A Soul's Kiss

by Debra Chapoton

  The ride to Michael’s house is oddly quiet.

  * * *

  I follow Michael through his house. I try to take it all in, at every step, but there is too much. The mantel in the living room has framed graduation pictures of his older brothers. Family group shots. A picture of Michael in his band uniform. Another in his football jersey.

  We climb the stairs. Awards and certificates zigzag a pattern up the wall. I learn his brothers’ names: Thomas and Richard. Thomas is a musician. Richard is the athlete. I smile to think of Michael excelling in both areas. Competing with his older brothers. Outshining them. Surpassing them. The final plaque proves it.

  I stare at the award, read it through, and smile with satisfaction. The Principal’s Merit Award for Excellence in Music, Drama, Sports, and Scholarship.

  The first bedroom door clicks. Mr. and Mrs. Hoffman’s voices rise then hush as they discuss Michael. He pauses to listen, swears softly, and tramps down the hall. The last room is his. The angry slamming of the door stuns me, but only for a moment. I’m pretty certain I can open the door. I dig the last breath mint out of my pocket and tremble with excitement.

  Michael

  Last Month

  I got the idea from my brother Rick. He pledged a fraternity last fall and went through hell-week and told me all about it. I couldn’t stop thinking about all the initiation pranks.

  I was afraid Hannah was going to break up with me and I needed something to keep her interested. It wasn’t enough that I was breaking my neck doing everything she wanted. Who was she going to find who was as involved as I was? But being in the play, on the football team, and in the band wasn’t enough for her. I had to get the lead in the play. Be the quarterback. Be the drum major.

  When she suggested that I run for senior class president I balked and she threatened to go out with Keith Mullins. The dweeb.

  “Let’s form our own secret society instead,” I said. I started thinking up a plan on the fly and she seemed to be thinking it over. She combed lemon juice through my hair and I let her. We sat on the same beach towel. Close. I watched a girl twenty yards away rub oil on her legs.

  “What do you mean ‘secret’?”

  “Like we initiate people and unless they do really crazy stuff that we think up they don’t get in.”

  “Hmm,” she said. I had her attention. I looked from the girl in the bikini to Hannah and wondered if her expression meant she was considering it.

  “Like a fraternity,” I added. “Or a sorority. Just the coolest kids.” Her eyes narrowed, a frown was threatening to form on her very pretty face. I really liked kissing that face. I was close to wearing down her resistance. “Or maybe instead of hazing our friends, we go after the dweebs.” I pictured Keith. I’d love to make him eat dirt.

  Her head was nodding. I could sense the birth of enthusiasm. I mimicked her. This was good stuff. I could use this in drama class. Every new emotion I learned would fool another dozen people. Or hundreds.

  We started our experiment that same week of summer. We let a few friends in on the fun. We hazed victim number one. It was no big deal. She was cool with it and joined us when we bullied victim number two. She fought back, but not enough. The challenges escalated. The thrill was addictive.

  Rashanda was victim number five or maybe she was number six. There was something different about her. Like she had an invisible force field around her. Like nothing bad could happen to her.

  As part of the plan I tried to approach her in school, but she wasn’t buying it. Maybe she didn’t go for white boys. Maybe she didn’t go for boys at all.

  Hannah brought Andrew and Brittany along when she picked me up in my car after the first away game. I was too tired for the prank they had planned, but it was a Friday night and I could sleep in on Saturday. We parked among the employees’ cars at the far end of the mall. Hannah and Brittany walked up to the entrances, Andrew went down one row, and I took another. We checked for school parking stickers on the windshields and let the air out of the tires of those cars. There were only three.

  It was just past closing time and employees were coming out at intervals. I’d slipped into the driver’s seat and Andrew stood outside my window on the phone with Brittany. Neither of us could see Brittany. Andrew asked her if she had seen anybody from our school yet. He’s such a dork.

  I saw Hannah give me the sign—a hand on her hip—and watched her approach us walking with that dark-skinned beauty, Rashanda.

  I wasn’t tired anymore.

  “She’s got somebody. Go, Andrew,” I said. The idiot hesitated a moment then ducked down, whispered instructions to Brittany, and worked his way around the outer edge of cars. He popped up behind the girls then crouched back down and hid.

  I started the car and eased out.

  It was a pretty good plan—coax a girl into riding with us after she found her car had a flat tire, drive her home . . . almost. Detour into Stony Park to party. Do the deed. Take the pictures. Easy plan.

  Rashanda wasn’t easy.

  * * *

  That was a month ago. Two weeks ago Hannah said, “I’m tired of picking girls.”

  “Well, I’m tired of picking juniors,” I countered. I had my eye on a senior girl who needed to be taken down a peg or two. Our secret society had grown to twelve. Mostly girls. Our initiates never joined, not after we got so extreme. Not after victim number four. Amy Harper. Maybe the ones who joined us did it so they wouldn’t have to be a victim.

  “Are you listening to me, Michael?”

  “What?” I wasn’t worried anymore about Hannah breaking up with me. I got all I wanted out of this relationship last weekend. Time to move on. There was a cute girl in my drama class who might be interested in me. I saw her a lot in the halls. She might be fun. More fun than that black chick. With the right plan, maybe I could switch Hannah for that girl and keep them both in my tribe. “You want to pick a guy. And I want to pick a senior. I’m listening.”

  “Well, what do you think of Keith Mullins?”

  Him again. Maybe Hannah was thinking of switching me out. “How about one more junior girl first? What do you think of Jessica Mitchell?” I asked.

  “Don’t know her.” Hannah chewed at her fingernails. I copied her and pretended to mull over the proposition.

  Finally I said, “I’ve got an idea. How about we tell the others we’re going to get Jessica and then you work Keith into the deal and he won’t even know what’s going on. Can you fake like you like him?”

  She rolled her eyes, chewed on another nail, and said, “You mean we’re going to prank two kids at once?”

  “Yeah, but Keith’s prank is that we’ll make him look like the perpetrator.”

  “Might work.”

  “But you can’t tell anyone about Keith. Tell the others that I’ve picked Jessica as our next victim.”

  * * *

  I studied Jessica on the sly for a couple of weeks and discovered that she was close friends with Rashanda. Based on how friendly Jessica was to me I’d bet that Rashanda had kept quiet about her experience with me. Not that she could prove anything. Her word against ours.

  Abducting two people at once was challenging, but Hannah left the details up to me and I worked something out for Thursday, when football practice didn’t start until six p.m. We would have a couple of hours after school for the thrill ride I planned. The drugs were in my pocket—a safer place than my locker. Hannah had Keith on a leash, she said. The others would meet us at the back exit to the park. When we walked in from that side, there was no chance that the park rangers would report our cars or, this time of year, even check on the old Quonset huts.

  The only good thing about having band practice on the field next to the school parking lot so early in the morning was that I could watch for Jessica to arrive and see what kind of car she drove and memorize where she parked.

  And go out during lunch and let some air out of her front tire. Gee, I wonder what gallant, chivalrous senior boy would offer
her a ride home . . . and who would follow us in Keith’s car?

  Of course it didn’t work out that way.

  Jessica played into my hands during drama class, though. I wanted to laugh at her silly question: what am I afraid of? Isn’t everybody afraid of robbers? And the dark? I threw in ‘balloons on the floor’ for a laugh and it worked. She wanted me to explain and I said I’d tell her later. For sure she would swing by my locker after class and I could walk out to her car with her, discover the flat tire, and offer to drive her to the store for some of that Fix-A-Flat stuff that comes in a can. Timing was everything and I’d have to watch for Hannah and Keith—that was a huge part of the plan.

  A plan that turned into an epic fail.

  After school Hannah gave me a quick kiss on the cheek, spotted Jessica trailing me, and whispered, “Don’t look back, she’s coming. I’ll get Keith.” She waved me off with an expression I couldn’t quite read.

  I didn’t feel much emotion for what we were about to do. I wasn’t excited at all. I knew something could go wrong or at least not according to plan. Every other victim we pranked surprised us in some way. We had learned to ‘go with the flow’, an expression that Hannah’s pursuer, Keith, was fond of saying. He pretended to be a stoner, but I doubted he had the guts to try the bad stuff.

  I went with the flow down the senior hallway.

  “Hey, Jake,” I said, fist-bumping a kid from band. I greeted a couple other kids then saw a cute girl from first hour. “Hi, Emma.” I didn’t usually talk to her, but I had her number. She gave me a wave and a smile, so that was cool. I filed her face and name away as a future victim or maybe as a replacement for Hannah. I reached my locker, but didn’t open it. The locker next to mine was swung out wide and the locker mirror gave me a good view of the crowded hallway I had just pushed through. A glimpse of Jessica’s face gave me that sudden thrill I was waiting for, and I turned with the impulsive thought to intercept her now.

  I saw her go down. Jake was clowning around as usual and he unintentionally knocked Jessica in the face and sent her sprawling on the floor. Hannah and Keith were already back in the senior hallway and I waved a frantic hand at her, excused myself past Emma, and reached for Jessica. I yanked her up, maybe a little too hard and fast, but I didn’t want anyone else to cut in on our scheme and mess things up. Jake apologized and grabbed the book that Jessica had dropped.

  “Hey, are you all right?” It was the same line I used in last year’s play and I’d perfected it to the point of faultless sincerity.

  “Yeah. All right. I’m fine,” Jessica said. She might have been seeing stars judging from the look on her face. Or maybe not.

  Jake hovered and I glared at him. “Hey, I didn’t see her,” he said. I don’t know why he thought he had to explain it to me, but I mouthed you moron to him. Hannah saved me from getting into a fight by stepping in front of him and giving Jessica a supportive hug.

  I tried for a more controlled tone in my explanation to her and Keith. “Jake was clowning around in the hall and Jessica was in the wrong place at the wrong time. His elbow nailed her in the eye. She lost her balance and fell backwards. Probably bumped her head pretty badly, too.”

  “We should take her home,” Hannah said. She signaled me the tiniest twitch of an eyebrow. For once I understood.

  Poor Jessica couldn’t look any of us in the eye. I’d bet a hundred bucks that she wanted nothing more than to be invisible. I scanned the faces of the seniors that were still nearby. No one seemed interested anymore. Half were texting. Maybe somebody got a photo of Jessica on the floor. For a split second I thought that we should abandon the plan since there were so many witnesses to our helping her. But that just got my blood pumping faster. Risk. I wanted the bigger risk.

  We were in luck because we easily swept her out of the building and toward Keith’s car. I sat in the front with Keith, and the girls sat in the back. Hannah kept a monologue going until finally Jessica started giving some one-word answers. We were maybe a mile from school when I got a text from Emma. Unbelievable. She sent two pictures. The first one was of me helping up Jessica. The second was . . . well, I assumed it was Emma. The picture was just chin to knee. It was almost as if she were asking to be the next victim. It must have been a picture she saved on her phone because there was not enough time for her to get naked and take such a seductive shot.

  Unreal. I turned around in my seat to look at the girls. I gave Jessica a smile and winked at Hannah. I turned back and held my phone out with Emma’s picture for Keith to see, wiggling it for his attention. The next thing I knew there were horns blaring. I whipped my head back around against the opposite spin of the car. The tires squealed. There was an odd sensation of weightlessness. I heard the crunch of the impact after I saw it. Very weird. It was like the driver’s side of the car imploded. Side airbags were already deflating just as I figured out what they were.

  The car was still. Crushed and still.

  My head hurt and the seatbelt chafed my collarbone. Sounds came to my ears as music. Low notes. It took a moment to realize they were groans. Keith’s and Hannah’s. Jessica wasn’t moving.

  The phone rang in my hand. Emma again. Another text: what do u think?

  What did I think? I thought I’d save Emma for later. I called 911 and worried about the drugs in my pocket.

  * * *

  Before I went to the hospital in the second ambulance, I thought I saw Jessica’s car sitting parked on the other side of the road. Mocking me. Of course, it couldn’t have been hers. There are probably hundreds just like it. Still, it was odd. Like the universe was laughing at me.

  I didn’t like it.

  “Hold still, son,” the attendant said as he strapped me in. I didn’t like that either.

  A million things went through my head as the ambulance sped to the hospital. It was hard to focus with the blaring siren and the obnoxious attendant joking with the driver. I hoped that meant I was not seriously injured. I felt okay. A little nauseated.

  After they wheeled me into an exam room and checked me out, they let me phone my parents. My mom was there in ten minutes, my dad an hour later. My dad was furious when he heard that the car was totaled, but he calmed down when I told him it was Keith’s car. Then the third degree began.

  “Where were you going?” he asked at the same time as my mom was asking who Keith was.

  “Uh, we were driving Jessica home. She got hurt at school.” I turned toward my mom and answered her, too, “Keith is just some kid Hannah knows, and Jessica is a girl in my drama class. She got hurt as she was leaving school and we didn’t think she should drive herself.”

  My mom smiled, always proud of me. My dad paced then stepped away and apparently went to the nurses’ station to ask some questions. It had been about an hour and a half since the accident and now that he knew the others’ names he probably used his big corporate authority voice to demand some information. He got it, too.

  “Well,” he said as he returned, “you are one lucky kid. Your girlfriend’s going to be all right, too, but the others—” He pressed his lips together tightly and shook his head. I noticed how his eyes narrowed a bit also and I consciously copied it, waiting to see what he’d say next so I’d know how to use this expression in the future. “Keith’s got a busted leg and a concussion. Jessica is in critical condition. Bruised spleen, lacerations, head trauma. She’s in a coma.”

  My mom gasped and grabbed my hand. That was an interesting reaction since I was just fine. I understood sympathy, but I didn’t feel it.

  Finally, they let me have something to eat. All the tests the doctors did came back negative, but they wanted to keep me overnight anyway. My dad made them wheel me up to a private room, and my mom took my clothes and stuff and promised to be back early in the morning with fresh things. We had a little argument when she wanted to take my phone. I had a moment’s panic when I imagined what she’d do if she looked at it, then I remembered that the last number I’d dialed was for 911 so I
stopped arguing. There was a phone by the bed anyway so I could call out even if I couldn’t text anyone.

  I wondered how long the others had waited at the park. I fell asleep thinking about Emma, but I dreamed about Jessica.

  I hated hospitals and I hated nurses who wake you up every hour. I was glad Friday morning to get the heck out of there. My mom gave me my phone back and I sent a text to Jessica’s number: Sorry. I didn’t mean it, but that’s what you’re supposed to feel.

  I felt sorrier that I didn’t get a wheelchair ride out of the building. In the parking lot I had one of those “somebody’s following you” feelings all the way to our car. Maybe I was growing a conscience. I supposed I should have at least found out how my girlfriend was doing.

  And Jessica.

  I thought about Jessica all the way home and imagined her following me to my bedroom. I closed the door and tried to picture her in my bed.

  I wondered how I should act if she died so I started rehearsing the types of things people say at funerals. I tried out different phrases, but most of them sounded too corny or too girly.

  I plopped myself down on the bed and stared at the ceiling. I couldn’t keep my mind focused on a single thought. A million scenarios flitted through my head until one in particular started to play out like a dream. I was beyond drowsy and my entire body shook for an instant. No! I realized I was going to miss the football game.

  Jessica

  Friday

  I push open Michael’s door and slip into his room, swallow the breath mint, and close the door softly. He’s standing near the foot of his bed mumbling all sorts of apologies to me. How sweet is that! I hear him say Oh, Jessica, it was all my fault and Jessica, Jessica, so talented and pretty and Oh, man, I’m so, so sorry about this.

  My heart starts pumping harder. I can’t believe I’m in Michael Hoffman’s bedroom. It’s so neat and clean. Not at all like I thought a teenage boy’s room would be except for the framed sports posters. His bed is made, his dirty clothes are in a basket by the closet, his desk is tidy. I feel ashamed of my pigsty of a bedroom.