Can't Look Away Read online

  “Why?”

  “My answer will cost you ten push-ups.”

  “You can’t be serious.”

  But he is.

  “I don’t want to be stared at,” he says. “I work out. You work out.”

  Reluctantly, I drop down on my knees beside him. He’s already in a perfect plank position and holding it. He glances sideways at me.

  “Like this.” Effortlessly, he lowers himself slowly to the ground and back up again.

  I let my arms hold my weight and lower my body. I barely know how to do a push-up. Exercise was always more of Miranda’s thing. She loved being outside in all the dirt and sweat. Me? Not so much. I’ve never lifted a weight in my life, and right now it’s definitely showing. I’m lucky to have my dad’s build — tall and naturally thin. I struggle through six more push-ups before I go down and stay down.

  “What’s an ofrenda?” I mumble into the mat.

  “You didn’t make it to ten,” he says, still doing push-ups.

  I drag myself up off the mat with a groan and sit back against the mirror, glaring at him. “Really?”

  “Okay. Okay.” He’s grinning now and still doing push-ups. “During el Día de los Muertos families usually decorate the graves with ofrendas, or offerings. Ofrendas can be favorite foods or possessions. The idea is whatever made the dead happy in life, they are to have again.”

  Like a moonstone bracelet to keep away the nightmares? I push that thought down. I don’t even know where that silly bracelet is now. What did make Miranda happy in life? Do I even know anymore? That’s a big problem if I want to tell a courtroom full of people about the impact of her death. I stretch one arm out across my body to ease the tightness.

  “So, for example, what would be a good ofrenda for you?” Luis asks.

  I answer quickly without much thought, “My Marc Jacobs python tote.”

  He laughs at that. “So you get the idea.”

  He picks up a fifteen-pound weight off the rack and hands it to me. “Triceps curls with squats. I’ll show you.”

  I glare at him in the mirror, but he ignores me, raising the thirty-pound weight up and down behind his back. The curve of the muscle under his shoulder moves and hardens. He glances over to see me watching.

  “Feet shoulder-width apart. Now sit back like you’re sitting down in a chair. Like this.”

  Reluctantly, I stand and pick up the weight in front of me.

  “When you put stress on a muscle it can cause a tear — a rip. The body works to repair itself and makes the muscle even stronger.”

  I raise the weight up by my ear and back down again, feeling the underside of my arms burn.

  He keeps talking, completely ignoring my struggle. “It’s survival. The harder you work, the stronger a body gets. The heavier weight is interpreted as a threat. Pretty amazing, don’t you think?”

  “Great,” I say. Now my arms and thighs are screaming in pain. This is way too much trouble. Sweaty has never been a good look for me. I squat down three more times, raising and lowering the weight behind my head. Finally, I give up, putting the weight on the floor in front of me, panting with the effort.

  “How do you live surrounded by all this” — I point up toward the ceiling and whatever is upstairs — “creepy stuff?” It surprises me how suddenly very important his answer is. “I mean, do you just … get used to it?”

  He doesn’t pretend to not understand what I’m talking about. “It’s normal for me. I did my homework at the kitchen table and my dad would work on rebuilding facial features on a blank Styrofoam head.” Luis leans over, picks up the weight off the floor, and slowly lifts it up to his shoulder, flexing his bicep. “Sometimes, with advanced decomposition, that’s a real challenge. He would tell me if my algebra equation was wrong and sometimes I’d tell him the ears were off. It wasn’t strange. It was just how it was.”

  “Isn’t that kind of morbid?” I ask.

  “You‘re asking me?” He laughs. “My whole life is morbid.”

  I think about telling him I understand, in a way. That since Miranda died, death has become a part of our family, too. But I don’t say anything.

  “I have to get cleaned up,” Luis says, putting the weights away. “Mrs. Haddock is always early.” He picks up his T-shirt off the bench. “She’s ninety-two and comes to every viewing. According to her, we have the best cookies. She likes to call all her friends who can’t drive anymore and tell them what the body was wearing.”

  He pulls the shirt on over his head, leaving his hair a dark, spiky mess. “If you want to talk more, I’m at the track most mornings before school. We can run while we talk.”

  “Run?” I say, my head still swirling with talk of ofrendas and skeletons, weights and muscles, living and dying.

  “You know how to run, right?” Luis says.

  “I know how. I just don’t do it unless someone’s chasing me.”

  He grins widely. “Okay, then. I’ll chase you.”

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  TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  Re: TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  Simplystylish wrote: That’s honestly so awful. I wonder if she’ll ever be back or if she won’t be able to recover.

  Re: Re: TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  Cheergirl wrote: If I were her, I’d put comments on approval. Some people are still talking about it on her videos.

  Re: Re: Re: TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  QueenPink wrote: Has anyone else noticed she hasn’t uploaded a video since it happened? I don’t think she’ll be back anytime soon.

  Re: Re: Re: Re: TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  RUMad wrote: Comments are on approval now. If she really wants to return to YouTube, I’m sure she will. I would need time too if I was her.

  Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TORREY’S SISTER KILLED

  LookNgood wrote: Her channel is back up. She hasn’t made a new video yet, but I have a feeling she will soon. Wonder if she’ll say anything about her sister.

  “You’re never alone on YouTube.” —Torrey Grey, Beautystarz15

  That night, after I come back from Luis’s house, I take a shower, change into a new outfit, and reapply my makeup. Then I set up to film a vlog in my bedroom.

  The online gossipers are right. The pressure is building. If I don’t post something soon, I’ll start losing subscribers. Now is the time to talk about Miranda’s death. It needs to be something simple — classic — just me talking to my subs and thanking them for all the support. Then everything can go back to normal.

  I adjust the lighting by pulling over my bedside lamp, but I’m not thinking about beauty and fashion. Instead I’m thinking about Luis. I think about his grandmother and her friend talking about dead people like it’s the most normal thing in the world. I think about his father re-creating noses at the kitchen table, but most of all I’m thinking about what Luis said about ofrendas.

  Whatever made the dead happy in life, they are to have again.

  How do you do that, exactly?

  I check to make sure the shot is tight, just a close-up of my face without any sign of the boring beige-walled bedroom. I turn on the camera, sit down in the chair, and stare into the lens.

  “Hello, Beauty Stars!” I give my signature wave and smile into the camera. “So I wanted to tell you all what I’ve been up to….” My voice trails off. For some reason, the look of my fingers distracts me.

  Sometimes I say I hate the way my fingers look. There’s really nothing wrong with them, but you have to hate something about how you look, right? When other girls say, “Oh, I hate my hair. It’s so curly,” or another one says, “My thighs are huge,” then I say, “I just hate my fingers. They are so stubby.” I figure why not make the hated body part something that really doesn’t count? Lately, though, I’ve been kind of thinking my fingers really are ugly. I stop the recording, watching my fingers carefully.
I’ll delete that clip. I push RECORD again.

  “Hello, Beauty Stars!” Do the wave again. Don’t focus on your fingers. “I’m so sorry I haven’t posted for so long. So many of you have tweeted to ask where I’ve been lately and I wanted to update you….”

  I stop recording, then watch the clip. Even with the extra lamp, the lighting is horrible. And you can make out a sliver of the wall behind me. A hint of the bedroom.

  The tour of my room back in Colorado was one of the most-viewed posts. There were countless comments on my pink walls, vintage pillows, and cute closet-organizing techniques. My subs will note the difference. How am I supposed to explain this? The face reflected in the monitor is like a ghost over the images on screen. My eyes look so tired. And sad. The tears well up and spill silently down my cheeks. It’s all too much. I don’t know where to start.

  I wipe my tears off my face with the back of one hand. The mascara has smeared. This isn’t what my fans sign on to watch. They want to see whether I’m wearing purple Toms or gray New Balance sneakers. They want me to tell them whether to buy a MAC 224 crease brush or a MAC 217 blending brush for their Bobbi Brown eye shadow. My vlogs are always supposed to be confident, inspirational, and delightfully personal. Viewers know all about me. They want to be me. It’s a big responsibility.

  My followers only know Miranda from the pics I posted under My Sister’s Fashion Don’ts. I took those down … after.

  It wasn’t like Miranda was ugly. Quite the opposite. If you looked, you could see the potential, but she just didn’t care. Her legs were strong from squatting down behind home plate as a catcher on her softball team. But she refused to listen to my advice about wearing short skirts to show them off. Instead she lived in sloppy hoodies and old jeans. She had this gorgeous mop of naturally curly blond hair, but there were usually huge knots in the back where the brush never touched.

  How hard is it to comb your hair? Honestly. For God’s sake, put it in a topknot or something.

  In preschool once, she put green Play-Doh all over her head. The teacher called and my mom had to go pick her up. Miranda had to get her hair cut to get it all out and it took forever to grow out again. When I asked her why she did it, she said, “Because I wanted to make a mold of my head,” like it was the most normal thing in the world. She was weird like that.

  I reach out and turn the camera on again.

  Tell everyone about Miranda. Tell how this has impacted you.

  I talk out loud, but the words aren’t planned.

  “I would like to thank Your Honor and this court for allowing me to speak today.” I pause for a moment to swallow, and then continue. “My name is Torrey Grey and I’m here to talk about my sister, Miranda.”

  My hands are clenched in my lap, knuckles white. I wish I had something to hold up — a skirt, a bangle, lip gloss.

  What could I show? Play-Doh? A moonstone bracelet?

  There is a stack of unmarked brown packing boxes that my dad instructed the movers to put in the far corner of the garage. If I were strong enough, I’d go out there, open one, and look at what was inside. I’d haul the pieces of Miranda back to share with everyone in that courtroom and beyond.

  Only I’m not strong enough. If I say it all out loud, to a camera or a courtroom or a stupid funeral home boy, I’ll start falling inward and I’ll never make it out again. All the guilt and pain and sadness will just explode inside my head. I can feel those emotional shards waiting just below my camera-ready shell to cut me into pieces.

  And then I’ll just end up a walking zombie like my mom.

  So I say nothing and the camera keeps filming for another two minutes of silence. Finally, I get out of the chair, turn off the camera, and get into bed. I don’t even take my makeup off. It just seems like too much trouble.

  Everything is different now. I’m different.

  My hand shaking, I reach for the bedside light and snap it off. I roll over onto my back. The walnut four-poster bed seems huge. My eyes slowly adjust to the dark and I watch the shadows of the slowly turning ceiling fan shatter the moonlight across the ceiling.

  The clock hits 11:12.

  11:13.

  11:14.

  Close your eyes. You won’t go to sleep this way.

  When Miranda was little, back when she was afraid of monsters and always came to my bedroom, we played a game. It was from a poem I read to her about being swallowed by a boa constrictor. I’d tell her the snake was eating her toes and then her legs and then her waist. She’d have to relax each body part I talked about and pretend she couldn’t even feel it anymore. She was always asleep before I would get to her neck. She thought it was so funny that a snake was swallowing her toes.

  But Miranda wasn’t a little kid when she died, and it had been a long time since we played the boa constrictor game at bedtime. For the last three years or so, I don’t even know what made her laugh. We only communicated by yelling at each other. No silly games and giggles. In the last moments of her life, we were arguing. But I don’t want to think about that now.

  Feel sleepy. Pretend you can’t feel your toes.

  Nothing happens. I roll over and face the wall. Random thoughts bounce around inside my brain. Day of the Dead. Ofrendas. Skeletons. My teeth clench, my jaw muscles are tight. If I don’t go to sleep soon, I’m going to go back to that new school with those ugly purple shadows under my eyes again. The darkness shifts and moves into deeper corners. I glance toward the closed door. There’s something moving on the doorframe. In that space between sleep and wakefulness, the hinges turn into dark, slithering snakes, crawling up and down the doorframe.

  I’m back in Boulder walking along the outdoor mall. The snow blows hard, swirling away all the other shoppers and faces, until all I see is the window of the store in front of me. The faceless model in the window is wearing a dress. A dress Miranda wore when she was eight — with a full red skirt and white tights that she was always tugging at. The wool hat with the bright red flowers is pulled just low enough on the blank head to keep the nonexistent ears warm, but it is the space between the hat and the dress that I can’t stop looking at. The missing face.

  Big blue eyes the color of mine. Long, wild blond curls. I can almost hear the laughter coming out of the nothingness. Almost …

  In the fuzziness of the dream, I put my hand flat against the glass, right up against the girl’s face. I close my dream eyes for just a minute but, when I open them, dirt pours in from the ceiling over my body and into my hair. I try to claw my way out. I open my mouth, but instead of air I suck in clumps of sand and dirt. I can’t breathe. I wake up to see the door creaking open. Miranda is finally here, but it isn’t Miranda. It’s a laughing skeleton. Her hands are outstretched, pleading with me.

  My eyes fly open. My breath panting. I’m awake. I try to calm my breathing. It is only a dream. Sitting up in the bed, I look over at the rocking chair in the corner of my bedroom. A grinning skeleton rocks away wearing a big flowered hat. She motions to me with one bony finger. It’s Blair, the popular princess from school. Every light on the phone in front of her flashes bright red and the buzz of incoming calls grows louder … louder … louder. I slap my hands over my ears to shut out the noise. All those people wanting something — and going unanswered. Blair, smiling at me, begins to floss her large yellow teeth. As she flosses, the teeth grow sharper, longer, more pointed. Suddenly she is standing in front of me, her thick, honeyed perfume choking me. I try to breathe some spot of air uncontaminated by the sweetness, but it pours into my nose and mouth like a heavy syrup.

  It’s a dream. Wake up.

  “He’ll see you now. Go right in.” Blair grins a horrible pointy-toothed grin and motions toward the purple door at the end of a long hall. “Don’t be late.”

  I walk toward the door. The hallway stretches out longer with each step. The door is so far away. I begin to run. The door is no closer. I can’t be late. I run faster, reaching out for the doorknob. It is so close and then so far away again.
I run faster, yet move slower … running in deep water. My chest hurts and I am so tired of trying.

  Just open your eyes.

  Then I’m inside the room. It’s a courtroom, and a tall skeleton wearing a big cowboy hat and a black judge robe sits at the head of the table. He motions me toward him. The fluttering pain in my chest grows stronger.

  “Recite the capitals of the fifty states,” the huge skeleton demands, blinking glassy eyes in my direction.

  I begin to recite. “Des Moines, Iowa … Oklahoma City, Oklahoma …”

  The flutter in my chest is so strong I can hardly speak. It bangs against the walls of my rib cage, causing me to jerk and shudder. I keep reciting.

  Smaller skeletons in identical hats begin to crawl out of wet, fetid holes in the carpet. One has a camera that keeps snapping pictures with big flashes of light every few seconds.

  I know what they want. They want my heart. But it hurts so bad. I can’t give it away.

  Blair comes in, smiling her pointy-tooth smile, and serves them tiny skulls from a silver platter. They crunch away at them while I just keep reciting, “Juneau, Alaska … Little Rock, Arkansas …”

  You can stop it. Wake up.

  Finally I am finished, and the room grows quiet. All the skeletons look at me. The only noise is the banging in my chest. I look down slowly. My skin is transparent. Inside my chest is a moonstone heart. It doesn’t beat like a heart should, but glows.

  “What do I do?” I ask the now silent row of skeletons.

  “You know,” the judge skeleton says, “in your heart.”

  Then he opens his mouth and his pink, snakelike tongue stretches out in one mighty swoop and rips the brilliant, glowing moonstone out of my chest. With a snap and one horrible crunch, it disappears into his mouth.

  I wake up for real this time, my heart pounding in my chest and my breath coming in wild gasps. I’m in my bed in the dark and the only sound I hear in the house is the sound of my own breathing. I put my hand on my heart to feel it beating, and breathe in slowly. Once. Twice. My spirit is still inside. I’m alive. Miranda is dead.