Page 18 of The Wrong Track

He twisted to look into my dish. “Aren’t you hungry?”

“Not really.” I opened the cover. “‘Chapter Won.’ It’s a play on words, a homophone. Like the title,” I said and showed him, putting my finger under each letter like I used to do for my sister. “Do you want to read along?”

“I kind of want to close my eyes.” But his own bowl was empty, I noted, so he’d eaten just fine. I nodded and started to read again.

After a while, Tobin wasn’t just closing his eyes; he was asleep. Breaking bones, trauma like that, it could take the energy right out of you. I closed the book at the point where I thought he’d stopped paying attention and quietly stacked it and the other ones next to his bed. Then I carefully collected the dinner stuff, minimizing the clinking and clacking like I used to do when Kilian had been home because he hated the sound of dishes. I cleaned up the kitchen, putting everything away in cupboards which held a mix of plates and bowls and mugs, probably because Tobin’s family had filled in with things he was missing like Hazel had been trying to do for me. It made the kitchen seem homier to think that people had helped him equip it.

Then I could have left but instead, I wandered through the rest of the house. It wasn’t huge but there were two other little bedrooms that Tobin had left mostly empty and another bathroom with baby blue tile like the one I’d seen off his own room. I looked into the dark back yard and spotted a swing set in the moonlight, covered with a blanket of snow. I bet that Tobin had played there and probably his dad had, too. His kids could use it, and their kids. It was such a nice, normal house. Very snug. I hadn’t wanted to wear my coat for the whole night.

I was still standing at the window when a key scrabbled in the lock of the front door and before I could run out the back, Tobin’s mom let herself in. She stopped dead when she saw me there and then she quietly closed the door behind herself.

“Hello,” she told me.

“He’s asleep,” I answered softly. “I’m just leaving.” I watched her eyes sweep over the kitchen, checking everything. “Hazel made dinner and he ate it,” I said, and her face relaxed a little. I picked up my backpack, a lot lighter now minus everything I’d given to Tobin, and headed for the door.

“Thank you,” Charlene said.

Now that his mom was here, there was really no reason for me to stay. There was really no reason for me to be at my home either, and every step that led me closer to that place made dread billow in my stomach. The stomach that stuck out more every day, the one that made my pants not close, the one that had made me sick in the mornings.

I went back to the brown chair and looked out the window again. What was I going to do? What in the hell was I going to do?

∞

“That’s your new plan?”

“I don’t know what to do with the chair, the brown chair you got for me,” I repeated, which was the reason I’d called Hazel to begin with. “Do you want me to leave it here?

“So you’re definitely moving into Tobin’s house,” she said, and she sounded thankful.

“No, I’m only staying there until my job ends. Until the botanical gardens close for the season.” Until I could figure out a few more things, and that would give me plenty of time to do it.

“I’m thrilled that you’re saying this, but what made you change your mind?” Hazel asked.

It had happened the night before. I’d been dreaming about the ocean again, about trying to swim away and realizing that something was wrapped around my ankle, something I couldn’t see and was dragging me into the dark depths of water. Then, suddenly, I’d woken out of that to what I’d thought was a gunshot, a crack of a sound in the night. And something had crashed into my window and made the sound again, and I had no idea what it was. An animal, a bear? A human, because Kilian was still alive? A spirit, because he was dead but still after me?

I’d sat awake, armed with the knife that Tobin had wanted to take, and waited for the morning. And then I’d used it to cut the stiches I’d sewn in the lining of the brown chair, and I’d removed the packages that Kilian had hidden throughout this townhouse and I’d consolidated under the cushion. I’d slept on those every night, like a bird with eggs. A bird with golden eggs, because they were worth a lot. They were all I had to pay for a future for myself, and if someone wanted them, they’d have to go through me. But having known Kilian and the people he'd associated with, I didn’t foresee that any of them would have a problem with killing me to clear the way.

I’d realized, sometime just as the sun was coming up, that I was being an idiot. Why would I have stayed, alone, in this cold rental when there was a safe, normal house with a police officer in it, a guy who had a legal gun? That was where I needed to be until I could get myself out of here for good.

And I’d remembered Tobin as he’d listened to the book I’d read. His body had relaxed and his forehead smoothed out, so that he didn’t look like he was in pain anymore. His breathing had smoothed, too, getting even and long. Once, when I’d stopped, he’d opened one blue-grey eye.

“I’m still awake. Can you read more?” he’d asked.

It had reminded me of my sister and when I’d read her to sleep. “More, Remy,” she’d begged. “What happens next?” She’d needed me then.

“Remy? I asked, what made you change your mind?” the voice said again through the phone.

“I thought you were right,” I told Hazel, and didn’t elaborate which particular thing I thought she’d been right about. She’d told me all kinds of stuff so she could take her pick. “What do you want me to do with the chair? Carry it out onto the porch?”

“No, don’t pick it up!” she said quickly. “Hatch can get it.”

He could. He’d carried it into this house and after Hazel had sat down in it, he had picked it up again because he’d thought it would make her feel like she was on a throne, like a queen.

“Ok, I’ll leave the door unlocked.” The only thing worth stealing were the fixtures, and this wasn’t the kind of neighborhood where that would happen. “Also, can you give me Tobin’s phone number?”

“You mean, he doesn’t know that you’re moving in yet?”

I wasn’t moving in, but she was right that it was a good idea to give him a head’s up. Hence, I needed that number, which she recited for me after asking a lot more questions and offering a lot of encouragement for my decision, saying how glad and relieved she felt. The relief was because they were worried about my medical problem, I reminded myself. They were sure that I wouldn’t be able to take care of everything and that other eyes needed to be on me.