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When Warren was a kid, he loved it when grown-ups told him he was just like his brother. Back then, Riley was his whole world. He remembers sitting in their pew (left side, sixth from the front) and watching Riley serve mass. Watching him stand and kneel, watching him walk back and forth from the altar.
When he was older, people still said it, but not to his face. Quietly, whispered behind cupped hands, dripping with false concern. It was different, but it was still sort of a compliment to Warren. Even knowing what his brother had done, even knowing what he was. Truthfully, there probably wasn’t anything that could have made him stop worshipping Riley.
But Warren isn’t a kid anymore. Besides, there isn’t another living soul left who even knew Riley. Well, there’s one, but he doesn’t like to think about her much.
The point is, there’s no one left to tell Warren that he’s just like his brother. He has to tell it to himself, instead.
He reflects on the similarities as he climbs the church steps that Friday. That first Sunday after Riley came back to Crockett, walking into church beside him, he had felt his big brother stiffen, like he was forcing himself not to turn tail and run. Warren hadn’t really understood it then. Looking up at the tall wooden doors, he thinks he understands better, now.
He gives his head a shake. Anna would say he’s being melodramatic. It’s not like he’s going to mass or anything. He just can’t help but wish that AA was held anywhere else. Not that there are a lot of options for gathering places in a town like Friendship.
He follows the signs to the church basement, where a small group is already milling about, setting up folding chairs and pouring coffee. He quickly scans the faces, breathing a sigh of relief when he doesn’t recognize anyone. He grabs a chair close to the exit.
The guy running the meeting has a ponytail, but Warren tries not to hold that against him. He seems nice enough, just giving a nod when Warren passes on introducing himself. He can practically see Anna’s disappointed frown in his head, and he wants to tell her to give him a break. At least he showed up.
Really, he’s mostly humoring her by coming here. Sure, he understands the idea of it, but he can’t see how it could help him. Not when there’s so much he has to lie about, so much he can’t say. Not unless he wants to be thrown in a padded cell, that is. There’s only one person he can be totally honest with, and he hasn’t spoken to her in four years.
He slips out quietly at the end of the meeting, pulling his jacket tighter around himself against the pressing mist. It’s supposed to be warmer this time of year, but the fog always lingers near the water.
The dreams always seem to get worse with the fog.
In this one, he’s running. He’s usually running. He’s gripping Leeza’s hand, tugging her along behind him. He can hear the lapping waves in the distance, if he could just get a little bit farther...
"Warren."
His mother’s face looms before him. She’s wearing the same warm smile he remembers, but her teeth are sharp, her mouth drips with thick blood. She moves forward as if to embrace him, and Warren finds himself walking to meet her, ignoring Leeza’s screaming behind him. She wouldn’t hurt him, he’s sure of it. He startles awake before he can feel her teeth sink into his throat.
He shoots up in bed, breathing hard. He grips his hair in his hands and tugs a little, frustrated with himself. He’s usually pretty good at getting himself back under control in moments like these, but it’s been a while since he’s dreamed about mom.
“Fuck.” He mutters. He grabs his sweat soaked pillow and screams into a little. That usually helps.
He’s about to try to go back to sleep for a couple hours, when a sound at his window makes him sit up again. He peers out from his bed, trying to make anything out in the pitch black. He had probably imagined it.
Another sound, a faint kind of tapping. He gets out of bed, shuffling over to the window to investigate. Just as he reaches it, the sound comes again, and he sees a pebble bounce off the glass.
He is seized with a vivid memory, and he shakes his head. There’s no way.
He pulls the window up, needing to check anyways, and peers over the ledge to the ground below.
Leeza grins up at him in the darkness.
“We need to go back.”
Neither of them had spoken in a while. They sat frozen in the canoe. Warren didn’t know about Leeza, but his mind was curiously blank. He knew they needed to do something, but he couldn’t stop watching the ashes as they floated down around them. The smell of burning was acrid, it clogged his nostrils and coated the back of his throat.
“Huh?”
He turned to find Leeza staring at him, that determined look in her eyes.
“I said, we need to go back.”
“What…we can’t.”
Leeza ignored him, bracing an arm against the seat and attempting to hoist herself up. The canoe rocked dangerously. Warren reached out a hand to stop her.
“Leeza, it’s not safe.”
“Of course it is. You know they’re all de–” She cut herself off, looking a little sick. “We might be able to find my chair. And a boat with a motor.”
“They burned all the boats. It’s a waste of energy trying to get back there. We need to try to get to the mainland.”
Leeza looked like she was going to argue, but then her shoulders slumped, defeated.
“They were calling for me,” she said quietly, looking past Warren as though she were talking to herself. “They wanted me to come with them.”
Warren shivered a little at the memory, but it wasn’t horror that he heard in Leeza’s voice. It was something more like longing. He didn’t know what to say.
Somehow, they managed to get Leeza onto one of the benches without tipping the boat. They paddled in silence for what felt like a long time. When Warren heard Leeza’s breathing get heavier behind him, he called for a break. His own arms were burning. They balanced their oars on their laps and looked out across the water. They couldn’t even see the land from where they were.
“This is useless,” Leeza said eventually, as if she could hear Warren’s thoughts. “We’re miles from the mainland. We can’t make it.” She spoke calmly, but there was an undercurrent to her voice that Warren recognized as barely concealed panic. For them to have gotten this far, only to fail now…
Warren opened his mouth, about to lie to both of them, to say that of course they could make it, but he was cut off by Leeza’s sharp gasp behind him.
He turned to look at her, following her gaze to the heavy mist coming from the north. He could make out the faint shape of a boat.
“You know you can use the buzzer, right?”
It’s a ridiculous way to start after four years of silence, but he’s tired, and not completely convinced that he’s not still dreaming. Leeza just shrugs, laughing a little. She looks…good. Happy. It makes him realize that the picture of her he had held in his head for the last four years had been of her face the day she left for school. They had both been so broken, then. She doesn’t look broken now. He wonders how he looks to her.
“I thought we could sneak out!” She calls, her voice carrying up to him, clear and bright. “For old time’s sake?”
He can feel an answering smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I’ll be right down.”
“You’re not gonna use the window?”
“It’s a two-story drop!”
They make their way slowly down the quiet street. Warren tries to stop himself from staring at Leeza, but he knows he’s not having much luck. The streetlamps light up her profile intermittently, casting shadows across her skin.
“When did you get back?” He says eventually.
“Couple hours ago. Anna picked me up.”
He doubts Leeza meant it that way, but the words are an uncomfortable reminder. I was a two-hour drive away. Four years, and you could have come to me anytime. He knows she would never say it, probably wouldn’t even think it. But he feels guilty, all the same.
More silence.
“Are you…happy? To be back?”
Leeza looks up at him, studying his face in that way she had. She nods, looking away again.
“I am,” she breathes out a laugh. “I missed this stupid little town.”
Anna kept trying to get them to talk about it.
For the first month or so, there were a lot of police at the house. They wanted to understand what happened on Crockett, how the entire island could have gone up in flames like that. Why they were the only two to survive. Warren couldn’t help but worry about how suspicious it all looked. He couldn’t sleep, positive something bad was going to happen. He snuck into Leeza’s room almost every night, needing her to reassure him. We’re innocent. She told him over and over again. We didn’t do anything wrong.
“We lied to the police. We’re obstructing justice.”
“You watch too much Law and Order. Besides, what were we supposed to say, ‘A flying, blood-sucking demon did it’?”
Eventually, in the absence of any evidence, the police had to believe their shaky insistence that they had no idea what happened. Warren and Leeza had just happened to be taking a canoe trip at dawn when tragedy struck. Lucky them.
Unfortunately, Anna wasn’t so quick to let it go.
It seemed like letting things go wasn’t really in her nature. She had heard about the two of them the morning after they got picked up by the fishing boat and brought back to Friendship. Apparently, she was friends with the police chief’s receptionist. The chief had told Warren and Leeza that they were going to be shipped off to a group home a couple hours away, but that morning Anna barged into his office and insisted on taking them in. Her husband had died the year before, and her house had already been outfitted for his wheelchair.
“What am I doing with all that space? It doesn’t make any sense for me to live there by myself. Honestly Chuck, what were you thinking?”
At this point, Warren and Leeza had spent the night on cots in one of the holding cells. One of the fishermen had had to carry Leeza from the boat into the police station. Finally, that morning, they had brought her an old wheelchair from the local hospital. It was much too big for her, and the wheels were stiff. At the end of Anna’s tirade, Leeza took a deep breath, then burst into tears. Warren reached out to grip her hand, clenching his teeth hard, not wanting to cry in front of a bunch of strangers.
He could tell that Leeza felt comfortable at Anna’s place. She was struggling, obviously – they both were – but she didn’t hesitate the way Warren did before entering a room, or getting a snack from the fridge. Anna kept telling them to make themselves at home, but Warren still felt like an unwanted guest. Like a burden. He wished his parents were here. He missed Riley.
They all sat together every night for dinner. Anna always said Grace, although she had told them their first night that they didn’t have to join her if they didn’t feel comfortable. Leeza had taken her hand, bowing her head. Warren had not.
“I’ve been talking to Janice Miller,” she said that night, after her and Leeza finished their prayer. “She’s the guidance counsellor at the high school.”
Warren felt his grip tighten involuntarily around his fork. He forced himself not to glance up at Leeza.
“I know you two don’t feel comfortable talking about it with me,” Anna said, sensing the change in atmosphere. “I won’t pretend to understand what you’ve been through. But I just don’t think it’s healthy, keeping it all bottled up.”
She looked between the two of them for a moment, but when it became clear neither of them was going to respond, she sighed and dug into her food.
“Alright, alright, I just had to get my two cents out. No need to turn into statues. How did your math test go, Warren?”
Leeza always hogged the bathroom in the morning. Warren suspected she did it on purpose after she realized it annoyed him; there was just no way it took her that long to brush her teeth. But that morning he had somehow beaten her to the shower, and at seven o’clock she still hadn’t emerged.
“Leeza? Are you up? We’re gonna be late,” he called, knocking on her door. Nothing. Tentatively, he poked his head into her room.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” He was at her side before he registered moving. Leeza pulled the blankets tighter around herself, turning her face away. He had already seen she was crying, though. “Was it the dream again?”
Leeza dreamed almost every night of her parents calling to her. Sometimes Warren could hear her from his room, calling back to them.
“No.”
Warren waited, but it seemed like that was all she was going to say.
“Are you…sick?”
“I’m fine.”
“I…okay. Do you want me to leave? I can tell Anna you’re not feeling well…”
“I said I’m fine, Warren!”
Warren nodded, standing up from where he had crouched next to her bed. She caught his arm before he could leave.
“I just,” she said, still not looking at him. “I just wish I had never gotten it back.” Her voice had petered out to a whisper, and he wasn’t sure he had heard her right.
“Got what back?”
“Walking. My legs.”
Warren crouched down again.
“Oh.”
Leeza let go of his wrist so she could cover her face with both hands. Her voice was muffled when she spoke again.
“I wish I could forget what it’s like. To be normal.” She spat the word out. “I know. I know I should be grateful for what I have. But I’m not grateful. I’m fucking angry.”
“I think that makes sense,” Warren said after a moment, desperately hoping he wasn’t saying the wrong thing. “That you’re angry, I mean. Anyone who says you don’t get to be angry should go fuck themselves. But you’re not…abnormal…Leeza. You’re perfect.”
Leeza scoffed. “Right.”
“You are!”
“You don’t like me like this.”
Warren blinked.
“What do you mean? Of course I like you.”
Leeza shook her head, her shoulders drawing up around her ears. Warren wished she would take her hands away so he could see her face.
“You only started liking me when I could walk again.”
Warren’s heart beat in his throat.
“That’s not true.”
Leeza scoffed again.
“It’s not. I…I always liked you. Ever since Miss Prince’s class, when you spilled the orange paint on my desk. Ooker made fun of me all the time, I had such an embarrassing crush on you. I can’t believe you didn’t know. I always thought it was so obvious.”
Neither of them said anything for a while. Leeza was taking deep breaths, and Warren could tell she was trying not to start crying again. He wished she would just let herself cry.
“Then…why…you haven’t kissed me since we got here. You don’t even hold my hand anymore. Everyone at school thinks you’re my brother. Why…”
Leeza stopped talking when Warren gently pulled one of her hands away from her face. He could taste her morning breath when he leaned in to kiss her, but he didn’t mind. Her morning breath really wasn’t bad at all, his was definitely worse. Her lips were soft against his. He felt like the top of his head might float off. He had missed this.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he pulled away. “I’m an idiot. I just. So much has happened, I didn’t know if you’d still want to…I thought it might be better to give you time.”
Warren was still holding onto her wrist. Leeza turned her arm so she could twine their fingers together.
“You are an idiot,” she said, but she sounded happy about it.
“How did your exams go?” Warren regrets the question as soon as it’s out of his mouth. Why can’t he just talk to her like he used to? It’s like they’re strangers.
“Is that what you really want to ask me, Warren?” Leeza sounds as unimpressed with the question as he feels. “How did my exams go?”
Warren is a coward though, so he just shrugs.
“They were fine,” Leeza sighs. “And how’s the boat? Good hauls lately?”
Warren can tell she’s trying to provoke him, trying to get a response, but he doesn’t rise to the challenge. “They’ve been fine.”
They carry on for a while in silence.
“Anna said you’re not working with Murray anymore.”
She doesn’t phrase it as a question, but Warren can hear it nonetheless.
“No. He…we had our differences. It’s been better without him. I’m going out on the Mainliner now.”
“Good.”
Leeza seems content to leave it at that, but the conversation leaves Warren feeling off-balance, like there’s electricity prickling under his skin. It’s not fair, that she feels like she can still pass judgment on Warren’s life, on his choices. It’s not fair that she still thinks she knows him so well. She was the one that left.
“How’s Patrick?”
Leeza glances up at him.
“You’ve been checking up on me?”
“Why not? You’re getting updates from Anna about me.”
“Patrick and I broke up.”
Warren pointedly ignores the little thrill that goes through him.
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay,” Leeza smirks at him. “We had our differences.”
Warren wants to ask for more details but knows it’s really not his place. He realizes that they’ve ended up near the marina; he hadn’t paid attention to the direction they were going. The salty-fishy smell is suddenly overpowering.
“Want to head back?” He feels utterly defeated. This isn’t how he imagined their reunion going. Not that he spent a lot of time imagining it.
But to his surprise, Leeza shakes her head.
“No, let’s go down to the water. I’ve been inland for too long; I miss looking at it.”
Warren doesn’t point out that it’s really too dark to see much. He just follows along behind her.
“Why are you mad at me?”
“I’m not mad at you.”
The sun felt too hot on the back of Warren’s neck. He had suggested they sit outside for lunch. He had been feeling overwhelmed all day, like if one more person brushed against him in the hallway he was going to scream. He hadn’t been able to stomach the idea of eating in the cafeteria, surrounded by all those loud voices. He just wanted to be alone with Leeza, but now he was sort of regretting it. He hated when she shut him out like this.
“Well you haven’t said anything for like thirty minutes –”
“Where were you last night? You missed dinner. You hurt Anna’s feelings.”
Oh.
“I’ll apologize to Anna.”
“But where were you?”
“I said I’d apologize. Can we just leave it?”
“So you were with Alex Murray and them.”
“So what if I was?”
“They’re bad influences, Warren.”
A snort escaped him before he could stop it.
“Okay, mom.”
“I’m not allowed to worry about you?”
“There’s nothing to worry about.”
“You’re drinking a lot.”
Warren sighed. He really didn’t want to talk about this.
“I don’t like being around the house on Sundays, okay? You and Anna always talk about church, and it’s just…I don’t like it.”
Leeza’s scowl softened into something a little too close to pity.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “I…I’m sorry. I didn’t realize we did that.”
“It’s okay.”
Leeza reached out and took Warren’s hand. She turned it over so she could run her fingers over his palm. Warren felt his breathing come a bit easier.
“Are you sure…I mean…” She said after a moment. “Maybe it would help. It’s really different here, it’s not like on Crockett. There’s…”
“Less murder?”
“Warren.”
He pulled his hand away.
“I’m good.”
“Maybe if you tried…”
“I don’t know how you can stand it, Leeza. It’s all fucking lies. How can you sit there and listen to some priest talk about God, knowing what we know? After what the fucking church did to your parents, to Riley…”
“I’m sorry,” Leeza said, and her hand was a warm weight on his cheek. He hadn’t noticed how fast his breathing had gotten. “I’m sorry. We don’t have to talk about it. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“It’s fine,” Warren choked out.
Leeza pulled at his neck so he rested his forehead against her shoulder. He breathed in the scent of her clothes, her hair. He closed his eyes.
The dock is a little uneven, and Leeza accepts Warren’s offer to push her. She rests her hands in her lap, twisting her fingers together.
“So I’ve been seeing a therapist.”
Warren almost stumbles, but recovers quickly.
“Oh yeah?”
Leeza nods.
“Her name’s Iris. It actually helps a lot.”
Warren processes this.
“Do you tell her, I mean, have you told her…”
“Yeah.”
“Really?”
“She thinks I’ve come up with a delusion to cope with a traumatic event. It doesn’t really matter if she believes me or not, though. It’s helpful just to talk about it.”
“Well. That’s good.”
“Can you stop for a second? I want to see your face.”
Warren stops. There’s a bench next to them, so he sits, looking at her. A smile plays around her lips.
“What I’m trying to say is, I’ve been working on things. Thinking about the past. About…us. And the thing is, I think neither of us were really in a good place to be in a relationship. We were so young,” her voice trails off, and she looks past Warren, like she’s seeing the two of them how they were back then. “And well, traumatized. We hurt each other. I hurt you. I’m sorry.”
Warren swallows around the sudden lump in his throat. To hear her lay it all out like that. Like everything they shared was in the past, something to be pulled out and analyzed, dissected.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“I am, though.”
“Well then, I’m sorry too.”
Leeza smiles, nods.
“It wasn’t all bad, though, was it?” Warren says, unable to hold the question back. He hates how he sounds, like a child.
Leeza’s eyes widen a little, and she rolls herself forward so she’s closer to him.
“No. A lot of it was good.”
She’s leaving. She’s really leaving.
Warren had been avoiding Leeza for the past week. It was like every time they were in the same room they were fighting. About Warren’s drinking, about their plans for next year, about Anna, about Murray. It was easier to stay away.
But he had seen the acceptance letter on the kitchen table that morning, left out like she wanted him to find it. Maybe she did.
It was another thing they had fought about, her going away for school. He had thought that’s all it was, just another fight. He never thought she’d actually leave.
The house was quiet when he came home that night. He closed the front door slowly, not wanting to wake them up, but ended up making a racket anyways by dropping his keys on the floor.
“Hey.” Leeza was sitting in the living room, a book on her lap. He hadn’t even noticed the light was on.
“Hi.”
They looked at each other for a moment.
“So. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“That’s really it, then? You’re just going to leave? How can you do that to Anna?”
Leeza rolled her eyes.
“You’re drunk. It’s pointless talking to you when you’re like this.”
“It’s not like you talk to me when I’m sober.”
“I try! I try to talk to you, but you just shut me out. You only talk to fucking Alex Murray.”
“Why does everything come back to Murray? It’s like you’re obsessed with him.”
“I’m not the one who’s obsessed! Ever since you started hanging out with him it’s like you’re a different person. You’re drunk all the time, you skip class, you didn’t even bother applying to any colleges. You’re scaring me, Warren.”
Warren shook his head, reaching out to steady himself on the door frame.
“Yeah, well. You won’t have to worry about all that next year. You can forget all about me, that’s what you want, isn’t it?”
“What I want is for you to be fucking honest with yourself for once. I love you, Warren, can’t you see that I just want to help you?”
They used to say that to each other a lot – I love you – but stopped a couple months ago. To hear it now, thrown in his face in the middle of a fight, it hurt more than Warren was willing to admit.
“You’re not my mother.”
“And Alex Murray isn’t Riley. That’s what you want, right? A big brother to get fucked up with? Someone to tell you what to do? It’s pathetic.”
Warren took an unsteady step back. He suddenly felt certain he was going to throw up.
“Fuck you,” he said finally, hoping his voice sounded steadier than he was feeling.
Leeza closed her eyes. He could see the way her cheeks flushed, the way they did when she was really worked up.
“Right. Fuck you, too, then.”
They make it down to the water. Warren stands beside Leeza, and they both look out at the waves, the way the boats bob peacefully up and down.
It feels like they’ve been standing there for a long time before Warren takes a deep breath.
“I’m not sorry.”
Leeza looks up at him questioningly.
“I mean. I am sorry that I hurt you. I was a dick to you. But I’m not sorry that any of it happened. If I could go back and do it again I wouldn’t…I would still want to be with you.”
She just keeps looking at him.
“I really…I really loved…”
He doesn’t continue, and Leeza takes pity on him.
“I know,” she says softly. “Me too.”
“I haven’t had a drink in two months.”
He doesn’t know why he says it. Just that Leeza was honest with him earlier, had told him something that felt like a secret.
“And…and I’m going to AA. Well, I went to one meeting, but…”
Leeza is smiling again. He can’t stop staring at her.
“That’s so great, Warren. Really. I don’t want you to feel like you have to like…explain yourself to me or anything…”
“I don’t. Feel like that. I just wanted to tell you.”
“Well I think it’s amazing. Thank you for telling me.”
He looks away again, listens to the water lapping at the dock. It’s a sound he’s heard all his life. He can’t seem to get away from it.
“I’m sorry I never called you.”
“I’m sorry, too.”
“I missed you.” He whispers the words, but he thinks Leeza hears them, because she slips her hand into his. Her hand feels just the same as he remembers it, warm and little dry. He squeezes it, maybe too tightly.
They watch the water until the sun comes up.