She kicks back in her chair and folds her arms across her chest. “I just woke up. The caffeine hasn’t even kicked in yet. Can I stay here for a while?”
She’s practically pouting, her bottom lip sticking out, pleading with me. I stare at her mouth a beat too long. I think she notices, because she pulls on her bottom lip with her teeth and her cheeks flush. I shake my head slightly, pulling my gaze away from her mouth.
“Fine,” I say, snapping out of my trance. I walk over to her and kiss her on the forehead. “But not all day. You need to talk to her.” I walk away, fully aware of the fact that the forehead kiss was probably crossing the line. However, the fact that she slept in my bed last night has already muddied the waters. The line isn’t so black and white anymore. I’m pretty sure gray just became my new favorite color.
IT’S BEEN OVER five hours since I left with the boys, so Lake and Julia probably have had a chance to sort everything out. I tell Kel to stay the night with me to give them more time to adjust. I unlock the front door and follow the boys into the living room. We all come to a halt, not expecting to find Lake on my living room floor. There are dozens of white index cards sprawled out in front of her.
What the hell is she doing?
“What are you doing?” Caulder says, verbalizing my exact thoughts.
“Alphabetizing,” she replies without looking up.
“Alphabetizing what?” I say.
“Everything. First I did the movies, then I did the CDs. Caulder, I did the books in your room. I did a few of your games, but some of those started with numbers so I put the numbers first, then the titles.” I point to the piles in front of me. “These are recipes. I found them on top of the fridge. I’m alphabetizing them by category first; like beef, lamb, pork, poultry. Then behind the categories I’m alphabetizing them by—”
“Guys, go to Kel’s. Let Julia know you’re back,” I say, without looking at them.
The boys don’t move. They continue to stare at Lake. “Now!” I yell. They listen this time, opening the door and disappearing outside.
I slowly walk to the couch and sit down. I’m afraid to say anything. Something is off. She seems so . . . chipper.
“You’re the teacher,” she says. She looks at me and winks. “Should I put ‘Baked Potato Soup’ behind potato or soup?”
What the hell? She’s in denial. Intense denial.
“Stop,” I say. I’m not returning her smile. I don’t know what happened with her mom today, but whatever is going on with her needs to stop. She needs to confront this.
“I can’t stop, silly. I’m halfway finished. If I stop now you won’t know where to find . . .” She picks up a random card off the floor. “Jerk Chicken?”
I glance around the living room and notice the DVDs have all been arranged next to my television. I stand and slowly walk to the kitchen, eyeing the surroundings. Did she clean the damn baseboards? I knew I shouldn’t have left her today. Good God, I bet she cleaned the entire house and never even went to talk to her mother. I walk to my bedroom and my bed is made. Not only is it made; it’s perfect. I hesitate before opening my closet door, afraid of what I might find. My shoes have all been rearranged. My shirts have all been moved to the right side of the closet and my pants are on the left. The way they’re hung, their colors move from light to dark.
She color-coded my closet? I’m afraid to complete the inspection. There’s no telling what all she did to this house. She probably left nothing untouched.
Shit. I rush to the bed and open the nightstand. I pull the book out and open it, but the receipt for her chocolate milk doesn’t look like it’s been touched. I breathe a sigh of relief, glad she didn’t see it, then put the book back where it was. How embarrassing would that have been?
I walk back into the living room, more aware of the spotless condition of my house than before. She’s been a little too busy, which can only mean one thing. She’s still avoiding her mother.
“You color-coded my closet?” I say. I’m glaring at her from the hallway entrance. She shrugs and smiles, like this is any other day.
“Will, it wasn’t that hard. You wear, like, three different color shirts.” When she giggles, it makes me wince. She has to stop this. Her denial isn’t good for her, and it certainly isn’t going to be good for Kel when Julia tells him. I walk swiftly across the room and bend down to snatch up the cards. We’re about to have a serious sit-down.
“Will! Stop! That took me a long time!” She begins to grab the cards as I pick them up. I realize we aren’t getting anywhere, so I throw down the cards and try to pull her up off the floor. I need her to look me in the eyes and calm down.
That doesn’t happen.
She actually starts kicking at me. She’s literally kicking me. She’s acting like a damn child.
“Let me go!” she yells. “I’m . . . not . . . done!”
I let go of her hands as she asked, and she falls back to the floor. I walk to the kitchen and grab an empty pitcher from under the sink and fill it up with water. I know I’ll regret this, but she needs to snap out of it. I walk back to the living room and she doesn’t even acknowledge me. I extend my arm and flip the pitcher upside down on top of her head.
“What the hell!” she screams. She throws her hands up in shock, then looks up at me with pure hatred. I realize once she lunges at me that perhaps this wasn’t the best idea. Not enough water, maybe?
When she stands up and tries to hit me, I grab her arm and wrap it behind her back, then move behind her while I push her toward the bathroom. Once we’re inside, I wrap my arms around her and forcefully pick her up. There’s no other way to do it. She’s doing her best to attack me and she’s almost succeeding. I hold her against the wall of the shower with one arm and turn the water on with the other. As soon as the water splashes across her face, she gasps.
“Jerk! Jackass! Asshole!”
I adjust the faucet and look her in the eyes. “Take a shower, Layken! Take a damn shower!” I release my hold and back away from her. When I shut the bathroom door, I hold the doorknob in case she tries to get out. Sure enough, she tries.
“Let me out, Will! Now!” She beats on the door and jiggles the knob.
“Layken, I’m not letting you out of the bathroom until you take off your clothes, get in the shower, wash your hair, and calm down.”
I continue to hold the doorknob until I hear the shower curtain close a minute later. When I’m confident she isn’t going to try to get out again, I put my shoes on and walk across the street to grab her some extra clothes.
“Is she okay?” Julia asks as soon as she opens the door. She motions behind her to let me know Kel and Caulder can hear our conversation.
“A little too okay,” I whisper. “She’s acting strange. Did you guys talk today?”
Julia nods, but doesn’t elaborate. It’s obvious she doesn’t want to risk being overheard by Kel. “She’s in the shower. I came to get her a change of clothes,” I say, skirting the subject.
Julia nods and steps aside, then walks toward the kitchen. “You can grab some out of her bedroom. Last door on the right,” she says. “I’m in the middle of washing dishes.” She returns to the sink and I hesitate, a little uncomfortable at the thought of going into Lake’s bedroom.
I walk down the hallway and slowly open her door. When I do, it’s not what I expect. I don’t know if I thought it would be a typical teenager’s bedroom, but I’m pleasantly surprised that there aren’t posters on the walls and black lights on the ceiling. It’s surprisingly mature for an eighteen-year-old. I walk to her dresser and pull the top drawer open, removing a tank top. When I open the next drawer to look for pants, I’m met with a drawer full of bras and panties. I feel somewhat guilty, knowing that she has no idea I’m in her room right now. I tell myself to just grab a pair and shut the drawer, but I begin scrolling through all of the contents, imaging what they would look like on her.
Dammit, Will! I grab a pair on top and slam the drawer shut, then search until I find some pajama bottoms. When I shut the last drawer, the tank top falls out of my hands and lands on the floor. I bend over to pick it up and a barrette catches my eye. It looks like a child’s hair barrette. I pick it up and hold it between my fingers, curious why she would keep something so old.
“She used to think it was magic,” Julia says from the doorway. I whip my head around, startled by her voice.
“This?” I say, holding up the barrette.
Julia nods, then walks into the bedroom and sits on the bed. “When she was a little girl her dad walked in right after she had cut a huge chunk of her bangs off. She was crying, scared I would be mad at her, so he brushed some hair over and snapped the clip in place. He told her it was magic and that as long as she kept that clip in her hair, I wouldn’t notice.”
I laugh, trying to imagine Lake with a chunk of her bangs missing. “I guess you noticed?”
Julia laughs. “Oh, it was so obvious. Horribly obvious. She cut a three-inch strip right out of the front of her hair. Her dad called to warn me and told me not to say anything. It was so hard. It took her hair months to grow back out and she looked ridiculous. But I couldn’t say anything because every single day she woke up, the first thing she did was put that clip in her hair so I wouldn’t know.”
“Wow,” I say. “She was strong-willed even then, huh?”
Julia smiles. “You have no idea. I’ve never met a person with a more indomitable will in my life.”
I bend down and put the clip back where I found it, then turn back to Julia. She’s looking down at her hands, picking at her nails. She looks just like Lake right now, but somehow even sadder.
“She hates me right now, Will. She doesn’t understand where I’m coming from. She wants Kel, but I don’t know if I can do that to her.”
I don’t even know if it’s my place to be giving her advice, but she seems to be soliciting it. I just know I’ve been in Lake’s shoes, and nothing could have stopped me from taking Caulder from my grandparents’ house that night.
I tuck Lake’s clothes underneath my arm and head to the door, then turn back toward Julia. “Maybe you should try to understand where she’s coming from. Kel is the only thing she’ll have left. The only thing. And right now, she feels like you’re trying to take that away from her, too.”
Julia looks up at me. “I’m not trying to take him away from her. I just want her to be happy.”
Happy?
“Julia,” I say. “Her father just died. You’re about to die. She’s eighteen and she’s facing a lifetime without the two people she loves the most. Nothing you can do will make her happy. Her world is being ripped out from under her and she has absolutely no control over it. The least you could do is let her have a little bit of say-so over the only thing she’ll have left. Because I can tell you from experience . . . Caulder is the only thing that kept me going. Your taking Kel away from her because you think it’ll improve her situation? It’s the absolute worst thing you could do to either of them.”