The Outliers

  “Who are you calling?” my mom asked.

  “The police,” he said, like this should have been self-evident.

  “Come on, Ben,” my mom said, crossing over to where he was standing. “I can give you one definite. You calling the police is exactly what they want: attention.”

  “I can’t deal with this, Hope,” my dad said quietly, sad almost, as my mom took the phone from him and hung it up. Then she wrapped her arms around him and whispered something in his ear.

  “You don’t have to deal with it,” she said as they separated, but loud enough that it seemed like she was saying it for my benefit. And weirdly, she did not even seem mad at my dad for making something that had happened to her all about him. “That’s why you have me.”

  After my dad and Karen are gone, I sit on the living room couch in the dark, staring out our large bay window overlooking Walnut Hill Road, waiting for the lights from Gideon’s ride home from track practice. Neither of us even have our learner’s permits yet, though we’ve both been legally allowed to for two months now. Nothing like your mom dying in a car accident to kill your thirst for the open road. Gideon will probably learn to drive eventually. Bur I already know that I never will.

  I peer again down the road for any sign of headlights. What is taking Gideon so long? He should have been home—well, just a few minutes ago, but still. Tonight, a few minutes feel like hours. It’s weird to be waiting on Gideon. His company is so prickly lately. But right now, I’d choose anything over being alone.

  I did lock all the doors after my dad and Karen left, then checked them twice. And then a third time. Because you don’t have to tell me twice to worry. I checked the locks and then I checked anything and everything else that could even potentially jump out, burn up, or otherwise turn on me.

  I’ve also checked my phone a dozen times for an answer to one of my texts to Cassie. I’ve sent four so far, and called her twice. But there’s been nothing. I would have sent more texts, but each one that goes unanswered makes me feel worse. Makes me more worried that this time, Cassie has finally gotten herself sunk into something so dark and deep that even I won’t be able to yank her back out, no matter how hard I try.

  “Why are all the lights off?”

  A voice behind me. When I spin around, heart racing, there’s Gideon, coat and backpack still on. He’s wearing sweatpants, his blond, shaggy hair damp against his forehead as he chews on what’s left of a Twizzler.

  “Why did you do that, Gideon!”

  “First of all, calm down.” He takes another bite. “Second of all, do what?”

  “Sneak up on me, you stupid jerk!”

  “Um, wow.” He holds up his hands like I’m pointing a gun at him, the half-chewed Twizzler flopping around in his fingers. He loves to point out whenever I’m acting nuts. Which, let’s face it, is most of the time lately.

  Gideon is perpetually annoyed at me because he thinks it’s unfair that he gets less attention for being more normal. Like with the home tutor, for instance. Gideon is an insanely smart kid (though even he would admit I could easily crush him on any math test anywhere, any day), but he hates school even after moving to Stanton Prep so they could better accommodate his über-genius science needs. He thinks he should get to opt out, too. My dad had shut him down so fast, it had made my head spin.

  “Did Stephen drive you home?” I look back out the window. Did I somehow miss the car? Am I now not seeing things right? “I didn’t see him.”

  “We came the back way. We stopped at Duffy’s for fries with some of the other guys.” He shrugs: hanging out like all the normal kids with lots of friends do. That’s what the shrug says. He so bad wants to be that kid. But I know that only Stephen is Gideon’s friend, sort of, and that the rest of the guys on the track team mostly put up with him because he’s willing to run everyone’s most-hated race, the two-mile, without complaining. Friends have never come so easily for Gideon, maybe because of how smart he is. Maybe just because of how he is period. “I came in the back door.”

  “You should go take a shower.” I turn back to the window. I want him to go, leave me alone, not pick a fight.

  “Who died and left you in charge?” When I look back at him, he puts a hand over his mouth and opens his eyes wide in fake shock. “Oh snap. Get it? Who died? You gotta admit, that was pretty funny.” I scowl at him. Gideon always tries to make jokes about our mom being gone. It makes him feel better. And it makes me feel worse. My mom was right, we really are opposite twins. Forever repelling each other, like the wrong sides of a magnet. “Come on, it was.”

  “It wasn’t funny.”

  “Fine, whatever.” Gideon shrugs as he turns toward the stairs. Does he actually look hurt? It’s so hard to tell with him, but I know there’s a heart in there somewhere. And these days he’s just trying to survive. We both are. “When is Dad going to be back? I have to ask him something about my chem homework.”

  Having exhausted all of Stanton Prep’s AP offerings, Gideon now takes science classes at Boston College. I don’t know if he really likes science or if it’s just a way to get closer to our dad. It’s not the worst call. One surefire way to get more attention from our dad is to somehow get mixed in with his work. I wouldn’t say our dad loves his work more than us, but sometimes it does feel like we’re neck and neck.

  “I don’t know, maybe a couple hours,” I say.

  I should have been more vague. Since the accident, our dad never goes out that long. It’s only going to lead to more questions. And I don’t want to talk to Gideon about Cassie. He’ll end up saying something rude. Gideon has never liked Cassie. Or, more precisely, he has always really liked her, but she never gave him the time of day. So he decided to hate her instead. Right now, I can’t take him insulting her down to a more manageable size. Or worse, trying to make me worry more just for the fun of it.

  “A couple hours? Where did he go?”

  “To help Karen.”

  “Help her with what?”

  Ugh. Too late. He’s already too interested. “She doesn’t know where Cassie is.” I shrug. No big deal.

  For a split second, Gideon almost looks worried for real. But then his mouth pulls down into his fake-thoughtful frown. “Huh. Now I get it,” he says.

  I hate it, but I’m going to have no choice but to play his game. “Get what, Gideon?”

  “Why Cassie was acting all freaky when she came by here,” he says, like I should know what he’s talking about. “I mean I don’t know exactly why. But it makes sense that she’d be acting weird if she was about to take off.”

  “Wait, Cassie came here?” My heart skips a beat. “When?”

  Gideon rubs his chin, then looks up at the ceiling. “Um, I think it was—let’s see.” He counts on his fingers like he’s measuring the days or even weeks. “Yesterday. Yup, that’s it, in the afternoon.”

  Jerk.

  “Yesterday?” I say, trying not to get mad. Gideon wants to get under my skin, that’s the whole point. “Why didn’t you tell me she was here?”

  “She didn’t want me to.” He shrugs. “She just wanted to drop off the note.”

  “What note, Gideon?” I’m up off the couch now. “You didn’t give me any note.”

  “Huh,” he says again, nodding. Like he’s confused, even though he obviously isn’t. Then he starts patting around his sweatshirt pockets and digging in his jeans. “Ah, here it is.” He pulls out a folded page and holds it up into the air, pulling it farther away when I grab for it. “Oh wait, now I remember why I didn’t give it to you. I knocked on the bathroom door to tell you about it, and you yelled, ‘Go away, jerk!’”

  He’s right. I did that. Screamed it, actually. Since the accident, my anxiety has been back with such Technicolor vengeance. Each day is mostly a thing I survive. But some are even crappier than others. And yesterday was one of the super-crap ones. By the time I got into the shower, hoping it would help me calm down, all I wanted to do was scream—at myself, at the world. I
definitely couldn’t deal with Gideon. If I thought apologizing to him wouldn’t just make things worse, I would have. And I am kind of sorry. Deep down, Gideon doesn’t mean to be a jerk. But the sweet part of him is buried so deep these days, it won’t be able to keep the rest of Gideon from kicking me when I’m down.

  “Give me the note, Gideon. Please.”

  He lifts his hand and the note even higher in the air. I’ve always been on the tall side, but Gideon is pushing six feet. There’s no way I can grab it. “Maybe I should read it,” he says. “You two aren’t even really friends anymore. Probably because Cassie got tired of everything being all about you and your problems all the time.”

  “Gideon, if you don’t give me that note, I’m going to tell Dad I saw you smoking pot with Stephen the other day.”

  It’s true—out in our small square of a backyard, next to the shed. From the look of it, it was Gideon’s first time. He’s got his issues, but drugs aren’t one of them. But even if it was just a one-off, I’ll still use it if I have to. The color has gone out of Gideon’s face. And there’s this look in his eyes. Like now he really, really hates me. I want not to care. But I do. I always do.

  “Whatever,” he says finally, throwing Cassie’s note at me. It hits the wall over my head and drops to the floor. “But if I was stuck with a messed-up best friend like you, I’d run away, too.”

  And with that, Gideon turns and walks out of the living room, headed for the steps. I wait until he’s gone before I pick up the note.

  I’m sorry, it reads in Cassie’s bubbly letters. You were right. About everything, I just wasn’t ready to hear it. But I’m ready now. For whatever happens. Xoxo C

  For whatever happens? I read the words again, my fingers gripping the paper. My heart is thumping in my chest. I do not like the sound of that—like Cassie has made peace with something. Like people do before they—Cassie wouldn’t do something to herself, would she? No, I don’t think so. In the past few months, I’ve thought about putting an end to things, an end to me. But Cassie is not like me. She’s like a giant rubber ball. She always bounces back. It’s what defines her as a human being. She’s just out having one too many Smirnoff Watermelon Ices again. She has to be.

  My stomach twists tighter as I read the words again. What was I “right” about exactly? That Cassie needed to stop drinking, put on some weight, take better care of herself? That Jasper wasn’t a person she should trust? That he would hurt her eventually? I don’t want to be right about any of those things anymore. Not when me being right could mean something awful for Cassie. And the truth is, I don’t know what she’s capable of anymore.

  I pick up my phone to send Cassie yet another text. It might be worth saying I’m sorry, too. I was right to try to get her to stop drinking. I had good reason to be worried. But I did mix that up with other things that didn’t matter nearly as much, like the Rainbow Coalition and Jasper.

  Just got your note. I’m sorry too. I should have been a better friend. Come home. Please. Whatever is going on, we’ll fix it together.

  I’m still staring down at my phone, willing a response from Cassie, when there’s a knock at our front door. Or did I imagine it? I’m hoping I might have when it comes again. Cassie? But the knock is harder and louder even than before with Karen. A bigger fist maybe, a heavier hand? Keep the doors locked. But I have to at least check to make sure it’s not Cassie.

  I make my way over carefully to the foyer. I can hear the shower upstairs. Gideon can’t hear a thing. Not even if I scream. I suck in some air, tucking myself to the side so I can peek out the window without being seen.

  There on our porch, with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, huge shoulders hiked up toward his perfect ears, is the very last person I want to see: Jasper Salt. He has on one of his trademark skintight T-shirts—short-sleeved, despite the cold—and slouched-just-right jeans. He’s staring down at his black Nikes, rocking back and forth like he’s freezing, but pretending it’s all good, man. Because that’s the way Jasper talks. Even though no one talks like that, not even in Long Beach, California, where Jasper’s from.

  Jasper was already a sophomore when we started at Newton Regional High School, and he stood out from the start. There was the inhuman way he looked, of course, like he just walked out of a Gap ad, with glowing skin, bright-green eyes, and six-pack abs that you could detect even when he was wearing one of his baggy football or ice hockey jerseys.

  The first time Cassie and I saw him was in the cafeteria at his usual table with all the other football players, all wearing their stupid jerseys for the first game. They were huge and loud, deliberately trying to draw attention to themselves. All except Jasper, their starting quarterback even as a sophomore, who never moved fast or raised his voice. He didn’t make threats, or hassle anyone. He was the calm and quiet sun around which the rest of them revolved.

  But there was this energy underneath all that calm, tight and wound. Like inside he was a coiled spring no one wanted to see snap. Or snap again. Because Jasper had exploded at least once already. With that one legendary punch.

  All the freshman girls couldn’t have cared less about Jasper’s supposed assault and battery, though. Actually, I think it might have made them love him even more. “He’s from L.A.,” they said. “I heard he has a movie agent.” “I heard his whole family moved here so he could play ice hockey.” “I heard he slept with twelve girls last year. All of them seniors.”

  Twelve girls. One punch. What an asshole. That’s what I’m thinking as I step over to the door. Because I already know that Jasper showing up on my doorstep isn’t some kind of accident. It’s proof enough for me that he had something to do with what’s going on with Cassie. Where she is. What she’s up to. Or maybe why she left.

  But I hesitate once my hand is on the doorknob. Maybe he’s here fishing for what other people know. I should play dumb. See what Jasper says first, let him dig himself a hole deep enough I can kick him into it later.

  “Oh, hi.” Jasper looks surprised when I finally open the door. And, annoyingly, up close he is even better-looking than I remembered. He’s not my type, too pretty and too perfectly imperfect. And thinking about it now, I can only imagine how Cassie must feel with his attention fixed on her: special. The way she always wanted to feel. “I didn’t, um, think that anybody was home.”

  Jasper’s eyes flick up to my hacked hair then. They snap right back down. He’s pretending not to notice the disaster that is the top of my head, which, I guess, is one tiny point in his favor.

  “Well, here I am,” I say. I force myself to loosen my grip on the doorknob, hoping it might help relax the rest of me. “What’s up?”

  “Can I come in?” Jasper asks, looking around behind him like there might be someone out there in the dark, watching him. “I’d rather explain inside.”

  No. But I can’t say that while pretending I don’t know why he’s here.

  “All right.” I step to the side but keep him blocked into the foyer. “What?”

  I don’t want him any farther in the house, or my life. I just want him to tell me what he knows about Cassie and then be on his way. Because the longer Jasper stays, and the more it seems like he’s stalling, the tighter my chest is getting. And I am really not interested in having one of my episodes in front of him.

  Jasper crosses and uncrosses his arms, lifts his shoulders even closer to his ears. Now he officially looks guilty. I press my lips together and swallow hard. He didn’t do something to Cassie, did he? I am not a member of the Jasper Salt fan club. I think he is a bad influence with a mean streak that everyone, for some reason, pretends doesn’t exist. But when I told Cassie’s mom that I didn’t think he would hurt her, I meant it.

  “Cassie’s missing,” he begins finally. “And I, um, got a call a couple hours ago from her mom asking if I’d talked to her. But I haven’t since yesterday.” Well, there’s lie number one: Jasper told Karen that he’d texted with Cassie this morning. “Oh, wait, I mean, I guess
we texted this morning.” Okay, fine. Back to zero lies, that I know of. But we are just getting started.

  “She wasn’t in school?”

  Jasper somehow walks right past me, uninvited, into my living room. That’s the kind of guy he is: convinced that he’s welcome everywhere.

  “I don’t know for sure. We were in a fight,” he says, and kind of defensively. “I texted her this morning, but I was still kind of pissed. So I dodged her at school. Later Maia told me Cassie must have bagged school anyway. Have you seen her, or heard from her or anything?”

  So the Rainbow Coalition lied to Karen about seeing Cassie in school.

  “I haven’t talked to Cassie in days,” I say. And he must know that. “Why would you think I’d have heard from her?”

  “Because I got this.” Jasper digs his phone out of his pocket and hands it to me. There’s a text from Cassie open on the screen: Go to Wylie’s house. That’s it. That’s the whole message. “You have no idea why she’d tell me to come here?”

  “Me?” It actually sounds like he thinks I’m the one who’s hiding something. “I have absolutely no idea. Did you tell her mom that you got this?”

  “I was about to, but then—” He motions for his phone back and moves his finger up a little on the screen before handing it back to me. “I got this one.”

  Don’t tell anyone you heard from me. Especially my mom.

  “Okay, but—”

  He reaches for the phone again, tapping in search of yet another message. He holds up the phone a third time.

  I messed up again. If you call my mom, she’ll call the police. And you know what will happen. Please, just go to Wylie’s. More soon.

  “What the hell is going on?” I ask, and I sound angry. At Jasper. But I am sure this is somehow at least a little bit his fault.