Touch

Why am I here? It was a question I had never wondered about. And then one day, in a totally random and senseless act—because of some reckless asshole’s fuck-up—everything changed.

“We’re all here for a reason,” a friend’s mother tried to convince me. “Things like this happen in order to help shape us into the people we’re meant to be.” She stroked her palm tenderly over my cheek. “Nature’s chisel is chipping away at you, my dear, and she’s apparently chosen you to be one of her most beautiful.”

“But what if you’re wrong?” I asked. To which she replied . . .

“What if I’m not?”

~

“The two most important days of your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.” ~Mark Twain

~

We all thought we knew the reason Dad decided to move. Dad probably did, too.

Chapter 1

I don’t remember the moments before I was catapulted headfirst into the shallow end of shock. But I’ll never forget the look on Dad’s face when he got the call, his phone dropping to the floor when he lost his grip. The chill that shuddered through me with the noise that came from him, difficult to describe—not a wail or a scream, just a noise.

Some pretty big things happened after I was blindsided by grief. For instance, everything that was once important became completely insignificant: The end-of-year school trip I’d waited months for, counting down the weeks, then the days, planning what I would wear, who I would sit with on the bus . . . What school trip? The day came and went and it never even entered my mind. The super-expensive art set I begged my parents day in and day out to get me for my birthday, complete with post-it reminders strategically placed around the house. How could I care about material things when the most important person in my life no longer existed as a material being?

And my birthday? As in, the one special day of the year that took place only two weeks after the most tragic day of my life? I hated my birthday now. I never wanted to think about it again.

Everything that once grounded me ceased to exist. Like someone cut the tethers that held me in place, and I became a free-floating balloon that drifted aimlessly before landing, deflated, in some unknown place, so far off course I had no idea how to get back. The tides at my favorite beach came in and out, and back in again, and while everyone around me moved on with their lives, I remained stuck, lonely, and stumbling over every step I took, collapsing more and more inside myself, until I became unrecognizable to everyone. Including myself.

And then . . . finally . . . as the first sliver of light cracked through the darkness . . . I experienced another massive blow.

~

“Only about twenty more minutes,” Dad said, the windshield wipers of the U-Haul squeaking intermittently back and forth, the weather the same miserable rainy it had been through the last three states.

The devastation that tore through me when he announced we were moving felt like a fist clamped down on my heart and twisted. If there was anything that came even close to the pain of losing the person closest to me, it was leaving the place that possessed every last memory I had of them. No conversation, no hint that it was even a thought, he just woke us up one morning and told us to start packing.

Two weeks. Only fourteen days—sorry, thirteen and a half—to absorb and preserve every sight, sound, and smell that reminded me. A process that scraped every nerve ending raw.

“You’re going to kill your eyes.” He glanced at me struggling to read in the dark cab of the truck.

“Whatever.” Why care about my eyes when my spirit was already dead?

One Thousand Reasons. My friend Claire’s mother, Mom’s best friend, gave me the book when we left with hopes it would help me understand why things kept happening the way they did. She, somehow, still believed everything happened for a reason.

Our worst moments are often our most defining.

A dead mother, a barely-there father, a complete lack of friends. Yeah, I could agree with that.

The heated leather under my legs did little to warm me on the chilly night, so I turned the heat up a notch.

“I saw that,” Dad said with a smile in his tone, his eyes never shifting from the road.

Of course, he did. It was the same thing he said every time, right before finding some stealth way to turn it back down. He’d put in extra effort the whole trip to try to keep the mood as light as possible to make up for such a cataclysmic jolt to our lives.

“I think your brothers will have had enough of driving for a while,” he commented to keep up conversation. Eighteen hundred miles alone with him while Josh and Bobby drove our two cars and there hadn’t been much. And what little there was felt forced or like meaningless small talk. But what really was there to say? Thanks for leaving us to fend for ourselves for the past four years while you sunk yourself in work to avoid your own grief? For not noticing how much all three of us struggled too? Or how about, thanks for finally stepping up just as I’d crawled my own way out of the abyss, only for you to throw me right back in for the sake of the one who hadn’t put in any effort at all.

The list of things I would probably never experience again continued to grow:

Waterfalls.

The ocean, burying my toes in the sand at the beach.

None of it had happened anytime recently, but it would’ve again eventually. At least I’d hoped.

The art exploration program at the college. Months of just trying to get Dad to look into it and he’d finally signed me up.

“In one mile, turn right,” the overly-chirpy voice of the GPS said. The road was dark, desolate. A grim sign of what was to come.

A deer flashed through the high beams of Dad’s car that Josh drove up ahead. His tires screeched.

Dad slammed on the brakes. My book flew from my lap as the seatbelt bit into my chest.

Bobby, between us, missed the beat. He plowed into Josh with a bang. He fishtailed in front of us and his rear end went off the road into a ditch.

The tires of the truck hollered as Dad and I skidded. The smell of burnt rubber blitzed my nose as we slid in a straight line toward Bobby.

I dug my fingernails into the seat as Dad pumped the brakes to slow us. The holler of our tires turned to a squeal.

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. I squeezed my eyes shut.

My head whipped forward as we jarred to a stop.

A cloud of white swallowed us. As it dissipated, the Maxima shone in our headlights.

“Holy shit.” Fifteen more feet and we would’ve hit Bobby smack dab in the middle of his driver’s side door.

Steam billowed from his hood.

“Goddammit.” Dad’s knuckles were white around the steering wheel. “Are you okay?” He looked to me.

I nodded, and he heaved open his door and lunged from the truck.

Ducking from the drizzle, he made a beeline for Bobby. He must’ve seen he was okay, he raised a finger to him to wait and rushed to Josh. He ripped the driver’s side door open and invaded the space between Josh and the steering wheel.

Dear God, please . . .

Dad’s mouth moved as if talking.

He stepped away from the car and his hands went to his hips as he inhaled a chest-expanding breath.

I let out the one I was holding and tore off my seat belt as I pulled at the hard plastic of my door handle. Bobby also got out.

Josh got out of Dad’s car as we converged on him.

“What the hell was that?” Bobby’s eyes bulged.

“Did you not see the deer?” Josh shouted.

“So you had to jack up on your friggin’ brakes?”

Josh shook. “Are you okay?” I needed to make sure.

He sucked in a breath and nodded.

“Friggin’ idiot,” Bobby said.

“Seriously?” I asked him. “Were you even paying attention?” I gripped the long ends of my sleeves, shivering more from the adrenaline rush than the cold. Despite my loathing for him—as well as the fact he’d only had his license a few months—I couldn’t deny that he was actually a pretty good driver. There’d been plenty of space between them. He should’ve had enough time to stop.

“Shut your hole, Meg. Go get back in the truck.”

“Enough,” Dad said, his hand pressed to his stomach in a sure sign of relief.

I turned to the car the boys shared. There wasn’t any damage to the frame, but steam still forced its way through the seams of the hood and green fluid trickled onto the ground from underneath it.

“What the hell are we gonna do now?” Bobby asked, glaring at the wrecked vehicle that would’ve provided him the best escape from his “intolerable” family.

Dad lifted a palm to fend him off. “Bob, just relax a minute.”

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Josh apologized. “I really didn’t mean—”

“It was a natural response, Josh. It’s not your fault.”

“Like hell, it’s not,” Bobby said. “Thanks to him, now we’re out our friggin’ ride. Idiot.”

“Robert.” Dad took in a breath. “Why don’t you go wait in the truck.”

“Fine by me.” He started walking.

“Megan, go with him,” he said to me a little softer. “There’s no point in you standing out here in the rain.”

It was dark and late and I was already glazed from the mist, if I stood there any longer it would soak in. So I, too, turned back for the U-Haul carrying our entire existence.

Bobby stole my seat, so I hoisted up and in from the driver’s side and sat next to him in the middle.

“It could’ve been worse,” I said, pulling my sweatshirt from the floor and draping it over me. “At least no one got hurt.” We certainly knew something about that.

“Yeah. Good thing.”

Such a jerk.

As Bobby, in his royal blue T-shirt a size too big and his dusky hair barely damp, reached for the knob for the heat, Dad, with Josh quivering from the cold next to him, pulled out his cell phone.

“Do you really think Dad’s not gonna smell you?” I asked as I scraped my own soggy mess to the back of my head. He reeked of pot, and if Dad hadn’t already, he surely would.

“Drink bleach, Meg.”

“It wasn’t his fault, you know.” I secured my skimpy ponytail with the elastic from my wrist.

“Oh, it wasn’t? It was necessary for him to almost kill his entire family over a friggin’ animal? Oh, I’m sorry. What’s left of his family?”

He really made my head spin. “It’s called compassion,” I said. “Maybe you could try having a little. Besides, it was apparently just as necessary for you to get high.”

“Shut up.”

“So, what, were you taking a hit, not paying attention?”

Bobby shook his head at the windshield with the same disgruntled squint of his eyes. “Seriously, Meg, shut the fuck up.”

“I’m not gonna shut up. You ruined my life.” Josh, the non-guilty party, still stood outside, drops forming on the ends of his hair.

Bobby gasped. “I ruined your life? What life? And get it straight. I’m not the reason we’re here. We’re here because Dad was sick of finding dead kids.”

“Yeah, and he didn’t want you being one of them. Do you not get that?”

He huffed.

Dad finished his call and walked over to the Maxima, its front wheels on the pavement, rear wheels off the road at a forty-five-degree angle. He opened the driver’s side door and leaned in, his arm going directly under the seat.

He apparently didn’t find what he was looking for, so he got in and reached for the glove box.

He re-emerged and started for the truck.

Dad’s contentment from minutes before as we crossed the line into the county decayed, and the gauzy skin of his face showed deep lines of disgust as he pulled open the door and lifted a half-smoked joint and full baggy of marijuana into view.

Bobby’s thin blue irises remained forward.

“We’re not there yet, Bob.” Dad was composed, but it was clear he struggled. “I meant what I said. You have seven more miles to wash yourself of this. Going from big-city commissioner to small-town chief, I’m going from never around to always around. I assure you I am not someone you want to be stuck in the house with.”

Bobby’s view stayed fastened out the windshield.

“Get out of the truck,” Dad said. “You wait in the rain.”

Dad asked me for his jacket and stood outside with Bobby. Josh pulled Dad’s car to the side of the road and waited there.

What a shitshow.

We were in the middle of nowhere.

I retrieved the book from the floor where it landed, intent on finding a reason for all the massive suckage.

Hardships develop our strengths. We don’t truly know ourselves or our potential until we’ve been tested.

If there really was a bigger picture, I was definitely being tested.

I read a couple chapters and skipped ahead. Claire’s mother dog-eared pages she highlighted passages on.

Everybody has a battle ahead of them. It’s easy to give up. True strength comes when you push forward no matter the outlook.

The outlook. Right.

The people we encounter are put in our path for a reason. We all have a unique and special purpose, each one of us with a gift to share.

Sure. I could share my ability to fail miserably at all things life.

Really, I was desperate to know my purpose.

Claire’s mother meant well, but there wasn’t anything this book could convince me of right now. My entire world, which seemed perpetually stuck on some sort of emotional fault line, had shifted under my feet yet again.

Yellow lights flashed in the distance. The tow truck. Thank God.

It came from the direction we were headed. It stopped when it reached Dad’s car and the driver got out and tromped through the rain. He extended his hand to Dad. Dad greeted him with the best smile he could manage.

The driver looked between our three vehicles. He asked Dad a question, and when Dad answered, recognition lit the man’s face and he reached to shake Dad’s hand again. Dad’s smile was more genuine as he repeated the gesture. The two continued talking and I rolled down my window to the cool, wet air.

“Well, it doesn’t look like it’s too bad, probably just a busted radiator,” the man said, already saturated, his T-shirt slicked to his muscular chest. He pushed his wet hair out of his face. “I could put it on the bed, but I can probably just pull it out and tow it.

“It’s not going far, just tow it,” Dad said.

The man went to get his truck.

It roared forward, then sounded a warning beep as it reversed.

It was hair-raising to watch him try to maneuver on the narrow road. He nearly disabled himself in the opposite ditch trying to back up in line with the boys’ awkwardly positioned car.

The people we encounter are put in our path for a reason.

Skip, already read.

“I can bring it to my garage and fix it for you,” the man said as he got out again. “Unless you plan on doing it yourself.”

“Oh, Lord, no,” Dad said. “I haven’t touched a car in over two decades.”

The people we encounter . . .

I couldn’t concentrate.

As Bobby stood with his arms folded next to Dad in the cold rain, a boy appearing somewhere near Josh’s or Bobby’s age appeared from the opposite side of the flatbed. He was Bobby’s height, at least, and his blond hair, not tied back in any sort of way, was more than twice as long as mine.

He didn’t acknowledge anyone as he started hooking the car to the truck.

“So, are you related to Vance Brennar?” the man asked Dad. “That can’t be a coincidence.”

Brennar wasn’t exactly the most common name.

“Yup. Vance is my brother. He’s why we’re here.”

“No shit.” The man exuded an air of acceptance. “Yeah, he’s a good guy. He’s got two boys, don’t he?”

Dad nodded, smiling still, despite the situation and the elements.

The boy hooking the car up attached a cable, and then leaned into the car and altered the position of the shifter. If not for his light features, he would’ve blended with the night.

As the tow driver talked with Dad, the boy got behind the wheel of the truck and started it forward. In less than a minute, the car was out of the ditch and on the wet pavement.

The driver looked to Bobby as the boy got back out. “So, I guess you were the one driving?”

Bobby, arms hugged across his chest, rolled his eyes and looked away.

“Yeah, he was messing around, not paying attention,” Dad answered for him.

“Well, boys will be boys,” the man said with an affirming tilt of his head. “Isn’t that right, Shawn?” he asked over his shoulder.

The boy didn’t acknowledge him, just continued what he did.

“Hey, we’ve been there, right?” the man said to Dad, the edges of his mouth turned up. “So I assume you’re taking up in the old Colonial out on Junction Road?”

Nice that he knew where we lived before we did.

Dad nodded again. “Yup. That small of a town, huh?”

“Can’t get much smaller. If calm and peaceful is what you’re looking for, you’ve found it. Just stay out of range of my garage between the hours of eight and four. It’s probably the most noise you’ll hear.”

The boy braced the wheels, then attached two chains from the back of the tow truck to something underneath the car. He pressed a button and the car started up from the ground.

“Give me a couple days,” the man said to Dad. “I’m replacing an engine right now. No more than three, though, I expect.”

“No problem. Take your time. This one won’t be driving for a while, anyway.” Dad nodded at Bobby.

The sopping wet tow driver pulled himself up into his truck and waited for the boy who I imagined by his appearance was his son.

Once finished securing the car, the boy turned for the truck. Without a single word spoken, or even a look in anyone’s direction the entire time he was there, as he looped around, he glanced ever so momentarily up at me.

It was a quick glimpse, but his eyes connected directly with mine, and they were so fiercely light they startled me.