Cuts Like a Knife

Cuts Like a Knife

Darlene Ryan

ORCA BOOK PUBLISHERS

Copyright © 2012 Darlene Ryan

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Ryan, Darlene, 1958-
Cuts like a knife [electronic resource] / Darlene Ryan.

(Orca soundings)

Electronic monograph.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN
978-1-4598-0121-9 (
PDF
).--
ISBN
978-1-4598-0122-6 (
EPUB
)

I. Title. II. Series: Orca soundings (Online)
PS
8635.
Y
35
C
88 2012       
JC
813'.6       
C
2011-907830-9

First published in the United States, 2012
Library of Congress Control Number:
2011943733

Summary:
When Mac begins saying goodbye to everyone she knows,
Daniel becomes convinced he has to save her from hurting herself. Or worse.

Orca Book Publishers is dedicated to preserving the environment and has printed this book on paper certified by the Forest Stewardship Council
^®
.

Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

Cover photography by Getty Images

www.orcabook.com
Printed and bound in Canada.

15  14  13  12  •  4  3  2  1

For Lauren, who has grown into
an exceptional young woman.

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

It started out like any other day. Nobody wants to believe that. People say, “Well, you must have missed something,” or “How could you not know?”

I think it makes them feel better. I think it makes them feel that if they had been me, if they'd been in the same place at the same time, they would have somehow done it better than I did.

I know I didn't do it perfectly, but I did the best that I could—at least I did something—and I hope that was enough.

That day, Mac was already at the old lodge in the park when I came up the hill. I could see her up on the balcony off the main level. On the front of the old building, the door is at ground level and you can walk right inside. On the back, because the lodge is built into the hill, the main part is two stories in the air, so the balcony is maybe fifteen or sixteen feet off the ground.

We weren't even supposed to be on the balcony—nobody was—because there were “issues” with some of the decking boards. That's city-government-speak meaning some of the wood was rotting. There was a chain blocking the bottom of the outside stairs. A yellow
Keep Out, Danger
sign hung from the heavy metal links.

An old lady with a walker could have stepped over that chain. To keep kids out of somewhere, you have to do better than just a droopy chain. And those
Keep Out, Danger
signs? They just make some people more determined to get in. People like Mac, for example. Okay, and me. Call it teenage rebellion. That's what my mother calls it.

So, anyway, Mac was there first, up on the rotten wood balcony, on top of the railing. Yeah, I mean on the railing, as in walking across it like she was that guy who wanted to walk over the Grand Canyon on a tightrope, although Mac was on a six-inch-wide piece of wood instead. Now, see, some people would say
that
was a sign, but I don't think it was. Mac was always getting up on that railing, holding out her arms and walking from one end of the balcony all the way to the other end.

Sometimes she'd close her eyes. Once she stopped in the middle and pretended she was jumping rope. She scared the piss out of me every time she got up there, but I knew not to let on that it bothered me, because if I did, then Mac would do something more over the top and maybe she
would
fall.

I stepped over the chain and went up the stairs, getting to the top just as Mac got to the end of the railing. My heart was pounding in my chest, the way it always did when she got up there, but I just looked at her with a half smile and said, “Hey, Mac.”

“Hey, Daniel,” she said. She jumped down and pointed at the Tim's bag I was holding. “What've you got?”

I opened the top, and she looked inside. Then she looked at me. “Okay, so what do you want?” she said, glaring at me through her bangs.

I pulled the bag away and went over to sit against the wall of the building. “I don't want anything,” I said. “Jeez, Mac, it's just a freakin' donut.”

“Yeah, well, since when do you buy me donuts?”

“I don't,” I said. “But they've got this contest thing they're doing and I won a chocolate glazed donut, which I don't like but you do, and so I figured I'd give it to you. But if you don't want it, I can just find a squirrel or something to eat it instead.”

Mac came over and sat down beside me, bumping me with her shoulder. “You are such a girl sometimes, Danny Boy,” she said with a grin. She took the chocolate glazed donut out of the bag and I pulled out the dutchie I'd bought for myself, and we sat there taking turns drinking the coffee I'd gotten too.

So maybe there was a sign after all. Maybe the fact that I'd won a stupid donut at Tim's—and believe me, I never win anything—and of all the donuts they sell, it was Mac's all-time favorite. Maybe that did mean something. At the time, I thought it was just a donut. Maybe I was wrong.

“So where were you all day?” she asked after the coffee and both donuts were gone.

I leaned my head back against the rough shingles and closed my eyes. “Helping my mother clean out the basement,” I said. I wouldn't have said that to anyone else, but I knew Mac wouldn't make fun of me.

“That's nice,” she said. I felt her lean back against the wall too.

“You going over to the school later to work on your composition?” I asked after a moment. “Hanson said he'd be there so we can get into the music room.”

“Nope. I'm done.”

I opened my eyes wide and turned to look at her. “What do you mean you're done? How the hell can you be done?”

Mac's face was tipped up to the sky like she was soaking up the sun, except there really wasn't any. About two weeks ago she'd suddenly cut off all her long red hair for a short, chopped cut with messy bangs. I was still getting used to it.

“I mean I'm done.
Fini
.
Completo
. I wrote out the rest of the music. I recorded it. I burned the cd. I'm done.”

The composition project was half of our term music mark. I couldn't believe Mac was finished while I was still struggling to get the notes on paper—that is, if I'd actually had any music in my head to write down.

I let my head fall back against the wall again and stared up into the gray April sky. “Friday, you weren't any further ahead than I am. What did you do? Spend the whole day in the music room?”

I felt her shrug beside me. “Last night, mostly,” she said.

“You lie,” I said, letting my eyes slide sideways so I could see her without moving my head. “There was a dance last night, so Hanson would have been in the gym making sure none of the guys on the hockey team were drinking or putting their hands down some girl's thong.”

Her lips twitched with a hint of a smile. “Great visual, Danny Boy. But just so you know, some of us don't go for the butt-floss look.”

I reached over and gave her shoulder a shove. “Yeah, well, thanks for
that
visual, Mac.”

She grinned, but she kept her head against the brown shingles, and her eyes stayed closed.

I stretched my legs across the wooden deck and slid down until the back of my head was the only thing still against the building. “Seriously, how'd you get into the music room?”

“Maybe I broke in. Maybe I picked the lock with a paperclip and a toothpick. Maybe I swiped pointy-faced Mrs. Robinson's keys. Or maybe…”

She let the word hang in the air for a long moment. “Maybe Mr. Hanson went in to get a guitar, because some suck-up suggested he sit in with the band for a song. And maybe he didn't lock up behind himself the way he should have.”

She opened her eyes then and jumped to her feet. “C'mon, Danny Boy,” she said, jerking her head toward the steps. “Let's go.”

“What are you on?” I said, squinting up at her. “I spent all day hauling boxes of crap that came from my grandparents' house out of the basement of my parents' house. Leave me alone. Let me sleep.”

I closed my eyes, but she bent down, grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. Mac was kinda short—she only came up to my shoulder—but she was strong. I could feel her fingers digging into my wrist through my sweatshirt, and I pretty much had to go with her, because she wasn't letting go and I was going to fall on my ass going down those stairs if I didn't keep up.

Chapter Two

“Where are we going?” I said as Mac cut across the grass, headed for the hill that led down to the street.

She'd let go of my arm, and I was following her, mostly because what the hell else did I have to do on an almost Saturday night?

“I wanna show you something,” she said.

“Show me what?”

She turned around and started walking backward. “See, the thing is, Danny Boy,” she said, making a big sweeping movement with one hand, “when someone wants to show you something, you have to actually see it.”

“So where's everyone else tonight?” I asked, partly because I really did want to know, and partly because I knew she wasn't going to tell me where we were going and I didn't want her to think I cared about knowing that much. Yeah, I know that's warped.