Page 49 of A Summer to Save Us

I should have told James what was going on, but I was ashamed. Of myself. Because I was weak.

What lies did Chester tell? What did he do?

Obviously, he’s asking about his brother again, but I can’t tell him everything. He’s his brother. How would I feel if someone told me something like that about James?

I shake my head.

“Okay.” He’s silent for a moment and rubs his face with both hands before he asks, “You felt abandoned by your dad and Arizona, right?”

I look at my fingers. I need to cut my nails again; they’re too long.

“Yes,” I whisper so quietly, and with my heart pounding, I barely hear it.

Afterward, I felt almost like I did when Mom left.

Lonely. Abandoned. By Dad and Arizona. Also because they didn’t believe me. It was like I had lost them.

River pulls away the arm he had around me and opens my clenched hand with both hands. “You’re doing fine, Tucks. Everything is okay.”

Yes, except for your cut arms, we’re fine , I think, with an unusual hint of sarcasm.

“Do you think you could say three sentences to me every day? Do you think you can do that?” he suddenly asks.

I swallow and feel myself break out in a sweat again at the mere idea.

“I’ve read that you can only overcome this fear by doing exactly what you fear—speaking. The more you talk, the more you lose your fear.”

May I whisper instead? Whispering isn’t that bad.

“Sure!” River ruffles my hair.

I lean against him, and at some point, after we’ve sat there for a while, I write,

The song today—was it yours? Was it for June?

I hear him swallow noisily. “Yes. Twice yes. Although, I changed the words a little.” He’s holding back something.

I notice that he’s struggling with whether he should tell me when he adds, “Leopold Stokowski said, ‘A painter paints pictures on the canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.’ He was a conductor.” He looks at me intently, as if there’s a message in those words, and his gaze sends a hot shiver down my spine.

“Love is like music. Or music is like love. We have no idea where or how they come into being and yet they touch us so much. They make us want to throw ourselves off a cliff and dance on the table in the next breath.”

Later, after we’ve cleaned the bathroom, washed, and changed, he’s actually still dancing on the table, a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and the obligatory cigarette in his hands.

He once again radiates the broken beauty that I noticed on the railway bridge.

The music is blaring from the next room—a remix of Bonnie Tyler’s Holding Out For A Hero.

He laughs, jumps to the floor, and then climbs back onto the table.

I, on the other hand, lean against the wall and watch him quietly. The uneasy feeling I’ve had over the last few days turned into cautious confidence that doesn’t completely disappear.

That’s Tanner Davenport up there dancing on the table. An outcast from his family whose moods change faster than a sail in a storm. He is intelligent, highly talented, highly sensitive—and lonely. And I’ll probably never be able to give him back what I owe him.

I think of what he said: A musician paints his painting in the silence.

Why did he look at me so strangely when he said it? What was he trying to tell me?

When I wake up the next morning, River is sitting cross-legged on the floor, engrossed in his cell phone. He’s probably reading some saved reports again, in airplane mode, naturally. He does that more often.

My God, what a crazy day it was yesterday. So many beautiful and terrible things happened. There’s still a haze of cigarette smoke hanging in the room, and it’s really foggy. I don’t even remember how or when I fell asleep.

Tired, I rub my eyes.

“Hey.” River gets up and stands by my side of the bed. His half appears untouched. Maybe he’s slipping back into that perpetually awake phase. I look at him and notice that he’s wearing a long-sleeved shirt.

I grab my phone. How are your injuries?

He shrugs. “They’re okay. Are you ready to face your mom?”

Mom —the word sounds hollow, like someone stole its meaning. Maybe I won’t be able to make a single sound in front of her. A little voice inside me asks if this even matters anymore. Is my mom or the reason she left us still important in my life?

“Is something wrong?” River cocks his head at me.

Everything is okay , I write.

Something is bothering me, but I don’t know what. Thoughtfully, I get up and disappear into the bathroom, leaving the door ajar.

Lost in thought, I look in the mirror and push my blonde hair back. Now, dark roots are showing at the hairline. The girl stares at me, looking serious and worried—unlike how I imagined the morning would progress after starting to speak again.

“Hi!” I say, barely audible, because she seems so strange to me. I wince. It worked. When I’m alone, it’s not so difficult for me, I guess. I raise my hand, and the girl waves to me. That’s bizarre. Still, my heart beats excitedly in my chest.

“You don’t look like you’re okay,” I hear River say suddenly.

For a moment, I think about our first day.

There he was, standing in the doorway behind me in the gas station bathroom minutes after I’d received the video from Chester.

“Do you know what hotel your mom checked into in Vegas?” I look at him through the mirror and shake my head.

He leans casually against the doorframe.

“Are you still thinking of your three sentences?”

I hate it when someone waits for me to speak. I immediately tense up.

“Whoa, it was just a question!”

I inhale deeply.

“I don’t need you to talk.” He winks at me. “Why talk at all when you can kiss?”

I smile shyly.

He smiles back. “By the way, your mom was seen at the Venetian. It was on some crazy fan site online.”

How does he always figure everything out so quickly?

“An advantage if you don’t sleep much. You have more time. The motel owner kindly let me use his cell phone to surf... I just want to turn airplane mode off to make calls. You never know.” He nods at my phone. “Are you still in airplane mode?”

I nod. Only I forgot it briefly last night , I type.

“Okay. We’ll continue on our way anyway.”

If Dad has someone monitoring my cell phone—or if he’s monitoring it himself—he could track us whenever I turn it on to check messages or to text.

However, we’re never in the same place for long, and the GPS is off.

It would be a guessing game between the few radio towers here.

Besides, he would have to be right there to catch me.

River looks at me. “It might be better if you meet your mom at the Venetian rather than at the opening.”

“Mom,” I repeat softly. The word sounds so empty.

“A one-word sentence. I’ll accept that.” River winks at me and leaves me alone.

Suddenly, everything seems unreal to me. The word mom seems unreal to me.

Say it fifteen times in a row, and you’re sure it doesn’t exist , I hear Arizona whisper. Put it on the Strange page, Kans! Come on!

Come on! River whispers.

Mom. Mom. Mom.

“None of it exists,” I whisper to the girl in the mirror, confused but tonelessly, and she nods her head in agreement with me. “Bizarre!” I hear her whisper.

Now, I have to giggle at my own silliness.

“I heard that, Tucks,” River calls from outside.

And I don’t care, I think with a warm feeling in my stomach.