The Unquiet Read online

  I fling down my skirt as a gust of wind shoots under my hem. It’s terrible to keep such desperate secrets inside you. Worse, how long can these secrets stay secret in a town the size of a San Diego mall? Millie probably knows every sordid detail. It’s just a matter of time before she opens her mouth. She’ll tell Tasha first, and then Tasha will blab it, and so on and so on.

  Unless people already know. That’s occurred to me, too.

  I like Nate. I’d like to be able to trust him.

  “I’ll tell you about me,” I bargain at last, “but only if you tell me what you know first. No fudging it.”

  “Well.” Nate fingers his chin. “I didn’t hear all that much.”

  I wait.

  “Um, I know your mom and dad are separated and that’s why you moved here.”

  “And?”

  “And nothing. That’s it.”

  I blow out a sigh of relief.

  “You want to talk about it?” he asks.

  No, yes, no, maybe.

  “My dad hates me,” I say softly.

  Just as expected, he argues, “Parents don’t hate their kids.”

  “That’s what you think. You don’t know Frank.” Or what I did to him.

  “You call your dad Frank?”

  “He’s my stepdad.”

  “Even so. I mean, c’mon, Rinn. How could he hate you?”

  The way Nate says “you” melts the core of my heart. “You called it,” I say weakly. “I’m a pain in the ass, remember?”

  Mom’s distant shrill reaches us again. Nate takes my hand and leads me across the street, the imprint of his fingers warming me. “You want to come in?” he asks.

  “I don’t know. Am I allowed?”

  “Why not?”

  Because your dad’s car isn’t here? And my mom’s got a suspicious mind? “Okay.”

  Nate’s house is orderly, and masculine to the hilt. A set of drums takes up the dining room instead of a table. “Those yours?”

  “Yep. I’m in the orchestra. Marching band, too. You’re taking chorus, right? Guess we’ll be seeing each other at rehearsals.”

  I point to the mangy deer head displayed over the fireplace. “That is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen.”

  “I shot it myself.”

  “Are you bragging or confessing?”

  “Uh, I’ll take the Fifth on that one.”

  On the mantel I see a photo of a woman holding a baby on her lap. The baby looks like Nate right down to the spiky hair. “Your mom? Where is she?” Not hanging out in this macho abode.

  “New York. My dad met her in college. They moved back here when I was born, but my mom hated it. She left right after that picture was taken. Now she’s remarried, has a whole ’nother family and everything.”

  “You ever see her?”

  “Nope,” he says distantly. I finger the picture frame, hating the woman who dumped baby Nate, and set it back on the mantel when Nate changes the subject. “So why are you such a pain in the ass that they threw you out of California?” Unexpectedly, he lifts the hair off my neck. “Is it because of this?”

  “Don’t.” I push him away and smooth my hair back down.

  “Are you a cutter, Rinn?” he asks gently.

  “No. God, no. I only did it that one time.”

  “Why?”

  I’m not sure I want to tell him. Then again, shouldn’t I be the one to lay it all out, before he finds out from, say, Millie? Or the local paper?

  Nate waits. I flatten my hair over my neck and stare at the fireplace, gathering up enough courage to answer his question.

  And, when I do, I tell him the truth. “Because I murdered my grandmother. So I wanted to die, too.”

  They diagnosed me as bipolar when I was fourteen.

  At first Mom thought I was ADHD. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t concentrate, could barely sit through a movie. I couldn’t finish a book unless I found it interesting, and whatever did interest me instantly became an addiction: ballet, guitar, astrology, you name it. World religions for a while; I was Jewish for six weeks, a Buddhist for two days. Frank drew the line when he caught me chanting on the basement floor inside a perfectly drawn pentagram.

  They started me on medication. Ask me if I took it.

  I loved the “high” part of being bipolar. I loved being able to research, write, and print out a term paper in one evening, not that anything I wrote made sense. I loved staying awake for days on end, talking to anyone about everything. Of course, nothing I said made sense, either. But you couldn’t tell me that.

  Most of all, I loved breaking rules. I liked cutting school. I liked getting high. I liked sex way too much. What’s weird is that I didn’t realize I was doing anything wrong. I thought everyone else simply wanted to control me.

  “I used to sneak out in the middle of the night,” I confide to Nate. “I’d go to the beach, or out to the stable where I took riding lessons. I’d take Mom’s or Frank’s car. They’d never know I was gone, unless the cops brought me back.”

  Who cared that the stable closed at 9:00 p.m.? Who cared that Chinook, my favorite horse, a speedy Appaloosa, belonged to the stable owners and not to me? Standing in the stirrups, crouched low over his mane, I’d ride him for hours, sailing over rows of white jumps that glowed like tombstones in the moonlight.

  One night the floodlights burst on. Startled, two strides from the next jump, I yanked hard on the reins. Chinook veered, slipped in the wet grass, and next thing I knew I was flying solo over the jump. He landed on the ground with a sickening thud.

  Police officers descended. If it hadn’t been for Chinook, writhing and whinnying, I might’ve escaped; in manic mode I can outrun anyone. But I couldn’t leave him behind. I blubbered into his sweaty sides, screaming get up, get up! I remember the pain in my shoulder when the cops hauled me up, ignoring my insistence that “my father owns this stable and he’s gonna sue you pigs!”

  When I lunged for an officer’s gun, they slapped on the handcuffs and carted me off to jail. Then to the emergency room to fix my broken collarbone. Finally, to the psycho ward.

  There, for the first time, I told people about the Voices.

  So far Nate hasn’t jumped off the sofa and run away in terror. “I’ve heard about bipolar but I didn’t know it got that bad. You really hear voices?”

  “Not now,” I say quickly. “But when I’m really manicky, yes.” Psychotic is a better word, but how can I say that out loud? “It’s like, I don’t know, like when you hear people talking in another room? Sometimes they’d get louder if I’d do certain things. Like if I put on headphones? The voices would drown out the song. Or maybe I’d think the singer was singing to me.” I cover my hot face. “God. I can’t believe I’m telling you this.”

  “So what happened to the horse?”

  “Oh, he wasn’t hurt. But they banned me from the stable. I haven’t been riding since.”

  “I have horses,” Nate says calmly. “We can go riding sometime.”

  “You mean you’re not terrified of me?”

  “Should I be? I mean, you take stuff for it now, right?” I nod. “And I didn’t notice your head spinning one single time today.”

  He’s laughing, but not at me. It’s like I just told him I have mono, and yeah, he’s bummed—but he can wait for our first kiss.

  Weak with relief, I lean back into the sofa. Nate’s body, beside mine, feels sooo comfortable. I’m not safe yet, though, because then he asks, “What happened with your grandmother?”

  I hesitate. But it’s either stay here and talk to Nate, or go home and listen to Mom’s hysterics about how that dead woman in the attic is sure to traumatize me forever. “Well, there’s a few other things first …”

  He smiles into my eyes. “We got time.”

  Does he really want to know about all my so-called boyfriends? Carlos, who taught me how to pick locks and hot-wire engines? James the dope dealer? Schizophrenic Kyle who said that psych meds were merely tools to fo
rce people to conform to society?

  Or that once, out of control, I actually hit my own mother?

  Of course he doesn’t. So I skip all that. “I got into so much trouble, they kicked me out of two schools. I almost flunked tenth grade because I was in the hospital so often. When I got out last May, I was doing pretty good. But I was so mad at Mom and Frank for locking me up again, I … well, things got pretty ugly. So they sent me off to my grandmother’s for the summer. She was, like, eighty, but tough, an old army nurse. They figured she’d keep a pretty good eye on me.”

  I loved staying with Nana. Her beach cottage in Carmel was peacefully isolated. Happy to be free from Mom and Frank, I stayed on my meds and did really well. Nana taught me to crochet, and we gardened, and we read books on the beach. Evenings, we’d watch those old sitcoms together. Sometimes we’d make up our own plots. Sometimes we’d even act them out.

  Okay, here’s the problem: when crazy people feel “good,” that’s when they decide they don’t need drugs anymore. And, as stupid as it sounds, I missed my highs.

  I wanted to be me again: the real Rinn Jacobs.

  “So you quit taking the pills,” Nate says without surprise. “Didn’t she notice?”

  “She trusted me.” Her worst mistake ever.

  Three months and seventeen days ago, a thunderstorm rolled in and the electricity went out. Nana brought me a kerosene lamp, one we used in emergencies, so I could read in my room.

  “She told me to be careful, to turn it off when I was done. Then she …” My throat spasms. “She said, ‘See you in the morning, Rinnie, love you,’ like she always did. Then she shut the door.”

  The Voices, strong and cruel, shrilled inside my head with every boom of thunder. Hyped up, paranoid of the shadows dancing in the lamplight, I threw open my bedroom window. Lightning crackled. Salty rain whipped my face. “I knew something terrible was about to happen. But I couldn’t tell if the voices were calling me—or trying to warn me away.”

  “What did they say?” Nate asks quietly.

  I remember the satanic chorus ringing in my ears. “They told me to run. So I did.”

  I climbed out my window and ran like hell. The second I reached the beach, I felt a hundred times better. I splashed through the waves, rain slashing my hair. I spun circles and leaped over rocks, my skin electrified as if by bolts of lightning. The roaring surf blocked out the Voices, and I felt safe, and alive, and positively free. Freer than I’d ever felt gulping down pills every day.

  I duck my head. “I can’t explain it, but it felt wonderful. Like I was God or something …” I hug myself hard, cracking my bones. “Then I saw the fire.”

  Nate’s hand creeps closer, as if he wants to hold mine. “The house?”

  I nod miserably. “The lamp. I’d left the window open and it blew over in the wind. They found her on the floor outside my room, with a hammer and screwdriver. Hammer marks everywhere. She tried to take the door off, too. She must’ve thought I was trapped, maybe unconscious. I hadn’t answered when she called—”

  A tightness in my chest cuts off my words. Wobbly, I grip the arm of the sofa. Breathe in, breathe out … In a less than gentlemanly gesture, Nate shoves my head to my knees before I can do it myself. Sorry I wasted that Klonopin at school, I squeeze my eyes shut and concentrate only on sucking in enough oxygen to keep from passing out.

  It takes a while, but my galloping heart rate returns to normal. The strangling sensation disappears and the stars in my vision dissolve. I’m seriously afraid to look at Nate. I bet he thinks he’s witnessing a real psychotic breakdown firsthand.

  He surprises me by taking my hand, after all. “You didn’t kill her, Rinn.”

  “Yes I did. If I hadn’t snuck out, there wouldn’t have been a fire. Frank hates me for that—and that’s why I’m really here. My mom pretends it’s to give Frank some more time. But I know he won’t forgive me, no matter how sorry I am.”

  “But your mom forgave you,” Nate begins.

  I shake my head. “Nana was Frank’s mom, not hers.” I touch my scar. “That’s when I did this.”

  Nate offers to walk me across the street, but I tell him no. I don’t want him to feel he has to be nice, now that he knows who he’s dealing with.

  “Where have you been?” are the first words out of Mom’s mouth. Her fierce hug chokes off my reply. She pushes my hair aside to study my face. “We need to talk.” She forces me to sit on the stairs and drops down beside me without once letting go. “Don’t worry.” She pats my face, my hair, like she’s afraid I’ll disappear, or morph back into Psycho Daughter. “We’re leaving. Thank God we didn’t unpack everything yet …”

  “But I don’t want to leave.”

  “Rinn, a woman just killed herself! I never would’ve looked at this house if I’d known about that.”

  “It doesn’t bother me,” I insist.

  “Well, it bothers me. Lease or no lease, we’re out. We can look for something over in Westfield. It’s not too far, and—”

  “Westfield? You mean I’ll have to change schools? Uh-uh. No way!”

  “Rinn, this was only your first day.”

  “Yes! And I made friends.” I jump up and point to the ceiling. “What about my room? I’m already painting it!”

  “Honey, listen—”

  “No, you listen. You’re the one who dragged me across the whole frickin’ United States. We could’ve stayed in California. You wanted to stay. I heard you tell Millie you wanted to work it out with Frank.”

  “Were you listening in on my calls?” Mom asks sharply.

  “Right, like Millie’s voice doesn’t carry fifty miles? Admit it, Mom. We only moved here because she talked you into it.”

  Mom wilts under my rock-hard stare. “She thought we could use a fresh start. I agreed with her, Rinn. And you know she’s my friend. I’ve missed her all these years.”

  I sniff. “Some friend. She didn’t tell you about the house. Or about Nate’s dad.”

  “Because she knew I wouldn’t come.”

  “Do you hate her now?”

  “Of course not. I love her.”

  “Do you love me?” I ask slyly. “Because, if you do, you’ll let us stay.”

  Emotional blackmail. I’m not even ashamed.

  Mom sighs. “Do you really want to?”

  “Yes! Yes!”

  One look at her face and I know I’ve won. When I hug her hard, she says into my hair, “We should at least move you down to one of the other bedrooms.”

  I set my chin. “I like my room where it is. And I promise not to go psycho on you again.”

  “Oh, Rinn—please!”

  But at least she’s smiling.

  3 MONTHS + 18 DAYS

  Thursday, October 23

  I can hide from others what I did to Nana. Nate knows, but I doubt he’ll say anything. I can tell he likes me. How is that possible?

  I can hide my guilt the way I hide my past. People can’t read my thoughts. Nobody here shares my memories.

  What I can’t hide is this stupid scar. When school started back in La Jolla this year, Mom let me take classes online. Of course “distance learning” meant I was trapped at home all day. A plus for Mom who could watch me closely, but a minus for Frank who found it impossible to avoid me.

  Even if I could wear turtlenecks all year-round, there’s this thing called PE at River Hills High. T-shirts and shorts, and no exceptions to this rule. In the stark light of the locker room where we change in and out of clothes, the damage to my neck flashes like a Broadway marquee. I know people notice, especially Tasha, who stares longer than anyone else. Luckily, nobody brings it up.

  “You’re going to Homecoming, right?” Lacy asks, adjusting her Wonderbra.

  Meg adds, “Oh, you have to! Aside from prom, it’s the biggest event of the year.”

  I hesitate. “Don’t I need a date?”

  “I don’t have one,” Tasha admits, struggling with a knot in her shoelaces. “Guys s
uck around here.”

  “You don’t need a date,” Meg agrees. “But I’m going with Jared O’Malley. He’s a quarterback on the team.”

  Lacy smiles sweetly at me. “You can ask Nate, Rinn. If no one else snapped him up.”

  I play dumb. “Nate?”

  “Yeah. I heard you guys are, you know”—Lacey wiggles both index fingers—“a thing.”