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“I loved you,” she said.
“And I love you. ” He took her hand and led her out of the condo.
Marah wondered if love—or the end of it—would always hurt like this.
“I forgot something,” she said at the front door, tugging free, coming to a stop. “Meet me at the elevator. ”
“Sure. ” He walked over to the elevator, pushed the button.
Marah backed into the condo, closing the door behind her. She hesitated a second, no more than that, and then she locked the door.
He came running back for her, banging on the door, screaming and shouting. Tears stung her eyes and she let them fall until he yelled, “Screw you, then, you fake bitch,” and stomped away. Even after that, she sat there, slumped on the floor, her back pressed against the door. As the sound of his footsteps faded away, she pushed up her sleeve and counted the tiny white scars on the inside of her arms, wondering what in the hell she was going to do now.
* * *
Marah found the iPod and packed it in a shopping bag with its portable docking station. Afterward, she moved through the condominium slowly, allowing herself to remember a thousand small moments with Tully. She found her mom’s journal, too, and packed that in the bag. For someday.
When she couldn’t stand it anymore—couldn’t stand the oppressive silence of this place without Tully’s easy laughter and endless talking—she left the condo and went down to the ferry terminal. Boarding the next boat, she took a seat in one of the booths and pulled out the iPod. She put the tiny buds in her ears and hit play. Elton John sang to her. Goodbye … yellow brick ro … ad …
She turned her head and stared out at the black Sound, watching the tiny golden lights of Bainbridge Island appear. When the ferry docked, she put the iPod back in the box and walked out to the terminal, where she caught a bus and rode it out to the turnoff to her road.
She saw her house for the first time in more than a year, and the sight of it stopped her in her tracks. The cedar shingles, stained the color of homemade caramel, looked dark on this cool night; the snow-white trim practically glowed in the golden light that shone from within.
On the porch, she paused, expecting for just a second to hear her mother’s voice. Hey, baby girl, how was your day?
She opened the door and went inside. The house welcomed her in the way it had since she’d first come home from kindergarten, with light and sound and comfortable, overstuffed furniture. Before she could even think of what to say, she heard a door whack open upstairs.
“She’s here! Move it or lose it, Skywalker!”
Her brothers careened out of their upstairs bedroom and came thundering down the stairs in tandem. They were both dressed in football sweats and wore identical skater-boy haircuts and had silver braces on their teeth. Wills’s face was ruddy and clear and showed the first sprouts of a mustache. Lucas’s face was red with acne.
They pushed each other out of the way and came together to pick her up. They laughed at her feeble efforts to get free. When she’d last seen them they’d been boys; now they were almost twelve, but they hugged her with the fierceness of little boys who’d missed their big sister. And she had missed them, too. She hadn’t known how much until right now.
“Where’s Paxton?” Wills asked when they finally let her go.
“Gone,” she said quietly. “It’s just me. ”
“Excellent,” Wills said in his best stoner-boy voice, nodding his mop of hair. “That kid was a douchebag. ”
Marah couldn’t help laughing at that.
“We missed you, Mar,” Lucas said earnestly. “It was a boner move to run away. ”
She pulled them into another hug, this one so tight they squealed and wiggled free.
“How’s Tully?” Lucas said when he drew back. “Did you see her? Dad says we can go tomorrow. She’ll be awake by then, right?”
Marah’s mouth went dry. She didn’t know what to say, so she gave a little smile and a shrug. “Sure. Yeah. ”
“Cool,” Wills said.
Within moments they were thundering up the stairs again, calling dibs on something.
Marah picked up the shopping bag and climbed the stairs to her old room, opening the door slowly.
Inside, nothing had changed. Her camp pictures were still on the dresser, her yearbooks were stacked alongside her Harry Potter books. She tossed the bag on the bed and walked over to her desk. She wasn’t surprised to find that her hands were shaking as she picked up her old, tattered, often-read copy of The Hobbit. The book Mom had given her so many years ago.
I don’t think you’re quite ready for The Hobbit yet, but someday soon, maybe in a few years, something will happen to hurt your feelings again. Maybe you’ll feel alone with your sadness, not ready to share it with me or Daddy, and if that happens, you’ll remember this book in your nightstand. You can read it then, let it take you away. It sounds silly, but it really helped me when I was thirteen.
