Bang

  Trey looks at me. I nod, and Sawyer and I slide our chairs back to get out of the way as Ben and his friend come in. I stand up and introduce Ben Galang, and Ben introduces Vernon, the guy he was with yesterday, who apparently was at the meeting, though I don’t remember him.

  Ben looks like he slept in his clothes. His hair is disheveled and his self-repaired glasses can’t hide the dark circles under his eyes. He reaches out his hand and carefully shakes Trey’s hand. “I don’t know how to thank you.”

  Trey looks up at Ben and gives him a goofy, drugged smile. “I’m not sure why, but okay.”

  Ben glances at me, confused.

  “We haven’t quite gotten to the part of the story where Trey came in and busted up the party,” I explain. “I don’t think he knows what he did.”

  “That, and he’s a little drunk on morphine,” Sawyer adds.

  Trey frowns. “All I remember is someone screaming ‘Die, fag!’ in my face, which really, you know, sucked. Then I took one look at the blood spurting out of my arm and I was like, ‘Wuh-oh, check, please,’ for the rest of the event.” He blanches just thinking about it. “Doesn’t sound very heroic to me, but whatever.”

  Ben brings his hand to his mouth and I can see his chin is trembling, his eyes filling up. And then he pulls his hand away and says, “The girl had a gun to my forehead. I have a scrape here where she dug it into my skin. I was a split second away from getting my brains blown out. And then the door flew open, glass went everywhere, and the shooter was distracted.” He pauses. “I got the gun off my head. And she turned and it went off. She shot you instead of me.” Ben’s lips quiver. He presses them together.

  Clearly Trey doesn’t know what to say. He opens his mouth and closes it again, and lets his head fall back against the pillows. And then he says in this hilarious Clay Aiken voice, “Well. That was right nice of me.”

  For a second, nobody moves, and then I snort, and everybody else sort of relaxes, and before I know it Sawyer has found more chairs and Ben is giving us updates on everybody. The girl who was shot in the abdomen, Tori, was the worst off. She made it through five hours of surgery and the doctors are cautiously hopeful. And the guy who was shot in the foot is doing okay, but the bullet shattered a bunch of bones and he won’t be walking anytime soon.

  Back at UC, Ben says, classes are canceled and there are counselors helping students cope. There are also reporters everywhere. Because the police caught the two alleged shooters immediately, they didn’t close down the school, but a good portion of the quad is blocked off around the crime scene and a lot of students went back home. “And seriously, you guys are the unnamed heroes. You’re, like, becoming a legend,” he says to all of us, but he can’t stop looking at Trey, his true hero.

  “Please don’t give anyone our names,” I find myself saying. “We don’t want a bunch of reporters in our faces. We just want to, you know, get through it and move on. Our parents are sort of freaking out. I’m sure you can imagine.” And then I add, “I’m only in tenth grade.”

  “Me too,” Sawyer says. “Jules and I just want to disappear, if that’s cool with you.” He looks over at Trey and grins for the first time since everything happened. “Trey, on the other hand . . . he’s a senior and he could really use some attention.”

  Trey pushes his morphine drip. “Indeed,” he says, adorably loopy.

  Ben smiles and turns to me. “I’m not quite sure why you guys picked this weekend to check things out at UC, or how you managed to spring to action that fast, but you really did save a lot of lives. And if you don’t want your names out there, I can totally dig that. Just watch it when you’re wandering around here—there are some reporters in the lobby.”

  “Here,” Trey says, fumbling for his cell phone on the bedside table. “You should call me.”

  Ben turns and looks at him, a small smile still playing around his lips. “Oh, should I? What’s your number?”

  Trey tells him, and Ben enters it into his cell phone, and then he takes Trey’s and enters his number. “Okay,” Ben says a little cautiously, “well, we’d love to have you come for a meeting. Are you seriously considering U of C? Even after what happened?”

  “Oh yeah. I totally am. What’s your name again?”

  Ben laughs and tells him.

  I frown. Trey knows U of C is a private school. Mucho big bucks. But hey . . . there’s always the power of morphine to make you forget about the minor details of your life, like living above a restaurant that struggles monthly to pay its bills, and considering returning to the place where some lunatic outsider came in and fucking shot you because you’re gay.

  • • •

  When Ben and Vernon leave, Trey looks like he’s about to fall asleep. My parents will be along soon, I’m sure, so Sawyer and I go to the nurses’ station to try to find out the status of the others. We learn that Tori is still in intensive care, so we’re not allowed to see her, and the guy with the injured foot is asleep. So we head out a side exit and take a walk on a sunny, windy spring Monday.

  I push up the stretched-out sleeve of my hoodie and look at my pasty-white arm. I was so glad to have that cast—it was like a weapon. It did way more damage than I could have done with my fist alone.

  Thinking about that makes me wonder briefly what kind of pain the shooters are in today. Trey will be proud that I kneed the guy in the meatballs. I shove my hands in my pockets and Sawyer and I walk in a somewhat awkward silence now that we’re alone. I feel like we’re in the middle of a fight, but we’re fighting about different things.

  After a while he says, “What are you going to do about your parents now that this is all over?”

  And I don’t know the answer, because something keeps buzzing around the back of my mind. I swat it aside. “I guess maybe try talking to them. I mean, it probably won’t work, but it’s actually something I haven’t tried before, so who knows. We’re just not really great at that.” I tilt my head to look at him. “The words never come out right, you know?” He nods and I ask, “What about you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I hate it that you’re getting hit, Sawyer.”

  And normally I’d expect him to get a little defensive and say something like I don’t exactly like it either. But this time he doesn’t. This time he’s quiet for a long time. And then he says, “I’m leaving.”

  Everything inside me stops working. “What?”

  “It’s toxic living there. I’m moving out.”

  I have no pulse. My words come out as weak wisps of air, and without warning the tears pour from my eyes. “But where are you going?”

  He hears the blubbering child in my voice and he turns sharply to look at me. The hardness in his face melts and turns to surprise, then realization. “Oh, baby,” he murmurs, gathering me in his arms. “God, I’m sorry—I’m not leaving you, or Chicago, or school. Just my parents and grandfather. I’m moving out. Not sure where yet, but I have a few options.”

  I’m flooded with relief. “You big jerk,” I say, sniffling in his chest. “You don’t have a fight with a girl and then say you’re leaving. Even though I’m really glad you’re getting away from them.”

  He holds me closer and I feel his breath as he laughs silently into my hair. “We had a fight? I thought that was just, you know, talking. Loudly. The Italian way.”

  I put my arms around his waist and raise my head to look at him. “I don’t like talking loudly with you.”

  “I don’t either. Let’s not do that again.” He gazes at me until I’m lost in him, and says, “Your eyes are so beautiful. I’ve missed them.” And then we’re kissing on the sidewalk in front of the University of Chicago hospital.

  Forty

  Five things I finally manage to get done over spring break:

  1. Buy a cell phone. Myself. I even give my parents my new number because I’m responsible like that

  2. Call my sister to see if she’s doing more making out than I am (she’s not)

  3.
Get my job back and make it seem like I’m doing them a favor while Trey’s out, when really I just kind of miss it

  4. See Sawyer every day, and find out being in love, with no stressful visions, is way more fun than anything

  5. Scare the hell out of Trey when I tell him that he totally threw himself at a college boy while under the influence of morphine

  It was hilarious, that last one. I have never seen Trey so mortified. But you know what? Ben came back to the hospital to see Trey once more. Alone, this time, and he stayed for over an hour. I’m just saying.

  And on the morning Trey was being released, Sawyer and I pushed him in a wheelchair to see the other victims, and everything hit hard once again, reminding me that solving the mystery of a vision is not the real part. The real part is the people and the way their lives are changed forever.

  It’s weird how hatred can make people do such terrible things to other people. It kind of makes me think about my dad. And I wonder, is his anger a form of hatred? I think about my anger—at Sawyer’s family, at the people who want to kill other people because of who they are, at the vision gods who put us through all of this. Is that anger really hatred in disguise?

  Or is only irrational anger actually hatred—the kind of anger and hatred my dad has over a recipe, and toward a family with whom he made a big mistake. Is his hatred really aimed at them? Or is it reserved for himself, because he’s pissed about what he’s done—or what he didn’t do? And does he even know that his anger affects the Angottis’ anger, and that’s why Sawyer gets punched in the face by his own father?

  Selfishly, I want to excuse myself, reward myself for having the proper kind of anger. The kind that helps make the world better, not the kind that festers and makes people bitter. But I don’t know.

  I don’t know.

  • • •

  It’s late Friday night of spring break when I run into Sawyer at the Traverse Apartments. We’re delivering to different buildings this time, but I park next to him so he sees my car and waits for me when he comes out. Which he does.

  “Hey,” he says. “My last weekend.”

  I nod. He told his mother on Tuesday that he would finish the weekend to give them time to find a replacement, and that he was moving in with his cousin Kate for a while, maybe forever, and taking a part-time job at the Humane Society.

  He says his mother cried. And that makes me furious. I think, where the fuck are the tears before it’s too late, you moms? Where are they? Why does it have to go this far before you let yourself break? But I don’t say anything. That’s my own battle, and my family is walking on eggshells until somebody (me) decides it’s time to deal with it (just . . . not yet).

  “How’s Rowan?”

  “She had a blast once our parents calmed down and got distracted with Trey. But she said she wasn’t sure it was worth lying about. Now she’s the one Dad’s eyeing, asking her if she’s pregnant.” I laugh a little, but my mind is elsewhere, on my dad, wondering things I don’t want to wonder but I know soon I’m going to have to ask him about. I lean against my car and pull on Sawyer’s hoodie strings. “You doing all right?” I ask. “After the vision, I mean.”

  He shrugs. “I think so. Considering.”

  “Trey tried to be hilarious today,” I tell him. “He came into my room this morning and told me he had a vision.”

  Sawyer’s eyes open wide. “That’s so not funny.”

  “My heart totally sank—I mean, I almost started bawling, you know? I don’t know if I could do this again.” I look at him hard.

  “Oh, God,” he says. He looks away, picturing it, I suppose. He shakes his head. “I really am glad that we had a chance to save people, but I’ll tell you what—I can eliminate police officer and firefighter from my list of things I want to be when I grow up.”

  “I just hope . . . ,” I begin. “No. Never mind.”

  He narrows his eyes and focuses in on me. “What,” he says slowly.

  I shrug. Bite my lip. “I mean, obviously I had a vision and somehow I passed it to you. And now, who knows? Maybe it’s done. Or maybe . . . it’s not.”

  Sawyer grips the back of his neck and leans against his car door. “What are you saying?” he says, like he knows what I’m saying.

  “I’m just . . . I don’t know. What if you got your vision because I saved you, and now you saved people, and one of them is having a vision, only we don’t know it.”

  “Oh my God, Jules,” Sawyer says, and I can see he’s straining not to raise his voice. “This is not our problem. Are you kidding me? You are not responsible for saving the whole fucking world. Besides, where’d you get your vision from, then?”

  I look down at the pavement. And I wonder, not for the first time, if my father’s illness is responsible for this. And my grandfather’s, too. Maybe these visions have been a Demarco family curse for generations, and I just unleashed the curse to the rest of the world. Back when I was feeling sick out of my mind, seeing that explosion and Sawyer in a body bag, I almost asked Dad if he’d ever had a vision. Maybe I should have. Because what if he’s been having a vision for years, but he doesn’t know what to do? And what if my grandfather had a vision too, and it got so bad that he killed himself—because it was the only way he knew to be free of it? Maybe the Angottis actually have very little to do with my family’s history of depression, and it’s been this all along. What if all the visions started with Demarcos and stayed with Demarcos, and none of us figured out how to get them to stop, so the visions festered inside of people until it ruined them. And then I came along and stopped mine. And by stopping my vision, I passed the curse to someone I saved. And by stopping Sawyer’s . . . Well. I just have to find out.

  “It started with me,” I say. I glance up at Sawyer. “But that doesn’t really matter, does it? It doesn’t change anything. It’s what happens next that matters. We’re talking about people’s lives—what if Trey hadn’t helped me save you? What if Trey and I hadn’t helped you with the shooting? I can’t let some traumatized shooting victim handle the next thing alone.” I shrug. “I can’t. I unleashed the beast.”

  Sawyer stares at me. And then slowly he shakes his head, and I can tell his mind is made up. “No way,” he says. “No way.”

  One look at his set jaw and I know he’s not going to change his mind. I hold his gaze a moment more, and then I nod and attempt a smile, because this is not his battle. He’s a victim of the Demarco curse, like everybody else.

  “Okay,” I say. “I understand.” I pull the keys from my pocket, and then I reach up and caress Sawyer’s cheek, pull him close. Kiss him until the tension between us melts away. And when we pull apart, I tell him I love him. And that I have to do this—I have to find out if anybody else is having a vision. And if someone is, I have to help. That’s the way it’s going to be, that’s my responsibility, and I’m going to do it. Invincible or not, I started this, and I’m in it until I see a way out.

  He just stares at me like I’ve lost my mind again.

  I hope I can’t find anyone with a vision. With all my heart, I hope this mess ends with us, but frankly, I doubt it does. And I can’t rest until I know for sure.

  • • •

  When I get home it’s late. Rowan’s fast asleep. I lie on my bed, eyes closed, trying to picture the music room. Trying to count the people in there. Wondering where to start, how to track them all down. What to say when I do. Eventually I get up and find Trey watching late-night TV in the living room. He’s got his bad arm in a sling, the other hand in a bowl of popcorn.

  “Hey. You have Ben’s phone number, right?” I ask.

  He shoves popcorn in his mouth and nods, eyes narrowing. “Why?” he asks, his mouth full.

  “I need it.”

  He stares at me, chewing slowly. He swallows and pauses the TV show. “Why?” he says again, suspicious.

  I drop my gaze, studying a stack of board games, trying to decide if I should tell him. Finally, I say in a softer voice, “I just
do. I need to make sure nobody new is . . . affected.”

  His hand drops to his lap. His eyes close, and he sighs heavily. “Shit,” he says. “You gotta be kidding me.”

  I stare at the floor.

  He sits up, his voice suddenly concerned, like he’s just realizing what I’m saying. “Wait. If Sawyer passed the vision to Ben,” Trey says, “I swear I’ll shoot you both in the face.”

  “I know. Just give me the number. I’ll call him in the morning.”

  He hesitates a moment more, like he can’t believe this is happening, then sets the popcorn bowl on a pile of magazines next to the chair and pulls his phone from his pocket. He forwards Ben’s contact info to my phone. “Try not to sound like a total psycho. And, you know. Don’t make me look bad.”

  “Yeah, sure. No problem.”

  He attempts a reassuring smile, but his eyes are worried when I say good night.

  • • •

  At three in the morning my cell phone buzzes, and at first I think it’s a dream. I finally wake up enough to answer. It’s Sawyer. “Hey,” I whisper, propping myself up on my elbow. “What’s up?”

  The line is quiet, but I know he’s there. I can almost feel his chest move as he breathes, see his earnest eyes adorned with those ropy lashes, sense the trepidation in his voice before he speaks. And all he does is whisper three simple, beautiful words that I’ve come to love hearing.

  “Okay,” he says. “I’m in.”

  LISA MCMANN is the author of the New York Times bestselling Wake trilogy, Dead to You, Cryer’s Cross, and the middle-grade dystopian fantasy series The Unwanteds. She lives with her family in the Phoenix area. Read more about Lisa and find her blog through her website at LISAMCMANN.COM or, better yet, find her on Facebook (facebook.com/mcmannfan) or follow her on Twitter (twitter.com/lisa_mcmann).

  ALSO BY LISA McMANN

  Simon Pulse • Simon & Schuster, New York

  authors.simonandschuster.com/Lisa-McMann

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