by Cyn Balog
“Whatever. I was only playing around.”
He started to sweep the pencil across the page. His dark hair fell in his eyes, and he blew it out of the way, pushed those dark frames up the bridge of his nose. The concentration on his face was delicious; I couldn’t look away. I couldn’t formulate words.
“So,” he said, glancing at me, making me blush because he must’ve known how intently I was studying him. “Hailey Ward. What else do you like to do?”
I’d started playing with a button on my tank top. When I recognized what I was doing, calling attention to that area of my anatomy, I stopped abruptly and fastened my hands against my sides. Flat as a pancake. That’s what Kane called me. Quickly, I crossed my arms over my chest. Better. “Gymnastics?” I don’t know why it came out as a question.
“Really? Can you do a cartwheel?”
I nodded.
“Do one.”
“What, now?”
He nodded.
I turned out into the grassy part of the lawn and did one. Then, because I felt like showing off, I did a front handspring. A terrible, wobbly one, because halfway into it, the bottom of my tank top sagged, exposing my stomach and threatening to reveal all I didn’t have. When I landed, I tucked the hem of my shirt into my shorts. “Happy?”
He nodded. Then he passed the picture over to me. He hadn’t been adding to my sketch. Instead, there were a few sparse, curved lines, but together they made a picture of a pretty girl in profile…a girl with a braid. Me. It made my duck picture look like a kindergartner’s project. I sucked my bottom lip into my mouth. Of course he had a thing. He had more than one, considering how well he played the guitar. “You’re talented.”
“Eh,” he said, breathing on his fingernails and pretending to buff them on his chest. “You are too. That was the best…flippy thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Handspring. Thanks,” I said. “But I’m terrible, compared to the kids in my class. I stopped going. Took up dance.”
“Dance, huh? Like ballet?”
I nodded, then admitted, “But I’m not really great at that, either.”
Then we kind of stood there, staring at each other. My heart was going a million miles an hour. When the silence was broken, it was by both of us. We exploded with words at the exact same time. I asked, “So where is he?” and he said, “So maybe…”
Then we tittered in unison, and my face went hot. “Um, what?”
He shook his head, swallowing back whatever he was going to say. I silently cursed as he switched directions and said, “Camp. Some sports thing? Soccer? Baseball?”
“Oh. Baseball.” That was Kane’s thing.
He shrugged. “I can’t remember. Or maybe he’s at his tutor? His dad said if he didn’t get his grades up, he wouldn’t be playing.”
That was true. Kane was smart, but not book-smart. He had a solid C average. The same threat loomed over him every year: get the grades up, or no sports. “You’re not a sports person?”
“Nah.” He thrust his hand into mine. “I have gentle Californian hands. See?”
His hands were twice the size of mine; I could feel calluses in the palms, and he had an old Band-Aid, black and frayed on the edges, wrapped tight around one knuckle. But it wasn’t unpleasant. Oh lordy, it was quite the opposite of unpleasant. I’d never held a boy’s hand before, but I wanted to start, right then, and make sure all the rest of my days were filled with more hand-holding. Instead, I casually lifted one of his big hands and inspected it as if it were a cantaloupe I was thinking of buying at the grocer’s, trying to fight back the goose bumps and shivers of excitement springing out all over my body. “Ah, yes. Smooth as a baby’s butt.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you comparing me to a baby’s butt?”
“No. Just your hands.”
“Awesome.”
He smiled as I released his hand. Another long silence passed between us, and this time it was enough for the awkwardness to completely settle in. “I’ve got to go,” I told him, hoping my parents had called a truce. “We… I have somewhere to be.” I was embarrassed to say where.
“Oh,” he said, disappointed. “What time is it?”
“Like four, maybe?”
“Oh. I’ve got somewhere to be too.” He jogged away, then bent down and slid his body between the logs of the fence that surrounded our property. He didn’t look back.
“See you later, alligator,” he sang when he was on the other side. I breathed hard as I walked back to my house, his musical voice ringing in my ears.
It was still ringing in my ears as my parents and I slid into the pew at church that night. My parents were both tense. I stood between them, going through the motions: lazily crossing myself, bowing my head, mumbling prayers, and fudging verses I didn’t know—pretending to be a good little Catholic. My parents went to church because that’s what they’d been raised to do. Sometimes we missed mass, sometimes we showed up in less than our Sunday best, sometimes we didn’t have anything to put in the collection basket, and we hadn’t been to confession in years, despite all the sins we’d piled up. And we always skipped out after communion. It was about convenience: if there was something better to do, we did that instead.
Truthfully, I only went to church when my parents insisted. I wasn’t religious. I knew my parents were staying together, as miserable as they were, partly because they were raised to believe that divorce was a sin, but mostly because they were comfortable in their misery. I didn’t think there was an afterlife waiting for me. I didn’t think God existed. I hated the fact that all these good Catholics would sit there and pray and sing and listen to Father Brady talk about the Golden Rule, then cut each other off trying to be the first ones to leave the parking lot.
What I thought was, You don’t need God to be good, and some people who follow God blindly are the worst.
But that night something happened. When the music started and the procession came down the center aisle, who was first in line, holding the cross? Declan Weeks. I blinked, as if my vision would clear and reveal him to be a mirage. But there he was, in a white robe, climbing the stairs to the altar. He bowed, then turned, and his eyes swept over me for the briefest of moments.
I looked around and saw his mother sitting in the first pew, the suck-up-to-God pew. My parents and I were dressed in shorts, and I still hadn’t taken my hair out of that nightmare braid. The new Mrs. Weeks was pretty and blond and wearing a pastel dress that reeked of Easter Sunday.
I thought Declan might give me a goofy grin, a little wave—but he didn’t. He did his job the proper way. He looked serene and dignified. He bowed fully and respectfully, sang all the verses loudly and without fudging the words. I know this, because though he never looked at me, my eyes rarely left him. By the time the homily rolled around and he took his seat behind the priest, I felt like an imposter in the church where I’d been baptized.
But I didn’t want to seem uncomfortable with Declan there, so when my parents made to leave after communion, I made a beeline back to our pew, saying with a whisper, “Let’s stay.”
My parents usually did everything possible to avoid shaking hands with the priest at the end of mass. As we were skirting around him, we ran straight into Declan and his mother.
My mom was her usual overly polite self. “Oh, it’s wonderful to see you two,” she said. “We were just saying how we should have you all over to dinner to get better acquainted.”
We weren’t. But she looked at my dad and me for affirmation, and we bobbed our heads eagerly in agreement.
Declan had shed his robe and was wearing nice khakis and a button-down shirt. I flattened my hair and pulled at my frayed Daisy Dukes as we walked with them to the parking lot.
I said, “I didn’t know you were Catholic.”
He said, “Yep. I’ve had eight years of Catholic school. This is my first year goi
ng to public.”
“Oh. That’s…nice.” Intimidating was what I was thinking. I don’t think Kane and his dad had ever set foot in a church. Well, I guess his dad and mom got married in one, but they’d divorced ages ago. “Your parents are divorced?”
“Nah. My dad died three years ago.” Before I could feel guilty about bringing up the subject, he added, “But it’s okay. Our faith got us through it.”
I was completely dumbstruck. People who talked about faith usually freaked me out. Like, how could anyone believe so strongly in something you couldn’t touch or see? But him? I wanted to ask Declan more. Someone like him could maybe get me to believe too.
Instead, I chewed on my lip, afraid I might say something to offend his godly ways.
“Anyway,” Declan said as we reached my parents’ Volvo, as if he’d been carrying on an entire conversation with me in his head. That was the thing about Declan—he didn’t do awkward silences. When he was silent, there was a good reason for it.
We stopped and turned; our parents were still standing and talking at the entrance of the church. I shivered because it was getting chilly as it was getting darker. “Catch you at home?”
“Yeah.”
His eyes lingered on me. I held my breath, wondering if he could see through me, straight to my sins.
Friday, February 15
“You have such pretty eyes,” Nurse Ryan tells me as she wraps my wrist.
I’m glad she’s so mesmerized by my baby blues. I’m glad it’s her and not Nurse Fielding, who retired last year after twenty years with Deer Hills. Nurse Fielding was a ballbuster. She wouldn’t bandage a hangnail without a game of twenty questions. Even though Nurse Ryan winds the bandage too tightly, she doesn’t notice the similar cuts up higher near my elbow.
Hooray for ignorance. Hooray for long sleeves. Freaking hallelujah.
Hooray too for a gym teacher who only cares about collecting a paycheck. Wilbur caught Declan and me making out under the bleachers in the gym once and didn’t say anything. But today, as the blood pooled atop my wrist and then coursed down through my fingers onto the lacquered gym floor, Wilbur handed me the hall pass and an inadequate wad of tissues and ushered me out the door. I’d had the cut it on the locker door excuse on the tip of my tongue, but she didn’t even wait to hear it.
“I cut it on the locker door,” I blurt out to Nurse Ryan. Apparently, the excuse had been fighting to get out all this time.
The young nurse nods as she peels a piece of surgical tape and secures it. “All fixed.” She’s blond and cheerful, and I know she means well. “We should have a janitor take a look at it.”
I stare at her.
“At the locker, of course. Not your arm.” She giggles as if she’s twelve.
I pull my sleeve over the bandage so it’s hardly noticeable. I threw away the file. Good as new. “Sure.”
“What the hell? Are you okay?”
I know it’s Kane before he speaks, before I turn around. I cringe. I’d expected this. News travels fast in this school.
He kneels in front of the cot and looks at my bandage. “Shit, Hail. Shit.”
The nurse crosses her arms. “She’s fine. What class are you coming from? You need to—”
“You don’t know her. I need to make sure my friend is all right,” he snaps, giving her a hard stare that almost makes me feel bad for her. She clearly has no idea who she’s up against. She opens her mouth to respond, but then stops. Kane has that way about him. People listen to him.
He obviously feels bad for snapping, though, because a second later, he says gently, “I’ll walk her to her class, if that’s all right with you?”
The nurse nods and hands me a pass. “I’ll have a janitor look into that locker. What number?”
I glance at Kane, then back at her. “Oh. Um. Five thirteen.”
We walk into the hallway, and he turns to me, putting both hands on my shoulders. “What? You told her you cut your wrist on a locker? And she bought that?”
“I did,” I insist.
“Right, and in the exact same place where…” He runs his hands through his hair. He’s not buying it. “You need to stop this, Hail. You want to go back to Shady Harbor?”
I can’t meet his eyes.
“Hail. You have to move on. You can’t do this. You know Declan would want that.” He picks up my wrist and lets it fall, disgusted. “I mean, you were good at gymnastics. Dance. If you just took a few—”
“Stop,” I mutter. Dancing is the last thing on my mind. My muscle tone is so nonexistent that I’d probably fall over if I tried to do a cartwheel or get back on pointe again. “Give it up. You’re not Mr. Fix-It.”
No, that was Declan. Suddenly I flash back to the first time Declan came to my dance class. He’d shown up with Kane, who’d come to pick me up. It was the night my grandmother died, and Kane hadn’t understood how upset I was. Declan had. Declan, who barely knew me, understood me a million times better, even then.
“Well, it’s clear someone has to help you, and it’s not going to be Declan.”
I scowl at Kane who’s pulled me back to the present. “You have no idea. You didn’t know him like I did.”
He laughs. “Yeah, we were only stepbrothers for two years. We shared a roof, and that’s all.”
I pull away and start down the hallway. I’ve always been the weak one, the one who cared too much. Then I whirl around and nearly smack into his broad chest. I hadn’t realized he was so close. I take a step back. “Why did he do it?” I murmur.
He strains forward, as if trying to hear me better. “Come on, Hail, don’t—”
“Why?” My voice is louder and stronger.
He exhales again and shrugs, digging his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I don’t know. Stress? He was stressed trying to get into college.”
That’s what they said anyway. Sure, Declan cared about grades. He was brilliant, so his grades were there. He applied to ten schools, UPenn being his dream, and a number of safe ones too. After he died, the big, fat envelopes came rolling in. He’d gotten accepted to every one of them—even UPenn. “He had no reason to stress,” I say.
“What?”
“He had no reason to stress,” I repeat, louder. “All the applications were in. The hard part was over. I mean, all he was doing was waiting.”
“Okay, but it’s over. It happened. We can’t bring him back.”
“But I can try to understand it, Kane. And I don’t. That’s why I can’t move on. So bear with me. I mean, what did he say to you the last time you saw him?”
“You’re a masochist, you know that? I saw him the night before he died. I don’t know when you saw him last, but what does it matter?”
We have been over it. In the weeks following his death, we all had discussed the whys and hows until the horror of it numbed us. But the details had blurred with time.
He tugs my sleeve. “You need to get back to class before someone calls out the guards on you.”
“What about you?” I ask, already knowing the answer. Kane is above the rules. People gladly bend restrictions and make exceptions where he’s concerned. His crazy best friend? They keep extra eyes on me.
We walk down the hallway in relative silence until I can’t take it any longer. I hug my notebook to my chest and say, “I’m sorry. I know I should forget it. But yesterday was so weird…and when your mom wanted to give me his things…I saw that picture, and I just…snapped. I’m sorry.”
He stares at me, his expression softening. “What picture?”
I reach into my purse and pull it out, hand it to him.
He looks at it for a second, then shoves it back into the envelope. “Where did you get this?”
“Your stepmom. She said she found it in his room.”
“And you have no idea what this is?”
“Why? Should I?” I reach over to take it back from him. He yanks it away. Then he holds it over his head and starts laughing at me as I jump to try to grab it from him. “Give it back,” I tell him.
“Why?” he asks. “Why does it matter?”
He crumples it in his fist, then thinks better of it and starts to rip it up. It doesn’t tear well, but he shoves it in a trash can, deep, and throws some paper on top.
“Kane! What are you doing that for?”
He shrugs. “Because you don’t need it. You should take that entire box she gave you and burn it. You need to move forward.”
I study the trash can. “But it could be important. I mean…why else would he keep it? It looks like… I don’t know.” I walk over to the trash can and peer inside, but the photo is lost in a sea of paper. “What if someone was threatening him?”
Kane lets out a snort, as if he doesn’t believe me. Then he realizes I’m serious. “Hail, come on. Do you realize what you’re saying?”
It’s true. Declan was too good for that. “Well, maybe—”
“Hail! Enough. It won’t change that Declan is gone. You can’t dwell on the details. You think rehashing everything about that night will help you? How? What’ll help you is moving on. You shouldn’t have bailed on all your activities this year. You clearly need something else to occupy your mind.”
I stare at him. “All right,” I say. “I’m sorry.”
We reach the door to the gymnasium. He puts up a hand as if he’s going to touch my arm, but pulls back and rakes his hair behind his ear. He stoops to look into my eyes. “You going to be okay?”
I force a smile. “Yeah,” I say.
“No freaking out on me now, okay? If you feel bad, text me or something. Okay?”
Text me or something. My hero.
I pull open the door to the gymnasium. It feels as if everyone turns and looks at me. Balls stop bouncing, conversations end, bodies freeze. The only sound is the squeak of my sneakers on the polished floor. Wilbur tells me to sit on the bleachers for the rest of the period and shouts at everyone, “Move it!”
