2006
It’s been so long since I last heard the sound of gravel against glass that it takes me a couple of seconds to realise what’s going on, but when I do I can’t help but smile.
It’s Hale. He’s here.
He’s been pretty respectful of my folks and their no-sneaking-out rule over the last few months – mostly, at least – and that’s basically meant him helping me resist the temptation as far as possible by not showing up at my window and not getting the hell kicked out of him by gangs of assholes who should know better. I’m not saying I don’t miss it, especially with him being at work all day (and the hours I have to spend helping Mom and Dad in the diner, now that school’s out), but the extra money has been nice. It’s meant that the time we do get to spend together can be spent doing actual couple things, like normal teenagers: movies at the theatre downtown, fries and shakes at Castle Burger out in Hogarth. We might not have a lot of spare minutes, but pretty much every single one is spent together.
Bliss. I couldn’t ask for more.
Unfortunately, none of that time has been in the past three days, and the absence of time with Hale has started to make me jittery. It’s ridiculous how quickly I find myself missing him when he’s not around, and how that manifests itself. I can feel myself getting cranky without him, snapping at the slightest thing. When he’s around, that charm seems to rub off on me. It’s a lot easier to take things slow then, to let things develop as they might. He doesn’t always manage it for himself – there’s a part of him always on edge, I know that – but he brings it out of me like a sculptor. When Hale is near, I’m at my best.
When he’s gone, though…
But that doesn’t matter now. He’s here in the night, my gentleman caller, waiting for me.
I head to the window and pull open the shades. ‘What time do you call this?’ I start to say, but when I look out it’s at nothing in particular – nothing and no one. The midnight streetlights cast their beams downwards, but nothing stirs.
Maybe I dreamt it, I think. Maybe I just wanted Hale to be here so bad that I –
And then I see it. Under the tree down at the corner of my yard, there’s a shadowy figure, tall and thin and shrouded head to toe in darkness, so I can’t see make out anything above his shoulders.
‘Hale?’ I ask into the darkness, but I know it’s him. Even if his build wasn’t unmistakeable to me – really, I’ve spent so long lying with my head on those shoulders that I’d recognise them anywhere, with or without the benefit of his face – the jacket is a dead giveaway. Even though it’s just an indistinct shape in the dark, I know every crack and wrinkle and patch. It’s Hale. No doubt.
’Is that you?’ I ask anyway.
The Shadow-Man doesn’t answer. At first, he doesn’t even move, content to loom sort of menacingly in the dark, but then he raises an arm and beckons me downstairs.
I’m pretty sure I saw this episode of Buffy, I think. Teenage girl gets lured out into the darkness by some demon she thinks is her boyfriend, and that’s it. The next time we see her, she’s just a disembodied foot and the boyfriend-lookalike is wiping his lips with a napkin. Tale as old as time.
But that’s ridiculous, of course. It’s easy to get spooked after midnight, when you’re on your own. It’s easy to leap to stupid conclusions – but this is Hale we’re talking about. He’s nothing to be afraid of.
Hale is my safe space, my harbour.
I won’t go anywhere with him, I tell myself. I’ll stay within view of the house at all times. That way Mom and Dad can’t pitch a fit. I’m pretty sure it’s not an argument that’ll convince them, but it’s the only one I’ve got. Perhaps a note would help. I hastily scrawl something down on a bit of scrap paper – JUST OUTSIDE, HAVEN’T BEEN KIDNAPPED, EVERYTHING IS FINE, LOOK OUT THE WINDOW IF YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME. CARRIE X – and lay it down on my pillow where it couldn’t possibly be missed… at least, if anyone decided to come into my room looking for me. I can be back before anyone does.
Well, hopefully.
He’s never bothered to hide before, I think as I work my way down the stairs, as silently as possible. Not even at the start, when we were a secret. He’d always be right there in the middle of the street, in the light, waiting for me with that smile on his face. He never cared who saw him then.
So what changed?
It doesn’t take long after I turn the corner for me to realise exactly what it is. My relief at seeing him gives way to panic as I see him. God, he looks like a real mess. His nose is bloody, plugged with two bits of cotton gauze – no, not gauze; the material is too dark for that, and it’s a perfect match for the corner of his tattered right sleeve. He stopped the bleeding with a strip of material from his shirt.
Desperate times.
But it’s not just the tear that has ruined the shirt, far from it. It too is splashed with blood, inky-black under the streetlight. Normally I’d run to him and kiss him and pull him close, but not now. Now, I can’t bring myself to do it.
‘It’s not mine,’ he says when he sees the panic on my face. ‘I mean, some of it is. But not all of it. I’m fine. I promise.’
Fine doesn’t usually come with that much blood attached to it – and if Hale is fine, that means that someone else probably isn’t.
‘Then whose is it?’ I ask. ‘Was it Scanlon again? Did you –’
Did you kill him?
I hate myself for thinking it, but there’s a brief instant of fear that this is the moment that everything I thought I knew about Hale gets thrown up in the air: that every shitty comment I heard about him being destined to be a criminal and a thug is proved right. What if Scanlon attacked him again? What if he just… snapped? I don’t think he would have done it on purpose, but I’ve seen what Hale is like when he’s trapped – he’s like a wild animal. Dangerous.
‘It was my dad,’ he says slowly. ‘We got in a fight. A big one.’
Well, I can tell that much, if nothing else. It’s not just the bloody nose or the scraped knuckles or the way he seems to be breathing shallowly, as though his ribs might be cracked and even the pressure of getting oxygen is causing him pain. It’s the blankness in his eyes. When I went to look after him after Scanlon and his boys kicked the hell out of him, he looked angry, enraged – those big blue eyes of his were dancing with a quick, cold fury that told me everything was OK, that he’d be back on his feet in no time. Now, though, he looks… empty. Beaten. Broken, at least.
What did he do to you, Hale? What he do to you this time that’s so much worse than anything he did before?
‘Hale, what happened?’ I ask.
He shakes his head; it’s not important, not to him. There’s something else on his mind, and it’s something big. Something terminal.
‘We need to talk,’ he says.