Inevitable, page 17
“This is Mrs. Bentley’s classroom. Or at least it was,” Nathan explained, noting another name adorning the door. “She used to read to us for hours it seemed, and we loved every minute of it. Some people have a great gift for reading.”
Nathan pulled out one of the chairs and plopped down in it, forcing me to laugh. His legs were sticking out through the bottom and when he tried to get up he almost fell over. He went to the board and picked up a piece of yellow chalk, drawing a sunflower on the board. Strolling around the room, he opened some of the drawers and checked out the fresh supplies. The students had little cubbies for their belongings along one wall, and Nathan put his hand in the one that used to be his.
This was all very cute, but I had to know what the point of it all was.
“Nathan, why did you bring me here?”
He didn’t seem in any hurry to answer my question though, instead moving for an empty space on a countertop. I joined him there, hoping being closer would make him more comfortable sharing.
“If there was one thing Mrs. Bentley was good at, it was making you feel like you could do anything. The sky was the limit. We could shoot for the stars. The whole world was ours for the taking. Here, I want to show you something.”
Nathan reached into his backpack and removed a single piece of paper. He set it on the counter, and it only took one look for my eyes to well up. I put my hand to my chest, feeling like this little piece of paper would kill me.
“How can you keep showing these things to me? It’s breaking my heart!” I cried.
The piece of paper bore the title, “What I Want to Be When I Grow Up.” It had a rough picture of a soccer player kicking a ball toward a goal at the top. A few lines of sloppily drawn letters composed a short essay at the bottom. When Nathan read them, I had to cover my eyes.
“When I grow up, I want to be a soccer player. Because I am very fast and good at soccer. My favorite position is striker. I like to score goals and hear my whole team cheer.”
I wiped my puffy eyes when he was done. There might not be anything sadder than hearing the wishes of a child that would never come true.
“You can still have this!” I argued, but he just shook his head.
“No, I couldn’t. I was never that good. I’ve always loved playing it, but I’ll never be better than a second-string player for a division-three college.”
“Then have that, Nathan,” I begged. “It’s not too late for you to get back to school. A couple of years could lead to a better job, and then Cammie would have no trouble getting into college.”
Nathan rolled his eyes at me.
“I’d made the same argument to Sasha, and she was right to trash it. I’m trapped in this job, and it’s going to take my life sooner or later anyway. But this isn’t even what I wanted to get into. This piece of paper is only half of it.”
Reaching into his bag again, Nathan removed another piece of paper, which he placed next to his on the counter.
Scanning this second sheet, I immediately became ill. It was all too obvious what he’d intended on doing today, and it brought a swift chill to my core.
This piece of paper was Cammie’s response to the exact same assignment. She’d wanted to be a doctor, and she’d created a beautiful, colorful drawing of one helping a sick patient. There was even a little EKG machine. In her immaculately handwritten essay, she discussed wanting to help sick people and cure diseases. It made me wonder whether she’d written this before or after Nathan had saved her in the lake. He didn’t read me the essay, probably knowing from my deathly pale face that I’d gotten the message.
“Nathan…” I cooed.
“What does the world need another one of, a soccer player or a doctor?” he asked earnestly. It took so little seriousness for his face to scare me now. I just shook my head, pleading with him.
“You don’t have to hold yourself to this,” I squeaked, barely able to talk. I reached out to put my hand on his chest. He didn’t brush me away, but he didn’t encourage me either.
“You can’t give me an honest answer, can you? For all her smarts, Cammie can’t even argue with me on this one. No one can. Out of these two kids, if one had to have a future, which would you pick?”
I was weeping openly now, the tears streaming down my face. My legs couldn’t support me and I collapsed against him. His arms were around me, hugging me close to his warm body with my head on his chest, but it still didn’t change how terribly I felt. It took a few moments for me to compose myself, but even as I pulled away I still couldn’t accept what was going to happen.
“What am I supposed to do when you’re gone?” I wept. It was probably the most terribly selfish thing to say, but I was desperate for any way to convince him at this point. He looked at me not with condescension but affection. He sympathized with me, feeling some of the hurt I felt.
“Cammie can take care of you. There’ll be more than enough money to make sure you can do whatever you want with your life too. And you’ll deserve it, not just because of what you did for me, but because I’m kind of hoping you’ll be able to keep an eye out for her.”
I was fighting back the tears, clenching my face and refusing to give in to another round of sobs. I hated what we were going through, and even though it would’ve been easier to give up, I just had to keep going.
“So that’s it then?” I growled. “I’m just supposed to say goodbye? How can you do that to me, Nathan? How cruel is it for the last thing you do right before you die is make me love you?”
Nathan’s eyes grew wide, and a fire flashed behind them.
“Don’t say that to me if you don’t mean it,” he warned.
“And what if I do mean it?” I sputtered. “Would it even matter?”
“Of course it matters!”
“Just not enough for you to do anything differently. No, I understand,” I nodded vindictively. “I guess I learned my lesson for getting involved in the first place.”
I was done arguing, and I brushed by him for the door, but he stormed after me.
“Apoxy! You knew I was going to do this from the moment you first met me. How can you be so mad about it now? You understood this was going to happen all the way back when we met on the street and you took your name from a poster on a hardware store window.”
I stopped dead and turned back, looking into his brown eyes that carried so much regret and so much promise.
“You knew?” I stammered.
“I’m a little more observant than you might think,” he shrugged, showing a hint of a smirk.
“Then why didn’t you call me out on it? Why weren’t you mad that I was giving you a fake name?” I asked.
He stepped closer to me with his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall beside me. Musing to himself, his eyes danced around the room in tune with his memories.
“Maybe you were attracted to me because of something I hadn’t done yet. And maybe Apoxy wasn’t who you were, but who you would become.”
My cheeks felt hot from the embarrassment and I shook my head, grinning just a bit.
“You’ve got an explanation for everything,” I sighed.
He moved from his spot against the wall and took his hands from his pockets, allowing me to throw my arms around his neck if I stood on my tiptoes. I squeezed him as hard as I could and inhaled his wonderful scent deeply. There was nothing left now but to see how it all plays out. Feeling the side of his head brushing against mine, I whispered into his ear.
“We’re going to stop you,” I promised.
“That’s why I can’t,” he whispered into mine.
*
In the days leading up to September 15th, all of us were constantly on edge. Nathan was withdrawn, Cammie was a nervous wreck, and I couldn’t keep my heart out of my stomach. When we reached September the 14th, Cammie and I had come up with the best plan we could, but neither one of us could voice our deepest fears that it wouldn’t be good enough.
The one thing we worried about that would instantly dash all of our plans was if Nathan did something completely unpredictable, like not come home that night. We begged him to promise that he’d return after work, but he shrugged it off like it was a foregone conclusion. Cammie was already taking today and tomorrow off from school, and that left us today to go over our plans before we put them into action.
There were a variety of things we were planning to do to shut the factory down before it even got close to the overtime shift. From making accusations to the authorities to actually going there to start a fire, many of our possible ideas would probably land us in trouble, but it was much better to have to go through that than the alternative.
On the day before the accident, it turned out Nathan had some business to take care of as well. He hadn’t said a word for almost the entire workday, preferring instead to stare at the monstrous cement silo that would be his end or shoot subtle glances at the coworkers whose lives he would supposedly save.
Everyone around him was completely oblivious about what would happen, and Nathan marveled at that. No one knew the mortal danger they were about to face. Their lives needlessly hung in the balance of something they had no part in and couldn’t fathom. Of course, he couldn’t tell anyone because then the company would probably find a way not to pay Cammie his insurance. Well, he couldn’t tell anyone he didn’t trust.
Right before the day ended, Nathan got a chance to head over to the dock to catch up with Willy. He appeared exhausted and stressed himself, but he fought through it with his usual pluck.
“What’s up, Willy?” Nathan asked, trying to sound casual as another worker walked by.
“Just trying to make it,” Willy sighed. Nathan continued over toward the back of a truck and gestured for Willy to follow.
“I need to talk to you about something,” Nathan whispered, desperation creeping into his voice. They were in the shadows of the back of the truck, stacks of cement mix concealing them, but a ray of light illuminated his ardent eyes.
“Yeah?” Willy cringed, bewildered.
“Whatever you do, don’t come to work tomorrow,” Nathan urged darkly. Willy’s eyes narrowed, and he immediately became suspicious.
“What’s going to happen tomorrow?” he wondered.
“You’ve got to trust me,” Nathan begged, putting his hand on his friend’s arm. “Take a sick day, a vacation day, anything. Just don’t come here tomorrow.”
“If there’s something going on, you can tell me,” Willy offered, but Nathan shook his head.
“I can’t talk about it, and neither can you. You have to believe me. Can you promise me you won’t come?”
“Alright, I promise,” Willy agreed, and they shared a slight nod before Nathan emerged from the truck and descended from the dock.
Nathan came home as soon as his shift ended, and Cammie and I were relieved to see him. We’d told Gladys to cook lasagna, his favorite dish, for dinner, though we didn’t tell her why. It hurt a little bit when she asked us why we were all so wired lately, but to be honest I envied her obliviousness and couldn’t take it from her.
We all enjoyed the lasagna, though the room had the atmosphere of a prisoner being given his last meal. The only difference was that we were all chained to this fate, and we would see it come to pass soon.
The evening wore on, and Cammie and I waited for Nathan to announce that it was time for him to go to bed. We both gave him a big hug and watched him climb the stairs. We retired too, though neither of us expected to get any sleep. September 15th, the day of Nathan’s reckoning, was upon us.
Chapter 11
Cammie and I were blocking the door the next morning when it came time for Nathan to leave for work. Shoulder to shoulder, our backs pressed up against the wood, we watched him lumber closer with steadfast determination. He reached beside us to grab his jacket, slipped on his boots, and then finally turned to face us.
“You’ve got to let me go!” he demanded, but there wasn’t a trace of ill feeling in his voice. He appeared resolved to his fate. His eyes were red and he hadn’t shaved, leaving some stubble on his chin. Nathan looked like he was heading off to battle, and any fear within him was overshadowed by quiet, resilient courage.
“Not on your life!” I refused. Somehow Cammie and I felt like we were the ones at death’s door. As tough as we made our faces, the butterflies in my stomach made it hard for me to breath. Cammie shook a little and kept her hands at her sides. Her eyes were already watered over.
Nathan grimaced at our obstruction, scratched his thick brown hair, and looked around. He could run for the front door, he could even push us out of the way if he really wanted, but another look from him let us know that he was above those options.
“We can talk about this one more time,” he conceded. “I’ll make some hot chocolate or something and if you can convince me not to go, I won’t.”
“Sure,” Cammie readily agreed. She was anxious for anything that would keep him here, and this was a great chance to stall him. Even making him late for work might result in something wonderful like getting him fired.
We stuck to the door even after he’d pulled down the hot chocolate mix. He took some of the hot water for Gladys’s tea, knowing that she wouldn’t be up for a while yet. We had to stop him for her too, saving her from the horrible shock of losing her grandson just a year after losing her daughter.
He turned with three mugs in his hand, little wisps of steam emanating from the delicious-looking brown liquid. We followed him into the living room and sat down next to each other on the couch. I wished I could’ve done more to console Cammie, who seemed broken into a thousand pieces. Nathan pulled up a chair across from the coffee table, sat down, and stared at us intently.
“If this is about me getting into college,” Cammie wept, “we can find another way. There are scholarships, state aid, loans. We’ll be able to make it work!”
Shrugging off the argument, Nathan took a sip from his mug of hot chocolate, and we did the same. I hoped the sugar would help me feel more awake.
“We can’t count on any of that, Cammie. We’re already over the edge in terms of our finances. I couldn’t stop us from getting behind on our mortgage payments, but I can do this to get us out.”
There was no way to convince him. For this one simple decision, his mind had been made up from the moment he was born. We couldn’t do anything about that, but we were buying time. My heart ached to have him so close but so emotionally far away. I wanted him to look at me like he had when we were in the Ferric wheel, like I was a dream come true.
“But Apoxy will be able to get a job soon, once she gets a green card or whatever. That’ll make a huge difference!” Cammie kept arguing, but Nathan seemed more unreachable each moment.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Once people don’t think I’m an illegal alien, I’ll be able to get a job!” My emotions were bubbling over, making it hard to get the words out. Cammie and I kept sipping the hot chocolate. I waited for it to wake me up, but instead I seemed to be getting sleepier.
“That will help,” Nathan agreed, turning to me with something solemn in his eyes. He was starting to tear up, and he pursed his lips to fight it back. “You’ve got to remember to find a way to get to school too. That’s important.”
I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and I turned to Cammie and saw she was in a daze. Something wasn’t right here. I shouldn’t be this tired. I almost couldn’t move a muscle. All of a sudden it hit me, and I glanced down at the hot chocolate.
“Oh, no! Nathan!” I cried, but it was barely above the squeak of a mouse. I was fighting to keep my eyes open and failing.
“Grandma’s sleeping pills…” Cammie mumbled, referring to the pills that were practically horse tranquilizers. Her slight body looked like it would be out cold in a minute. Nathan’s lip was quivering. He hated what was happening to us, but he had to see that it was working.
“I’m sorry, Cammie,” he said, full of regret. “I hope you’ll forgive me one day when things are better for you. I love you, always, and I know you’re going to do something incredible with your life. I’m just sorry I won’t be around to see it.”
Cammie could barely open her mouth to utter a protest. The pills were too strong, and every time her eyes closed they promised to stay that way. Nathan turned to speak to me, lowering his vision, begging for my forgiveness without ever saying it.
“Apoxy, you may think you didn’t make my life better this past year, but you did. It was more spectacular than anything I could’ve imagined, and it was all because of you. I used to love life like you did, but then life became way more than I could handle. It chewed me out, but even so I wish I could face it with you. I don’t know what you were getting at back when we were at my school, but I love you, and you should always remember that.”
It took all the strength I had to fight to hear his words. I was astonished that he felt that way about me, and he deserved anything but the response I was forced to give him. Even though we’d be seeing him for the last time, unconsciousness took over, and Cammie and I were lulled into a black, dreamless sleep.
*
When my eyelids fluttered open, I found myself wrapped around Cammie on the couch. I was groggy and confused, but the threat of losing Nathan still rung alarms in my heart. My squirming managed to awaken Cammie as well.
“Nathan…” she whimpered, reaching out to him from that place between sleep and awake. Twisting my neck, I spotted a clock on the wall and gawked at the time.
“It’s after four o’clock!” I called, practically shouting in Cammie’s ear. She gasped, and together we scrambled to get up. The pills had knocked us out for eight hours, and now we were looking Nathan’s final moments square in the eye.
“We have to go! We can still make it!” Cammie desperately hoped. We didn’t have a moment to lose. Seemingly stuck together, Cammie and I crashed into the door, threw on our shoes, and dashed outside still in our pajamas.
Tumbling down the steps, we peeked into the driveway for Nathan’s truck, but it wasn’t there. We’d sabotaged it, but he must’ve managed to put the spark plugs back. So many of our carefully designed plans had gone to waste. Now there was only one course of action remaining, to go into the collapsing cement factory and drag him out.
