He blinks and opens his mouth to deny, closes it, and then offers me this excuse. “I have reasons.”
“You have excuses. Weren’t you listening?” I wave a hand back in the general direction of the main entrance. “Religion, government, the media—everybody tells you it’s never your fault. You’re just an innocent guy minding your own business, and these women, these females beguile you with their looks.” I make spooky fingers to emphasize the word. “Guys are so dumb. You actually believe this crap. You waste half your lives trying to prove to everybody and their mother how tough you are, how strong, how manly, and then say crap like, ‘Ooo, baby, you make me so hard,’ because there’s absolutely no way you can control your own body.”
Ian stops walking, stares at me. “When did I say that to you?”
“You didn’t,” I admit and then stop to look him dead in the eye. “What you did is so much worse.”
The late bell rings, and we both ignore it, facing off in the center of the second-floor corridor, where we had bonded over a couple hundred lockers. “I said I had reasons,” he repeats, shoving his hands into his pockets.
“And I said you don’t. You know what I think? I think you got scared.” I drill a finger into his chest. “Your spine turned into Jell-O the second you walked in here yesterday.”
Ian rolls his shoulders. “My spine is just fine.”
“And you know what’s even worse?” I barrel right over his lame defenses. “You’re afraid of shit that’s so unimportant. It’s ridiculous. Talk to me when a guy you know for years, a guy you think is nice enough to date a few times turns ugly when you tell him you’d rather be with his friend instead of him.”
Ian takes a step back like I shoved him with both hands. The color fades from his face.
“Talk to me when that guy hears you tell him no, hears you but waits while your head spins and your stomach churns, waits until you fall over and then pounces and tells you nobody gets to say no to him. Talk to me when he takes your clothes off and shoves himself inside your body and your limbs are too numb to stop him. Talk to me when he leaves you there, alone, unconscious, and bleeding and then puts pictures of what he did to you online. Then you tell me about your reasons.”
Ian takes another step back. Then another. I stalk him, keeping pace.
“Talk to me when your friends drop you. Your parents can’t look at you. And then you meet someone you could maybe care about, someone you think is different, someone who knows what’s right but won’t do it because it’s too hard, someone who stands up in front of everybody and joins in the fun. Then you tell me about your reasons.”
I stand there, glaring and panting against the tears fighting to fall—I’ll be damned before I let them fall—while Ian just stares with his mouth open. “You know what, Ian? I’m glad you weren’t there that night. You probably would have joined in, made it some kind of a team-bonding ritual.”
His hands come up to his face, cover his mouth. When he shuts his eyes, it’s in defeat. I’ve got him. He knows I’ve got him. Whatever reasons he had, I guess they’re not worth the breath needed to say them.
A teacher steps out of a classroom. “Get to class, you two.”
I don’t need to be told twice. I leave Ian there, my words echoing down the hall.
Chapter 26
Ian
Grace’s words burn my damn ears. I walk away, but it doesn’t help. I swear I still hear her. I get to math class five minutes late, earn a reprimand from my teacher and a few glares from classmates. It’s like…like she fucking branded me or something. I slam my books down, slouch in my seat, seething while Mrs. Patterson starts talking about derivatives.
Where does she get off, talking to me like that? What the fuck does she think she’s doing, saying all guys are rapists? Lucky Jenson didn’t deck her for saying that crap. Just because I don’t want my sisters to get hassled doesn’t mean I own them. And I never called her a slut either. Okay, so I didn’t really stick up for her. I should have. I defended her when Jeremy and Kyle hassled her, but Zac? Different story. She doesn’t get it. She doesn’t understand what I lose if I admit I like her.
I like her. Goddamn it, I like her a lot.
I even like the way she dresses. The black and all the hardware? It’s hot. There! I admitted it. It’s hot. She’s hot. Does that make her a slut? I don’t know, and I don’t care. I slide my hand into my pocket, feel for the stud I’ve been holding onto because it’s hers.
There’s nothing wrong with Grace. Nothing except for one thing, and that’s Zac. He got to her first. And now she’s off-limits, and it’s either her or—
“Mr. Russell, what is the integral of secant squared?”
Um. Holy shit. “Um. What?”
“What is the integral of secant squared?”
“Yeah. Uh, tangent x?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?”
“Telling you.”
“Final answer?”
I nod, gulping.
“You forgot the plus C.”
“Oh. Right.” I look down at my notebook like I actually give a shit.
Mrs. Patterson turns back to the board, writes out some theorem or something, and I go back to brooding. Grace’s words are tattooed on my goddamn eardrums. What the hell’s wrong with calling a girl your girlfriend if that’s what she is? Okay, okay, I gotta get me some of that is just crude. But nobody really talks like that, except maybe Jeremy, but that’s because he’s still sexually twelve. And if I ever told my mom, I’m hungry, get me food, she’d—
Whoa. Wait. Oh, God. I remember the night Zac and I got drunk. He shouted up the stairs, and his mother got out of bed to make us something to eat. He never even said thank you. I squirm in my seat. I don’t know if I ever said thank you either.
The pen in my hand cracks. I stare at it for a long moment, finally drop it on top of my book. I don’t know what to do. Fuck! That’s a lie. I do know what to do. I just don’t know if I can do it. The thing is, all this shit? It’s not about Grace, not really. It’s all about Zac. He leads, and we follow. Why?
I don’t know.
Nobody’s ever not followed.
My mind replays that night last week at the Pizza Hut when we had our bet going. When that girl Addie caught Zac hugging my sister, he didn’t look sorry like “Hey, it’s not what it looks like!” He looked annoyed like “Did I just blow a sure thing?” My head aches, and I’m dizzy. I know I should go to the nurse because sitting in a dark room and doing nothing beats sitting in math class, but I have to work this out.
The game when I got my first concussion, I hit the ground hard, got the breath knocked out me. I couldn’t breathe. I had to blink a few times to clear my vision. Sound was just formless noise, and I remember wishing I could blink my ears too. There was a moment when I was rolling around the field, trying to reboot my entire body when Zac left his crease and hit the player who had hit me, and though my brain was getting sloshed around, I’m pretty sure I saw it—the expression Grace keeps trying to grab with her camera, the expression Sarah called hunger.
It was in his eyes.
Thank God Zac has my back. That’s what I remember thinking at the time.
You probably would have joined in, made it some kind of a team-bonding ritual.
I don’t care what Grace thinks. I am not what she says I am.
I’m not.
• • •
The third-period bell finally rings, and I book it to gym class. The locker room is buzzing with guys ranting about Grace’s demonstration this morning.
“Did you see it?” Zac asks me with a smile.
I pull my shirt over my head and nod. “Yeah. Ringside seat. Where were you?”
“Late. Got lucky with that girl from the Pizza Hut, remember?”
“Addie.”
“No. The other one. Jess.”
The other one was mine. Son of a bitch. I tug a Laurel Point HS T-shirt over my head to hide my disgust.
“She snu
ck me into her room, and I fell asleep.”
“Dude, you stayed all night? You are the man!” Some kid I don’t know holds his fist out, and Zac obliges him with a bump.
That’s when I see it. Zac’s iPhone tucked into his shoe.
Zac’s got an audience now. Won’t notice if I play around with his phone. “Zac, can I borrow your phone?”
“Right there, bro.” He points to the shoe and then holds his hands up to his chest to describe the size of the girl’s tits.
Chest. I mean chest.
I grab the damn phone, unlock it. He has no password. I scroll to his media files and find the video he took of Grace in the woods that night.
Whoa. There are two. I text both to myself and then quickly send a text to my dad to report my dizziness. I’m about to put the phone back, and then something occurs to me. I go into his sent messages history and delete the one I sent with the videos attached.
A second later my phone buzzes, and Zac gives me the dumb-ass look. “Why did you need my phone if you’ve got yours?”
“Mine never works in the locker room,” I cover fast. “Weird.”
Fortunately the bell rings before he can ask me any more questions.
Thinking about what’s probably on the unwatched video on my phone causes time to come to a complete halt. Decades later gym is finally over, and I’m free. I check my phone. Three messages wait for me—the two I sent from Zac’s phone plus one from my dad.
Dad: If you want to go home, leave. Already squared it with the nurse.
Excellent. I tuck the phone in the pocket of my jeans, fold the jeans, clean shirt, and underwear, and take the pile with me to the showers. I don’t like prancing around the locker room wrapped in a tiny towel. Five minutes later Zac catches up to me when I dump my wet towel in the bin.
“Dude, your head okay?” He’s got his phone out. I freeze for a minute. I’ll be damned. He checked up on me.
I shake my head. “No, I’m going home. I’ve been dizzy for hours.”
His lips thin, and his jaw tenses. “I should have knocked that number-twenty-three punk out.”
“Zac, it was a clean hit.”
“Still. Nobody messes with my crew.”
I drop my eyes, cursing silently. Grace sneers in my head. “It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s right.”
• • •
I make it home by a little past twelve and go straight to my room. Nobody’s in the house. That’s good. I sit at my desk, watch the first video. It’s short, less than a minute, and the video quality sucks, but it was still enough to convince the whole school Grace Collier is scum after Zac posted it on Facebook and tagged her. But the second video is longer, about six minutes. I play it once. The video quality still sucks. It’s dark, Zac’s hand on the phone shakes. But the sound quality is dead on. I hear everything. The same sounds are on both videos.
Except they’re not the same sounds.
I play it again. Six more minutes.
By the third time, my hands clench. Six more minutes.
The fourth time, I’m shaking.
Six minutes.
In case you’re wondering, that’s how long it takes to hate my best friend.
I drop my phone on the desk and stare at it for hours but it never tells me what I should do. I rake my hands through my hair, cursing. I need advice. I need to talk to someone, but who? If I talk to Jeremy or my dad or my sister or my coach, I know exactly what each of them would say and I still wouldn’t know what to do.
I can almost hear my dad’s stupid flip-calendar speech, preaching about my loser friends, about how I’ll never be anything worthwhile, and all I can think is, I’m not what Zac is.
I grab the phone, shove it deep in my pocket, where I swear it tries to burn its way out, and drag myself downstairs. Need to think. Need to—Jesus, don’t know what I need. I shrug on my sweatshirt and hit the street, running until my lungs scream.
Chapter 27
Grace
After the worst day at school—I keep thinking one day can’t possibly top the day before, but I’m always wrong—I get a text message, which is weird because I have no friends. I unlock my phone, see the message is from my dad, which is even weirder because he never texts.
Dad: Don’t forget Kody’s party. I don’t want you disappointing him.
Whoa, what?
When have I ever disappointed him? I love the little guy, even though his parents are jerks. I put up with all this Ian crap just to make some money for his gift. Besides, the party was canceled.
Wasn’t it?
Grace: Party officially back on for Sat?
The burn in my throat is back. It’s an old friend now. The thought makes me laugh once. I do have a friend. His name is Phlegm.
The phone buzzes again.
Dad: Of course it’s on! You knew this. Why are you playing games?
I throw my phone at the wall. It lands on the carpet near the stairs with no damage. It’s the cellular equivalent of a middle finger. She uninvited me. Kristie actually uninvited me. And she probably told my dad I was the one who didn’t want to come.
Mother of God, she really does hate me.
Why? What did I do? She was my teacher. We paid her to give me dance lessons, not seduce my dad. She’s the one who trapped him, getting pregnant a few months later. I didn’t do any of this. I drive my fist into a sofa cushion and scream. Everything that’s happened—it’s her fault, not mine. All of it—the insults scraped into my mom’s car, the shunning at school, the harassment, losing my friends, Ian. If I hadn’t been so upset, so angry at her, would I have let Zac hug me and kiss me and listen to me cry? Would I have seen through his pathetic seduction attempts? Would the warning bells have gone off if I didn’t let myself get so drunk?
Oh, God.
Something rolls over me, into me, through me, something heavy, too heavy to bear. I collapse onto the sofa because I think I know what it is. Oh, God, I know what it is. It is my fault. Mine. I let this happen. I should be hanging out with Lindsay and Miranda right now in Miranda’s basement, watching movies and picking out our prom dresses, and Ian and I—
I can’t, I just can’t do this anymore. I run to the kitchen. The semester abroad brochure is stuck to the refrigerator with a magnet, but Europe’s not far enough. I need to run.
I need to go where nobody can reach me again.
There’s a high shelf in one of the cabinets where my mother keeps all the bottles of booze people bring over yet never drink. I think maybe they just mate in the dark and form little bottles, so I stuff a few into my pockets—who cares what kind? It doesn’t need to taste good.
It just needs to make me numb.
The woods are cold and dark and smell like a cemetery. Leaves crack under my boots, and I click on the flashlight I grabbed, smack the bottom a couple of times. I don’t know how I got here—the scene of the crime nobody believes happened—but I did. I stretch out on the damp ground with my back against the railroad tie. Yeah. That railroad tie. I open the first bottle, swig whatever it is. Rum. I shrug. Like I said, it doesn’t matter. The remains of a lot of parties litter the site—empty cans, bottles, plastic six-pack rings, and ugh, a condom. How many girls like me are out there—girls who got too drunk, wore the wrong clothes, said the wrong thing, and ended up sitting right here, staring into a bottle?
The train whistle blows. I pick up somebody’s empty beer bottle, hurl it against a tree, and something twists in my chest when it smashes into a million pieces because I’m jealous. I’m actually jealous of it. I stand up, chug more rum, find another beer bottle, and throw that one too. I line up a whole six-pack on the railroad tie, try to see how fast I can throw, reload, throw again. The arc of light from my flashlight glints off all the pieces, kaleidoscope designs, and I wish I could be one of them instead of me.
But I don’t break like glass bottles. I bend and twist and—and I feel everything that’s thrown at me, and I’m tired. I just want to shatter so I never have
to feel anything again.
Another gulp of rum and I see it.
A large shard, all jagged edges and sharp points in the center of the light beam like it’s on stage.
Seductive.
I pick it up, fondle it for a minute, glide it against my skin. It’s cold and smooth, and with just one flip of my hand, I figure it’ll bite. It’ll hurt. But it can’t be any worse than what I feel right now, and when it’s done, I’ll be done too.
I adjust my grip on my piece of glass, my passport to freedom, and shut my eyes, imagining it, imagining the peace, the end of the pain, just…an end. I grip it harder, and a jagged edge reveals its teeth. My hand shakes, and my breath hitches.
No.
I drop the shard, fall to my knees, and cover my face.
“Jesus H. Christ, you scared the shit out of me.”
I swing the light beam around, and Ian steps into my clearing.
Maybe there’s a God. Maybe there isn’t. Something got him here just as I’m ready to break, and I wonder, Is he here to save me or smash me himself? He’s not happy—that’s clear. His eyes have shadows, and his face is tense. I pick up my bottle and chug, then stretch out on the ground against a tree.
“What are you doing, Grace?”
I lift my eyebrows at his painfully obvious question and don’t bother to answer. I swallow another drink, feel it burn a path to my stomach. A few seconds later he takes my bottle, swallows some, makes a face.
“Can I sit?”
I go still. Me wearing my kick-ass boots, drinking in the woods alone with a boy, and he wants permission to sit? Are you completely insane? every cell in my body screams at me, but I shift over a bit because it just doesn’t matter. What can he possibly do to me that hasn’t already been done? He crouches beside me, leans against my tree, and passes back my bottle.
“So why didn’t you do it?” He picks up my piece of glass, tosses it far out of the way. I mourn the loss as I follow its trajectory and swill more rum when it plops somewhere behind a shrub.
Why didn’t I do it? Damn good question. How can I possibly explain it? I wanted to. I still do. But there’s something else I want more. Need like I need air to breathe. “In your family, you have any old cur…curmug—” I know this word. I glance at my bottle. Rum works fast. Good.