Time Bomb

  No big surprise there.

  His brother never used to lock his door or avoid him this way.

  His mother’s friends didn’t used to bring their daughters over quite so much.

  If his father were here, he’d tell Tad to hang in there. That everyone would settle in with time. That people would get over it.

  Only they never did.

  The phone in his hand vibrated, and he hated how his heart jumped, then fell as he looked at the screen and saw it was from Jimmy, the team’s center.

  TEAM PARTY AT LAKE TODAY. MEET AT MY HOUSE AT NOON. NO ONE IS TO GO NEAR THE SCHOOL OR JV PRACTICE TODAY. CAPTAIN’S ORDERS.

  Don’t go near the school. Captain’s orders. And when their captain gave an order, most of the team fell in line, because Frankie was the guy no one crossed without getting benched in favor of a player Coach had suddenly realized was better. Tad always fell in line. He didn’t like to make waves because, he told himself, he’d already made waves by being who he was: Not black. Not white. And on top of that, not straight. So he shouldn’t rock the boat. He should just be grateful when people acted normal around him.

  Well, screw that.

  Tad looked down at the text message again.

  After being pushed aside for weeks, he knew he was done pretending everything was just fine. Nothing was fine, and he was done taking orders. He was done being ignored.

  The bass of his brother’s music pulsing in his chest, Tad went back to his room and grabbed his gym bag. Locking his door, he went through everything in the bag, just to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything.

  Everything on the list he’d made was there. Ready. Today he was going to insist on being noticed. No more sitting around, waiting for someone else to take action.

  He lifted the bag onto his shoulder, then headed down the hall, determined to act as if there was nothing special going on. Nothing to see here, kids. Just a guy going about his business like it was any other day. No big statements to make. No lives to change. And it wouldn’t be just his life that changed if he went through with this.

  Tad banged on Sam’s door again as he passed by. Sam cranked up the music again. Tad punched on the door one more time, then started out, wondering what his brother would think about his plan.

  Oh, hell. He’d forgotten about his mother and her friends in the kitchen.

  “The money is good, but if Dan has to keep traveling like this, I’m going to lose what little is left of my mind. I can’t keep doing all this alone. Raising boys is complicated.”

  Tad went completely still.

  “Well, Dan is going to have to tell them he has kids at home and can’t be away as much.”

  His mother’s voice floated down the hall. He thought he could make out Mrs. O’Neil’s voice, too, and that of Mrs. O’Neil’s daughter, Jasmine. Ugh.

  “I swear his boss looks at the pictures of the boys and assumes they aren’t his. Sometimes I wonder if he thinks he’s doing Dan a favor by having him go on all these out-of-town trips. If we didn’t have bills to pay, I’d give him a piece of my mind.”

  Mrs. O’Neil said something that Tad couldn’t hear. But his mother was perfectly clear when she said, “Jasmine, honey, why don’t you go knock on Tad’s door and see if he’s around? His practice got canceled today, and I’m sure he’s looking for something to do.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Jas.” Mrs. O’Neil jumped on top of that in a way that said she and Tad’s mother had planned the idea in advance. “The two of you should go see a movie. Why don’t you go see if he wants to?”

  Damn. He needed to get out of here . . . fast.

  “You know where his room is, right?” Tad’s mother asked as a chair scraped against the kitchen tile.

  Tad took that as his cue to bolt for the door, while Mrs. O’Neil said something about his mother being so lucky. That Tad and Sam were both such handsome boys.

  Tad hurried onto the front walk and down the street, hoping his brother’s crappy music covered the sound of his leaving. He’d reached the end of the block when he got a text from his mother.

  WHERE ARE YOU? JASMINE IS HERE AND THOUGHT YOU MIGHT LIKE TO SEE A MOVIE.

  No. No, I wouldn’t.

  He walked faster toward the school, more determined than when he’d left. How many times had he told his mother to stop meddling in his life? She couldn’t see anything other than her own point of view—just like everyone else. Words were useless. They were ignored. Well, he was done being ignored.

  Since words didn’t seem to change anything, it was time to take action. People might want to bury their heads in the sand, but he wasn’t going to give them that option. Not anymore. They were going to take notice whether they wanted to or not.

  No more just waiting for change. He had waited long enough. Tried talking long enough.

  Well, the time for talking was over, and the time for doing was here. He was going to be noticed. He wasn’t going to be turned away anymore. Was he scared? Hell, yeah. But sometimes the only way to change something was to break it first.

  10:13 a.m.

  Cas

  — Chapter 5 —

  “TODAY WOULD HAVE BEEN a great riding day. Don’t you think?”

  “Sure, Mom.” If a person liked riding horses. Cas gave her mom a smile, then looked out the car’s window. The sun was shining. The sky was blue, with white puffy clouds, but she would have been just as terrible and looked just as stupid on horseback in the sunshine as in the drizzle or the dark. Her mother knew that, but she liked to pretend Cas was something other than what she was. She kept imagining that Cas would someday be like the rest of them. Just as Cas’s father wanted. Just as everyone seemed to want.

  Normal.

  Popular.

  Someone her family could be proud of. Because she wasn’t good enough now. And she was pretty sure no matter what she did, she never would be.

  “You know, we could always go back.” Mom almost sang the idea, and Cas cringed. “There’re still nine days until school starts for all of you. We could ditch your dad, and the rest of us could go back until then. Grammy and Pop-Pop would love it, and your brothers and sisters would be over the moon, especially Midge.”

  Her littlest sister, Midge, had fallen in love with a kitten and cried for hours after they’d left the farm. If they went back, the kid would end up crying all over again. It didn’t seem fair to promise Midge happiness only to keep taking it away. Cas knew how that felt. She didn’t want her sister to end up like her.

  When Cas didn’t respond, her mother said, “Well, think about it. I’ll talk to your father and let him know we might head back for a couple days. Once you fix your schedule today, we won’t have anything to do until school starts. We’ve already been back-to-school shopping, right?” Mom reached over and adjusted the gauzy, decorative silver-and-black scarf she’d insisted on looping around Cas’s neck this morning, then looked back toward the road. “It’s all going to be great. You’ll see.”

  Or she wouldn’t.

  Her mother always said things would be great. Cas used to believe her, but it had turned out that was stupid, because it was never true. Not now. Not when they moved here a year ago. Everyone had said it was for her father’s job, but they all knew differently.

  It’ll be closer to Grammy and Pop-Pop’s farm. You’ll get to start fresh and make new friends. Everything is going to be so much better, Cas. If you just try, it’ll all be great.

  Cas looked out the window again, twisted a lock of her long black hair around her fingers, and studied the school in the distance. She was glad she didn’t feel like running away or hiding when she looked at it anymore. Three stories of brick and steel and crappy people who judged everything because they thought they knew so much. They thought they understood all there was to know just by looking at her. They thought they knew her.

  They didn’t. They didn’t know anything. No one did anymore.

  “You’re so quiet, Cas.” Her mother glanced away from
the road and over at her. “You know, we can always do homeschooling if you want. Or there’s the Catholic school you could go to, if you don’t want to come back here. I know your father and Dr. Nepali think you’ll be fine, but I want you to know you have options. After everything that happened, it’s okay that it takes time for you to feel all-the-way better, and if you want—”

  “No.” Cas shook her head and mimicked her mother’s upbeat tone as she said, “Dad and Dr. Nepali are right. What happened is in the past. It happened somewhere else, and it’s not like I can change it, anyway. The only thing I can change is myself. I have to move on.”

  Sneers in the hallway. Being tripped. Being mocked as she was pushed down. Friends scared to stand up for her. Friends too scared of people making fun of them or worse if they decided to stay friends. The desire for everything to go away. To just end it all because of something that had started as words on a screen. Or maybe it had started before, and Cas hadn’t noticed.

  “Well, you still have time to change your mind. A new school is always an option.”

  Not for her. After months of trying to make herself believe it would get better, Cas had made up her mind. For the first time in what seemed like forever, she was able to really focus and think about what she wanted. A new school wouldn’t change anything, because it couldn’t change what had happened. And it couldn’t change her.

  She glanced behind her at the bag she’d stashed in the back seat as her mother pulled the SUV to a stop at the curb at the base of the dozens of steps that led to the main entrance.

  “I can come in with you if you want. My errands can wait. Honey, how about I come in with you?”

  Cas looked at her mom and for a moment wanted to say yes. She wanted to go back to the time when she could say yes and she and her mother would laugh at everything. But there was no going back.

  “Once I get my schedule changed, I’m going to go practice for a while.” Cas opened the car door before her mother could insist on escorting Cas inside. “You don’t need to come in. Everything is going to be fine now. It’s like Dad said, I have to take charge of my life and stop whining about being unhappy. Whining won’t get me anywhere. I have to choose to change things.”

  “Your father loves you, Cas,” Mom said as Cas opened the back door and grabbed the large turquoise bag off the seat. “He’s worried. You know how he gets when he’s worried.”

  Worried was the wrong word. Disappointed was the right one. Cas should know. He’d been disappointed in her for longer than she probably knew.

  “Well, I’m going to make sure he doesn’t have to worry anymore. I promise,” Cas said, shoving the door closed and turning toward the school that last year her father had assured her would make everything better.

  A school with more than three thousand students will give you lots of options, Cassandra. With that many students, you’ll find people you have things in common with. No one will know anything about what happened before, so it should be easy for you to find friends. Just avoid anyone you don’t get along with, and everything will be different than it was before.

  She looked up at the large staircases on either side of the incline that led to the main entrance above and remembered how she’d clung to her father’s words. How she’d looked at the sprawling brick-and-cement three-story building from the bottom of the steps with its narrow, shining glass windows and at the brand-new auditorium with its bright marquees welcoming everyone the first day of class. She’d felt a spurt of hope. She’d made herself believe that everything would magically be better. That she’d be better.

  “I have my phone on in case you need me. I’ll be back soon,” Cas’s mother called. Cas nodded and tried not to care when her mother added, “I love you.”

  “Me too, Mom,” Cas said, straightening her blue shirt. Then she hitched the bag on her shoulder and started walking toward the red-brick stairs that led up to the school that had been nothing but a disappointment. If she’d thought things would be any different at the smaller Catholic school her mother had been pushing her to consider, Cas would have tried it. But she’d learned that big school or little school didn’t make any difference. Nothing ever changed. It didn’t matter what she wore or how she acted or if she lost weight. People always judged.

  Well, the girls who made snide comments about her clothes and the boys who laughed at her weight could have their opinions. She had opinions too. Each time she climbed on one of those stupid horses and ate a freaking carrot to make her father nod with approval, she thought about how she would never please anyone. No matter what she said or what she wore or how hard she tried. They had already decided she wasn’t good enough. And she was done trying to gain the approval of people who thought they could make themselves feel better by pushing her and then kicking her when she was down.

  Cas pulled the stupid scarf from around her neck, jammed it into her bag, and yanked open one of the glass doors.

  She was done with it all.

  10:23 a.m.

  Frankie

  — Chapter 6 —

  “HEY, KIDDO.” Frankie ruffled his sister’s curly blond hair and snagged a banana from the basket in the center of the table.

  She rolled her eyes. “I just about gave you up for dead. Mom already did. She left fifteen minutes ago to help set up for youth group tonight. She said if you woke up before dinnertime to let you know.”

  “Hey, I have to sleep now while I can. We’ll both be getting up at six a.m. next week.” He stopped peeling the banana. “Oh, wait. You’ll have to get up earlier, since you have to catch the bus, because that’s what freshmen do.”

  Frankie dodged the napkin she threw at him and grinned as she called him a jerk. “I’m not a jerk. I’m a junior, which means I’ve done the dorky freshman thing. Now it’s your turn, and I cannot wait to make some popcorn, watch the show, and laugh.” He picked up the napkin, balled it, and pitched it into the trashcan. Nothing but net.

  “You’re such a showoff.”

  “Dad says that it would be a sin against God for a person not to use the skill he or she was born with. And I think we can both agree that I have skills.”

  Bianca rolled her eyes, and Frankie laughed as he headed to the fridge to grab a soda.

  “So which of those mad skills are you planning to use today?” Bianca asked. “Your fierce gluttony or your well-developed sloth?”

  “I think sloth has already been accounted for, and gluttony is coming up next.” He shoved the banana in his mouth. His sister let out an eww and swatted at him the way he knew she would. After he’d chased down the banana with Mountain Dew, he added, “But if you need the rest of the agenda for your report to Mom, I’ve got practice.”

  “Wait.” His sister’s brown eyes narrowed. “I thought today’s practice was canceled because you won some stupid bet.”

  “You are correct, although not about the bet being stupid.” It had been smart and calculated. Frankie had made a bet that Coach couldn’t resist.

  “As a result of my superior intellect and outstanding athletic prowess, varsity football practice was canceled for the day. JV, however, is still meeting, because they don’t have a leader with my vision and sense of purpose.”

  “And you’ve decided your new purpose will be to crash their practice and show off your overrated athletic skills? Or are you going to sit in the bleachers and laugh your ass off as they trip all over themselves trying to impress you?”

  “Neither.” Although both were totally viable options. “We’re going for the prize behind door number three.”

  He chugged his soda and grabbed his car keys from the hook by the door. A couple of stops to pick up the rest of the things he needed, and everything would be ready to go.

  “You’re going to prank the JV. You are, aren’t you?”

  He turned and was struck by how tall Bianca had gotten. Not close to his six feet two, but taller than Mom. And she did a good impression of Mom, with the way her head was cocked to the side as if trying
to decide whether she should finally call him on his crap. Mom never did, but Bianca wasn’t as willing to let him slide. If she kept up that no-BS mentality, his sister would survive high school without a problem.

  But that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to try to snow her. With a smile, he said, “According to the Athletic Code of Conduct Handbook, hazing is not acceptable behavior at Hallwood High School.”

  “And still somehow when you were a freshman, you ended up with shaving cream in your helmet and cayenne pepper on your jockstrap.”

  Those were the days. Okay, maybe not the burning sensation that plagued him for days, but the rest. Well, everything seemed easier when he was a freshman. Now . . . well, that was then. This was now.

  He turned and headed down the hall.

  “Come on, Frankie. Tell me. What are you guys going to do to the JV?” She followed him into the garage. When he didn’t tell, she said, “Fine. Maybe I’ll just have to come down to the school so I can see for myself.”

  “No.” His head snapped toward Bianca. “You’re not coming to school. Not today.”

  “You might be the almighty captain of the football team, but you don’t own the place. I can go wherever the hell I want, and as it turns out, a lot of freshman will be getting new IDs today. So I might want to go and hang out with some of my friends who still have to get theirs.”

  “You’re not interested in seeing your friends. All you’re trying to do is shove yourself into my life. Isn’t it enough that we’re already attending the same school and going to the same church group? Can’t a guy do anything without his family spying on him?”

  Bianca crossed her arms in front of her chest and raised her chin the way she used to do when she was six and was about to cry. Which was just perfect. His sister needed to learn to let things go. She’d be happier if she did. Of course, he probably wasn’t one to give advice on that front. Especially not when he considered what his plans were for today.