Capture the World Read online

  CAPTURE THE WORLD

  By R.K. Ryals

  Copyright 2016 by R.K. Ryals

  This book is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Acknowledgements

  This project touched my heart on so many levels. It took me deep into my soul and gave me hope. It was personal and real and beautiful. As always, I have an entire list of people to thank for not only being there for me, but for continuing to take this journey. To my husband, who never tries to fix me. He’s just there. I love you. To my sisters, you teach me new things every day. Without you, I would have no wings. To Audrey Welch, for being a pillar of support. To Christina Silcox, you make every book more and more special. Thank you for texting me as the characters and laughing with me, crying with me, and sharing with me. I love you. To Melissa Ringsted, because you aren’t just an editor, you are a friend. Always and forever. To Melissa Wright, because I’m not sure when this journey became so personal for us, but it’s created a lasting friendship I couldn’t live without. No thanks will ever be enough. To Alivia Anders for the cover of this book. There are no words to describe how beautiful it is. To everyone who supports these books, I love you. To Bree High, Elizabeth Kirke, Ashley Morgan, Alicia Lane Kirke, Jessica Johnson, Lisa Markson, Nanette Bradford, Katherine Eccleston, Ashley Ubinger, Vicky Walters, Amy McCool, Julia Roop, Pyxi Rose, Alexis O’Shell, Anne Nelson, Jessie de Schepper, Derinda Love, Tina Donnelly, Jessica Leonard, Lynn Shaw, Leah Davis, Tangerine Oliver, Christi Durbin, Amanda Engelkes, Jeanine Walsh Palinkas and so many, many more. All of you inspire me! A special thank you to the Scribes! Thank you for following me, for sharing, and for your encouragement. It means so much. To the readers: I love you. Thank you always for taking these journeys with me.

  For my niece, who lives in a world so much more beautiful than ours. And to those who are trying, like me, to capture the world, to hold on to it for a little while before it slips away.

  PROLOGUE

  A ROOM FULL of people stare at me.

  The fear, the vulnerability, and the truth hit me so hard my knees threaten to buckle, but they don’t.

  I remain standing and stare back. Because I can.

  My gaze strays to the wall, to a line of familiar faces. There isn’t a place on my body that isn’t weeping. Sweat is nervous tears.

  “I’ve got a confession to make,” I say, trying inconspicuously to wipe my palms down the sides of my pants. I remember to make eye contact and fight to hold it. “I didn’t want to tell this story. I didn’t want to do any of it because this story, like my mother’s mind, is complicated. There are all of these different parts, and they play into something so much bigger. Way bigger than me, and I’m afraid I’m going to tell it wrong, that I’m going to mess it up, and then this—all of this—won’t be important anymore. That it will seem less than what it is.

  “So, I’m going to let the story speak for itself. I’m going to let it say things I can’t. It’s a broken story told in broken parts. Because that’s how people are made, right? They’re made in parts, like a puzzle or a Mr. Potato Head.”

  The audience chuckles, throwing me off, and I clear my throat. “I’m what my mother and this life made me. Little pieces of broken things all glued together. I am part real world, part my mother’s world, part paper world, and—the part I least expected—his world. It took all of that, all of these parts for me to capture the world, to hold onto it, and to keep it with me a while.

  “Take a moment and capture it with me.”

  ONE

  The intro

  I AM IN a tunnel, hiding. Or escaping, maybe? I’m not sure which.

  The tunnel is dark, and it echoes. Angry words leap at me from all directions.

  Where, in all the world, is there a tunnel like this that echoes? What country am I in? What town? The United States? The subway system in New York City?

  Ugh!

  Why can’t this be easy for me like it is for my mother? Why can’t I escape inside of my head like she does? Forget everything and everyone.

  I drop all of the games. This isn’t a tunnel; it’s the upstairs hallway. The angry voices belong to my family.

  The stairs creak beneath my feet, but no one hears it.

  Through the railing, I see them, their features pronounced under the glare of the kitchen lights. Tired. Troubled. Defeated.

  “Damn it, Trish! We need to talk about this. Tonight. She isn’t getting any better. If anything …” Uncle Bobby sits at the kitchen table, head falling to his hands. A thick, brown beard laced with grey covers the psoriasis on his face. He scratches at it. “Think about Reagan.”

  “I am,” Aunt Trish replies.

  Uncle Bobby peers up at her, determined. “The home is nice. She’d be happy, and we wouldn’t have to worry so much about,” he takes an audible, shaky breath, a lungful of burdens, “everything.”

  I sit on the stairs and hug my knees, heart bleeding.

  “She’s getting worse,” he points out.

  He doesn’t have to say it like that, as if there isn’t any hope.

  Silent tears drip, drip onto my bare legs; heart blood on flesh. A car passes on the road outside the window, and I lean back, away from the glaring headlights. Thunder rumbles. Forked lightning strikes the earth. No rain. Mother Nature takes steady photographs of the moment, the chasing booms shaking the house.

  “It’s the end of the world!” my mother screams from her room.

  I hightail it to her door. “Shh,” I soothe, entering slowly. “Mama?” On the bed, she rocks back and forth, eyes wild. “It’s just thunder.”

  She looks at me, and her eyes change, softening. “Did I ever tell you about the time I went to Paris?”

  She’s never been to Paris.

  Climbing onto the bed next to her, I let her pull me into her embrace. She hugs me too hard, but I stay there, sucking in to compensate, and breathe in the scent of her—sweet tea and honey—my gaze on the pictures she’s drawn on the bedroom walls. Pictures of the world.

  “Being on top of the Eiffel Tower is like flying,” she whispers against my hair. “I flew with the birds once, over the tourists’ heads. There’s a lot of bread in France, I think. I smelled a lot of bread.”

  “It’s the City of Love,” I murmur.

  “Of love,” Mom repeats, over and over again.

  She’s warm, and I snuggle closer. My body is so cold, from the inside out. I am a block of ice.

  Downstairs, Uncle Bobby and Aunt Trish quit fighting and listen.

  “You’re crying.” Mom pulls me away and frames my face, her thumbs brushing the wetness there. “You’re crying.”

  “No, Mama. I’m okay.” My hands cover hers. “Everything is okay, I promise.”

  We’re in France, and we’re flying. It smells like bread and feels like love. In France, I feel warm.

  I don’t want them to take that away from me.

  I don’t want them to take away what she has become for me.

  I don’t want them to take away the world.

  TWO

  My mother’s world

  Ancient Greece

  MOM FLIES INTO my room, like a bird. With actual wings. Glittery fairy wings. The kind the superstore in town sells right before Halloween. It’s not Halloween, and the wings are all twisted. Most of the glitter is gone. Mom doesn’t care.

  “My beautiful jewel!” she sings. “Let’s fly together!” Arms flutter, up and down.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  She stands behind me, hands over my hands, and we fly in tandem. Arms flutt
ering. Even though I know she’s a bird despite the fairy wings, I am a butterfly. I like those best. Butterflies are magic.

  “Greece when it was ancient,” she breathes into my ear. Her breath fans my neck, wind against my butterfly wings. “Gods rule the world. We charge down from Mount Olympus, soaring over an ocean poured from a teal paint can. A beach of frosted white glass glares at us. Poseidon is dancing in the waves, cloaked in a watery tuxedo. Beckoning. Do you see it?”

  I see it because she does.

  Teal paint everywhere. Glass and paint and gods.

  “Over cursed Athens, where Poseidon grows angry because olives were more important to the people than salt water.” Laughing, she dances with me, spouting more facts about the Greek gods. She is a fountain of giggling knowledge, facts, and lessons. Smart but naïve. Frail but strong.

  “Come on now!” my Aunt Trish calls from downstairs. “It’s time to go.”

  Giggling, Mom mimics her, still dancing. Her laughter is contagious. Our amusement rises to the ceiling, captured there forever.

  “You’re going to be late for school, Reagan.” My aunt’s voice is closer, louder, and irritated. When she finds us, she sighs, and the air drinks the exhale. “Take off the wings,” she tells Mom.

  Mom frowns, but does as Trish asks, removing the wings and then smiling again as if she was never upset in the first place.

  Sun pours into the room, making the pale green walls glow. We are in a forest. In a Greece that is fading.

  “Reagan,” Aunt Trish urges.

  Grabbing my backpack, I thunder down the stairs toward the door. Toward the world my mother has forgotten.

  THREE

  The real world

  Heart Bay High

  I AM INSIDE my head, still flying over ancient Greece, when he sits down next to me on the bleacher, the side of his leg brushing mine, denim against denim. I don’t notice at first because the gym is exploding with chaos. Pompons fan, little red and white plastic pieces flying. Yells sail through the air carried on a tier of voices.

  A basketball bounces in front of my face, so close I can feel the wind off of it, the voice it belongs to growling, “This shit is lame,” before settling behind me.

  The leg shifts to the left, away from me.

  Mr. Winks—the principal of Heart Bay High—stands on the gym floor, tapping a microphone. “Is this thing on?” A shrill, technical squeal deafens the room. Hands cover ears. “There we go!” he exclaims, grinning. “Hello, student …”

  I tune him out, all of it background noise, my fingers folding and unfolding a piece of paper in my lap. This side up, another side down. This piece tucked in here. That piece tucked in there. Fingers. Paper. Fingers.

  The denim leg presses into me again, his exhaled breath tickling the skin of my neck, smelling of cherry cough drops. “Is that a bug?”

  Startled, I scoot away, fingers folding, his voice—all deep and curious—washing over me. He’s Matthew Moretti, Heart Bay High’s senior basketball star. Tall, athletic, and friendly, there isn’t a person who doesn’t like him.

  Except me. I don’t like anyone.

  “It’s definitely a bug,” he says, invading my space.

  “Watch it, Moretti. The girl’s a loon,” Kagen Raddock hisses.

  Matthew doesn’t hear him, or he pretends not to. “No, wait, maybe it’s a bird?”

  My heart beats, drumming a tune that gets lost in the crowd. Ancient Greece fades around me, and I hate him for it.

  “A butterfly,” I whisper, all cranky. “It’s a butterfly.”

  “What?” He leans over me, his body a shadow net trapping me in place. “I’m sorry. I didn’t—”

  My face turns his way too quickly, and he’s so close, we bump heads. “A butterfly,” I squeak, sliding over, flesh stinging.

  Watching my lips, he repeats the word, and then quirks a brow. “You got a thing against birds?” he asks, amused.

  Anger turns to shock to mortification to curiosity.

  Why the devil is Matthew Moretti talking to me?

  I ogle his face, enthralled. Which isn’t like me. I don’t stare at people; I stare at things. But for some reason, seeing him speak sends shivers down my spine, as if his acknowledging the paper insect in my hand makes it real, part of a world I’d rather not exist.

  I can’t breathe.

  Matthew Moretti is too much boy, his presence sucking the oxygen out of my personal bubble. He is skyscraper tall, his frame dwarfing mine. A red T-shirt with a rearing black horse on the front stretches across his lean, muscular torso, the hem resting untucked over a pair of faded jeans. Damp, midnight-colored hair curls against his olive-toned forehead, a testament to his Italian roots, the strands bringing attention to the faint line of whiteheads near his scalp and the subtle patch of stubble he missed while shaving. Somehow, the flaws make his face stronger. Real.

  Next to him, I am less … way less height, less tan, and less firm. More hair on my head, though, and definitely more curves.

  I like his skin color, and I would tell him that if I was a normal girl, but then again, I guess telling someone their skin reminds you of light brown sugar wouldn’t be a normal thing to say.

  My head falls, my straight, brown hair forming a curtain around my face, closing him away. Closing all of them away.

  If only hair shut off thoughts.

  “Told you, man,” Kagen laughs. “Crazy ass girl.”

  “She isn’t crazy,” Reese Gavin argues, her lilting voice rising above the cheers. “It’s her mother that’s nuts.”

  My fingers make love to the paper in my hands, folding and smoothing. I want Greece back. I want Mount Olympus, and a world full of gods and magic.

  Applause fills the space, shoes thundering against the floor as the entire gym rises to its feet. My butt stays planted on the bleacher.

  “It looks real.” Matthew remains on the bench, his leg pinned to mine.

  “Mmmhmm …” I mutter, dismissing him. Hard to do when he’s touching me, but I manage. He smells like the tropics. Should boys smell like that? Like island paradises with see-through water and coconut-laden palm trees?

  Or is it just him?

  Somewhere during the paper folding and Bora Bora fantasy, the pep rally ends.

  The crowd surges forward, feet thudding on wood—school-trained ants marching down a hill of bleachers to the gym floor and out the exit doors. The air is a lingering cacophony of perfumes, colognes, deodorants, and soaps mixed with floor wax, the fluorescent lighting draining everything of color.

  “You go on ahead,” Matthew calls out, standing slowly. He touches his ear, his eyes falling on me. “The noise can get to be a little much sometimes.”

  He smiles, and his face, which was rugged and sharp before, transforms into something softer. A butterfly breaking free of its cocoon. I squeeze the paper in my hands.

  “Do you take art?” he asks, ducking his head.

  Forehead crinkling, I catch his eyes. “No.”

  My lips must fascinate him because he stares at them and doesn’t even try to hide it. It’s better than him looking at my breasts, I guess. My lips do take up most of my face. I’ve always had full lips, the kind people told my mother I’d grow into when I got older. I didn’t grow into them; they outgrew me. At birth, the nurses at the hospital dubbed me the Angelina Jolie baby—in awe, like my lips were the most beautiful thing they’d ever seen. However, big lips mean nothing if the rest of the face doesn’t match up. If I wear lipstick, I look like a clown.

  Matthew shoulders a duffel bag. “Matthew Moretti. I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I didn’t give it.” He gives me an expectant look, and I frown. “Reagan Lawson. We’ve been in school together since forever.”

  “I know,” he answers, surprising me. “I just wanted to see you say your name.”

  He wanted to see me say it? “Okay.”

  The gym has emptied, and I sling my backpack onto my shoulder, dropping the paper butterfly.r />
  Matthew catches it midflight. “Can’t let it get away.” He offers it to me. “That’s pretty cool that you can do that. Origami, right?”

  “Yeah.” I’m not winning any social points here. Conversation sucks. My fairy godmother did not hit me with the witty stick.

  “We live down the street from each other,” he reveals suddenly. “Wasn’t sure if you knew that. We’re the ranch-style house just before you get to Sandy Hill Road.”