After the Fall Page 17

  “Sorry,” she says, the sound of her nervousness tearing at my heart. She bends down quickly and begins shoveling the food from the floor back onto the tray. “I can be such a klutz.”

  I stand there, watching her clean up my mess, the signals from my brain refusing to connect with the rest of my body even as my mind screams at me.

  Help her, you moron!

  Something clicks and I drop to my knees, silently helping her collect the rest of my ruined dinner. She doesn’t look at me, but I hear her breath catch. Little globs of mashed potatoes cling to her fingers, and I hold out my still-damp towel to her. She stands, wiping her hands clean while I finish dealing with the tray.

  “You’ve been bringing me dinner?” I ask, finally looking at her. It isn’t really the question on my mind, but it seems safer somehow.

  “Sometimes,” she admits quietly. “Duncan and I take turns.” She shrugs, as if to say it is no big deal, but I know it isn’t. To her or to me.

  She looks down at my hands and offers me the cleanest part of the towel. “Looks like you might need this back. Wouldn’t want to be caught hitchhiking across the galaxy without your towel.”

  “Yeah,” I say, smiling a little at the reference. I take the offering and finish cleaning myself up, then throw the soiled towel down on top of the tray. “I’ll take this all back to the barn later. Let them throw my towel in with the rest of the kitchen wash.”

  “I can take it. If you want?” It is such an innocent question, so seemingly innocuous that I almost miss it. Almost. But it hangs in the air, full of promise, held aloft by the hope that underlies it.

  If I want. If I want. Of course I want. Many things.

  “I’ll take care of it,” I say brusquely, rejecting her offer and, along with it, her. My rejection is not lost on her.

  “Oh.”

  One simple word, not even a word really, and yet it is like a branding iron to my heart, which will now be forever scarred by her disappointment. The pain of it hardens in my veins, fusing the iron within each blood cell until it forms a shield between what I want and what I need to do.

  Be strong, Taylor. Do what’s right. For once in your pitiful life.

  I square my shoulders and raise my shield, and I stare her down as if she is merely a stranger, an annoying gnat circling my head, not even worth the bother of swatting at.

  “Well, I…”

  She searches for some sign this isn’t the end, but I refuse to let her find it. She swallows whatever words would come next and turns away so quickly I think she might break into a run. She doesn’t. She is too strong for that, too proud to show how I have wounded her. But I know.

  As she walks away, it is a dagger scraping against my ribs, sticking out of my chest with my fingers still wrapped around its hilt. I have only myself to blame.

  I stay in my doorway, staring down that hallway long after she has left it, clutching the doorjamb until my fingers turn white to keep myself from running after her. Eventually, when the voices of the dorm’s other residents start to filter in from outside, I scoop up the tray and retreat into my room. Once the door is safely shut behind me, I look down at the ruined tray, and my hand starts to shake. I barely make it over to the desk before the tray slips from my hand, clattering down onto the wood.

  I sink down onto my bed, still staring at that damn tray and all it represents. Even in sleep the image follows me, screaming at me to fix it, to make it better somehow. But there is no way to make it better, and that wretched thought haunts me until morning.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  The next day is perfect, crisp and clean and warm enough to make you think it is spring, and not winter’s bitter wind, just around the corner. The crew is practically giddy with it, if a bunch of grown men, plus one who is almost grown, can be considered giddy. They laugh more than usual, tossing clumps of loose dirt around like water balloons as they dig their trenches. The frivolity in the air is lost on me. All I can think about is last night, and all I can do is keep digging harder and faster in some maddeningly useless attempt to keep my thoughts at bay.

  I know Dunk is worrying about me, but he has sense enough to keep his mouth shut. I don’t need to feel any more guilt than I already do, and I know if he utters a single word I will lash out at him for lack of a better target.

  Midday comes and goes before I even know it. Even when the guys stop for lunch I keep on digging, knowing if I stop I will surely break.

  “You think if you dig far enough you can escape the entire world?”

  I look up to find her there, silhouetted against the afternoon sun, her hands fisted against her hips as she stands over me. Even in her anger, she is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I thought I did enough last night to get her to leave me to my worthlessness. That the hurt I caused her and myself might have somehow been worth it. I thought wrong. Here she is, trying one last time, offering one last chance for us both. Yet all I can think is while this is her last stand in defense of me, it is my last chance to push her away forever. The knife twists a little further.

  “Or maybe it’s not the world you’re running from at all? Maybe it’s just me?”

  I know I have only to lash out and it will be over, and the necessary words blitz my mind, words that will hurt her in ways that will finally prove to her I’m not worth a damn. And yet I can’t summon the courage of my convictions, cannot deal that final blow. Coward that I am, I turn back to my digging, trying desperately to ignore the pain that wrenches my heart at the sight of her.

  She refuses to take the hint.

  “Well? Which is it, Taylor?”

  The devil inside cries out to be released, but I fight it off once more, praying it will be the last time.

  “Just leave me alone, Kate.”

  Just go, leave me to my misery. I am not worth saving.

  “I have been. We all have been. Trying to give you space, time. But enough is enough.”

  She is too stubborn, too noble to walk away easily. I wonder what makes her care for me so much. I have brought her nothing but heartache since I arrived, yet here she is, trying to save me. I realize, finally, that she cares for me, and for one too-brief, glorious instant of eternity, the knowledge fills all the empty places inside. But just as soon as it comes it is gone, replaced by the certainty that I’m not worthy of such love. I will only ever let her down, fail her as I failed my family, and the only thing I can truly offer is to push her away. Once and for all.

  “I’m so sorry my need to grieve offends you.” The change begins. I taste the venom of my words as they ooze off my tongue, feeding off the anger that has been fueling me all day. If she notices, she shows no sign.

  “You’re not grieving. You’re hiding.”

  I throw down my shovel and pull myself out of the hole and up to stand toe-to-toe with her with such ferocity that she flinches. Her reaction wounds me, but I know I am going to be torn to shreds before this is all over.

  “You can read minds now? Well, that’s just fan-fuckin-tastic.” I spit the words in her face, clenching my jaw to the point I might actually break a tooth. Kate takes a half step back, her eyes growing wide as her mind tries to comprehend the violence my actions imply. It makes me want to cry, but I press on.

  “What exactly am I hiding from, Kate? You? You really think you’re worth that much? You really are the center of your own universe, aren’t you? You think you’re so fucking special that what’s left of this godforsaken world should revolve around you! Well, guess what, sweetheart? It doesn’t. Get the fuck over it.”

  Absently, I notice the rest of my crew, who have been taking their lunch over by the truck, starting to edge away, trying to back out of the line of fire. I imagine how horrified I might be at publicly doing this to Kate if I had any shred of decency left. But I have no decency. Not a single drop.

  Isn’t that the point, jackass?

  I can see I have hit home, that she is questioning everything she ever felt for me and wondering how sh
e could have been so wrong. I would gouge out my own eyes to never see that look upon her face, but I force myself to let the image burn into my brain if only to reaffirm I am doing the right thing.

  “You can’t possibly believe that’s what this is about.” Her voice is weaker now, her resolve shaken. As her conviction wavers, mine solidifies.

  “Isn’t it? Ever since I landed on this goddamn farm it’s been Kate this and Kate that. You’ve got your own little cult of personality here, don’t you? Duncan, Buck…Zeke.”

  The name tumbles out of my mouth without thinking, and she pulls back as if I have slapped her. As much as it hurts her to hear it, it hurts me infinitely more to have said it. I have become the thing which I despise the most, that which makes my skin crawl and my guts churn. And as I prepare to inflict the coup de grâce, my soul slips the last few inches into hell.

  “Yeah, you had him wound up pretty good, didn’t you? All of them. You just leave them salivating after you, teasing them and leading them on, making them think you might give it up before you pull it out of reach. You use ’em and lose ’em, don’t you? Well, guess what? I was using you, too. It’s been a while since I’ve had a good fuck, and I figured you might fill that need. But you know what? I don’t sleep with—”

  The slap lands before I finish, hard enough to knock me back a step and leave the crack of it ringing in my ears. Kate sucks in deep, trembling breaths, and I can only imagine what is racing through her mind. She seems to be in shock, whether from my words or from having hit me, I don’t know. I rub my cheek. It is warm beneath my fingers, and I cling to the pain of my swelling tissue lest I beg for her forgiveness. I am a monster of my own making, a victim of my own choosing, but the deed is done. I win. I can see it.

  It is a hollow victory.

  Not trusting my voice not to break with the first word I utter, I turn away from her, knowing we are done. I stride away, each step carefully composed to exude a strength I don’t feel. All I feel is weak. And alone.

  When I have put enough distance between us that I am certain no one will know, I let down my guard. My strides ease into a methodical trudge, purposefully carrying me to a nonexistent destination. After a while I find myself at the same hill where Kate showed me the expanse of the farm after my arrival. Unlike the rest of the trees on the property, which are growing bright with the colors of fall, the oak is nearly bare, having lost the bulk of its foliage. The hillside is littered with fallen, shriveled leaves, a memorial to the death of summer. Still, the tree towers proudly over the hill and the farm beyond, a lone soldier manning a watchtower at the end of the world.

  I press my palm against its mighty trunk, hoping to absorb even a fraction of its strength, of its resolve. I know I did the right thing, and yet I am consumed with a pain beyond measure. I have obliterated any hope of a future with Kate, just as I intended. But now, faced with the reality of that destruction, I falter.

  What have I done?

  I had known I had to push Kate away, could not allow myself to be the person she deserved because that would mean a chance at happiness, which I did not deserve. But I had failed to consider what it would feel like not only to let hope die, but to be hope’s murderer. I have killed it with my bare hands, strangled the life out of it and felt that life slipping through my fingers, and now I don’t know how to live with what I have done.

  “Nice try. But I don’t give up that easily.”

  Kate.

  By some grace of God or the devil’s command she is here, to give me one last chance or to torment me further, I don’t know. I cannot look at her, already warring with myself as I am. I want to run from her. I want to run to her. I want to collapse against this tree and stay here until the winter snows come and bury me.

  “I’m not worth this.” My voice is hoarse, my words merely a whisper, yet somehow she hears, or she already knows. Like always.

  “Bullshit.”

  I look at her. Her eyes shine, boring into me, challenging me to fight her. As long as I am fighting, there is still a chance. My blood rises as my mind churns.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want you to be honest for once. I want to know why you said those things. I want to know why you’re pushing me away!”

  “I already told you.” My words are hollow.

  “And again I say bullshit.”

  The world explodes in a white hot instant, and I am powerless to stop it from screaming forth.

  “You want me to tell you how much it hurts, knowing that the last five months have been for nothing? That after all I’ve gone through I didn’t get there in time to save them? That I wasn’t smart enough or fast enough or selfless enough to get there to keep them from getting their brains blown out? That if I hadn’t been so scared to leave Pennsylvania, if I hadn’t decided to wait like a coward for help that I knew deep down was never coming, then I wouldn’t have been caged like an animal…and beaten…and forced to listen to those women screaming each night? That if I’d stood up to those fucking bastards, maybe John wouldn’t be dead, or Claire, or Melanie, or…”

  My words come out in choked sobs. I can’t stop them, can’t keep my body from shaking as every horrible detail of my failure pours out of me.

  “And Tim, who just tried to help us…he wouldn’t have been shot…wouldn’t have had to die knowing his own brother pulled the trigger. He was only a kid. And my parents…and my brother and…oh God, my little niece…They…oh God…”

  Her arms are around me before I can fall, and I cling to her, sobbing and choking, mumbling words and names that I have carried for far too long, baring myself on her altar. I have cried before, have wept for all of them at one time or another, but I have never wept for myself.

  It sounds selfish, I know, especially given all the other selfish things I have done and said, and maybe it is. But it is also the most important, necessary thing I have ever done in my entire life.

  I don’t know how long I cry, or even what all I say, though I know we stay that way for a long while. In the days and weeks that follow, I will fill in the blanks for her, give the names context and the words form and meaning. But in these first few precious hours, she simply holds me, and I allow myself, finally, to be held.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Thunder rolled through the farmhouse, chasing the lightning down darkened hallways and thrashing its way through every chamber of the house. The only other light came from the children’s searching flashlights and the ghostly glow radiating from beneath closed doors marked: ENTER…IF YOU DARE. It was truly a creepy affair, if you did not know that the thunder was courtesy of a system of speakers threaded throughout the house, or that the lightning was thanks to the magic of a couple of strobe lights set on a timer.

  Children were children, and they dared to enter the places they were warned not to go—or at least, they tried to dare. Duncan watched his group of three huddle before yet another closed door, debating which of them would grasp the doorknob in their tiny hand and lead the others into whatever came next. This was their fourth such doorway, and they were filled with an equal mix of anticipation and trepidation, having been through this all before. There was something waiting for them on the other side of the door to be sure, just as there had been the previous three times, something designed to scare even the mightiest of pirates and Jedi Knights. Of course, it was the pirate and Jedi who now wavered in their bravery, which left the fairy princess, in all her pink-taffeta glory, to finally and with a dramatic sigh push the boys aside and bound once more into the unknown.

  The haunted house had been Taylor’s idea, much to Duncan’s, and everyone else’s, surprise. In fairness, part of that surprise had come because no one had recognized that the approach of October 31 had meant anything other than November was just around the corner, which meant the first snow would soon be on its way. As for the rest, well, of all the people who would have remembered Halloween, it had been a bit of a shock to have it be Taylor, let alone for her to have
suggested they put together an old-fashioned haunted house for the kids.

  Everyone had been a bit skeptical when she had broached the idea a week earlier, everyone except the farm’s teenagers of course, who embraced the concept with all the enthusiasm of their foregone youth. But Buck had just smiled and nodded his head, and pretty soon Duncan and some of the boys found themselves on official scavenging duty, sent off in search of cotton to make cobwebs and hay for scarecrows and any other supplies that could be turned into costumes for young and old alike.

  For nearly a week most other work on the farm stopped. It was not that they could really afford to waste limited resources or to turn their attention to something as frivolous as Halloween. But they needed to show the children, and themselves, that there was something still to look forward to in this life, something beyond the day-to-day. That was how Duncan thought about it, anyway. He did not know if that was why Taylor had suggested it, or why Buck had agreed, but the reason sounded right in his own head, so he went with it.

  Duncan stood in the hallway of the farmhouse, listening to the children’s screams and shrieks give way to delighted giggles and laughter, and smiled. All the work they had put in over the last week to turn the farmhouse into a ghoul-filled world of frights and fun had been completely worth it. Since it had been Taylor’s idea, Buck had put her in charge of the design and construction of the house, and although she had tried to feign indifference at the responsibility, she attacked the task with gusto. She ran the project with the authoritative air of a battlefield commander. Although everyone’s ideas were considered, every suggestion heard, at the end of the day she called the plays and expected perfection. Duncan thought she would have made an excellent general.