I lost my mind. I can’t remember much. I shot everything I saw. I was screaming. I wanted to kill everyone. I still want that, Sass. I want to kill them all, because—
He’d scribbled something out.
My buddy’s head was messed up bad. I wrapped my shirt around it and dragged him out of the way. I don’t remember getting him to the main camp, but I did, and they took him to the MASH unit. I don’t know anything else. I gotta believe he’s alive.
Sassy’s heart was in shreds. Clutching the paper to her chest, she sobbed for her brother, for the others in his battalion, for all the men out there who were trying to survive in a horrible world. She kept visualizing Joey out there, wrapping his shirt around a man’s bloody head, the panic he must have felt, the terror…
She forced her memory to show her the Joey she wanted to see. He’d been one of the smaller kids in the neighbourhood, his thick curls tumbling to his chin, his face and hands always grubby. His eyes were green like hers, and their corners were creased by so much smiling. His laughter was like ababy’s, rolling straight from his gut, and he never seemed to run out of energy.
It made no sense, remembering him like that then reading this. His laughter would have sharpened into screams, his face and hands would have been slick with another man’s blood. But she needed that memory. She needed to see him again as he was.
“Please come home,” she whimpered into the wind.
Her sobs slowed, and she winced at the steel band of a headache now wrapped around her skull. Her nose was plugged from crying. There was nothing she could do, she acknowledged. Nothing but breathe and hope and wait. But how could she not feel his terror ripping through her? How could she not weep at the very idea of him, alone and in danger? How could she ever get past this?
Breathe,whispered a voice in her head.Just breathe.
She closed her burning eyes and inhaled a deep, shuddering breath, which she held as long as she could, focusing on the nightmare visions and the pulse of Joey’s panic. When she could bear it no longer, she let everything out in a long exhale that said,Come home.
There was a push to the air, a heaviness she recognized with a sense of anticipation despite her own pain. A gust of damp air rushed past, blowing her hair in all directions. A thunderstorm was coming, its bank of dark grey clouds rolling off the lake behind the city’s skyscrapers, and she didn’t think she had long before it broke. Long enough, though, to gather her thoughts.
What a day.
Davey, watching her public arrest then waiting until someone else bailed her out to tell her he was done with her.
Tom, the stranger she had attacked for no good reason, who would now be her boss.
Her father, who had quite rightly called her a hypocrite.
And Joey. Broken, afraid, and unreachable.
She sighed, picturing each man, one at a time.
“Davey,” she said out loud, picturing those lion-gold eyes. “I’m sorry I embarrassed you, and I hope we will still be friends.”
She pictured the curl at the side of Tom’s mouth, since his eyes werehidden by his sunglasses. “Tom, I hope you’ll give me a second shot. I made a fool of myself, and I was mean. I want to prove to you that I’m not like that.”
She remembered the look of frustration in her father’s expression. “Dad, I’m sorry. The last thing I want is to disappoint you. I messed up. Thanks for giving me another chance. I won’t mess up again.”
Then she tried to pull Joey’s face to mind, but it hurt too much to picture him as anything but that little boy she’d played with so long before. “Come home, Joey. Let me take care of you.”
In the distance, thunder rolled.
Still shaky, Sassy got to her feet and grabbed her guitar case. The park was empty, and the trees leaned under the force of the wind. She picked up her pace, feeling slightly better. A tiny bit cleansed. Enough that she could begin to imagine something better on the horizon.
If she could get to her apartment before the clouds burst, she would enjoy the tempest from her balcony, as long as the wind wasn’t too strong. Thunderstorms brought the best sort of electricity, and she needed that energy to fill her up. What was it about storms that stirred her? Why did she find herself torn between laughing into the rain and dissolving into tears?
Another gust shoved past, carrying the first spatterings and swirling leaves into cyclones around her. Fat raindrops dotted the sidewalk, filling the air with the warm aroma of petrichor, and Sassy considered the remaining two blocks until she got to Isabella Street. Maybe she could outrun the worst of what was coming. Clasping the handle of her guitar case tight, she ducked her head and sprinted as the rain began to fall in earnest.
fifteenMARION
Marion burst through the front door of 105 Isabella, careful not to skid on the slippery tiles with her wet shoes. Catching her breath, she untied the little plastic strap of her rain hood and slipped it off, letting rainwater cascade onto the lobby floor. The elevator came right away, but just as the door was closing behind her, someone called out.
“Hold the door, please!”
An arm shot between the elevator door and the wall, and Marion put her hand out to hold it open. A girl dashed inside, carrying a glistening guitar case dotted with pink and orange flower stickers. Marion tried not to stare, but she couldn’t help wondering if it was her neighbour. How convenient that would be. She had been hoping to introduce herself sometime. It was hard to tell for sure, though, because the girl’s hair was soaked, falling in long tendrils over her face and down her wet sweater. It made her look very young.
“Thanks a lot.” She set the guitar case down and gathered her hair in one hand, then she used both to wring it out. “That storm is unreal!”
