The Heart Does Not Grow Back Read online

  We got into Old Gray, fully loaded with one headlight, a sagging headliner, and a radio that didn’t work.

  “No Regina?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  “I was telling you the truth.”

  I let this revelation marinate in silence.

  “Why didn’t you tell me until today?”

  “There’s no good time, I guess. I just figured you’d just move past her. Then it wouldn’t matter when you found out. I don’t really like her or anything. And I know it probably hurt you, and it’s going to seem stupid and pointless when I tell her I don’t give a fuck about her, because that’s the truth. But I’m not a good guy when it comes to that shit. She came on to me. God as my witness, she did, and then this horny part of me convinced me it was okay to say yes, to let her do it, because it would somehow rescue you. The minute I blew my load—which is an honest moment, man—I knew I fucked up. Loads reload. That’s the problem with guys, especially ones like me.”

  I stared out the window into the tree lines and fields whispering past.

  “You remember your master plan?” I said. “The twins plan? Pick one? I take one, you take the other? What happened to that?”

  “Shit, it might have worked on accident. I think Raeanna likes you,” he said. “Makes sense. She’s a quiet one, a smart one. Just like you. She’s just as hot as Regina and she’s never had her mouth on my dick. It’s like hitting the Refresh button on the whole situation.”

  “That supposed to make me feel better about what you did?”

  He slammed on the truck’s brakes, cutting hard to the shoulder of the blacktop road. Another car zipped past, not even flinching at the sight of a car pulled over on a road like this one—in this town, on this road, if you’re pulled over at night, someone’s either puking, fucking, or passed out.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

  “You have an awfully strange way of protecting me.” I opened the door and stepped into the high, itchy grass of the ditch. “I’ll walk the rest of the way.”

  “It’s no fun being stuck on one chick, man.” He got out of the car and jogged to catch up with me. “It was twisted, but what I’m saying is it was my bad and if you want to go after Regina, if she means that much, then go after her. Before you get all hissy, let’s be honest, she was Clint’s girl at the time, not yours. You said she left you a note? To tell you something? Well, do you want to hear it or not?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I do. Good news or bad, I gotta hear it.”

  “Then let’s go do the shit, man. You’re a walking-tall, bad motherfucker tonight. You pegged Clint your own damn self, so go unleash a little swagger. Put the Regina thing to rest, one way or another. You might even score with someone else—hello, Raeanna—before the night is over. Come on, man! Think legendary. I got your back.”

  He said it with a conviction that made it feel possible.

  “Can I just take a walk?” I said. I needed to think about it, and it felt good to walk alone under the wild moonlight in the clean air you can only get in a country field at night. I kept walking, heading toward the dark of the tree line, trying my best to breathe and clear my mind. When I looked behind me, the parking lights of the truck glittered low and yellow in the night. I started to get close to the trees, close to the true dark. I turned back. The truck grumbled, spitting exhaust that gathered like a phantom in the darkness.

  He cheered me on as I approached. I got in the truck and he started back for the party. It was really happening—we were going back. I kept looking for that sheet of dread and nervousness to settle into me, but it never came. The adrenaline, the ache of my fist, the aftershock of my anger and emotion had blunted my fear.

  Honestly, I didn’t fucking care—I still wanted Regina. I still liked her. I didn’t mind being a third choice. I was ready to grab her by the waist and kiss her. In fact, that’s exactly what I intended to do—I had seen it in the movies, and it always seemed to work well there. Maybe she’d pull away, give me a slap to the face, and then kiss me again, deeper this time. Whatever that meant. Maybe we would walk to my house that night, hand in hand, and with my mother at work, we’d make love in my very own bed, where I’d fantasized about her—about her affection, about the possibility of her, an unsoiled fantasy who would turn real before my eyes.

  Mack whipped in behind the first dormant car he saw, flicking off his lights and hopping out as if sharing the inspiration of my moment.

  It was a long walk back to the party. I was ready, maybe even changed. I often wonder what life would have been like if that boy had lived—the boy who just defeated the bully, the boy who was blossoming into an athlete, the boy who was rising in such a way as to threaten his overbearing best friend, the boy who had held a note from one of the prettiest girls in school. Where would he be now, I wonder?

  With Mack at his side and the world unfurling before him, that boy started a long walk that he would not survive.

  SEVEN

  At the mouth of the driveway, I stopped at the faint sound of a bell ringing out tones in rapid succession, the sound of a vehicle reminding the owner that the keys were left in the ignition. I heard the squeal of a girl but couldn’t tell if it was pleasure or pain.

  Mack stopped as well. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to the source of the noises—farther down the eastern side of the road, where more parked cars were lined up. In the distance, a dome light highlighted moving shadows in the cab of a truck. We eased closer, covered by the dark. The blacktop was a hot plate, releasing the heat of the day in invisible waves, our footfalls dampened by the sun-softened tar.

  We got closer. I saw the shadow of a moving head, heard the sound of a buckle clinking, a man grunting. The moon’s light was useless, blocked by the high treetops flanking the road. Where the trees gave way to open fields, pockets of white fog hovered over the earth, the coolness of the night sucking them out, trapping them until the breeze or morning sun could dissolve them.

  I heard flesh rapping against flesh, the rhythm of the blows in unison with the rabbitlike chatter of the bell. More grunting.

  “Someone’s fuckin’!” Mack whispered harshly in my ear, urging me along into a trot so we could get a better look. I don’t know what Mack was planning to do. Perhaps some sort of “gotcha” prank, but when we got closer, I recognized Clint’s truck. The door was blocking his midsection—all I could see was his head, eyes closed, bobbing as his midsection thrust.

  He was having sex, and I just knew it was with Regina. The realization sucked the breath from me, and I stopped, frozen in the road as Mack trotted ahead. But I needed to see for myself, so I jogged to catch up, taking a wide arc toward the truck so I could see around the door.

  Clint’s white ass clenched and released as he pushed forward. A pair of limp legs dangled between his own. Streaks of blood carved dark ribbons in a smooth, white calf.

  My first live, sexual moment was watching my archnemesis fuck the girl I was in love with, hours after my best friend had described her skill at sucking dick.

  Another squeal. Then, a half cough that stopped abruptly, locked into a gag, the sound of Regina choking.

  “Shut up, bitch,” Clint said, the words leaking through clenched teeth. “You got this coming.”

  Rape, and rage was not my first emotion. I endured a moment of absolute shame that would never relinquish its power, thankful that he was raping her, that this wasn’t her choice. I could handle being a conquering hero, I could handle his fall, and I could handle her destruction as long as she hadn’t chosen Clint over me yet again. I sprang into action, but Mack was already ahead of me.

  If only he’d used the element of surprise, things might have turned out differently, but that wasn’t dramatic enough for Mack Tucker. “Let her go, you fuck!” Mack said. He grabbed Clint’s shoulder. I was jogging toward them, wanting a piece of the heroism. The gasp unclogged and she screamed—it was Regina, all right. The warbled cry of “Help me” shook me, echoing
. It echoes still. And the blood—blood sticking to her ankle, dripping from her heel, too much blood for a simple broken hymen.

  Clint turned, a revolver in his hand, the barrel sticky with blood. The muzzle flashed and Mack twisted away from the shot as if hit by a meteor, corkscrewing into the ground. Clint, naked from the waist down, standing over him, pointing down at Mack, intent on firing a round into his head.

  I screamed out, “No!”

  Clint turned to me, his eyes hard and wild in his beaten face, the dome light a halo behind him as he raised the gun. The thickness and length of the barrel belonged to a .44, or something similarly punishing. Mack went down in a blaze of gristle, with droplets of blood and tissue creating a little puff that hovered as he fell.

  The barrel gazed at me and no life flashed before my eyes, no prayers, no slow motion, just the realization that Clint had shoved that barrel into her, tearing her, goring her in ways I couldn’t imagine, and the thought made me ready to die. I closed my eyes. The sound of the blast popped in my ears, then lingered as a metallic vibration, giving way to the sound of a struggle. The fact that I heard anything meant I was alive: bullets traveled faster than sound.

  I opened my eyes. Regina hung on Clint’s back like a wild animal, her hair frayed, the whites of her eyes big in the muted light. He tried to shake her, but she wasn’t budging.

  I charged him, hoping to blast a shoulder right into his midsection. I knew such a move would create an utter mess and a scuffle on the ground, but perhaps it would dislodge the gun, and with Regina and I both fighting him, maybe one of us could get the gun away.

  I was two strides away when he aimed behind his head and fired the gun into Regina’s eye. A quarter of her skull exploded, splattering on the dome light itself, blotting out the light. Sulfur and copper were in my nose, the warmth of her wound mixing with the harsh flavor of the spent gunshot. I finished my last stride, crashing into them, her limp body slamming into the truck, cushioning his impact.

  He sidestepped enough to shed me. I lost my balance, falling, and when I tried to get up, I was looking into the gun’s barrel. I saw the white of Clint’s naked legs and the wideness of his eyes. Nothing could save me. My hands came up to my face and the words “Please, don’t” came to me, but I swallowed them down, not wanting to give him the satisfaction. He fired.

  The bullet went through the center of my hand, scattering three of my fingers and most of my ear into the night. Blood spurted from both wounds and the whir of the bullet’s sound echoed deep in my eardrum. Flashing dots paraded in my field of vision. My hearing dulled and I tried not to move, hoping that playing dead might prevent him from shooting me again.

  Another gunshot made me flinch, but it echoed differently, farther away. I rolled onto my side and saw the muzzle flash in the darkness, in the front yard, closer to the house. He wasn’t going to waste good bullets. Screams grew in frequency. Another flash. More screams, most of them of fear, but some were awful groans of pain, cries for help, dying teenagers begging for their parents, turned almost infantile by pain and impending death. I had no doubt that Clint was gut-shooting them, and was thankful that it was too dark to see the full scale of the massacre. Kids were scattering now, into the shadows, the woods, the fields, running for their lives. Another gunshot.

  I saw Regina’s body lying by the truck. Her face was nearly perfect, somehow bloodless. A patch of gray tissue was sticking to her right temple, where most of her skull was gone, her head looking like a bitten apple. Seeing her that way, the gun, Clint—none of it scared me. I wanted to destroy him. I wanted to rise up, absorb another shot, and make him feel pain and loss. I wanted him to cry instead of laugh, to hurt, to wail in agony, to know what it felt like to see people you care about lifeless on a country road. But Clint was beyond my reach. Men like him are beyond the reach of normal punishment, of real justice, making their violence all the more infuriating. If he lived it would be to gloat; if he died I was sure it would be by his own hand.

  Mack was still facedown on the pavement, showing no signs of life. My legs wobbled, and I knelt beside him, gunshots ringing into the country air, giving a triple crackle with each report as they echoed off the trees in the distance. Maybe Clint would come back for more bullets. Maybe Regina would stir, or give me some last words, or somehow be capable of living with her injury. Miracles could happen, couldn’t they? She simply could not be dead; we had not discussed her note yet. She still had good news to tell me.

  I stared into the sky, the stars masked by wisps of clouds that could not strangle their brightness. I think I smiled at how pretty it was. I heard Mack groan a little, stirring, perhaps regaining consciousness at the very moment I was drifting away.

  * * *

  Clint violated Regina with the barrel of his father’s .44 Magnum Colt Anaconda before putting his own flesh to work. Large-bore pistols were favorite novelty items for the hunting enthusiasts in the area, and despite the mule kick of that particular hand cannon, he handled it like a savage professional. The slugs disintegrated my hand and turned most of Mack’s shoulder into tendon shreds and bone dust. Yet another slug had killed Regina, leaving three in the barrel. He calmly reloaded on his way to the party, and killed three more kids with his next five shots. With one bullet left, he swallowed the barrel and pulled the trigger. I imagined him tasting Regina’s blood and juices mixed with gunmetal, the barrel burning his lips around the mix, gagging him with it, making it easy to pull the trigger.

  In times like this, people ask why. They try to assign blame. I remember the look in Clint’s eyes when we were banging on neighborhood mailboxes. He was crumbling inside, and when the damage was complete, he’d have the backbone for his endgame. For Clint, the humiliation of me thrashing him publicly, along with Mack besting him by messing around with Regina, had completed the collapse. After that, pulling the trigger was easy. It didn’t stop everyone from asking questions, from wondering what video games he played, what movies he watched, what his parents were like. They scoured his phone for text messages, for music playlists, for Internet browsing habits. They groped for reasons, as they always did. They found nothing. I drifted in and out of a numb haze. My hand hurt like hell, each pulse blooming into an explosive throb that made me want to scream. I wanted to stay passed out, but the real truth is pain does not release you; it doesn’t let go. It settles in and gets comfortable until drugs or time chase it away, and even then, sometimes it hides, whispering at all the wrong times.

  I remember headlights and sirens, chatter and spotlights, stretchers and parental screams. The flickering lamps of an ambulance. Uniformed people asking me questions I didn’t answer. A medic called me a lucky boy as he inserted an IV.

  I don’t have nightmares anymore, but most nights, before drifting to sleep, I can’t help but see her. Too many times I felt more sorry for myself than for Regina. I can admit that. I had no misconceptions about who I was. I knew something was broken inside of me, but I had no strategy to fix it and no hope of finding one.

  The note she’d left in my locker stays in my top dresser drawer, but I don’t know why. She’s gone. All that remains is a body under a dome light staring at me with one blue eye, seeing a true part of me I could no longer hide.

  EIGHT

  Tape and gauze smothered my partial ear. My hand was bandaged so completely it felt like a club. Even with the painkillers, I had trouble sleeping. A nurse checked the various electronics attached to me and woke me up. I saw Mom asleep on an easy chair pulled up beside my bed, her purse on her lap. It was two in the morning and I didn’t wake her. She looked terrible, tired, sick. Each day I noticed something different about her, but on that night, I noticed her breath, her ease of sleep. Perhaps it was just the emotional aftershock, but I finally knew how bad it was. My sobbing woke her up. She scrambled to my side, taking my healthy hand, sandwiching it in hers, crying along with me, kissing my cheek, our tears mixing on the palette of my flesh, the sterile, sour smell of tape and gauze blending wi
th perfume that reminded me of cherries.

  I squeezed her against me with my good limb.

  “Mack?” I whispered.

  “I saw him earlier. He’s going to be fine.”

  “Fine for a normal person, or fine for him? How bad is he hurt?”

  “He was shot in the shoulder,” she said. “They’re going to do some surgery, but his life is not in danger.”

  “Which shoulder?”

  “The right one.”

  “Then his life is in danger,” I said.

  She leaned over my bed, her legs wobbling and weak.

  “Mom, sit. I’m doing fine.”

  Sobs gobbled up her words. She put the back of her hand to her mouth, as if to excuse herself, then sat. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “I’m just so happy you’re okay.” Then she lost it, doubling over into her hands, the rise and fall of her back betraying every crippling sob.

  We cried together, apart, for different pieces of ourselves that were dead or dying. I finally asked. “Mom what’s wrong with you? Please just tell me.”

  She sniffled, breathed, then shrugged. “I’m not sure.”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “Yes. Oh yes, of course,” she said, lying. She smoothed my hair, smiled at me until I fell asleep again.

  The next day, I was up and around, a deep itch burning under the gauze of my ear and hand. The doctor called it normal, the itch of healing, a good sign. My hand had been operated on to clean things up, screw some things together. Half my ear was gone, but my hearing was intact. This was worse than any “healing” itch I’d ever experienced. The flame of this itch was like poison ivy blossoming under the skin, an itch that destroys your regard for your own flesh, making you want to scratch so deep there’s nothing left but bone.

  When Mack could take visitors, I headed up to see him. He had most of his right side wrapped in bandages. He was fresh out of surgery, his eyes shiny with drugs. We clamped our hands together and leaned into a clumsy hug.