THE LIGHT FROM the moon and stars flickered as the wind pulled clouds across the sky. The temperature dropped as the night grew darker, and a new heaviness hung in the air. A storm was blowing in.
I kept to the side of the road, shuffling along as my toes and fingers went numb. Every step I took felt shorter than my last. My head throbbed dully with pain, and I wiped at the cut. A sickening streak of red coated my palm. I curled my hand into a fist and shoved it into my pocket, trying not to think about it.
Just a few more minutes. Just a few more minutes, and I'll be there.
I repeated the thought as branches and sticks snapped in the depths of the woods. I glanced around, expecting a monster to come leaping out of the woods and attack me at any second like the deer I'd nearly hit.
My heart pounded. Shadows shifted between the trees as the wind howled, and I shuddered. It was my imagination playing tricks on me. It had to be. Still, I picked up my pace to nearly a jog as I continued. Cold air burned my lungs and nose with each breath I took.
The wind dragged the echoes around in the night making it sound like there were footsteps pounding behind me. I knew it was only the sound of my own feet bouncing back, but as the night grew darker and colder, it became harder and harder to convince myself I wasn't being followed.
My mind went back to Joshua and his haunting glare when he caught Jeremey and I following him. I pinched my eyes shut for a second, attempting to purge the image from my brain, but it was no use. It was burned into my memory.
I pushed myself to keep going, and finally, my eyes caught dim, yellow lights glowing in the distance. My head pounded, but I clenched my teeth against the pain as I made the final push to the bar. A few motorcycles, a truck, a handful of sedans were parked in the lot, and a dull roar of voiced poured out of the small, run-down building. Bracing myself, I pulled the door open and stepped inside.
Stale air hung stagnant in the Cat Shack. The beer-soaked carpet stuck to my feet like Velcro as I navigated my way around the tables and chairs abandoned at various inconvenient locations throughout the room. The place wasn't crowded, but the dim lighting and poor acoustics made it uncomfortably crammed. The name "Cat Shack" was fitting—I always felt like a cat underfoot when I was in there, like if I didn't stay on my toes my tail would get stepped on.
My hands had gone numb halfway through the walk down Jefferson Road. My ears and cheeks burned from the windchill. I shivered as my blood thawed and circulation slowly returned to my body. My arms and legs itched and burned painfully. As warm air entered my lungs, my head spun, and I wiped dried blood from my brow. I needed to sit down.
I took a seat at the bar and placed my head in my hands. I knew I needed to find someone to help me with my car, but my mind couldn't begin to fathom going back outside into the wind. A fog clouded my thoughts.
"Can I get you something to drink?" a man's voice suddenly asked.
I looked up, startled. The bartender stared at me impatiently.
"Uh, water would be good."
He nodded and picked up a glass from behind the bar. "Are you all right there, man?" He asked me as he poured water from the tap.
"Huh?"
"Your face." He set the glass in front of me. "You look like you're bleeding or something."
"Oh." I felt my head. It was still damp and warm with blood. "It's fine, just a scratch."
The bartender nodded and handed me a few napkins. I wiped my forehead as I watched a drip of condensation run down the side of the glass of water. My head throbbed in pain like it was swollen. Maybe drinking something would help. After taking a small sip, I stared down at my hands, making my best attempt at becoming invisible. I just needed to warm up. If I could relax and be left alone for a few minutes, I'd be okay.
The night had other things in mind for me.
"Harper!"
Kate Kramer's grinning face greeted me when I turned around.
"I thought that was you!" She leaned in and hugged me awkwardly like we were friends. I knew her from high school, but damn, I hadn't spoken to the girl since graduation. Even back then, I wouldn't have called us friends.
She finally let me go from the hug, but she kept her hand on my arm. Her eyes drifted over me. "Hey, are you all right? You look like you're bleeding."
"Oh, it's nothing." I quickly whipped my head with the back of my hand. A small trail of blood stained my skin.
"Oh, okay." She paused for a second. "It's been ages since I've seen you, how have you been? You look good."
"Wow..." I said. It was a dumb thing to say, but unfortunately that was what happened to fall out of my mouth.
Kate ignored it and kept smiling eagerly, waiting for me to say something else. She played with a strand of her auburn hair. When we'd been in middle school, she'd chewed it nonstop. She'd sat right in front of my desk, too, and the habit was unbelievably distracting.
"You look good too, Kate," I finally said, trying to recover from the "wow."
She beamed. "Thanks!" Kate had always been heavy-set in high school. She was far from thin now, but she looked like she had lost a decent bit of weight.
"So how have you been?" I asked.
"Great! College has been great! I love living in New York. I'm graduating this year, you know? I've already got a job lined up in Brooklyn and everything."
My heart pounded against my chest after a skipped beat. Of course she would be living in New York. I reached for my glass, taking a drink and trying to calm my nerves. "That's awesome, Kate, congrats," I finally responded after setting the glass down.
"Thank you!"
"So what brings you back into town then?"
She sat down on the bar stool next to me, brushing her hair back behind her ears. "I'm just here for the weekend. My parents are moving out, and I'm helping them pack."
Suddenly a gust of cold air rushed into the bar, stirring the stagnant humidity around in a miniature whirlwind. An unacknowledged hush fell over the room. A shiver ran down my spine, and my head automatically turned to the door. Two middle-aged men staggered in, chuckling as they made their way to the bar. One glanced my way, and when his eyes met mine, for a second I swore it was Joshua.
My hand twitched, nearly knocking over the glass I hadn't realized I'd been clutching in my fist. I steadied it hastily and shook my head before glancing back at the man.
No, his face was too thin. His hair was too grey.
The taller of the two men shut the door behind them, and the room itself breathed a sigh of relief as it relaxed once again. The conversations returned to a dull drone. I turned my attention back to Kate.
"Why are they moving?" I asked, but I felt like I already knew the answer. It pounded against the back of my head, but she wasn't going to say it, of course. Not the real reason. No one ever spoke about it... everyone just knew.
"My dad got a job on Long Island." There it was. There was always some "other reason." Some lie even the people telling it wanted to believe.
"Cool." My answer came out too quickly, almost before she had even finished her sentence.
An awkward pause fell over us. I didn't know what else to say to her.
"You have to let me buy you a drink!" Kate finally said, placing her hand on my arm.
"Oh, I'm okay." I shrugged away from her without being too obvious about it. "I already have one." I picked up my water and took a sip.
She laughed. "Let me get you a beer."
Before I could say anything else, she called the bartender over and ordered us each a drink.
"So how have you been?" she asked once we were served.
"I've been good. Haven't been up to too much. I got a job working at the gas station. That's about it."
"That sounds interesting." Kate smiled at me.
It was anything but. I took a large sip of my beer, coughing as I set it down. My head flared in pain, but I ignored it. "It's all right. Mostly just pretty boring."
I passed my drink back and forth between my hands. Thoughts about earlier that night kept creeping into my head. Thoughts about Lydia. Thoughts about my car. I tried to silence them, taking another sip of beer. My stomach turned with nausea as I swallowed. I set the glass down and stared at it, avoiding any sort of eye contact with Kate. I'd take care of the car tomorrow. Right now, all I wanted to do was go home.
"Hey, are you okay?" She placed her hand on my shoulder.
"Yeah, fine." I blinked quickly to clear my eyes and then turned to look at her, forcing a smile.
"Are you sure? Your head's bleeding a lot, Harper."
My hand automatically went up to my forehead, and my fingers came back with bright red across them. I grabbed a napkin from the bar and quickly wiped the blood away. "It's fine. Really. So what's living in New York like?"
She grinned, and her deep brown eyes glowed in the Cat Shack's dim lighting. "It's great!"
I finished my first beer as Kate described what her dorm room was like. Once I'd set the empty glass down, she ordered us another round of drinks.
I sipped that one while she talked about her classes. She was studying psychology. Or maybe physics. My mind couldn't focus on the conversation. It kept drifting as I tried my best to nod along to what she was saying. A fog swam in my head. I could see Kate's mouth moving and offered an occasional "cool" or "awesome," but my mind wasn't there.
She was describing Times Square when the bartender brought us another round. Kate or I must have ordered it, but I couldn't remember when that happened. He cleared three glasses from in front of me and two from in front of her. I wasn't sure when I'd drank the third one.
Kate began talking about the job she had lined up. My head spun, and I leaned against the bar, trying to balance myself. I realized I was already halfway through my fourth beer.
"So are you and Lydia still together?" she changed the subject suddenly.
My eyes snapped to her, and my hand automatically clenched into a fist around the napkin I'd been using to wipe blood from my face. I blinked, and my vision blurred. "Not anymore," I said between clenched teeth.
Her mouth slacked open. "Harper, I'm... I'm sorry. I didn't know." She placed her hand on my arm again.
"It's fine," I said. I turned from her. My eyes burned, and I blinked back tears. "It's fine." I put my hands up to the sides of my face and leaned with my elbows on the bar.
I felt her hand on my leg. "When did it happen?"
I mumbled something that I thought sounded like "today," and then I picked up my glass and took a drink.
"I'm so sorry. I know you two were together, what for..."
"Six years. She's moving to New York. Fuck, everyone fucking leaves me."
"Don't say that."
"Well it's fucking true." Her hand was still resting on my leg. I tried to inch away from her, but I couldn't without being obvious about it. "My parents did, you know that? They moved, too."
She placed her other hand on top of mine where I'd placed it on the bar. "I'm sorry."
"Stop apologizing!" I snapped.
She finally pulled away at that, slinking back in her seat. I stared straight ahead of myself, taking another sip of my beer. I could feel her staring at me. I put my hands up to my eyes and rubbed them. The room spun beneath me. Nausea swirled in my stomach. "Please, just leave me alone," I said quietly.
She was silent.
A couple of minutes later, I heard the bar stool next to me screech against the floor, and then when I looked over after finishing another beer, Kate was gone. I should have left at that point too. I should have found someone to take me home, but unfortunately I did not.
• • •
"Harper!" a woman's voice shouted my name.
Lights spun in my vision. My eyes tried to focus on the figure in front of me. She snapped her fingers in my face. I blinked.
"Jesus, Price, how much did you fucking serve him?" The same voice again.
There was too much light. The floor moved beneath me.
"I didn't realize how drunk he was." A man's voice.
"Fucking look at him, he's out of his head." The woman's voice. She turned to me. She put her hand on my face. It was warm. "Hey, hey, wake up. Who did you come here with, Harper?"
"No one," I slurred.
"Did you drive yourself here?" A long pause. "Price, did Harper drive himself here?"
"I don't know."
"I can drive." I moved to get up from the bar, but my legs wouldn't hold me. I stumbled.
"You're not driving anywhere." The woman grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me back down into the seat.
"I'm fine."
"Price, can you call him a cab or something?"
"I'm fine."
"Will they even take him? He looks like he's about to throw up."
"Then you'll have to take him home after your shift."
"Fine. Hey, Harper where do you live?"
"I don't have a home."
"Are you staying with Jeremey?"
"I don't have a home."
"I think he's been staying with Jeremey."
"All right, I'll take him in half an hour. Hey, Harper, can you just sit here? I'll get you some water." The man moved behind the bar and poured something into a glass.
"It's all right, don't worry about it. I can take him home," a third voice said. I recognized it, but I couldn't figure out how. "I'm his uncle."
I turned my head to face the source of the third voice.
Joshua.