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Chapter One:
San Diego
The
Jigsaw Club is filled to capacity and yet they still let me in. A bouncer named
Sid checks my ID and then tells me he likes my boots, even though he isn’t
looking at them. Inside the club there’s enough light to find the bathrooms.
But not the exits.
I
take a spot near the back where the wall is sticky and smells like beer. I
don’t know much about beer, my mom drinks wine. She says it relaxes her, and
I’m okay with that. We both know she needs to relax.
“Be
careful, Kate,” she called out right before I left the house. “Be home by
midnight. And — be careful.”
If
I know anything it’s how to be careful. Normally this wouldn’t be my scene but I
like the band. Their first two CDs could be considered the soundtrack to my
life — that is, my life of solitary confinement.
The
stage lights zigzag across the crowd and I spot a few kids from school. One or
two make eye contact but that’s all they do. Their eyes slide on past me
without a hint of recognition. They’ve had a few years to perfect this
maneuver. I’m the only one not fooled. They sway back and forth to the music,
their faces occasionally lit when they respond to a text. Or pretend to. Normal
looks good on them. I fight back that familiar twinge of jealousy I always
experience in their presence. I tug the sleeves of my black shirt down over my
hands and tuck them into my armpits. It’s about a thousand degrees in this
club, but I feel cold.
The
band stops playing halfway through the next song. I figure there’s some kind of
technical difficulty, but then a guy from just off stage grabs the mic and
tells us all to head toward the exits. Quickly,
he emphasizes. But no one moves. We
all must be thinking the same thing: If
this is for real shouldn’t the house lights come back on?
The
musicians drop their instruments and run from the stage — that is, everyone but
the bass player. He pauses only long enough to unplug his guitar and take it with
him. From stage left the smoke appears. It clouds the stage lights, diluting
their colors into murky renditions of blue, orange and red. It swirls about the
ceiling as if it’s looking for someone. And that’s when I notice the flames.
Fire!
Everyone
starts moving at the same time, but there’s nowhere to go. They slam into each
other like bowling pins, some are knocked over while others tip sideways and
then stabilize. I’m frozen until the smoke reaches me. It moves in through my
nose and tickles the back of my throat. I push off from the wall only to get
knocked to the ground. My hands splash into something wet on the floor and then
slide around as I try to climb up onto my knees. Something slams into the top
of my head and I slip sideways, nearly face-planting to the ground. My head is
pounding, the pain so intense I begin to choke. I breathe in, slow and then
fast, trying my best to fight off the possibility of blacking out. I only need
to rest for a moment. Just one moment should help.
“Kate!
Get up!” Someone tugs at my arm and then all at once I’m on my feet. A blurry
figure grabs my hand and pulls me toward him. And because I’m barely able to
stand I allow it to happen.
“Stay
close,” he yells and then drags me behind him. My rescuer uses his body like a
bulldozer, plowing through the shapes and shadows around us. When he knocks a
young girl to her knees he pauses only long enough to help her to her feet
before we’re on the move again. The stage lights skimming through the crowd
bounce off his hair tinting it an electric blue and then a clownlike orange. I’ve
yet to catch a glimpse of his face.
We
crash out the side entrance and the cool night air feels like a gift I will
never return. One deep breath after another fills my lungs and my knees begin
to shake. I’m coughing, he’s coughing — I feel like I might collapse.
“You
should go,” he says. His voice is scratchy. He still hasn’t released my hand.
The
alleyway is dimly lit, but I can make out a strong jawline and dark hooded
eyes. There’s something familiar about him. My stomach clenches and I wonder if
I know him from school. No, that can’t be right. No one from school would risk
their life to save mine.
“Thank
you,” I say and he nods. The words barely make it past my raw throat. When I
don’t look away he takes a step back into the shadows.
I
open my mouth to say something more but then stop when I feel a warm drip of
moisture trickle down the side of my face. I want to believe it’s rain, please let it be rain, but when I look
up at the sky all I see are stars. I turn my face away and hope he hasn’t
noticed. Maybe the darkness will keep my secret this time.
No
such luck.
His
grip on my hand tightens, as if he’s sensed I’m about to run. “You’re hurt.” His
other hand reaches out to me but I jerk away. I’m looking at the ground, my
long hair covering my face, when he says, “Don’t let them see you.” He releases
my hand one finger at a time and then steps further back into the shadows.
“What’s
your name?” I ask. I have to know.
He
hesitates for a split second and then says, “Jonah.”
“How’d
you—”
“Go,
Kate. Now!”
I
stare into the shadows one last time, and then I run. I run past the choking
wall of teenagers lying on the sidewalk outside the club. I run past the fire
trucks and security guards. I run until the blood spilling from the jagged
wound in my skull begins to cloud my vision. And even then I don’t slow down
until the blood finally stops and the pounding in my head ceases to nothing. I
reach up and let my hand move along my scalp until I’m convinced. My hair is matted
with dried blood but my skin is once again smooth.
There’s
a Chinese food restaurant across the street from me that advertises all you can
eat wontons, and the flashing neon sign above the door tells me they never
close. I slip through the front door with my head down and hurry toward the
restroom. I stick my head under the sink and scrub at my hair until the water
changes from rust colored back to clear.
The
bathroom mirror is dirty, just like the toilet, sink and floor, but right now I
can’t think of a better place to be. My face is paler than normal, which
emphasizes the streaks of dirt and blood across my cheeks. I wet down a paper
towel and do my best to clean it all away, but the rough texture of the towel only
turns my cheeks a raw looking pink. My eyes widen in the mirror when someone
starts pounding on the wall.
“Restroom
for customer only,” an angry Chinese woman says once I open the door.
I
shrug my shoulders and duck behind my long wet hair. I have no reason to hide from
her — not now — but I do it anyway.
“Two
egg rolls to go,” I tell her, handing her a five dollar bill.
She
doesn’t smile. Her suspicious eyes pin me to the wall while she rings out the
line of customers back at the cash register. When she hands me my small bag of
egg rolls she mumbles something about a woman’s shelter a few blocks away, and
then she pushes me out the door.
I
eat my egg rolls on the bus. My shirt is slightly wet and my hair is dripping,
but I’m clean. No one would guess I was injured tonight. Not even my mother.
“I
take it you didn’t like the band?” she asks when I walk through the door. She
glances up and smiles over the neatly folded piles of laundry distributed
evenly along the back of the couch.
I
shrug and say, “not so great live,” and head toward my bedroom.
I
know to keep my lies simple and my explanations short. Unnecessary rambling is
a sure sign of guilt. Thankfully my mother doesn’t come too close otherwise
she’d smell smoke, blood and egg rolls.
“Are
you packed, Kate?” Her voice carries down the hallway. “We need to leave a
little earlier tomorrow than we’d planned, so you should pack tonight. I have a
stop to make before our flight.”
“I’m
almost packed. I’ll be ready by morning.”
“Kate?”
she calls after me and I stop directly in front of my bedroom door.
I
slide my finger along my shiny door handle, anticipating her next words. The
handle is smooth to the touch. And pink. I picked it out when I was five years
old and it has survived seven different houses, seven different bedrooms and
seven different towns. Just like me.
“Yes?”
I say when she hesitates.
“You
can still change your mind.”
“I
won’t,” I tell her.
“It’s
just that—” she continues but I cut her off.
“I’m
going. It’s important to me.” My hand grips the door handle and I open my door.
Just inside my doorway I wait for the argument. The same three words that
preempt every disagreement my mother and I have.
It’s.
Not. Safe.
But
this time the words are different.
“Alright,
Kate. Alright,” she says, followed by a sigh.
I
slide my suitcase out of my closet and the noise stirs the small cat lounging
on my bed.
“You’ve
been in that exact spot all day, Lefty,” I say.
But
he doesn’t care to acknowledge that comment. Instead he crawls into the top
portion of the open suitcase, as if to say you’re
not leaving without me.
Lefty
is all white except for one gray spot right above his chin. I love that spot. I
call it his soul patch, like he should be reading obscure poetry in a café
somewhere downtown. But he doesn’t like it much. He does his best to remove it
every time he takes a bath.
He
came to us when I was eight. He showed up one night at dinnertime and after a
few minutes of howling I opened the door and he walked right in. My mother was
hesitant at first, until she realized he was the one friend that would always
keep my secrets.
Besides,
how can you turn away a three-legged cat?
I
go through the motions of packing but all I can see is Jonah. If only I could
shine a flashlight into the memory of his face just to see the color of his
eyes. He seemed so familiar to me, as if I knew him. Or I’d seen him somewhere
before. I think back through all the schools I’ve been to, Boston, Chicago or
possibly here in San Diego. There have been so many schools, so many kids. But
no Jonah. Perhaps I’ve seen him around my mother’s boutique? But that doesn’t
seem likely either.
There’s
a soft knocking on my bedroom door and then my mother calls out, “Goodnight,
Kate.” She doesn’t open the door. No goodnight kiss or bedtime story for me.
Now that I’m seventeen we’re past that. But there are times I wish she’d tuck
me in, tell me everything’s going to be alright, like she did when I was
younger. And I could pretend to believe her, for just one night. Like I did
when I was younger.
My
mother and I live like roommates, best friends who exist for each other alone.
Or “codependent,” I believe they call it. She says there’s no one she’d rather
spend time with, but I know that can’t be true because as much as I love her
there are days when I’d kill for someone else to talk to.
Someone
who doesn’t have to love me. They
just do.
“Goodnight,
Mom,” I call out now, but it’s too late. She’s already moved on down the hall.
I
grab my iPhone and crank my favorite playlist. I fill my suitcase with running
shoes and running clothes — everything I need for tomorrow’s track meet — and,
oh yeah, one pair of pajamas. Outside my window the night is settling in as one
by one lights are turned off and sleep is the uniform goal in the beachside community.
And down the hall my mother joins them.
I
love it when the house is quiet, my favorite time of night. I dance around my
bedroom where I know no one is watching me. That is, no one other than a
three-legged cat. Here I can pretend the rest of the world doesn’t exist.
For
the moment I’m not a freak.
I’m
just Kate.
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