The Chance You Won't Return Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Trouble in the air is very rare. It is hitting the ground that causes it.

  — Amelia Earhart

  I was sneaking a twenty-dollar bill from Mom’s purse when I saw the empty space where the picture should have been. It was of my parents on their wedding day, and they were laughing under a dogwood tree. Mom’s hair was pulled back in a neat bun, a style she couldn’t wear now, with her hair so short. Dad was clean-shaven in the picture, which always looked weird to me. His rented tux was a size too small; it showed in the arms and shoulders. They were twenty-two years old. I used to try to guess what they were laughing about. Whenever I asked, Mom said she couldn’t remember.

  Mom’s ChapStick, an overdue library book, a dusty box of Kleenex — everything else was there. I pocketed the twenty and inched toward the nightstand, scanning the floor to see if the picture had fallen off when Mom hit her alarm clock that morning. But the picture was gone.

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Teddy and Katy were peeling oranges for breakfast. Teddy kept jabbing his thumb into the flesh of the orange, making juice drip down his arm and onto the floor. Jackson, our terrier, licked the tiles.

  Katy pushed Teddy toward the paper-towel rack. “Mom,” she said. “Mom, he’s getting it everywhere.”

  Teddy shoved her back. “She’s pushing me.”

  “Mom, he’s not going to clean it up.”

  Standing at the sink, Mom held its sides as if she was at a podium. Her mouth was caught between a smile and nothing. She looked over the backyard, where the Kmart swing set was rusting and a few scraggly trees almost blocked our neighbor’s property. Usually she looked tired, even if the morning had barely begun. But for a moment, her face was clear and her eyes were focused.

  Jackson barked. Teddy reached out to push Katy again, but her longer arms stopped him.

  Mom blinked and wiped her hands on her jeans. “Both of you,” she said, tossing a sponge at Teddy. “No horsing around.” Teddy neighed, and Mom laughed a little.

  I tried not to eye Mom as I made toast. Jackson nudged my leg, so I tore him a corner of bread. “Where’d your wedding picture go?” I asked.

  “Okay, that’s enough,” Mom told Teddy, who had cleaned up the orange drips and was now scrubbing the rest of the counter. She pried the sponge from his hand and attacked the dishes from last night’s lasagna. A tiny V appeared in the middle of her forehead. Over the sink, her hands worked furiously. I wondered if she would crack a plate. “Alex, did you say something?”

  “The picture on your nightstand. When you and Dad got married.”

  Katy giggled into her cereal. “The puffy dress.”

  “Isn’t it there? Dammit.” Mom snatched her hand away from the hot water and turned the cold-faucet handle. “George must have moved it.”

  Katy looked up from her breakfast and caught my eye briefly, while Teddy continued to suck on orange slices. “Who’s George?” Katy asked.

  “David. Dad,” Mom corrected herself, but she spoke carefully, as if she was afraid of making the same mistake again. She turned to me. “And exactly why were you in my room, Alexandra?”

  “I was looking for my striped shirt,” I said, not blinking. “I thought it got mixed up in your laundry.” Katy was suddenly fascinated by her breakfast. She knew my shirt was on our bedroom floor, after I had tried it on and flung it off in disgust, but she also knew better than to say so. Now that Katy was in middle school, we had an understanding: she kept my secrets so I would do the same when she got some worth keeping.

  Mom stared at me for a moment before shutting off the water. I’d expected more of a fight. Sneaking cash from her purse wasn’t a regular thing for me, but I knew she had noticed some missing before and suspected me. Katy hoarded her money, so I couldn’t ask her, and Teddy couldn’t keep his mouth shut.

  “Driver’s ed today?” When I told her yes, she asked, “Have you practiced at all? Dad hasn’t taken you in a week.”

  Whenever my dad asked if I wanted to go for a drive, I said I was busy or tired or made some sarcastic comment that would keep him from wanting to spend time with me in an enclosed space. But the real problem was that controlling a huge, whirring hunk of metal terrified me. My heart raced and I couldn’t breathe and I forgot everything I was supposed to do. Cars hadn’t always scared me. It wasn’t like I cringed whenever anyone drove above the speed limit. I’d never been in an accident — not a real one, anyway. But something happened when I was forced to get behind the wheel. There were too many parts, all hidden under the hood; any piece could come off or spark. The brakes, the gas, the wheel, the mirrors — how could I be expected to pay attention to so many things at once? It went too fast. Anything could happen. So I avoided being behind the wheel as much as possible.

  “Who cares if I don’t practice? I’m going to be, like, the worst one anyway.”

  “That’s because you don’t practice,” Mom said. “It takes time. And it would be a big help for me if you could drive your sister to gymnastics —”

  “Oh, yes, please let me cart around my little sister. That’s exactly how I want to spend my afternoons.” At the table, Katy insisted that she didn’t want to ride with me, either.

  It wasn’t the first time Mom had tried to convince me to drive. She and Dad had even offered to pay for a cell phone if I got my license — in case I broke down while I was on the road. By now I was the only person I knew who didn’t have a cell, so that had almost gotten me, but then I’d remembered the feeling of being behind the wheel and claimed I didn’t want one.

  I devoured my toast at the counter and brushed crumbs into the sink. “See you later,” I said, grabbing my backpack.

  “Hey, where are you going?” Mom said.

  “School,” I said. “They make you go every day.”

  “You’ve got ten minutes before the bus. And you haven’t made your lunch yet.”

  I lingered by the door. “I’ll buy it. And I was going to walk.”

  Mom’s eyebrows knit together. “You’ll never make it in time if you walk.”

  “Sure I will,” I said.

  “Only if you cut through the woods,” Katy muttered, probably deciding that if she had to ride the bus, then so did I.

  “Oh, no,” my mother said as she arranged slices of bread for sandwiches. “You want to walk, that’s fine, but you have to stay on the street, where people can see you.”

  I gave her a look like I didn’t know how she functioned in the world. “What’s going to happen? I’ll get attacked by a squirrel?”

  Teddy snorted a laugh. “Maybe Alex’ll get rabies and she’ll get all crazy and foamy.” Sticking out his lower lip, he made slurping noises.

  Mom ignored Teddy, even as Katy threw her napkin at him and told him to stop. “Remember that man a few years ago?” Mom said. “The one who tried to grab that boy?”

  “Yeah, I’m desperate to get raped and murdered,” I said, slinging my backpack over my shoulder. “Can I go now? I’m going to be late.”

  Mom cut three sandwiches so agg
ressively that I thought she’d cut off her own finger. “I am so sick of this attitude of yours. Ever since you became friends with that Theresa Harbin, you do things like threaten people in chemistry class.”

  I laughed. “That was one time! And we didn’t threaten people; we threatened stupid John Lacey’s letterman jacket. He deserved it.”

  Mom shoved sandwiches into paper bags. “You think you’re entitled to everything.”

  “Oh, my Lord, you are so melodramatic,” I said. “Just because I want to walk somewhere, you make a huge deal out of it. Shouldn’t I be getting fresh air?”

  “It’s the way you say it, as if we’re all dirt to you.”

  “Yeah, right, I’m such a horrible brat. Tell me about all the things I can’t do right, please.”

  “You could do anything if you tried at all. But you don’t care about anyone but yourself.”

  “No, you just can’t understand how anyone could not want to do everything your way!”

  We were almost shouting now. At the table, Teddy and Katy exchanged looks.

  “And I don’t appreciate you going through my things when I’m not around,” Mom said. “How would you like it if I did that to you?”

  “I wasn’t going through your stuff. I already told you.” The twenty-dollar bill burned inside my pocket. “Why would I even want to go through your stuff? There’s, like, nothing there.”

  The way Mom looked at me, her head tilted and lips pressed together, she must have been trying to remember a time when I didn’t act like I hated her. When she thought I was trustworthy. For that, she’d have to go back a while. I was about to tell her that we’d had this argument a million times, but suddenly her eyes were clouded with something else. The planes of her face relaxed, and she gazed beyond me, to the kitchen table and beyond even that, into nothingness.

  “Never mind,” I said, and strode out the front door before she could ask me to walk my brother home from school.

  I was still annoyed as I made my way across the lawn and down the street, toward the woods. Storms had prematurely yanked all the leaves off trees, and now the ground was slick with color. Car horns blared — senior boys greeting one another. I wished they’d knock heads together. Maybe that way someone’s skull would crack open and we would get to see if any of them actually had a brain. For a moment, I considered skipping school altogether to hide out in the woods. I hadn’t done my math homework — big shock — and probably wouldn’t have time to finish during homeroom. Stoners and couples escaped to the graffitied boulder out here during free periods, but it seemed like their activities involved at least two people. On my own, I’d probably just end up hungry and feral.

  Then I heard something else — hissing, like someone using a can of hair spray. I held my breath. Someone was probably behind the boulder. But I was still too pissed to realize it was too early for stoners or couples.

  A branch snapped under my clunky boot as I strode around the rock. “Hey,” someone said.

  I hadn’t expected anyone to notice me, and my mind was still clouded by my mom and obnoxious senior guys. “What?” I snapped.

  A crown of a close-cropped head popped up on the other side of the boulder. Jim Wiley stepped into view. I still wasn’t used to seeing him with his hair cut so short. Last year he wore it long, kind of shaggy. But the shortness worked; it made his cheekbones seem more carved and his lips softer. I’d spent the last few weeks admiring his cheekbones and lips during gym, the one class we shared. He’d already been one of the best-looking guys in school, and now he looked like some kind of Greek statue. He was tall like me and had startlingly light-blue eyes. Staring into them was like getting an electric shock, and I felt the hairs on my arm stand up.

  In his hand was a can of spray paint. He stared at me for a second. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said, a little too eagerly. “I didn’t expect anyone to be here.” I wasn’t sure if he knew who I was. Most likely he recognized my general shape as someone he probably went to school with, or even more generally as someone who wasn’t going to bother him. But of course I knew who he was. Everyone at Oak Ridge did. Last year he became a school legend when he drove his parents’ car into the side of their house. After that, he disappeared for the rest of school year. Then in September he showed up, a junior again and kind of an icon.

  He tried to hide the spray can behind his back, although I wasn’t sure why. It wasn’t like this was the principal’s car or anything. The boulder was already covered with decades of couples’ initials and swears.

  “What time is it?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.” Another problem with not having a cell phone. “The bell’s probably going to ring soon.”

  “Thanks, ah —”

  I wasn’t sure if he was searching his memory for a name, but I put it out there anyway. “Alex.”

  “Alex?” he said. “You’re a junior, right?”

  “Yeah. We have gym together.”

  He nodded and leaned against the boulder, shoulder jabbing the middle of someone’s spray-painted heart. The handwriting was sloppy, so it might have been lk loves sp. Some declaration of love. As far as I knew, Jim wasn’t dating anybody. Before he drove into his house, he always had a girlfriend. Now either girls didn’t know what to make of him or he wasn’t interested.

  It was too quiet. “What’s with the spray paint?” I asked. “Did you write your initials?”

  “Oh.” He glanced at the can like he was surprised to find it in his hand. “I was just messing around.”

  I looked behind him to see if any of the graffiti matched the color on his can. One part did. I’d expected something quick and catchy like FUCK YOU or OAK RIDGE SUCKS, but it wasn’t even a word. It didn’t really look like anything — a bunch of sharp edges, curves, all in phosphorescent orange — but it felt deliberate.

  “What does it say?”

  He clicked the cap back on the aerosol can. “My initials. It was supposed to be this tag thing. But I can’t really do anything good yet.”

  In the woods, with so many of the leaves fallen already and the ground bright with reds and yellows, his graffiti fit. The other names and colors faded into the rock. “It’s like a phoenix,” I said. Once the words were in the air, I wished I could grab them and stick them back under my tongue. Who said stuff like that, especially to Jim Wiley?

  “A phoenix?”

  “It’s this mythical creature —”

  “Yeah, I know what it is,” he said.

  I felt myself blushing. “The orange. It reminded me of fire.”

  Jim nodded. “That’s actually what I was thinking about. The shape, I mean, not just the color, you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It’s got this movement to it. There are edges, but they still have a kind of flow.”

  “Right. Like watching a flame.”

  “But with more control.”

  “Yeah, that’s totally it.”

  I’d barely heard Jim talk before, and now we were having this conversation about color and movement. Did he talk this way with everyone? I could have been the only person Jim Wiley talked to about this. My heart was beating fast. “You did a good job.” In the distance, I heard a shrill buzzing. “First bell.”

  “Right. Thanks.” He picked up his backpack from the side of the boulder and slid the can of spray paint inside. “I probably would have missed homeroom if you hadn’t told me.”

  “Oh, tragedy,” I said, and he smiled.

  I thought he would walk ahead of me, but he kept pace, even though his strides were longer than mine. We didn’t talk until we passed through the front doors of the school. Then Jim said, “Later, Alex,” and headed down another hallway.

  I tried not to notice kids looking at us. Tried to pretend this was a totally normal thing, Jim and I coming to school together. He was a legend, and I was barely anyone. I rushed to my locker, wondering if people were already inventing some kind of scandal about us.

  Women must pa
y for everything. They do get more glory than men for comparable feats. But, also, women get more notoriety when they crash.

  — Amelia Earhart

  When I told my mother I was the worst student in driver’s ed, I wasn’t lying. I’d driven over more cones than anyone else in our class, or anyone in any class before ours, as our instructor, Mr. Kane, liked to remind me. Two weeks earlier, I’d blown out a tire while driving over a curb. Instead of letting us have a free period, Mr. Kane had made us spend the last half hour of class learning how to change a flat. I hadn’t been allowed behind the wheel since.

  “It’s your turn today,” Theresa told me as we climbed into the backseat of the ’97 Volvo station wagon that served as our student-driver mobile. Someone’s parents had donated it a decade ago, probably after their children refused to be seen in it. The dents I’d put into the fender weren’t the first. Even though Mr. Kane vacuumed the vinyl interior, there were still crumbs between the seats. After an hour, we’d smell like old skin and damp, stale bread.

  “He’s not going to let me drive,” I said. It wasn’t fair, anyway. Most high schools cut driver’s ed ages ago, but our principal insisted that proper instruction could make for safer teen drivers. It obviously wasn’t doing anything for me. I slid into the middle seat, Theresa on my left and Caroline Lavale, in her First Presbyterian Ministry T-shirt, on my right. In the driver’s seat, Edward Baker was texting wildly.

  “Mr. Kane has to let you,” Theresa said. “It would be like not giving you a test in math. You’d think, Hey, great, but then he wouldn’t pass you and you’d fail out of school and be stuck at home for the rest of your life. Do you really want that?”

  “You want to see me drive through the fence.”

  Theresa ignored me. “So you broke a tire. So what? You helped us learn a valuable lesson about car safety.” She leaned across me. “Isn’t that right, Caroline? Did you know how to change a tire before Mr. Kane showed us?”

  “Not exactly,” she said.

  “There you go.”

  Mr. Kane eased himself into the passenger seat and slammed the door shut. He was six foot four, so his head scraped the ceiling of the car. He scribbled on a clipboard, probably giving Edward points for not having destroyed any part of the car yet. “All right,” Mr. Kane said. “Start ’er up. Seat belts, everybody.”