Page 39 of Reckless At Raleigh High
“Are you dying?” I smile into the lush thickness of his hair.
“Any second now,” he mumbles.
“We’d better get you inside, then.”
It’shimthat carriesmeinside the cabin, though. He’s the one who gets a fire going while I shiver in the living room, bundled up in the thickest throw he could find. I call Dad from the cabin’s ancient Bakelite phone to let him know we’re going to be spending the weekend at the cabin. And once we’re warm, the frigid chill thawed from our bones, I snuggle into Alex’s side and I give him the news that I’ve been stewing on ever since this morning, when Dad placed my mail in front of me at the breakfast table.
“Alex?”
“Mmm?” He sounds half-drunk and half-asleep from the heat.
I try not to panic as I rush the words out. “I got a final acceptance letter. They’ve offered me a place at Dartmouth.”
19
ALEX
Inever dared to have dreams when I lived with Gary. Life hadn’t been particularly generous with me and seemed content to continue kicking me in the balls every chance it got, so what was the point in cultivating hopes for the future? A career? A family? A life in which I didn’t wake up every day, waiting for the next big thing that was going to take my feet out from underneath me? Imagining these things felt like asking for trouble. Trouble already knew where I lived and came knocking on the regular, so why risk inviting it in with things like goals and ambition?
The only thing I ever wanted was Ben. Nothing was more important to me than making a home for him, where he walked through the door after being at school all day and his flesh and blood would be there, waiting for him. I wanted to show him how to grow into manhood. I wanted to be a good role model to him. I wanted us to stick together, for him to know that at leastIloved him, even if our mother opted out on life and our father opted out onus. I dared to dreamthatkind of a life…and in a screeching of tires and a crunching of metal, that dream was stolen, snatched away forever.
I’d take back all of the shit I gave Jackie if it meant that my brother hadn’t died in that stupid fucking people carrier. I’d rescind any claim I had over Ben. Fuck, I’d agree to never even fucking speak to him again if it meant that he was alive, and safe, and well away from Raleigh. Away fromme. Instead, my little brother’s lying in a grave, cold and alone, and I keep trying to conjure up a way to fix it, to bring him back from the dead, but all I seem to summon are ghosts.
I lost my mother.
I lost my brother.
And now I know how dangerous it is to dream.
Silver wriggles back in her sleep, snuggling into my body, the soft sounds of her slow, even breathing punctuating the deafening silence of the cabin, and I lie very still, trying to wrap my head around the future she proposed in front of the fire earlier this evening.
A life at college together. A small house with a white fence and a little yard for a Nipper. A room that gets the afternoon light, filled with stacks of sheet music, a worn old upright piano by the window, and photos of us on the walls. A small kitchen, where we learn how to feed ourselves without setting fire to the pots and pans. A bedroom that we share together, where we fall asleep tangled up in each other’s bodies every night, no matter what.
It sounds peaceful.
It sounds magical.
It sounds like a fuckingdream...and that scares the living shit out of me.
None of the tragic events that I’ve endured since I was born came about because my existence is ill-fated. My mother was a troubled woman, plagued by depression and manic swings that made her life unbearable. Giacomo left because he was weak. Ben died…
…fuck…
I screw my eyes shut tight against the darkness, allowing the pain that comes crashing down on me a moment to settle. The teeth of Ben’s loss are still so sharp, they’re probably never going to dull. They’re impossible to avoid, though. They bite down hard and deep. All I can do is brace myself and wait for the breathlessness they cause to pass.
Ben died because a deer leapt out in front of the car when Jackie was driving, and there was no time for her to react.
There were reasons for these tragedies. I’m the common factor in all of these events, though, which makes it difficult to convince myself that I’m not the reason why everything keeps falling apart, over and over again. And when those thoughts creep in, poisoning my mind like they are tonight, refusing to let me sleep, fear gets the better of me.
If I dream of a beautiful life with Silver, I’m gonna fucking jinx it. There won’t be a little house with a music room for us. There won’t be little yard for Nipper. Silver will go away, just like everyone else has gone away…and I’ll be left all alone.
She loves you, Alex. She isn’t going anywhere. She’s here, you fucking moron. She’shere.
The words I repeat in my head like a prayer should reassure me, but they don’t. Because there’s another voice, not quite as loud but far more insidious, whispering inside my ear at the same time.
Yeah. Yeah, she is. But for how fucking long?
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