The Love That Split the World

  “She’s hiding somewhere.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “or somewhen.”

  Alice’s eyes dart to me. “What’d you say?”

  “I just meant she could be hiding in some other time,” I clarify. Alice stands abruptly and shoves a pile of books out of the way, grabs her purse, then heads toward the door. “Where are you going?”

  “Something came up,” she barks. “I’ll see you Thursday for hypnotherapy, okay?”

  “Alice!” I call after her.

  “Thursday!”

  My phone vibrates in my pocket, and I fish it out to see Joyce’s name onscreen. My heart stops, but when I open the message, it’s just a picture of a bundle of flowers with a little note from the coach and Mrs. Gibbons. That’s so nice! I type back while swallowing the latest wave of anxiety. Every new message like that is just one more false alarm, one more reminder that Matt’s life is hanging in the balance and I’m no closer to figuring things out.

  When Beau comes to get me that night, he looks more haggard than I’ve ever seen him. All day I’ve hardly stopped replaying our time together, haven’t stopped counting the seconds until we’re together again, but seeing him now, after a night in the truck and a long day at work, I know these excursions are pushing him too far. He needs rest. “We should take a couple of nights off,” I suggest.

  “All right.” He reaches across the truck to pull me into his lap, awakening an electric current under my skin.

  “That’s not what I mean,” I say, staring down into his parted lips. He starts to kiss my neck, and my breath becomes heavy, my fingers splaying out against his chest. “Beau, you need sleep. And you’re going to have to go home eventually.” It’s not what I want, but it’s what he needs.

  He sighs, sets me back down beside him, and his eyes go to the steering wheel. “I know.” He runs his hand over his mouth and shakes his head. “You’re right. I need to go home.”

  “I’ll miss you,” I say quietly. “Would you come to dinner here tomorrow?”

  He drops his head back against the headrest and lets out a long breath.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Probably not a good idea. Parents don’t like me.”

  “Mine would.” I can’t share everything with them, but I could share Beau. I want to.

  “And what makes you think that?”

  “Because I like you,” I say. He laughs and his face drops, the corners of his eyes crinkling. For a moment, he looks just like a little boy. “Do you like me, Beau?” I tease, shaking his elbow.

  He looks up and knots his arms behind my lower back, easing me against the seat and climbing on top of me. “What do you think?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think,” I say. “It matters what you think.”

  “I’m not good with words, Natalie.”

  “Try.”

  “You remember that night on the football field?” I nod. “I want you more now than I did then, and I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “You like me.”

  “I like you,” he says softly.

  “You want me,” I whisper.

  “Everywhere,” he says, “all the time.”

  It’s the same look he gave me when I asked him what he wanted in the dance studio: serious, almost sad. I reach up to trace the lines of his face, committing each to memory. “I want you too,” I tell him. “Everywhere, all the time.”

  His eyes dip, his arms tighten, and his voice drops into a whisper. “Natalie . . .”

  “You need sleep.”

  “I need you.”

  A momentary battle rages inside my head, and then I make one of those choices that isn’t really a choice. “Let’s go inside,” I say.

  We hurry to get out of the car, leaving it parked on the street, and take off down the dark cul-de-sac, humidity sheening us in sweat by the time we reach the porch. I climb up first to let myself in through the open window, and then turn back. I can’t see Beau in the yard below, so he must already be on the porch railing. I wait for a few seconds of silence, but he doesn’t emerge over the side of the porch roof.

  “Beau?” I hiss into the night, disrupting the cricket song. I listen for an answer, but none comes. After the longest minute of my life, I scramble back onto the porch roof to see what’s taking so long. I lean out over the ledge and gaze down into the yard, but I find no sign of him. “Beau,” I whisper again, a bit louder.

  No response but the hoot of an owl.

  I scurry back down to the porch railing and drop down into the yard, scanning the cul-de-sac. “Beau?” I say again, louder still. My heart is wild. Something’s wrong.

  He must’ve slipped back into his world.

  I jog up the street to the curb where he left his truck, but it’s gone. I spin in place, searching for any of the flickers of change that have become my norm. “Beau,” I call again. “Beau.”

  I close my eyes and try to grasp at the fragments of song drifting through my mind.

  I feel nothing. Hear nothing.

  “There once were four ghosts,” Grandmother said, “and they lived in four houses beneath the ground, each one deeper than the last.

  “There was a woman from a nearby tribe, whose father had died, and she went to his grave and lay on it and wept for four days. But on the fourth day, she heard a voice from below the earth. ‘Crying woman,’ the voice said, ‘Come downward.’

  “So she jumped up and followed the voice of the ghost downward through the earth until she reached a house called Hemlock-Leaves-on-Back. She went inside and saw there an old woman in the corner, near the fire. The old woman said, ‘Sit down and eat.’ Then she passed the crying woman dried salmon.

  “But before the crying woman could take the food, another person came in and led her to the next house below, Maggots-on-Bark-on-Ground. Here again she saw an old woman beside a fire, who appeared identical to the woman in the first house. This old woman also offered the crying woman something to eat, and again, before the crying woman could take it, another guide appeared and said, ‘Come to the house of the Place-of-Mouth-Showing-on-Ground,’ and the crying woman followed.

  “As before, she saw an identical old woman preparing meat beside the fire. As before, the crying woman was interrupted by another guide before she could take the food. ‘Come to Place-of-Never-Return,’ the guide said, and led the crying woman deeper into the earth and to the next house.

  “When she entered this time, though, the crying woman saw her father sitting beside the fire, and he became angry at the sight of her. ‘Why have you come here?’ he shouted at her. ‘Whoever enters the first three houses may return, but from this place there is no return! Do not accept the food of the ghosts, and return home at once! We will sing, so the tribe will hear and come for you.’

  “Her father called to the guide who had brought the crying woman there and begged that he return her at once to the land of the living. And so the guide carried her back up to the grave tree on a board, where she lay like one dead, and he sang as her father had said, and the tribe heard the song and came to the tree where the man was buried. But though they saw the board and heard the singing voice, the people could not see the girl lying beneath the tree.”

  I waited for a long time, though by then, I was fifteen and knew one of Grandmother’s endings when I heard one. “That’s it?” I said finally.

  “That’s it,” she told me.

  I sat in bed, turning the story over in my mind, trying to make sense of it. Several times I thought I’d caught the meaning, but then it would slip away again. “Sometimes,” I told her, “when you tell these stories, I feel them.”

  “How so?” she asked, narrowing her dark eyes.

  “Like, I almost remember them. Like they happened to me. Like they’re more real than my actual life, only I can’t quite pin them down. Does that make any sense
?”

  “No,” she said bluntly. “But I know what you mean. I feel that too.”

  “The world doesn’t feel right,” I said, yawning. Sleep was overtaking me, and my mind began to chatter half-formed thoughts, things I couldn’t fully understand.

  “We’re hostages, Natalie,” Grandmother said softly.

  “Hostages?”

  “We’re living on our own land, but it’ll never be ours again. We answer to a government that doesn’t acknowledge that we’re many nations—nations they bought from people who had no right to the land in the first place. We’re surrounded by people who forget we exist except when they read about our downfall in their history books, as if we aren’t still here, occupied, waiting for an ending that, after five hundred years, we know will never come. Trying to learn how to live in and belong to two worlds at once. There’s a separation between us and everything around us. We can’t get close enough to it, no matter how hard we try. You and I, we feel that distance every moment of every day. In a way, we’re ghosts already. These stories are the thread that connects us to the world that came before us, a world we’ll never see but always dream about.”

  “Well, that’s a cheery outlook.”

  She shrugged. “Sometimes the most beautiful moments in our lives are things that hurt badly at the time. We only see them for what they really were when we stand at the very end and look back.”

  “You’re particularly cryptic tonight,” I said.

  “I feel particularly old tonight, Natalie. Age makes one think.”

  “About?”

  After a long pause, she said, “Regret.”

  I watched her eyes glaze over in thought. “Grandmother?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Do you know my mother?” I asked. “My biological one, I mean.”

  “Of course,” she said. “I know everyone you know, and many people you don’t.”

  I steeled myself before asking, “Do you know . . . why?”

  Grandmother fixed her eyes on me and rubbed at her chin. “Why she left you?”

  I nodded.

  “I understand her decision as well as she does, but these things are rarely simple.”

  “She was young.”

  Grandmother nodded. “And poor.”

  “And unhappy.”

  “Very,” Grandmother said.

  “Will I ever meet her?” I asked. “Does she think about me?”

  “She thinks about you every day,” Grandmother assured me. “And someday, you may very well meet her.”

  “But you can’t say for sure?”

  Grandmother hesitated, then shook her head. “The future’s rarely certain, Natalie. All we ever have is the present.”

  But my present might already be over. He could be trapped in my past.

  Beau doesn’t show up for dinner. My calls don’t reach him, and he doesn’t come to take me to the studio either, so I lie in bed and worry. To make matters worse, Joyce Kincaid just sent me a picture of Matt in his hospital bed, and, for one millisecond, I think she’s telling me he’s awake until I see her caption: Thought you might miss seeing his face.

  I don’t. Maybe I should, but there’s nothing comforting to me about Matt’s pale skin or the tubes in his nose or the bruising along his temple. Every time I close my eyes, the image resurges until, despite my fatigue, I get out of bed and pace.

  I hate driving at night, probably because of both my nightmares and my steadfast conviction that a murderer’s hiding in the backseat, but I grit my teeth and decide to drive to NKU anyway.

  I navigate my way through the unlit building to our studio and force myself to stretch quickly, straining my mind for the sounds of Beau’s fingers settling against the piano keys. He’s here. I know he’s here. I can almost feel him. I close my eyes and try to catch his smell in the air, the twang of his voice, the line of his shoulders.

  But I can’t. He’s here, but we’re separated by worlds, and it feels so wrong—I’m so terrified it could be permanent—I can’t take being here any longer, and I head home, heart thumping like a jackhammer and breaths coming spastically all the way there.

  When I tell Alice in Thursday’s session about Beau’s disappearance, all I can get out of her is one of her infuriating hmms.

  “Hmm what?” I press.

  She shrugs. “Honestly, I hesitate to say too much. We should let this work itself out before we panic.”

  But I know what she’s not saying. What if I’ve had my Closing? What if Beau’s had his Closing?

  Friday comes, and Mom and Dad have the rental minivan fully packed. All that’s left is to say our goodbyes before I go settle in to Megan’s old bedroom. Mom and Dad want to follow me over, to talk to Megan’s parents and make sure I have everything I need, but Jack and Coco opt to stay behind at the house and wait for them to get back, so I give them each a hug in the kitchen.

  Gus is intensely whiny, stressed by the commotion of packing—a sure sign that he’s about to get dropped off at the “doggy motel.” I kneel down and wrap my arms around his tree-trunk neck, nestling my face into his downy fur. “Be good,” I tell him, then stand up and face the twins.

  “Keep me updated, okay?” Coco says. “About Matt and everything.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Though to be honest, you could probably get more news from Abby.” Coco’s gaze falls, and I can tell something’s wrong. I glance around to see if Mom or Dad is eavesdropping then drag Coco down the hall by the elbow. “What’s going on? Abby didn’t like the body spray? Probably should’ve gone with edible body glitter.”

  She sighs. “It’s nothing.”

  “Coco, tell me.”

  “She’s a bitch, okay? She’s awful.”

  “Your best friend?”

  Coco shakes her leg impatiently. “She’s just . . . she said some things.”

  “Things?”

  “Stupid, bitchy things.”

  “Coco, if someone’s bullying you—”

  “They weren’t about me,” she interrupts, and the situation slowly crystallizes for me. “She said Matt’s accident was your fault. She doesn’t even think that. I know she doesn’t, but she was saying it to some of the juniors to—I don’t know—impress them.”

  I glance toward the living room, where Jack’s sprawled on the couch staring into space. “And Jack’s fight?” Coco nods once slowly. My vision starts to splotch, and I dig the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. “You guys don’t need to get into fights or end friendships over all this.”

  Coco crosses her arms. “You don’t get it. Abby’s changing, or maybe I am. Either way, I’m so done with this gossipy little school. And it’s even worse for Jack—and no, not just because of you and Matt.”

  “Coco . . . you just told Mom and Dad you wanted to stay at Ryle.”

  In a rare moment for Coco, her eyes betray the hint of tears. She shakes her head until they subside. “Jack,” she musters.

  “You ready?” Mom appears at the end of the hallway, clapping her hands together, and Coco’s eyes shoot me the don’t tell look as she discreetly shakes her head.

  “Let me get my bags from upstairs,” I stammer, and Mom gives us a suspicious look before heading back into the kitchen. I pull Coco into a tight hug. “You fit here. You and Jack fit with me,” I whisper. “I should’ve been there for you, and when you get back . . .” She nods, and I peer down the hall at Jack again. Mom’s buzzing past him back and forth, checking for everything she could’ve forgotten. I decide to risk furthering her suspicions and go sit beside him. “Hey.”

  “Hi,” he mumbles.

  I lower my voice. “Remember when I was the worst?”

  His eyebrows flick up, and he struggles against a smile. “When was that?”

  “At least all summer,” I say, “but possibly longer.”

  He fi
nally looks at me, and despite the way his chubby cheeks have started to hollow after his recent six-inch growth spurt, he is unmistakably a stretched-out version of my baby brother. Coco’s always been the more assertive leader of the two, and it surprises me to see goofy, laid-back, go-with-the-flow Jack looking so grown up and downtrodden.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly.

  “For?”

  I look over my shoulder to watch Mom slip into the laundry room. “Coco told me about the fight.”

  He rolls his eyes and sighs in annoyance as he cranes his neck to look for Coco. “Jack, it’s fine. I won’t tell Mom and Dad. I just wanted you to know that . . . you’re wonderful, and I love you, and I don’t want you to pick or finish fights on my behalf, and I’m sorry I haven’t been around much, and also you were wrong about the carburetor, so there’s that.”

  Jack snorts a laugh. “You’re weird.”

  “Are you sure? Because no one’s ever told me that before.”

  “And you’re not the worst.”

  “Likewise,” I say. “You’re very not the worst.”

  I stand to go, but when I walk behind the couch, a sharp lift in my abdomen doubles me over, and when I cut my eyes back to Jack, he’s gone. The house is dark, the windows along the deck a glare-ridden midnight blue, and a soft yellow circle glows on the kitchen table, just under the hanging stained glass lamp over its center. I feel swayed by a slow motion, like the world’s swirling around me at half-speed.

  My mom sits at the end of the table alone, her face pressed into her hands and her shoulders shaking. She pulls her feet up onto the chair and hugs her legs to her chest, letting her forehead dip against her knees. She looks young, a lot younger really, or at least like she’s dyed her hair.

  Oh, God. Why is she crying? Who is she crying for?

  I don’t want to see this. I can’t. I stumble backward down the hall and run up the stairs, time jolting back into place as I push back my bedroom door to find my hideous Raider staring at me from behind one eye patch. The floor is bare, apart from the cardboard boxes stacked in the corner, but I still feel too crowded to breathe.