Behold the Bones

by Natalie C. Parker

  When Nova slips into her seat in front of me for European history, all I can think of is how I’m apparently the Blind Bone of Sticks, but I don’t know what that really means, and how I’m related to Mad Mary Sweet. It makes focusing on anything else a challenge I’m primed to fail.

  I stare into the crease of my textbook as Mr. Berry gets rolling. On either side, words stretch away, but I focus on the sliver of a shadow running down the center of my book. It grows darker the longer I look at it, dark like the river, river, river.

  The bell rings. I look up, ready to follow Mr. Berry into whatever lesson he has planned, but everyone around me is standing up, gathering their books as though class is over.

  Because class is over. The clock tells me so, and so does Abigail’s concerned nudge.

  I pack up, shaking off whatever it is that just happened and focus on not letting it happen again for the rest of the day. But it nags at the back of my head through every class and all through lunch. That voice was back, her voice was back, pulling my mind into a deadly dance I didn’t even realize I was in.

  I’m so distracted that I miss the first evil glare from Quentin.

  “What’s his deal?” Abigail asks.

  I look up in time to see him leaving the cafeteria with a glare.

  “I, uh, sort of turned him down Friday night.”

  “With a face like that, I’d have expected you shot his dog.”

  I shrug. It’s not an inaccurate description of what happened between us, but it can’t be the first time he’s faced rejection.

  By the end of the day, Quentin’s decided to make a scene. He’s waiting for me when Abigail and I return to my locker. Normally, I’d approve of any aggressive gesture from his broad shoulders, but not today. And not like this.

  “I know your secret,” he says just loudly enough to be heard by myself and Abigail. He leans against the locker next to mine, invading my space with a predatory grin. Once upon a time, I’d have found something tempting in that grin. It’s the sort that promises dangerous kisses in dark corners, the sort that makes you feel like you’re falling over.

  I defy him with my balance. “Which one?”

  His lip curls. “And you owe me.”

  “Owe you?” I snap. “What exactly do I owe you?”

  He closes the distance between us and drops his mouth to my ear. “For you to finish what you started.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I tell everyone how it doesn’t matter what you do to her, Candy Cane can’t get pregnant.”

  And just like that he’s crossed the line. I give him a swift shove right in the pecs. He flies back, surprise and anger making an ape of his face. The fact that there’s any surprise at all is a testament to how much of an ape he is. The fact that I’m surprised is a testament to how poorly I judged his character.

  The hallway should be clearing out by now, but traffic’s become conveniently sluggish and students are clumping like sheep.

  “Slut.” He lobs the word like a bomb.

  I take a second to consider if this is worth the escalation. There’s too much of an audience for anything else, and the blood-burn of conflict is already alive in my chest.

  “Who cares if I’m a slut? At least I don’t have to blackmail girls into getting on their knees.”

  Our audience suggests I’ve won this exchange. But Quentin doesn’t like their opinion. There’s violence in his eyes when he starts to advance, but Abigail moves behind him and slips a foot into his path. He’s too focused on me to notice and trips neatly over it. He hits his knees with a crack.

  “You gonna let your pet dyke fight your battles for you?” Quentin sneers, spotting Abigail.

  Now Abigail freezes. Her wish to become invisible breaks across her face as the same people who cheered my insult of Quentin now snicker at his insult of her. Fickle recreants.

  I stride over and take her hand, turning to challenge Quentin with, “Way to rock an insult like it’s the twentieth century, you ass. You shame your family with insults that old.”

  “You a dyke, too, now, Candy?”

  My peers are as dumb as he is, gasping like that comment had a single cutting blade. Abigail’s fingers are cold, but she’s not dumb. She’s afraid. And that pisses me off.

  “And what if I am? What if Abigail and I are lovers? Afraid to learn girls are better kissers than you are? Here’s a shocker: I’ll bet a dog’s a better kisser than you.”

  The curses he drops are the foulest sort. Colorful as stained glass, but strung together so poorly, the result is a mess.

  I laugh in his reddening face. “Now that we’ve exhausted your vocabulary—”

  He lunges.

  The crowd cinches at my back. I have a split second to decide if I’m going to dance or flee.

  I raise my fists and easily deflect Quentin’s jab. He’s not fooling around. That punch was full force. Made for knocking teeth out of grins and lights out of eyes. My opinion of him improves for the fact that he’s willing to fight a girl.

  Our crowd is pleased. Every other hand is holding a cell phone; every eye is alight with the thrill.

  Quentin jabs again. This time, he follows it with a faster hook than I’d given him credit for. I’m not fast enough. The blow glances off my shoulder.

  Bastard.

  In my head, Leo’s voice is steady as a wind: Pain is weakness leaving the body. Keep your hands up, use your knees.

  There’s no way I can overpower someone like Quentin. I have to be quicker and smarter. Sharper.

  I ram my knee into Quentin’s thigh and when he crumples just a bit, I follow up with an elbow strike to his cheek.

  In my peripheral vision, I see Abigail right where I left her, standing inside our ring of spectators, a twist of anger and fear frozen on her face. Not everyone can be good in a fight, but I didn’t expect her to be quite so bad.

  The glance cost me. Quentin shoves his fist into my gut and I buckle. I know what happens now: a knee to the face, an elbow to the back of my head, anything to drop me hard and fast. I’ve done this a thousand times with Red and Leo but never with such ferocity. The next blow will be unforgiving. I brace for pain.

  Then a growl from behind and another colorful profanity from ahead. The smack of fist against skin is unmistakable, and when I stand, I find Riley Wawheece huffing over the bent form of Quentin. Everyone else is still and silent.

  “We done here?” Riley hulks. The skin on his knuckles split from the impact, but he shows no pain.

  Quentin spits blood at Riley’s shoes.

  Before either of them can make another move, Principal Barlow barks, “Break it up!” He pushes through the disintegrating crowd, arriving red-faced and frowning, a pen strangled in one tight fist. “Quentin Stokes. Riley Wawheece. Why am I not surprised?”

  He doesn’t even look at me. Everyone else does, and I’m infuriated for more reasons than I can name.

  I step forward with a brazen confession on my lips, but Riley cuts me off. He says, “The only surprise’d be if Quentin threw a decent punch.”

  Quentin rises to the bait. He pulls all of Barlow’s focus with a new string of curses. Riley uses the distraction to catch my eyes. The look he gives me is more eloquent than he’s ever been with words. He says, Let me do this. And I swear he even says, Please.

  It’s so chivalrous I stand there stunned. His hands fall out of fists and his body somehow transforms from hunched for a fight to confident. He’s so familiar with the punishment in store for him that it’s provided some strange sort of comfort.

  I’m not enamored with the idea of being rescued from a good fight, but I’m also not enamored with the idea of being benched until the end of volleyball season.

  Principal Barlow leads them away, completely ignorant of my involvement, and I let them go.

  Everyone will know this story inside of ten minutes. If I’m lucky, someone will decide Riley was the self-sacrificing hero and I was the hotheaded damsel who got in over her head.
If I’m not, the reigning story will be that I started a fight I couldn’t finish and took advantage of dim-witted Wawheece. Since Riley’s never been the heroic type and I’ve never been the damsel type, I suspect I know which will win.

  It only sort of matters. Neither will capture the bizarre complexity of what just happened.

  And what did just happen here? Quentin got a small taste of justice, Abigail’s honor was defended, and I escaped a wicked knockout—those things are certain. It’s the other piece that makes me question the way of the world. Did I actually share a significant, sincere moment with Wawheece? In this case, I’m not convinced the truth makes a better story. And I’m not convinced I want to spend any more time pondering Wawheece the Bald and his unsettling act of kindness.

  Any stragglers have lost interest now that the boys have been carted off. The carcass has been picked clean and now the flies are peeling away one by one, texting as they go, spreading my shame like disease.

  Abigail stands exactly where she’s stood this whole time. Her arms crossed tight against her chest, shoulders hunched as though blocking a winter wind.

  “Let’s get the hell out of here,” I say, reaching to tug her along.

  She jerks away from my touch, and stalks down the hall without a word.

  I pause, allowing this new twist in the fabric of my life to fully register. Abigail hadn’t moved an inch since the fight started. Abigail just huffed away. Abigail . . . is upset. But why?

  Long legs give Abigail an edge over me when it comes to speed, but she’s not running. She’s stalking. Angrily. I catch up. Confusedly.

  “Beale! What?” I ask, trotting across the parking lot.

  She doesn’t stop until she reaches her temporarily-running-again car. She rips the door open and thrusts her bag inside. Then she spins and there’s an unexpected sheen of tears in her brown eyes. She says, “How could you do that to me, Candace?”

  “What are you talking about?” I plant my hands on my hips and for the first time feel the bruise on my elbow. “I just fought Quentin Stokes for you!”

  “No. You didn’t.” Her voice is a whip holding me back. “You did it for you. But you did it to me.”

  This does nothing to ease my confusion. I cast through the very fresh memory of doing battle with Stokes, looking for any egregious act that might have upset Abigail, and find none. “You’re not making any sense!” I grip my hip bones to keep from flinging my arms at her. If I move, I will explode.

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” she quips, and now I do explode a little.

  “Oh no. That’s a cop-out. That’s a cheap parental cop-out and it’s not what friends do. You tell me what you think I did wrong, Abigail Beale. You tell me right now.”

  For a brief moment, her eyes close and her face becomes placid. I’ll never understand how she buries herself like that, folding the truth of herself away under the story she wants us all to believe. I think it must hurt.

  When she opens her eyes, they’re still wet, but the look in them is controlled.

  She says, “You know how you didn’t want the world to see what happened that night at Gage’s birthday party? How you felt about Quentin sharing your secret? Well, you turned around and did the same thing to me.”

  “In what universe does that make any sense?! He was attacking you!”

  “Yes, he was, and everyone knows he’s an arrogant sack of lies, but you, you used me, Candy. You made a joke about who I am and said it loud enough for everyone to hear.”

  “But—”

  She interrupts my protest. “When they hear it from you, they believe it. That’s the way it is. That’s your gift, and I don’t want anyone thinking they know the first thing about my life.”

  Now I understand. She’s afraid I’ve given away her secret. “But everyone knows, Beale,” I say. It takes real effort to keep my voice gentle and not flush with the frustration I feel. “It hasn’t been a secret for a long time.”

  “There’s a difference between something being known and something being said. Especially around here.”

  “Okay. I get that, but the people who matter don’t care. It’s not important anymore. Even here.”

  Something falls from her eyes. Tears, and a sadness so quiet I almost miss it. But it’s there in the press of her lips, in the protective bend of her arms, in the way she’s so certain I won’t understand.

  “I wish that were true,” she says, defeated. “Just . . . leave it alone.”

  We don’t speak again. She retrieves her gym bag and returns to school for practice. I should follow. Coach will start whether I’m there or not and I’ll be benched for showing up late. But I don’t move. I stand in the first real chill of autumn in the mostly empty lot and watch my friend. Tall and stately, dark skin aglow in the warm light, she walks as though something haunts her. It drags at her shoulders and weights her steps, tugs her chin down and casts a thick shadow over her back.

  In the stories that make up Abigail, she’s always the understated, unlikely hero. For three weeks in the seventh grade she secretly slipped her own lunch into Ben Craig’s backpack when his parents fell on harder-than-usual times. To this day, he doesn’t know it was Abigail. The only reason I know is because she needed his locker combination and I’m terribly resourceful. She swore me to secrecy and since it’s a well-known fact that a broken promise is the first step toward chaos, I kept my mouth shut and split my lunch with her every day for three weeks.

  All the stories of Abigail’s kindness are similarly self-sacrificing. She notices some breech of justice, finds a way to correct it, and does so without anyone the wiser. I used to think she was irritatingly humble or allergic to attention.

  The truth of the matter is much less endearing and it hits me like a years-overdue train. She’s not avoiding recognition. She’s atoning for her shame.

  And I’m the asshole who used that shame like my own personal weapon.

  21

  I FEEL LIKE I’VE KILLED my best friend.

  We don’t speak for the rest of the afternoon. We go to volleyball practice and get yelled at over and over again by Coach because something’s off and she can’t figure out what. My gut hurts twice over: once from Quentin’s punch, and once from emotional rot. The combination leads to a supremely shitty performance on my part. I don’t have the heart to tell Coach it’s my fault that Abigail and I are out of sync and creating a domino effect through the team.

  I spend a sleepless night trying to find the words that will fix us, but I end up replaying the fight in my head. She looked at me like I’d destroyed her and I don’t know how I can do anything to repair that.

  My alarm sounds, rescuing me from another devastating analysis of all the ways I failed Abigail Beale. I get ready for school without any zeal whatsoever.

  Hot showers are a good remedy for most hurts, but mine does very little. I stare into the swirling drain and even though the water is nearly hot enough to scald, there’s a cold inside me that makes me shiver, shiver, shiver.

  “Candy!” Mom shouts, banging on the door. “Candace Pickens, you’re about to be late!”

  Late? I had an hour when I got in the shower.

  Turning off the faucet, I realize the skin of my fingers is pruney and the bathroom is choked with steam. I race to get dressed and when I reach for my phone I see that Mom is right. I spent nearly an hour in the bathroom and I’m ten minutes from a tardy slip.

  Mom adopts a look of concern when she sees me, tentatively asking, “Everything all right?”

  My stomach is now a solid knot of bruise and regret so at least I’m not lying when I say, “Stomachache.”

  Her eyes drift from my face to my stomach to a bit lower, where for just a second I catch wild hope in her expression. “Oh, honey, I’ll heat some milk and honey.”

  The familiar press of anger rises in my chest, but it’s dull. Dull enough for me to feel a twinge of sympathy for my mom. “That’s okay. Thanks, though,” I say.

  By
the time I leave my house, I feel so far from normal I may as well be in another state.

  There’s a difference between knowing something and living it. I know I’d make a great president just like I know the earth rotates constantly, but I can’t say what it’s like to sit in the Oval Office or feel the pull of the moon against the ocean.

  I knew my town was small. I knew it was bound together like a solar system, with opposing forces and physics and moonshine. I knew how events on one side of the system affected movements clear at the other end because I was a part of it and sort of apart from it, too.

  Today, I know my town is small because I’m suffocating inside it. Everyone looks at me like I’m an alien. In the absence of Riley and Quentin, who both received three days’ suspension, I’m all they have to look at.

  All anyone wants to talk about is the fight. From the minute I get to school to the minute the final bell rings, I’m stalked by whispers and rumors, none of which are about my new superpowers. I never thought I’d prefer questions about my spirit-banishing talents to anything, but the third time someone suggests I’m Riley Wawheece’s one true love, I’m ready to reevaluate my priorities.

  Sterling missed practice yesterday and today she can’t contain her horror, fluctuating between fury at Quentin for being a dick and confusion over the tension between me and Abigail. Heath simmers whenever anyone dares to speak Quentin’s name, Nova regards me with a mixture of curiosity and admiration, and Gage has the most maddening reaction of all. He drops everything when he spots me and rushes to my side. He stops just short of touching my chin and we end up in a strangled moment, a wordless encounter in which he studies my face and clenches his jaw but ultimately convinces himself I’m all right and walks away.

  Abigail regards me not at all. Not in class, not at lunch, not at practice.

  For the next two days, everything exists on the edge of a knife. Sterling tries to be all things to both me and Abigail. She encourages me to apologize, but anytime I get close to bringing it up, Abigail repeats, “Leave it alone.”