Chapter Eight
In Need of Saving
When Roswell dropped me off at home, I waited until his taillights had disappeared around the corner. Then I sat down in the driveway and put my head between my knees. The air was cool and I sat there breathing it and listening to the rain.
My heartbeat was pounding in my ears and the look Tate had given me as I left the Starlight felt caustic, like it had left this huge raw spot in my chest. After a little while, I stumbled my way inside and tried to hang my jacket on a wall hook. It fell and I left it there because picking it up again seemed way too complicated. I had to stop halfway up the stairs to rest. The dark was lonely but familiar, and I fell into bed without pulling back the covers or taking my shoes off.
The dreams were worse than they’d been in a long time. Dreams of being left alone, leaves brushing the window screen. The curtains snapping on a sharp, dry breeze.
My joints ached, and even half asleep, I was uncomfortably aware of my heartbeat racing, lagging, stuttering. Slow, slow, fast. Nothing.
I dreamed about Kellan Caury. I dreamed that the Gentry lynch mob broke down the door to his little downtown apartment and dragged him out into the street. The picture was fuzzy and overexposed, like I was getting it confused with the windmill scene in Frankenstein. The townsfolk all had torches. I dreamed about the outline of his body, hanging from an oak tree at the end of Heath Road.
In the morning, I woke up late, feeling thirsty and worn out.
I dragged myself down the hall to the bathroom and got in the shower. After standing under the water for fifteen minutes without actually reaching for the soap or lifting my hands, I toweled off, got mostly dressed, and went downstairs.
In the kitchen, my mom was rattling a copper pan back and forth on the front burner. The sound made me want to climb out of my skull.
I watched her as she opened a drawer and dug for the spatula. Her hair was fine and blond, slipping out of its ponytail. Her expression was the same one she usually had, calm, patient. Completely unconcerned.
“Did you have breakfast yet?” she asked, looking at me over her shoulder. “I’m frying potatoes, if you want some.”
I shook my head and she sighed. “Eat something.”
I ate dry cereal out of the box and my mom rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything.
Outside, it was gray and rainy, but in my current state, the light seemed indecently bright, coming in the windows like a flash bomb. Fall leaves jittered and twitched, reflecting the slow, incessant rain.
