Black Box

by Cassia Leo

  me to the emergency room. And I never drank again. The idea of going to a party with a bunch of people who drink and do drugs regularly is not my idea of the perfect Friday night. But the idea of hanging out with them while my best friend is in another room having sex is terrifying.

  ‘I told you I was gonna do it,’ Rina says, turning right onto Cary Street. The sound of a car horn blaring behind us makes my heart jump. The guy Rina just cut off swerves around us in his white truck and floors the gas pedal to pass us up. ‘Get your head out of your ass, jerkface!’ Rina shouts at his taillights.

  She’s had her driver’s license a total of three and a half weeks and she’s almost gotten into four car accidents already. Five, if you count this near miss. She reaches for the stereo to turn the music up and I can see her hand trembling slightly.

  ‘Jerkface?’ I repeat her insult and she smiles sheepishly.

  I want to tell Rina that she’d better not leave me alone all night with Heath’s friends, but I don’t want to guilt trip her into hanging out with me. I’ve turned down all Rina’s party invitations for over a year, but I’ve always been honest with her about why. Until they put me on CBZ when I turned fifteen, I had yet to find a medication that eased my symptoms without turning me into an emotionless zombie. Until CBZ, social situations caused too much anxiety. I was always in my head, constantly wondering if people were judging me or whispering about me. It was exhausting.

  ‘Jerkface is a perfectly acceptable insult,’ Rina replies, tossing her red hair over her shoulder as she pulls up in front of a gray one-story house on Ashfield Drive. There are three cars squeezed into the driveway and the sounds of music and laughter drift out of an open window. I try to discreetly take a deep breath, but Rina notices. ‘Do you want me to take you home?’

  ‘No, you told Heath you’d be here at eight. It’s almost eight thirty.’

  ‘Who gives a fuck? He can wait.’

  I shake my head and smile. ‘Nope. I can’t keep avoiding this forever. This isn’t Franklin. I have nothing to be afraid of.’

  ‘Your damn fucking right this isn’t Franklin. These assholes don’t want to drag your name through shit. They just want to get fucked up. And I think Lars likes you.’

  ‘He does not.’ I reach for the door handle, eager to get away from this pre-party pep talk.

  ‘Well, he told Heath that he accidentally touched your hair the other day in third period and it was so fucking soft.’

  ‘What the fuck? That’s creepy.’ I reach up and twist my light-brown hair around my finger.

  ‘Yeah, but Lars is hot, so that makes it less creepy, right?’

  ‘No, it’s still creepy.’

  ‘Whatever. You don’t have to hook up with him. All I’m saying is that no one in here is going to make up shitty lies about you. We’re just here to hang out.’

  I open the car door before I can change my mind and slam the door shut behind me. Right on cue, the screen door swings open and Lars comes outside with a beer in one hand and his cell phone in the other. He grins when he sees me and I feel my chest tighten with anxiety. I force a weak smile just as Rina loops her arm in mine and drags me forward.

  ‘Give me a sec,’ Lars says into the phone as we approach. The glow of the porch light gleams in his blond hair, which falls around his face looking purposely messy. ‘Hey, Mikki.’ His deep voice is wrapped in a soothing warmth that actually puts me at ease.

  ‘Hey,’ I say, this time flashing him a genuine smile.

  Rina opens the screen door and pulls me in after her. I glance over my shoulder and Lars smiles, the kind of smile they put on billboards. ‘I’ll see you inside,’ he calls out.

  My stomach flutters at the thought of this and suddenly I remember how I felt when Brad came to my house to study last year. The fluttering turns into a burning sensation that’s worse than the nausea I sometimes get from the CBZ. I close my eyes as Rina pulls me inside and I use one of the anti-anxiety techniques I found online. I count to ten and open my eyes. I imagine that everyone in this living room feels as frightened and self-conscious as I do, and it’s my job to put them at ease.

  I can do this.

  I’m not supposed to drink while taking CBZ. So when Cedric Holmes greets me with a plastic cup of keg beer I refuse the drink a few times. Finally, Lars walks in, tucking his phone into the back pocket of his jeans before he takes a seat on the arm of the sofa where I’m sitting.

  ‘If she doesn’t want the beer, she doesn’t want the beer. Don’t be a fucking dick.’ Lars takes the beer from Cedric and guzzles some down. ‘She probably has to go home soon anyway.’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ I blurt. ‘I mean, I have to be home by midnight.’

  Lars grins at me as Cedric laughs. ‘It’s okay. I’ll make sure you get home on time.’

  ‘You can’t drive if you’re drinking.’ God, I must sound like a total killjoy.

  ‘I’ll be sober by then.’ He places his hand on the back of my neck and gives it a gentle squeeze. ‘You’re safe with me.’

  ‘Don’t believe that shit!’ Tony shouts from the other side of the living room where he’s sitting with his girlfriend Karla.

  Tony and Karla are the only seniors here. They probably drove most of these people here in their two cars. Lars’ silver BMW was one of the three cars parked in the driveway.

  I lean forward to get away from Lars’ hand and he cocks an eyebrow at me. ‘I’m fine. Rina’s driving me home later.’

  Lars chuckles. ‘Yeah, good luck with that.’

  I’m about to ask him what he means by this when I look around and realize Rina has already disappeared, probably snuck away to one of the bedrooms with Heath. Suddenly, this party is starting to seem like a really bad idea.

  The sound of the voices on the other side of the door make me nervous. I stare at the black pouch on the bathroom counter and, with every second that ticks past, the pouch seems to move farther away from me. Cassie’s voice can be heard over all the other voices. She’s not loud, but she has that deep kind of voice that penetrates through the thickest walls. Suddenly, the idea of doing this with so many people just steps away, laughing and enjoying themselves, seems stupid and selfish – two qualities I’ve come to despise in myself.

  I swipe the pouch off the counter and tuck it into the back of my jeans then pull my shirt down to cover it up. When I open the bathroom door, Cassie is staring at me with that lazy sort of bored expression she gets at these parties. Her dark hair is pulled back in a complicated braid she calls a conch and her blue eyes are accentuated by a layer of violet eyeshadow. She’s gorgeous; though, she’s not any more gorgeous than the other dozen girls I’ve fucked since the accident.

  ‘God, can these people be any more dull?’ she asks as she squeezes past me. ‘Don’t keep ditching me all night or I swear I’ll take your keys and leave you here.’

  ‘I’m gonna run to the store and grab a bottle of vodka. This thing is BYOB and we didn’t bring anything.’

  ‘It’s not like you’re drinking.’ The silence that follows this statement is heavy with all the things we both can’t mention. ‘Sorry,’ she says, realizing her blunder too late.

  ‘I’ll be right back.’ I plant a quick kiss on her cheek before she disappears into the bathroom.

  Cassie and I have only been dating for three weeks. She doesn’t know my real name, but she knows why I don’t drink. Everyone in Cambridge knows why I don’t drink, so it didn’t take long for her to figure it out even though she’s not from Cambridge.

  I enter the living room and no one looks at me. They’re all too busy speculating about what classes they’ll be taking and who they’ll be rooming with when they get to Harvard. I don’t need to sit here and pretend I’m excited about dorm assignments. Walking right past them, no one says anything as I walk out the front door and down the brick paved pathway toward my new Jetta.

  I deactivate the alarm and slide into the driver’s seat, glancing at the front door to see if anyo
ne has followed me out. It’s stupid, but part of me wishes someone would notice my hasty exit and figure out what it is I’m planning so they can try to talk me out of it. I don’t want to die, but I also know I don’t deserve to live.

  If I could dig a hole and bury myself in the ground, I’d do that part, too. Unfortunately, somebody will find my body, but I don’t want anyone, especially Cassie, to find me dead in a stranger’s bathroom. I’ll drive around until I find a parking lot or an alley. Some place where no one will find me until it’s too late. I have to get far away from here, where no one knows me or my car.

  I get off the highway in Brockton. As I drive down Cary Street, the idea that people will mourn my death begins to make me sick. I try not to think of what Jordan would think about my plans. He’d probably encourage me to do it; he had way too much faith in reverse psychology. I tried to tell him that reverse psychology only works when the person you’re using it on doesn’t know you’re using it.

  Damn. I fucking miss him.

  I continue down Centre Street toward the center of Brockton, then I make a right on Cary. The GPS shows the Ashland shopping plaza is further north. It also looks like there’s an industrial lot with some buildings just ahead of the plaza where I can probably park behind. It’s Friday night. Most likely, no one will come into that lot until Monday morning.

  I turn left into the lot and drive between two buildings before I find a nice row of box hedges where I can hide my car. Once I’m safely parked behind the bushes, I kill the headlights and leave the engine running as I reach for the stereo to turn up the volume. The local pop station is playing dance music for the Friday-night clubbers. I hit the button to change the station and the next one is playing Chopin’s Nocturne Op. 9 No. 2 in E-flat major.

  I learned to play this four years ago after I found an old record in Grandpa’s study. I remembered him playing Chopin while I read Black Box. At thirteen years old, I had been playing piano for more than seven years. It still took me five months to learn this piece and play it confidently. But that was four years ago. I haven’t touched the piano in over a year. I don’t know if I could even play this anymore. All I know is that the melody pulls memories and emotions out of me that I’d prefer to ignore, so I swiftly change the station again until I find some classic rock music.

  Opening the glove compartment, I pull out the black pouch I stuffed in there earlier. That’s when I see the handgun I placed in there two months ago.

  I bought the handgun after the trial ended and I received a vague and anonymous text message threat. The text read: We both know you’re not innocent.

  Yes, I definitely know I’m not innocent, which is why I’m here now. I should have stood up in that courtroom and told everyone the truth. Instead, I listened to the lawyer my father hired and kept my mouth shut. I was the only person who knew what happened the day Jordan died, and I didn’t have the balls to speak up on his or my behalf.

  Reaching into the compartment, I pull out the gun. I was acquitted of the second-degree murder charge, and the lesser manslaughter charge, but I was still cited for illegal discharge of a firearm within 500 feet of a dwelling. I can’t get a gun permit until I’m thirty years old. I was surprised at how easy it was to buy an unregistered gun. All I had to do was mention to Tyler, Cassie’s older brother, that I’d been threatened by someone at school and he suggested I get a gun. Tyler’s friend Victor knew a guy in Southie who could get me a clean 92 Beretta. Within eight days of that text message threat, I had this gun.

  After what happened with Jordan, most people would think I’d never want to see another gun for the rest of my life. But, just as I grew up with music and books, guns have always been a part of my life. My dad first took me out to the range when I was eight years old. By the time I was twelve, I could hit a three-inch target from fifty yards out. My familiarity with guns only made Jordan’s death seem even more senseless. It’s also the reason I was kept off the stand during the trial. My only defense was to convince the jury that neither Jordan nor I knew how to handle a Ruger .270 – and that I was drunk as fuck.

  I shut the glove compartment and lay the gun on my lap, then I reach for the pouch. I’ll use both. I’ll shoot a lethal dose of heroin into my vein, then I’ll pull the trigger.

  Unzipping the pouch, my stomach curdles at the sight of the contents. I don’t do drugs. Other than the few times I smoked pot my freshman year, drugs have never appealed to me. And I haven’t drunk any alcohol since the accident. I have no idea what this stuff will do to me. All I know is that it will kill me.

  I slip the lighter out of the pouch and test it before I begin preparing the syringe. It sparks a flame on the first try. As I set the lighter back inside the pouch, a flash of lights gets my attention. A dark mini-van pulls into the lot, rolling to a stop between the hedges and the back of the building on my left. I quickly duck down so they can’t see my silhouette in the car through the tiny spaces between the leaves of the bushes. The unmistakable sound of a car door opening is quickly followed by a scream. Instinctively, I pop up in my seat and squint into the glare of the headlights. What I see makes my heart stop.

  The party sucks. I’ve spent the last hour trying to appear comfortable as everyone around me laughs and chats about people, places, and memories I’m not familiar with. I sit on the end of the sofa, refusing offers of drinks and tokes. The smell of the smoke has surely seeped into the deepest layers of my clothes. My mom is going to kill me when she smells it.

  I rise from the sofa and Lars looks up at me. ‘Where are you going?’ He looks genuinely disappointed that I might be leaving.

  ‘The restroom.’ I flash him a tight smile then set off toward the foyer where I’ve seen everyone else pass through on their way to the bathroom.

  As I step into the foyer, I glance over my shoulder and no one is looking in my direction. Quickly, before anyone can notice, I head toward the front door instead of the bathroom. I open the door as slowly and quietly as I can and slip out into the cool darkness.

  Slipping my phone out of my pocket, I hold it at my side as I head down Ashfield toward Cary. As soon as I turn the corner onto Cary, I’ll call my mom and ask her to pick me up. I should have never come here. I’m not a party person. I’m better off accepting that truth now to save myself more awkward exits in the future.

  ‘Hey!’

  I turn my head toward the sound of the male voice. A guy in a Red Sox baseball cap is hanging out the open passenger window of a dark-blue mini-van. The second thing I notice, which instantly makes me panic, is that the van’s headlights are not on.

  ‘Hey, you need a ride?’ he asks, and I can hear laughter from inside the van.

  I’m frozen as my body aches with fear. I shake my head, but it’s so slight he doesn’t see it.

  ‘I asked you if you need a ride. I can give you a ride.’

  The sound of the van door sliding open snaps me out of my stupor and I take off running for the front door of the nearest house. But I don’t make it. A thick arm locks around my torso as a hot hand clamps over my mouth, stifling my screams. I thrash and attempt to bite his hand, but he headbutts me in the back of the head, stunning the fight out of me.

  I’m stuffed into the trunk of the mini-van where a chubby guy waits with a pillowcase, which he quickly yanks down over my head. Then he forces me onto my stomach and ties my hands behind my back with a piece of rope. He digs his knee into my back to keep me from moving as the trunk door slams shut. I try to scream, but the chubby guy clocks me on the side of the head with his fist then presses my face into the floor of the trunk.

  It feels as if the car is making a U-turn to go back into the residential tract instead of toward Cary Street. I can’t breathe. Through the tears and the weight of the guy on my back. I’m going to die.

  ‘Please. I can’t breathe,’ I plead.

  ‘Shut up!’ he roars.

  ‘Ease the fuck up!’ another voice shouts from the backseat. ‘If you kill her you have to get rid
of her.’

  These words make my entire body convulse with fear. Still, as the chubby guy eases his knee and his weight off my back, I can’t breathe from the guttural sobs wracking my body.

  ‘I said shut up,’ he threatens me again, but this time he hits me with an open hand. Even with the fabric of the pillowcase covering my face, the blow stings and I cry out.

  ‘Please stop,’ I whimper.

  ‘Maybe this will shut you up.’

  He reaches under my belly and fumbles around as his thick fingers search for the button of my jeans. I squirm beneath him, but there’s not enough room in the trunk to stretch my legs and get any leverage to kick him.

  ‘Help!’ I scream in a voice that doesn’t even sound like my own. ‘Help me!’

  ‘Shut the fuck up! Do you want to die, bitch?’ a voice shouts at me from the backseat.

  Though I can’t see anything, I still squeeze my eyes and lips shut, trying to shut out the horror my mind and body are about to experience. Please don’t do this, please don’t do this, I beg silently as he lifts my hips into the air and yanks my jeans and panties down.

  I wish I could say that at a certain point I’m able to force my mind to go elsewhere; to mentally escape even if I’m unable to physically get away. But there is no escape. I hear every groan, every vulgar insult, and every second of the shrill laughter that follows. I feel every drop of sweat that hits the pillowcase and seeps onto my face. I smell and taste every disgusting second of it. I scream aloud and silently at every burning rip of my insides. And I die a thousand times.

  *****

  I don’t know how long I spend in the trunk of that van. I don’t know how many times I’m violated or by how many guys. But when they’re done, I can’t feel my arms or legs. I’m numb and I’m pretty sure it has to do with the loss of blood. I can feel it pooled beneath me. I’m barely holding onto consciousness, but I can feel that I’m alone in the trunk now as the van bumps along down the road.

  They’re arguing over whether to drop me off and, after all that, I feel as if I shouldn’t care. I should want them to just kill me. I should want to die. But all I want is my clothes. I don’t want to lie here naked for a second longer.

  ‘Dude, turn on your headlights or you’ll get pulled over.’

  Don’t turn on your headlights, I want to say.

  The van sets off again and the chubby guy’s voice breaks through my consciousness like a knife twisting in my belly. ‘Right there! Pull in there!’

  Seconds later, the van comes to a stop and, by the shift in the distribution of weight, I’m pretty sure the chubby guy is coming for me in the trunk. I don’t have the strength to scream as he opens the trunk and pulls me out backwards by the restraints on my wrists. As soon as my feet hit the pavement, my legs give out beneath me.

  ‘Get up!’ he shouts. ‘Get the fuck up!’

  The tiny bits of gravel on the pavement cut into my knees and the soles of my feet as I struggle to stand up.

  He roughly turns me around. ‘When I take this off your head, you walk straight and don’t look back. You understand me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘If you turn around, I’ll kill you and your parents.’

  I hear the trunk door slam shut behind me and I jump. ‘Hurry up, man!’ one of the others calls to him.

  His hand on the top of my head sends a shiver through me and he swiftly yanks the pillowcase off my head. I blink a few times as my surroundings come into focus. I’m in a parking lot. The sound of his footsteps moving away from me fills me with a sense of relief, but my instinct kicks in and I turn around to make sure he’s walking away. I quickly remember his threat and turn back, but it’s too late. He saw me.

  This can’t be happening. It has to be a hallucination. I glance down at the pouch in my lap. No, all the drugs are still in the tiny plastic pouch. This is no hallucination. This guy just shoved a bloody, naked girl out of that van. And she’s walking very unsteadily in my direction.

  My body floods with a surge of adrenaline as I toss the pouch onto the passenger seat and take the gun in my hand. I leave the engine running, and as soon as I reach for the door handle, another scream pierces the air followed by a sickening thump. He’s beating her while she’s lying naked on the asphalt.

  Every second feels like an hour as I climb out of the car and round the hedges. ‘Get away from her!’ I bellow.

  He lands one more kick to her head before he looks at me. The Beretta is pointed straight at his head and he glares at me.

  ‘You can keep her.’ He pushes her onto her back with his foot and begins to walk away.

  Her face is unrecognizable as a human face. It’s covered in blood, as are both of her legs and her torso. How was she even walking a second ago?

  I can’t stop myself. Every muscle in my body contracts around that trigger.

  The shot hits him in the side of the head when he’s a few feet away from the van. He falls to the ground and the van door slides shut in a flash. The van skids away, but not before I send three more bullets through the back window.

  What the fuck have I done?

  I killed a man.

  My entire body trembles as I stare at his lifeless body, mesmerized by the way the moonlight glitters on the blood as it forms a pool on the asphalt under his head.

  I killed a man.

  Vomit bites at the back of my throat and I swallow it down as I tear my gaze away from the man’s body. The moment I turn back to the girl, the vomit threatens to come back up. I’ve never seen a human being more mangled, more devastated by evil. I have to get her to a hospital.

  What if they think I did this to her? Fucking shit! What was I thinking?