“Your mom told me,” he said. “What do you think about that?”
I shrugged, lifted my gaze to study the figurines on top of his bookcase. A porcelain elephant, a Precious Moments doctor and child, a polished piece of quartz. Gifts from clients. “I already knew about it. I wasn’t too surprised.”
“Sometimes even stuff you expect to happen can still hurt,” he suggested.
“I don’t know. I think I got over Dad a long time ago. I think it hurt back then but now… I don’t know… now it kind of seems like a relief.”
“I can understand that.”
“Thanks for doing the whole anorexia thing with Mom, by the way,” I said. I abandoned the bookcase and flopped backward on the couch.
He nodded. “You have to eat, though. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, I know. I’m eating. I’ve even gained back a few pounds. No big deal. It’s not like I’m trying to lose weight.”
“I believe that. She just worries is all. Sometimes you’ve gotta humor the old people. Let her see you eat something every now and then. Okay?”
I nodded. “Okay. You’re right.”
He smiled wide, pumped his fist in the air. “Right again! I should do this for a living!”
I chuckled, rolling my eyes. “Oh! I almost forgot. I made you something.”
His eyebrows raised and he leaned forward to take the canvas I had dug out of my backpack.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said.
He turned the canvas around and studied it. It was the portrait I’d painted in Bea’s studio last Saturday.
“This is incredible,” he said. Then he repeated it, more enthusiastically. “This is really incredible! I had no idea you could do this.”
I moved behind him and looked over his shoulder at my Portrait of a Hieler. Not the guy with the dark brown hair and sympathetic eyes that I saw every Saturday in his office, but the real him as I saw him: a pool of serenity, a burst of sunlight, a way out of the deep, dark tunnel I lived in.
I nodded. “Yeah, I think I really like painting. I’ve been hanging out with this lady at a studio across the street and she’s been letting me paint for free. I also started a notebook. I’ve been drawing things as I really see them. Not like what everybody wants you to see, but what’s really there. It’s been helpful. Although some people think it’s another Hate Book. But whatever. I just draw them, too.”
He carefully propped the canvas against the lamp on the table next to him. “Can I see the book? Will you bring it next time you’re in?”
I smiled shyly. “Okay. Yeah. Okay.”
31
Jessica Campbell’s house smelled like vanilla. It was sparkly clean, just like the minivan that her mom had driven us home in, and had colors in it that reminded me of commercials. Bright periwinkle blues, viney greens, sunshine yellow that almost hurt my eyes when I stared at it too long.
We sat at the kitchen table—Jessica, Meghan, Cheri Mansley, McKenzie Smith, and me—eating soft pretzels that her mom had handmade in anticipation of our coming home from school. She served them up on an oval platter, the Lord’s Prayer hand-painted on it, along with little Pyrex dishes filled with mustard, barbeque sauce, and melted cheese.
Jessica and Cheri were talking about Doug Hobson getting pantsed in the field house after track practice earlier in the week. They were laughing and stuffing pretzels into their mouths so carelessly I felt like I was sitting in a movie theater watching them onscreen. Meghan and McKenzie were studying a magazine article about hairstyles. I sat at the far end of the table silently nibbling on a pretzel.
Jessica’s mom stood by the sink and beamed at her daughter, laughing along with them every time the girls dissolved into another funny story, but without intruding on their conversation. I tried not to notice how her smile wavered every so often when she’d flick a glance at me.
We finished eating, then moved upstairs to Jessica’s bedroom where she turned on some song that I didn’t know. The four of them got up and danced, talking over the music and making squealing noises I didn’t think my vocal cords were even capable of making. I sat on the bed and watched them, smiling without trying or even really realizing it. I imagined that, if I had my notebook with me, I would be able to draw everyone exactly as they looked at that moment. For a change I felt like I was in reality.
After a while Jessica’s mom knocked on the door and opened it just a crack with that smile pasted over her perfect teeth. She announced that dinner was ready and we headed down to find homemade pizza on the counter. Three kinds. The crusts perfectly flaky and brown. The meat perfectly baked. The veggies perfectly soft. A measured and even crust stuffed painstakingly with garlic butter and cheese. They almost looked too perfect to eat.
I couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to Jessica’s mom if I hadn’t jumped in between Nick and Jessica. If she’d lost her baby girl. Would she still make perfect pizzas and set bowls of lemons on the kitchen table for decoration and burn vanilla candles? She didn’t seem like someone who tolerated bullying. Did she know that Jessica used to call me Sister Death? Was she disappointed in Jessica for treating me that way? Disappointed in herself for raising a daughter who would do that? And what would she have done if she were my mom? Would it have broken her more to know that her daughter was dead or that her daughter might have been the shooter?
After dinner we piled into Jessica’s car and left, her mom waving at us out the front door like we were preschoolers heading off on our first field trip. The drive to Alex’s house was long and over gravel roads. After a while I didn’t recognize where we were—we’d driven down country roads I didn’t even know existed in Garvin.
Alex’s house was a rambling brick farmhouse all but hidden behind a grove of crabapple trees. No lights were on in the house, which made it look ominous in the night, even though the driveway was clogged with cars.
Just past the driveway, a large gate to a pasture had been pulled open and Jessica pulled onto the grass. Up ahead it looked like a parking lot, as if all of Garvin had shown for the party, and Jessica eased her car in with the others. As soon as we tumbled out of it we could hear thumping music off to our left. Ahead we could see the barn, the door thrown wide open, a square of black light and spinning crescents of colored light spilling out onto the cropped grass.
Over it all we could hear laughter and little squeals and above even that we could hear the sounds you would expect to hear on a farm—a faraway dog barking, intermittent mooing, frogs chattering near a pond.
Jessica, Meghan, McKenzie, and Cheri practically raced toward the barn, talking excitedly and bumping to the beat of the music. I followed slowly behind, chewing on my bottom lip, my heart pounding, my legs feeling leaden.
Inside, the barn was packed, and I couldn’t find Jessica or the others in the sea of people. I pushed through as well as I could and eventually found myself standing at a giant metal tub filled with ice and drinks. Mostly there was beer inside, but after searching for a few minutes I found a soda and pulled it out. I hadn’t drunk a drop of alcohol since Nick died and I wasn’t sure I could handle it.
“Don’t you want one of these?” someone called to me from behind. I turned to see Josh holding up a beer. “This is a party, man.”
He stepped forward and took the soda out of my hand and tossed it back into the ice, then rummaged around in the tub and pulled out a bottle of beer. He twisted off the top.
“Here.” He flashed me a smile that showed all of his teeth.
I took the beer with shaking hands. I thought about Nick. About the times we partied together. The times we sneered over how we imagined people like Jessica and Josh partying. About how disappointed Nick would be to see me drinking with Josh. About how it didn’t matter anymore, what Nick thought, because Nick was gone. And somehow that thought seemed to make the difference. I took a long gulp.
“You come with Jess?” Josh shouted over the music.
I nodded and took another sw
ig.
We both listened to the music for a while and watched the crowd. Josh finished his beer and tossed the bottle into a pile of empties behind some hay bales. He reached into the tub and grabbed another, wavering slightly as he did so.
I took another gulp and was almost surprised to find more than half of the bottle gone. My arms and legs started feeling warm. My head felt lighter, too, and I was beginning to think that this party might be a great idea. I took another drink and bounced my head slightly to the rhythm of the music.
“Want to dance?” Josh asked.
I looked behind me at first, sure he wasn’t talking to me. He could barely look at me in those student council meetings. He hadn’t exactly pulled a seat out for me at the lunch table, either. The change seemed so… sudden.
He laughed. “I’m talking to you,” he said.
I laughed, too. And not a little laugh, which sort of surprised me. I tipped the bottle back up to my mouth and discovered that it was already empty. I tossed the empty bottle behind the hay bale with a clink and pulled another one out of the ice. Josh grabbed it out of my hand and twisted open the top, then handed it back.
“I don’t really dance anymore,” I said, taking a big swig. “My leg…”
But when I looked down, my leg looked like anyone else’s leg. And, come to think of it, it didn’t throb at the moment, either. I took another long swallow.
“C’mon,” he said, tossing an arm over my shoulders and leaning in to me. “Nobody will even notice.”
I drank again and licked my lips. He smelled good. Like soap. Some of that masculine soap like Nick used. I loved that smell on Nick. And suddenly a longing opened up in me so big it hurt. Suddenly I was so lonely I felt as if I were in a cage. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back into Josh’s arm. Things swam in front of my closed eyelids. I smiled, then opened my eyes and downed the rest of my beer. I tossed it into the pile and grabbed his hand.
“What are we waiting for then?” I shouted. “Let’s dance!”
I was amazed at how easy the moves came to me. Came back to me, I should say. I could remember a time when dancing was one of my favorite things to do, and with the alcohol in my system, it was difficult to stay in reality. I remembered a thousand times dancing in Nick’s arms, him breathing into my neck, saying, “You’re gorgeous, you know that? These school dances are really lame, but at least I get to be with the most gorgeous girl in the room.”
The song changed to something slow and I allowed Josh to hug me tight around the middle. I leaned into him, my eyes closed. The leather sleeves of his letter jacket creaked against my cheek and I soaked up the sound, along with the smell of him, and the rough feel of his football letter pressing against my ear. With my eyes closed, I could imagine that I was smelling Nick’s leather jacket, feeling one of its zippers pressing up against my ear. Hearing him telling me he loved me. Telling me he’d always love me.
For a minute my fantasy was so real I was surprised when I looked up into his eyes and saw Josh there instead.
“I think I should get some air or something,” I said. “My head’s spinning. I think I drank that too fast.”
“Sure,” he said. “Okay.”
We plowed our way back through the crowd and made our way outside the barn. A few kids were scattered here and there, making out, smoking, playing grab-ass in the wedge of lights and music that slipped through the open door. We rounded the corner to the side of the barn where nobody was. Josh sat down on the grass and I dropped down next to him, wiping my hands across my forehead, which was beginning to sweat.
“Thanks,” I said. “I haven’t had a lot of exercise in the past few months. I’m kind of out of practice.”
“No problem,” Josh said. “I was ready for a break anyway.” And he smiled at me. A genuine smile. And it was cool, this party. Nothing like Nick and I had guessed these parties would be.
Suddenly there was a rustling in the nearby weeds and a trio of guys burst out of the overgrown pasture, heading toward us. I recognized one as Meghan’s brother, Troy. The other two I knew as older guys who hung around with Troy, but I didn’t know their names.
“Well, what do you have here, Joshy?” Troy said, standing over us, his arms folded across his chest. “Gettin’ busy with the murderer’s girlfriend? Risky! Hey, I hear blowing people away gets her hot.”
Josh’s smile blinked out like a lightbulb, replaced by a hard edge I recognized all too well. “With her? No way, man. I’m just keeping an eye on her. For Alex. Making sure she doesn’t cause any trouble.”
I was almost surprised at how much I felt like someone had punched me in the chest when I heard him say that. It almost felt like a physical blow. Here I was again, thinking Josh was actually into me, too stupid to see what was real. The old blind Val back in action. My head was buzzing and I felt tears spring to my eyes. Idiot, I thought. Val, you’re a real idiot.
“Thanks, but I don’t need a babysitter,” I said. I tried my best to sound tough, unaffected, but a quaver rode on top of the words and I found myself pressing my lips together instead. “You can go now,” I said when I was able to pry them apart again. “I was just leaving.”
Troy crouched down and squeezed my knees with his hands, staring directly into my face, too close for comfort. “Yeah, Joshy. You can go. I’ll hang with Sister Death.”
“Cool,” Josh said. He scrambled to his feet and was gone. As he rounded the corner of the barn, he looked over his shoulder at me one last time. I could almost swear I detected a look of regret in his face when he did that, but how could I possibly trust anything I saw anymore? I was, like, the world’s worst at reading what anybody was thinking. I might as well have GULLIBLE stamped across my forehead.
“If she gets out of line,” Troy said, leaning in so close my hair moved in puffs when he talked. “I’ll just talk to her in her own language.” He cocked his forefinger and thumb into a gun shape and pressed it to my temple. I shrugged away from him angrily.
“Get away from me, Troy,” I snarled, trying to stand up. But his grip on my leg tightened, his pinky digging into my thigh dangerously close to my scar. “Ow, you’re hurting me. Let go.”
“What’s the matter?” Troy said. “Not so tough without your boyfriend?” His mouth was so close now I felt little pieces of spittle hit my ear. “Alex told me you were coming tonight. Seems your new buddies aren’t too thrilled to have you hanging around their parties.”
“Alex isn’t my buddy. I’m here with Jessica,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. I’m leaving anyway. Let go.”
His fingers gouged into my leg harder. “My sister was in that cafeteria,” he said. “She saw her friends die, thanks to you and that puke boyfriend of yours. She still has nightmares about it. He got what he deserved, but you got a free pass. That ain’t right. You should’ve died that day, Sister Death. Everyone wishes you would have. Look around. Where is Jessica, if she wants you here so bad? Even the friends you came here with don’t want to be with you.”
“Let go of me,” I said again, pulling on his fingers. But he only pinched tighter.
“Your boyfriend isn’t the only one who can get his hands on a gun, you know,” he said. Slowly he eased himself up to standing again. He reached into the waistband of his jeans and pulled out something small and dark. He pointed it at me, and when the moonlight hit it, I gasped and pressed myself against the barn wall.
“So was this the kind of gun your psycho boyfriend used?” he asked, turning the gun in his hand contemplatively. He aimed it at my leg. “Do you recognize it? It’s not so tough to get ahold of one. My dad hides this one in the rafters downstairs. If I wanted, I could make people go away, just like Nick did.”
I tried to look away, to force myself to be strong, to get up and run at least. But I couldn’t look at anything but the gun gleaming in Troy’s hand and I felt boneless, my muscles useless. My ears started ringing just like they had on the day of the shooting, and I felt like I couldn’t take a breath. Images
of the Commons tried to force themselves in on me. “Stop,” I half-grunted. Tears sprang to my eyes and I wiped them away with shaking hands.
“Stay away from my sister and her friends,” he said.
“This is lame, man,” his friend said. “C’mon, Troy, I’m losing my buzz. That thing isn’t even loaded.”
Troy stared at me, his face pulling into a smile. He wiggled the gun at me and laughed like it was all some big funny joke. “You’re right,” he said to his friend. “Let’s get out of here.” He shoved the gun back in his waistband and they took off around to the front of the barn.
I sat on the ground making a raw, ragged sound in my throat that was not quite a cry and not quite a gasp, but something in between. I felt like my eyes were bugging out of their sockets and all I could think about was getting away. I struggled to my feet and ran with all my might through the pasture and toward the road, ignoring the pain in my leg that throbbed every time my foot hit the ground.
I kept running until my lungs felt molten and then I walked, first down gravel roads and then onto paved ones, following the railroad tracks to the highway. Once, I stopped and sat on a low wall by a pond to catch my breath and let my leg rest. I crawled to the edge of the pond and lay on my belly, splashing my face with the cold water. And then I sat there, my jeans soaking up the damp ground under me, staring up at the sky, which looked so clear and full of promise.
Finally I made it to the highway and shortly to a gas station. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed Dad’s cell phone number. The one I’d added to my contacts list, thinking, I’ll never call it. I’ll never call him.
I waited through two rings.
“Dad?” I said. “Can you come get me?”
32
Dad came to get me at the gas station in his pajamas, his face angular and intense, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. He didn’t look directly at me as I slid into the front seat next to him, just sat there staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched.