Until I Break

by Bietz, Kara M.

  “You okay?” he asks, a delicate tone in his voice.

  I look right into his eyes. I’m about to do this, JC. Please stop me.

  I nod, my backpack a shield between JC and me.

  He hesitates a second longer before giving me a sympathetic half-smile and jogging to keep up with Kaplan and the pimple-faced guy.

  26

  TODAY

  10:01 p.m.

  “Why didn’t you tell JC when he stopped you in the cafeteria, Sam?” Michael asks.

  I open my eyes and let in a little bit of light. I look at the end of my fingers, which seem a hundred miles away on someone else’s arm. I flex them and feel nothing.

  Michael shifts in his chair and turns a page in his pad. “Sam?”

  I turn my head and look at him, my eyes barely open.

  “This is when I’m going to need you to tell me everything you remember,” he says softly.

  I close my eyes again and feel myself slipping far, far away. The pain in my gut is so deep, and I just keep slipping slipping slipping toward it.

  Michael touches my ankle and squeezes just a tiny bit. “I’m right here with you. I’m not going to leave you, Sam. It doesn’t matter what you say to me, I will not leave you. I’m right here,” he says, squeezing again.

  I keep my eyes closed and let the tears leak out.

  “Do you remember exactly how it happened?” Michael asks.

  27

  TODAY

  12:55 p.m.

  He is alone after lunch. The hallway outside of the cafeteria is empty. Ace is directly in front of me, standing outside the bathroom. I stand by the cafeteria doors, watching. The last stragglers are clearing from the long hallway.

  He is alone.

  He is alone.

  I clutch my backpack to my chest and slowly unzip the front pouch. I reach in and let the gun tumble out of the dirty, green Broadmeadow T-shirt wadded up inside. I squeeze my hand around the rubber grip but keep my pointer finger on the trigger. I flip the safety off with my thumb and leave my hand inside my backpack.

  “Ace!” I yell, approaching him.

  He turns his head, and his expression turns stormy. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his old cell phone, the yellow Post-It still clinging to the screen. “What the fuck is this about?” he says.

  I pull my hand from the bag and stand just a few feet away, gun pointed at his face. Ace stops moving toward me and stands still, his eyes wide and his hands up.

  There is a split second, a half-breath, when I feel a tiny niggle of regret.

  The heartbeat between the first flex of my index finger and the full squeeze on the trigger. A pause.

  Before my eyes can fully blink and the tiny trail of smoke rises up from the exiting bullet, a tick of hesitation.

  A twisting in my gut telling me that this is wrong.

  That I shouldn’t do it.

  But by the time my finger eases up on the trigger…

  and I know the path of the bullet…

  and that pop echoes off the marble floors…

  The regret is gone.

  The bullet has buried itself in Ace’s right knee. He grabs his leg and falls to the floor. He’s groaning in agony as I stand over him, gun hanging at my side.

  Marnie comes running out of the bathroom and sees Ace lying on the floor, moaning with blood pooling under his leg.

  Me. Standing over him with a gun in my hand.

  She throws herself on the floor between the nose of my gun and Ace and looks up at me. “What the hell are you doing?” she yells between sobs.

  “Move, Marnie. I’m going to fix it for you. Move,” I say quietly.

  “Sam…stop. Stop. Don’t…” She stands up and puts her hand on the end of the gun.

  I try to pull it to me, but she’s holding on to it tightly. JC comes around the corner and sees Marnie and I each holding the end of the gun and Ace lying on the floor in a growing puddle of blood.

  “Sam! What the hell!” JC says, running toward us.

  When Marnie turns around, I pull the gun, hard, out of her hand. She lets go, and I want to aim at Ace again.

  “Sam! Stop! Don’t!” she yells, and lunges for the gun again.

  In the commotion, Ace pulls himself to a sitting position and leans against the wall for support, holding his knee. Blood pours through his fingers.

  I am in complete control. I aim at Ace’s forehead this time, but Marnie gets in front of me again. I want to push her out of the way, but she’s too quick. She has her hand around mine, and we are pulling the gun back and forth between us. JC comes closer and tries to pull my arm down. The three of us are doing some kind of strange waltz in the hallway outside the cafeteria. Each of us has control of the gun and none of us has control of the gun when I hear a loud pop.

  28

  TODAY

  10:17 p.m.

  I touch my forehead again, and those fingers that are not mine feel the bumpy stitches. I touch the rest of my face too. Stubble scratches my chin and my cheeks are wet, but I don’t feel any more stitches or cuts. Nothing hurts but my forehead.

  “You weren’t completely in control of the gun when it went off the second time?” Michael says. His voice sounds different.

  I open my eyes and look at him.

  He looks older somehow. The wrinkles around his eyes have deepened, and purple streaks have appeared right above his cheekbones.

  “Hi,” he says, managing a very small smile.

  I look right at him and blink. My eyes open a little wider.

  “What happened after you heard that second pop, Sam? Who came to find you in that hallway outside the cafeteria?”

  “I tried to tell them, Michael,” I say.

  “I know you did, Sam.”

  “I didn’t…” I say, my voice getting stuck.

  Michael touches my wrist. “I’m right here, Sam.”

  “I just wanted to be safe.”

  29

  TODAY

  1:02 p.m. Six Minutes After

  Marnie is screaming. A horrible, gut-wrenching sound is coming from her mouth. The scene swims and unscrambles in front of my eyes. Her hand is bleeding. So much blood. JC is shirtless. His white T-shirt is wrapped around Ace’s knee. He’s holding Marnie’s bleeding hand in one of his hands and pressing his T-shirt to Ace’s knee with the other hand. He looks at me, his eyes wild and scared.

  “What did you do! What did you do!” he screams across the hall at me. It’s not a question.

  I stand still, the gun hanging at my side. What did I do? What did I do? There’s blood, and it’s not just Ace’s. Marnie. Marnie’s bleeding, and that’s not what was supposed to happen. Marnie is hurt. And I’m holding a gun to my side.

  “You did this! You did this!” Marnie screams at me. “You did this, you sick fuck!”

  I did this. I did this. The blood on the floor. The blood on Marnie and Ace. JC in the middle of it all.

  I did this.

  The barrel of the gun is warm against my temple.

  I can hear the frantic fwump-fwump-fwump of my heart slamming against my ribs in the chaotic hallway.

  A tiny voice inside is fighting its way up my throat. No. No, no, no, it’s saying. The sound never makes it past my teeth.

  There are loud, quick footfalls echoing through the marble hallway.

  The sun streams through the thick-paned windows and glints off the trophy case, throwing golden stripes of light across the green lockers.

  Ace’s breathing is labored. His eyes wide and wild.

  I sink to the floor.

  Darkness.

  With my back against a locker, I bring the gun to my forehead again and again and again, harder and harder each time. Every hit slows the thrumming in my brain. Holding the gun to my temple helps too. So quiet. So dark. The steel is still warm, and I press it hard against the soft spot. I close my eyes and count. Two bullets are gone. Four are left. But I’ll only need one.

  “Stop! Stop it! Sam, no!�
� JC screams across the hallway. His sneakered feet make muted flapping sounds on the marble floor, and he is in my lap in a flash. He pulls the gun away from my head. I don’t fight him.

  “Stop,” he says almost silently. “Stop.”

  I let the gun fall into my lap, and I look at JC’s face. He’s crying.

  The warmth spreads slowly from my toes to my chest, where it wells up like a dam before finally breaking and escaping my lungs in big, gasping sobs. I see JC’s face in front of me, just inches from my own.

  “I’m not a disappointment,” I say to JC’s face.

  “You’re okay, buddy. You’re okay,” he keeps repeating. He’s inhaling but not exhaling. His eyes dart all over, like a trapped animal.

  The tears come, and I can’t stop them. “I’m not a disappointment. I’m not a disappointment…I’m not…I’m not…” I say between sobs.

  JC looks right into my face.

  “Make it stop, JC.”

  “You’re okay, buddy.”

  Mr. Patton is the first one here. I hear his shoes in the hallway before I see him round the corner. He stops short at the top of the hallway, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead as he takes in the scene. Ace and Marnie are closest to him, blood pooling around them. Ten or fifteen bloody sneaker prints between the two of them and JC and me. JC straddling my lap with my face in his hands. Me. Sitting with a gun in my lap.

  “I tried to tell you,” I say, pointing my finger at Mr. Patton. I don’t think he hears me.

  He goes to Ace and Marnie first, pulling his radio out of his back pocket. “I’m going to need some help outside the cafeteria. Get everyone out of the building,” he says into the radio. There’s a sense of urgency in his voice, a shaky quality I’ve never heard before.

  I blink and there are more people. JC is not in my lap anymore.

  I blink and there is a cop.

  Breen, his shiny name tag says.

  “You’re going to have to stand up now, son,” Breen says, his bald head reflecting the harsh fluorescent hallway lights. I glance to the side. More uniformed people are hovering over Marnie and Ace. Marnie is crying loudly, a strangled sound coming from her throat. JC is talking to another uniform. He isn’t wearing a shirt, but the front of his body is covered with blood. Not his own.

  I look down at my lap. The gun isn’t in my hand anymore, but my fingers are still bent around an invisible trigger.

  I blink and I’m in the back of Breen’s police car. “You’re going to the hospital, Sam,” he says.

  I blink and there are kids with their hands over their mouths, huddled together in groups outside the school. The ambulance lights spin and throw red light across their faces.

  30

  TODAY

  2:19 p.m. One Hour and Twenty-Two Minutes After

  A nurse adjusts the IV pole and checks my arm. Her fingers are warm.

  I try to reach up and scratch my nose with my right hand. My left hand is attached to it with a plastic restraint. Both hands touch my nose. My ankles are attached to the metal bed frame.

  “Someone will be in to talk with you in a few minutes,” the nurse says, giving me a tight-lipped smile. “His name is Michael.”

  “JC,” I say. “Is he okay? Marnie?”

  She looks down at the floor. “I’m sorry I can’t give you any information.”

  She leaves the room with her bucket of medicine and needles. When she opens the door, I see Breen standing outside. He nods at me, folding his arms across his chest.

  A man with a green tie comes through the door and closes it behind him again. He is carrying a weathered leather briefcase, and a gold pen is tucked into his shirt pocket. He settles his tall frame into the chair with the wooden arms. He pulls it closer to the bed and spends a minute or two adjusting his pant legs and running his fingers between his shirt collar and the loose skin on his neck. He pulls a small recorder from the briefcase, as well as a yellow legal pad. He scratches something at the top of the pad with his gold pen without looking at me.

  I stare down at my hands. The cuts left by the restraints are tiny and straight. I touch the one on my right hand. It stings a little bit, but stops when I let go. I touch it a few more times.

  “How did a kid like you end up here?” the guy with the tie asks.

  31

  NOVEMBER

  Six Months After

  It will be Thanksgiving soon. Paper turkeys made from brown construction paper handprints and brightly colored paper feathers line the dingy windows of the common room. I try not to talk to anyone when I’m out here. They try to talk to me, though.

  “What did you do?”

  “Why are you in here?”

  “You’re awfully tall. How old are you, anyway?”

  Everyone wants to know. Kids with tattoos on their necks. Kids with glasses and braces. Kids with scarred knuckles and shifty eyes. Kids that look like they should be reading Harry Potter novels at night with a flashlight and eating dinner with Mom and Dad. They all want to know.

  Michael visits five times a week. I talk to him. He says it’s okay if I don’t want to interact with anyone here. Juvie. It’s only for six months, he said. Then…we’ll see, he said.

  Today is the day of “we’ll see.” Turns out “we’ll see” means I can go home. “We’ll see” is community service, living with Mom and Grandpa, and weekly visits with Michael.

  “Sam?” a guard approaches. “They’re ready for you now,” he says.

  * * *

  The air is thinner beyond the gates. Not musty with sweat and tears and blood and regret. I take a deep swallow of it and let it reach down my throat, through my lungs, and all the way to my feet. I turn my face to the setting sun and swim in it.

  Mom and Grandpa are waiting. They smile, tight-lipped, when they see me carrying a plastic bag of my things, knuckles white. Mom grabs for Grandpa’s hand, and he squeezes it tightly. I see all of this unfold as I walk down the sidewalk toward them.

  “Ready to go home, Sam?” Grandpa asks, his voice even and low.

  I nod.

  My mother says nothing to me, but puts her hand on my shoulder briefly as I fold my legs into the backseat of Grandpa’s truck. No one talks during the twenty-minute ride home either. My ears ring.

  Mom unlocks the door, and she and Grandpa go inside first. I pause on the front porch and look toward Ace’s house. A For Sale sign sways in the November breeze. Leaves and pine needles gather on the lawn and driveway. The house looks cold. Forgotten. Michael told me about this. To expect to see Ace’s house either empty or with a new family inside. It still doesn’t prepare me for what it feels like to look over there. Numb.

  Inside my own house, everything is just how it was when I left that morning in May, and yet everything is different. The furniture is in the same place, the pillows and curtains are still the same, and even the smells are the same. But something is missing. It takes me a minute to realize what it is, but once I do, it’s like a boot to my chest.

  Me. I’m what’s missing.

  There are no more basketball trophies on the bookcase in the living room. My senior picture is gone from the mantel. The frame Mom bought to hold my high school diploma is on the floor by the fireplace, empty. It never did see a diploma. I blink a few times before walking down the hall toward the steps to my room.

  It’s spotless, and there are new curtains on the window. My basketball trophies are here, on shelves that line the walls near the ceiling. My senior picture is here too. There are several new pairs of jeans folded on the bed, as well as a stack of brightly colored T-shirts. A sport coat hangs in plastic wrap on the closet door. I walk to it and finger the plastic.

  “For college interviews,” Grandpa says from behind me. “When you’re ready,” he adds.

  I turn and nod at him, looking at the floor. I sit down on the bed, and Grandpa sits next to me.

  “I understand it will take awhile, Sam, but you’ll get your feet under you,” he says.

  I don’
t know if I believe him. The thought of staying here in Easthaven, where almost everyone hates me, is terrifying. Michael worked with the courts to make sure I had a lighter sentence because of the bullying I had put up with for years, but to most of Easthaven, I am still “that kid who shot the Broadmeadow quarterback.”

  “You’ll start your last semester at Gadsden High in January and finally get that diploma. You can apply to schools again. It’s going to turn out okay, Sam,” Grandpa says.

  “Gadsden,” I say, staring at the floor.

  “It’s just one semester that you have to make up. Your grades were excellent before…well, before. You’re lucky the school board is letting you go to Gadsden. You’ve got to stand on your own two feet,” he says, patting my knee and standing up.

  I watch him walk away from my room, and my stomach lurches. High school. Again. I know I will be able to get through it with Michael’s help, but I’m nervous anyway. Michael says to put one foot in front of the other, and pretty soon you will have walked a mile. He’s already talked to the guidance counselor at Gadsden and set up daily meetings with her for me.

  The house phone rings, and I look at the caller ID on my desk and smile.

  “Hello, Mrs. Cushman,” I say, picking up the receiver.

  “Oh, my honey bun! I have missed you so much! How are you?” she shouts into the phone. I have to pull it away from my ear, but I smile.

  “I missed you too, Mrs. C,” I say.

  “Dinner at our house tonight, Sammy. I won’t take no for an answer. Jay Jay is coming home for his Thanksgiving break, and he can’t wait to see you,” she says, barely taking a breath. “Seven o’clock. We’ll set a place for you.”

  I go back downstairs, touching the walls as I walk. I want there to be some kind of memory attached to them. Some kind of spark that makes me think of the good things that happened to me here. I feel nothing.