Page 53 of Backward Motion

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” his father snapped, and Connor turned grudgingly to face him. “I know you’re not stupid,but you sure are acting it. Your mother and I expect better from you. Get it together, Connor, or you’re going to find out quick enough what life’s really like.”

“I already know what life’s like,” Connor muttered, tearing open the Pop-Tart wrapper and taking a pointed bite. “It’s shit.”

“Watch your mouth!” His father braked hard outside the school.

Connor stooped to shove the books back into his bag and threw open the door. “Nice chat, Dad,” he sneered, stepping out onto the footpath and slamming the door closed behind him.

His father rolled down the window and fixed Connor with his darkest stare. “I’m warning you, son. One more fuckup, and you’re done.”

Connor said nothing. He tossed his backpack over his shoulder and stalked into school.

It wasn’t until he got home that afternoon and saw one of his notebooks sitting out on the dining table that Connor realized his mistake. His heart pounded as he stood staring at the undeniable evidence of his guilt.How could I have been so stupid?

“Your dad found it in the van after he dropped you off,” his mother said from the kitchen. “You didn’t need it for class?”

He’d left the journal on his desk and must have thrown it in with the rest of his books that morning. Then he’d been in such a hurry to escape his father’s sermon that he hadn’t noticed he’d left it in the footwell. Had his parents been able to decipher his frenzied scrawl and discover the parts Connor hated most about himself, forever immortalized on paper?

Even if they hadn’t opened it, hadn’t skimmed through his most private confessions, there was no way he was going to give them another chance to do so. Connor snatched the notebook from the table and hurried upstairs to his room. He threw the incriminating book onto the bed and ransacked each and every hiding place until he’d made a pile of his journals on top of the duvet. He emptied thecontents of his backpack onto the floor and shoved the notebooks inside, then he picked up his lighter from the nightstand and slid it into his pocket. After making his way back downstairs to the garage, Connor took his father’s canister of lighter fluid from the tool shelf and used the side door to slip outside unnoticed.

Connor’s parents lived on the outskirts of Oakdale, where the houses sat on large plots of undeveloped land. Their own backyard comprised a half acre of wild grass that backed up to a line of mature cottonwood trees. Their neighbor, Bernard Krazinski, lived on a similarly empty section. The only difference was that after retiring as a teller at the bank in town, he’d constructed a large shed at the bottom of his property, which he transformed into a woodturning studio. In the beginning, Krazinski was there most weekends, cranking out lopsided candlesticks for his wife and wooden carts for his grandkids. Connor was fairly certain his parents had one of the man’s early creations sitting on the mantelpiece at home. Then Krazinski had a hip replacement, and his mobility went downhill. He didn’t spend his weekends out in the shed anymore.

Krazinski’s loss was Connor’s gain. He and his friends had claimed the shed as their own private hangout and met there to talk shit and get high. They’d made a small firepit around the back with rocks from the creek and got a kick out of bringing stuff out there to burn.

That was where Connor headed. He pulled the lighter from his pocket and flicked it absently with his thumb as he walked. They were heading into winter, and the sky was already growing dark. Connor slunk along the fence between the two properties until he reached the far corner then hoisted himself over onto Krazinski’s side. When he arrived at the shed, he crouched beside the firepit and unzipped his backpack. Connor stacked the notebooks in the center of the pit, constructing an effigy of his shame. He got to the last journaland flipped it open, his eyes scanning the page in the dimming light.

It will go away, right? If I just ignore it.

I can’t fucking look at myself. I want a do-over. Thinking of girls doesn’t work. Nothing fucking works.

Along the bottom of the page he’d written over and over again:Thoughts aren’t real life. Thoughts aren’t real life.

Connor tore out the page and crumpled it into a ball, which he threw on top of the pile. He tore another page, full of his ugliness, his weakness, and tossed it down. Then he knelt and held his lighter to a ball of paper until it caught. He lit the other one and waited as the tiny fires flickered to life.

A feeling of peace came over him. It was like a purification. Perhaps if he sent everything up in smoke, he’d set himself free as well. The crumpled-up paper unfurled, lighting the notebooks beneath. He watched as the covers caught, the tips turning blue then orange. Once the fire was established, he tossed the remaining book in his hand onto the pile.

Connor felt giddy and powerful. He grabbed the canister of lighter fluid, wanting to make it bigger—a bonfire of stupid thoughts that no one would see again. He stood before the flames and let loose a generous spurt into the pit. The fire leapt like an animal, roaring into the air. Connor was so enthralled by the spectacle that he didn’t notice the wind had shifted and the flames were curling up and around the wooden underside of the shed.

By the time he did, it was too late. The fire licked and crackled along the cedar frame Krazinski had spent months constructing. Connor picked up his backpack and frantically slapped it against the shed in an attempt to put out the growing blaze. He recoiled as the heat singed his hands and dropped the bag. Stepping back, he saw the smoke pluming upward like a tornado as the flames enclosed the rest of the building.

From the house came the distant sound of his mother’s frantic screams. Only then did the weight of what he’d done sink in. He turned and ran in the opposite direction toward the thick wall of trees behind the property line. Panting, he leaned against a tree trunk and tried to catch his breath. That was when he heard the keening wail of sirens approaching from the volunteer station. He stood frozen in place as the sound rose, clearer and louder, sealing his fate.

When Connor returned home later that evening, filthy and stinking of smoke, the backs of his hands seared red, his parents were waiting for him. His father hadn’t been bluffing—Connor was done. The police were getting involved. There would likely be charges and a criminal record. His father delivered all this in a low, measured voice, like he did when he was explaining one of the more technical aspects of his job.

To his credit, Connor absorbed the news without tears. He felt a strange shift occurring inside his mind. He’d thought his life ruined by the simple fact of his existence. But now that his life was actually ruined, it somehow didn’t seem so bad, as if the fire, instead of exorcising the parts of him he’d wanted to snuff out, had taken to the empty shell around him, leaving it charred and crumbling. There, amid the scorched remains of Connor’s life, the real him began to take shape.

Chapter Twenty-Six

“Indira’s a friend of mine. They haven’t advertised the job yet, but she’s willing to arrange an interview over the phone for this week, and if that goes well, you can fly out here and meet her in person,” his sister said through the receiver as Sam lay on his back on the foldout cot, his phone pressed to his ear. It was Sunday evening, and he’d spent the whole day despondent in his bedroom, avoiding his parents and only venturing downstairs for food. “Don’t worry, I didn’t mention anything about your little menty b.”

“Wow, how thoughtful.”

Sam stared at the cabinet of tiny storage containers, each shade of sequins painstakingly arranged from light to dark. He felt unbearably sad. In the space of twenty-four hours, he’d reverted to the starting line, all the progress of the past few months erased. He kept replaying the conversation with Connor in his head, and his chest ached every time he remembered the way Connor’s hand had dropped from his arm—like Sam had scalded him.

After arriving home from the disastrous awards ceremony, Sam had been gripped by a moment of clarity. Having spent weeks discussing healthy boundaries with Louise, Sam realized that by continuing to hide his relationship with Connor, he was putting his hard-won recovery in jeopardy. Maybe if he were stronger, maybe if he didn’t have a history of deferring his own happiness where others were concerned, they could have made it work. But he was terrifiedof losing his voice again. He just hadn’t expected protecting himself would hurt so much.

“I don’t know,” Sam hedged. “I’m not the biggest fan of Chicago.”

He’d texted his sister in a moment of desperation, asking if her offer still stood. In true Georgia fashion, she’d taken it to mean full speed ahead. She’d tapped into her professional network and lined up an interview for him with a local marketing agency. It was the kind of opportunity he would have jumped at in the past, yet the thought of returning to another version of his old job made his whole body tighten.