romeo remeemed

chapter 6

ariel

I don't know how much time has passed, but when I wake up with my face in the dirt, it feels late. Too late. My mom is going to kill me. I tell my hands to push into the ground and get me up, but all I manage to do is trigger a round of thrashing. My nerves scream, and vertigo turns my stomach to liquid. It's like every time I've dreamed about falling but a hundred times worse. I'm messed up. So messed up. I always am afterward, but this is worse than ever. I feel hollowed-out, like the screaming things ate my insides and left a shell behind. A jack-o'-lantern without a candle, no spark to light me. My chest gets tight. Maybe this time is the last time. Maybe this is the crazy I'll never be able to climb out of. Maybe the damaged piece of me has finally destroyed the part that can imagine a better life, and now I'm finally, completely broken. I feel wetness on my cheeks and give up trying to move. I lie still, inhaling the comforting smell of grass and earth, trying to allow my mind and body to connect on their own. I'm going to be okay. I'm still thinking straight. I can still worry about getting in trouble with my mom and be embarrassed over the way things ended with Dylan. I can't remember what I said to him, but I'm guessing I made a fool of myself. I'm pretty sure he deserved whatever I dished out, but I wish I'd had more control. I just got drunk so fast. One second I was fine, and the next, everything was spinning, and deciphering the meaning in his words was like trying to translate a foreign language. Stupid. I should have been more careful. Even a sip or two is usually enough to make me feel loose and silly. I should have realized that sharing a nearly full bottle was a bad idea. I obviously can't handle my liquor. You can't handle life. I close my eyes, too tired to disagree with myself. Besides, the voice in my head is right. I can't handle life. I can't even control my body. I'm lying on the ground with my face in the mud, and my legs are cold and clammy from where I've wet myself, and I can't even talk my hands into helping me stand. No. I can. I have to. Because there's no one here to help me. A part of me is grateful-at least Dylan didn't see me this way-but the other part is stupidly disappointed. Why didn't he follow me? He was trying so hard to act like he cared-or at least cared enough to keep me alive until he won his bet. Shouldn't he have made sure I got home safely? He had to know I was drunk. If the gossip around school is to be believed, Dylan has enough experience with controlled substances to know when someone's messed up. But maybe he did try. I remember him running after me, calling my name, but then everything gets blurry. I don't remember running out of Los Olivos or how close I was to home before I collapsed. I know I'm in a vineyard, but there are dozens of vineyards close to town. I could be anywhere. Hopefully I'm not too far from El Camino Road. I have to get home before my mom goes crazy and calls the police. She's working late, so at least that's in my favor. She doesn't get off her shift until eleven, won't make it home until eleven-thirty, and probably won't get really freaked-out until after midnight. We've never talked about a curfew-I've never dated, and Gemma and I usually hung out at my house on nights when Gemma wasn't out with whoever she was dating-but I know my mom well enough to know that she won't be cool with my staying out later than midnight on a school night. I was surprised she let me say yes to Dylan's Tuesday-night invitation in the first place. But she probably would have given me permission to ditch school, take roofies, and have kinky sex with Dylan all day in my room if I'd asked. She was that thrilled that I was finally doing something normal. It was pathetic, really, how thrilled she was. I know Mom blames herself for the lack of romance in my life. She dropped a pot of grease when I was six years old and gave me the scars she believes caused my "tragically low self-esteem." I told her I forgive her. I even hinted that there are reasons I'm repulsive to boys that have nothing to do with my messed-up skin. But she doesn't believe me, and I know she thinks I'm going to be alone forever if something doesn't change. I'd thought the new Dylan might be the start of that change. He used to make fun of me in junior high, but he certainly hasn't acted like I'm repulsive lately. Not before and not after. Before and after. Before I tried to kill him, and after he chased me down the side of the road and made a fool of himself for the chance to take me to dinner. Which is the real Dylan? The one who agreed to take the Freak's virginity for money or the one who said I was a good person and deserved a happy life? The one who stripped and sang for me or the one who inferred my best friend was a slut? I have no idea, but I want to find out, and that's not going to happen if I don't get home soon. Mom will never let me out of the house again if I drag in after midnight. I try to communicate with my arms again. This time, my fingers twitch and curl, and finally, inch by inch, I drag my palms through the dirt and lift myself up on shaking arms. By the time I get to my feet, I'm trembling all over and feel like I might be sick, but I stay upright. I lift my chin, inhale cool, stomach-soothing air, and take a look over the tops of the vines. It takes only a second to spot the turrets of the Castle Playground. Finally. Some luck. The playground's only a few blocks from my house. I'll be home in ten minutes if my legs hold out. Stumbling only a few times, I make it down the row of vines and cut through the soccer field near the playground. The towers and delicate bridges leading from one piece of equipment to the next look magical in the moonlight, and I'm struck by the idea that I should have taken Dylan here instead of the rocket ship park in Los Olivos. But I have bad memories of this place, ghosts that scream and point at me as I hurry toward the road. Mom brought me here when I was little, a few months after the accident, when my skin was bright shiny red and my hair only a few inches long. It had melted on one side when Mom spilled the grease, and it had to be cut off. I had nothing to hide behind, no curtain to pull when the kids stared and one girl screamed that there was a troll under the bridge. I think she was trying to start a game, pretending more than being cruel, but my mom still lost it. She yelled at the girl, and then the girl's mom yelled at my mom, and then Mom pulled me away. We never went to the playground during the day again. She made me wait until after supper, when there were hardly any other kids at the park. She said she wanted to protect my scars from the sun, but I knew better. She was overwhelmed by the task of mothering the monster. I was already having the episodes by then, already spending two to three afternoons per week with a child psychologist. My mom couldn't handle more negative interaction. It was easier to hide at home than to go out and face the big, bad world. I decide right then not to tell her about the bet. I don't want her pity, and I don't want to be protected from Dylan the way she protected me when I was a kid. Bad news or not, Dylan is ... interesting to me. I think I might still hate him, and there's a chance I'll end up avoiding him like the plague for the rest of senior year, but that's a decision I want to make for myself. The thought makes me feel stronger, more in control, and by the time our blue house comes into view, I'm feeling good enough to take the last fifty feet at a jog. Mom's car is already in the carport. I don't know how long she's been home, but hopefully I've gotten here in time. At least there aren't any police cruisers in the driveway. That's a good sign. I hurry up the stairs, but then slow down, opening the screen door carefully. The lights are on in the kitchen. I'm not surprised to find Mom waiting up, but I thought she'd be catching up on her TiVo'd episodes of Grey's Anatomy or something, not lying in wait right by the carport door. I take a second, smoothing my hair and brushing some of the dirt off my shirt. There's no helping the pee drying on my jeans, however. Or the smell. The screaming voices don't take me over often anymore-and when they do I'm good about making sure I'm alone in my room-but Mom knows why I used to wet myself when I was little. She had to come pick me up the day I embarrassed myself at school, and she used to sit with me when I'd get angry at the psychiatrist's office and slip into an episode. She'll guess what happened, and I'll be back at the shrink again before I can say "Let me explain." My throat clenches. I back down the steps. Maybe I can sneak in my window. Maybe if I shove my clothes under my bed and get into the shower before-"Ariel? Is that you?" Mom sounds worried but not freaked out. It must not be that late. Not that it matters now. God. Why didn't I think about what I look like? Why didn't I have the sense to go around back as soon as I saw the kitchen light? "Ariel?" Mom appears at the screen door, looking narrow and faded in her white robe with the gray flowers. "Why are you standing outside, honey?" "I ... I thought you might be asleep." "I wanted to wait up and hear about your date." She smiles. "Come inside. It's getting chilly." I trudge up the stairs. There's no avoiding it now. Might as well take my medicine. As soon as I'm in the door, Mom's nose wrinkles and her attention drops to my legs. I close my eyes and imagine my body wadding up into a tiny ball and rolling down the hall into my room, my ears and face and everything all mashed up together so I can't hear whatever she's going to say. "Oh, Ariel. What happened?" she asks as she closes the door behind me. "Where's Dylan? Where's your purse?" "I ..." What to say? A lie or the truth or something in between? Or do I dare tell her to mind her own business for once? That it's my life and I'll bear the pathetic weight of it on my own? "You what? Talk to me." "I lost my purse." I look at the ground and rush on before she can start lecturing me about losing my cell, a capital offense in her "we're on a budget" handbook. "Dylan and I got drunk on the playground in Los Olivos, and I started walking home because I didn't think he should drive," I say, deciding that's close enough to the truth, while hopefully saving me from the psychiatrist. "I had an accident before I could get home. I didn't want to go to the bathroom outside, and I tried to hold it too long." "Oh my god." She sighs, but she doesn't sound angry. I risk looking up. "Why didn't you call me to come pick you up?" "I thought you'd be mad. I lost my purse. I would have had to call collect." "You can call collect anytime. And I'm not happy that you lost your purse, and you'll be paying for a new cell phone yourself out of your savings, but ..." She shrugs, and the frustration I heard in her voice when she mentioned the cell phone seems to drain out of her. "But I know kids your age drink. You're eighteen, and that's old enough to have a glass of wine every now and then. I'd just rather you do it here at the house and keep it responsible. Like one or two glasses, not enough to get you drunk and making reckless decisions." Wow. That was unexpected. I don't know what to say. She's being so ... cool. I know she'd do about anything to see me acting "normal," but I didn't expect her to be so understanding about my mistake. "I ... I didn't know that." "Well, now you do," she says with a soft look. "So how did the date go? Other than the obviously not-so-great ending?" "Okay, I guess." "Okay?" Her brow wrinkles. "Then why did Dylan let you walk home alone?" "He just ... had to get home." I stare at the windmills painted on the cabinets and shuffle my feet, resisting the urge to tell her more about my confusing night. No matter how cool she's being, that still doesn't seem like a good idea. "I'd really like to take a shower and get changed, Mom. I feel gross. And stupid." She nods and takes a step back, but then reaches out to pat my shoulder, a quick pat-pat-pat that's awkward but kind of nice. "Don't feel stupid. But don't get drunk and wander around by yourself again either. Something horrible could have happened, and I would never have forgiven myself. I worry about you since ... you know." Since Gemma, she means. She mentioned the flyers, but we haven't talked about it much. I don't really want to talk about it now either, but I appreciate that she's worried about me. Even if her worry won't do a thing to keep the crazy away. "I'll be careful," I say, and then find myself unexpectedly adding, "but if something happened, it wouldn't be your fault, you know. I'm eighteen. I'm old enough to take care of myself." "I know, but I ... I love you. You're the most important person in my life. You know that, right?" "Yeah," I say, even though-until that very second-I wasn't completely sure. But suddenly it seems so clear, a glaring truth that I've somehow managed to ignore. It's like the pink tiles on the wall in the bathroom. I never noticed they had flowers on them until Gemma made fun of them for being tacky. I grew up in this house and used that bathroom several times a day for seventeen years, and I never noticed. Now I can't go in there without staring. Once you've seen something, you can't un-see it. I stare at those flowers a lot and wonder what other obvious things I might be missing. I never imagined that how much Mom loves me was one of them. "I'm sorry if I haven't said that enough," she says, making my throat tight all over again. "You say it plenty." "Are you sure? I worry I haven't, that I haven't been the kind of mom you need me to be." A weird sense of déjà vu crackles in the air between us. I know she's never said anything like this to me before, but it feels like she has. It's unsettling and makes my voice tremble when I promise, "You've been fine. I'm okay." "Really?" she asks, doubt in her eyes. They're a lighter blue than mine, but otherwise Mom and I look like sisters. Same long white hair, same scrawny build with elbows that are too big for our arms, same thin lips that we bite when we're worried. She had me when she wasn't much older than I am now. All alone, after my bio dad told her to get an abortion and bolted. For the first time, the reality of that settles inside me, scary and heavy and awe-inspiring. I can't believe I almost destroyed the person she worked so hard to keep alive. How could I have thought that killing myself was something Mom would be relieved about? Maybe I should head back to the shrink. Maybe I'm even crazier than I thought. "You've been great," I say, pressure building behind my eyes. "I love you, Mom." I reach for her, wrapping my arms around her shoulders as she grabs me around the waist. We hug each other tight for a long time. Long enough for me to realize that the top of her head comes only to my cheekbone. I'm taller than she is, by a couple of inches. Another obvious thing I've missed. Finally she pulls away with a smile. "Good talk." "Yeah." I look at the floor, feeling awkward, but not in a bad way. "Thanks." "All right, why don't you go get cleaned up," she says. "Leave your clothes in the hall and I'll start a load of laundry." "No, that's okay." She hasn't done my laundry since I was twelve, and I'm way too old for her to have any obligation to touch my pee-soaked jeans. Besides, I know she must be exhausted. "My jeans are gross. You don't have to-" "I'm a nurse, honey. I handle much worse every day, and I have to do a load of scrubs anyway. I'll get everything washed and in the dryer, and we can fold tomorrow." "Okay." I start out of the room, but she stops me before I reach the hall. "Wait a sec," she says, snapping her fingers the way she does when she's forgotten something. "I wanted to tell you: Wendy's going to give me a ride to work tomorrow. So you can sleep a little later and take the car to school if you want." Gemma used to drive me to school. In the ten days since she's been gone I've been getting up early to walk to avoid the horror of the bus. No one over the age of sixteen rides the bus, and I couldn't stand the thought of all those rows of junior high kids staring at me as I climbed aboard. I didn't think Mom had noticed my early departure, but I guess she has. "Thanks." I hope she knows I mean for more than the car. "You're welcome." She smiles. "Just try not to wake me up on your way out. I might have to work a double tomorrow, so I'm going to sleep in until nine or so." I nod and hurry down the hall to the bathroom. I start the shower and strip off my dirty clothes, dumping them outside the door and closing it again. Then I stand there, waiting for the steam that will signal that the water is finally warm enough. It takes a while. Like always. I spend the time staring at the pink tiles and their flower decorations. Forty minutes later, after a long, hot shower, I wrap my towel around my chest and tiptoe to my room. The dryer is running and mom's doorway is dark. She's probably asleep, as I should be soon. It's nearly one in the morning. I'm only going to get six hours, and that's if I fall asleep the second my head hits the pillow. After everything that's happened, I know I should be exhausted, but I'm not. I'm wired, and even after I've changed into my striped pajama pants and a cami, I don't turn off the light. Instead, I walk to my easel and check on the canvas I prepped this afternoon. It looks good. I'll be able to start tomorrow on the fairy I've been sketching. Or maybe I'll do something different. I've been on a mythical-creature kick, but I'm starting to feel like it might be time for a portrait. Maybe that self-portrait I've never been brave enough to attempt. I didn't think I could stand to look at myself in the mirror that much, but maybe I can. Maybe I'll even see something in myself that I've missed. Things I've missed. The thought hits me strangely. I feel a tug at the back of my brain, the nagging suspicion that I've forgotten something important. Something I saw, something I heard? I can't remember. But it's there, lurking below the surface of my mind. I turn from the canvas to my gallery wall. All the best things I've painted since I was twelve are hanging here. It's the one sight that always makes me feel hopeful, and it's my best thinking place. If I stand back and let my eyes track from the tree on the mountain, to the boy on the hill, to the unicorn dying by the water, my mind calms and I think more clearly. Usually. Not tonight. When I get to the unicorn, I get a sick, spinning feeling, like the déjà vu in the kitchen but a hundred times worse. Something's wrong. I move closer, lift my fingers to the unicorn's face-the one I spent hours getting just right-and shiver. Nothing looks different, but somehow I know that someone's been in my room, looking at this painting. Not Mom. A stranger. Someone I don't know has been in here, touching and searching and poking their nose into the most private parts of my life. I whirl away from the wall, scanning the rest of the room. Everything's still in the place it was when I left. My homework is stacked on my desk, my closet door is half-open, and my comforter explodes in horrible ruffles except for a dent on the right side, where I sat while I was putting on my shoes. I cross the room, check out the closet, open my dresser drawers, even get down on the floor and peek under the bed. Nothing's different, but the feeling that someone has been here only gets stronger. I know I'm being weird, but I can't seem to calm down. Finally, after a fruitless search of my backpack and desk, I force myself to turn off the light and crawl into bed, but the irrational fret-fest only gets worse. I could swear someone else has been sleeping in my bed, lying her head on my pillow, dreaming her own dreams in this place that's supposed to be mine. Mine. Not mine. The voices ... What if they're not what I've always thought they were? It's the thought kernel I've been waiting to pop open, and it calms me. I reach for the journal by my bed, the one I use to write and sketch things that I dream and don't want to forget before I wake up. I turn past a quick line drawing of the high school crumbling into ruins beneath a night full of menacing stars, and find a blank page. Ghost, demon, some kind of possession, I write. Ripples in the air, claws tearing the world open to find a person who will listen to the voices scream. I close the book around the pen and set it on my nightstand before curling under the soft flannel sheets. I've never been able to listen to the voices. They overwhelm me before I can even think about trying to understand them, but maybe I haven't been trying hard enough. If they really are ghosts or something, they might want me to listen. Ghosts in stories always need the living to intercede on their behalf, to pursue justice or right a wrong or do something that puts their soul to rest. Things that scream like that are beyond rest. But I'm not. Not yet. I'm safe, my eyes are heavy, and my muscles are aching with exhaustion. Finally even the disturbing feeling that someone's been in my room isn't enough to keep me awake. I sleep, and dream of the boy from my painting, the one on the lonely hill where the sky bleeds like night is murdering the day. The wind is punishing and the boy's brown curls blow around his head, flying into his dark eyes, but I know the stinging hairs aren't the reason for the tears streaming down his cheeks. He's miserable, as sad a person as I've ever seen, as sad as my own reflection on the days when I wonder if I'll make it through another day. Still, he's beautiful. Like an angel fallen from heaven. When he lifts his eyes to mine, I can't breathe. His pain and beauty wrap around my ribs and squeeze. I forgive you, I want to say, though I don't know for what. But before I work up the courage to speak, a man in a brown robe appears behind the boy, and the grass between us splits. The earth opens like the mouth of a hungry baby bird, and the man shoves the boy between the shoulders. The boy falls into the newly formed pit, and I scream, but there's no sound. There's nothing but the wind and the hungry ground gobbling as it rolls over the boy like water. I fall to the ground and claw at the grass, but it's too late. He's gone. I feel it like a knife shoved into my heart. "I forgive you," the man in the robe says to me, the echo of my own thought making me lift my eyes. His are a blue so pale they look watered down, but that doesn't make gazing into them any less terrifying. This isn't the first time he's killed. Or the second, or the third, or the hundredth. "Come with me." He reaches for me, but I scramble away. His hand is too clean. It should be caked with dirt and blood. It should be marked by what he's done. My thoughts take hold of the dream and dig deep. I watch with horrified satisfaction as the man's flesh peels away from his fingers. I see muscle and bone and all the hidden things I've stared at in my anatomy book to learn the truths of the bodies I draw, and soon his hand is nothing but raw tissue that sends blood raining down onto the grass. But the man in the robe seems to feel no pain. "And neither will you, dear," he says. "Peace will be yours if you put yourself into my keeping." He reaches for me again, but this time his hand is a giant's hand. His fingers reach out, out, out, until they arch over me like the beams of a house built of nightmares. The blood rain falls onto my face, slips between my lips, and I fall to the ground screaming. But not because I'm scared or horrified. Because the blood is sweet and I want more. I want to tilt my head back and let it flow down my throat. I want to laugh and dance and celebrate the safety of becoming one with the darkness. I wake up in the middle of a deep breath and barely hold in the scream pushing at my lips. I swallow and shiver and try to calm my pounding heart. Morning light shines in my window, and the yellow ruffles on the bed are soft cotton-candy sunshine floating in the middle of my room. There's nothing to be afraid of. It was just an awful dream. There's no blood, no evil monk or whatever he was, no dead boy. I rub my eyes and turn to look at the gallery, taking comfort in seeing the boy standing on his hill, thinking maybe I'll paint him again. But up close this time. Up close with something in his eyes other than pain. Maybe hope or laughter or ... love. The thought makes me blush and look away, as if the boy's a real person who might be able to read on my face the silly things I'm thinking. I'm ridiculous, but it feels good to smile, so good that the secret silliness is still wrinkling my lips when I look out the window. And see Dylan's face. And scream the scream I thought I'd swallowed.