Chapter Two
When the scent of coffee finds its way upstairs, I rise from a dead sleep. Voices, low and serious, follow the coffee scent into my room. My hand locates my phone squished between the headboard and the wall, and I check the time. Eight thirty. It’s too early. Who’s making house calls at this hour? I pull a pillow over my head to try to block the noise out as their somber voices morph into raucous laughter. I thought one of the benefits of leaving the city would be that Traci wouldn’t make so much noise in the morning. No more coffee dates, no more running buddies, no more dishes to clean up before people judge us for our mess at seven in the morning. But she’s still found a way to interrupt my sleep. I’m a teenager, I’m growing, I need to sleep. Period.
I roll over and bury my face in my pillow, but the pillowcase is dusty as hell. And the pillow itself smells like a wet basement. I try to stifle it but an enormous sneeze bursts through my face and I’m fully awake whether I want to be or not.
It would’ve been hard to sleep much longer anyway. The morning sun falls through the east-facing window, diffused through the ancient elm growing a few metres away from the house. Something about this house keeps cool, even in summer. Traci told me it’s because people were a lot more thoughtful about how they designed houses in the 1800s, since they didn’t have central cooling.
As the sun inches onto my bed, it feels warm, peaceful, so I stretch, throw my legs off the bed and move closer to the wonky panes. Mist rises over the trees, tinted gold against the rapidly bluing sky and thick green of the woods bordering the property. For a minute, everything arranges itself into paradise. Then my eyes wander to the muddy truck parked crookedly behind our station wagon and the elaborate gardens Great Aunt Aggie once so carefully tended, now overgrown with poison ivy. It’s strange. All the decay I expected from my first glance at this old place looks more like growth from up here.
I look for the spots I remember having fun in as a kid; there used to be a tire swing hanging from a tall oak that Aggie got some neighbor to put up so me and my cousins wouldn’t stay inside denting mahogany and chipping china. Where is that swing now? My eyes comb the blurry edge of the treeline where new growth is emerging: little saplings, wildflowers, weeds . . . nothing to indicate the existence of that big old truck tire hanging from a frayed length of rope.
But then I strain my eyes to gaze farther back, past the saplings to the more developed trees, and I see a pair of legs swinging lazily, without any clear direction, sticking out of the brush. They’re so pale, awkwardly crossed, and bruised up so badly, that at first my heart races, thinking I’ve clocked a dead body. Maybe it’s just what I’ve come to expect of this old house—Aggie’s death and the signs of decay tricking me into seeing such morbid traces on the landscape. Or I’m on edge from everything that’s happened recently. Just a year ago, I don’t think I would’ve assumed the worst. A year ago, I was a different person.
It’s probably some local kid. Traci’s always talking about how people let their kids roam free here.
I scan the brush again, and the legs are gone. Maybe whoever was swinging went back into the woods.
It’s nice out today. I think I’ll try skating to Main Street.
I pull on my ragged jeans, a hoodie, one of Dad’s old basketball jerseys, and head downstairs.
In the kitchen, Traci is sitting across the table from a lady who looks like she spends most of her time outdoors. I get the feeling she looks older than her age. Her stiff posture doesn’t match her babyface and soft blue eyes. A few streaks of gray salt her auburn hair, pulled tight into a ponytail.
When she sees me, her face opens into a warm grin. “You don’t recognize me?”
I didn’t expect her to speak to me. I shake my head no. Do I know her?
Traci rolls her eyes as if I should remember this stranger. “Mrs. Levesque-Gerges from next door. You and her daughter, Nicole, used to play together as babies the first few times I brought you and your father to visit Aggie out here. She’s been taking care of the house.” I find that hard to believe with the amount of dust that’s layered up on everything.
“It’s a shame you didn’t come visit more, Trace.” Mrs. Levesque-Gerges reaches out and places a hand over Traci’s. It’s pointed and overly sympathetic, the kind of gesture I know Traci considers an overreaction. I wonder if Mrs. Levesque-Gerges knows about Dad. Or maybe her sympathy is with Traci’s loss of Aggie. Most people consider Traci and Dad’s divorce a good call on Traci’s part now that Dad’s behind bars.
“Well, not until after the divorce. Asha’s father didn’t like it out here. Maybe you remember, Kel, Asha’s great-grandparents were settled out here before they moved to the city.”
“How could I forget?” Neither of them moves for a minute. They’re frozen in their own thoughts, each waiting for the other to say something. Did something happen with my great-grandparents? Mrs. Levesque-Gerges is the first to break the silence. “It’s such a grand old house. Shame Aggie neglected the place. Always made me feel like a princess walking through these halls when we were teenagers.”
The grin she shoots my way feels like an overcompensation for the awkward silence. Not wanting to endure another, I follow up: “You were friends?” Mrs. Levesque-Gerges in her John Deere camo fleece across from my mother in her cream Hudson’s Bay merino sweater that Jeff bought her. It seems impossible to imagine Traci in this woman’s world, let alone as friends.
Mrs. Levesque-Gerges turns to face me, grinning ear to ear. “We weren’t just friends. Tied at the hip, we were!” she exclaims. “At least until you got married. But of course, it was silly to stay apart all those years.”
“Well, you can’t choose your partner’s family.” Traci’s mouth is tight. It gets that way when she’s trying to protect other people’s comfort at the sake of her own. I wonder what happened between them. I always thought Traci and Dad’s family got along.
Traci clears her throat. “Asha, Kelly cleaned my old room out for you.”
“Oh, thanks. Do you know what happened to the Prince poster that was in there?” I ask. Mrs. Levesque-Gerges stares at me blankly. I take that to mean it’s in the trash. I really wanted that poster, but maybe it’s better this way. A true fresh start. Not a trace of Traci’s past in the house either. Just us and Aggie’s junk.
“Sorry I didn’t recognize you, Mrs. Levesque-Gerges. But I’m glad my mum has a friend here.” Even if Traci and Mrs. Levesque-Gerges have some beef that’s gone unresolved all these years, and I wish I had that poster, I’m being honest: it’s good Traci has someone in this town who still knows who she is and cares enough to come by.
Mrs. Levesque-Gerges reaches out a hand and I shake it. Her grip is tight. I remember what my dad told me about how shaking tight signals strength of character and I grip hers equally strongly back. She seems a bit surprised by this and massages her palm as she corrects me: “Call me Kelly. And I think you and my daughter Nicole would still get along.” She chuckles and takes a sip of her black coffee. “You used to play so well as babies.”
“Oh yeah?” I say. Traci is tapping the side of her mug impatiently. She must want to discuss something specific with Kelly. I hold up my skateboard. “I’m going out.”
“Now?” Traci surfaces from her coffee, scandalized that I would leave without breakfast. There’s a box of frozen waffles on the counter. She must’ve gone out to get them before I woke up. It’s a nice gesture, but I’d rather duck out until they’re finished having whatever strained conversation they were building up to before I interrupted.
“Had a granola bar upstairs. I’ll be back in a bit. See you.”
As I reach for the kitchen door, Traci says, “Remember how we used to spend so much time on our hair and clothes? See how kids go out now? I’m all for self-expression, God knows . . .” Her comment is not directed at me, but I still turn around. Traci hates when I dress to go skateboarding because she thinks I’m hiding my figure. It takes every ounce of my self-control not to talk back to her in front of Kelly.
“Nobody cares how I dress.” I try to tamp my temper down, avoid letting it seep into my tone.
Traci turns back toward Kelly. It’s unclear if she heard me. “All the bright colors and the hairspray. And now . . .”
Kelly glances at me then faces Traci, as if I’m not even part of the conversation. “Oh yeah, Nicole is just the same. Don’t understand her style one bit. It’s all Hassan’s dirty old t-shirts and baggy pants.”
They both cackle. Traci wipes tears from her eyes. “I do sometimes wish you’d show your body a little more, though, Ash. You’re so beautiful.”
I try to smile. I don’t know how convincing it is. “I just don’t think you’d say the same thing if you had a boy, you know?”
Traci lets out a frustrated breath. “You don’t need to make me out to be the patriarchy, here, Asha. I just said you were beautiful.”
“You’re talking about my body, my clothes, as if I’m not even here. Acting like I’m weird for going out in—” I gesture up and down at my outfit. Heat is rising in my chest, threatening to burst out, “—this.”
“I just want you to look like you have someone to care for you—” Traci is usually so composed in the presence of guests, but maybe something is different with Kelly, who is now fiddling awkwardly with her coffee mug.
“Isn’t that classist? What if you couldn’t afford nice clothes for me?”
Kelly laughs awkwardly and jumps in to loosen the tension. “Well, your daughter certainly inherited your fire, Traci!”
“The headaches I must have caused Aggie . . . ”
It’s as if I’m not here again.
“I’m heading out,” I say, and bolt before she can protest more. The kitchen door slams behind me. It’s not on purpose, it’s just heavier than I’m used to. The screen rattles in its frame. I think about looking back, about apologizing, but instead I set out for the road.
The long dirt driveway ends with a mucky puddle before the road begins. On the way in, Traci called it a moat. It’s not the most welcoming entrance or graceful exit from this grand old house. It also shows how little traffic Great Aunt Aggie got in her last years. The only people coming in and out were probably the Levesque-Gergeses who did their neighborly duty of bringing her groceries and cleaning house when she couldn’t do it herself.
The puddle is so wide and deep that as I slosh through it, I soak my shoes, socks, and jeans with thick brown-red water. I can’t help but think it’s too deep to have appeared naturally. From the stories Traci and her cousins have told, it sounds like something Aggie would have done when she was still able to do hard manual labor. Apparently, she was a notorious misanthrope. That’s what Traci said.
I didn’t know what “misanthrope” meant until I looked it up: someone who dislikes other humans and society. If Aggie did dig this moat, did she do it to keep people out? Or keep herself in? I asked Traci and she told me not to play into the town mythology surrounding Aggie and that the moat is just the gutter stream that floods in the spring and washes the driveway out.
One of my feet sticks in the muck. When I try to dislodge myself, it only sinks in deeper. I pinch my skateboard under my armpit as hard as I can to avoid either losing it to the moat or falling in myself. I tug on my left foot and the right sinks deeper. Shit. I’ll never even make it to the road at this rate. I stand still for a second and just breathe. Relinquish all resistance. Other than being stuck in the moat, it’s so pleasant out. The mist is burning off, and the sun warms the parts between my braids. There are chickadees in the trees doing their sweet mating calls.
Aunt Aggie taught me what they sound like when they’re searching for a partner. That sweet weee-woooo. She also showed me how to get them to land in my hands with a few sunflower seeds and a whistle. There weren’t many times we connected one-on-one, but that day she made me feel like a fairy-tale princess. Their little mouths so careful in the palm and their claws didn’t even dig in. The first time I thought it would hurt. But they’re so light and gentle. Their bodies are barely made of anything.
As my body melts into the stillness, I become aware of another sound beneath the slosh of my feet and chickadee calls: sticks breaking. Something large is farther back behind the trees and moving my way.
Abruptly, I remember a time my cousins told me they saw a coyote around here. I thought they were just saying it to scare me. If that was their intention, it worked. I was scared, even though I wouldn’t admit it. The night after they told me, I curled in bed next to Traci and Dad with my eyes wide open to the pitch of the country night. And late, late into the night, when everyone was passed out, I heard it. The snapping of branches and the barking laugh of a coyote beneath our window. Then the laugh became a child’s scream.
Everyone in the house woke up. Usually, coyotes or coywolves didn’t come that close, Aggie said. Maybe they heard all us kids making a ruckus and thought it had found some kin. That didn’t make me feel any better. What if the coyote was disappointed when it saw me? Would it tear me up and devour me? While everybody else got up and turned the lights on, traded stories about how they woke up or what they were dreaming just before, I curled under the covers and pretended to sleep. I pretended to sleep for the rest of the night, even when the excitement wore off and everyone drifted off again, safe in their beds, confident in the security of locked doors. I never told anybody how I couldn’t stop shivering, like I’d been the coyote out there in the cold of the night.
Now, the same fear overtakes me. I pull harder at my foot as the rustling comes closer. There’s no one out here. I’m stuck and if a coyote didn’t like the look of me, it could take me down, easy. I forget that it’s not likely for them to be out at this time, not likely for them to approach a human. It’s just me and the fear fluttering in my chest. I need to get out of this puddle and skate away as fast as I can to town. And then a bright orange baseball cap emerges between the leaves and I know I’ve embarrassed myself again.
“Hey!” the person in the cap yells my way. They’re short and wearing clumsy work boots and a brown barn jacket that engulfs them so only the ends of their shorts peek out from beneath the hem. “I said hey!” they yell again when I don’t answer.
“Hey!” I yell back, trying to sound friendly. I know I can’t pretend I don’t see or hear them. Who walks through the brush in the morning yelling at strangers? It doesn’t really make me feel much safer in my stuckness. Plus, it’s embarrassing I’m even in this situation. Maybe I should’ve just buried myself in blankets and hidden the day away.
They come out into full view, and I can see it’s a girl around my age but a head shorter than me. She has tan, freckled skin and long, dark auburn hair. Something around her eyes is familiar. It takes a minute, but I recognize Kelly in her.
I’m not surprised when she yells, “I’m Cole Levesque-Gerges. Your neighbor? You know you could’ve just taken the easy way . . .” She laughs and points to the makeshift log bridge over the gutter that I hadn’t even known to look for. Heat rises to my head, the fear of encountering a wild animal melting to shame at my lack of awareness. “Throw me your board. It’ll be easier for you to get unstuck.” Cole comes closer to the edge of the moat and I toss her my board. She catches it and I’m finally able to get my feet unstuck and wade out of the moat, panting.
She crosses the rotting log bridge and meets me in the lengthening grass that quickly turns to chunked cement and gravel. I survey the pavement. It’s pretty torn up. It’ll be a challenge for me to skate at all.
“Yeah,” Cole smiles, seeing me survey the road, “Not many skateboarders around these parts. The roads’re shit.” She says her “r’s” hard and rural the way Traci does after she has a couple glasses of wine.
Cole hands my board back to me, and I reach for it with still shaking hands. Her eyes catch on them, but she looks away quickly.
“I’m Asha. I live here now.”
“What’s it like living in a haunted house?”
I shrug. Her tone is jokey but there’s something behind the question that makes me realize just how little I know about the house’s history. I don’t want to betray my ignorance about the house, so I strike the same joking tone to reply. “Don’t know yet. It’s only been one night.”
She doesn’t laugh. Maybe she doesn’t know if I’m joking either. There’s a moment where we both stare at our feet, not sure what to say. Then she points at my board. “You know any tricks?”
“A few.”
“Kickflip?”
I laugh. “Why’s that always the one people ask first?”
“Well, can you?”
“Kinda . . . not well.” Nia was trying to teach me. Ground tricks freak me out. They take a lot of confidence, and all the momentum must come from you, rather than the sloping terrain of a park. Nia would always make fun of me for being such a chickenshit skater. May as well be a long boarder. I can’t be chicken now. First impressions . . .
I throw my board down and land on it with that familiar pop of solidity. I skate down the street a bit, then come back and do some ollies over potholes. Cole throws up some whoops. I can feel myself warming to her already.
This is what I like best about skateboarding: I can do something so little and feel so proud. Just for a moment. My favorite part of show and tell was always the showing. Why waste time talking about the whys and hows and whats of things when you can just ride and ride until—
“Hey, I think someone’s coming!” I turn to see if what Cole says is true so I can get off the road and—
I hit a rock.
I don’t remember falling and I don’t remember standing back up. My hand’s on the back of my head where a lump is already rising. Better it swells out than in. I look around, but Cole’s gone. It’s just me and an RCMP cruiser barreling toward me, chirping its siren. I scramble off the road, my legs catching gravel sharp as shrapnel as the cruiser kicks up dust. A white man hangs out the window and yells something at me I don’t understand as language. I’m still turning my head, looking for Cole, when I realize the cruiser has pulled over and switched on its lights.
Why would this cop car come speeding out of nowhere like that, entitled and reckless? Rage fills me until I can’t feel my body’s edges. But as the cop swings his legs out of the cruiser and slams the door, I swallow that anger down and let it simmer just above my stomach where it burns like acid reflux. I force a smile onto my face.
Cole appears beside me holding my board, burrs attached to her shirt. My board must’ve gone in the ditch. She looks me up and down, concern wavering behind her eyes. “You ok?” That concern is misplaced, I think, when the cop is walking toward us, slow and menacing.
“Yeah, just a hard fall.” It’s a half-truth. What really set me off was the RCMP car. The full truth is that sometimes I crave the crash into the pavement. I should’ve stayed off the street. “But I’m fine. It was just a shock.”
That’s what Traci said when Dad called her collect from prison the first time. She cried too. I guess throughout the trial and his sentencing, the reality of the situation hadn’t fully kicked in. Even though I know she hasn’t loved Dad for a long time, she still cried. Back then, I thought she was being melodramatic. I still haven’t cried about it. I thought I was stronger than her for holding back. I try to be stronger than my instincts now, suck all the salt back in. No tears.
The cop shifts from foot to foot. He’s bulked up with gear and holds his hand on his hip, just above the holster of his gun. The hair left on his head is beginning to gray from a dirty blond. Even though he can’t be much taller than me, he’s way more solid, which gives the impression that he could intimidate anyone he wanted to.
I jump when Cole shouts, “Uncle Joe!”
The officer smiles and walks our way. He opens his arms, reaching out the way people do in that moment of surrender when you’re not sure if they’re going to get shot or make it away safe. Cole falls into his embrace.
“Nicole Mariam, how many times have I told you—stay off the road. It’s a blind hill. You and your friend here could’ve been hit.”
Cole pulls away. “I know. But I asked Asha to show me a trick.”
He squints at me like he’s feigning misrecognition. “I don’t think we’ve met? You from around here?” he asks me.
“Asha,” I say. “I just moved in.” But I bet he says the same to all the other non-white folks in town. You from around here? All my history’s in this town, I should’ve said yes.
“Oooooooh—” He draws out his surprise. “You’re Traci’s daughter?” How did he know that? We just arrived last night. Maybe like Kelly and Cole, we met in some distant past I can’t remember. I thought no one in this town would know who I was, that I’d be able to build up an image of myself from scratch. I’m starting to realize how unrealistic that dream was.
“Yeah,” I admit.
“She was a fun girl back in the day.”
The way he pauses when his lips shape themselves around the word “fun” makes me think he means slutty. Not that that’s anything to be ashamed of. Good for Traci. I’m glad she got hers. I don’t think this officer is all about sex positivity though. I hold the officer’s gaze, hoping he can see past my neutral expression to what I really think of him calling my mother fun. There’s an awkward silence between the three of us as I struggle to think of anything else I could possibly tell this balding RCMP officer who almost ran me over, who is related to Cole, who didn’t ask us to get on our knees, whose gun is so close to his hands.
Then the silence breaks as he and Cole exchange pleasantries and a brief arm wrestle. I become invisible. She asks him if he’s going to come by for dinner. He asks her how the last week of the school year was. Then he gets in his car, salutes us, and drives off.
I don’t have the time or guts to talk about how uncomfortable this exchange made me before Cole asks, “Hey, you ever seen baby bunnies?” Her gaze lingers on my hand clenched around my board.
“I should go back home.” I don’t want to be out here anymore. Home stings in my mouth. It’s not a lie, but it feels that way. Aggie’s big old house is not what I think of as home, at least not yet. I miss our warped laminate floors and familiar cracks in the popcorn ceiling, the smooth, easy-to-skate pavement of our cul-de-sac.
Cole sees my hesitancy and grabs my arm, pulling me toward a path off the road. “It’s on the way back, come on.” And before I know it, I’m following Cole into the woods, my wet shoes squashing out water into the sweet-smelling moss as the new summer canopy shades us, veils us from any onlookers. I remember the bruised legs I saw this morning. Uneasiness crawls like worms in my guts.
Then, I notice Cole’s legs, moving through the brush, match those bruised legs exactly. I let go of my breath.
The moss is moving. It reminds me of the thick skin that sometimes forms on top of a pot of warm milk. The whole thing moves as one, as if bubbles want desperately to escape but can’t. It looks alive. And it is.
Cole reaches one hand toward the patch of moss. All our surroundings are dappled; sunlight falls like rain through the thick, humid air right onto the patch of moss Cole overturns with two soft fingers. I lean closer. The hole is well protected, not just by the moss, but prickly raspberry brush and poison ivy that Cole warns me to avoid. At first glance into the hole, I think I see one large rabbit. Then, what I thought was a leg twists and turns, separating into little bunnies. Soon, the little slits of sleepy eyes become visible.
“Come, look,” Cole whispers. “There’re five of them. I’ve been coming to check on them every day since I found them.”
I let my knees sink into the mulch of the forest floor and put my face closer to the bunnies, closer to Cole too. We’re almost touching. I do my best to keep my distance, try not to breathe too loud or heavy. Don’t want to disturb the scene with my morning breath. “How’d you find them?”
“By looking.” She reveals her buck teeth in a smile. She’s soaking up my awe. Gently, she places the moss back on top of the nest and we stand. “I like coming on the trails out here. It’s quiet and no one’s telling me to clean my room or take out the trash. Plus, I keep the trails fresh. My parents like that.”
“Kelly?” Cole looks surprised that I know her mother’s name.
“She was at my house for coffee and mentioned I’d get along with her daughter Nicole,” I explain. “Assuming that’s you?”
“That is me! But don’t call me Nicole. I hate it. It’s always Cole.”
“Cole it is.”
We’re both silent for a moment. She looks comfortable in it, tilts her head skyward. I dig my hands deeper into my pockets and wriggle my toes in my shoes. I don’t know what to say next. It’s so weird I would meet someone who seems genuinely cool and nice and who I might want to chill with in the first few hours of my first day here. Minus the RCMP uncle, of course. He can suck it. I don’t want to get my hopes up, though. Friendships have never been easy for me. Traci says my expectations are too high. I don’t know if that’s it exactly. Dad says it’s because I don’t know who I am yet. That might not be it exactly either. The only person I ever felt I could be truly myself with was Nia, but that’s a lot of pressure to put on one friendship, especially when she’s flying across the ocean for the summer.
But I don’t want to come on too strong with Cole. So instead of asking if she wants to be best friends forever, I just ask: “How come I don’t remember you from when we were younger?”
Cole looks down from the place she was observing in the trees. She doesn’t quite meet my eyes. “I kind of remember you. Eating popsicles on the stoop or something. But my parents got pretty strict when I was older and I don’t think I saw you again.”
“Are they still strict?”
“Yeah, but I’m better at lying. And I’m old enough to drive.”
We both laugh.
“Your mum seemed pretty desperate for us to be friends.”
Cole rolls her eyes. “She thinks I’m lonely. Plus she doesn’t like my friends.”
“Why?”
“I don’t want to get into it.” But from the way she waves her hand, almost theatrically, it seems like she might.
“You sure? I’m the perfect person to share gossip with because I don’t know who anybody is anyway. Secrets are safe with me.”
“I mean . . . it’s not really anything, you know? Just petty high school drama and I’m over it. I just want to get the next year over with and get out of here.”
I know exactly how that is. That’s part of why I’m here. “Is it, like, a boy thing?”
“No? I guess? I don’t know.”
“So, it is.” All the boy-thing stories start like this. I know from listening to all the people in me and Nia’s (mostly Nia’s since my dad’s arrest, if we’re being honest) extended friend group talk about their boy-things non-stop. I’m always giving advice or zoning out. It’s the one subject Nia doesn’t really talk to me about, which is fine. I’m not ready to talk about my feelings for anybody and she hasn’t ever pushed it. She’s a good friend for understanding, but sometimes I wish she could help me understand this part of myself, what I want. If I want anyone. I’d have to be able to put how I feel into words first, though.
“I mean, you’ll hear it from someone else if you don’t hear it from me, so . . .” She takes a deep breath. “It’s like . . . I made out with one girl, Maddie Leblanc, at a party and then everyone was saying I made her do it to break up her and Devon because I was jealous.”
“Devon?” She’s acting like I already know everyone in town. I don’t know if it’s because we used to play as babies and that’s a special bond in her eyes, but I appreciate it. I haven’t met many people I feel so immediately comfortable around.
“Devon Paul. We were tight, best friends since primary.”
“Not anymore?”
“Nope. Not anymore.” Cole takes in a big breath, then lets it all out in a huff. “I’m not saying I didn’t break his trust or whatever, but he told her stuff I wanted to keep private between us, like, about my sexuality, and then she kissed me.”
“Oh, shit.” I can’t believe she’s telling me this right off the bat. That’s, like, some deeply personal stuff. Not to mention extremely hot gossip for a newbie like me to be privy to. Maybe she’s as lonely as me. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s whatever.” She won’t look my way. I can tell it’s bringing up some emotions for her. “We’ll get over it. It’s just high school.”
“Yeah, I guess it’s high school, but it’s also a breach of trust on, like, many levels.” People just can’t help running their mouths. It’s better to keep to yourself.
Cole nods. I hitch my skateboard up under my arm. “Dude, look,” I say, “that sucks. If you ever want to hang and catch up more on all the stuff that’s happened since we were babies, I can give you my number? Or you can call the landline. I think your parents probably have Aggie’s old number.”
“My phone’s in the shop, but I’ve got the landline. Used to do crank calls to the old, haunted house in middle school.”
“You ever get a ghost?”
“A few times, actually, yeah.”
I laugh. It hurts, just a little, in my stomach, so I stop. I never thought before about how laughing builds muscle. Mine must be out of shape. I remember Dad told me to keep the ones who make you laugh around. “You want to come to lunch?”
“Thanks, but no thanks. Mum’s counting on me to sous-chef from now ‘til Sunday dinner. My dad just got back from out west so she’s pulling out all the stops.” Sunday dinner . . . I wonder if their family is traditional Christian. What do her parents think about her queerness? Do they know?
“Ok.” Maybe I went too hard, too fast. I have to play it cooler. “You know how I can get home?”
She points to a towering oak that has a lightning split in it. “Just keep walking straight at that oak and then you should be able to see the edge of the roof. From there you should be fine if you just walk in a straight line.”
“Thanks.”
“Ok, ya city slicker.” She chuckles to herself at the phrase. “See you later if you don’t get lost and die in the woods.”
“Later.”
I turn and walk toward the house, the smile on my face as warm as the dappled sun. She turns and walks toward her home. I think of all those baby bunnies so safe in their mossy nest, all curled up tight and close.
I run my hand over the back of my head. The lump’s big and tender but the blood has dried. I hope Traci doesn’t see me before I clean up and wrap my hair. She’d freak out for sure. I feel some guilt at hiding this morning’s adventures from Traci. It’s just so she won’t worry about me. She already has so much to worry about with the house and moving. Is lying by omission as bad as lying straight out?
Besides, it’s hardly the worst information I’ve kept from her. If she knew what I do about Jeff, maybe everything would crumble and she’d be back on the couch, not eating, not speaking to me. I’d be totally alone.
Cole’s directions back home are good. I make it to the oak, and then the edge of the woods, and then I’m back in our yard. I look up at Traci’s room. Her shadow moves across the curtains. This house isn’t haunted, just depressing and lonely as fuck.