Rhoda picked up the phone and pressed off a couple of times. “I don’t see why you don’t think it could be Evan.”
“But—”
“I know you said he’s away at school, but telephone lines reach all over the world.”
“I know that.”
“This kind of thing is more playful,” she said. “It’s more like the things he used to do, rather than someone who would shoot somebody.”
“He wasn’t playful,” I reminded her. “He hit me.”
“Yes, I’m aware of that.” Of course she knew. It had been ages before my shiner disappeared.
“He tried to drag me away that time he broke into the house,” I said.
She knew that, too. She’d been there. “It still doesn’t add up to shooting.”
I didn’t see why it couldn’t. But she was the psychologist.
Still, I knew a few things. “Everybody’s different. People can’t be pigeonholed.”
She smiled. “Maddie, you are very wise. Just stay alert. That’s all I ask.”
The phone rang twice during dinner. It was cordless, so we couldn’t leave it off the hook. We had to look up the instructions and find out how to turn off its ringer.
“It’s your boyfriend,” Ben muttered.
“He’s not my boyfriend!”
“A person like that,” said Rhoda, “finds it hard to move on.”
“He’s obsessed,” I said.
“That’s exactly what I mean.”
“What makes them that way?”
“Maddie,” she sighed, “I would love to give you a very knowledgeable answer. Unfortunately I don’t have one. It might have something to do with insecurity.”
It seemed that way to me, too. On the surface, what would Evan, a handsome, blond, hunky football star, have to feel insecure about? Maybe he thought he wasn’t living up to himself. Or to his parents’ expectations. Sometimes parents could do that to a person.
I had known Evan for ages, or at least knew who he was. We’d both spent our lives at Lakeside. He was a grade ahead of me. I used to see him in the halls and on the football field. I played French horn in the school band, so I was there during games. I didn’t think he knew I existed. All I could do was drool from afar.
Then one day last June I saw him in the music store. I turned away and pretended not to notice. He was browsing through Country Western. I was looking at Beethoven, for Daddy.
I felt his eyes on me and got all shivery. I still didn’t look, but I sensed it when he moved closer. He said, “Hey, how are you?”
Ordinarily I’m not a shy person, but for a few seconds I was tongue-tied. Mostly from surprise. Evan Steffers talking to me? “Doing okay,” I said. “How about you?”
His eyes followed my arm down to where my hand was. “Classical! Is that what you’re into?”
He said it as if it was weird. I liked all kinds of music. The band played classical and light classical for concerts. Marches for parades and football games.
“Father’s Day,” I said. “My dad likes Beethoven’s Ninth. He never got around to buying it for himself.”
That led to a long discussion about music. I found the Ninth Symphony and got ready to check out.
Evan abandoned his own search and followed me to the register. “How about catching some pizza?”
I couldn’t believe it. Lakeside’s star quarterback was asking me out? I wasn’t even a cheerleader.
That was the beginning. I lived a dream for the rest of June and July.
Then he started getting possessive. It began with him resenting every time I talked to anybody, even Ben.
“I want you to keep away from other guys,” he said, and clearly meant it. Even though I told him I wasn’t with any guy except him. We were in the record store again when he said that. He’d been sorting through the latest selections.
He grabbed the back of my neck in a pinch that nearly cut off my blood supply. “You’re mine, and don’t you forget it. I don’t want you talking to anybody.”
I’d read about guys like that in advice columns. I had never actually seen one before, and tried to get out of his grip.
“Like yesterday,” he fumed, holding tightly. “You made a big scene in the hallway with that long conversation. Everybody noticed.”
“It was only a minute and it was my brother.” And I didn’t think anybody noticed or cared.
“Your brother’s adopted, right?” As if that was a reason for me to steer clear of him.
How did he know so much about us? “Yes, but what’s it got to do with anything? He’s my brother. It doesn’t matter if he’s adopted.”
“He’s not related to you. I don’t like you getting cozy.”
“What cozy? Evan, he’s my brother. So what if he’s adopted? I never get cozy with any guy except you. Don’t be so insecure.”
He started breathing hard. “I don’t like you spreading yourself around. You’re my girl, now and forever.”
He made it sound as if I was a slut. That was insulting, but with him in such a jealous frame of mind, I didn’t argue.
The next fuss he made was about my friendship with Glynis Goode. She saw me on the sidewalk and came running over to talk. I got rid of her fast because Evan was waiting, his face a thundercloud.
“Why is that bitch always hanging around?” he demanded as we got into his yellow sports car with the giant tires.
I said, “Glynis is the least bitchy person I know.”
He nearly swerved off the road just to land a punch on my face.
I gasped. My eyes flooded with tears of shock and humiliation. I couldn’t see anything.
“Evan. You hurt me.”
He didn’t answer. All he did was stare ahead, still angry. But why?
We crossed the Vanorden Kill and started up the steep hill right after it. I kept quiet. If he blew up again, we could go right over the edge into the river. He was over the edge, psychologically. What was wrong with him?
I didn’t want him in my home unless Ben was there, and I already knew he wouldn’t be. I’d seen him in the village going toward Radio Shack.
I didn’t know what to do. Before I could think of anything, we reached my house. Evan shut off the motor and opened his door.
Quickly I took a scrap of paper from my bag and scribbled a note. If I disappear, grill Evan. Where could I leave it? Someplace inside.
Evan was crazy enough to kill me, but he would certainly hide the evidence. When they questioned him, he would get all oily and pretend to be concerned. Evan could be very oily at times. I knew they would believe him and his fabricated story. It was why I used the word “grill.”
That was the point at which I realized he was a psychopath. Rhoda had a book on psychopaths, sociopaths, and antisocial personalities. It all meant the same thing. I’d read it because it was interesting. And scary.
I didn’t want any more to do with him.
He came around and opened my door. “Why are you just sitting there? What’s your problem?”
I climbed out and started up the front walk. What if I refused to let him in? He would wrench the key out of my hand and unlock it himself. I knew what I had to do, what I had to say, but I was afraid.
I opened the door. The dogs came running to greet us. With them in the way, I couldn’t slam it in his face.
Our entryway had a little table with a vase of autumn branches. I’d always thought that table and vase were so cliché, but now I was glad of it. I pushed my note down among the branches. In time the leaves would shrivel and Rhoda would take them out to put in something new. She would find my note. By then I would be long gone, but at least they’d know to hunt down Evan.
He went to the kitchen as if he owned the place, and opened the fridge. I stood in the kitchen doorway. “Evan?”
He had me so upset I couldn’t help the question mark. I tried to be firm.
“Evan, I think you’d better leave.”
He turned and stared at me. “I just got
here.”
“I know you did. But now it’s time to go. I’m not feeling well. I might throw up.”
No excuses. Just say it.
He straightened his football shoulders, closed the refrigerator, and faced me. “When did this start?”
That forced me to be more specific.
“It started back on Grand Street. When you hit me. I don’t like to be treated that way.”
“I—don’t—like. . .” He waggled his head in mockery.
I felt trapped. By my own stupidity. I could have handled this much better if I weren’t such a wimp. And if there were other people around.
Knowing I was probably doomed, I plunged on anyway. “I know you don’t care what I like. You only care about yourself and what you want. That doesn’t make for a good relationship.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.
Cool it. I had to stay calm and not get into a screaming fight. He could win any fight if it got physical and, with him, I knew it would. Thank heaven the dogs were there. They would do their best to protect me.
Having gone this far, I kept it up. “I think it’s time we call it quits. It’s not working out.”
“Who says it’s not?”
“I says.” I backed a little way into the dining room. “It might be working for you, because you get to kick me around and treat me like dirt. That suits you just fine, but for me it sucks. You don’t care anything about me.”
He took a step toward me but kept his hand on the refrigerator, as though it were an anchor.
“What do you mean I don’t care about you? You’re the only one I care about. I told you that. You’re the only girl for me.”
Typical psychopath. He was turning on his charm as he felt me slip away.
“If you care that much,” I said, “then you can leave right now. I’ll see you in school, maybe.” When all this happened, I was still at Lakeside.
“Are you crazy?” The charm was wearing thin. “You can’t just break it off like that. What about me?”
“What about me?” I countered. “Aren’t I half the equation? Or are you all of it and I’m just a thing you can push around?”
He took another step. One of the dogs growled. I wasn’t sure which one.
“Dumb dogs!” He drew back his foot to kick them.
I blocked his way. “Don’t you dare hurt those dogs! Or me either. Just get out of here.”
He didn’t. I waited a beat, then said, “I know this is sudden. I’m sorry to spring it on you, but you clinched it when you hit me. I’m sick and tired of you being so possessive. You don’t even see me as a person. I’m nothing but an object that belongs to you.”
“Shut your mouth!” He gave me another punch, right on the jaw.
The blow knocked me down. I cracked my head on a dining chair. I felt the cold floor under my cheek.
The dogs snarled. Evan cursed. The front door slammed.
I tried to sit up. My head wouldn’t stop spinning. Pumpkin licked my face.
Outside, a car started. I knew the sound of that engine and so did the dogs. He was leaving, thank God. I could scarcely believe he actually heard me.
Moments later, a car door slammed.
He was coming back! I struggled to get upright. To go and lock the door. My head kept on whirling and I fell down again.
I couldn’t see the door, but heard it open.
Chapter Five
I held my breath.
A familiar voice said, “What in hell’s going on?”
Ben. Thank God. The breath whooshed out of me.
He came around where I could see him. “What did he do?”
Cree always said Ben’s eyes were like chocolate syrup. Deep, dark chocolate. He was six feet tall, with dark wavy hair and classical features. Having grown up with him, I didn’t think about his looks all that much. When I did think about it, he had Evan all beat. Evan was nice-looking in his own hunky way, but he had no soul. Only an ego. You could tell by looking at Ben that there was more to him than met the eye.
I held out my hand. Ben hesitated, afraid I was broken in several places. Then he helped me up. I wobbled. He sat me down on the chair that had cracked my head. I would rather have been on something squishy in the living room, but who was complaining? I still had my life.
“How did you know it was him?” I asked.
“He passed me out on the road, going like a bat out of hell.”
“You got the hell part right.”
“What was it this time?”
Ben knew all about my history with Evan. He had told me several times I should dump the creep. His opinion of Lakeside’s football hero was extremely low.
At first I thought it was a nerd’s resentment of a jock, which I assumed to be sour grapes. But Ben wouldn’t have that problem. He didn’t go in for jock-worship, as a lot of people did.
“I told him I had enough,” I said.
“So you broke up?”
“I tried to. He wouldn’t accept it.”
“It figures. Guys like that . . .”
“Okay, you were right.”
“You better call the police.”
“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s gone now.”
“It’s not okay. You were on the floor and you couldn’t get up. He hurt your head. That is not okay. You should call the police, report him, and get yourself to the emergency room.”
“Ben, I’m all right. It hurts but I don’t think anything’s broken.”
“You don’t know. People think they’re okay, then the brain swells up and that’s it.”
“You mean—they die?”
“That’s what I mean. A head injury is serious stuff.”
Ben took it upon himself to call 911. The first responders were our fire department. The paramedics looked me over and agreed with Ben that I needed medical intervention. Or evaluation. Whatever they said, I can’t remember exactly. The next responder was a policewoman. I’d seen her before. She had short, curly hair and nodded seriously as Ben told her what happened. Before I knew it, they were bundling me into an ambulance. Ben followed in his truck.
I’m not accustomed to being so helpless and I didn’t like it. They wheeled me into an MRI room and did an MRI of my head. A doctor looked over the results and decided I would be okay. After several long waits, Ben took me home. He had already called our parents and they were both there in a state of panic.
Daddy said, “This can’t go on.”
“It won’t,” I assured him. “I’m finished with Evan.”
“According to you,” Ben reminded me, “that’s what got you beat up. He’ll be back. You know that.
“How are you going to avoid the jerk?”
Even though Evan was a grade ahead of me, Lakeside was a small school. I’d been thinking about that in the back of my mind. Now it came forward.
“Maybe I won’t have to see him if I quit Lakeside.”
I’d been there all my life. It was scary to think of changing. But not as scary as being near Evan.
My parents were appalled when I brought it up. Why, they asked, should I be the one to change schools? They tried talking to the headmaster, who said he would speak to Evan, but we all knew it wouldn’t do any good. Not with Evan’s astronomical opinion of himself, and the school’s, too, what with him being a star athlete. Lakeside’s team was already abysmal. Without him, it would be nothing.
And so I withdrew, explaining my reasons to anybody who would listen—and that wasn’t a lot. Except for my friend Glynis. She stood by me in spirit, if not physically. She stayed at Lakeside while I transferred to big, confusing Southbridge High, where I met Cree. And Hank. And almost got myself killed.
* * *
I had started to adjust to life at Southbridge. It wasn’t bad, until that horrible Thursday when Hank was shot.
On Saturday I called the hospital again.
He was holding his own, they said, but still in a coma. Actually what they said was there
had been no change.
“Still in ICU?” I asked. Which meant I couldn’t go near him. If he could possibly hear me, I wanted to tell him I meant to go ahead with his series. I wanted to talk about the research we both had done. There were so many aspects I needed to discuss. For instance, the ventilator and whether or not to unplug it.
Then there was the feeding tube. That was what happened with Terri Schiavo. She could breathe on her own but had to be fed through a tube. The question was whether she would have wanted to go on living that way. Personally I felt that if she could breathe, then she actually was alive. But was it life? She still needed artificial means to keep going.
There were other kinds of right-to-die cases, too, such as people who were terminally ill and in terrible pain. They were going to die anyway and probably soon. Why make them suffer if they wanted out? What did it accomplish? It was easy enough for people on the outside to get righteous about it, but they were not the ones in agony.
And what about emotional pain? That was the more usual reason for suicide. The trouble was, despair and depression could often be treated, and sometimes there was a change of mind. I’d seen the phrase, “A permanent solution to a temporary problem” used in discussions on that topic. In cases like that, where the person was depressed with no fatal illness, could you argue in favor of the right to die? Of course people did it anyway if there was no one around to stop them. To them, the emotional pain seemed black and hopeless. Since there was nothing wrong with them physically, I wasn’t sure if the right to die should apply to them. Yet it was their own life, no one else’s. Whose place was it to decide?
Did Hank mean to cover all those issues? He’d seen it as a three-part series, but we hadn’t discussed what would be in each part. He knew his journalism techniques, such as what would make the most effective presentation. Me, I didn’t know anything. I really needed him.
I thought about all that as I lay in bed on Saturday morning, until Rhoda knocked softly on my door. Just as softly, without me answering, she opened the door. “I made coffeecake and it’s not getting any warmer.”
I loved her coffeecake with the cinnamon-sugar crust, so I dragged myself up to face another day.
The Long Sleep Page 4
