Backwards. Part 16

"Dan's dead. Or he will be. He doesn't deserve to be saved. I'm glad he's going to kill himself."

"Why?"

"Because the world's better off without him."

"You really hate him that much?" asked TR.

I thought of all the suffering Dan had caused - not just the rape, but the empty, self-absorbed way he went through life. The first thing I'd seen, coming into this life, was Dan turning his back on it and hurting everyone who cared about him. "Hate is a mild way of putting it."

TR shook his head. "You have to forgive yourself, Dan."

I clenched my fists, wanting to punch TR. But what was the point? My hand would just pa.s.s through him. "Don't ever call me that again," I said. "You might think it's okay to give up, but I don't."

I cut through a yard to get to Cat's apartment faster.

TR didn't follow me.

"What's wrong with your head?" asked Teagan. She stood in the doorway, mouth agape. For some reason, she looked younger.

"It's makeup," I replied. "From Halloween." I don't know why I said it. She'd know soon enough it wasn't true. Lying for no reason was something Dan would do.

"Did you get in a fight?" she asked.

"Shhh . . ." I glanced at the doorway, afraid their mom would hear.

"Mom's gone, genius," said Teagan. "Day two of her sales conference, remember?"

"Right." I checked the clock on the bedside table: 10:43 a.m. I'd wasted most of the morning sleeping. Only two days left to figure things out before the past was set.

"Is that why you wore that stupid hat yesterday?" asked Teagan, pointing to my forehead.

"Don't you have something better to do?"

"Nope. It's Sunday. The only thing on my list today is to bother you." She perched on Dan's desk and grinned. "Did someone kick your a.s.s at Finn's party?"

Dan stirred. "What do you know about Finn's party?"

"I know it was pretty wild," said Teagan. "And I know you were there."

"Did you go?"

She squinted at me like I'd just asked if turtles could fly. "Who'd invite me? You?"

"No. I'm glad that you didn't go."

"Thanks, dear brother. I like spending time with you, too."

"That's not what I meant," I said. "The party wasn't much fun is all. It was a waste of time."

Teagan scoffed. "You don't have to worry about me embarra.s.sing you. It's not like any of your friends would talk to me."

"They'd talk to you," I said, remembering how Finn had said h.e.l.lo to her outside of school. Then again, for Teagan that was a week from now. "Why would you want to hang out with them, anyway?"

"Doesn't everyone want to hang out with them?" mocked Teagan. "And dress like them? And be them? I should try out for cheerleading, then Kendra and I could be BFFs." She flipped her hair back, imitating Kendra. "I think I'll dye my hair blue. Or black. That would look cool, wouldn't it?"

"Yeah. That will make you real popular," I joked.

Teagan's shoulders slumped. I realized she'd been asking seriously. That's why she looked younger - her hair hadn't been dyed yet, and she wasn't wearing dark makeup around her eyes.

"You should dye it," I told her. "Black would look good on you."

"Whatever."

"I mean it."

She straightened slightly. "Does that mean you'll drive me to the drugstore? You owe me."

"I do?"

"For not taking me to my eye appointment yesterday. If I go blind, it's your fault."

"You're not going blind," I said. "Trust me."

"Can I drive, then?"

"No."

"How about this? Take me to the drugstore and then we can get donuts like we used to," said Teagan. "Remember those Sunday mornings when Dad would get a dozen different donuts, and he'd cut them up so we could taste each one? I loved that."

"I'm not even dressed."

"So get dressed. Mom left us money."

I wanted to say yes. It would have been fun to spend the day with her, but that would only make things harder for her. Until I changed things, I had to keep Dan away from the people I cared about. "I'm not getting donuts," I said.

"Why not? You found your car, didn't you?"

I frowned, not sure what she was referring to.

"You could get one of those Bavarian cream thingies," she continued. "That's your favorite, right? We need donuts!"

"Just eat cereal for breakfast."

"Cereal sucks," said Teagan. "Please. I can't go to the store without you."

"Ride your bike there."

"My bike's broken."

"Then walk," I said, annoyed. "I'm not your chauffeur."

Her face barely moved, but the change in her was like metal shutters slamming over storefront windows. "Forget it," she muttered. "I'll get someone else to take me."

Teagan left shortly after that. She must have walked to the store, because she was gone for over two hours. When she came home, she blasted her music and dyed her hair. I avoided her for the rest of the day, but I didn't have to see her to know that she'd chosen black instead of blue.

Once Dan was safely asleep, I slipped out to find TR. I felt bad about our argument the night before, and I needed to talk with someone after staying isolated all day.

TR wasn't waiting for me outside of Dan's house, so I went to the Coffee Spot. When he didn't show up there, I tried Cat's house. She was curled up in bed already, while her dad sat alone on the couch, watching a movie - their Sunday-night ritual derailed. A bowl of popcorn sat in the hall outside her door.

I stayed with her for a while, but I kept wondering where TR might be. The thought that something bad might have happened to him kept nagging at me. I finally left Cat's apartment and wandered up and down Main Street, looking for TR. Then I checked the buildings we used to jump off of. I even went to the radio tower we'd climbed, but no dice.

Come on, TR. Where are you?

Bits of the conversation we'd had the other night haunted my thoughts - TR's talk of letting go and merging back into Waster. So what if he'd tried to do that, and now he couldn't get out? He might be trapped in Waster. Or worse. Every time I'd let myself sink into Dan's thoughts, I'd had this sense that if I went too far, I wouldn't be able to call myself back. I'd be swept away until I drowned in his whispers. All we had was our sense of ourselves as something separate, and if we lost that, then what?

I wandered around town for hours, but I didn't find TR anywhere. If I could have, I would have gone to Waster's house, except I'd never walked TR home. I hadn't even asked where Waster lived. Why hadn't I tried to find out more about him when I had the chance? It made me wonder how many other things there were that I might not learn until it was too late.

Then the reeling hit.

It came fast, pulling me in a different direction than I was used to. Houses blurred by, melting into a sickening gray tunnel that ended at Dan.

I opened my eyes, unable to make sense of what I saw. Dark sky with darker shadows loomed overhead. The smell of burning oil hung in the air. I clawed the ground, afraid to move. A horn blared. The shadows blurring past ten or twenty feet above coalesced into train cars.

Dan bristled. I held him off, but it wasn't easy. A nauseating sea of pain engulfed me. In order to stay in control, I had to feel every bit of it. This is me, I whispered to myself. This pain is mine.

Long after the train pa.s.sed, my ears rang and my head continued to ache. The patches of sky I glimpsed through the tracks glistened with stars. I tried to get up, but a surge of dizziness sent me sprawling onto my hands and knees. My fingers splashed between wet rocks at the edge of a river, and my sleeves grew heavy with water. I sat back, trying to collect myself.

Dirt clung to something sticky on my cheek. Tar maybe? I wiped off what I could. The thick liquid s.h.i.+mmered on my fingertips. I tasted a drop and my mouth filled with the coppery tang of blood. Then I touched my forehead and all the pain I felt funneled to one spot, making me wince.

Dan immediately shot in to take control.

Get a grip, I told myself. Cat needs you. This is why you're here.

I sank deeper into the pain. My jaw clenched, and my breath came in short, shuddering gasps. Connecting to Dan's body was like pressing my head to a hot burner, but it was the only way to close the gap. You are not who you think you are, I whispered to Dan. You're a rapist. A monster. To fix this, you must die.

At last, Dan weakened. I focused on keeping him distant while I solidified my control.

Gradually, the pain eased and my vision steadied, allowing me to take stock of my surroundings. I was sitting beneath a train trestle that spanned a shallow river. It was an area I recognized from one of my nighttime adventures with TR.

I stood, taking care not to b.u.mp my head on the lower beams of the train trestle or stumble on the slick ground. The river seemed mostly dry. Only a small trickle of water worked its way through the stony bed. I climbed a dirt path on the overgrown bank to the road. The sky slanted to dark blue near the horizon, where light from the rising sun drowned out some of the stars.

With a cautious hand, I felt my head again to see how bad the wound was. The blood had become sticky in places while in others it had dried, making me itch. At most, the wound seemed an hour or two old. I still had no idea what had caused it or what had brought me to these tracks.

I followed the road back to town. At one point, I pa.s.sed a man walking a dog and turned to hide the blood on my face, but the man didn't appear concerned. He said, "Good morning," and nodded. I had on a skeleton s.h.i.+rt, so he might have thought the blood was part of my costume. To him, this was the morning after Halloween.

The sky continued to lighten, revealing traces of the night's activities - pumpkins smashed in the street and ribbons of toilet paper hanging from tree branches. I spotted Dan's car parked in front of a house I didn't recognize. It was a big place, with a three-car garage and finely manicured bushes, situated in what Dan's mom would call a "nice neighborhood," even though beer cans littered the front yard and broken bottles glistened on the sidewalk.

I found keys in Dan's pocket and unlocked the door, not sure how his car had gotten here. There were so many things I still needed to figure out.

When I got to Dan's house, I didn't pull into the driveway. All the lights were off, so I didn't think anyone would notice if I drove around a little longer. I went to Cat's neighborhood and considered going up to her window, but if she spotted me looking in, all b.l.o.o.d.y-faced and creepy, it wouldn't be good. Eventually I drove on. If only I could start over someplace else - go to Dan's dad's house and live with his perfect kids and adoring wife. Except the next morning I'd just get pulled back here again.

I did a U-turn and drove to the side of town where I thought TR lived. Then I wound back and forth on the narrow, cracked streets, looking for something that might lead me to him. The fact that he hadn't shown up last night worried me. For the first time since I'd arrived, I felt completely alone. TR was the only one I could talk to about what was going on. The only one who understood. I had to find him.

Other than the occasional porch light, the houses on both sides of the street remained dark. Several had windows that were boarded up, and most needed new paint. All the houses looked about the same size and shape, pushed together like shoe boxes on a shelf - what Dan's mom would call the "wrong side of the tracks."

I kept driving through the cracked streets, searching for TR, until the engine sputtered and Dan's car coasted to a stop. I pumped the gas and turned the key a few times, but nothing happened. The fuel gauge pointed to E. c.r.a.p. There'd been half a tank the other day. Then again, that was tomorrow.

The sun stretched above the horizon now, and the sky looked clear and blue. I made sure to tug the hood over my forehead before leaving Dan's car to walk home. As bad as I felt, dizzy with pain and hunger and a lack of sleep, I had to admit it was a pretty morning.

By the time I crossed Main Street, a lot of people were out walking their dogs or getting coffee. Every time I saw someone, I felt like they were staring at me. Maybe they saw the blood and knew it wasn't fake. Or maybe they could tell that I was an impostor, living a life that wasn't mine.

I spied Dan's mom through the kitchen window before going into the house. She must have gotten up early for the conference Teagan had mentioned. Hopefully, she'd leave soon.

I snuck around to the side and tried Dan's window. Sure enough, it had been left unlatched and the screen was easy to remove. I climbed in, ruffled the bed to make it look like I'd slept there in case his mom checked it, then ducked into the bathroom and turned on the shower.

The warm water made my head sting. Still, it felt good to wash the blood off my face. Water swirled pink around my toes, reminding me of the blood I'd seen my first day here. It didn't look as pretty now. No fields of red tulips blooming or rose petals curling - just dirty water and a lot of pain.

Someone knocked on the door. I turned off the shower and grabbed a towel. "Hold on," I said. "I'm getting dressed."

"I'm late," replied Dan's mom. "I should have left five minutes ago."

"Okay." I think she was waiting for me to come out, but I knew better than to open the door.

After a few seconds, she continued. "I left some money on the counter for food. And remember to take your sister to her eye appointment today."

"I will," I told her, although it felt like a lie.

Dan's mom lingered in the hall. Was she waiting for me to say something else? I stood, silent and dripping, on the other side of the door.

"I'll keep my cell on in case you need anything." Her footsteps receded. A few minutes later, the garage door rumbled open and shut.

I dried off, careful not to stain the towel with blood. Maybe I should have asked when the appointment was, but given Teagan's complaint about missing her eye appointment, I doubted I'd take her. Their mom would reschedule for two weeks from now. In fact, that's where they'd be when Dan slashed his wrists.

The eye appointment! I thought. If I got Teagan to it today, then she and her mom wouldn't go out two weeks from now. They'd stay home, so Dan couldn't kill himself then. Of course, he'd probably still find a way to off himself, but at least Teagan wouldn't return home with itchy eyes and barge into the bathroom to discover her brother bleeding in the tub. I could spare her that. All I had to do was get her to the appointment.

Except I didn't have Dan's car.

I pulled on some pants and hurried out. Taking Teagan to her appointment wouldn't fix everything, but at least it was a start - something simple and easy to change. It might even be the lever I was looking for. Changing this could set off a chain reaction that might help me change other things.

I found a large, empty gas can in the garage. Darting back inside, I grabbed Dan's wallet and pulled on a tattered cap to hide the wound on his forehead. "Be back in a little while," I shouted to Teagan.

People looked at me funny as I jogged to the gas station carrying the red gas can, but no one said anything. I filled the can and paid inside, not waiting for change. Then I raced back to where I'd left Dan's car. At least I ran to where I'd thought I'd left Dan's car, only I couldn't find it. The narrow, cracked streets and small houses all looked the same to me. Guess I should have checked a street sign that morning. The one landmark I remembered was a church with two square steeples a little farther down the block from where I'd parked.

A couple guys sitting on porch steps eyed me as I approached. I decided to ask them about the church. The guys looked older, but not by much. A third guy was hunched over the hood of a truck in the driveway.

"You got a problem, man?" asked one of the guys. Despite the chill air, he had on a tank top that showed off the tattoos darkening his arms.

"Yeah," I said. "I lost my car."