Two Days Ago
After they’d killed Sasha—not just killed—ripped, slaughtered; after I begged my brother to leave; after the adults simply stopped, leaving a heap of what used to be Sasha, Sasha-in-pieces, Sasha deconstructed, (those are the only ways to think of it for the reality of seeing, the horror of what she’d become); the adults walked away as if nothing had happened.
Mel, the ferryboat operator, wiped his bloody hands on the ground and then picked up his fallen cigarette; the teachers went back to eating their brown bag lunches; the gas station attendant faced the sun, his eyes closed, enjoying the warmth.
My God, I thought.
We backtracked the way we’d come, moving and hiding from one car to the next, not speaking until Theo stopped and vomited.
I looked away until he finished. He whispered something I didn’t hear and I asked, “What?”
“I could’ve done something. I should’ve done something.”
We stared at him and even Renzo knew not to argue.
“No,” I said. “You’ve couldn’t have. You wouldn’t have made it.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered….”
“It does,” I said. “To me.”
I don’t know how I was able to stay so calm. Maybe it was a skill I’d learned growing up in a chaotic home, the ability to withdraw deeper and deeper, finding safety in the only place I could: within myself.
We’d all watched her die. We’d all done nothing. We were powerless, not believing what we were seeing.
She’d been my friend, lost and then found. My friend, forever.
I would’ve cried. I wanted to cry. But I couldn’t. Not here. Not now. Her death cauterized me and made me hard. I had no time to feel. Feelings were a liability. A luxury.
Theo needed to understand. His sadness might overwhelm him. Make him weak.
“You going back there isn’t gonna solve anything,” I said.
“I’ll kill as many as I can. That’ll mean something.”
“And then what? You’ll be dead. Is that what you want?”
Theo hesitated for far too long.
Max approached him. He opened his mouth to speak, only to place his hand on Theo’s shoulder, seemingly communicating through touch.
Theo knew Max’s history. A brother dead. Unable to help. Theo trembled before my eyes, an earthquake wrapped in skin.
“It hurts so much, Ruthie. Make it stop. Please, make it stop.”
I wish I could’ve. I wish I could’ve taken the pain right out of his body and put it into mine. His body continued to tense and then he let loose a soul-shaking scream. I knew it would bring them—and it did—yet none of us scolded him. He needed to expel what he could. Maybe he did it for all of us.
Then suddenly, there they were. The adults. They were fast. Faster than I imagined. They didn’t straggle; they bolted, and we were their bull’s-eye.
The forest was still too far away. The adults would overtake us before we got there. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. No weapons and outnumbered. I was paralyzed.
Max shouted, “This way!”
I followed as he ran toward the cliffs. The damned cliffs. He knew it was too high to dive or jump into the ocean. He knew it was impossible. And yet, I followed him, anyway. I had an image of Indians corralling wild buffalo, sending them toward a cliff, huge creatures stampeding in a mad rush to escape, spilling over the edge, falling and falling.
The cliffs in front; the adults behind; there was little choice.
I ran, the horizon of ocean blue growing closer.
The edge approached and I thought for sure Max had something up his sleeve, some crazy stunt like ditching out of a fast-moving car and at the last second, we’d sidestep to safety.
But Max kept running.
Running until he leapt into the air.
Then he disappeared.
I followed, oddly holding my breath, jumping into the void, overcome with the sensation of falling, a sickening stomach-lurching drop, the world all blue. Seconds later, probably milliseconds later, I landed on a lip of rock beneath the cliff, on the verge of slipping when I was suddenly seized from behind, and it was Max, pulling me to the ledge wall.
I didn’t have time to think.
Theo and Renzo were like buffalo, after all, and they fell, trusting against all reason. They landed precariously, mere inches from missing, and Max and I thrust them back to the wall. The lip of rock was only two or three feet wide, running about six feet in length, and without us there to grab them, they would’ve fallen. It was a long way down.
The ledge seemed to exist outside of time, outside of any known place. We could’ve been anywhere, transported, like a portal in a video game.
I looked at Max, about to speak, but he shook his head, demanding silence.
We soon knew why.
Above us, we heard the shuffling of footsteps, little pebbles and dirt raining down from where they’d stopped near the cliff’s edge. The scent of cigarette smoke wafted past us. They didn’t say a word. Not a single one. I could feel their presence, a radiating pulse, and I shut my eyes, trying to get smaller and smaller, wishing to disappear altogether.
I am not here. I am not here. You won’t sense me.
I was scared to breathe. I didn’t swallow. Didn’t shift my weight. I became living stone. I don’t know how long we waited. The pebbles stopped sifting down. The smoke disappeared long ago, but we waited in silence, our thoughts screaming, making sure the adults weren’t waiting for us. Tricking us. We waited, sunlight glinting against the ocean until the sun slid away and darkness fell.
Moonlight shone across the water and I caught myself thinking it was beautiful. More beautiful than it had any right to be. I found solace, a reminder that something larger than us was at work. Some meaning that this would all serve a greater purpose. Around me, we’d shifted, sitting down, the ledge moist and cool. I’d lived on this island most of my life and I never knew about it. I wondered what other secrets Max hadn’t told me. I asked him, “How’d you know about this?”
“Just found it. Kept it a secret and hung out here. Kinda my own little Batcave.”
I wouldn’t have told anyone, either. An island within an island, carved within the ledge, high above the water with a commanding view, as if it was waiting years, ancient years, for someone to stumble upon it.
“It’s badass, is what it is,” said Renzo. “The perfect place to take a date.”
Max said, “I haven’t been back here since my brother died.”
Then I understood. This is where his brother had followed him. Where his brother had fallen. “I’m sorry, Max.”
Theo said, “He missed, didn’t he? The ledge.”
Max nodded. “He saw me disappear from up there. Must’ve seemed like magic to him. But he didn’t know you had to jump from right at the exact spot. He was off by….” He measured about six inches of empty space between his hands. “That much. That little.”
We listened, not knowing what else to say.
In my own selfish turmoil, his life made mine seem blessed. Max, who worked so hard at school, getting straight-As and staying out of trouble to somehow make up for the son they lost, but never allowed to shine too brightly in case he rendered his brother invisible. It was an impossible tightrope to walk.
“What I never told the sheriff or my parents—no one—is that after he fell, he was still alive. Caught in the rocks.”
“Max,” I said. “You don’t need….”
“No, I want to. Things might happen and…I need to tell it.” Max moved closer to the edge, his legs dangling and he looked down. “I keep thinking I could’ve saved him. Or at least, kept him there. On land.” He watched the tide and its crashing waves. “He used to worship me, you know? He was this little barnacle. So annoying. He’d follow me around the house or mimic how I ate and I had to watch what I said. I swore once, and he repeated it at the dinner table, and guess who got in trouble? But what I wouldn’t give….” Max focused on the sea, lost in the past.
I thought of Theo and I. We never had that kind of relationship. It would’ve been nice to have had someone to look up to.
Max said, “He screamed my name. I could see him. He screamed it over and over. I hear his scream every night. I hear it in my head when it’s too quiet. I hear it all the time.”
Theo said, with some recognition, “You couldn’t do anything.”
“Couldn’t I?”
Theo shook his head. “No.”
Max gave a mirthless smirk. “And what does that feel like?”
We sat in the dark when Theo said, “I wish Sasha could’ve seen this.” Tears streamed down his face.
“I bet,” said Renzo, and he quickly realized how it sounded. “I mean, not like that. I meant it’s a sweet spot. Like being at the edge of the world.” Renzo scooched over to Max. “You’re making me nervous like that,” and he guided Max’s body back against the cliff’s ledge. It was a small gesture, one of gratitude and maybe, an apology for the years of taunts.
I asked, pointing upward, “You think they’re gone?”
Max said, “Sounds it,” though all we could hear was the roar of the ocean below.
Renzo asked, “What do we do now?”
It’d been my idea to go to the dock, for all the good it did. “I don’t know.” There was no cell coverage, no internet. No cops, no authority, no moral compass.
“We’re trapped, aren’t we?” said Max. He didn’t seem angry. Just stating a fact.
Renzo said, “What about a canoe?” When no one responded, he said, “Why not?”
“The tide,” Max said. “It’s too strong. We’d drown.”
“Isn’t anything better than staying here?”
“Is dying?” Max replied.
I thought of the famous guy who escaped from that prison near San Francisco. They’d never found his body. Alcatraz. I laughed to myself. This island was no better than Alcatraz.
Max said, “My brother? Sasha? All the kids on the bus? Sometimes I think they were the lucky ones.”
Theo woke from his sorrow. “That’s an awful thing to say.”
“At least it’s over for them,” Max said in explanation.
I said, “We’re gonna make it, Max.”
He turned to me, his eyes so very sad. “That’s what scares me.”