And then on the third day my door swished open. I was staring at the ceiling, thinking about this time that Nick and I played laser tag at Nitez. I’d won the game and it had really ticked Nick off at first, but afterward we went to a party at Mason’s house and he told everybody what a great shot I was. He seemed really, really proud of me and I felt so good about myself. We spent the rest of the evening holding hands and making googly eyes at each other and it was, like, the best night of my life.
When I heard the door open, I closed my eyes quickly, because I wanted whoever it was that came in to think I was asleep and go away so I could keep thinking about that night. I swear my hand was warm, like Nick’s was in it right at that moment.
I heard footsteps scuff over to the side of the bed and stop. But the wires didn’t move. I didn’t hear any drawers or cabinets open like I normally would if a nurse was in the room. And I didn’t hear Mom’s telltale stuffed-up nose snorting. Didn’t smell Frankie’s cologne. Just a still presence beside me. I opened one eye.
A guy in a brown suit stood next to the bed. He was probably in his forties, I guessed, and he was completely bald. Not the kind of bald where all of his hair had fallen out, but the kind of bald where he’d lost enough of it to just give up and shave the rest off. He was chewing gum. He didn’t smile.
I opened both eyes, but I didn’t sit up. I also didn’t say anything. Just looked at him, my heart pounding in my chest.
“How’s your leg, Valerie?” he said. “I can call you Valerie, right?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn’t answer. My hand involuntarily moved to the bandage over my leg. I wondered if I should be prepared to scream. Was this some freaky horror-movie kind of guy who planned to rape and kill me in my hospital bed? I had half a thought that it would probably serve me right, that a lot of people out there would be happy to hear that something horrible happened to me, but it couldn’t really form because he was moving and talking again.
“Better, I hope.” He stepped back and pulled a chair forward. Sat in it. “You’re young. You got that on your side at least. I got shot in the foot two years ago by some crackhead in Center. Took forever to heal up. But I’m an old man.” He laughed at his own joke. I blinked. Still didn’t move, my hand still on the bandages.
His laughter dried up, and he chewed his gum solemnly, staring at my face with his head cocked just slightly to one side. He stared at me for so long I finally spoke.
“My mom’s coming right back,” I said. I don’t know why I said it because it was a total lie. I had no idea when Mom would be coming in. It just seemed like the right thing to say—that an adult would be coming along soon, so he probably should get rid of whatever rape plans he had.
“She’s in the lobby. I’ve already talked to her,” he said. “She’ll be up later. Maybe after lunch or so. She’s talking to my colleague right now. Might be a while. Your dad’s down there, too. Seems like he’s not overly happy with you right now.”
I blinked.
“Well,” I said. I thought that pretty much summed it up. Well. Well, when has he ever been? Well, who cares? Well, certainly not me. Well.
“I’m Detective Panzella,” the guy in the brown suit said.
“Okay,” I said.
“You can see my badge if you want to.”
I shook my head, no, mostly because I still hadn’t really put together why he might be there.
He eased into a chair and leaned forward, his face entirely too close to mine.
“We need to talk, Valerie.”
I guess I should’ve known it was coming. It only made sense, right? Except at that point nothing made sense. The shooting didn’t make sense, so how could a detective in a brown suit sitting across from my hospital bed make sense?
I was scared to death. No, I was more scared than that, even. I was so scared I felt cold all over and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to talk to him at all about anything.
“Do you remember what happened at your school?” he asked.
I shook my head no. “Not really. Some.”
“Lots of people died, Valerie. Your boyfriend Nick killed them. Do you have any idea why?”
I thought about this. In all the piecing together of what happened at the school, it had never occurred to me to even ask myself why. The answer seemed so obvious—Nick hated those kids. And they hated him back. That’s why. Hate. Punches in the chest. Nicknames. Laughs. Snide comments. Being shoved into the lockers when some idiot with an attitude walked by. They hated him and he hated them and somehow it ended up this way, with everyone gone.
I remembered a night around Christmas. Nick’s mom had loaned Nick her car, told him to take me out. It was rare that we had wheels and we were both really excited to go somewhere outside of walking distance. We decided on a movie.
Nick picked me up in the rusty, rattletrap car, the floorboard littered with lipstick-lined Styrofoam coffee cups and empty cigarette packs stuffed into the cracks of the seats. But we didn’t care. We were too happy to be getting out. I scooted over to the middle of the front seat so I could sit close to him while he drove, hesitantly, as if it was his first time behind the wheel.
“So,” Nick said. “Funny or scary?”
I thought it over. “Romantic,” I answered, a mischievous smile on my face.
He made a face, glanced at me. “You serious? No way. I’m not sitting through a chick flick.”
“You would if I asked you,” I teased.
He nodded, grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “I would.”
“But I won’t ask you to,” I said. “Funny. I’m in the mood for a laugh.”
“Me too,” he said. His hand left the steering wheel and moved to my knee. He squeezed it softly, then left his hand resting there.
I leaned into him, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day. My parents were so annoying last night, I swear I thought I was going to go crazy.”
“Yeah, this is great,” he answered, giving my knee another reassuring squeeze.
We pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater. The place was packed, people spilling out onto the sidewalk and lawn in front of it. Mostly teenagers, mostly people from our school. Nick’s hand left my knee and reached back for the steering wheel as he drove slowly along, scanning for a parking space.
Chris Summers was walking past our car, a giant fountain drink in his hand. He was with his buddies, and they were goofing around like always. They cut across the parking lot right in front of us, causing Nick to step on the brakes hard.
Chris peered into the windshield and then started laughing.
“Nice car, freak!” he called and then cocked his arm and lobbed the giant drink onto the windshield. The cup split open and soda and ice splattered everywhere, leaving foamy streaks as it slid down onto the hood of the car.
I jumped, a little squeal escaping me. “Asshole!” I screamed, even though Chris and his buddies had already moved on and were pulling open the doors of the theater. Several of the kids on the lawn had looked up and were laughing, too. “You’re such a jerk!” I screamed again. “You think you’re so cool, but you’re just a stupid ass!” I let a few more insults fly, directing my gaze at people who were laughing, including Jessica Campbell, who stood with her cluster of girlfriends, their hands over their open, laughing mouths. “God,” I said, finally, sitting back against the seat again. “I wonder if he misses his brain, you know?”
But Nick didn’t answer me. He was sitting absolutely still, his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, the soda blurring the windshield. I leaned forward. His face, just a few minutes ago grinning, had totally fallen. Almost withered. His cheeks had bright red patches on them and his jaw was trembling. I could almost feel the embarrassment and disappointment radiating off of him, could almost see him crumple into defeat before my eyes. It scared me. Usually Nick got angry, fought back. But this time he just looked like he wanted to cry.
“Hey,” I said,
touching his elbow softly. “Forget about it. Summers is just a jerk.”
But Nick still didn’t say anything, didn’t make a move, even though the cars behind us had begun honking.
I watched him a minute more, hearing his voice in my head: Sometimes we get to win, too, Valerie, he’d said. Not tonight, I thought. Tonight we’re still the losers. “You know,” I said, “I’m not really in the mood for a movie at all. Let’s just go get something to eat. Take it back to your place. We can watch TV.”
He looked over at me, his lips in a tight line, his eyes watery. He nodded slowly, then reached up and flicked on the windshield wipers, which whisked the cup away and made the soda disappear, as if it hadn’t just completely ruined our night. “I’m sorry,” he said in a ragged voice I could barely hear, then put the car into gear and slowly crept out of the parking lot like a whipped dog.
But sitting in my hospital bed, it didn’t seem like this was what the detective really wanted to hear. He didn’t want to know about Nick. He wanted to know about the perpetrator of a crime. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Wanna take a guess?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Nick would know. But you can’t ask him because he’s dead. Maybe Jeremy would know.”
“Would that be Jeremy Watson? From, uh…” he checked some notes in a notebook that he’d produced from out of nowhere. “Lowcrest?” he said.
“I guess,” I said. I realized I had no idea what Jeremy’s last name was or where he lived. Only that he was Nick’s friend and the last person to talk to Nick before this happened. “I don’t really know Jeremy.”
The detective’s eyebrows raised just a little, like for some reason he expected me to be one of Jeremy’s closest friends or something.
“I never really met him before,” I said. “I just knew Nick was hanging out with him.”
The detective pooched out his lips a little, a frown creasing his forehead. “Hm. That’s funny, because Jeremy’s parents sure know a lot about you. Knew your first and last names. Knew where you lived. Told me to look for you if I wanted answers.”
“How would they know anything about me?” I pulled myself up onto my elbows. “I’ve never even met them.”
The detective shrugged. “Maybe Nick talked about you a lot. Was this planned, Valerie? Did you and Nick plan the shooting together?”
“I didn’t… No, I wasn’t going to… No way!”
“We have about a dozen witnesses who all say Nick’s words to you right before he shot you were, ‘Don’t you remember our plan?’ You have no idea what plan he was talking about?”
“No.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s the truth,” I said miserably. “I didn’t plan any of this. I didn’t even know he was planning this.”
He stood and pulled his suit coat straight. He pulled a sheaf of papers out of a folder and handed them to me. I looked down at them and swear I stopped breathing.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: Another way to do it
I think I would prefer gas over anything. You know, like go into the garage and turn on the car and just lay down on the seat and get high and get dead. That would be totally intense, man, if my parents walked in to the garage in the morning, ready to go to work and found me dead with a fatty in my hand.
Oh, and you know who I want to add to the list? Ginny Baker.
N
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Another way to do it
I don’t know, I’m still liking the whole overdose thing. Like o.d. on something sexy, like x or something. LOL about your parents walking in on you in the car. That would be too funny. Bet they’d finish smoking the weed before they called the ambulance. Wouldn’t you?
And why G.B.? I still have the list from when I was looking through it in social studies. I can put it on for you.
Val
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE:RE: Another way to do it
Why not? She’s just another SBRB anyway. Write her down. What number is she? I’m thinking somewhere around 407. Too bad. She deserves to be way higher on the list.
N
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Subject: RE:RE:RE: Another way to do it
All of those SBRB’s do. I wrote her down. 411, btw. Wouldn’t it be great if all of a sudden the mall blew up and the SBRB Club was blown to smithereens? Nothing but fake nails and blond hair all over the place. LOL.
Val
The detective stared at me closely as I thumbed through the rest of the papers—all files from my computer that I later learned the police had confiscated hours after the shooting.
“What are SBRBs?” he asked.
“Huh?” I mumbled.
“SBRBs. You guys both mention SBRBs. You say that Ginny Baker was one of them.”
“Oh,” I said. “I need a drink of water.” He reached forward and pushed the hospital tray closer to me. I grabbed the water and drank. “SBRBs,” I repeated. I shook my head.
“Don’t remember?” The detective crouched down to eye level. He glared into my eyes and I started to sweat. He spoke in a low, growling voice and I could see that he could turn into a real force to be reckoned with when he wanted to. “Valerie,” he said. “People want justice. They want answers. You can bet we’re going to get to the bottom of this. We will find out the truth. One way or another. You may not remember what exactly happened in the cafeteria three days ago, but I know you remember what SBRBs are.”
I set the water glass back on the tray. My mouth felt frozen shut.
“I checked with the school. It’s not some sort of school organization. So I know it’s something you and Nick made up.” He stood full height again and closed his folder. “Fine,” he said, back in normal voice. “I’ll figure it out. In the meantime, I’m just going to go ahead and assume that SBRB was your nickname for certain kids, at least one of whom died.”
“Skinny…” I started and then I stopped and closed my eyes, tightened my jaw. I felt cold all over and thought I should maybe ring a nurse or something. But I had a feeling the nurse wouldn’t do anything to help me. I took a breath. “Skinny Barbie Rich Bitches,” I said. “SBRB. Skinny Barbie Rich Bitches. That’s what it stood for. The SBRB Club. Okay?”
“And you wanted them to all be blown up.”
“No. I never wanted anyone to be blown up.”
“That’s what you said. You are ‘NicksVal,’ aren’t you?”
“We were joking. It was just a stupid joke.”
“George and Helen Baker aren’t laughing. Ginny’s face is a mess. If she lives, she’ll never look the same.”
“Oh my God,” I whispered, my mouth going dry. “I didn’t know.”
The detective stepped around the chair and shuffled toward the door. He pointed at the sheaf of papers that I was still holding. “I’m going to leave those with you for tonight. You can look them over and we’ll talk about them again tomorrow.”
I felt panicky. I didn’t want to talk to him in the morning or any other time. “My dad’s a lawyer. He won’t let me talk without a lawyer. This has nothing to do with me.”
I saw a flash of something cross the detective’s face—anger, maybe, or maybe just impatience.
“This is no game, Valerie,” he said. “I want to work with you, I really do. But you have to work with me. I’ve talked to your dad. He knows I’m talking to you. Your parents are cooperating, Valerie. So is your friend Stacey. We’ve spent the past two days going through Nick’s things, and yours. We have the notebook. We’re getting the e-mails right now. Whatever went on, we’ll find out about it. This is your chance to clear things up. To clear Nick’s name, if you think you can. But you have to talk. You have to cooperate. For your own sake.”
He stood in the doorway for a few minu
tes just watching me. “We’ll talk again tomorrow,” he said.
I stared at my lap, trying to take in everything he’d said. The notebook? The e-mails? I wasn’t sure exactly what he’d meant, but my guess was that it wasn’t looking good for me. I was mentally scanning all the horrible things I’d said in that notebook or in late-night IMs with Nick. None of it was good. I was so cold now I could barely feel anything below my neck.
8
“So tell me about this nickname of yours—Sister Death,” Detective Panzella said as soon as he walked in the door the next morning. No How’s the leg? Better I hope today, just Tell me about this nickname of yours.
“What about it? It was a stupid nickname,” I said, pushing the button to raise the head of my bed to a sitting position. I had been looking at the computer printouts he’d left the day before—again—and was in a foul mood. All of those things we talked about—why didn’t I see it? Why didn’t I see that Nick was serious?
The detective flipped a few pages in his little notebook and nodded. “Where did it come from?”
“What? You mean why did they call me that? Because of my eyeliner. Because I wear black jeans and dye my hair black. Because, I don’t know. Why don’t you ask them? It’s not like I asked to be called names.”
No, I hadn’t asked for it. That I was sure of, even though some people on TV made it sound like I did. Christy Bruter was just that one person, as my mom had said all these years. That one person who saw someone looking weak and vulnerable and pounced on it. That one person who had enough people in her back pocket that any nickname she created was going to catch on. That one person who could make my life miserable if she wanted to. Christy liked to call me names. So did Jessica Campbell and Meghan Norris. Chris Summers liked to pick on Nick any chance he got. Why? How should I know?
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