Everything's Fine

by Janci Patterson

  Nick leaned over my shoulder. His breath tickled my ear. I opened the book to the first page, which was covered in Haylee's loopy handwriting.

  She hadn't dated the entry, but her scrawl looked even messier than normal. She wrote:

  Behold, people of my native land

  I wend my latest way:

  I gaze upon the latest light of day

  That I shall ever see;

  Death, who lays all to rest, is leading me

  To Aecheron's far strand.

  That sounded like it came from one of Haylee's plays, but I couldn't place it.

  "Do you want to read it out loud?" Nick asked.

  The book shook in my hands, and I didn't trust my voice.

  I flipped the pages, but none of the entries were dated.

  I wanted to rip the book in half at the spine. Had she written any of this in the last days of her life? How would I ever know?

  His hands ran up her thighs. She'd written the words in the very center of one page, leaving the facing page blank. Now his hands are tied. He runs only with his eyes.

  My face flushed. I turned the book away from Nick, gripping it tightly.

  "Hey," Nick said. "If you're not going to read, at least let me see."

  "Wait," I said. "Give me a minute to find it." I read on.

  She doesn't know what to be for him. Which her is she? Who will she be today?

  The fragments went on for pages; all of them were like that. Just words strung together.

  He wants her to forget. And she tries and she tries and she tries. She wants to bleed it out, but it sticks like fat to her veins.

  I scanned through looking for names. Mine. Haylee's. Bradley's. But she'd strung together sentences full of pronouns like identical beads on a string. Who could ever tell what this meant?

  I grit my teeth. No one would recognize me in this. No wonder Hazel had been clueless.

  Haylee left us nothing.

  "Hey," Nick said again, nudging me.

  I flipped more pages. Haylee said she'd written about me. Had she only said that to bother me? Because this was gibberish. Haylee left a journal, but she didn't leave me any answers at all.

  I slammed the book closed, tossing it away. The corner of it hit the windshield and it bounced off, landing on the dash. The journal was nothing. Haylee left me with nothing, only the promise of an answer that would never come.

  Nick put his hand on my arm, but I scrambled for my seatbelt, shoved open the door, and staggered out of the car, tripping over my own feet. I launched myself to the path under the trees, not seeing where I was going, or even trying to look.

  I didn't realize Nick was following me until he grabbed me by the shoulder, spinning me around, momentum crushing me into him. I didn't realize I was crying until I was sobbing against him, the zipper teeth of his hoodie digging into my cheek.

  "Hey, it's okay," he said in my ear. "It's going to be okay."

  And I knew that he couldn't be sure of that, but I didn't pull away. As my sobbing slowed, Nick pulled back, brushing my hair out of my face. I looked into his eyes. I expected to get that feeling, the rush of knowing that he was about to kiss me. But he just kept looking at me, maintaining his distance.

  My breath was all jagged from crying, and snot collected in my nose, and I didn't know what to do.

  So I kissed him.

  Nick's lips felt soft against mine, and my knees dissolved. Nick supported me, our arms tight around each other's shoulders. And since he moved so slow, and so carefully, it took me a second to be sure he was kissing me back.

  But the moment after I felt his mouth move, Nick pulled away, pressing his forehead against mine. "I don't—" he said. "I can't—"

  I closed my eyes, waiting for the words I knew were coming: You're like a sister to me; it's like kissing my cousin.

  His voice was anguished. "I don't want to be the guy you use to get over Haylee."

  My eyes popped open. "No!" I said. "It's not like that. Not with you."

  His eyes searched mine. "Are you sure?"

  "Yes," I said. "Yes, yes."

  His arms shifted downward, and his hands curled around my waist. "The timing is suspicious. Especially with . . . what we found."

  Ugh. There were enough bodies between us to open a morgue. His arms remained around me, so close I could feel his heart beating in tandem with mine.

  "Seriously," I said. "Screw the timing."

  Nick kissed me like a man drowning in the ocean, who'd only now fought to the surface for air. This time, I had no problem figuring out what to do with my hands. Our bodies locked together, his arms pulling me tight against him, my elbows resting on his shoulders, my fingers in his hair. The kiss deepened, and I barely felt the cold night air around us. The world blurred, like we were the only two people in it, but somehow, this thought burst through: this guy had never thought of me as his sister.

  When we broke apart, I curled against Nick's body, my forehead pressing against his neck. I wasn't the only one out of breath.

  I lifted my chin and kissed him gently on the collar bone, right under the ribbed neck of his T-shirt.

  Nick moaned softly. His lips pressed against my ear. "We should have done this years ago."

  "You mean when I was twelve?" Gah. Nice, Kira. Remind him.

  But Nick didn't seem phased. "That's when I first felt this way," he said. "I should have told you, then."

  My twelve-year-old self wished he had. The me-now knew this was better. Still. I leaned back, looking into his eyes. "Why didn't you?" I asked. "In three years?"

  And Nick Harbourne, his face deadpan, actually said these words to me: "I never thought you were interested."

  The laugh burst out of me before I could stop it. I dissolved against him, a giggling, sniffling, gasping mess. In all the times I'd imagined kissing Nick, I'd never pictured it like this. But his arms stayed firm around me. We twisted together in one smooth motion, Nick turning me around and guiding me to the ground, so we sat on the sidewalk, my back tight against his chest.

  "I've always liked you," I said. "Always."

  He leaned forward, his chin on my shoulder, his nose brushing my ear. "But Haylee said . . ."

  The earth seemed to sink out from underneath me, and I clung to Nick's arms. I already knew how that sentence would end, but I needed to hear it.

  "What did she say?" I asked.

  He sighed. "She said you were way too good for me. She said we were practically related. She called me a . . ."

  "A what?"

  "A perv."

  I closed my eyes, tasting the betrayal.

  Nick swore. "If you liked me, she must have known."

  "She knew," I said. "She always knew." All the times she'd shrugged when I asked if Nick liked me. "And she knew you liked me back."

  He nodded, resting his forehead on my shoulder. And we were both quiet.

  Haylee had been keeping us apart.

  "She was scared," Nick said finally. "She thought if we were together she'd be the third wheel, and she'd lose us both."

  "Does that make it cut less?" I asked.

  "No," Nick said. "But I wish it did. I don't want to be mad at her now."

  That was the trouble with anger toward a ghost. There was no one to yell at.

  Nick slid his palm under my chin, guiding my mouth back to his. This time his lips were hungrier. His tongue brushed gently against mine. I lifted myself onto his lap and turned into him. Our fingers laced together.

  When we pulled apart, Nick pressed his forehead to mine. "This is better."

  "Lots better," I said.

  "And you don't think of me as family."

  I laughed. "Definitely not." Even my mom seemed to like Nick. Though she wouldn't when she discovered where we'd been. I leaned back. "We need to get going," I said.

  Nick groaned. "Do we?"

  I wrapped my arms around him and leaned into his shoulder, squeezing him tight. "Tell me you won't regret this tomorrow," I said.
r />   "I regret the last few years," he said. "But not this."

  "It's not your fault," I said. "Haylee—"

  "No," Nick said. "This is on me. I didn't have to let her scare me. I didn't have to listen."

  I nodded. I didn't, either.

  Nick helped me to my feet, and I sniffled. Nick reached into his pocket and pulled a piece of white cloth, handing it to me.

  "What on earth is that?" I asked.

  "It's a handkerchief."

  "Well, yeah. What are you, eighty-five?"

  We both smiled. I took his handkerchief and wiped my face, and then stuffed it into my pocket. I'd wash it before giving it back.

  And then Nick pulled something out of his jacket pocket and held it up to me.

  The journal.

  "Are you ready to deal with this?" he asked. "Because you don't have to if you don't want to."

  I sniffled. "There's nothing in it," I said. "It's nonsense."

  Nick pulled out his penlight and motioned to the side of the path. "Can I look?"

  I nodded. "Sure."

  Nick led me over to the same low wall I'd sat on with Bradley, but this time I wanted to be there. Nick wrapped one arm around me so the journal spread open in front of both of us. I liked the way I fit under his arm, the barrier between us broken for good.

  Nick's penlight flipped over the loopy writing, and I followed the words.

  And after a few pages, I started to pick out the pattern.

  He says he's sorry, Haylee wrote. But the plate, once broken, will never be whole again.

  And then later: If she can't forget, she'll be alone. She speaks, but there's no one to hear. She flails, but there's no one who sees.

  Nick flipped pages, reading faster and faster, as if he just wanted to be done, but couldn't stop until he got to the end.

  But he turned all her Raggedy Anns into Barbies. Show me where he touched you on the doll. But it's the wrong doll all together. It's not the right doll at all.

  And the pieces of the puzzle floating in my mind snapped together as if drawn by magnets. It wasn't a code, but it wasn't gibberish, either.

  A horrible sick feeling settled into my gut. "It wasn't me," I said.

  Nick stopped reading. "What?"

  "Haylee accused me of the things that happened to her." The words were out of my mouth before I realized fully what they meant. I stopped, the rest of the thought hanging in the air, waiting for me to finish.

  It was clear to me now. The words in the journal were thoughts Haylee had as she tried to process what was wrong with her. She left out the proper nouns because she couldn't bear to write them down, the way I couldn't tell Nick my whole story in coherent sentences.

  "What did Haylee accuse you of?" Nick asked.

  "She said she wrote that Aaron . . ." I couldn't say this. My lungs wouldn't draw air.

  Nick tightened his arm around me. "If it's not true, it can't hurt you."

  My heartbeat seemed to slow. I counted five arduous beats, and then sucked in a slow breath, all the way down to my toes. The words came out in a rush. I didn't dare pause between them, for fear I wouldn't be able to finish. "ShesaidAaronwasinterestedinme."

  Nick pulled back, trying to look me in the eye, but I turned away, pressing my cheek against his chest. I sniffled again.

  "Interested in you," he said.

  I wilted against him. "You know," I said. "Like . . . sexually."

  Nick pulled away a strand of hair that had glued itself to my wet face. "But nothing ever happened."

  "Nothing!" I said. "I mean, not to me."

  Nick drew a deep breath. And I wished that the cold breeze would blow away the things we were going to say next, so I'd never have to hear them.

  "You think that Aaron abused Haylee," Nick said.

  I did. It was a horrible, twisted thought, but I thought it all the same. And my face burned as I thought about everything that meant. Everything that could have happened to me, even though it didn't.

  "Tell me I'm wrong," I said. "Tell me I'm imagining it. Tell me Haylee was writing about something else."

  "Actually," Nick said, "it makes a lot of things make sense."

  My head spun, and I clung to Nick's side so I wouldn't sway right off the wall. "It does?" I asked.

  Nick nodded, his eyebrows knitting together. "My mother wouldn't let my sister go to Haylee's house alone," he said. "She's ten—old enough to ride her bike over like we did. But she's not allowed to go unless we go with her."

  "She's a lot younger," I said. "She wouldn't have much reason to visit Haylee alone."

  "But that's true of all of our cousins," Nick said. "And once, I heard my mother say . . ."

  His mother. She was Haylee's aunt. If she knew, she could have done something. "Do you think—"

  "She knew," Nick said. "I think she knew."

  But if she did, she would have done something. She would have saved her. Wouldn't she?

  I was her best friend. I should have known. "If she knew, then Hazel knew." And if anyone should have protected Haylee, it was her own mother.

  Nick seemed to deflate, his weight bearing down on me. We clung heavily to each other. And I let myself dwell on this one thought: Hazel knew, and she still encouraged Aaron to coach me. The road trips, the tournaments, the hours alone in the yard.

  She knew, and she let it all happen. She knew, and she stayed.

  "The divorce papers," I said. "This is why Hazel was filing for divorce."

  "If it's true," Nick said, "she should have done that before."

  Long before.

  Why didn't she?

  I thought of Haylee, her voice cold as ice, as she told me what her father wanted to do to me. How many years had she lived in the house with her own abuser? How many years had she lived with that fear?

  "They sent her to a doctor, like she was the one who needed fixing," I said. "But it wasn't her. It was him."

  The leaves rustled in the trees above us. Nick shut the journal and pocketed his light. And we spent several minutes in silence.

  "What do we do?" I said finally.

  "What do you mean?" Nick asked.

  "There has to be some justice for her."

  "She's dead," he said. "He's dead. What kind of justice can there be?"

  If Hazel knew, and she did nothing, she should pay.

  "Come on," Nick said, standing off the wall and pulling me up by my hands. "Let's go home. We can get some sleep, and figure things out in the morning."

  I couldn't imagine that things would make more sense then than they did now, but I followed Nick anyway. We walked slowly back to the car, like neither of us wanted to reach it. Nick held my hand, tight like I might slip away. And I squeezed back, so he'd know that I had no intention of letting go.

  We rounded the bend, leaving the arboretum behind, but when the parking lot came into view, I stopped short.

  There, on the far end of the lot, a car had parked in the shadow beneath a draping eucalyptus tree.

  A car that belonged to Bradley Johansen.

  Nine Days Before

  Haylee always forced me to proofread her English essays. I wasn't any good at it, but it kept me informed about what I was supposed to have read.

  Haylee dragged her Tess essay over to my house after school, and braided my hair in fishtails while I read it.

  In the end, Haylee wrote, Tess kills Alec, but she can't kill the part of herself that she hates. I guess once someone damages you in that way, there isn't any way to get better.

  "You and your tragedy," I said. "Maybe if you liked them less, you wouldn't have to live like you were in one."

  "Maybe I like them because I am in one," Haylee said.

  I turned back to the essay.

  Angel is Tess's savior, she wrote. He is her ideal man, the one she can dream and hope about and love. But when he betrays her, all is lost. Without that ideal to fall back on, she loses the light of hope in her life. She has nothing left but despair.

 
"So what's the moral of the story?" I asked. "Don't love anybody? Don't put people on pedestals?"

  "There is no moral," Haylee said. "It's just sad."

  I threw the essay over my shoulder at her. "What is the point of that?"

  But Haylee just shook her head at me, her hands poised over my head mid-braid. "The fact that you don't know," she said to me, "is proof you'll get a happy ending."

  "I don't live in a comedy," I said.

  Haylee shrugged. "You don't live in a tragedy, either."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nick tried to pull me toward his car, but I planted my feet. He held my hand, our arms stretched between us as I stared at Bradley's car. The lights were out, but I knew why Bradley parked here. I knew what sorts of things he'd be doing.

  Like the turning of an ignition, this thought roared to life: it wasn't just Aaron's fault that Haylee was dead. It was also Bradley's. He'd pushed her over the edge—made her lose hope in her future. Maybe he'd slept with her and discarded her. Maybe that was enough.

  Or maybe he'd raped her. Haylee wasn't here to tell me which, but I didn't care.

  He had to face what he did, either way.

  I twisted out of Nick's grip and ran across the parking lot. My hands reached for my pocket. I was going to key his car. I was going to puncture his tires. There would be nothing left of his windows.

  I was ten feet away when I saw the back of Bradley's greasy head lift over the back seat.

  I stopped. I stood at Bradley's bumper, just under the branches of the tree, watching as Bradley flung a white bra up into the back window. Catherine sat up, her mouth meeting his, only her head and neck visible over the back of the seat. She had her hair pulled back in a simple braid. And though I knew it had to be a trick of the light, for a split second, her profile looked like Haylee.

  I stepped around the car, jerked open the door, grabbed Bradley by his shoulders, and hauled him out of the car. Even as his ass hit the concrete, he reached to zip up his fly. In the back seat, Catherine shrieked and wrapped her hands over her chest.

  Nick grabbed me from behind. I shrugged him off. Nick was shouting something, and Catherine was screaming at me, but the only one I was focused on was Bradley.

  "You're not going to get away with what you did to her," I said.