  It was strange how Jase knew how I had felt toward my mother. Then again, he had been my best friend. I had told him everything. And he’d used all of that to create an emotional landscape that was strangely true to everything I remembered. The only difference was that Emerson was introspective at a young age, and I wasn’t so much. Things were happening to me back then, but only now, after reading a few chapters of Jase’s book, did I realize how I had really felt as a kid. He must have been so tuned in to me to realize I had a crush on his brother. He’d just sat there watching, taking it all in.

  If I felt a tiny bit of forgiveness toward Jase, it vanished the moment I remembered that here he was making money off this story. My story. He had beaten me to the punch.

  I curled up on my bed, too emotionally drained to do anything else, and fell asleep.

  I WOKE UP later that evening to the sounds of Trevor and Cara making small talk in the kitchen. I put on my running gear, left my bedroom, and headed for the front door, ignoring Trevor as he stared me down from behind the kitchen counter.

  “Where are you going?” he asked.

  “For a run,” I replied. “Want to join?”

  I noticed Cara sneak off to her bedroom behind me without saying a word. Trevor and I had fallen into the habit of making people around us feel uncomfortable. I knew we were giving off weird vibes.

  “I just had PT and my arm is killing me,” he said.

  “You don’t use your arms to run.” I stood near the door with my hand on the knob.

  “Yeah, actually, you do. Hey, will you turn around and look at me?”

  I turned and leaned against the door. “What, Trevor?”

  “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing is going on. I just want to go for a run.”

  He laughed drily. “You have no idea how typical this is of you.”

  “Do you want to start tossing insults at each other the moment we’re in a room together? Didn’t you just get here? I didn’t even know you were coming over.” He shook his head as if I were an awful person. I took a deep breath and softened my voice. “Isn’t there a game on? I’ll go for a run and get takeout and be back in a bit. You can hang out here. When I get back, we can eat and watch the game together. How does that sound?” Was it weird that I had never told him I didn’t enjoy watching football, even when he was the quarterback?

  “That’s fine,” he said. He plopped down on the couch and turned the TV on.

  I ran to the cove. The children’s pool, as they called it, was formed by a wall that was originally built to break the waves and create a safe swimming environment for small children. But it was roped off halfway up the beach because about two hundred seals had made it their home. I sat on the steps going down to the pool, letting the cold breeze whip through my hair. There were no people here, only seals loafing on the sand. It was exactly what I needed.

  I typed Jase’s website into my phone and scanned it for details once again.

  J. Colby lived in L.A., but he was currently on a book tour. There was a menu page for his tour dates and cities. I clicked the page link, and lo and behold, I discovered he was going to be in San Diego the day after tomorrow. “Are you fucking kidding me?” I said out loud. One of the seals looked up and barked at me. “Sorry!”

  This was all too coincidental.

  I stood up, jogged up the stairs, and took off running. By the time I was out of fuel, it was dark and I was sweating profusely in the cold air, breathing so hard I knew I had to stop. I walked to a taco shop, picked up food, and headed back to my apartment, where I was grateful to see Trevor asleep on the couch with some football game blaring in the background.

  I knocked lightly on Cara’s bedroom door. “Come in,” she said.

  She was sitting at her desk, typing away on her laptop, as per usual. She was nothing if not a dedicated writer. I stood in the doorway and kept my voice down so as not to wake up Trevor. “How’s it going?” I asked.

  She smiled. “Good. I wrote a lot today. What about you? How are you? You seemed a bit loony this morning.”

  “I’m okay. Sorry about that thing with Trevor earlier.”

  “No biggie. Are you still reading that book?”

  I nodded.

  “That fucking author’s hot,” she said. “I’ve been internet stalking him.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, he is.”

  “You googled him too?” she said, smiling.

  “Uh, yep. Uh-huh.”

  “He’s going to be in San Diego the day after tomorrow.”

  “I saw that,” I said.

  “Let’s go meet him and get the book signed.” Her face turned bright red.

  “I don’t know. You can go.” Time to change the subject. “Hey, I left some tacos on the counter. I think I’m going to bed. I don’t feel great.”

  “Oh, okay. Should I just leave Trevor out there?”

  “He’s fine,” I said, and then I went into my room, shut the door, and cracked the book open again.

  From All the Roads Between

  At the kitchen table the next morning, I watched as my dad poured whiskey into his coffee. “Did Susan leave?” I asked.

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I was just wondering.”

  “Yeah, she left.”

  “Is she your girlfriend?”

  “Mind your business, Emerson.”

  I was feeling bold that morning. Maybe because I was a woman now and I felt l
ike I needed answers. “Where’d Mom go?”

  He sat down next to me and took a deep breath. For a moment I thought we were going to have a heart-to-heart. I stared at a large brown stain on his white T-shirt as I waited for his answer.

  “Your mother’s a fucking whore.”

  I glanced down at my fidgeting hands underneath the table. He grabbed the whiskey bottle, poured a healthier dose into his coffee, and then slammed it on the table. “Did you hear me?! I said your mother’s a fucking whore!”

  “I heard you!” I yelled. I stood and kicked my chair out. He gripped my arm so hard that it forced me to sit back down.

  “I’m not done,” he seethed through gritted teeth.

  “Dad, please.”

  “She’s Satan.”

  “You’re being irrational.”

  “Big word for a twelve-year-old.” I couldn’t take my eyes off the disgusting wad of spittle forming in the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m thirteen.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since today. Today is my birthday, Dad.” He let go of my arm. There was nothing he could say to me because he didn’t know how to be a human anymore. He couldn’t be kind because it hurt him more than it hurt me. I could see confusion and guilt in his eyes. Good, feel like shit, you bastard. You deserve it.

  I slithered away quietly and went into my room and cried. The tears turned hot with anger, and soon I found myself packing a bag. I would ask Leila if she’d take me in. She’d said she’d always wanted a daughter. I could go live with them and cook and clean and help her take care of Jax and Brian.

  I took extra time to make my hair look nice. I found light pink lipstick and blush in an old box of random things I had tried to preserve of my mother’s. I painted my face with her cheap shit. I cursed her in the mirror. I studied my big brown eyes, so like hers, and wondered if I would fail at life the way she had. I put on the flowered dress she had bought at a resale shop over two years ago, just before she left. She called it my “church” dress, even though there was no sign of god in any of our lives. It finally fit me right. I had breasts, albeit small ones, but enough to fill it out. I had secretly started shaving my legs with my dad’s razor, so when I looked in the mirror that day, I saw no sign of the little girl I once was. I would end my nightmare right there because I knew Brian would fall in love with me the moment he saw me. I was convinced. He would marry me and take me all over the world on tour with him. We would buy a house for Jax and Leila to live in, and we would visit them all the time. We would be rich and everything would be fine. My nightmare would be over because I would become a Fisher and leave this hell behind.

  My father was in the bathroom when I snuck out the side door. Jax was sitting on the fence in my front yard.

  I strutted up to him. “Is your mom home?”

  Jax wrinkled his nose. “Why are you dressed like that, and why do you have that stuff on your face?”

  I shrugged. “None of your business. What are you doing over here?”

  “Forget it. You’re clearly still in a bad mood.” He picked something up off the ground and started to walk away.

  “Wait. What is that?”

  “Nothing!”

  “Come here, hold on,” I pleaded.

  He turned around abruptly and held up a package wrapped in brown paper. “It’s for you, for your birthday.”

  “I’m sorry, Jax. I didn’t know.”

  “Whatever. You should be nicer to me.” He handed the present over but kept his eyes glued to the ground as he mumbled, “Happy Birthday, Em.”

  With my index finger under his chin, I forced him to look at me. I smiled and he smiled back. “Jackson Fisher, how’d you get so great?”

  “I thought I was the most obnoxious boy in the world? That’s what you told me last week.”

  “I know, and I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m a woman now, Jax. I have emotions, okay? You’re not obnoxious today.” I unwrapped the package to reveal a hardcover edition of Anne of Green Gables, my favorite book of all time. “Today, you’re freaking awesome.” I hugged him quickly and awkwardly. “Where did you get this?”

  “I won it in the book fair drawing at school.”

  “And you’re giving it to me?”

  “I want you to have it.”

  “Thank you.” I ran my hand over the cover and thought idly that it was the only gift I had been given in over a year, aside from hotel soap and cheeseburgers.

  “What’s the bag for?”

  “I was gonna see if I could stay with you guys for a while.”

  “Oh . . . okay,” he said. “Let’s go talk to my mom.”

  “Is Brian home?” I asked.

  “His car is here. He’s probably in his room. Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering. Let’s go talk to your mom.” We went into the house, and I set my bag down in their kitchen and followed Jax down the hall. Brian’s door was cracked, so I pushed it open gently, hoping it would look like an accident. I wanted Brian to see me, but his room was empty. Walking behind Jax, I said, “Your brother’s not in there.”

  He backed up and peeked in. “Bri!” he yelled. No answer.

  “Keep it down!” Leila yelled from her bedroom.

  “I don’t know where he is,” Jax said.

  We went to Leila’s room, where she was curled up on her side at the foot of the bed.

  I stood behind Jackson. “You okay, Mom?”

  “Fine,” she said groggily.

  “Can Em stay here for a while? Her dad’s being kind of a jerk.”

  I hadn’t even told him that, but he knew.

  Leila squinted and then sat up and glared at me. “You’re twelve years old.”

  “Thirteen,” Jax answered for me.

  “You can stay here today. Eat what you want, but you have to go home tonight. You’ll get over it with your dad,” she said, before lying back down.

  “Okay, thank you.” It would be good enough for now.

  We left her room. “Let’s find your brother. Maybe he can teach us how to play the guitar.”

  “I know how to play a little, Em,” Jax said in a clipped tone. I followed him into Brian’s room, but the guitar was gone. “It’s not in here. He’s probably down at the river with his girlfriend.”

  I tried not to think about Brian’s girlfriend as a rule. “Blah,” I said out loud.

  “Let’s go play outside,” Jax said. “I mean . . . hang out,” he corrected himself.

  “’Kay.”

  We meandered our way toward the river, mostly silent until we got to the shore. Neither of us was in a particularly playful mood.

  “Hey, there’s your brother’s guitar,” I said, pointing to his acoustic guitar lying on the ground. My heart raced with the anticipation of seeing Brian.

  We walked toward it, and I noticed Jackson stiffen up. “Bri!” he yelled. “Where the fuck is he? he mumbled. “Brian!” he yelled again.

  “Brian!” I shouted.

  We ran up and down the shore. I wasn’t sure what was making Jax panic, but the longer we shouted, the more I realized that something was wrong. Why would Brian’s guitar be lying there on the ground all alone? He loved that thing; he wouldn’t just leave it unattended. He would at least be nearby. And yet he wasn’t answering our shouts . . .

  I followed Jax as he ran through the trees to get to the footbridge, where we could cross. The whole time we were running, Jackson was shouting Brian’s name. As soon as we got to the clearing that led to the footbridge, we climbed down a little ravine where the mud met the water.

  That’s where we were struck by the most horrifying sight—an image that will never, ever leave my mind.

  “No!” Jackson’s cry was unprocessed, unfiltered, like a child’s. “No!” he screamed again.

  “Oh god, oh god, oh god,” I repeated over and over, but there was no god to help save Brian. His bloated body was facedown, floating near the shore.

  “No! No! No!” Jax kept shouting
as he moved closer to Brian’s body, reaching his arms out to grab him.

  “Don’t touch him,” I said. “You can’t help him.”

  He turned to me instantly and fell into my arms. I held him as we cried together. “That’s my brother.” Jackson sobbed. “That’s my brother, isn’t it? He’s dead, isn’t he?”

  We didn’t need to flip his body over to see his face. We recognized the hair, the clothes. We had seen the guitar on the ground. “Yes,” I choked out.

  “What happened?” Jax screamed into my chest.

  I tried not to look at Brian floating behind Jax. I held him as he sobbed and sobbed. I was doing nothing, but I was doing everything at the same time, and I could feel it in how fervently he held me back.

  I knew we had to get up to the house and tell Leila and call the police. I led Jackson back to the house while he continued to cry, nonstop. I went into his kitchen and dialed 911.

  The emergency operator picked up. “Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”

  “My friend’s brother is dead in the creek,” I said flatly.

  The rest of the conversation was a blur. Jackson was still crying audibly next to me. When I hung up the phone, we both turned around and saw Leila standing at the end of the hallway. She hadn’t made a noise. She had heard the conversation, but she was clearly in shock.

  She looked at me and then back at Jax a few times before starting to cry. “Is it true?” she squeaked out.

  “Yes,” Jax whimpered.

  “The ambulance will be here as soon as they can,” I said quietly.

  Leila dropped to her knees and pounded her fists on the floor. “No!” She made a bloodcurdling sound and then fell into a pile, screaming, crying, and writhing like she was being burned alive. That’s how I imagined losing a child would feel . . . maybe even worse.

  Jax and I held each other again as he continued sobbing.

  My mother had taken off, and his father had done the same, but neither one of us had ever faced the reality of death in this way. At that age, you don’t have a full grasp on mortality until you see the body of a healthy man you spoke to mere hours ago floating in the water, facedown, tethered by a broken branch to the shore, like a dead animal.