Snared

4

Todd Lombard was Lindsay’s first real boyfriend. He was a slender boy with short blond hair, green eyes, and too much brain for his own good. He was Einstein smart and would have been considered a total geek if he hadn’t been the star of her middle school’s soccer team. Todd was cute and fun, but he was also a little crazy, and not in the fun, let’s-raise-some-hell kind of way. Todd heard voices. They told him to do things. They told him jokes, causing Todd to burst out laughing in the middle of algebra or social sciences. Fortunately Lindsay broke it off six months before his parents sent him away to a school in the next county that was able to handle “special” kids like Todd.

Her second boyfriend was normal enough. Too normal. David Carter was also blond and also a soccer player, but he was as dull as a Josh Groban record. All he ever wanted to do was sit around playing video games. When they did go out, they went to movies, usually the ones inspired by video games.

And those two made up Lindsay’s romantic history. Neither were bad guys, but they weren’t exactly the stuff of great romances either. Still, she had felt an electric charge when they first asked her out. It started in her chest and spread out, shooting up to her scalp and down to her toes. She felt that kind of charge now, walking toward the boy’s window, but the voltage was cranked way up, and she didn’t know how she could stand this kind of feeling if it went on much longer.

The boy was still smiling at her. His eyes twinkled like he wanted to tell her a secret, but he did not move forward to open the window. She thought that was odd. He stood back from the wall, waving her closer but made no move to slide back the glass that separated them.

Maybe he’s sick, she thought. He could be contagious. He might even be dying. God, wouldn’t that suck? It would be kind of romantic, but in a completely awful way.

When she reached the closed window, she didn’t know what to do. She looked up at him, laughed a nervous laugh, and shrugged.

“Hello,” he called through the glass.

“Hey,” she said.

“What’s your name?” the boy asked.

“Lindsay.”

“Great name.”

“Thanks. What’s yours?”

“Mark,” he said.

“Hey, Mark.”

“Hey.”

She felt really stupid talking through the closed window and wondered why he didn’t open it.

As if reading her mind, he said, “Stupid window.”

“Is it broken?” she asked.

“No,” Mark said. “It’s hard to explain. You can open it if you want.”

Lindsay shrugged and reached out to grasp a thin strip of metal on the outer frame of the glass. As she pulled the window open, she noticed an odd metal bracket fixed in the corner of the window frame. It was made of iron and had a strange shape, swirls and lines in a circle with three points poking away from the center. They weren’t very pretty, but at least they were small, hardly bigger than a nickel. One point aimed up the wall, while the other was pointed across the sill. The third jutted toward the center of the window. She noticed another bracket affixed to the inside corner of the sill. In fact, all of the corners, inside and out, wore similar ornaments.

Lindsay stepped away from the open window. She looked inside and saw a small bed pushed against the far wall. A simple blanket lay over the top of it. To her left, on the same wall as the window, was a black upright piano with a narrow bench. (He’s a musician!) The walls were bare, but there was a desk in front of the window and a pile of clothes against the closet door.

Where is his PC?

“Thank you,” Mark said. “This is the first fresh air I’ve had in days.”

“Are you grounded or something?”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“That blows.”

“Does it?” he asked. His face scrunched up like he was confused; then he smiled again and nodded his head. “Okay. I understand. Yeah. It definitely blows.”

“What did you do?”

“Things,” Mark said. “Little stuff mostly. A few plagues and a war or two. Nothing apocalyptic.”

Lindsay laughed. “So your parents totally over-react, too?”

“Oh yeah.”

“I saw a couple of guys outside this morning. Are they your dads?”

“They are…” Mark searched for the right word and decided on, “complicated. They’re my guardians, if that’s what you mean.”

“I guess. They look pretty harsh.”

“You don’t know the half of it. Doug—he’s the tall one—and Jack are seriously cold.” He chuckled a dry, humorless laugh and dropped his head. “So, how long have you lived next door? I haven’t noticed you before.”

“Well, maybe you haven’t been paying attention.”

“I think you’d get my attention pretty quick.”

Lindsay felt herself blush. She looked away from Mark, toward the beach where even more people had gathered in the few minutes since she last looked. When she returned her gaze to Mark, her heart was beating so fast she thought she might faint.

“You didn’t answer my question,” he said.

“We’re just visiting. It’s my uncle’s house. We got in yesterday.”

“Oh, okay. I’ve seen your uncle around, I think. Skinny guy? Always wearing a trucker cap?”

“That’s Uncle Lou.”

“How long are you staying?”

“Ten days.”

“That’s not very long,” Mark said. “I was kind of hoping you’d be here for the summer. Who knows, I might actually get out of here one of these days.”

“I wish we were staying longer, too,” Lindsay said.

Yesterday it would have been a lie, but right now she meant it.

“It gets a little lonely around here. I mean, Doug and Jack are less than entertaining.”

“I heard music last night,” Lindsay said, choosing her words carefully. “I haven’t heard anything like it before.”

“Oh man,” Mark said with a laugh. “Isn’t that the most awful crap you’ve ever heard?”

“Yes,” Lindsay agreed, thrilled to know it wasn’t Mark’s music. “It’s like a song for a bad yoga studio commercial.”

“Totally,” Mark said, really laughing now.

“Ugh,” Lindsay said.

She searched for something else to say about it, but her mind was blank. Mark kept looking at her with that amazing smile, and she could tell he wanted her to keep talking, but she didn’t have a clue what to say. Looking away from him, hoping that her mind would clear without the distraction of his face, Lindsay looked down at the sand, following its ridges and grooves with her eyes.

Say something, she thought, only she didn’t know if she meant it for herself or Mark. It didn’t really matter. She simply wanted the uncomfortable silence to pass. When Mark remained silent, she forced herself to say, “So, if you weren’t grounded, what kinds of stuff would you be doing?”

“Today?” Mark said. “I’d probably be surfing. It’s not a great day for it—only two-to four-foot swells. I mean, a couple days back when the storm was coming in, they were slammin’, but it’s kind of quiet. Still, it’s waves and board. A hell of a lot better than walls and bed.”

“Cool,” Lindsay said. “I’d love to learn how to surf.”

“It’s great,” Mark said. “Other than that, I just kind of hang these days. I used to ski and play football and stuff, but that’s kind of over. Doug and Jack aren’t what you’d call athletic types.”

“They look pretty athletic.”

Mark made a phfft noise with his lips. “They lift weights and jog, but they aren’t into human sports, you know? They aren’t out in the world, sharing the slopes and the streets. I mean, there’s a world full of people, and if you aren’t among them, affecting them, enjoying them, you might as well not exist. It’s a total nonlife, and they embrace it because they’re afraid.”

“Afraid of what?” Lindsay asked.

“I don’t know. Just life,” Mark said. “Doug and Jack want everything to be controlled and perfect, and the only way to get that is to stay away from real people and real life. They don’t understand that chaos and control are the fuel mix that keeps the world spinning. It’s screwed up. They’re totally removed. Unfortunately, they decided to remove me, too.”

“And there’s no place else you could go?” she asked.

“Not now,” Mark said. His face grew serious, darkened. “Right now, I’m trapped.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Thanks. It’s a temporary situation, but it feels like it’s been going on forever.” Mark’s face brightened. “But now I’ve met you. You can visit and keep me company every now and then. I mean, when they aren’t home. They’d totally freak if they knew we were talking.”

“Well, then we won’t tell them, but maybe I’ll stop by again.”

Mark’s mouth spread into a wide, charming grin. The sight of it just erased Lindsay’s cool, and she felt like an excited child. Again she found herself in the middle of a long silence, her mind filled with too many thoughts to pick just one.

“So where do you go to school?” Mark asked.

“Baker High,” Lindsay said, then realized Mark would have no idea where that was. “It’s in Helensburgh, Pennsylvania.”

“I was in PA a couple of times. Philly mostly. It was okay.”

“Philadelphia is about an hour away.”

“What’s Helensburgh like?”

“Kind of like Smallville, only without the hotties.”

Mark laughed. “I’ve been in plenty of those places.”

Another uncomfortable silence fell over them.

Lindsay was about to ask how long he and his guardians had lived in the house when she heard their car turning into the drive. Mark’s face went from cool and smiling to absolute panic in under a second.

“They’re home,” Lindsay said, suddenly feeling desperate herself.

“Close the window,” Mark said, his voice sharp with fear. “You have to close the window.”

“I…” Lindsay wanted to run. The car was already parked on the other side of the house. Any second the doors would open, and Mark’s guardians might hear them.

“Please,” Mark said, drawing away from the desk to the center of the room. “You have to close it.”

Lindsay shot her hands out and pushed against the glass until the window was again secure in its frame. She looked at Mark a final time. He mouthed the words Thank you.

Then she ran.