Everything's Fine

by Janci Patterson

  Bradley rolled to his feet and backed up against the car. "Crazy bitch," he shouted at me. "We broke up. Get over it."

  My hands itched for something to throw at him. "Get over it? I was never into it. But I know what you did to Haylee, and soon everyone else will, too."

  Everyone fell silent. I could feel Nick's hands at my elbows, trying to pull me away, but I held firm. Huddled in the backseat, Catherine scrambled back into her shirt.

  "Please," Bradley said. "She was dying to have me."

  Bad choice of words. Nick let go of me and stepped up to Bradley. "Shut up," he said.

  "Oh, come on, Harbourne," Bradley said. "I saw you pick her up from that party last summer. What was it, three AM? Four?"

  "Five-thirty," Nick said. His voice was so small, I almost didn't hear him. I grabbed his wrist, but he wouldn't meet my eyes.

  "She couldn't even walk straight," Bradley said. "She threw up on the way to your car, and in it."

  "She just needed a ride," Nick said.

  "And she didn't get one from the guy who just got done with her. Wonder why? Oh, right. Because she didn't even know his name."

  Nick spoke through his teeth. "Shut. Up."

  Haylee never said anything to me about Nick picking her up from parties. Nick never said anything, either.

  I turned away from Nick, and stepped up into Bradley's face instead. "It doesn't matter what else Haylee did. You forced yourself on her. You killed her."

  Bradley looked me right in the eye. His breath smelled of spearmint gum. "I didn't do anything she wasn't begging me to do."

  I caught him by the throat, just under his jaw. His eyes widened in surprise as I forced his head back into the roof of his car. For a moment I felt stronger than him. Superior. And then he socked me in the stomach so hard that I staggered back.

  Nick was on him so fast that I didn't see him coming. Judging by his reaction, Bradley hadn't, either. Nick pinned Bradley to the car with both arms; Nick's knees kept Bradley from using his legs. Bradley clawed at Nick, arching his back away from the car, trying to find leverage. Catherine—shirt restored—scrambled out of the car and shoved Nick in the shoulder, trying to get him off.

  I pushed Catherine back into the car. She didn't put up much of a fight, but as she sat down on the seat, she shot me a hateful glance. "What the hell are you doing here?" she asked.

  I opened my mouth to answer, but out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of my glove, still on the floor of Bradley's car. I pushed Catherine aside and grabbed it, when bright beams of light shot through the windows of Bradley's car, and flashed in blazes of red and white.

  A bullhorn sounded. "Hands up. Step away from the car." I put my hands in the air, though one of them still had the glove. Bradley and Nick both faced the oncoming cop car with their arms sticking up in the air, while Catherine cowered on the backseat like she wanted to disappear.

  A few days ago, I would have felt like that, too.

  But now, all I wanted was to be seen.

  Ten Hours After

  On a Monday in the middle of December, I was in the bathroom brushing my teeth before school when I heard Mom's cell phone ring. Mom always dropped me off on her way to work at the middle school, but sometimes she'd be needed in her office early in the morning, and then she'd rush me out the door and strand me on campus while she ran off to her meeting.

  Sure enough, Mom knocked on my door while I was stuffing my geometry book into my backpack, homework papers sticking out the side. A corner of one of the papers caught on the zipper and tore.

  "I'm almost ready," I called. "Can you take me to Haylee's so I don't have to be at school so early?"

  Mom opened the door a crack.

  "Kira?" she said.

  Mom's tone was heavy, like she'd just been handed a heavy weight. I froze with my book still hanging out of the zipper. What had I done to make trouble? I hadn't skipped class. I was passing all my classes, as far as I knew. "Hazel won't mind," I said. "She has to drive to school anyway."

  Mom pushed the door open, further. Her face was blanched. "Kira," she said. "Can you sit down for a minute?"

  Some people say that they know about bad things right before they happen. They get prickles on their neck, and their hair stands on end, and they just know.

  But I just stood there, trying to figure out what I'd done.

  And then Mom said, "It's Haylee."

  "On the phone?" I asked. I checked my phone in my pocket. It was on. She'd have called me before she called Mom, though I'd called her a dozen times—more—over the weekend, and she hadn't answered.

  Mom shook her head. "Her parents found her this morning in her room. She's dead, honey. She killed herself last night."

  I want to say that house tilted or the room spun, or the floor exploded out from under me—a bang to separate this new way of being from the old. But the truth is, everything just grew very, very still, like the air was thinner, and sound didn't carry. I looked at a spot on my carpet where I'd spilled a cup of Kool-aid six months ago. The carpet was dyed pink there. It would never be white again.

  "Kira?" Mom said.

  "How can you say that?" I asked.

  Mom pressed her fingers to her lips before she answered. "Because it's true," she said. "I'm so sorry."

  "No," I said. "I mean how can you say that, like, like . . ."

  Like it's real.

  "I didn't want you to hear it at school," Mom said. She was trying to answer my question, even though it didn't make sense.

  I pulled out my phone. "I'll just call her," I said. She'd ignored my texts all weekend, just like my calls. But if I texted her now, surely she'd answer. And Mom would be wrong. And it would all be a mistake.

  "You can't call her," Mom said slowly. "She's gone."

  So what would happen? No one would answer? Because Haylee ignored my calls all the time. That didn't mean she was dead.

  "Kira?" Mom asked. "I think you should stay home from school today."

  "Yeah," I said. "Okay." Because the world was falling ever more silent. Mom's voice faded away, like someone turned the volume knob on the world.

  If I couldn't hear anything, then I wouldn't be able to hear those words. She's dead. She's gone. She. Killed. Herself.

  Afterward, I would try to figure out what it was Mom should have said. I would reword the sentences over and over, trying to make them sound nice. Gentle. Comforting. Mom must have done that, too. She must have agonized over each word with every step up the stairs. She was a psychologist. She should have known what to say.

  Finally, what I decided was this: the words "dead" and "Haylee" didn't belong in the same sentence. There was no right way to say it. Ever.

  And now, they'd always be paired.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The driver's side door of the police car opened, and the silhouette of an officer stepped out—a woman barely taller than me.

  And before she could say anything else, I pointed at Bradley and shouted at her. "He raped Haylee Ricks," I said. "He's the reason she killed herself."

  And Bradley yelled over me, his voice louder than mine, "She's a stalker. She attacked us! I want to file assault charges."

  Assault charges? Oh no. I had shoved him. And tossed him out of the car. And grabbed him by the throat. I had no proof of what he'd done to Haylee. Even the journal wouldn't help. It'd be my word against his.

  The officer hesitated, backlit by the headlights.

  "He attacked me," I yelled. "Last week. In the woods right over there."

  Bradley turned toward me, and Nick stepped between us before I could see the look on his face.

  "Put your hands on the car, all of you," the officer said. As I did, I realized every inch of my body was shaking.

  Nick gave me a wide eyed look as the officer hauled Catherine from the car, and searched us all. Bradley tried to chatter excuses at her, but she held up her hand and barked at him to shut up. This time, Bradley did.

  When she searc
hed Nick, she took the journal from him and flipped it open.

  "It's Haylee's," Nick said. "She killed herself before Christmas. It's evidence."

  As the officer carried it to her car, Bradley watched her go with wide eyes, and then turned a hateful stare at me. I smiled what I hoped was a knowing smile. Maybe he believed me about what Haylee wrote in the journal.

  The officer stuffed Bradley and Catherine into the back of the cop car and locked them there, while Nick and I still stood with our hands on Bradley's car.

  "Sorry," I whispered to Nick. I'd dragged him into all this.

  "Don't be," Nick said.

  "Are you kidding? We're in so much trouble."

  "Yeah," Nick said. "But you're worth it."

  I about melted into the car. I was worth it? All this? Too bad once Mom got a hold of me, I wouldn't see him again until I was thirty.

  A second car pulled into the parking lot, and I hunched down. But it wasn't my mother, just another police officer, coming to haul Nick and me in. Together we climbed into the back seat. As the officer shut us in, I reached for Nick's hand. He met me halfway.

  But as we drove in, my heartbeat refused to slow. I knew what I had to do. "I'm going to tell them everything," I said to Nick.

  "Everything?" he asked.

  "Everything." From Bradley, to the break in, to the lies Haylee told. They'd piece together a lot of it anyway, but that wasn't enough. It had to be said. I had to say it. I was never going to get a better chance than this one.

  "Okay," Nick said. "But if my parents don't let me out of the house until I graduate from college, don't say I didn't warn you."

  I squeezed his hand. If I didn't tell now, he'd never see me again, anyway. I would disappear. I would entirely cease to be.

  Nick's mom showed up at the station before mine did. Mom hadn't said much over the phone when I called her. I was pretty sure she'd hung up the phone before fully understanding my words.

  Nick's mom, on the other hand, chewed him out on her cell phone half the way to the station, until he finally told her he had to hang up.

  She marched into the station wearing jeans and a stained T-shirt she might have been sleeping in, her hair a frizzy mess around her face.

  She opened her mouth to yell at him again, but Nick spoke first.

  "You knew," he said, looking her in the eyes. "You knew all along what Uncle Aaron did to Haylee."

  He could have said that over the phone, but he hadn't. He'd waited until now, when he could look her in the eyes. And Nick's mom didn't have to say anything. The sad, stricken look on her face said it all.

  Nick shook his head, like he didn't quite know what to say to that.

  But I did. "Someone should have saved her. Before it was too late."

  Nick's mom sank into a chair across from us. "She was six," she said. Her voice was small, just as Nick's had been earlier, when he admitted to picking Haylee up from that party.

  "What?" I asked.

  She sighed. "Haylee was six when Aaron abused her. When Hazel told me, I said she should leave him. But he willingly went to counseling—they all did. And Hazel thought they could fix it. She thought it could all be okay."

  Nick's face turned gray. "They split up. Aaron and Hazel—that year when I was eight."

  His mom nodded. "He wasn't allowed to come back until the therapist cleared him."

  "She was six?" I said. "That was so long ago."

  Nick's mom shrugged. "Some wounds go deep enough that they don't heal."

  I leaned back in my seat. Judging by what happened, this one must have festered. "But he should have gone to jail," I said. I knew the rules my mom had to work under. She wasn't allowed to keep secrets about abuse. "The therapist should have filed a report."

  "There was a report," Nick's mom said. "But he got help. Hazel didn't want to press charges, and the state decided not to carry it to court."

  My mouth fell open. They'd failed her. Even her own family wouldn't protect her.

  We all sat there, watching each other in silence, until an officer came to lead us to two different rooms—one for Nick and his mom, and one for me. Bradley sat alone in a room at the end of the hall. He looked up at the ceiling, as if going over his story in his head.

  For my sake, I hoped it wasn't a good one.

  When the officer led me to my room, I sat down in the chair by the table. "I want to wait for my mother," I said.

  The officer nodded and shut the door.

  I was only going to tell this story once.

  The officer escorted Mom back after what seemed like an eternity. She was wearing sweats and a heavy jacket, even though I knew it wasn't that cold out. Her face was still wrinkled from her pillow.

  "Don't yell," I said to her. "I'm going to explain everything."

  "I don't see how you could possibly—"

  "Please!" I yelled. "Please just sit down and let me talk?"

  Mom looked like her head was going explode, but she sat.

  I looked up at the officer. "I need to tell you everything," I said. "Everything about Haylee Ricks."

  I wished I could go back and do things differently. To really hear what Haylee was saying—the things I never understood. But I couldn't. Not ever.

  It was too late to save Haylee. But it wasn't too late to break her silence.

  It wasn't too late to speak the words she couldn't say.

  Eight Years Before

  In second grade, Haylee wore a dress to school every day. They were always light and gauzy, with layered skirts that hung from her frame like wings. Other girls showed up in shorts and T-shirts, hoodies and jeans, but not Haylee. She floated through school, with her hair braided around her head in a wreath.

  "I can't believe her mother dresses her like that," Mom said one day as she dropped me off.

  But secretly, I wished mine would.

  Maybe from jealousy, maybe from seven-year-old spite, Kendra Thompson called her names, turned away from her at lunch, talked to Maxine Ferrera about birthday parties that Haylee wasn't invited to. But Haylee didn't change.

  One day she climbed up on the playground equipment with an armful of clover from the yard. She stood on a raised platform next to the monkey bars, tucking the flowers into the folds of her hair. Two boys from an older grade stood directly under her, snickering and shoving each other out of the way to look up her dress.

  I climbed the ladder beside her, and pointed down at them. When Haylee looked down, her eyes widened.

  Then I swung across the monkey bars, kicking forward as hard as I could, and knocked one of them in the head on the backswing.

  "Hey!" he shouted, and chased after me. But I pulled myself up the monkey bars and perched on top, out of his reach.

  "She kicked me in the head!" the kid roared at the yard duty.

  "It was an accident," Haylee said. "He was standing under there where no one could see him."

  "Get down from there," the yard duty said to me.

  And she looked at the kid under the play set and Haylee standing over him in her dress, and she hauled the boys to the other side of the yard to talk to them.

  "Thanks," Haylee said, tucking another clover into her braids.

  "I like your hair," I said.

  Haylee's smile brightened. "Can I do yours?"

  And I swung down off the bars and sat on a bench with the sun shining in my eyes while Haylee braided my long hair into a crown that matched hers.

  "I thought your mom did your hair," I said.

  "Nope," Haylee said. "I do it myself."

  "Will you do mine tomorrow?" I asked.

  "Every day, if you want," Haylee said.

  When she finished the braided crown, she pulled the clovers from her own hair and tucked them into mine.

  "Look at Princess Kira," Kendra said. "She's joined the fairy club."

  But Maxine must have missed the sarcasm in Kendra's voice, because she came over to sit next to me on the bench.

  "Can I be next?" she a
sked Haylee.

  And Haylee did Maxine's hair up in a twist, with her curls hanging out the back like a tassel.

  "Don't worry," Haylee whispered to me as Maxine flounced away. "I did yours the best."

  And from that day on, Haylee always gave me the best she had. But some days, sometimes, all she had to give was a deep well of darkness.

  It was on those days that I loved her the most.

  Chapter Twenty

  I got a ticket for breaking curfew, but that was nothing compared to the clinginess of my mother. It took a few days before Mom would let me leave the house for anything except for school. She hovered over me like a mother hen, making me breakfast, sitting across from me at the table and asking me to talk.

  And so I did. I told her about the things Haylee used to say to me, about the parties I knew she went to, about the times she talked about making her exit.

  "I should have told you this stuff before," I said, picking apart a bagel. "Maybe you could have helped her."

  "Maybe," Mom said. "Or maybe I could have helped you."

  I rolled a bit of bagel between my fingers until it squished as soft as dough. I knew she was right.

  I floated through school, as if encapsulated in an invisible bubble. I heard the whispers and the lectures, but they all seemed distant. Each day, though, the protective layer grew thinner, and the outside world grew closer. Someday soon it was going to disappear entirely. The world would get in, and I'd have to feel it fully.

  I was almost ready.

  Catherine avoided me, though I was pretty sure that was mostly out of embarrassment, because I heard from one of the girls on our softball team that she'd been telling everyone what a monster Bradley was.

  Bradley hadn't shown up at school. He was still saying that he and Haylee had consensual sex. And maybe they did. Haylee had idolized him for so long. He was her Angel, her last hold-out hope for love, just like Tess. Maybe the disappointment of seeing him up close was enough to send her over the edge.

  But I'd seen the real Bradley when we were alone in the trees. Whatever happened, he had a hand in it.