I’ll Meet You There

  “Screw you.”

  “Dammit, Sky, come on. How many?”

  “Three.”

  “Okay,” he said to himself. “Okay, good.”

  He gently ran his hands along my arms, his fingers pushing into the bones. “Does this hurt?”

  I shook my head—bad idea. “Whoa,” I said, tilting to the side.

  He reached out for me and wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I remembered the feel of his bare chest and how he’d shivered a little when I’d undone the buttons of his shirt. I looked at him now, wearing a faded Marines T-shirt and a pair of basketball shorts. It looked like he hadn’t shaved in days, and my fingers reached up, without my permission, to stroke the hair on his cheek. He closed his eyes and swallowed.

  “Why did you call me?” I whispered.

  His pretty pretty pretty Mitchell eyes opened, then looked away from mine before he said, “I needed … I mean, I thought—” He stopped and ran his finger over my forehead, frowning. I winced.

  “You’ve got a big bump here,” he said.

  “I hit the steering wheel when I went over.”

  “We’ve gotta get you to a doctor. You might have a concussion.”

  I pushed him off me. “Can’t. I don’t have insurance. I’m fine, it’s just a—”

  “I have money. I’ll pay the—”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t want your money. I don’t want—” I clutched at my stomach and shoved my other hand over my mouth. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  I limped-ran over to the ditch and slammed to my knees. Josh was right behind me, and I put out a hand, waving him off.

  “Go away, Josh,” I said through clenched teeth. I was getting that feeling in the back of my throat, and I knew I was seconds away from throwing up all that whiskey.

  I felt his fingers in my hair, gathering it up, and I couldn’t wait any longer, couldn’t yell at him again. I opened my mouth and retched.

  It felt like everything I’d ever consumed in my entire life was coming out of my stomach. I could hear Josh’s murmurs, but I didn’t know what he was saying. I felt like I was going to die. I couldn’t remember ever having been that sick. When it was over, he pulled me to my feet and led me over to the truck. His arm was around my shoulders again, and as he held me to him, I kept stumbling; once I stepped on his fake foot.

  “I’m sorry,” I whispered, over and over.

  “Shhh, it’s okay,” he said.

  He gave me some Subway napkins, which made me sad because we’d gone there together. Then he handed me a bottle of water and turned away to call someone while I tried to clean up.

  I was leaning against his truck, my eyes closed, when I heard him walk up to me.

  “Blake’s gonna come out with the tow truck and get the car. I’ll take you to Marge and then come back and help him, okay?”

  I opened my eyes. “Why’d you call me?” I said again.

  He hadn’t answered the first time. I didn’t know whether it was the alcohol or if I had finally given up lying to myself, but seeing him, being near enough to smell his Old Spice—I loved him. I didn’t want to. Had to stop. But I loved him.

  “Doesn’t matter,” he said. He reached past me and opened the door. “Let’s get you home.”

  He picked me up before I could protest, and I grasped at his shoulders, the world spinning wildly. Please don’t let me throw up on him. Please, God, please.

  “I’ve got you,” he said. “Don’t worry.”

  I’ve got you.

  For a second we were cheek to cheek, and I thought of dancing at Leo’s and lying in the bed of his truck and how he’d kissed me by the creek.

  “Josh,” I whispered.

  I had to tell him we were like a collage. Pieces that could be put back together in a new way, a better way. If I didn’t say it now, I never would.

  “Yeah?” His voice was low, rough.

  Then I blacked out.

  JOSH

  Hannah called me. Your Hannah. Said she got my number from one of the guys in the unit. She started crying right away and it made me think of how you said she always cried whenever you guys talked on Skype. And how you’d spend half the time trying to convince her you weren’t going to die. You were everything, everything to someone, so why the fuck am I still here? Don’t even know why I wanted to check around the corner of that fucking hut—did I hear a noise or was I bored? Maybe I wanted to take a piss, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t fucking know. And your Hannah. She wanted to know. All of it. Details. And I cried too and she was telling me, telling ME, it was okay and that you loved me and she was so happy we were together when it happened because she said she couldn’t have handled the thought of you being alone or with some of the guys that got under your skin. And when I told her … when I told her how you’d gotten her a ring she just fucking lost it. Said your mom had seen it in … in the stuff the Marines gave her. Your personal effects. And it was so hard, man, it was so hard but I told her your plan and how you were gonna ask her and she got really quiet and it was like, it felt like you were there. In that moment. Were you? Three weeks. Three goddamn weeks and you would have been able to put that ring on her finger. I hung up with Hannah and I didn’t even think, just started dialing Sky’s number. I needed to hear her voice because everything was getting dark in me and she’s the only light I’ve found since all this shit happened. I just thought, if she would answer, if she would answer, maybe I could, I don’t know, just tell her in the right way why I was so messed up. But me calling nearly got her killed and it’s like God’s saying, Stay the fuck away from her, Josh. And I have this, all this stuff inside me—what happened and now Hannah’s voice and the dreams and how I hurt Skylar so bad she got drunk and I can’t do it anymore. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t, I—

  chapter twenty-nine

  Everything hurt. Even my fingernails. The sun was driving stakes into my eyes, and my head … oh, God, my head. Picture me in Edvard Munch’s The Scream, and you’ll have the right idea.

  “Time to wake up, Sleeping Beauty.” Marge pulled open the curtains, and I let out a shriek.

  She grabbed the pillow I was trying to put over my eyes. “Nope. Time to join the living.”

  I heard her walk across the room, then the sound of the shower being turned on. I was pretty sure something had died in my mouth, and my throat was raw, like I’d been screaming or something.

  I felt strong arms around me and then I was standing. I forced my eyes open and gave Marge a bleary glare.

  “I can’t.”

  She nodded. “Yes, you can. Let’s go.”

  Marge pulled me to the bathroom, then went back out into my bedroom. “I have a hangover cure at the pool, when you’re ready. I called in for you at the gas station, but don’t even think of going back into that bed.”

  I grunted and pulled off the clothes I’d been wearing the night before and left them in a dirty pile on the linoleum. The hot shower pounded my skin, and I stood under it for a long time. The night came back to me in flashes: the whiskey bottle, my car in the ditch, someone holding back my hair while I barfed. Who was—

  Then I remembered.

  “Fuck.”

  I sat down in the bathtub and let the water pummel me. It was too hot, but I wanted it to burn. I deserved it.

  How could I have gotten in a car after what had happened to my dad? I could have died. Worse, I could have killed someone else. I stared at my hands, raw and bright red from the hot water. I had no idea who they belonged to.

  It took me forty-five minutes to shower, brush my teeth three times, and put on clean clothes. My bones felt like someone had tried to grind them into dust. I never knew you could hit rock bottom so literally.

  I pushed on my sunglasses and stepped outside. I had to cover my eyes as I made my way over to the pool—the sun was so blinding. From where it was in the sky, I could tell we were well into the afternoon. I could see Marge between my fingers, sitting at her favorite table with the
large umbrella over it.

  “Well, sweet pea, you really screwed up, didn’t you?” she said.

  I’d pieced enough of the night together in my head to know that I had become the world’s biggest hypocrite.

  “Marge, I—” My voice broke.

  She looked at me over her John Lennon sunglasses. “You remember.”

  “Enough,” I whispered.

  “Good.” Then she patted the chair next to her. “Some people get second chances,” she said. “I know you won’t waste it.”

  I wasn’t so sure. My judgment had become seriously impaired since I’d graduated high school.

  She pushed a glass of thick red juice across the table. “Hangover cure.”

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “V8.” She held up a white bag. “And crackers.”

  I swallowed the bile that was tickling the back of my throat. “I’m good, thanks.”

  “Sit. Drink. Eat. Now.”

  I groaned as I lowered myself into the chair next to her, then I held the glass up and took a tentative sniff. “Blended brains?” I asked, with a grimace.

  Marge glowered, so I plugged my nose and drank. She nodded and handed me two white pills. “Excedrin,” she said.

  I popped the pills and finished off the juice. She opened the crackers, and I put up a hand to ward them off.

  “You’ll regret it if you don’t,” she said.

  I couldn’t imagine feeling any worse, like ever, but I took a cracker and nibbled on it.

  “Josh?” I asked.

  “He took really good care of you, Sky.”

  So much of last night was a blur, but bits and pieces were coming back to me. The fear in Josh’s eyes when he first saw me, the way he’d picked me up to put me in the truck.

  “Did he yell at a doctor?” I asked. I had flashes of the ER and Josh getting in someone’s face.

  Marge chuckled. “Yeah. They wanted us to wait for over an hour, and he pulled rank, so to speak.” She looked over at me and patted my hand. “You don’t have to fight it, you know.”

  I finished the cracker and leaned back in the chair, closing my eyes. “Fight what?”

  “It’s not every day you get to watch the two people you care most about in the world fall in love.”

  I moved my head—too quickly—to glare at her. The patio flipped upside down, and I held my stomach, clenching my teeth as the V8 threatened to come back up.

  “That’s not exactly what’s been happening,” I said.

  “Sky. Give me a little credit. Just because I’m old doesn’t mean I’m blind. That’s exactly what’s been happening.”

  I looked at the freckles on the back of my hands, tried to find constellations in them. “He really hurt me,” I said.

  “I know.” She sighed. “After Josh finished getting your car out of that ditch—”

  “Oh, God, the car.” I’d actually forgotten about it.

  “—he told me what happened between the two of you. I’m really sorry about that, sweet pea. You must be pretty cut up about that Swenson girl.”

  Just hearing her name made me want to go on a rampage. Real violence, maybe with machetes.

  I grabbed another cracker and focused on scratching the salt crystals off it while Marge looked at me in a shrinkish kind of way.

  “You up for a little walk in the orchard?”

  I was up for lying down and dying, but I followed her through the back gate and into the orchard behind the Paradise. Marge hooked her arm through mine, and we stepped over weeds and tree roots until we got to the neatly raked paths between the trees. The shade protected us from the heat, and for a while we just walked under the small green apples that clung to the branches above us. The sun felt good, for once, and a hot breeze whipped around our ankles and tossed our hair. The Excedrin was kicking in, and I started to feel a little more human.

  I tilted my head back and looked at the dusty green leaves dangling above me. I felt like I was in another world, a planet of trees. I drew closer to her as we walked and laid my head on her thick shoulder. Marge rested a hand against my hair for a moment. We kept walking to the sound of her labored breath and hundreds of trees shaking in the wind—all of them whispering, pleading, crying.

  “Josh said he told you about my son.”

  “Yeah.” I looked up at her, frowning. “I hope that was okay.”

  She smiled her sad smile. “Of course, sweet pea. I could only tell the story once, and Josh was the one who needed to hear it. But I’m glad you know.”

  Marge sighed, and the sound was so lonesome.

  “When he came home, Kyle wasn’t himself,” she said. “I’m guessing Josh isn’t always himself, either.”

  “I don’t even know who Josh is,” I said.

  There were three Joshes: the asshole from high school, the gentle, generous guy who wanted to protect me, and the soldier who would forget where he was, staring off into space, lost in a country thousands of miles away. I still had no idea which was the real Josh—or was he all three?

  “He doesn’t know either.” She stopped and faced me. “Have you ever thought that maybe you’re helping him figure that out?”

  I shook my head. “No. And I don’t want to. I can’t…” My eyes filled, and I turned away.

  “You’re so young,” Marge said. “Both of you. But you have old hearts.”

  I think I knew what she meant. Still. He’d broken mine.

  “Marge, there’s no way I could ever trust him. And I don’t think he even wants to be with me. He’s … lonely. Bored, maybe.”

  But the words sounded hollow, rote. It didn’t make sense, how Josh ran from me. What he did with Jenna. But neither did all the good stuff—the way he’d stood up to Billy, how he taught me chess and bought me food because he knew I was hungry.

  Marge reached up to run her fingers over one of the apples. “When Kyle left Iraq, it was almost like … almost like he was battling with something all the time. Sometimes it won, and sometimes he won. What Josh did to you: well, I think he’ll have to explain it himself. But you should give him a chance to do that. I’m not making excuses for him. I just thought you should know what he’s up against—and what you’re up against.”

  “Me?”

  “Even just being friends is going to be a burden sometimes, hon. But he could sure use a good friend like you right now. As for more than that … you’ll have to go with your gut. It’s not going to be easy.”

  I looked at the dead grass around our feet, at the haze that made the sky look sleepy. “I’m leaving soon,” I said.

  “Yes, you are.” She leaned against a tree, giving me one of her soul-searching looks. “But it’s not one or the other, sweet pea.”

  I threw my hands up. “I don’t know what to do. About this or about anything. Marge, I don’t know what to do.”

  She put her arm around my shoulder and held me close. Her familiar rosewater scent was comforting, and I breathed it in. “You’ll do whatever the right thing is. Except for last night, you always have.”

  But that was the problem: I didn’t know what the right thing was anymore.

  JOSH

  Every time I close my eyes I see you. The way the ground flies up and how you’re in the air, like a giant threw you, with your back against the clouds. That face. Every time I close my eyes I see your face looking down at me. Just for a second. All surprised like someone’s playing a fuckin’ joke on you. And I feel and I don’t feel—everything—all at once and then it’s just blood and dirt and people shouting and that kid still holding the soccer ball Marlon gave him and I wonder if he thinks we’re gonna take it away now that it isn’t a good day anymore. Gomez running around saying fuckfuckfuck and me shouting, Where is he? Where’s Nick? Nick! Nick! And nobody says anything and all I can see is the medic’s face and the sky so blue God it’s not blue like that at home and the poppies everywhere red red blood and poppies. The reporter’s saying, IED, IED. No shit it’s an IED. Then Gray’s above me sayi
ng, Stay with me, Josh. C’mon, soldier, wake the fuck up. Tourniquet, he yells. I need a fucking tourniquet, and then he slaps my cheek. Stay with me, dammit! Me screaming, Nick—my leg—Nick—my leg, and then the drill sergeant’s voice in my head, shouting all the damn time, us running for miles and miles at Camp Pendleton singing, I don’t want no teenage queen / I just want my M14 / If I die in the combat zone / Box me up and ship me home / Pin my medals upon my chest / Tell my mom I’ve done my best, and I hold my rifle close to me and I’m not letting it go until someone pries it out of my dead hands and then the helicopter, looking like an alien insect dancing in the sky, and dust everywhere and the Navy corpsman’s saying, We’re getting you out, and someone crying because it’s true Marines do cry and then they put me on the stretcher and I can’t feel my leg my leg what’s wrong with my leg and before I pass out I say, Morphine give me morphine.

  Doesn’t that come from poppies?

  chapter thirty

  It was late afternoon by the time I decided to look for Josh. I borrowed Marge’s car, but since my phone was buried in the ditch, I couldn’t call him once I’d started driving. So I went by his house, then Market, and finally down to the creek. No Josh. Panic started to settle in by the time the sun turned orange. I couldn’t remember what I’d said to him last night, but I knew none of it was good. And I kept thinking of Marge’s son. What if Josh wasn’t through the worst part and I’d pushed him over the edge? When was the moment when her son couldn’t handle it anymore—what had set him off?

  The ironic thing was, I’d kept pushing Josh away in the beginning of the summer because I didn’t want this feeling I was having now, this horror that I might lose someone else I loved. There was nothing worse than that: a hurt so bad it feels like someone is ripping off hunks of your soul like it’s a loaf of bread.

  I pulled into the turnoff for the creek and slowed down at the ditch. The only evidence of my accident was a deep gash in the field my car had crashed into. I touched the tips of my fingers to my forehead—it felt like a golf ball had been surgically inserted under my skin. It must have been a bitch to get my car out of there in the middle of the night. I figured Josh had earned a little bit of the forgiveness I was willing to give him: not just for getting the car, but for how he’d taken care of me. It was hard to admit, but I didn’t know what I would have done without Josh last night.