I walked home in the howling darkness, with the wind like a hand planted against my back and shoving me into the cold, freezing night. Sara’s house wasn’t quite on the far side of the moon, but it felt pretty close, especially as my ears and nose tingled painfully and then went numb. What would this place be like in winter? Real winter, like January and February, I imagined, must be cold enough to freeze the air solid. Walking would be downright miserable.
That was a problem I might not have to deal with, though. Not if Makayla and Mrs. Troutt and Mr. Big Empty had anything to say about it.
Inevitably, my thoughts went back to Austin. I tried steering them away. I tried thinking about what Mertrice Stroup-Ogle had told me, about Jim, about Lucy and Shay and Tyler and Hannah. I tried just about everything, but it didn’t work. It was almost eight, and that meant Austin would be home from therapy. I walked faster, and I wasn’t sure if I was running towards something or running away.
When I got to Sara’s house and passed the tumbleweeds clogging the fence, everything was perfectly normal: the small white house with its gabled roof, the big windows rippling in the wind, the porch swing tied up and rocking on its short length of chain. Lights blazed in the windows, which meant Sara was home. A nice change for her, I’m sure; she spent so much of her time at Bighorn Burger that a night at home was rare. With the wind scraping up clouds of dust, with its high-pitched whine in my ear, with the house standing in front of me like the last warm place west of the Mississippi, it was hard to remember that it wasn’t home. Not really. Not for me.
Crossing the scrubby grass, I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the Honda parked to the side. The door popped open, and I turned at the sound to see Ginny climb out of the car. She wore a heavy coat, and in that heavy coat, her already bulky frame acquired a shagginess that reminded me of a bear ready for winter.
“Can we talk?” she called over the wind.
“Tired.” I kept walking towards the house.
“Please, Vie. I want to apologize.”
The steps groaned under me.
“Fine,” Ginny said, and gravel crunched underfoot as she hurried after me. “Act like a child.”
“Sounds good.” I had reached the door, and I set my hand on the latch.
“But we are going to talk one way or another.”
“I don’t want to talk. I want you to leave me the—”
But before I could finish, the world dropped away from me. For a moment, I hovered in darkness: real darkness, a totalizing emptiness that was worse than any Wyoming night. Then I found myself between the cramped stone walls, my sneakers digging into the dust of a worn path. The labyrinth. She had sent me back to my own private hell.
At the fork ahead of me, a coyote waited. It swished a bushy tail, hopped in a circle, and glanced back at me.
“Go the fuck right ahead,” I said, plopping down in the dirt. “I’m fine right here.” Plucking a blade of grass, I began shredding it into strips.
The coyote swished its tail again. Its dark, insistent eyes never left my face.
“Go on,” I shouted up to it.
The coyote barked once, impatient with my refusal to move.
I looked around for a rock to throw, but instead I settled for a pebble. It clattered against the stone wall, and the coyote scampered away at the sudden noise.
Well, that was fine. It could run off. I’d stay here. This was Ginny’s ability, and abilities required a certain kind of strength. An energy, I guess you could say. It was only a matter of time before Ginny got tired and had to let me go.
Sooner than I expected, though, the coyote slunk back around the corner. It eyed me and, with a hesitancy that made me feel guilty, padded towards me.
“Get,” I shouted.
The coyote froze, shrinking towards the ground. Terror flickered in its dark eyes. Again, that irritating feeling of guilt rushed through me.
“Fine. Do whatever you want.”
After a few minutes of watching me, the coyote began its slow progress forward. I stayed still and watched it. In spite of myself, I was fascinated. I’d never seen a coyote up close; in the real world, I would have been frightened, but I knew that this was only part of Ginny’s ability. I took time to study the animal. It was beautiful in its own way, with its slightly too large ears and its brownish-gray coat. I wouldn’t want to run up against a pack of them, but I could enjoy this moment.
With a whimper that sounded almost apologetic, the coyote slowly lowered its head and gathered the cuff of my pants between its teeth. It gave a gentle tug—not enough force to move me, but enough that I was startled.
“Hey now,” I said, leaning forward to brush the coyote off me. “That’s enough.”
It gave another sharp tug and pranced out of reach. As I watched, it scurried down to the intersection, but this time it turned the other direction. Just like the previous time, it paused, looking over its shoulder to stare at me. Waiting.
I didn’t want to go the way it had taken me the first time. I knew what was down that way. I knew I’d only see—
—Gage—
—a damned lie. But I hadn’t gone the other direction. I hadn’t even thought that there was anything else down here. In spite of myself, my curiosity was growing, and after another moment I got to my feet and followed.
As before, the coyote led me through a maze of twists and turns. Overhead, a line of dangling Edison bulbs illuminated our path, blushing to life as I approached and fading behind me as I passed. The stony smell of the air was clean and dry and cool, but I was surprised to notice under it an earthy odor, a scent that I would have called green, like a grassy park at the height of summer. The air felt warmer too, brushing my cheeks and my dry lips, swelling inside my chest.
Ahead, the line of Edison bulbs came to an abrupt end, and the walls of the maze stopped. Beyond, clipped-short grass stretched towards a splash of blue and a dark curlicue of low bushes and trees. I stopped.
The coyote paused at the edge of the grass. It didn’t seem to notice that I wasn’t following, and instead it was preoccupied with the grass: testing it with one paw, checking the soft, resilient ground-cover as though surprised by it. Or maybe not surprised but pleased. After another moment’s consideration, the coyote bounded forward.
“Of course,” I said. “My coyote guide probably wants to play catch.”
I just hoped I didn’t have to scoop his poop.
As I stepped across the line of grass, the world rippled around me. The maze behind me vanished, and now the park—it was a park, I realized, Bassy Park, back in OKC. And then I didn’t even remember the maze because I was lost in a memory. My memory.
Kim Lyell’s birthday party covered three picnic tables, a sandbox, two barbecue pits, and ran the full length of the Dwight and Sherril Forrester Memorial Pavilion, which could have easily seated a hundred people. As I walked towards the water, I eyed the party across the grassy stretch. I hadn’t been invited, of course. Losers didn’t get invited to Kim Lyell’s birthday party. Normal kids didn’t get invited to Kim Lyell’s birthday party. The Pope probably would have had to hope for the waiting list because the only people Kim Lyell invited were the hippest and the coolest and, of course the richest.
I hadn’t come to Bassy because of Kim Lyell, though, with her stubby nose and her freckles and the way she ground her teeth together when she smiled so hard that you could hear it. I had come to Bassy because it was the end of June, because school was out, because the sun was hitting like a jackhammer, and because the water was cool and relatively clean. I had come to Bassy, too, to get out of the cramped apartment and away from Mom. This time the burn was low on my back, in the middle where I couldn’t reach it, but it had been three days and I knew she was already getting sprung again.
The sandy beach that ran along Lake Bassy’s south shore only ran about ten yards inland, but it stretched for almost a quarter of a mile, and a matted tangle of trees and brush blocked much of the beach from passersby. It was the perfect spot to take a dip and then have a nap. Mom wouldn’t look for me here, and Kim Lyell’s perfect guests would be several hundred yards up the beach.
When I hit the beach, I kicked off my sneakers, plunging my toes past the top layer of screaming-hot sand and down into the cool, gritty moisture beneath. I tugged off my shirt, ignoring the dull heat of pain, and trudged down the shore. It was a weekday, which meant few boats and very little wake. The lake was as flat as a quarter dollar. Chilly water splashed my calves, then my thighs, and then my waist. I dove.
Once the first chilly shock was out of the way, I enjoyed myself. I didn’t have anyone to impress. I didn’t even know anyone I could try to impress, but that was because I really didn’t know anyone at all. Oh, I knew everyone’s name at school, but that was because we’d been in the same classes for years. Not because I talked to any of them. Instead, I splashed and tried to imitate the way I had seen swimmers move on TV. Swimming lessons hadn’t been a thing for me, though, and pretty soon I got tired of feeling like a total idiot. I settled into lazy drifting, enjoying the heat of the sun and the cool water and the gentle resistance when I kicked.
It was the sound of voices that roused me. Two voices. One was higher than the other, and it sounded afraid. The other, under normal circumstances, probably wasn’t much deeper, but it was obvious that the speaker was trying to leave an impression.
I’d drifted past the end of the beach, and now I had to face a spiderwebbing of roots and mud before I could gain the grassy bank above me. Curiosity made me want to see who was talking—there was trouble, that much was obvious—but climbing the bank seemed like too much work. I settled back into the water.
“Faggot cunt,” the macho voice said, and then there was the sound of a blow, and a quiet cry.
My eyes snapped open. I paddled towards the bank, wrapped my hands around a slimy root, and pulled myself towards the grass shelf above me.
“What you got in your pocket, cunt?” This time, the blow sounded softer. Probably cushioned by clothing, I thought. A part of me had gone cold and dispassionate. There wasn’t any logic to what I was doing. I was wearing a pair of swimming trunks and nothing else. I didn’t know what was happening between the two boys. I should have splashed my way back to shore and forgotten the whole thing.
But it was that burn in the middle of my back. And the one on my shoulder. And the one that she’d done with the clothes iron. Another blow echoed through the line of scrubby bushes, and then another. Yes, I thought as I parted branches and squeezed towards the clearing on the other side. It was because of the burns. And it was because of that word faggot.
“Jack said you were perving on him in the locker room, faggot. Don’t put your head down, faggot. Look at me, faggot. Look at me when I’m talking to you.”
For the first time, the other voice answered. “Go fuck yourself. Or better yet, go fuck Jack, since you care so much what he thinks.”
A tremor ran through me. It wasn’t a chill or a flash or a heatwave. It wasn’t lightning. It was a ripple of force moving through something solid, like the reverberation through the trunk when an axe strikes a tree. It ran up my chest, and harder and stronger and faster than anything like a shiver. I knew that voice. I heard that voice in math, in bio, in French, and I heard it sometimes after school, when he was laughing with his friends outside the theater.
“You’re real stupid,” the macho voice said, although now anger had robbed it of some of that artificial depth. “I’m going to mash your face, cunt.”
I broke through the last line of branches, ignoring the scratches they opened on my arms, ignoring the prickle of fallen sticks and old sugar gum balls underfoot, ignoring everything but what I could now see. Yes, I thought in that cold, emotionless part of my mind, and that ripple of—
—desire—
—force ran up through my chest again. Yes, it was Gage. Gage Goller, blue eyes wide with terror, blood running from his nose, a red handprint marking his cheek. His blond hair had flopped down over his forehead and almost hid his eyes, and he had both arms wrapped low around his waist, as though he’d been kicked or punched there. Yes, I thought, and that tremor hit me again, hit me like a fucking axe going deep.
The other boy was a junior, two years older than us. David Rombough, short and wiry, was bigger and stronger than us, but that wouldn’t be true forever. He was already growing into the kind of man he would always be: thin, almost emaciated, and with a sullen anger at how the world had done him wrong every day of his life. I marched towards him, every step firm, purposeful, and I felt like I was growing taller.
“Where do you want it first, cunt?” David Rombough was asking. He gave a nasty laugh. “And don’t say your ass because you aren’t that lucky . . .”
He trailed off, turning at the sound of my approach.
The cigarette. Faggot. The clothes iron. Faggot. The candle from a birthday cake. Faggot.
David sneered. “Who’s this, your boy—”
The first punch landed straight, and I felt something break in his jaw.
David screamed. He swung wildly, but I’d been hit more times and by better, smarter, stronger people than David Rombough. It was easy to pull out of reach. Then David screamed again, and both hands clapped over his mouth, as though he were trying to keep the lower half of his face from falling off. Stumbling backwards, he screamed again. Some of it was swears. Some of it was promises.
I took a step towards him, and he ran.
When I looked at Gage, he was drawing his arm under his nose and smearing blood along his cheek in the process.
“Never seen a faggot before?” he said. “If you’re waiting for a thank you, you can just get the fuck out of here.”
That was when the pain started in my fist. It surprised me, and I mouthed a silent gasp and shook out my hand.
“Jesus, that must have hurt,” Gage said, lowering his arm. The red print on his cheek stood out against the rest of his pale, unmarked skin. He was wearing a flowery shirt and blue chinos in spite of the heat. When he got to his feet, I was suddenly conscious that all I had on was my swimming suit. I turned back towards the lake.
“You—” Gage hesitated. “You go to school with me?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen you.”
I shrugged and shouldered aside a branch.
“Want me to take a look at your hand?”
I froze. No one had ever offered something like that before. I glanced at him, searching for mockery or sarcasm, but all I said was a thin boy with a bloody nose and eyes that were deeper and bluer than Bassy Lake.
Without waiting for an answer, he took my hand and turned it over in his, probing with his thumb.
“Ouch.”
“Well, you definitely hit somebody.”
“Thanks.” I shook his grip off mine. I was suddenly conscious of how close he was standing, of the faint smell of his sweat mixing with the fragrance from his hair gel. That force hit me again, that sense of something being driven inside me as I was shaken to pieces. “I better—”
“Let’s get some cold water on it,” he said, taking my hand again and leading me towards the beach.
We sat there for hours, enjoying the shade cast by the stumpy trees, dangling our feet in the water while Gage scooped up water and poured it over my hand. And after a while, he didn’t bother scooping the water anymore. He just held my hand in his. And after a while, he leaned against me, his head buried in my bare shoulder, his breath sending prickling waves across my chest, my nipples, down a line to my waist. We kissed with sunset framing his eyelashes, framing the bruised curve of his cheek, framing his lips.
When the memory broke, the cold Wyoming wind hit me full in the face, freezing my tears into stinging drops that I blinked away. Instead of the warm, sun-drenched beach, I faced an abyss choked with stars. Instead of peace and acceptance, I felt the miserable assurance that Austin’s therapist had told him to get rid of me. Instead of Gage, I had Ginny Coyote in Sage staring at me from the bottom of the stairs.
“It’s not all bad,” she said, her voice barely audible over the wind. “You have to face the bad. You have to look it straight in the eyes so that you can get past it. But it’s not all bad.”
My eyes were burning. The tears felt like liquid steel on my cheeks. “You need to go.”
“Vie, you won’t be able to stand up to them if you can’t face this part of yourself. Your ability is driven by emotion. If you keep hiding—”
“Go!” The word came out as a strangled shriek. “Go, just go. And if you ever show me that cheating, lying, son-of-a-bitch again, I’ll kill you.”
Ginny lingered for a moment. Then, darting for her car, she threw me one last backward glance. I stared her down. I don’t know what she saw in my face, but her tires threw up gravel when she sped out of the driveway, and she hadn’t taken the time to turn on her headlights.
I jammed my lock in the key, let myself into the house, and ran upstairs. Behind me, Sara called my name, but I ignored her. I slammed my bedroom door, slid down to sit with my back against it, and buried my face in my folded arms. Sara’s heavy steps followed me, with the steps creaking under her weight, and then her nails scratched the particle-board door.
“Vie, sweetheart? Are you all right?”
“Fine.” I swallowed and tried to clear the thickness from my voice. “I just . . . I need to be alone.”
She tried the handle, but the door couldn’t open with my weight against it. “Vie, let me in. We can talk about whatever’s bothering you.”
“Yeah.” Scrubbing at my eyes, I coughed and said, “Yeah, later.”
It took a long time before Sara answered, and when she did, the single word was laced with uncertainty. “Ok.”
I didn’t sob. I mean, I was over Gage. I’d been over him for months. I’d been over him since I saw those damn pictures hidden in his dresser. I didn’t care about him. I didn’t care about what he did or who he did it with. I didn’t talk about him. I didn’t stalk him on Facebook. I didn’t even think about him. I was over him, completely and totally. So I didn’t sob. But I did cry pretty damn hard.
After a while, though, I got to my feet, wiping snot and tears from my face with the shoulder of my t-shirt. I fumbled with the light, and I had some vague thought about splashing water on my face in the bathroom, but I froze.
Sitting on my bed, looking so exaggeratedly, painfully guilty that it was almost comical, was Emmett Bradley.