Faceless Read online

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  PART I: SUMMER

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  PART II: FALL

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  TWENTY-FIVE

  TWENTY-SIX

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  PART III: WINTER

  TWENTY-NINE

  THIRTY

  THIRTY-ONE

  THIRTY-TWO

  THIRTY-THREE

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THIRTY-FIVE

  THIRTY-SIX

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  PART IV: SPRING

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  THIRTY-NINE

  FORTY

  FORTY-ONE

  FORTY-TWO

  FORTY-THREE

  FORTY-FOUR

  FORTY-FIVE

  FORTY-SIX

  FORTY-SEVEN

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  My best friend, Serena, doesn’t understand why I run. She said once that of all the different forms of working out, she thought running seemed like the absolute worst. The most punishing. Of course, Serena does yoga.

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  As far as I’m concerned, nothing feels better than a run, especially on a morning like this. It’s early; the fog is still hanging heavy over the bay. I have the town almost to myself—just me and the dog walkers and the deliverymen, all of us making our way through the thick morning air. It’s almost May, but at this hour, it’s barely in the fifties. Perfect running weather. I alternate each step with an exhalation. My breath clouds the air in front of me and I race right through it.

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  The funny thing about running is that everything hurts. Not just the obvious parts: calves and quads, ankles and glutes. No, my stomach hurts, every muscle straining to help me make the next step, especially when I’m going uphill, like I am now. My shoulders hurt, aching in the joints from which I swing my arms to propel myself forward. I always do whatever I can to keep from focusing on the pain. When I was studying for my SATs, I used this time to test myself on vocabulary words. Before that, I listened to music as loud as I could, like I thought I could drown the pain out. Right now, I’m going over—moment for moment, word for word—the events of last night. When Chirag finally asked me to junior prom.

  If I’m honest, maybe that’s why I’m out here this morning instead of sleeping in like the rest of the world. Why should I sleep when it’s so much more fun to be awake, thinking about what happened last night?

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  It’s not like I didn’t think he was going to ask me. We’ve been going out since January; of course he was going to ask me. But I didn’t know how he was going to ask me, and I certainly didn’t think he was going to show up on my doorstep at nine o’clock on a Tuesday night with a dozen red roses and a sign that read: Maisie Winters, I love you. Will you go to prom with me?

  We’d never said I love you before.

  I didn’t let him inside. I stepped out onto the porch, shut the door tight behind me, and opened my mouth to say I love you, too. But the sound of my parents fighting, audible even through the closed door, stopped me.

  We heard my father’s shouts, loud and clear. Something about the dishes he’d left in the sink for days.

  “Why didn’t you just put them in the dishwasher if they bothered you so much?”

  “Because it’s not my job to clean up after you. And I wanted to see just how long you’d let them sit there before you realized you’d left a mess for me to clean up.”

  “So the dishes were some kind of test I didn’t know I was taking?”

  “Yes, a test you failed—”

  I don’t think they even care what they’re fighting about anymore. I think they just fight because they’ve forgotten that there’s any other way to communicate. But anyway, the sound of their shouts kind of put a damper on the whole love thing. So I didn’t say I love you back. Instead, I pushed Chirag down the front steps and toward his car in our driveway. I’d done this at least a dozen times before—dragged him away from our house during one of my parents’ many epic battles. Undoubtedly, Chirag knew why he was being pushed backward so rapidly that we nearly fell down the front-porch stairs, but he was sensitive enough not to mention it. Instead he grinned, because with every step I repeated the word Yes. Yes, yes, yes, I’ll go to prom with you.

  When he left, I worried that maybe I’d done the wrong thing. Maybe I should have said I love you, too before he drove away. But then, he didn’t actually say he loved me, so maybe I wasn’t supposed to say it back. Maybe it doesn’t technically, officially count until it’s said out loud. Maybe there’s some strict etiquette about I love yous that I don’t know because it’s never happened to me before. Late last night, I actually considered putting it in a note of my own, just so that we’d be perfectly even.

  Now I blink, brushing some sweat from my eyelids, and picture his liquid brown eyes staring at me, crinkling at the edges as his lips widen into a smile. We’re polar opposites, physically at least. I have red hair and blue eyes and pale skin dotted with too many freckles. He has caramel skin without a single blemish. To Chirag, my freckles are exotic. He once told me he thought they were sexy, like hundreds of tiny tattoos.

  We’re going out tonight. Maybe I’ll say it then. If he says it first, then I’ll definitely say it. I practice the words now, saying them aloud softly in between heaving breaths: I love you, too. I love you, too. I love you, too. I break into a sprint, panting. Each word is an effort. This is the last hill before I’ll turn back and start running home. I just have to make it around one more curve. Sweat trickles down my neck, beneath my ponytail, getting caught somewhere in my sweatshirt.

  I found the dress I want to wear to prom in a magazine over a month ago. It’s green and silky and practically backless. It even has a matching headpiece, the same shade of green, for me to pin my long hair around. It’s expensive, but I think I can convince my mom. It’s the least she can do after last night. Typical of my parents to ruin one of the most important moments of my life with their fighting. But I’ll have to work up the nerve to wear the headpiece to the dance anyway. With my red hair, a green sort-of hat could look like I’m dressed up as a Christmas elf or a leprechaun or something. I showed Serena a picture of the dress the other night and she thought that I could totally pull it off, but I’m not convinced yet.

  I turn around and start the trek home. This is the easiest part of my run; mostly downhill and with the promise of a hot shower and breakfast once I make it back. I don’t notice the first few raindrops; they mix in with my sweat. But as the rain increases, it becomes impossible to ignore. Serena would say that I should’ve looked at the forecast before I decided to run this morning. Serena wouldn’t understand that I rolled out of bed hours before my alarm went off, got dressed in the dark, and jogged out the front door without even looking at myself in the mirror, let alone at a weather report.

  I’m keeping this run short, just in case Chirag wants to run together after school later. When we run together, it always turns into a competition, a dozen tiny races along the way. Who can get to the end of this street faster? Who
can make it up the hill first? Who can jump highest over the tree stump on my corner? I won’t mind a second workout today. I never miss an excuse to spend more time with him—or anything at all that keeps me out of the house, and away from my parents’ fighting, just a little bit longer.

  Only a few blocks left; I can see the tree stump from here. It was an enormous oak once, but it was struck by lightning years ago. Its branches crashed through the windows of the nearest house; the trunk fell flat across the street and caused some kind of massive car accident. No one ever bothered getting rid of the stump, though. Apparently, its roots were so deep that digging it up would have been really expensive. They’d have had to cut off the plumbing to half the neighborhood. At least that’s what my father told me. Maybe he was just trying to scare me from going outside in a thunderstorm, like I am right now.

  The rain turns icy cold, snaking its way under my sweatshirt and into my sneakers. I shiver. The first crack of thunder makes me jump. I break into a sprint; I can almost see our house from here. Anyway, I shouldn’t be such a baby, scared of a little thunder and lightning. When I was younger, I’d crawl into my parents’ bed during thunderstorms, settle myself right in between them. I couldn’t do that now if I wanted to. My father started sleeping in the den months ago.

  Lightning streaks across the sky, breaking up the fog, drenching my neighborhood in light. For a split second, everything is completely clear, as bright as if it were the middle of the day and not six in the morning. It takes me a second to realize that I’ve stopped running, that I’m standing still.

  Another crack of lightning, closer now, and I spin around in the direction of the sound. Behind me, a tree has been hit, just a few yards away from the tree stump. Who ever said that lightning didn’t strike twice in the same place? A blackened branch hangs on to the tree’s trunk by just a few fibers of wood, draped down over the electrical wires, or phone wires, or whatever they are, dancing in the wind, setting off sparks that look almost like fireworks.

  I should get moving, go on home, take off these soaked clothes and sit on top of the radiator until I’m warm. But for some reason, I find myself rooted in this spot, staring at the embers flying down. It’s strange to see sparks even as the rain grows stronger, stranger still when they ignite into flames. There is an audible whoosh as the fire travels up the branch of the tree, a crisp sort of crackling as the leaves begin to burn, filling the air with tiny pieces of white ash. I taste smoke in the back of my throat, so thick and heavy that I think I might retch.

  I press my hands to my face when the branch finally snaps from the tree, dragging the wires to the ground with an enormous crash every bit as loud as the thunder.

  Another flash of lightning illuminates the sky, but my neighborhood is already saturated with light from the fire and the sparks coming off the wires. When they hit the wet ground, they sizzle.

  I close my eyes and listen: The sizzles sound almost like whispers.

  Hiss, hiss, hissssssssssss.

  It feels like swimming. No, I wasn’t swimming. I was running.

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  “She’s moving!” someone shouts. My father’s voice. But what’s he doing here, on my run? We haven’t run together in years. He can’t keep up with me anymore.

  Step, breath. Step, breath.

  Slowly, I become aware that I’m not standing. That my feet aren’t pounding the pavement but flailing around, trapped under tightly tucked covers. The sensation of swimming had nothing at all to do with water, but swimming up into consciousness after a long, deep sleep.

  “Hurry, please!” My mother’s voice this time. “She’s moving!”

  Why are they shouting like it’s some kind of miracle that I’m moving? I move every minute of every day. I even move in my sleep—I toss and turn, one of those people who can’t stay in the same position all night.

  A deep voice that I don’t recognize says my name once, twice. He shines a bright light in my eyes. “Dilated,” he murmurs. Louder: “She’s going to drift in and out of consciousness for the next hour or so. Don’t be surprised if she’s a little fuzzy for a while.”

  It takes me a second to realize that the man with the deep voice isn’t talking to me, but about me. I open my mouth to speak, but sleep sneaks up on me again, swallowing my questions before they have a chance to escape.

  This happens at least three more times that I can remember—I move, my parents shout, the man with the deep voice shines a light in my eyes and I fall back to sleep—but the fourth time, my eyes finally stay open.

  The skin surrounding my eyes is wrapped up in something thick and bulky so that I have tunnel vision: I can see only what’s directly in front of me, and since I’m lying on my back, all I can see is the ceiling, painted a sticky sort of light blue that someone probably thought looked like the sky.

  I try to speak, but my voice is nothing more than the thinnest of croaks, as though I haven’t had anything to drink for weeks. My throat feels like it’s made of sandpaper and my lips feel like there are dozens of tiny needles pricking them over and over.

  “Mom?” I whisper. I try to clear my throat, lick my lips, swallow, but everything is dry. My lips are cracked and when I stick my tongue out to lick them, I feel something foreign on my face.

  I think it’s bandages. I think I’m in the hospital.

  “Mom?” I croak. I try to roll over but my left side feels like it weighs a thousand pounds. I can’t roll over.

  “I’m here, honey.” My mother’s voice sounds soft and soothing, nothing like it sounded when she shouted for help earlier. I try to lift my head to see her face, but I can’t actually turn my neck. My head feels like it’s encased in plaster. Maybe it is. I begin to sweat, a string of panic twisting its way through my rib cage. What happened to me?

  My mother must position herself so that her face is directly above mine, because finally I can see her hovering above me. The string of panic tightens when I see the expression on her face. I’ve never seen her look so frightened. She looks about ten years older than she did the last time I saw her.

  My god, this must be bad. My heart starts beating hard, so fast that a nearby machine begins to wail.

  “Sweetheart,” she says, trying to reach for me, but I shake my head. Or I try to shake my head. I can’t move my neck. Oh god, I’m paralyzed. Oh god, I broke my spine and I’ll never run again. I’m going to be one of those people who sit in a wheelchair and move it forward by blowing into a tube.

  No. Get a grip, Maisie. I was able to move my legs before. They saw me moving my legs. I kick them now, just to make sure I can. I exhale deeply, my throat still parched, but my heart begins to slow. The machine resumes its steady beep. Listening carefully, I guess that it must be right next to the bed, just above me on the right.

  “Water,” I croak. It’s hard to make words from beneath whatever it is that’s wrapped around my face. The word comes out sounding like wa-wa, but my mother must understand because she nods, then disappears. She doesn’t go far; she’s just moving to get a cup of water from my bedside table, but that’s outside of my field of vision.

  “Is it okay?” my mother asks.

  Another female voice answers, “Just a little.”

  “Who’s that?” I ask. I wish I could see. I wish I could sit up. I wish I could move.

  “One of your nurses,” Mom says. “Anna.”

  Then Mom reappears. She holds a cup to my mouth and I use a straw to drink, even though it hurts my lips. I hold it with my teeth instead. Water has never tasted so good. I could drink ten, twenty, thirty glasses of water. I swish the water around in my mouth, wetting all the places that feel so dry.

  “Not too much, sweetie,” my mother says, pulling the cup away, her face back to its place above mine. What’s wrong with me that water is dangerous?

  Footsteps; someone coming into the room.

  “Give her a chance, Sue,” says another voice. My father’s this time. “She hasn’t had anything to
drink for nearly a month.”

  It’s hard to drink lying so flat and water goes down the wrong tube. I cough—or anyway, I try to cough, but it’s hard when you’re as immobilized as I am. What does he mean, I haven’t had anything to drink for nearly a month? I must have misheard him. Every sound is muffled through whatever it is that’s wrapped around my head.

  “What happened to me?” Even after the water, my voice sounds strange. I can barely move my mouth: Wha happa ta ma?

  “You’re in the hospital,” Dad says, not answering my question. I can’t see his face but it sounds like he’s standing at the foot of my bed. There’s room for only one person in my limited field of vision and it’s still my mother.

  He adds, “The burn unit of the hospital. Do you remember your accident?”

  I keep forgetting that I can’t shake my head. The burn unit. The panic string in my chest tightens. A burn unit is not a good place to be.

  “You were running,” Dad prompts. It’s strange to hear his voice, feel his presence in the room, without seeing his face. “There was a storm.”

  “Lightning,” I say, remembering. The words come out muffled, as if my mouth were stuffed with gauze. “I was struck by lightning?”

  My question is met with silence at first. Another time, another place, that question would be a joke. No one is actually struck by lightning, right? I mean, I know somewhere, someway, people are. But it’s really really rare, right? Nervous sweat drips down my neck, seeping into my bandages. Finally, my mother says, “She can’t see you shaking your head, Graham.”

  “There was a fire,” Dad answers finally. There’s something weird in his voice, like he can barely stand saying the word fire out loud. Mom leaves my side for a moment; I hear her shoes clicking on the floor as she crosses the room. Is she going to hug my father? I can’t remember the last time I saw them so much as shake hands.

  Whatever’s wrong with me, it must be really bad if she’s comforting him.

  My heart starts to pound again. I beg it not to go so fast that the machine starts screeching again, concentrating the same way I do when I run and I’m trying to save up my energy for the final sprint. But my will isn’t strong enough to overcome my body, at least not this time, because the machine starts to wail. I hear footsteps and the sound stops—the nurse, Anna, must have turned off the machine.