Shackled (6 page)

SEVEN

I had David drop me off at home. We shared mumbled good-byes, and that was it.

I scurried into the house alone. Closed and locked the door. Rushed to my room. Sat on my bed, got my gear, bared my leg. Drew the razor north to south down my calf, close to my knee pit.

Burn, burn, burn.

My heart stopped. Considered. Started up again, slower. Slower. Slowing . . .

Better.

I cleaned the blade and put it back into its case, which went back into my pocket. I dabbed the slice with tissue from the travel-size pack I kept in my bag. Never toilet paper, never a napkin. It's got to be my own personal stash. Couldn't say why. Maybe I was afraid of germs.

Once the blood stopped draining, I plastered it with a bandage three fingers wide, rolled my pant leg back down, checked myself in the bathroom mirror, and, finally, tried to do math problems until Mom and Jeffrey would be home.

It's a lot of work being me anymore.

A few hours later, as I was trying to get something ready for dinner, Mom arrived home with Jeffrey in tow, muttering about having to leave work early to go pick him up, and why couldn't I just get my driver's license like a sensible teenager so she wouldn't have to drag not one but two of us around all the time. . . .

So instantly my mood perked up.

Just kidding.

“Why didn't that guy David come get me?” Jeffrey wanted to know as soon as he walked in the door behind Mom.

“Because he had things to do,” I said, trying unsuccessfully to boil pasta for dinner.

“What kinds of things?” Jeffrey wanted to know.

“The world doesn't revolve around you!” I shouted.

Jeffrey blinked up at me, wounded. He set his jaw and said, “You suck.”

He marched out of the kitchen just as Mom marched back in from dumping her bag in her bedroom.

“What on earth?” she said.

“Nothing,” I said, dumping mashed pasta down the disposal. It's a mystery to me how I could fail to boil pasta correctly. I slammed the colander into the sink. “You'll have to order in.”

“What is the matter with you?” Mom asked.

“What
isn't
?” I said back. “I just want to feel
better
, you know, just go back to how everything used to be, but no one will
let
me, and I miss . . . I just miss . . .”

I suppose the most logical way to finish that sentence was with the name “Tara.” Only that wasn't the first thing that came to mind. The first thing that came to mind was “me.”

Mom listened to all this with her eyebrows raised.

“Have you been taking your meds?” she asked. Just a polite inquiry. Just
wondering
, you know, just
curious
, no biggie either way.

“No,” I said as defeat dragged my shoulders down. “No, Mom. I haven't. I got tired of being tired. I got tired of not being able to think at all.”

That was no lie. Then again, thinking hadn't gotten me very far lately.

“Well, maybe they need to change them up,” Mom said. “It's not an exact science, you know. Maybe you need a new dosage, or a new kind . . .”

I stared at her, long enough and in a silence so cold she couldn't miss it.

“What?” she said.

“Change the dosage,” I said slowly. “Okay.”

I walked out of the kitchen and into my room, ignoring Jeffrey and his video game in the living room. I closed my door, squatted on the floor, and screamed into my elbow.

After screaming for about three or four years straight, my
vocal cords as raw as rancid hamburger, I stayed hunkered on the floor, wishing for the little yellow pills my doctor had prescribed after Tara was taken. They'd usually knock me out cold, and if they didn't, I could at least spend the next six to eight hours comfortably numb to the world. That's what I wanted more than anything right then.

By the time I stood up, my knees practically creaked. I must've been down there for a while. I lost track of time on occasion. I turned on my laptop and clicked a link in my favorites folder: missingkids.com.

Ten Tips for a Safe Holiday Season

NCMEC Announces New Training

Have You Seen These Children?

Like I did every day, then every week, and eventually every month, I entered Tara's information in the search box and clicked it. Her poster gazed back at me, the school photo from fourth grade centered on the page beside one of the age-enhanced ones Larson had shown me. I'd never seen that image on this site before. Had it been that long since I had checked out her page? How long had they had an age-enhanced photo posted?

Like I said, I tended to lose track of time.

Guilt filled me up like it came from a hose jammed into my mouth. A full-pressure blast punching holes in all my digestive organs. Some friend I was.

I squinted at the photo, letting my eyes tennis-match between the fourth-grade photo and the new one. I didn't
see anything new or different. Both photos were Tara, pretty much. I wished I could go back to yesterday and get one more good look at her.

I clicked the page closed and checked my phone. The low-battery indicator was already on. That reminded me of David texting me yesterday to let me know I was running late. He didn't have to do that. Eli kept a master list of everyone's cell, but we rarely used it. And David sure as hell didn't have to drive me all over town.

Except on occasion for work, I'd never texted David before. But then after yesterday at the Hole in the Wall, and today, him seeing me in all my panicky glory, it occurred to me that I didn't really have anything to hide from him.

And I didn't have to act like I did toward him at the park. That's what we used to pay Dr. Carpenter for. Ha-ha.

Dr. Carpenter had been a nice-enough woman, and I really had gotten better while I saw her. I mean, I could leave the house now, and even hold down a job, clearly. Before that I'd just stayed indoors and faked my way through my online classes, read books, watched movies, and perfected my slicing. If I hadn't seen Tara at the shop, maybe I would've made the transition from basket case to functional human being. Like I'd planned. Maybe that wasn't to be.

Dr. Carpenter couldn't bring Tara back, or change my Dad's schedule, or make my mom stop worrying about money and work all the time.

But . . .

Now, here was a new idea.

Maybe
I
could.

I reopened my browser and searched for
find license plate owner
. I brought up a whole list of sites that claimed I could look up anyone by their plate number. Most of them, no doubt, were totally bogus. I started clicking around, looking for signs of legitimacy.

I settled on a site that looked legit, and entered the info I'd kept from yesterday. I chewed my lip, waiting for the results to pop up. What I got instead was a request for fifteen bucks.

“Son of a bitch,” I said.

The site glared at me from my laptop screen, wanting to know if I wished to proceed. I didn't have a credit card. I'd never really needed it. Mom or Dad made my deposits, and brought back cash for whatever. It's not like I was out partying every night.

Just a few clicks and keystrokes, and I could have the name of the man who took Tara. Information the police surely already had but would never share with me.

What harm could it do? Just to
see
. Maybe there would be something that would catch in my mental filter that the cops couldn't possibly know. Some clue, some hint. Something from that awful goddamn day at the mall that I'd forgotten about.

The scent of pizza wafted in from the kitchen. I guess I couldn't blame Mom for ordering since I'd abandoned the pasta. I wasn't hungry anyway. I debated trying to ask for, then to steal, one of her cards, but knew I'd never get her to agree and that I didn't have the guts to just take one and use it.

I saved the license plate lookup site to my favorites and shut down my laptop. I didn't remember anything else until I woke up the next morning on top of my bedspread and still in yesterday's clothes. I don't know if I had any dreams, but I knew when I woke up, staring at my ceiling, that I really needed to fix things with David.

He was the only person I could come close to calling a friend. That might be the best I could ever do if things didn't change.

EIGHT

By the time I'd showered and gotten ready for work that morning, the whole idea of trying to find Tara through a stupid license plate website seemed absurd. What on earth could I possibly do that the cops couldn't? So I'd decided to try to forget about it.
Stop intrusive thoughts
and all that. It just made me more miserable.

Plus . . .

I mean, what were the chances,
really
? Of all the quirky snarky indie coffee shops in town—in the state, in the nation—Tara and her kidnapper came to mine?

Suffice it to say, it was my worst day at the Hole, except for Wednesday. I kept waiting for Tara and that old man to come back in. So I could prove it was them. Then I waited for the old man to arrive alone, but with a gun, mowing us all down because I'd figured him out. Then I waited for Dr. Carpenter
to show up with a squad of mental health goons to wrap me up and ship me back to my hospital for ever thinking I'd seen Tara at all.

I spent five hours at work with my heart pounding its fists inside me, making my sternum quake with each beat. I couldn't catch my breath. Kept dropping things. I jerked every time the door opened.

I knew that was dumb. Tara and that creepy old man weren't coming back here, because it wasn't them.

David clocked in an hour before I was scheduled to clock out. We made eye contact as he came around the counter to grab his apron.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey,” he said back.

Okay, well, that was a decent start.

“I'm sorry about yesterday,” I said.

“Okay.” David tied on his apron, looking bored. It seemed forced, though. Like he wanted me to know how unimpressed he was so far.

“Can I—I mean, I want to make it up to you somehow if I can,” I said.

“Oh yeah? Like how.”

“I don't know . . . I could take a couple of your shifts or something.”

“I need the money.”

“Well, okay, then . . . I don't know, I'll, I'll buy you lunch or something.”

He practically choked. “You're asking me out?”

“No, I'm not asking you out! I'm saying that I want to do something, you know, like dinner. Or whatever. Out to
eat
.”

I snapped my rubber band, and David watched me do it.

“So I give you a hand,” he said with faux thoughtfulness, “
twice
, in fact . . . you flip out on me, and then you ask me out.”

“I'm not asking you out.”

“Then what are you doing?”

“I'm apologizing! I want to make it up to you.”

“So the apology itself isn't good enough?”

“If you say it is . . . I don't know! God! I just want to do the right thing, okay? I'm sorry!”

David didn't say anything for a minute. I moved to the sink and began washing it furiously. Stupid. It was a stupid idea. Make friends with David Harowitz, yeah, great.

“You ever hear of a place called Orange Table?”

I paused, and threw the rag aside. “No.”

“It's at the Civic Center, you know where that is? By the library?”

“Okay, yeah . . .”

“They make this burger called the Arrogant Bastard,” David said. “It's, like, eleven bucks. It's my favorite burger in the entire galaxy. Hook me up with one of those, and we'll call it even.”

I kicked at the splash mat with one toe. “Really?”

“Really and truly.”

“Okay,” I said. “When's good for you?”

“How about tonight?”

“No, no, no,” I said. “No. Sorry. Not at night.”

“You got a date or something?” David said.

I didn't answer. He hadn't heard me correctly. Now what?

David waited for me. I couldn't read his expression.

Tonight,
I thought. At night. Go out at night. I hadn't done that in years. Maybe once or twice, here and there with Mom or Dad, but it never went well. Once the sun set, my pulse doubled if I walked as far as our driveway. Someone could drive by, grab me . . .

“Tonight?” I said, but it was only a squeak. I cleared my throat. “Tonight,” I said again. “Um. Sure. Okay.”

I had to do it sometime. I had this job; I'd ditched my meds; maybe one night out would bring me one step closer to being able to get back to school. And that would make me normal.

“I suppose the irony here is that you'll need a ride,” David said.

Shit
, I thought.

“Well . . . kinda.”

He sort of laughed through his nose. “So be it,” he said. “I'll pick you up at seven.”

“Okay,” I said. I felt like saying thank you but didn't. I wasn't sure what I'd mean if I did.

It wasn't until later that I realized that everything I'd said could possibly be construed as a date, despite emphasizing that I was not asking him out.

That
made for an interesting afternoon of work. But at least
it kept me from thinking about the darkness, about the night. What if I flipped out again? What if he said the hell with it and left me alone out there . . . ?

I smoked a quarter pack of cigarettes before my shift ended.

When I got home, Jeffrey was at his post in front of the TV with some explosive video game. I didn't say anything as I walked by, consumed with deconstructing what had happened with David at work.

It didn't seem to bother Jeffrey that I'd ignored him, because no sooner had I gotten to my room than he barged straight in. In fairness, I hadn't closed the door yet.

“What's up?” Jeffrey said

“I'm going out to dinner with David Harowitz,” I said, mostly to my carpet.

“David, the guy who drove me to Liam's?” Jeffrey asked excitedly. “Cool! Can I come?”

“Uh, no,” I said. “Get out.”

Jeffrey folded his arms. “No.”

“Jeffrey . . .”

“You're so
bitchy
sometimes,” Jeffrey declared.

I sat down on the edge of my bed so I'd be level with his eyes, then blinked as I realized he was already taller than me when I sat. I could've sworn just yesterday he came up to my stomach. He'd probably end up like our dad, tall with big hands and arms. When had he grown so much?

Had it really been that long since I'd paid attention?

“Only sometimes?” I said, and felt something like a grin disfiguring my face. “I must be improving.”

Jeffrey tried to scowl but then laughed. Somehow I did too. Just a chuckle. Just a chortle or a snort. But it counted.

“How come you're going out at night?” Jeffrey said.

“I don't know. I just thought I'd give it a shot.”

“It's been, like, forever.”

“Yeah, I know, dude.”

“That's cool.”

Wow. Also, ouch.

“Thanks,” I said.

I chased Jeffrey out and began getting ready. This took 6.3 millennia, because, honestly, I hadn't had to get ready for much of anything for a long time. My hands felt big and stupid as I sorted through clothes, trying to figure out what was appropriate. Then there was my rat's nest of a scalp. I scrambled through all of Mom's various brushes and combs. They may as well have been surgical instruments. What did this one do, what was that one for? Maybe I did need surgery.

So I had to risk moving to my next line of defense, not sure at all how it would play out.

“Mom?”

I found her in her bedroom, leaning against the headboard. The TV was on low,
Law & Order
—I'd seen it—and she held an e-reader in both hands.

Mom looked up. Her face was suspicious. “What?”

I almost turned right back around. Instead I lifted my chin and said, “What do you wear if it's not a date?”

The reader fell to her lap. “You have a date?”

“It's not a date,” I said. “That's what I mean. We're just going to dinner.”

“Who?”

The shock on her face didn't do much to calm my nerves. “David? From work?”

Mom's expression shifted. Slowly her eyebrows relaxed and a smile blossomed across her lips. “You're going out with him? When, tonight?”

“Mom . . .”

“You're going out,” she went on. “At night.”

“Mom, seriously, I don't—”

She flung herself out of bed like I'd announced she'd won the lottery. I wondered what I'd gotten myself into.

“Well let's just go see!” she said. She grabbed my arm and hustled me into my room. I hadn't seen her that excited since . . .

I don't know. It'd been a while.

“So when did this begin?” Mom asked, critically eyeing every shirt in my closet.

“Nothing began,” I said, sitting on my bed. “I was just trying to apologize to him, and one thing led to another—”

Mom turned sharply.

“Not like that,” I said.

“Apologize?” Mom said when her terror had passed. “For what?”

“I was just—he helped me out yesterday and I was a bitch about it, is all.”

The sound of so much activity in my room roused Jeffrey, who poked his head through the doorway and said, “What're you
doing
in here?”

Mom and I both said, at the same time, “Girl stuff.”

Snap.
It wasn't my rubber band that time. It was my gut. Or maybe heart.

Jeffrey sneered and ran back to the living room. Mom laughed. A foreign sound. I almost did too. Except it was such a strong déjà vu moment, I couldn't. “Girl stuff” was how Tara and I always answered my dad, or hers, or even little Jeffrey when we didn't want to be bothered. Then we'd giggle hysterically.

“How about this?” Mom said, whirling around. She held up a crimson blouse and a pair of dark jeans. “Fun, sophisticated, but not too flirty . . . Jesus, is that a tag? Have you ever worn this, Pel? Doesn't matter, what do you think?”

I swallowed a cold lump of sudden sadness and nodded. Snapped my rubber band. “Sure,” I said.

Mom changed her mind three times about my outfit. I'd been fine with the first, but she was enjoying herself so much, I couldn't stop her. Then she made me sit on the floor while she sat on the bed behind me and went to work on my hair.

We both were quiet while she worked. Mom used to do this all the time when I was little. This, like so many things, hadn't happened in a very long time.

Mom has magic hands when it comes to hair brushing. She puts me to sleep nearly every time. I couldn't believe I'd forgotten that.

“You know this
is
a date, right?” Mom said as she brushed.

“No, it's not.”

“Penelope, when you ask a boy out to dinner, it's a date.”

“It's not like that,” I insisted. “He just . . . I don't know. Wants me to cheer up or something. So I'll be easier to work with.”

“Well,” Mom said, “just remember that when he's trying to get inside your shirt or worse.”

“Mom! It's David. He's not like that.”

“Honey, they're
all
like that.”

From where I was sitting, her behind me, I couldn't tell if it was a joke or not. No big deal. I knew I was right.

When I stood up twenty minutes later and went to look in the bathroom mirror, my mouth dropped open. Mom slid beside me.

“Holy shit,” I said.

Mom smirked. “I know, right?”

I was almost afraid to touch my hair. It hung straight and smooth, thick and full. I wasn't overly impressed with the color, which wasn't unusual for me, but—wow.

“Thank you,” I said.

“You bet,” Mom said. “Anytime. Does David smoke?”

Uh-oh. “No. I don't think so.”

Mom put an arm around my shoulders, meeting my gaze
in our reflection. “Most people who don't, don't enjoy kissing people who do,” she said. “Just a thought.”

I met her eyes briefly in the mirror. Thought of all the little ways I believed she'd been out to get me, just like the world was out to get me. I guess the truth is, way down deep, I knew it wasn't true. Not about Mom, anyway. Probably I just confused the hell out of her, and she didn't know what to do. How to act. I mean, I didn't. Why should she be any different?

“Okay,” I said to her.

She pulled me closer and kissed the side of my head. Then she went back to her room, leaving me to stare at my reflection.

I could leave my smokes at home, I guess. Not because David was going to kiss me, because he wasn't. But just to see if I could go the whole night. One small improvement, right?

Ten minutes later the doorbell rang. Jeffrey screamed that he'd get it, and ran full tilt to open the front door. I came walking behind him, and Mom trailing me, trying not to look like she was dying of curiosity.

David surprised me. He'd made an effort to look nice, it seemed, wearing a button-up short-sleeved shirt and nice jeans, and he'd swept his hair back a bit. It seemed like half his pimples had disappeared since work that afternoon.

“David!” Jeffrey shouted. “What's up,
man
!”

“Hey, dude,” David said, raising his fist so Jeffrey could knuckle it. “How's it going?”

“I just beat the crap out of Fire Master,” Jeffrey announced. “Wanna come see?”

“Oh, man, I'd love to, but we kinda need to get going,” David said. “But maybe some other time we can team up and take on Time Master together. I've never beaten him.”

“That would be awesome!” Jeffrey said.

“Hey,” I said after Jeffrey ran back to his game.

“Hey,” David said, smiling. Then his smile weakened. “You're looking at me funny.”

“Oh. Sorry. No. I mean, I didn't mean to . . . you look good.”

“Yeah? Cool. Thanks. You too.”

“David, hello,” Mom said, stepping beside me. “I'm Kris, Penelope's mom. How are you?”

“Good,” David said, stretching out a hand. Mom shook it, looking impressed. “We won't be out late or anything.”