Drowning Instinct(29)
Author: Ilsa J. Bick

―Cold?‖ Mr. Anderson asked.

―I‘m okay.‖

―You say that too much.‖ I heard a soft shoosh of fabric and then Mr. Anderson was draping his jacket around my shoulders.

The leather was warm from his body heat. ―I can‘t. I‘ll be fine. It‘s not that far. It‘s your jacket.‖

―Yes, it is. If it‘ll make you feel better, you can give it back at the car and then shiver all the way back to the house, okay?

Now be gracious and say thank you.‖

―Thank you.‖

―You‘re welcome.‖ Then: ―I‘m sorry, Jenna.‖

All at once, I was that close to tears. I gnawed on my already-raw lower lip. At this rate, I wouldn‘t have any skin left. ―You didn‘t do anything. I should be apologizing to you.‖

―No,‖ he said, his voice rough. ―Don‘t ever say that. You‘ve got nothing to apologize for. I‘m sorry I couldn‘t keep your father from embarrassing you more than . . .‖

He paused. ―Look, nothing your father said makes a difference, all right? You‘re still the same person you were before.‖

―I should explain about what happened last year—‖

―No.‖ His hand reached out of the darkness and touched my shoulder. ―Listen to me, Jenna. What happened doesn‘t matter. It‘s past. I don‘t need to know. All that matters is here and now, you understand? Sometimes it‘s best to let the past go, Jenna. Don‘t get so caught up in looking behind you forget to look ahead.‖

We started walking again. I could feel the words bunching up in my throat. What Mr. Anderson didn‘t understand was…all of a sudden, I wanted to tell him. I wanted him to know me: about Matt and the fire, about the psych ward. I thought of his knife now squirreled in my backpack because it was easier to get at that way and I could keep it close.

I liked the feel of that secret in my hands, and I wanted to confess that, too.

But I said nothing. I let his jacket keep me warm, and I kept my mouth shut.

At his car, he said, ―There‘s something I want you to promise. Anyone touches you, anyone, I want you to call me, you understand? Day or night, makes no difference. Even if it‘s because you only need to talk, I‘ll be there. I‘ll come get you wherever you are. I mean it, Jenna. I‘m here for you. This—‖ His words thrummed with emotion. ―This stuff . . . It‘s crazy; it‘s—‖

―I think my mom is having an affair.‖ The words flew past my teeth and there was no calling them back. ―My dad‘s screwing one of his nurses. Matt‘s gone, and it‘s just me with them, and I‘m scared they‘re going to get a divorce and then I think that would be a good thing.‖

―Oh, Jenna. Oh, honey, I‘m sorry.‖ He took a small step and I thought he might hug me, but it was dark and his face swarmed with shadows. So I‘m not sure, even now. But I will be honest: I wanted a hug. I needed one, so badly. Nothing like that happened, though, and after a second or two, he said, ―Listen, any time you want a break from your folks, you come over to our house, okay? Door‘s open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

You wouldn‘t be the first.‖

Our house. Right. He was married; I remembered my stupid phone call and wondered why his wife wasn‘t here. I was also very glad he couldn‘t see my face.

―Sure,‖ I said.

e

Psycho-Dad was waiting just inside the front door. ―What did you say to him?‖ he demanded.

―Nothing,‖ I said.

24: a

Sunday, after the party.

At noon, I watched my parents‘ car rumble down the drive. Meryl was sitting in back and only she turned to wave goodbye, which pretty much summed up the general temperature of everyone concerned: chilly, just the near side of frost. I lifted my hand to Meryl and then my father hung a right at the bottom of the drive, tooled up the rise toward the highway, and passed out of sight.

I closed the door, listening to the silence settle in. Before Matt left, our family always made the trip up north to Meryl‘s farm on Madeline Island together. The drive was long, over eight hours, so we‘d stay an extra day or two to kayak on Lake Superior, bicycle around the island, or just hang out on the farm, helping out with the sheep that Meryl raised for wool. Mom said that when I was little, I always cried when we left. That was probably true. I loved Meryl just about as much as I loved my mother, sometimes more.

Still, I was relieved to be left behind, afraid until the moment my father turned the ignition and dropped the car into drive that they might make me come along.

At that point, my parents weren‘t due back until Tuesday night. I had sixty hours of freedom, give or take. Other than homework and running, I didn‘t have a clue what I was going to do with all that time.

It was weird, when you stopped to consider that at this same time last year, I‘d been on a mental ward. So, at best, my parents leaving me alone meant that they completely trusted me.

At the worst—well, I guess you could say they deeply didn‘t care.

Which, I thought, was closer to the truth.

b

For the first two hours, I finished up what little homework I had. I surfed the Internet for a while, looked at my former friends‘ Facebook pages. My own page hadn‘t been updated since before my hospitalization. I didn‘t even look the same. My hair was shorter then, and my br**sts barely there. (I was a late bloomer. Mom always said I was an ugly duckling that someday would swan. She might have meant well, but every word drew blood.) Besides, what would I add to my page? Free At Last? Forty-Seven Days Since Last Cut?

Then I remembered Matt. I hadn‘t e-mailed him in days, and that wasn‘t right. But what could I tell him? That I‘d flushed Dr. Kirby‘s hundred dollars down the toilet? That I‘d thought of my old nail scissors but instead clutched the kissing knife as my skin begged? That as badly as I wanted to, I hadn‘t cut and that was because I knew now that Mr. Anderson was the only adult willing to protect me? Fight for me? That he would never, ever hurt me? No, I couldn‘t tell Matt any of this.

There were no DVDs I wanted to watch. We didn‘t own Alien, but I found the final sequence on YouTube, where Sigourney Weaver blasts the alien into space, and turned the music up. Mr. Anderson said it was from Howard Hansen‘s ―Romantic Symphony,‖ so I downloaded that and a couple other tracks: an album of Judy Garland, Duke Ellington. That piano piece by Cyrus Chestnut we‘d listened to the other night. Wagner.

Then, I thought: Go for a run. I‘d mapped out a ten-mile route from the McMansion, but I was restless and wanted something new. Pulling up Google Earth, I searched until I found the address.