Love is Hell Read online

  “Travis Slather,” I whisper, reading the victim’s name aloud. A toxic taste lines the inside of my mouth. I close my eyes, trying to hold it all together, remembering the boy in my dream last night.

  He told me his name was Travis.

  According to the article, Jocelyn, Travis’s mother, was home when it happened, but she’d been badly beaten herself. The police discovered her huddled inside the hallway closet downstairs, barely still alive. I read on, learning tidbits about the killer—that he was indeed the mother’s boyfriend, that he had a criminal record filled with domestic abuse offenses, and that he’s currently serving a life sentence in prison. I glance over my shoulder at my room, conjuring up the images from my dream—the Bruins gear and the navy blue bedcovers—knowing somehow that this was his room, which prompts me to search even more.

  I end up navigating to a site called “New England’s Most Haunted Homes.” I scroll down to a picture of my house. It basically looks the same as it does now—same brown color, same wooden steps, same black metal mailbox— except the maple tree in the front is much taller now. And the window on the second floor—the one in my bedroom—is no longer boarded up.

  It seriously gives me chills.

  I try a bunch of other sites, looking for information about ghosts and hauntings, weeding through all the individual posts—from those claiming to have the likes of Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, and Kurt Cobain taking over their bodies—until I finally find something worthwhile.

  It’s a website that talks about hauntings in general, stating that ghosts who haunt tend to do so because they can’t pass on, because they have some unfinished business to attend to. They cling to people who have some sort of extrasensory insight, relying on them to tie up their loose ends.

  So they can finally rest at last.

  A tight little knot forms in my chest just thinking about it. I mean, aside from that one time with Emma, I’ve never really thought of myself as being or having anything extraanything, never mind possessing supernatural powers.

  “Brenda?” my dad calls, edging open my bedroom door. “Are you okay? You’ve been in here all afternoon. I thought maybe we could watch the game together.”

  “Why didn’t you guys tell me?” I say, trying my best not to hyperventilate. He opens the door wide. “Tell you what?”

  “That this place is haunted, that a boy was murdered here twenty years ago.”

  “Since when do you believe in ghosts?”

  “Since Emma died,” I say, feeling my jaw stiffen.

  He glances down the hallway, checking to make sure my mother’s out of earshot.

  “Dinner’s in a half hour,” he says in a lame-o attempt to ignore me. It’s an unspoken rule in our family that we’re not allowed to talk about Emma. Ever since she died five years ago, it’s almost as if she’d never existed. My parents hired movers to come and clean out her bedroom and turn the space into a home office—an office that no one ever used. Meanwhile, my mother dove headfirst into her work at the candy factory, taking any and all shifts she could get, so she wouldn’t have to think. Or spend time at home. So everything would just go numb.

  It’s gotten a little better over the years, but my mother’s never really been the same. And I suppose I haven’t been, either.

  Part of me blames myself for Emma’s accident. She had asked to borrow my roller skates that day so that she could practice her spins in the driveway. But I said no. And so Emma ended up going for a bike ride instead.

  She rode by herself to the park and crossed a main intersection without looking twice. She never came home.

  “I asked you a question,” I say, staring hard at the side of his face. My father refuses to meet my eye.

  “This is a good house with good people in it,” he says, talking to the wall. “End of story.”

  “It’s not the end.” I shake my head. “Why didn’t you tell me? Didn’t you think I’d find out anyway?”

  “We don’t believe in ghosts,” he snaps.

  “No,” I say, biting back. “You don’t.”

  “Dinner’s in a half hour,” he repeats, pulling the door closed behind him. I tell him I’m not hungry, but I don’t think he hears me.

  Because he’s already left the room.

  .

  Unwilling to fall asleep last night, I burned away the hours doing more online research. And learning more about Travis.

  About his love for hockey and all things Bruins; how he loved to go camping, even in cold weather. And how he had to deal with a major loss, too. His father died of heart failure when Travis was only seven, leaving Travis completely devastated.

  The whole idea of it—of how human Travis sounds in news articles and testimonials, and how it seems we had a few things in common—keeps me awake through all of my classes, my mind whirling with questions.

  But, now, at the end of the school day, I’m beyond exhausted. Even the cracked vinyl seats in the bus feel cozy. I sink down into one near the back and stare out the window, waiting for the driver to finally reach my stop.

  And that’s when I feel something brush against my shoulder. I turn to look. It’s him, sitting in the seat behind me—Travis.

  “Hello, Brenda.” His pale blue eyes are fixed on mine.

  The gash in his forehead is no longer there.

  My mouth trembles open, surprised at how good he looks, at the broadness of his shoulders and the intensity of his stare. I look away, wondering if anyone else can see him, but it appears that we’re alone, that all the other kids have already been let off at their stops.

  He leans forward and rests his hand on the back of my seat, revealing the muscles in his forearm and the scar on his thumb. “You’ve been doing some research about me,” he says.

  I manage a nod and slide my hand away, afraid he’ll try to grab it, like in my dreams.

  “Have you found what you were looking for?” he continues.

  I shake my head, knowing that I haven’t. When Emma appeared to me that day, she had one goal in mind: to say goodbye. I have no idea what Travis’s goal is.

  “What do you want?” I ask, wondering how this is even possible, how he’s even sitting here right now.

  He smiles as though amused by my confusion. “First,” he says, leaning in even closer,

  “what I don’t want is to hurt you. But I do need your help.” His hand glides along the back of my seat, just inches from mine again. “I can’t force you to stay with me in your dreams; it obviously doesn’t work and I was stupid to even try.” He glances at my wrist.

  “The truth is I need you to want to stay with me, to want to help me and hear me out. I won’t be able to rest until you do.”

  I take a deep breath, thinking about my sister, Emma.

  In some ways, I’m not at rest, either.

  Travis swallows hard, continuing to study me. “I could help you, too, you know.”

  “I don’t need any help,” I say, my voice quavering over the words.

  “Not at all?”

  I glance away, avoiding the question, feeling the heat of his breath at my chin. He smells like baked apples.

  A second later, the bus pulls up to my stop.

  Travis moves his hand so that it rests on top of mine, making my heart thrash around inside my chest.

  “Will you help me?” he asks.

  My lip quivers, noting his urgent tone. Part of me wants to tell him yes; another part wants to wake up out of this dream and never sleep again.

  “Getting out?” the bus driver asks.

  I meet Travis’s eye, watching him watch me, focusing a moment on his full, pale lips and the tension in his jaw.

  “Hel-looooo?” the driver shouts.

  A moment later, I feel my body being shook. I reluctantly open my eyes, only to find some blond-haired girl with huge green glasses standing right over me, trying to shake me awake. Everyone on the bus turns to look at me—there are at least twenty kids. The bus driver glares in my direction from his rearview mirro
r. “Getting out?” he repeats. I nod, grab my book, and then scurry out the door.

  .

  Later, at home, i struggle to fall asleep, to pick up where my last dream left off, but my visit from Travis has left me more mentally awake than ever. Even though, physically, I’m beyond exhausted.

  At breakfast the following morning, my mother serves me a heaping stack of pancakes, insisting that I need to eat, and that my pale complexion and bloodshot eyes have her and my dad worried. But after a night of maybe two hours of sleep tops, I have no appetite, and so I end up making roads in the pool of maple syrup on my plate, unable to get my mind off Travis.

  And unable to stay awake.

  Finally, after three bites and a good fifteen minutes of maple syrup tracks, I excuse myself from the table and head upstairs to the bathroom. I close and lock the door behind me, feeling a chill pass over my shoulders.

  It’s not like I haven’t been in here before. It’s just that ever since I learned about what happened in this house, I’ve been avoiding it like the proverbial plague, opting instead for the bathroom downstairs.

  I glance around, wondering what it looked like twenty years ago. Were the walls buttercolored like now? Are these the same ceramic floor tiles? The same chromeplated sink faucet?

  And what about the tub?

  I look down at it, my heart pounding so loud I can almost hear it in my ears. Images of that day from twenty years ago flash across my mind—even though I wasn’t here; I hadn’t even been born yet. I can picture Travis’s face and the look of surprise when the crowbar came at him. And I can see him falling back, headfirst, against the bottom of the cast-iron tub.

  I turn away, resisting the urge to be sick and noticing how cold I feel. The temperature in the room must have dropped at least ten degrees.

  “Brenda?” my mother calls out, knocking on the door. “Are you okay?”

  “Fine,” I say, zooming in on the radiator beneath the window, wondering if it’s working right.

  “Do you want more pancakes?” she asks.

  I tell her I don’t, baffled that she would even ask. I mean, did she not notice my unfinished plate?

  I move across the room to check the heat, holding my palms out by the radiator. But all I feel is coldness— a sharp penetrating chill that crawls over my bones and makes my skin itch.

  At the same moment, something touches my back and snakes up my spine. Startled, I turn to look. But no one’s there—no one’s by the sink or in the tub, even though it feels like someone’s watching me.

  “Mom?” I call, wondering if she’s still outside the door.

  She doesn’t answer.

  I turn back around, telling myself that it’s just my imagination and that I need to get a grip.

  The rungs of the radiator are as frigid as the room. I squat down and place my ear up against them. I want to see if I can hear the rush of heat rising up through the pipes, but it’s eerily quiet.

  A moment later, I spot something shiny between the rungs. It looks like a chain of some sort, maybe a necklace.

  I try sticking my fingers in to retrieve it, but the chain is several inches away.

  “Brenda,” my mother calls, from behind the door again.

  I take a deep breath. The smell of mulled apples is thick in the air. “Travis?” I whisper.

  “Brenda,” my mother repeats. “Get up NOW!” She smacks something hard near my head. The impact of the noise wakes me up.

  I’m no longer in the bathroom. I’m in the kitchen, at the table, and my head rests on a pillow of napkins.

  There’s a plateful of pancakes in front of me. “I’m sorry,”

  I say, sitting up straight. My mother is standing over me, a fry pan clutched in her hand—

  obviously what she used to wake me up. “I must have fallen asleep.”

  “Your father and I are really worried about you,” she reminds me.

  “I’m sorry,” I repeat.

  “Are you using drugs?” Her mouth is a thin, angry line.

  I shake my head, too tired to even entertain her stupid theory. Instead, I grab my butter knife, excuse myself from the table—for real this time—and head straight for the upstairs bathroom.

  The cast-iron radiator is in full view. Just like in my dream, it’s been painted a metallic silver, but you can still see the hunter green shade underneath where the paint has chipped in spots. I approach it slowly, noting the chill in the room, feeling the gooseflesh sprout up on my arms. I squat down and peek between the rungs. And that’s when I see it—the necklace from my dreams.

  “Brenda?” my mother asks, pushing the door wide.

  “What’s the matter?”

  My mouth trembles open, but no words come out.

  Her eyes narrow, spotting the knife in my hand.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I dropped my necklace,” I say, finally.

  She nods, but I can tell she doesn’t quite believe me.

  Still, she leaves me alone, commenting on the chill in the room and on how she needs to check the thermostat downstairs.

  It takes some maneuvering, but I’m able to work the necklace out from the rungs using the butter knife.

  It’s a sterling-silver chain with a heart-shaped pendant.

  I glide my fingers down the length, noticing how the clasp is still fastened but the links have been broken.

  The initials jas are engraved across the pendant’s surface in pretty cursive writing. My heart speeds up, conjuring up all those online articles. Mrs. Slather’s first name is Jocelyn.

  This must belong to her.

  .

  Saturday night, craig and Raina take me on a tour of the town, which consists of driving by the ice cream/pizza place on Main Street, the barbershop where Craig gets his hair cut, and a corner grocery that sells everything from garden rakes to garden vegetables. Our last stop is a coffee shop, which, according to Raina, is the least lamest place in town.

  Ever-exhausted, I order a double espresso with an extra shot.

  “Are you kidding?” Raina squawks. “The sign on the door says Stanley’s, not Starbucks. It’s one coffee bean fits all here.”

  We each end up with a cup of regular, and then Raina leads us to a booth in the corner.

  “So, what’s up with the need for speed?” she asks.

  “Excuse me?”

  “A double espresso with an extra shot?” She raises her stud-pierced eyebrow in curiosity.

  “I thought the problem was that you couldn’t sleep. With rocket fuel like that, I’d be doing jumping jacks around my bedroom all night.”

  “Now there’s a sobering sight,” Craig says.

  I take a sip of my less-than-palatable cup of java, knowing full well that I do want to sleep, but a part of me is still afraid of what I’ll see, of what it’ll mean. And, yet, ever since my dream on the bus the other day, since I’ve been doing all this research and learning about Travis, I can’t help but wonder if I’ll see him again. If he’ll clasp my hand.

  And make my heart race.

  “Is it getting easier, at least?” Craig asks. “To sleep in the new place, I mean.”

  I shrug, thinking about the necklace I found. I’ve hidden it inside an old tennis sneaker at the back of my closet, right beside my roller skates—the ones I didn’t let Emma borrow. Even though they’re at least three sizes too small now, I’ve been keeping the skates ever since that day, unable to let go of what happened.

  “I was talking to my folks about your house,” Craig continues. “Talk about townies . . . my parents have both lived here since birth. But the whole murder story . . . it’s actually a lot sadder than I thought.”

  “Sadder than a bloody bathtub?” Raina asks.

  Craig nods. “Turns out Travis was actually trying to spare his mother a serious beating that day. Apparently, he came home and saw his mom’s boyfriend going at her with his fist. Travis tried to distract the guy by using himself as beating bait. When his mother went to ca
ll

  911, she couldn’t get the words out. She was too scared of what the boyfriend would do to her, I guess. She ended up hiding away in the downstairs closet because she couldn’t stand hearing the crap getting kicked out of her son.”

  “Sounds like a nice lady,” Raina says.

  Craig shrugs. “I guess she pretty much lost it after that. She blamed herself. At least that’s what people say.”

  “Where is she now?” I ask.

  “She’s a townie, too,” he says. “She lives in one of the condos behind the lake. At least that’s what my parents tell me.”

  “Better watch out.” Raina smirks. “You’re starting to sound like a townie yourself.”

  “Better to sound like one than to look like one,” he says, gesturing to her sweatshirt. There’s a giant shark, the school’s mascot, swimming above the words “Addison High Bites.”

  “I dream about him,” I blurt out, putting an end to their banter.

  “You dream about who?” Raina asks.

  “Travis Slather.”

  “Um, what are you talking about?” Craig asks.

  I take a giant breath and tell them everything: how it started with just his voice; how I’d wake up with unexplained bruises; and then how he appeared to me recently, asking for my help.

  “I told you that place was crazy-haunted,” Raina says.

  “But maybe you’re dreaming about him because of everything you’ve heard,” Craig says.

  “I mean, I’d probably be having nightmares, too.”

  “No way,” I say. “I started dreaming about him before I even knew about the murder, before I knew the house was supposedly haunted.”

  “So, how are you supposed to help him?” he asks.

  “I don’t know.” I shake my head.

  “Well, is he hot at least?” Raina sighs. “Because I heard the boy was hot.”

  “Here we go.” Craig rolls his eyes.

  But I can’t help smiling at her remark. I try my best to stop it, but the grin inches up my face and warms my cheeks.

  Because the boy is hot.

  Because a part of me can’t wait to see him again.

  .

  In my room, i change into my pajamas—an oversized Bruins T-shirt coupled with a pair of flannel shorts—and guzzle down a full glass of sleepinducing warm milk. Before I get into bed, I open my window, allowing the cool, fresh breeze to filter into the room. The sky looks amazing tonight with its swollen moon and sprinkling of stars. I edge the curtains open wider, trying my best to relax my mind by thinking about simple things, like tomorrow’s hockey game and cinnamon toast for breakfast, but my pulse races and my head feels all dizzy.