I pretended to check the cash register. “We’re together, okay? That’s all you need to know.”
He grabbed my arm and pulled me toward the kitchen. “You have no idea what he’s going to do to you! He’s not a normal person, Alex! He doesn’t understand how what he does affects other people!”
For a moment all I could do was stare at him. I’d had a snappy comment ready, but he hadn’t said what I expected. He hadn’t said, “He’s a dick” or “He’s evil incarnate.”
Tucker had been through this before. Not exactly the same circumstances, but . . . Miles had hurt him a long time before I’d met either of them.
“I—I’ll be fine, Tucker.” I pulled my arm from his grip. “I’ll be okay.”
Tucker shook his head, his gaze dropping to the floor. He shouldered his way past me, muttering something I almost didn’t catch.
“I hope so.”
* * *
I’ll be okay, won’t I?
Without a doubt
* * *
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Chapter Thirty-seven
Dad didn’t seem to feel too bad about losing driving duties on Monday; he actually gave me a sly grin as I walked out the door.
I didn’t know what I expected. Maybe for Miles to look happier than he did? Maybe for him to give me a reason to disbelieve what Tucker had said? It had only been a day since I’d last seen him, and I hadn’t tried to quell the riot of excitement in my stomach. But as I climbed into the passenger seat, he only gave me the weakest smile before he dissolved into a sort of humiliated depression. He had dark bags under his eyes, like he hadn’t slept.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “What did he do?”
“Nothing.” He stared straight ahead as he drove.
I didn’t say anything else until we’d parked and were walking toward the building, and I noticed that he was doing his best to conceal a limp.
“Why are you limping? What happened?”
“Nothing. Nothing happened—I’m fine.”
“Miles, what did he do to you?”
“Don’t worry about it!” he snapped.
I shrank back. We didn’t talk all the way to first period English, and when we sat down in our seats, a few snickers came from Cliff’s corner of the room.
“Hey, Richter,” Cliff called, “those Allies finally kick your ass?”
Miles gave Cliff the finger and laid his head down on the desk.
I stared at his back and his sandy hair, and my heart sank until it rested somewhere below my navel. Maybe I’d gotten my hopes up too much. Maybe Tucker had been right. Maybe that trip had been a one-time thing. Maybe he didn’t. . . .
Stop thinking about him, idiot!
I looked at the flickering fluorescent light over my head, then at my classmates, fresh from winter break.
Celia’s hair had turned a strange, moldy mixture of yellow and brown, but it was still green at the tips. She wore East Shoal sweats, and her blue contacts were gone; her eyes were brown. Her face looked weird until I realized it was because she wasn’t wearing makeup. Even though she had no makeup on and she was acne-ridden, she was pretty.
Why did she try so hard?
Everyone was talking about her, making jokes and snide comments loud enough for her to hear. She just sat there, staring at the top of her desk, her eyebrows pushed together. She didn’t seem to want to kill me. Or anyone. She didn’t seem to have much fighting spirit left at all.
A tiny part of me, the part that forgot it had witnessed her screaming about her burning hair, and screaming about not getting what she wanted, and screaming about her friends, felt bad for her.
Miles slept through all our classes that day. Even if he didn’t usually make an effort, he never just slept. The teachers must have realized something was wrong, because they didn’t try to wake him up. Five minutes before each bell, he’d rise like the dead and shuffle on to the next class. Someone called him “Nazi” in the hallway after fifth period, and he just kept on walking.
I didn’t like seeing him this upset. So when we left chemistry and headed for the gym, I shifted my books over to one arm and took his hand, threading our fingers together. I stood on my toes and kissed the corner of his mouth. For a few seconds, a real smile lit up his face.
It was gone by the time we got to the gym, though he still held tight to my hand. The club sat in a group on the bleachers, and a few feet away from them sat Celia. We’d all known this was going to happen, but no one seemed particularly happy about it.
“Hey, Boss. Alex,” said Evan.
“Got something you want to tell us?” Ian asked, pointing to our hands.
Miles looked down as if he’d forgotten he was holding my hand, and then looked back up at Evan and Ian and their impish grins, and said quite plainly, “No.”
I shook my head, let go of Miles’s hand, and went to go sit next to Jetta.
“As you probably all guessed, Hendricks is doing community service with us now.” Miles waved a lazy hand in Celia’s direction. She shot him a look, but it was gone in an instant.
“Can’t you do anything, Boss?” asked Theo. “Can’t you get her sent someplace else?”
“I don’t like it,” Miles snapped, “but I’m not a miracle worker. McCoy’s own damn rules got her put here, and trust me, he wasn’t happy about it, either. It’s one semester—just deal with her. Evan and Ian, I’m leaving her under your control. Make sure she’s doing something. Everyone else, normal stations.”
Evan and Ian looked at Celia with twin expressions of glee on their faces, and then dragged her along to the storage rooms to get the ball carts. Jetta left to watch over Art’s wrestling practice in the auxiliary gym, and Theo retreated to the concession stand. I started to follow her, but Miles grabbed my sleeve and gently tugged me back.
“You’re with me.” He motioned toward the scorer’s table.
We sat down and got stat charts and rosters ready until the basketball teams came in and warmed up. I watched Celia the whole time as Evan made her sweep the gym floor by herself and Ian made her put new bags in all the trash cans.
When she was done, she sat down in the bleachers. Seconds later, her mother breezed in through the doors, blond hair swinging against her back. Celia didn’t even look up when her mother stopped in front of her and began hissing.
“What are you doing now? Wallowing?”
Celia stared at her feet and said nothing. Her mother continued, casting a shadow over her. “You could have had everything, Celia. If you had done as I said, you could have had your pick of any college. Any one you wanted. You could have had everything. But now you’re off the cheerleading squad, forced to spend time with these delinquents—”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” Miles said. “I’m not used to dealing with . . . uh . . . not used to having someone to—”
“—and instead of trying to get back on top, I find you mooning over that boy—”
“—so yeah, it was him. Were you worried? I didn’t mean to—”
“—I can tell you right now, Richard will have a thing or two to say about that. He’s not going to let my daughter keep herself from her full potential—”
“—don’t have to worry about it, okay? Everything’s fine—”
“—Richard’s going to put everything back in order. He’ll make sure you’re worthy of carrying on my legacy. And if that boy stands in his way, Richard will have him removed.”
Miles pulled on my hand, jerking my focus completely to him. “You’re shaking. Why are you shaking?”
“I’m just . . . nervous. And I feel bad for Celia. Her mother seems terrible, and McCoy . . . I want to tell someone, but I don’t know who would listen.”
“Maybe McCoy will slip, and we’ll have evidence that something is going on.”
Celia stood on the bleachers across the
gym, staring back at us. Her mother had gone. When she saw me looking at her, she bolted down the stairs too fast and tripped the last three steps.
“You’re an obstacle,” I said.
“What?”
“Celia likes you.”
“So I’ve been told.”
“And McCoy and her mom think it’s a bad thing. They think you’re . . . impeding her potential, or something. And they really don’t like it.”
He hesitated. Doubt pressed his eyebrows together. Even Miles had a limit to his suspension of disbelief, and I’d been paranoid long enough to know I was pushing it.
“I know how it sounds,” I said, “but I heard it straight from them, and I’m really afraid McCoy is going to hurt you. I’m not going to do anything stupid or weird or . . . just please tell me you’ll stay away from him?”
He lifted my hand and held it against his chest. “I told you I’d be careful, didn’t I?”
“Yeah.”
Celia wiped her eyes and shuffled toward the door.
“What’s she doing?” Miles rose from his seat. I pulled him back down again.
“Let her go,” I said. “She’ll be back.”
Sure enough, about ten minutes later, Celia wandered back into the gym, her eyes redder and puffier than when she’d left. She sat down on the very end of the bottom row of the bleachers and stared at her hands. She looked . . . broken. Like the crazy bitch in her had finally died and left a shell behind.
June was right. I needed to talk to her.
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Chapter Thirty-eight
She tried to go down one of the back hallways after the game.
I didn’t figure it’d be hard to stop her. Two words and she’d turn and pounce on me. But when I threw open the doors and called out her name, she looked over her shoulder, eyes wide, like she was afraid I was the one going to kill her.
And then she ran.
I chased her. I guess being a cheerleader had its perks—she was in better shape than me. But I knew where she was going. When we hit an intersection, Celia turned right and I kept going straight. I came out on the west side of the school, jumped down the handicap entrance ramp, and made it to the northwest corner in time to catch Celia in the stomach with my arm. My momentum slammed her into the wall.
“Stop . . . running . . .” I said, panting. She glared at me, rubbing the shoulder that had hit the brick.
“I . . . have to . . . ask you something. . . .”
“So ask me,” she snarled.
I took a deep breath. “McCoy. What’s going on . . . with McCoy?”
Celia’s eyes widened, then narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“Look, I know about your mom. And I know about McCoy. I know he calls you down to his office all the time, and he’s obsessed. If . . . if he’s doing something, you should tell someone about it.”
For half a second, real recognition flashed across Celia’s face. But then her expression twisted and she bared her teeth.
“You don’t know anything about me.” She pushed me back. “Get out of my face. And don’t mention Rich Dick McCoy or my mom to me again.”
She shoulder checked me hard enough to make me stumble backward and almost lose my footing. I thought about following her again, questioning her until she admitted that something was going on, that she needed help, but I already knew.
I’d taken something she loved. She would never trust me.
* * *
She’s not crazy at all, is she?
My sources say no
She’s just . . . alone.
Most likely
But she never wants anyone around.
Reply hazy try again
She doesn’t want help. Why doesn’t she want help?
Cannot predict now
* * *
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Chapter Thirty-nine
The running theme of January seemed to be to make Celia’s time a living hell. Evan and Ian forced her to pick up trash they’d knocked over. Theo had her clean the popcorn and hot dog machines for an entire week. Jetta made her jump into the pool in her clothes to get dive bricks Jetta herself had thrown into the pool, when the swimming team was standing less than ten feet away.
Celia never did anything to stop this. In fact, the only times she did get angry enough to put her foot down were the times I mentioned McCoy to her.
By mid-February, I began wondering what the club could possibly have against Celia that justified the things they did to her. Yes, she was a bitch. Yes, she’d done horrible things to people—or so I’d been told.
Miles and I didn’t join in, but we didn’t stop it, either, and that made me feel like we had. Whenever Celia saw us, whenever I’d catch her watching us after a quick kiss in the gym or holding hands in the hallway, I could swear she was about to burst into tears.
“They can do what they want to her,” Miles said one day at the end of February, after the triplets had made Celia carry all the fishy-smelling towels to the laundry without a cart. She accidentally dropped some into the pool and had to get into the water to get them. Miles and I stood with our backs against the tiles. Miles was staring at the water with his nose turned up.
As Celia climbed back out of the pool, she looked at us—at Miles.
“Put those in the laundry room,” Miles called to her.
Celia nodded. Miles was the only person she’d take orders from without cursing under her breath or glaring.
“Hey, Green Queen!” Evan, Ian, and Jetta came out of the locker rooms in bathing suits.
“What are you doing?” Miles asked, glancing at his watch. “It’s six.”
“Which means there’s plenty of time to swim before we have to close!” Ian climbed the diving board.
“Mein Chef! Alex! You should come swimming wiz us!” said Jetta, floating over to the side of the pool and looking up at us.
“Yeah! Boss, come on!” Ian cried before diving.
“No,” said Miles. “I hate getting wet.”
“That’s what she s—” Evan began, before being dunked by his brother.
“You know I don’t like swimming,” said Miles when Jetta wouldn’t stop giving him a very hurt-puppy-dog look.
“Zen we should play your game. I ’ave someone.”
Miles fought a smile for a few seconds, but lost in the end. They started a game of twenty questions in German. I didn’t know what they were saying, but I was pretty sure Miles was dragging the game out on purpose. When it was just him and Jetta, he could find any excuse not to speak English.
I was glad he had Jetta to talk to, but I was missing out. There was a whole other person inside him I couldn’t see because I didn’t speak his language.
When the game was over—Miles made it to fifteen questions before guessing correctly—Jetta lifted her arms toward him and wiggled her fingers.
“I’m not getting in,” he said one last time, and Jetta admitted defeat and swam away.
“Don’t tell me you can’t swim,” I said.
Miles scoffed. “Of course I can swim. If I couldn’t swim I’d be dead by now,” he said. Then, softer, “My dad used to take me fishing with him when I was little. You know, most sons fish with their dads; that’s a nice family bonding experience, right? Well, add the attention span of a flea with ADHD, a bit of booze, and a large body of water, and you end up with a dad who thinks it’s fun to throw his kid off the boat and watch him swim for shore.”
“Like he did to your mom?”
He nodded. “He got me first.”
“That’s awful,” I whispered. “You could have drowned! Or gotten really sick—there’s all sorts of bacteria in lakes—or . . .”
“Or go
tten pulled under by something I couldn’t see?” Miles offered quietly. “Yeah, that was the best part. He knew I was scared of the things in those lakes. Bastard.”
The smell of algae and pond scum.
“That was the day before my mom and I went to Germany,” he went on. “She realized that Cleveland had done something and came looking for me. We stayed in the car that night, and the next day she decided we were leaving. We only went back to the house for a minute, for our passports. Then straight to Meijer so she could grab stuff she thought we’d need, and finally to the airport.”
I hugged him, something I’d been doing a lot lately, sometimes because I could, most of the time because he seemed like he needed it.
So far, no one had tried to do anything to Miles. I’d hardly seen McCoy at all since the new semester started, and Celia didn’t seem to have it in her to hurt anyone. Whenever I caught her staring, I only had to look at her to get her to go away again. But she was always hovering, like a ghost waiting for someone to join her on the other side.
Miles had been taking fewer and fewer of his mafia hit man jobs, and it was clear that he didn’t have enough occupying his mind. He frequently paced the length of the gym, wrote so often in his notebook that he had to get a new one, and would occasionally start his sentences in the middle of a thought. His limp went away, but he wore his sleeves rolled down and came to school one day with a black eye. His mood infected the club like a disease; nothing ran smoothly anymore. And soon his gloom infested the whole school.
Mr. Gunthrie went on an hour-long rant about the flickering light over my desk, throwing away an entire class period. Ms. Dalton couldn’t find any of her notes and even forgot her Diet Coke. Students who normally paid Miles for his services began taking matters into their own hands, and detention was full for the first time all year.
I wondered if the gloom was affecting me, too, but I got the feeling it had more to do with the thin envelopes I kept getting from colleges and scholarship foundations. Most of them started with “We regret to inform you . . .” I tried not to take it personally—how many mentally ill, lower-class high school girls could there be in Indiana? Probably more than I thought—but handing each one over to my mother was like running the gauntlet of passive-aggressive pep talks. Are you sure you signed up right? Maybe you just forgot something. Should I have Leann explain things to them?