The Cost of Knowing, page 23
Joy in the face of oppression is its own kind of bravery.
Even if it wasn’t the thing that got rid of the curse after all. Even if all it took was being there for each other, while we faced our true worst fears. I take a huge wad of my soaking-wet sweatshirt sleeve into my fist, just to remind myself I’m really free.
I feel him relaxing his hold on me, and reluctantly, I let him go.
“Come on,” I say, looking down the street at the huge black iron gates of Santiam Estates. “Let’s go home.”
A mischievous grin spreads across his face.
“Race ya,” he says, taking off before I can protest.
“Isaiah!” I yell, sprinting after him.
He’s off into the darkness like a bullet, and I laugh, securing my hood tighter over my head. The rain is pelting the ground so hard now there’s a solid half-inch of water up here on the sidewalk. Water is snaking along curbs and disappearing into storm drains. Isaiah’s red hoodie turns the corner up ahead into the black iron gates and under the security check-in bar, and for a split second, I panic at the realization that Talia was somewhere in the arena.
I check my phone, scroll past Aunt Mackie’s seventeen missed messages to Talia’s.
I’m out. You good?
I fire off the quickest text I’ve ever sent.
I’m good. And I’m sorry.
I turn the corner up the hill into Santiam, hoping she didn’t worry too much, and that she didn’t stay in that place any longer than she had to, that she didn’t see me spring onto the stage after Isaiah and disappear into the huge black curtains. I hope she didn’t watch that security guard get shot on top of me. I know she made it out physically unharmed, but I shut my eyes and hope to God she got out before it did anything to her mind.
If tonight did anything to give her anxiety like I have, I’ll never forgive myself for not texting her as soon as Eli slipped that baggie into my pocket. Then it dawns on me.
Eli implied that something was going down tonight.
He even warned us to leave.
My heart is racing at the possibility that Mr. and Mrs. Zaccari’s son wasn’t at that concert tonight to watch Shiv or the Dragons, or Nyein, or even to sell X. Maybe he was there to make sure a mass shooting went off without a hitch. By proxy, the son of the woman petitioning to instate background checks on our neighborhood may have just helped murder several people tonight.
The minute we get to the house, I’m telling Aunt Mackie exactly what I saw, and then Isaiah and I are going into a self-initiated witness protection program until Eli’s at least questioned.
Isaiah’s getting tired.
I can see his little red hood getting closer and closer to me as I close the distance.
We run past Talia’s favorite house—the humble one between its flashy neighbors, gray with the bright yellow door. The only house with any color.
We’ll have a house like that one day, says her voice again in my head.
I still don’t know if we will.
We run past Mr. and Mrs. Sanderson’s cream-colored house with the black shutters, and the Zaccaris’ house with the grass that still looks overgrown. My lungs are on fire and my jeans and sweatshirt are heavy with rainwater, but at this point, I’m just happy to be back in our neighborhood. I’m just glad we made it out of there alive.
“Ay, wait up!” I holler to Isaiah, slowing my pace. We can walk now. But he keeps running.
“Yo, Izzy!” I yell again, but he’s a solid hundred feet ahead of me now. Goddamn it. I force more strength into my legs and take off down the street again. The roads are empty, so when he bolts across the street, I don’t panic. I don’t hear any cars, and Aunt Mackie’s house is right around the corner.
In the distance, somewhere far behind us, a vehicle roars to life. I wonder if Mrs. Sanderson is off her diet and back to her late-night Taco Bell runs. Or maybe it’s Mr. Davis off to the store to pick up something at the 7-Eleven. I keep my eyes on Isaiah, squinting to see him in the dark distance. The vehicle behind us lets out an increasingly loud vrooooom! and the tires squeeeeal! and my heart starts pounding. I look over my shoulder at the pair of headlights barreling down the street like an angry bullet, straight for us.
I remember all those times Mom would tell us to be home before the streetlights come on. I remember all the pop-pop-pop-pops I heard outside our door, sometimes close enough for us all to look up at each other as we ate dinner. The headlights grow and blind me, and I expect the car to stop any minute.
Any minute.
But the lights get brighter, and the tires squeal louder, and I reflexively throw myself off the sidewalk and onto someone’s lawn. The lights follow me, and I scramble to my feet and book it down the sidewalk. I’d be safe from this maniac on the lawn, but I have to get to Isaiah.
Whoever this guy is, he doesn’t want us red-hooded kids anywhere near him or his vehicle.
He’s driving like he’s murderous, drunk, or both, and Isaiah and I have to get out of here.
“Isaiah, run!” I holler as I watch him turn the corner up ahead. I hear the vehicle gaining. The headlights light up the pavement under my shoes like I’m walking on gold. I reflexively dart right, onto the grass and up the hill across the Davises’ front lawn. If I can cut this corner and meet Isaiah on the other side, I can catch up to him. But the Davises have a vegetable garden along the side of their house, with a huge ivy trellis in the way. I run all the way around it, slipping in the grass. I fall on my side and haphazardly push myself back to my feet, trying to catch my breath as I run down the other side of the hill.
I can’t see him.
“Isaiah!” I holler. I sprint across the side yard, and soon I can see the street.
The truck growls as it turns the corner, and I catch a glimpse of that red streak along the side—this is the truck that’s always parked on the left side of the Zaccaris’ driveway. My heart skips, and my eyes lock onto Isaiah sprinting down the sidewalk just thirty feet in front of me. Those yellow lights glow through the trees, and they grow, and they grow, until the sidewalk under his feet is yellow.
It’s too close.
No, it’s too close.
“Isaiah, run!” I holler.
In a split second, everything changes.
He hears me.
He looks for me.
His red hood is still pulled over his head.
The truck screeches.
A HUSBAND AND WIFE sit at their dining room table one evening, watching a crime report on the news, sipping tea, and lamenting the violent state of the world. They’re thankful they live in a neighborhood where crime is rare.
The wife is on the local litter patrol. The husband regularly attends town hall meetings.
The wife is a natural peacekeeper. The husband is a natural protector.
The wife heard a noise outside. The husband got up to investigate.
13 The Past
THIS WASN’T THE WAY it was supposed to go. I mean, it was, I guess, according to my vision. And according to the laws and fabric of space and time, this was always how it was supposed to go. But if I had a say in it, I never would’ve chosen this.
I look across my bedroom at Isaiah. His legs are dangling off the edge of my bed, and he’s swiping his finger across his phone to make that BeatBall jump across the screen. Shiv’s lyrics are blasting loud and proud from my laptop behind me, and the ball bounces with every pound of the bass line. He looks up at me and opens his mouth. He’s talking, but I can’t hear anything.
“What?” I ask.
But I can’t hear myself talking either.
“What?” I ask again, louder this time.
I realize I’m lucid dreaming. I know this isn’t real. Isaiah isn’t really here. I’m not really here. I’m asleep. I stand up and close the distance. I sink down next to him on my mattress, and undeterred by visions, I wrap my arm around his shoulders and pull him close. I feel the fabric of his shirt under my palms. He wraps his little arm around my waist and I feel his jaw move against my chest. He’s talking again, but I still can’t hear him.
“Isaiah?” I ask. Even though I can’t hear myself, Isaiah can. I know, because he looks up at me with wide, questioning eyes.
“Isaiah, I love you.”
He opens his mouth to speak.
I blink my eyes open to the blinding white lights overhead and feel a tear roll out of the corner of my eye and down my temple, then disappear into my hair. My head is laid back against this cloud-soft pillow, but I know if I keep sleeping with my face tilted to one side, I’m going to wake up with a sore neck. I look around. Everything hurts, like it does when you’ve been lying in the same position for way too long. My mouth is dry, and I realize I probably had my mouth open while I slept.
Another tear rolls out of my eye, and I reach up to wipe it away. Something papery and soft is tied around my wrist, and when I look at it, I realize it’s a bright orange hospital bracelet. I freeze, at first remembering the headlights. The rain. The screech of tires. And I wonder if I’m still dreaming, reliving that day Isaiah and I lost our parents.
And then I remember Isaiah.
It’s like all the air is being pulled out of my lungs. I press my fingers into my eyes and clench my jaw against the burning pain of tears. But it’s no use. I cry. I sob into my hands. I roll to my side and curl up into a little ball and I slam my fist against the bed.
It’s happened.
Breathe, Alex.
“What the fuck?” I whimper.
I thought I was doing something right. I thought the concert was a good idea. We got rid of our powers, didn’t we? That was the whole point of going. So Isaiah could have time without them. Not ten minutes without them only to have to run for his life after a mass shooting. I shut my eyes and picture Cobra’s face as he knelt on the stage, reaching out to Isaiah, beckoning us.
We’ll take care of him, he said.
And I take relief in the fact that they did.
When the shots rang out, Isaiah was first on their mind. They snatched him backstage when they could’ve just left him out there in the arena with all the other “fans.” They protected him. Shiv protected Isaiah like he was his own brother, and I’ll never forget that.
I swallow again. Every inch of me is weak. Every muscle is crying out for rest. We must have sprinted a whole mile last night. Is it still night? I look over at the wall of windows, hidden behind blackout curtains, and wonder. It still feels like night.
A squeaky groan rings out from across the room, and I see I’m not alone. Aunt Mackie is slumped in an armchair, and I wonder how many people have sat in that chair awaiting the birth of a new family member, and how many have sat there awaiting the death of one. That chair has probably seen some shit. Even more than I’ve seen. I sniff back tears and dry my face with my hospital gown. I look at Aunt Mackie again. She fell asleep with her glasses on. Her mouth is hanging slightly open. Her hair is still braided up into a bun, but her black satin bonnet is tied haphazardly around her head. Her lips aren’t their usual burgundy. She’s wearing her blue silk pajamas and long black bathrobe. I wish I could let her sleep like that forever, at peace, for a moment unaware that Isaiah’s gone.
I wish I could sleep like that forever, peacefully oblivious. The door creaks open, and an unfamiliar face appears in the doorframe.
“Alex Rufus?” asks a slender woman with skin the same shade as mine, and large, dark eyes and long, straight black hair with a silver streak in the front. She’s holding a tablet, and her smile is gradual and genuine. I’m instantly inclined to believe she’s happy to see that I’m awake, and not smiling at me out of pity. I nod at her and sit up straight again. This bed moves a lot more than I expected a hospital bed would. I don’t remember them being this rattly when I was last lying in one.
“My name is Priya,” she says, stepping around the side of my bed and looking at a few of the weird colorful beeping machines next to me. “How are you feeling?”
Like I was hit by a truck.
“Where’s Isaiah?” I ask. She’s careful to keep her face even and expressionless as she turns her attention to her clipboard. If he wasn’t dead, she would’ve looked me in the eyes and smiled as she said, “He’s just in the other room, playing on his phone.”
I knew it.
I hate myself for being so weak that I can’t even wait for her to answer before falling apart. I press the heels of my hands against my eyes and swallow as best as I can around this dry-ass tongue of mine. I don’t even wait for her to answer.
“Can I have some water?” I ask.
“Sure thing,” she says, her voice almost a whisper now.
She turns and makes her way back to the door, and I can’t help it. I have to know. I have to hear it myself.
“He’s gone,” I say, catching her. “Isn’t he?”
She stops at the door, her hand on the knob, uncursed by visions all her life, while I’ve only just recently begun to live mine. She looks back at me, and she takes a huge breath in before answering. I feel a tear fall from each eye and roll down my cheeks.
“I think we’d better wait until your aunt wakes up.”
Why? Because I’m not “man enough” to handle the news? Because it would be too much for me? As if I didn’t fucking know this would happen and I’ve been living with it for the last two days, suffering alone with that knowledge?
Priya leaves.
I expect the door to close behind her.
But instead, a familiar face replaces her. A face that on any other day would make my heart do flips, and today stirs up a whole string of emotions I’m not ready for.
“Alex?” asks Talia. The black makeup around her eyes has smudged so much that she looks like she’s been through a war zone.
“Talia,” I say, my voice cracking under the weight of her name. I break down all over again. God, why the fuck can’t I stop crying? You knew this was coming, Alex.
But I feel like I can’t handle this.
Even knowing beforehand didn’t ease this pain. I can’t do this.
I need help.
Her arms are around my shoulders before I realize what’s happening, and I feel her rain-damp hair against my cheek. She’s wearing that black hat I bought her at the fair last year, the one that now smells like her mother’s lavender essential oil. I close my eyes, and I’m at Maria’s house again, sitting on the sofa between Talia and Shaun, and her embrace brings more comfort than I could’ve hoped for. And then I remember the curse. The fact that I’m free. That I can touch her again. I wrap my arms around her and pull her against me, as best as I can in this hospital bed. I hold her tight, sobbing into her shoulder, falling apart in her arms.
And I feel relief like I can’t believe.
“Alex,” she whimpers. She takes in a sharp breath, her shoulders trembling, and I realize she’s crying too.
The feel of her chest against mine, the warmth of her, even her being in this room right now, tell me all I need to know.
“I’m sorry,” she cries. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I don’t know what to say. Sorry for what? If anything, I should be the sorry one. Sorry for being so distant. Sorry for taking six months to tell her what was really going on with me. Sorry for waiting so long to tell her why I’m scared to touch her, sorry that she thought I didn’t love her. That I didn’t want to be close to her every waking moment. What was the word she used?
Disgusting.
The opposite of everything I’ve ever felt for her. The opposite of enamored. The opposite of captivated. Is there a word for “full of desire”? Because if so, that’s me. I don’t know what to do except hold her tight against me.
“I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions,” she says, pulling back from me and wiping her eyes with her sleeve. “I shouldn’t have gotten mad at you for saying no to the tickets, and I shouldn’t have left you at that concert. I should never have left you….”
Her voice trails off, and I just stare at her. She buries her face in her hands. God, I hate seeing her like this. Hopeless. Helpless.
“Talia?” I ask. She doesn’t look up at me.
“Yeah,” she says, clearing her throat and folding her arms.
“I’m sorry.”
Just saying those words to her lifts a weight from my back that I’ve been carrying for four long years.
“I should’ve told you about my power.” It sounds stupid even as I say it. “I should’ve told you why I’m so weird when it comes to… y’know. Everything. I should’ve trusted that you’d believe me. I should’ve just been honest.”
“No, Alex—”
But I’m not done.
“I should’ve told you about Shaun,” I say. I haven’t said his name out loud in so long, and certainly never to her. “I should’ve told you.”
She looks up at me now, and her eyes are red and brimming with fresh tears. She reaches up and presses her soft hand against my cheek. She wipes away a tear from my face.
“As long as you’re with me, Alex,” she says, “I don’t want you to regret anything.”
Oh, but I do. These visions were going on for so unbearably long, I was beginning to think it was a permanent fixture of who I am—Alex, afraid of the future. Alex, ashamed of the past. Now, I realize, it’s okay to be afraid of the future. It’s okay to be anxious. Men get anxious. Men are afraid sometimes. I remember the concert.
Cobra, Leviathan, Nyein, and Shiv all ran when the gunshots rang out. They ran and they were scared, and I don’t think any less of them for it. Who would?
“I’ll tell you the truth,” I say, squeezing her wrists and raising her hands to my mouth to kiss her fingers. “I’ll be honest with you from now on, about how I’m feeling, about what’s going through my head, about… everything. Okay? You have my word. And… if you ever catch me slipping… please… tell me. I can’t do this anymore, Talia. I can’t live all bottled up, keeping everything to myself. I’ve been through so much.”
I think Talia can see it in my face. She blinks a few times and opens her mouth, but before she can say anything, the chair on the other side of the room creaks again and Aunt Mackie is pushing herself up out of it like a woman forty years her senior.
