More Than We Can Tell

Monday, March 19      5:26:32 a.m.

FROM: Robert Ellis <[email protected]>

TO: Rev Fletcher <[email protected]>

SUBJECT: Answer me

I told you to answer me.

Answer me, Son.

I will not wait forever.

I will not wait forever.

The e-mail is still sitting in my in-box, unanswered. But the words poke at me with unsettling frequency. Every time I move. Every time I inhale. Every time my heart beats.

It feels like a threat.

“You look like crap,” says Declan when I climb into his car at 7:00 on Monday morning.

“I look the same as I always do.” I’m in jeans and a black hoodie. You know. For a change. I didn’t bother to shave because I don’t want a lot of questions about the bruise on my jaw.

Declan’s hand is on the gearshift. “Am I waiting for Matthew?”

“No. Just go.”

The car rocks and shifts as he works the clutch to accelerate down the street. “I feel like I’ve missed something.”

“Do we have time to stop for coffee?” I would have had a cup at home, but Matthew was in the kitchen with Geoff and Kristin. I haven’t spoken to him since Saturday night.

I haven’t spoken to anyone since Saturday night.

“I guess.” Declan makes the right at the end of my street, toward the Dunkin’ Donuts.

His radio is tuned to alternative music, which I don’t mind, but right now the angsty suggestive lyrics rub me the wrong way. I reach out and twist the silver dial all the way to the left.

Now it’s silent.

“You going to talk or what?” says Declan.

I keep my eyes on the windshield. Clouds darken the sky, and rain spits at the glass. “I don’t know where to start.”

“Why didn’t Matthew ride with us?”

“Because I almost killed him.”

Declan glances over. “What? Wait.” He does a double take, then studies me a little more closely before turning back to the road. “Did someone hit you?”

“He tried to run away again. Saturday night. I went after him. He wasn’t happy about it.”

“Wow.” He stretches the word into three syllables.

Dunkin’ Donuts is packed, with at least ten people waiting for the drive-through. Declan pulls into the line anyway.

“I can just run in,” I say.

“No way. I want to hear this.”

I shrug and bury my hands in the front pocket of the hoodie. “There’s not a whole lot to say.”

Declan sighs and runs his hand down his face. “Am I awake? This feels like our conversation the other night. I’m sure you didn’t almost kill him—”

“I did. I thought about it. I could have done it.”

“Rev.” His voice is quiet. He must hear the turmoil in my own. “You should have come over.”

“I almost did. I thought Geoff and Kristin were going to make me leave.”

His eyebrows go up. “You’re calling them Geoff and Kristin now?”

“Shut up.”

The car revs hard as he pulls forward with the line. “I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here.”

“I’m not safe, Dec! I’ve been telling you that for months.”

He rolls his eyes. “Okay, Rev.”

“Don’t do that,” I snap.

Declan isn’t easy to intimidate. He meets my attitude head-on. “You’re not safe? Is he alive or isn’t he?”

I grit my teeth. “He’s alive.”

“Did he hit you first, or did you hit him?”

“That’s not important.”

“It’s totally important!”

“He hit me,” I grind out.

“So you just hit him back?”

“No. I didn’t hit him at all.”

“Wow. Sounds like you’re incredibly unsafe. Maybe you should get out of the car.”

I glare at him. “Stop. Mocking. Me.”

We pull up to the speaker, and a woman squawks at us to order. Declan orders coffee for each of us, then glances at me. “Food?”

“No.”

He orders two breakfast sandwiches anyway, because he knows me better than that.

When we’re in the space between speaker and window, he looks over again. “I’m not mocking you. I’m trying to understand what you’re saying.”

“I’m saying I had him in a choke hold and I thought about breaking his neck.”

“So what. I think about doing the same thing to Alan at least once a month, and that’s without having him in a choke hold.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same, Rev. Exactly. You think it’s a crime to think about harming someone? You could walk up to any kid at school and I guarantee they’ve had a violent thought in the last twenty-four hours. Hell, most of them have probably had a violent thought in the last twenty-four minutes.”

His words are so simple, but for me, they take a little more examination. This feels different.

“You spend too much time inside your own head,” he says then, which shocks me into silence.

We get to the window, and he pays. He doesn’t ask me for money, and I wonder if he’s feeling guilty about some of his comments.

I don’t offer to pay him back, because I’m still irritated.

We drive the few miles to school in silence, but we can blame the food this time. Declan pulls into a parking space just as his girlfriend is getting out of her car. Juliet waits for him to open the door.

“Quick,” Declan says to her. “When’s the last time you had a violent thought about someone?”

“Three seconds ago,” she says. “When I saw you stopped for coffee but didn’t bring me one.”

He holds out the cup. “Wrong. This is for you.”

Her expression lights up, and she kisses him, then takes a sip.

He’s such a liar. Probably.

But then she hands it to him and says, “We can share,” and I wonder if this was his plan all along. He smiles and takes the coffee, then takes her hand.

He makes it look so easy. I’m irritated again.

Once we enter the school, the hallway splits. Normally, I’d walk with Declan and Juliet to the cafeteria until school starts, but I don’t want to continue our conversation in front of her. I barely want to have it with him. They head left and I veer right.

“Hey,” Declan calls after me.

I don’t turn. “I need to grab a book before class.”

My locker takes three tries to open. The combination doesn’t want to work right. My fingers are too rough, too aggressive. I’m not familiar with this feeling.

Once it’s open, I realize I don’t really need a book. I didn’t even need to open my locker.

I slam it shut. Metal on metal. The sound echoes down the hallway. Students nearby turn to stare at me, just for a moment, before moving on with their own day.

“Looks like someone pissed off the Grim Reaper.”

I whirl, one hand clenched on the strap of my backpack, but whoever spoke is long gone.

The hallway is crowded with the typical crush of students who need to get to class, but auburn hair catches my eye. Emma. I’ve never seen her in this hallway before—but I’ve never been looking. Her hair hangs loose and shining, but her eyes are dark and shadowed. Her skin is pale, the freckles standing out like she drew them on.

I think about the altercation with Matthew and wish I could duck into my locker.

But my gaze stops on her shadowed eyes again. Something happened.

I step into her path. “Emma.”

She looks up in surprise. “Oh.” She sounds like she’s speaking through a fog. “Hey.”

“Are you okay?” I ask. “You look …” I hesitate.

She nods.

Then her face crumples.

Then she presses her face into my sweatshirt.

I barely know how to react. I would be less surprised if Declan did this.

“Emma.” I duck my head and keep my voice low. “Emma, what happened?”

She shakes against me. Students continue to swirl around us, but I ignore them. My hands find her shoulders, and I wonder if it’s okay to touch her. At the same time, I can’t let go.

And then, all at once, she jerks back and swipes at her cheeks. My hands are suddenly empty. There’s a foot of space between us.

“I’m so stupid.” Her voice is full of emotion. “Please pretend this didn’t just happen.”

“Emma—”

“I’m fine.”

“You’re not fine.”

She uses a sleeve to scrub at her eyes. “You were the first person to talk to me, and I wasn’t ready.” Her eyes are locked on my chest. “I made a wet mark on your shirt.”

Like I care. “Is it Nightmare?” I ask. “Did you get another e-mail?”

“I wish.” Her voice breaks. “I wish it was him.”

And then she bursts into tears again.

The first bell rings. We have three minutes to be in class.

I have never been late to class.

Right now, I don’t care. I take her hand. “Come on.”

Declan is around the corner, standing by his locker with Juliet. Their voices are low and serious. Juliet spots me first, and I watch her eyes shift to the clearly distraught girl at the end of my arm.

She taps Declan, then nods in my direction.

“Great,” mutters Emma. She swipes at her eyes again and almost ducks behind me.

“It’s fine,” I say.

Juliet is fishing in her backpack, and she comes up with a pack of tissues. “Here,” she says, holding them out to Emma. “Are you okay?”

Emma sniffs and blinks in surprise. “Oh. Thanks.” She takes some tissues and moves to hand them back, but Juliet shakes her head.

“Keep them. I have plenty.”

Declan glances at the clock at the end of the hallway. He doesn’t care about his own schedule—much—but he knows I’m supposed to be on the other side of the school right now. “What’s up?”

“Can I have your keys?”

“Sure.” He digs them out of the front of his backpack and tosses them to me. “You all right?”

The hallways are already thinning. If we’re going to get out of the school, we have to do it right now, before we’re questioned in the hallway.

“Yes. Thanks.” Then I lead Emma toward the side exit.

She doesn’t resist at all. Not even when I push through the door and lead her into the rain.

“You don’t care about missing class?” I say.

“Right now I don’t care about anything at all.”

The door slams behind us. We’re alone in the student parking lot, though I’m sure it won’t last. There are always late stragglers. The rain has kept everyone else indoors, and we’re able to slip into Declan’s car without being seen.

Emma slides into the front seat and pushes her backpack down onto the floorboards. “This isn’t what I expected. Is this a classic car or something?”

“Yes. A Charger. His pride and joy. He rebuilt it himself.” And he handed over the keys like it was nothing.

Guilt pricks at me. Declan would never keep a secret like this from me.

“Your friend?”

“Declan.” I turn the key to start the engine and get some heat going. The rain has locked a chill into the air. Our breaths fog the glass.

“And that girl … his girlfriend?”

“Juliet. Yes.”

She pulls another tissue from the pack, then drops the visor. She was probably expecting a mirror, but there isn’t one. She snaps it back up and turns on the camera on her phone so she can see herself. She makes a face at the reflection and turns it off. “You said they met by exchanging letters?”

“Sort of.” This feels like a deliberate avoidance of the whole crying-on-my-sweatshirt thing, but I can play along. “Dec got in some trouble last year,” I say. “He had to work community service at a cemetery. Juliet was writing letters to her dead mother, and he started writing back.”

She turns to me with eyes wide. “Like, pretending to be her mother?”

“No! No, nothing like that. Just … writing back and talking about losing someone.” I hesitate. “His sister died when we were thirteen. His dad was drunk and crashed the car.”

“Whoa.” Emma crushes the tissue in her fist and stares out the windshield. “Every time I start feeling sorry for myself, I realize someone else has something bigger. And then I feel like a real ass.” Another tear slips down her cheek. “And then I feel resentful, and then I feel like more of an ass for feeling resentful.”

“Life isn’t a competition.”

“My parents are getting a divorce. They’re not dead. There’s no competition.”

I swing my head around. After all the tears, she drops this like it’s nothing. “They’re what?”

“They’re getting a divorce. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Wait. What hap—”

“I just said I don’t want to talk about it.”

This doesn’t feel like the kind of thing we should leave sitting in the air between us. “Did you just find out this morning?”

“Saturday night.”

“Saturday night.” The air slides out of my lungs. I have to look away. “After?”

“After you told me to leave? Yeah. After.”

These words poke at me with a little too much accuracy. I’m at odds with everyone today. “I didn’t—I wasn’t throwing you out, Emma.”

“You didn’t tell me your parents were black.”

The comment stops me in my tracks. It’s almost impossible to read her voice, because it’s full of emotion from other things. I’m not sure whether this is an accusation or a question.

While my adoption settled things inside of me, sometimes I feel like it unsettled things on the outside. As a foster kid, I was temporary, a child thrust upon them by the needs of the county. As an adopted kid, I was chosen.

I remember one night I was doing my homework, and Geoff and Kristin had another couple over for dinner. They mentioned how excited they were to be going through with the adoption. They probably didn’t know I could hear them—or maybe they did. But overhearing those words, knowing I was wanted, was a powerful moment.

The man who’d come for dinner said, “There weren’t any black kids you could adopt?”

That was a powerful moment, too.

They don’t know that I heard. I remember their answer, that I was a child, and that was all that mattered. I was a child who needed them, who needed them right then. His words burrowed deeper. At the time, I was too embarrassed to bring it up. Too worried to bring it up, like maybe that comment had been a needed reminder, and the adoption wouldn’t go through.

But it did. And they never invited that couple for dinner again.

I’m sure he wasn’t the only one who wondered about our family.

The doorway to the school swings open, and a woman exits, rushing in the rain, holding a book over her head.

A tiny burst of fear ignites in my chest. I have never skipped class before.

At the same time, this dark corner of my brain is intrigued about what would happen if I got caught.

“We can’t sit here,” I say. “You okay if I drive?”

She buckles her seat belt, which I guess is answer enough. “You can drive a stick shift?”

“Yes.” I push the clutch to the floor and start the engine. Officially, Geoff taught me to drive, but I’ve spent far more hours behind the wheel with Dec. I always worried I’d strip the clutch or take out a mailbox, but he’s surprisingly chill about this car. At least with me.

We pull onto Generals Highway, the wipers sliding back and forth along the glass.

“I didn’t mean to offend you,” she says. “With my question.”

“You didn’t offend me.” I pause. “And you didn’t ask me a question.”

“When your mom answered the door, I thought maybe I had the wrong house.”

I almost apologize, but then wonder if that’s appropriate. “I’m never sure how to explain.”

Her voice turns careful. “You didn’t mention it when you were telling me about how you were adopted.”

I’m glad I’m driving, and that the winding road takes a decent portion of my attention. I don’t know how her crying turned into a conversation about me, but this doesn’t feel fair. “I don’t think about it until people find out and then dig at me about it.”

Shocked silence fills the car and I realize what I’ve said.

“Is that why you wear sweatshirts?” she says. “Because you’re white?”

“No.” I glance over in surprise. No one has ever asked that. It’s never occurred to me. I wonder if other people think that, too. “I’m not embarrassed that we don’t match.”

The force of her thinking could probably steer this car. “Is this a sore point for you?”

I can’t figure out her tone, whether she’s judging me or chastising me. “No.” I’ve never been more grateful for a rainy day and a road that demands my attention. “It’s just that it’s always this kind of conversation. Do you know, when I was a kid, if I was out with Geoff, people would always stop and ask me if I was okay. My father—my biological father—was torturing me every single day, and everyone thought he was the best dad. No one ever questioned him. Geoff is the kindest man you could ever meet, and people would stop us in the grocery store and ask if I was okay. Like he meant me harm.”

Emma stares at me. “I’m—sorry. I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to be sorry. It’s not you. It’s everyone.”

“And that other boy—the one you fought with. Who was he?”

Every time I remember it, my shoulders tense. “Matthew. He’s a foster kid. He’s only been living with us for a few days.”

“So … what was he—”

“Stop.” I cut a glance her way. This whole conversation has ramped me up, and I was already on edge this morning. “I’m happy to provide a distraction if that’s what you really need, but you’re the one who was crying in the hallway.”

Her eyes flash wide in surprise, but then she turns to look out the window. A clear refusal to speak.

“If you didn’t want to talk to me, why did you get in the car?”

Emma turns to face me head-on. “Fine. You have a nice reassuring Bible quote about divorce?”

The words are a weapon, one leveled with deadly aim. I can’t speak.

She says nothing. She doesn’t even seem to realize the impact her words have.

We drive in silence for miles. Hurt and embarrassment shift until anger swells to fill the car.

“What do you want me to do?” I finally ask.

“I don’t want to talk about my parents.”

I glance over. She’s still looking out the window. Her arms are crossed against her chest.

I already feel closed off from everyone else in my life, but this feels deliberate. I told her about my father’s e-mails. I felt safe with her.

I thought she felt safe with me.

I try to shake this off. I fail. My jaw feels tight. “I meant, do you want me to keep driving?”

“Just take me back to school,” she says.

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

The rain stops when I pull into the parking lot. We need to park way at the back, because more students have filled in the available spots.

When she gets out, she heads for the front.

I head for the side entrance.

I don’t stop her. She doesn’t stop me.

We go our separate ways.

And somehow I feel like I’m carrying more baggage than I started with.