Page 46 of The Staircase in the Woods

“It was him,” she said, finally, in a small voice.

29

Mister Mumbles

The first time Lore and Matty slept together, 1998, eleventh grade, was in her bed, in her house, because nobody was ever home and nobody cared what she did.

She hated bringing anybody to her house. It felt embarrassing, though she didn’t know why, not exactly.

But Matty’s parents? They didn’t like her. Thought she was weird. They didn’t dig any of Matty’s friends, actually—Matty was an achiever, on the fast track to an excellent life, and to them, they were just the mud he was stuck in.

As such, if they wanted to fuck, it was her house or no house.

It wasn’t their first time having sex—just their first time with each other.

It wasn’t great.

And it was alsoamazing.

Because two competing things can be true at the same time.

He wasn’t good at sex, but he was soft and slow in a way that surprised her for such a go-getter. And she sucked in bed, too, but she was aggressive, eager, nearly feral—and somehow, that combination worked.

And because they had the time and the space to be with each other and to relax afterward, they passed out in a tangle of sweaty limbs. That’s when she learned how Matty talked in his sleep. Little mumbles and murmurs, a soft run-on babble-gush sound punctuated by real words—a sound at the time she thought was funny and sweet. Because it humbled him in a way. It made Matty seem like aregular messy human instead of the sports-grades-theater god, the big boisterous monumental straight-A slate of a human being so many people thought he was. It made him smaller. And because of that, more precious.

She had loved that sound once.

Would’ve given anything to hear it again, or so she thought.

But then she picked up that see-through plastic phone and put it to her ear—

And that is who she heard on the other end.

Matty.

Mumbling. Murmuring.

Soft run-on babble-gush.

His voice was small again. So small he seemed to be lost—a mouse lost in a tangle of pipe.

Humm mm ff Lore nnnuh mmm lmmm where are you wuhh help mm…

She panicked, tried telling him she couldn’t hear him, couldn’tunderstandhim, wanted to know where he was—

And then a rusty screwdriver of raw static drove itself into her ear.

An ear that was still ringing, the shrill drill bit of tinnitus spinning in the deep of her skull. Owen was next to her now, rubbing her shoulder, and it felt awful to have him that close, like he was encroaching upon her, smothering her—and Nick, too, standing there, asking her,Who was it who was it,snapping his fingers at her like she was a dog. She spasmed away from Owen and then barked at Nick:

“It was him. It wasMatty. I couldn’t totally hear him, but it was him and—” Her words dissolved under the whining threat of tears, so she bit her teeth and buckled down to swallow those feelings. Firmly, she said: “It was him. He sounded lost. Distant. But he’s here, somewhere.”And we can find him.

Nick, eager now, leaning forward like a cat ready to pounce: “Matty? Youheardhim? You heardMatty. This is good. This is so fucking good. It’s fuckinggreat—” He slapped Owen on the shoulder. “Right, Zuikas? Fuckinggreat.”

“Fucking great,” Owen repeated, but to Lore’s ear, his heart wasn’t in it, not at all, and she wondered:Did he come here to find Matty?

Or did he come here to chase me?

But then she saw Owen’s gaze drift away from her, past Nick—

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