Page 36 of Night Songs

“I know a place we can go.”

We drove to a large row house a few doors down from Micah’s hostel, and he led me through a gate to a swimming pool glowing oceanically in thedark. He began stripping off his clothes, and I couldn’t help but stare at his lean, compact body.

“Whose pool is this?” I asked.

He smirked at me. “Not sure. But they haven’t been home all summer. Someone might as well enjoy it.” He backed up toward the edge in his boxers and let himself fall backward into the water.

I watched him paddle around for a while in the stifling heat, until I finally kicked off my boots, shimmied out of my dress, and jumped in.

God, it was so good. I could feel the sweat and makeup and hairspray rinsing away, and my summer muscles pounding furiously against the water. I surfaced, washed clean of that artifice, once again my unadorned, tortured self.

I swam toward the shallow end where Micah floated on his back, looking up at the stars. “Tell me a secret,” I said. It was a game Shelli and I always played at the public pool.

He rolled over and stood in front of me with serious eyes and water dripping down his lips the color of cold plums. He was even more beautiful wet.

“My brother didn’t die in an accident.” While he hadn’t said this explicitly, it had been implied. I raised an eyebrow, waiting. “He took his own life.”

Micah was the one who found him in the woods behind their house. He’d shot himself in the head with their grandfather’s pistol. He was only twenty years old.

“I don’t like telling people,” he explained. “It seems like too much to put on someone, and when you do, there’s this feeling of beingtainted. Most of my friends back home stopped talking to me after it happened.” He paused. “But I feel like you’re one of the only people who could actually understand.”

I wanted to reach out and touch him, but I wasn’t sure if that would be right. Instead, I nodded gently. “I used to feel that way, too, that I wastainted, because I thought my parents were these terrible people who had died because they didn’t care about themselves, and that made me worthless as well.” I paused, remembering the way people looked at me at school. “Now that I know the truth, you would think I’d feel better, and maybe I do a little, but the bad feeling is still there.” I had been pretending for the last few weeks, and now here was the truth. “Maybe it’s because I’m nothing like her—I feel so flawed in comparison.”

He moved closer to me, but we still weren’t touching. “But the image you have of her that’s in these museums—it’s not real, right? It’s just a persona she created.”

“I know. Which is why I’ve been trying to figure out who she really was, and I just can’t seem to get it. I have little pieces, but it’s not enough.”

He nodded. “I think that’s why I came here, too, because my brother always wanted to, and I thought it might reveal the part of him he kept hidden. But I still don’t understand why…” He drifted off, unwilling to finish the thought.

“Did he leave a note?” I asked before I could take it back.

He shook his head. “He had a lot of issues—he could be really angry one day, and sort of lifeless the next. He’d get stuck on these bad thoughts, and he would stop sleeping. Instead of getting him help, my parents would tell him to stop being an asshole. They fought a lot in the last year—he was working for my dad’s plumbing business, and he skipped a lot of jobs and it was creating this really bad situation in the house.”

I related to some of this in my own way, but I stayed quiet.

“He started talking about how these people were out to get him, and he seemed really scared.” He paused, his voice breaking. “But it was still shocking when it happened. I tried to imagine him doing it, and I just couldn’t believe he’d actually pulled the trigger.”

I nodded solemnly. “I can’t imagine.”

Silence fell over us for a moment, then he said, “It’s your turn.”

“What?”

“To tell a secret.”

I had forgotten we were playing a game.

I wanted to tell him about the creature that lived inside of me, of the dread that I felt on birthdays, and sometimes on other days. But I couldn’t now.

And maybe that was a good thing. I could still be anyone with him, the kind of person who claimed what she wanted without fear, like my mother had been.

“Iwantyou,” I said, and he paled in surprise. “I know you probably don’t feel the same way, and that’s okay. But I thought you should know.”

His face turned serious. “What makes you think I don’t want you?”

My heart was beating very fast, and I fought to control my voice. “It’s been weeks and you haven’t tried anything…”

He looked down, gliding his arms through the water. “Maybe I didn’t want it to be… cheap.”