We Are the Ghosts Page 18

  We slip back into the house as quietly as we can, but it’s no use. There’s someone sitting at the kitchen table, and it’s not Sam.

  “Didn’t mean to scare you,” the man says. The sleeves of his dress shirt are rolled up to his elbows, and there’s a suit jacket slung across the empty chair beside him. He has a mug in front of him, the single light over the kitchen table shining down on him. He looks up at me, and I’m surprised by how much of Cade I see in his face: the same eyes, the same cheekbones, the same mouth. “I’m James. You must be Ellie.” He looks behind me, at Cade. “Cade.” He takes a sip from his mug. “Want some coffee?”

  Cade and I don’t say anything, just watch James take another sip. There’s something ominous about the situation. Not about him, necessarily, but about the way he watches us over the lip of his cup.

  He uses his foot to push the chair beside him away from the table, inviting us to join him. We both take a seat, and I feel like I shouldn’t make any sudden movements as I settle into my chair.

  “I’m sorry I missed dinner.” When we say nothing, he says, “I work with businesses overseas, so I do a lot of middle-of-the-night conference calls. I miss dinner a lot.” He takes another sip. “Of course, I didn’t know that we were going to have guests. I’m going to assume you spent the night in the tree house and that nothing inappropriate happened.” With that, he sends us both a stern look.

  We both nod, like children being chastised.

  “I guess I understand why you thought your grandmother wouldn’t contact me. I certainly didn’t think there was any way you were going to show up on my doorstep, either, and that’s what I told her when she called me yesterday.”

  My heart plummets into my stomach, and I hear Cade start to say something, but James isn’t listening. He leans forward on his elbows, leveling Cade with a heavy gaze. “What were you thinking, ditching your grandmother like that? Whatever it is, you better rethink it because you’re getting your ass straight back to Texas.”

  “Uncle James—”

  “I don’t want to hear it. God, and have you seen the missing persons ad? I couldn’t even show Sam. It would have terrified her. Why did you even—”

  I hear a board creak, and we all look up to see Gwen and Wes hovering in the hallway, watching us.

  James throws his hands up. “How many of you are there? How many runaway kids do I have in my house?”

  I shake my head, ready to tell him that Gwen and Wes are adults, but Cade is already talking over me, standing away from the table. I watch the two of them, my entire body frozen still.

  “I just wanted to come back here,” he says, and that seems to get James’s attention. His eyes travel up to Cade. “It’s stupid that they won’t let me come see you. It’s stupid that there’s this thing between all of you.”

  James exhales and balls his fist on the table. “Cade, you don’t need to worry about all that stuff.”

  “How am I not supposed to worry about it?” Cade says, a little too loud. “My parents died.” At this, my eyes shoot to Gwen and Wes, who look as shocked as I felt when he told me last night. “I know it was grandma’s son and your brother, but they were my parents, and the fact that you can’t look at each other affects me. But none of you have ever even thought about that.”

  I can see James grinding his teeth, but then he sighs. “You’re right. But that’s not something I can fix right now. Cade, when you’re eighteen and you’re in charge of your own life, you can come back here. You can stay as long as you want. But this was not the way to do this.”

  “You can’t tell her we’re here,” Cade pleads. I’m surprised by the desperation in his eyes. I’ve never seen him like this, pleading, scared. “Ellie has to keep going.”

  Everything in me pulls tight, and I’m certain that right here, right now, Cade is going to let everything out. He’s going to tell Gwen and everyone else that we’re trying to get to Ann Arbor, that we’re following a map that I made with Luke and Wes three years ago, about whoever is in Michigan that knew Luke.

  “Her brother…” Cade starts to say, but then he looks down at me, still sitting at the table. I hold my breath, waiting to see what he’ll say next, how much he’ll tell. When he looks back at James, he says, “This trip is important to her. If you want to make me go back, that’s fine, but don’t make her go back, too.”

  I shoot up from the table then. “What? No. I’m not going on without you. Either we all go, or none of us do.”

  James’s eyes are wide as he looks back and forth between us.

  “What’s going on? Why is everyone up so early?” Sam comes into the kitchen, squeezing by Gwen and Wes to get to us. She looks from James to us and back again, and we wait for James, to see what he’ll say, to see if he’ll condemn us back to Eaton.

  His jaw works, his fingers tap on the tabletop, his eyes shift between the five of us. And then he says, “No reason. Cade and Ellie heard me come in, that’s all. It’s still very early, so maybe everyone should head back to bed.” He sends Cade and me a look, and we take the hint, going our separate ways, me back to the guest room and Cade back to the couch.

  “What’s going on?” Gwen asks after she closes the door behind us. “Is everything okay?”

  I get in the bed, the sheets cold from the air conditioner, and pull the blanket up over me. “I have no idea.”

  TEN

  It’s warm in the guest room when I wake up, feeling dried out and groggy. Gwen is sitting up in the bed, looking down at something on her phone.

  “What time is it?” I ask, wishing I could just roll over and go right back to sleep. Who knew that road trips could be so draining? Not to mention spending most of the night in a treehouse. Everything comes back to me, and I’m not sure whether to smile or groan or just pack my stuff as fast I can and get the hell out of here.

  “Already after noon,” Gwen says, and I groan, rolling back over, but when I do that, the bright afternoon sun shines directly in my eyes, and I hate everything so much. I cover my face with my hands, but then realize something smells good.

  Gwen laughs when she realizes I’m sniffing at the air. “I think Cade’s aunt is cooking something.” Her amusement seems to die a little, descending back into the worry that I saw on her face when I first woke up.

  “You okay?” I ask her. So much happened last night and this morning that I can’t even begin to understand how I feel about it all, can’t even begin to understand where we go from here.

  She wraps her arms around her legs, pulling them up to her chest. “I’ve just been feeling weird,” she says. She runs a hand through her hair and turns to face me. “I think it’s because we’re going to Michigan. Just … because of everything.”

  She doesn’t have to say it. Because that’s where Luke died. The thought is a million needles in my skin. I can’t think about that. I can’t, or I won’t go. And I have to go.

  And I have to tell her about the map, about the person we’re going to see in Dexter, about everything.

  “Gwen, look, there’s something—”

  Her phone chimes, and she smiles when she looks down at it. “It’s Wes. He wants us to go eat with them.”

  I watch her rush to get out of bed and change into real clothes, and I know I should say something, but she looks so happy, smiling down at her phone again before tossing it onto the bed and struggling into her jeans. So I leave it. For now.

  In the kitchen, Cade and James are huddled together, discussing something in low tones, while Wes and Laney discuss the merits of Sesame Street over The Muppets.

  “They’re in two completely different categories,” Wes says to Laney, who just shakes her head.

  “Elmo,” is all she says, and Wes sighs like he’s been defeated.

  “I know. Everyone likes Elmo. But what about Kermit? He’s badass.”

  Sam sends him a sharp look, and he cringes. “Oops. Sorry. Kermit is really cool.” He points a finger at Laney. “Don’t say badass.”

&nbs
p; At the stove, Sam sighs, and then she sees us. “Oh, girls, good. I didn’t want to wake you up. I know you’re tired. But I wanted everyone to get something to eat before you have to leave.”

  I don’t mention that we’re definitely already supposed to be gone. Some of the urgency has cooled in my veins now that we’re so close. We’ll be in Ann Arbor by the end of the day, and now that it’s staring me right in the face, I’m in far less of a hurry.

  I accept a plate of grilled chicken and vegetables gladly and take a seat next to Cade. As soon as I sit down, Cade and James separate, both of them smiling at me like they’re hiding a secret.

  “What is it?” I ask them both suspiciously.

  Cade shrugs, but he’s still smiling. “Just making plans for the future.”

  I smile because Cade’s clear excitement is contagious, even if the word future coming from his lips sends a little thrill through me. “The future, huh?”

  He nudges my leg with his. “University of Indianapolis? They have this Earth-Space Science program.” He smiles down at the table. “I don’t know. I thought it would be cool.”

  I reach out and squeeze his arm. “That sounds really nice.”

  Across the table, Wes pipes up. “You’re not going to Tate?”

  Cade’s smile dims a little. “I don’t think so, no. I think Indiana is where I want to be for a while.”

  Wes whistles. “Indiana’s pretty far from Texas.”

  When he says this, my stomach twists. I didn’t even think about that. About Cade being so far away, about him not going to Tate, not being in Texas, not being around anymore. I have to look away so no one sees the panic in my eyes. It’s a strange emotion after being without him for so long already. How have I become so attached to him again in just a few days?

  Cade seems to understand why I’ve gone silent. He reaches out and wraps his pinky finger around mine under the table.

  I have too many things to think about to add this to the list. I pull my hand away from Cade’s and go back to my food.

  * * *

  Getting in the car, we all move like robots. We pack our things in the back, get in the same seats we’ve been traveling in for days, turn on the radio to something I don’t even have the energy to process.

  As soon as we’ve stopped for gas and are back in the car, Cade slouches down in his seat and closes his eyes. I don’t know how he can sleep. Between sleeping until noon and the coffee I got when we stopped for gas, I feel like maybe I’m not going to sleep until I turn thirty. But I watch Cade sleep because there’s not much to do, and he’s nice to look at.

  “His family was nice,” Gwen says, and when I look up, she’s looking at Cade, too, her hand curled over the back of her seat.

  “Yeah.”

  Wes catches my eye in the rearview mirror, and I look away quick. It’s not like Cade and I are trying to hide anything, but since I have no clue what’s going on between us, I’m not sure I’m ready to let Wes and Gwen in on it yet. I want something to be just mine, something I don’t have to immediately dissect and try to explain to someone. Just mine.

  I look out the window and watch the last miles of Indiana fly away behind us. It’s hard to imagine Cade growing up here, living somewhere other than Eaton. So many people I know have lived in Eaton their whole lives, and I try to envision what it’s like to grow up in Indiana. There are people who are born and raised here, just like the three of us were born and raised in Texas. And I wonder if Luke would have been unhappy anywhere, or if it was just Eaton he hated so much.

  “Can you turn up the music?” I call into the front seat, hoping to drown out my thoughts.

  * * *

  Somehow, even though I could swear I’m not even tired, I fall asleep in the back of the car, and when I wake up, we’re pulling up against a curb and my head is on Cade’s shoulder.

  I push away from him before he wakes up and look out the window. There’s a beach. Right there, as if it’s no big deal, there’s a beach, completely empty, the sun shining down on it. Cade stirs awake beside me, and we all just sit in the car and stare at it, until Wes finally gets out.

  “It’s not going to come to us,” he says.

  “Where are we?” I ask, getting out, too. Since Wes programmed all the stops so that we wouldn’t have to consult the map, it’s easy for me to lose track. There are countless stops between us and our return to Eaton, but I’ve stopped paying attention. The only one that matters to me is Ann Arbor.

  “Lake Erie,” Wes replies, closing his door and coming around the car to stand beside Gwen.

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, I get that, genius, I mean where? Lake Erie meets land in a lot of places.”

  “Oh.” He pulls out his phone and scrolls around before saying, “Newport, Michigan.”

  I remember now. Wes is the one who picked this place. We all decided we were going to visit all five Great Lakes, but we didn’t want to see them from the same places everyone else did. So we put our fingers to the map at each lake, and Wes’s finger pointed here. Newport, Michigan. This would have been Luke’s last stop before he went on to Ann Arbor. I shiver at the thought.

  Lake Erie is sloshing quietly in the wind in steady intervals, and it’s not until we’re standing there, looking out over it from the edge of the beach, that I realize just how exhausted I am, a deep kind of exhaustion that seeps all the way down to my bones, and I can’t tell if it’s from the trip or from knowing where we’re going after this. Perhaps the entire last year is finally catching up with me.

  “We should swim,” Gwen says, and we’re all silent, probably in shock. At least, I’m in shock. I don’t have a bathing suit, and stripping down to my underwear in front of these boys to go swimming in Lake Erie is not on the itinerary.

  “What?” Wes finally asks, but it’s too late. Gwen is already pulling her shirt off over her head and tossing it into the sand at our feet. I glance around quick to make sure no one is watching, but all I see is empty beach, golden sand.

  “Let’s go,” she says as she walks toward the edge, wiggling out of her tight jeans. The three of us watch as she goes, and then she’s splashing into the water in her underwear, completely unconcerned about whether we’re going to join her.

  Wes moves next, lunging toward the water and stripping his shirt off as he goes. He never even takes his eyes off Gwen, already shoulder-deep in the lake. I look away when he gets down to his boxers. I don’t really want to see that much of him.

  But when I look away from Wes, it’s to find Cade in a similar state of undress, and my cheeks go hot as Cade reaches down to the button of his jeans.

  Before he can drop his pants, I start to scramble out of my clothes. I will not let him fluster me, not when I can fluster him right back. And it’s pretty clear I’ve flustered him because by the time I’ve stripped down to my bra and underwear, he still hasn’t undone the button on his jeans, and it’s obvious that he’s trying not to look, but he’s blushing anyway and also staring down at the sand instead of undressing.

  I take off for the water, already regretting the decision to take off my clothes. I dive in and let the water be my shield, let it cover me so that nobody can see all of my bare skin. Gwen and Wes are swimming around each other, their hair wet, not even paying attention to me.

  But then Gwen grins at me and swims over, and I’m a little shocked when she puts her arms around my waist, the water making our skin slip across each other. She presses her chin to my shoulder, and I let her hold me for a long time, thinking of the way she cried in the catacombs, the way she was afraid I would judge her for being with Wes.

  I look at her, Gwen, the prettiest girl I’ve ever known, my favorite of all Luke’s girlfriends, the only one who ever seemed to care that I was even alive. Luke dated tons of girls. They moved into our lives and stayed for dinner and then they disappeared into the hallways at school when he moved on, becoming just another face.

  Sometimes, when I’m busy dissecting every memory I have of Luke, ev
ery time he sat beside me at the dinner table or took me to Wes’s house or made me feel like the most important person in the world, it’s easy to forget that Gwen is there in the memories, too. She helped me with my chemistry homework; she talked to me at dinner, asking me how school was going; she said hi to me when we passed in the halls, sometimes stopping on her way to class, leaning against a locker to talk to me; she took me to the movies when I wanted to see something the guys didn’t. How have I forgotten all that?

  I put my arms around her in the warm water, pressing my face into her neck and breathing in the wet, murky smell of the lake water. Guilt curdles in my stomach, but I don’t know what to do anymore. It’s too late to hope she won’t be mad when we tell her we’re going to Ann Arbor, to Dexter, to wherever the hell we’re going, but not telling her was so clearly a mistake. Why did I think she couldn’t handle it? Why did I underestimate her so much?

  “Thanks for letting us come,” she says against my ear, and I catch Wes’s eye over her shoulder. I can see in his eyes that he’s feeling just as guilty as I am, and I have to pull away from her, from her soft skin and her soothing voice and her kindness because I don’t think I deserve any of it.

  I pull away from her just in time to see Cade wade into the water and swim right toward me. I need to pull away from him, too. Because if I don’t deserve Gwen’s kindness then I certainly don’t deserve Cade’s. I haven’t told either of them the whole truth, and all they’ve done is show me gentleness.

  I turn and swim away from Cade, but he thinks it’s a game and swims after me. He follows me far into the lake, until my feet can’t find the ground anymore, and then he’s got his arms around me, and I know he means it as a joke, but when I turn, kicking my feet against his, and find his bare chest, I just burrow into it. I press my head against the muscle there, and we float together, and maybe I don’t deserve Cade, but I think I want him anyway.