It’s weak butthere,fluttering like butterfly wings beneath my fingertips. Relief rolls through me as tears flood my eyes. She’salive. She’s alive and I have her back.
I have you back,I think.I finally have you back.
She groans and coughs, fighting to breathe through the handkerchief still covering her mouth. I grab it and tug it lower.
And that’s when my world fully disintegrates.
I gawk at the broad nose and too-thin lips, at the square chin and plump, rounded cheeks.This isn’t Avery.The realization hits like a shotgun blast, so hard, I thump down onto the dirt. The woman lying on the ground in front of me is a stranger.
Chapter 9
REED
Erie, Pennsylvania
Age Six
Reed Aldridge woke like he did most mornings—to the sound of his parents fighting.
“You have to be kidding me, Jack! It happened again?Again?”
His mom’s voice shot into his room like a grenade. Reed sat up with a gasp, unsure if he’d actually heard her or if he’d been dreaming.
“After one month? A single, goddamn month? You are so fucking pathetic!”
Nope. Not dreaming. Real.
Something made of glass exploded down the hall. He plugged both fingers in his ears and hummed to himself in an attempt to drown out the sounds coming from the other side of the wall. Bad sounds. Scary sounds. Sounds he hoped would stop if he gave them a few minutes. They sometimes did if he waited long enough.
His mom shrieked.
His dad roared.
Something thudded against the floor. Another loud crash followed. The fights weren’t always this bad, but they were alwaysthere. And even when they weren’t, one could break out at any time. It felt like living in the middle of a storm.
When it came to his parents, Reed had become an expert at reading their weather. Like all the times his dad slumped through the door after work looking wrung out and went straight for the beer. Reed knew better than to run to him for a hug on those days because he’d just be told to get out of the way. It was better to leave him alone. Or the times when his mom spent the day muttering to herself as she cleaned the house, talking about how dirty everything was. Those were bad days to ask for a cookie. His mom would tell him he didn’t deserve one since he never picked up his toys.
Those weren’t the worst days though. The worst days came when his mother didn’t speak at all. Even Dad knew better than to bother her. On those days, he’d come home and head straight for the porch. He’d sit out there and set his empty beer bottles on the railing, and they’d grow by the hour. Reed knew if his dad cleaned them up before they hit five, things might blow over. If he didn’t, well, they were all toast.
Last night there had been seven before Reed went to bed.
But that wasn’t what worried Reed the most. Things had been bad for a while now. Mom and Dad had ignored each other for weeks. It seemed like all they could do was frown. They barely spoke, and when they did, it was to complain. Dad griped about their dinners and said all Mom did anymore was lay around and watch TV. Mom complained about money. She said they were broke and called his dad a loser. Reed didn’t know what she meant by that. For the most part Reed thought his dad was great. Not so much when he was drinking, but he loved going to the park with his dad to play catch. And he took Reed fishing most weekends, which was fun. His mom never took him anywhere.
Reed wasn’t sure what had set his parents off this time, but he was glad to be in his room. In here, his mom didn’t slap his dad. In here,no one yelled. With the door shut, Reed could plug his ears and close his eyes and pretend his parents loved each other as much as he loved both of them. In his room, he could forget he knew them at all.
But not today. Not with how bad things sounded out there.
“Be a man for once and look at me when I talk to you!”
A crazy tone had crept into his mom’s voice. She sounded like a rubber band about to snap, her pitch climbing higher and higher by the second. When she got like this, Reed knew there was only one thing that would calm her down.
Him.
Another shatter came from down the hall. A broken plate, maybe. Reed swallowed. He didn’t want to go out there—nuh-uh, no way—but he had to. The last time he’d let his parents fight like this, his dad wound up at the hospital with a forehead full of stitches. This time he might wind up dead.
You can do this,he told himself.Be brave.That’s what his dad always told him to do when he was scared. When they rode the Zipper at the carnival. When Reed took his turn at the plate to bat. When the moon ducked behind the clouds and painted his room in shadows that looked like monsters.Be brave, Reed. Be brave.
He pulled himself off of the bed and crept into the hall. He stopped near the living room and peeked around the corner before going in. It looked like a war zone. A lamp lay shattered on the floor. Two side tables were overturned in a shower of glass. The television was spider-webbed with cracks. A trail of milk leaked down the screen, weeping white tears onto the carpet. That scared him more than anything at all. The television—a sixty-inch Sony—was his dad’s prized possession. The thing he loved more than life itself.
