Chapter 1
Nina
I'm sixteen and
Isaac is seventeen…
I have a test in
the morning tomorrow and I can’t study for it. No matter how hard I stare at
the pages of my English textbook, I still can’t concentrate. My headphones
don’t help because I have nothing to plug them into—they’re just a poor excuse
for earplugs now that my cassette player is gone.
Nobody’s used a
cassette player in over a decade, so I don’t know why Mom thought she’d get
anything for it.
Even if I had
earplugs, they wouldn’t help tonight. They’d block out the sounds of my mother
on the living room couch with whatever ‘boyfriend’ she’s brought home this
time, but I’d still know it was happening. I’d still hear the sounds in my
mind—the moans, the creaking of the sofa, the sounds that no sixteen-year-old
girl ever wants to hear her mother making.
I’d still know
she's in the next room fucking someone who won't even remember her name in the
morning.
Whoever he is—it's
almost never the same man twice—she has to please him if she wants to get her
next fix, and she always wants her
next fix. I haven’t exactly asked any of them, but I somehow doubt the other
girls at school worry about stepping on needles when they walk to the bathroom
at night.
My stomach
grumbles loudly, reminding me of the other reason I can’t study. My high school
gives me free breakfast in the mornings, but that was it for me today. Mom took
my last paycheck from the diner to pay the electricity bill, so I haven’t been
able to afford lunch this week. They pay me again in three days, though. I can
survive on breakfasts until then if I have to.
Mom cries out in
the next room—an empty imitation of pleasure and happiness—and I feel my desk
shake as the back of the sofa slams against the wall.
"She’s just
doing what she has to," I whisper to myself as I close my textbook. I have
to rationalize her actions to myself before I get angry, before I do something
stupid like stomping in there and yelling at them to be quiet.
That would just
draw her customer’s attention to me, and that’s the last thing I want. Instead, I bite my tongue and head for the
window.
With quick yank
on the handle and a hard shove, the window creaks open on its rusty hinges and
I wriggle through it and out onto the fire escape. The rich girls at school all
think that I’m trailer trash from "the Hill" in New Haven, but Mom
and I actually rent the third floor of a house near the train tracks. Not a
damned one of them would dare set
foot in my neighborhood; they’d be too afraid that someone might see them. It’d
be a stain on their pristine reputations to be suspected of maybe, just maybe, hanging out with one of us filthy
poors.
Fuck all of
them. Fuck every last one of them and their fake, perfect smiles and full
stomachs.
I close the window
behind me and climb up the fire escape to the roof. The street is empty tonight
as I lie back against the gray shingles and stare up at the sky. The sky’s
tinted red by the bright lights of downtown like a never-ending sunset. The
late September breeze feels wonderful… I could stay up here all night.
"It’s a
shame you live downtown, Nina," calls out Isaac from further up the roof behind
me. "Tonight’s the peak of this week’s meteor shower and the lights are
drowning it out."
I smile as he
shuffles carefully down the steep roof and then plops down beside me. I should
have known he’d be here. He lives more than ten miles away, but somehow he's
always here when I need him.
"Yeah… not
a chance," I say. "With all the streetlights, you can’t even see the stars,
let alone a meteor shower."
I sigh and shake
my head, and Isaac squeezes my hand comfortingly. His touch is warm and caring,
and it almost makes me forget where I am. The first time he touched me last
year, I nearly had a heart attack. He’s almost a year older than me and, well…
I thought he was like the others—like Mom’s countless boyfriends. He isn’t. He’s
the only boy at school who talks to me, the only anyone who I can call a friend, and he doesn’t care what it does to
his reputation with the other rich kids.
He looks over at
me and smiles, and his green eyes glitter in the dim light as if they’re
holding in the punch line to a joke that I’ve been dying to hear. I feel
comfortable holding Isaac’s hand now. I feel safe with him.
"If we
can’t see them in the city, what if we go out into the country?" he asks
after a long silence. "What if I drove us back to my mom’s house and we
watched the meteor shower out there?"
I look over at
him in surprise. Who is he kidding? It isn’t fair of him to ask me something
like that. He already knows the answer because I’ve been to his house once
before.
I’d never seen a
house as magnificent as his until he invited me to his birthday party last
year. He lives with his mother in an enormous, beautiful mansion built out in
the woods overlooking Glen Lake, about five miles north of the city. It felt
like something out of a fairy tale.
A fairy tale
with an unhappy ending, though… his mother threw me out the second she saw me.
She told me never to come back and yelled at Isaac after the party for inviting
"the wrong kind of girl."
I’ve never felt
so worthless in my entire life as when she dragged me to the door in front of
everyone and pushed me out onto the porch. The other guests pretended not to
watch, but I still heard the snickering.
It wasn’t
Isaac’s fault but I still hated him for weeks after that all the same.
"I’m
serious," he insists, rolling on his side and looking me straight in the
eyes. "We’ll go straight up onto the roof like we do here. Just you, me,
and two mugs of cocoa. It’ll be great."
Mom screams like
a whore downstairs, and I turn away from Isaac as my face flushes with
humiliation. I hate where I live. I hate who I am, where I come from and—most
of all—that I’ll never, ever get away from here.
"Come on. I
don’t care what my mother thinks. She doesn’t have to know," he urges,
placing the palm of his hand softly against my back as I roll and face away
from him. I stiffen at his touch but force myself to relax. He doesn’t
understand the problem—maybe even can’t
understand it. How could he? He gets to be my Isaac all the time, but I only
get to be his Nina when nobody else is around.
"Promise she
won’t throw me out again?" I ask, looking back over my shoulder at him.
"I promise,"
he answers with a smile that makes my heart skip a beat.
We carefully
climb down from the roof, sneak down the fire escape, and then run together to
his car parked down the block. His car is a sleek black Mercedes sedan, and
when he holds the door open for me, I’m surprised that it doesn’t have the
usual new car scent I’ve grown so accustomed to smelling. Instead, his car
smells like pepperoni pizza.
"Oh yeah,"
he says with a wink, "I forgot to tell you about that part. I didn’t see
you in the lunch line today so I thought you might like some dinner."
I want to slap
him, hug him and cry into his shoulder at the same time. I’m starving but I
feel terrible that he brought me food. I don’t want him to feel sorry for me
and I never want to be a burden to
him. I’d do anything to not take a slice of pizza, to pretend I’m full and
happy even though I’m skin and bones, but… but it’s pizza! I haven’t eaten since breakfast and I’m salivating just from
the tantalizing aroma.
"It’s okay,
Nina. I’m hungry too, so dig in before I eat it all," he tells me as if
reading my mind, and then he gets into the driver’s seat. His car is so quiet
and smooth that I can barely tell it’s moving. My stomach grumbles loudly,
antagonized by the irresistible smell wafting up from the back seat, and I finally
give in and pull a slice out of the box.
"You know,"
I babble in between wonderful, gooey bites, "I’m eating pizza in a car
worth more than everything my family owns added together and you don’t care at
all. What if I spill grease on it? Shouldn’t you be flipping out on me?"
"It’s just
a car, Nina," he answers with a shrug as he gets onto the highway and
leaves the run-down houses of the Hill behind us. The bright lights of New
Haven fade into the distance and then disappear completely as trees spring up
around us.
"But it’s your car," I protest, but he only
shakes his head and laughs.
"A drop or
two of pizza grease isn’t going to make it catch fire or anything. Relax,
Neenie… oh, and grab me a slice while you’re at it, okay?"
We stuff our
faces with melted, cheesy deliciousness for the entire ride, and by the time we
arrive at his house fifteen minutes later, my hunger is finally sated and my
dull, throbbing headache from low blood sugar is receding. Isaac has no idea
what a lifesaver he is to me.
He holds the
passenger door open for me with a smile and then we sneak together through the
darkness toward his house. Strategically placed spotlights light up the
mansion’s granite façade and illuminate the ivy trellises affixed to the
conservatory exterior, shining so brightly that the house is probably visible
from across the lake.
That’s probably the point, I think as I
follow Isaac around back and into the garden. It’s not about making the house
pretty; it’s his mother showing off how wealthy she is.
"Shh,"
he whispers in the dark, ducking out of sight beneath a window and pulling me
down beside him. "Mom’s still awake."
I hear footsteps
inside the house and the creaking of wooden floorboards as I huddle in the
grass beside Isaac. We’re sitting so close to each other as we hide from view
that I can feel his breath on my cheek. His body presses against mine from
shoulder to hip, and it’s doing something strange to my brain. It’s… it’s
thrilling. I feel as if I’m in a spy movie or something, but I’m in it with
Isaac and that makes it even better.
As his mother’s
footsteps disappear off to the other end of the house, Isaac pulls away from me
and the spell is broken. He’s just Isaac again and I’m just Nina. My skin feels
cold now that he’s not touching me.
"This way,"
he whispers, waving for me to follow him. Before I know what’s happening, I’m
climbing behind him up the ivy. The vines are so old that they’re as thick as
tree branches, but I’m still scared as I climb higher and higher up the wall. My
heart pounds in my chest as I reach the third story windows, and I gasp in
terror as a vine breaks free from the wall and shifts beneath my foot.
I won’t look down, I tell myself. I just won’t look down and I’ll be okay. I’ll stay right here and wait
until I’m calm and then I’ll keep climbing. Just don’t look down!
I look down and
start to panic.
"Give me
your hand," Isaac whispers from above me. He’s already up on the roof,
looking nervously down at me.
"I’m okay,"
I tell him, but my trembling voice gives me away. I’m scared as hell and I’m
getting dizzy from vertigo.
"Nina, give me your hand," he repeats, and
this time he’s not asking. His tone tells me that I’m giving him my hand and
that’s that—it’s not open to debate.
I nod weakly,
wipe my sweating palm on my T-shirt, and reach up toward him as I cling to the
side of the house. He grabs my hand tightly, braces himself against the rain
gutter with both feet, and pulls me up onto the roof beside him as if I weigh
little more than feather.
"Are you
okay?" he asks.
I nod back and he
leaps to his feet again, grabs me by the hand and drags me reluctantly behind
him higher and higher up the roof. The wind is stronger than I expected up
here; one false step and we’re both just obituaries in the morning paper.
"Come on,
Neenie. We’re almost there!"
Step by step,
foot by foot, we finally make it to the ridge of the roof and sit together with
our backs against the chimney. The warm bricks are the perfect complement to
the chilly autumn breeze coming off the lake. I lean back against the chimney
and my brain starts to feel fuzzy as Isaac’s arm touches mine again.
"Well shit,"
he suddenly swears, and then he starts to laugh. "You’re going to hate me,
Nina."
"What’s
wrong?" I ask, rolling my eyes at him in the dark. Me, hate him? Yeah
right.
"The
cocoa’s in the kitchen," he whispers embarrassedly. "I’ll go back
down and…"
"Are you
crazy?" I interrupt him. "No way! You’re not making that climb again
in the dark."
"You sure?"
he asks, and I shake my head.
"Seriously,
Isaac. I’m okay. How would you climb up the ivy with mugs, anyway?"
He sighs in
relief and suddenly, I understand something new and amazing about him—something
I’d never realized about him before. He’d promised me cocoa, and if I still
wanted it, he was going to get it even if it meant climbing back down the
ivy—even if it meant stupidly risking his life over something as little and
pointless as a cup of cocoa.
I… I’m not that
special. He shouldn’t do that for me.
…but it makes me
so happy that he would.
"Look,
Neenie!" he calls out, pointing up at the clear, starry sky above us.
"I knew we could see the meteor shower from out here."
He’s right—the
stars are bright and beautiful above us, and the tall trees block the pink glow
of New Haven from sight. I curl up against the chimney and enjoy the warmth of
the bricks—and the warmth of his body pressed softly against mine—as we stare
up at the sky together.
There are no car
horns out here, no people shouting, no strange men in the living room with my
mother… why can’t I have this instead? I don’t want the house or that
ridiculous conservatory—I just want the feeling that I’m safe, the feeling that
things can work out and that there'll
be a happy ending someday.
I don’t want to
be Nina Torres anymore. I don’t want to grow up to be like my mother.
A shooting star
flashes through the sky above us and Isaac excitedly points up at it.
"There it
is, the first one of the night! Make a wish," he says, but I’m way ahead
of him. I’ve been making my wish for years.
I wish that I didn’t
have to be scared of Mom’s customers touching me or of stepping on her needles
in the dark at night. I wish that the rest of the students at school didn’t
hate me—that I didn’t get knots in my stomach on the school bus every morning.
I wish I didn’t
have to go home after this. I wish I could stay here with Isaac forever.
Isaac stares
silently up at the sky for a long time before looking back down at me, and for
a moment, he almost looks scared.
"I wished
for…" he starts, but I cut him off before he can finish.
"Don’t tell
me your wish or it won’t come true!"
He inches closer
and smiles awkwardly before saying anything. Suddenly I realize just how
quickly my heart is racing. Why does being around him do this to me? I… no, I
can’t let myself think like that. I can’t let myself think about things that
can never happen between us.
"It can’t
come true unless I tell you," he whispers, and before I can say anything
else, he kisses me.
My arms somehow find
their way around him as we snuggle up together against the warmth of the
chimney, and all my fears fall away. God, this is wonderful! I’ve never felt
like this before, and as Isaac presses his lips to mine again, I feel a tear
trickle down my cheek. Another one follows it—then another—and soon he’s
holding me close as I cry in his arms. Maybe it’s not so wonderful after all.
Why am I crying?
"I wished I
had the guts to tell you how much I love you," he whispers in my ear.
All I can do is
cling to him, kissing him over and over as tears stream down my face. I can’t
make heads or tails of my feelings right now. Am I miserable or overjoyed? Both?
What the hell is going on inside my head?
I love him. I
can never, ever have him, but I love him to death.
"I don’t
give a shit what my mother thinks or what your mom’s like, Nina," he
whispers, squeezing me so tightly that I feel as if I’m going to pop. "No
matter what happens—no matter where life takes us—I’m going to find you. We’ll
be together and I don’t care what anyone else says."
Maybe life has
something to offer after all. Maybe I’m not really doomed to end up like Mom—a
drug addict, a prostitute who steals from her own fucking daughter.
Deep down
inside, though, I don’t really believe it.
I wish that I
could believe him, but I just don't anymore. I wish I could believe in a
happily ever after, but I’d only be setting myself up for disappointment. His mother
would never accept me; I’d be nothing to her but her son’s bad decision.
Tonight, though,
being with Isaac is everything I could possibly want. I lay in his arms on the
roof all night long as we watch the stars fall down around us.
I wish I didn’t
have to go home. I wish that I was someone else—someone with a future.
Wishes only come
true when you’ve made the wrong wish.
I don’t know it
yet, but tomorrow morning, Child Protective Services is finally going to pay my
mother a visit.
I’m going into
foster care far, far away, and I’m never going to see Isaac again.
Sword
Amy Bai has been, by order of neither chronology nor preference, a barista, a numbers-cruncher, a paper-pusher, and a farmhand. She likes thunderstorms, the enthusiasm of dogs, tall boots and long jackets, cinnamon basil, margaritas, and being surprised by the weirdness of her fellow humans. She lives in New England with her guitar-playing Russian husband and two very goofy sheepdogs.
