It’s so fake. It’s like she wants proof that we’re all so fucking happy all the time . . .
But why can’t we be? I shrug off the echo of Luke’s words. Why can’t we be—at least sometimes?
In the car, I don’t know what to say. Suddenly, it’s like we’re on a real date—the flower blooming extravagantly on my wrist, our clothes so formal, so unlike the uniform of jeans and sweats we wear to school each and every day, that I’m nervous, my palms itching and sweaty.
Riley turns the key in the ignition, and the engine springs to life, the seats vibrating slightly. Riley drives an old Dodge Dart that his parents helped him buy last year. It’s a total muscle car painted cobalt blue with shiny chrome wheels and slightly ripped leather seats. If Riley has a soul, it probably looks a lot like this car.
“Your mom’s pretty funny.” Riley chuckles, adjusting his rearview mirror. “Where’s your dad at?”
I look out the window so I don’t have to face him.
“He left,” I say, my voice ragged and small.
“On business?”
“No,” I say, swallowing hard. “For a while. But I think he’ll come back. That’s what I told my mother, anyway.”
I can see the silhouette of my mother’s body framed in the living room window, and I know her brow is knitted in concern, wondering why we’re still sitting at the curb, engine idling. Watching her, I ache for the time when we were all a family, when my father would stand behind her, one hand on her shoulder, the other raised in my direction, waving good-bye as I walked into the night.
“God,” he says after a few moments of silence. “I’m so sorry, Alys. I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say.” I stare straight ahead, looking at the streetlights above, the slightly pitted moon, the sprinklers across the road popping on one by one. Even though the engine is on, Riley makes no move to pull away from the curb. I look over at him and see that in the moonlight, his profile is cut in two. The places where the light touches his skin make it shine brightly in the dark. I feel drugged, slightly strange, and I wait for Luke to show up, for his restless, heated energy to fill the car, imploding it.
“We should get going.”
I say this even though prom is the last place I want to be right now. Despite what I’d hoped for standing in front of the mirror, my flushed, hopeful face reflected in the glass, any dreams of normalcy seem laughable now. The dead show up in my bedroom on a daily basis—what do I know about normal anymore? I want to stay here, headlights on, engine running, safe in the womb of the dusky interior. But now that I’ve said it, we are on our way. Riley puts the car in drive and eases off down the street, passing my house, my block, turning the corner so quickly that I grab on to the door handle, my heart beating in time with the rattle of the engine.
• • •
When we enter the gym after circling the parking lot for what feels like forever trying to find a spot, mostly since a bunch of limos have been triple-parked, I’m stunned by the way it has been transformed. It still unmistakably smells like a gym—sweaty socks and locker rooms—but the lights are dim and blue-tinged, a giant, crashing wave projected on the far wall, an obvious nod to this year’s theme: “Escape to Paradise.” Sand crunches beneath my heels; white, pink, and red flowers are banked in masses on the sides of the stage; and a DJ wearing a tropical-print Hawaiian shirt spins at the front of the room, silver headphones covering his ears.
When we walk in, all eyes turn toward us, their faces incredulous. Even though I suspected this would be the case, worried about it all last night when I couldn’t sleep, it still hurts. Whether they are shocked that we’ve arrived together or that we’ve even so much as dared to come at all is up for grabs. Moments before, we sat comfortably in silence, but in here, we are both visibly tense, nervous, eyes darting around the dance floor, not sure if we should sit or stand. I smooth down my dress with one hand, grateful to have something to fidget with, a reason to lower my head and look away. The music is so loud, it makes conversation impossible, and when I glance over at Riley, he shoots me a reassuring smile. I try to smile back, even though I feel like I’m about to jump out of my skin, which is cold and clammy despite the heat in the room.
Riley takes me by the hand and leads me to a round table at the back of the room, which is set for dinner. I’ve heard that most people don’t actually eat the gross chicken or steak but instead spend the majority of the night sneaking off to the bathroom to get high in the stalls or drink whiskey stolen from their parents’ liquor cabinets. I’m so on edge that a little inebriation doesn’t sound half bad. I would give anything to have the world softened around the edges, fuzzy and blanketed with static, for my thoughts to stop whirling around my brain so I wouldn’t be so conscious of the fact that everyone is looking at me, waiting for . . . what?
“Waiting for you to crack,” Luke whispers smugly in my ear, and for once, I know he’s right.
Leave me alone, I think, concentrating with all of my might.
“Are you okay?” Riley leans into me, his mouth barely moving.
I nod, trying to look cool, normal, like none of this bothers me, when all I want to do is leave, run away and never come back. My palms are sweating, and I don’t know why I agreed to this. The music changes from frantic hip-hop to a slow song, couples pairing off on the dance floor, arms wrapped around each other so tightly that it’s amazing that they can still take in oxygen.
“Do you want to dance?” Riley speaks so close to my ear that his words buzz through me like a plucked string.
“I don’t really know how,” I say, embarrassed.
Shouldn’t someone have taught me? Luke? My father?
“So we’ll fake it,” Riley says confidently, standing up and holding out one hand for me to follow.
On the dance floor, I place my arms around Riley’s neck, swaying from side to side with the beat of the music. It feels strange to be this close to him, to smell the clean scent of his hair, to feel the taut muscle of his biceps beneath his pressed suit jacket.
“See?” Riley raises an eyebrow. “Nothing to it.”
I’m grateful for the fact that the dance floor is packed with people, none of whom seem to be looking at me. Most are too busy making out, leaning in for kisses. Out of the corner of my eye I catch glimpses of corsages resting on shoulders, rhinestone hair bands sparkling in the blue light, shoes sporting a mirror shine. I close my eyes, Riley’s body swaying against mine, his hands firm at my waist.
When the song ends, I raise my head from his shoulder, and we stand there awkwardly for a moment, just looking at each other. On the way back to the table, my hand in his, I see Delilah walk over to an adjacent table, her hair pulled up in some complicated arrangement at the back of her head that makes her look so grown-up that for a minute, I don’t recognize her. She’s wearing a white dress that ebbs and flows in soft peaks to the floor, Grecian-style, a band of small white flowers peeking out from her dark hair, a diamond chip sparkling at her throat, which looks long and bitable with her hair pulled away from it. She’s talking to the girls seated there, leaning over their shoulders, smiling, and at that moment our eyes meet and she freezes. I feel a pang in my chest, somewhere beyond my ribs, and I miss her so intensely that it hurts to breathe. She raises one hand tentatively, slowly, to wave at me, and as I’m about to raise mine in return, I see a figure come up behind her, a tall, dark-haired guy who immediately wraps his arms around her waist, burying his face in her neck as if he wants to devour her. When he raises his head, I hear a sharp intake of breath, and realize that it is my own. Ben stares back at me, his eyes catching mine and holding them, the color flooding his cheeks in an avalanche of blood.
The room is stifling, pressing in on all sides. I am vaguely conscious of Riley still beside me, his hand on my arm as I begin to move across the room, pulled toward Ben like a magnet. I know that Riley is t
alking to me, tugging on my arm insistently as a small child would, but his features have gone out of focus, the room whirling before my eyes, and I cannot tell if it is tears or panic that makes what I am seeing so incomprehensible.
Suddenly, I am standing in front of him. Ben. And he is so very beautiful, his dark hair brushed back from his face, that all the words fall out of me onto the floor, swimming there, mixed up and out of order.
Why? When? How?
He looks at me uncomfortably, his eyes moving restlessly from me to Delilah, and then back to me again, as if he isn’t sure where to turn or what to do.
“Alys,” he finally says, looking at me, his smile stretched tight and thin. “I didn’t think you’d be here tonight.”
The music surrounds us, a pummeling beat that begins ferociously, and I have to raise my voice to be heard over the din, the shrieks and whoops erupting from the dance floor.
“Well, I am,” I manage to get out, the rush of adrenaline pumping through my veins. “So, how long has this been going on?” I nod at Delilah, whose face is now as pale as her dress.
“It’s not what you think,” he says quickly, raising his voice and taking a step toward me. I immediately retreat, needing to be as physically far away from him as possible, while at the same time all I want is to be in his arms.
“I think that it is.”
His face flushes again, the way it always does when he’s embarrassed or caught in a lie, and I realize that I know him too well to play this game, that we are dancing without music, stepping around each other nimbly.
“Look,” he starts, raking his hand through his hair, his expression conflicted. “We didn’t plan anything . . . It just happened . . .”
I stare at him blankly, my mind refusing to process the words. People directly around us are also staring, whispering, but I can’t, I won’t, take my eyes away from Ben’s face. The music thunders in my ears, and I wish someone would just shut it off, pull the plug, the world going quiet and still.
“Things don’t just happen, Ben.” My throat hurts from yelling, scratchy and dry, and I lean in slightly so that I’m sure he can hear me. “We make them happen. Luke didn’t just happen to stumble past a gun and then kill fifteen people. He planned it. He wanted it to happen.”
Ben flinches noticeably. It’s as if I’ve reached over and slapped him.
I have never said this out loud. Not in this way, and not even to Riley. My brother shot and killed fifteen people. And he planned it. I have always known this, but now it seems real, here in this gymnasium I know so well, my words falling like grenades. Luke wanted people to die.
“Well, what about you?” he yells back, his eyes snapping with anger and defiance, and I remember how when Ben is pushed up against a wall, he fights back the only way he knows how—dirty. He points somewhere behind my head. Riley is still standing there, waiting. “How long has this been going on?”
“It’s not,” I say, my cheeks flushing. “We came as friends.”
“Friends, huh?” Even partly drowned out, Ben’s voice is nasty, cutting. “Sure you are.” He scoffs.
“Was this . . .” It is hard for me to finish, to even contemplate that what I’m about to ask might be true. “Thing with Delilah . . . going on when you and I were . . . together?” I swallow hard and look at the floor. The moment I tear my eyes away from his face, I can feel how close to crying I’ve been this whole time.
“No!” he blurts out. He grabs my arm, and I let him, his grip firm. When I look up, his face is contorted, the anger and sadness twisting his features like so much pulled taffy. His voice lowers, his tone softening. “You know me better than that, Alys.”
Somehow I find the strength deep inside to pull my arm away gently, rubbing the place he touched with one hand as if to rub him, finally, away.
“I thought I did.”
I stare straight at him, daring him to argue with me, to say it isn’t true.
“Now I’m not so sure. There are a lot of things I don’t understand anymore—I guess you’re one of them.”
He stands there, openmouthed, then looks at Delilah, who quickly turns away. There’s nothing left to say, so I do the hardest thing I’ve ever done—I turn my back on him and force myself to put one foot in front of the other. The dance track melds into a slow R & B song, and I think of how happy I was just a few minutes ago, my head on Riley’s shoulder, the world falling away. There is glitter in the air, silver clouds of it falling from the ceiling, coating the top of my head, my dress. I keep walking, looking straight ahead as if I am wearing blinders until I am in the front hall, then outside, the night chill descending over my face, the skin of my bare legs. From somewhere far away I hear my name being called, and it is garbled, nonsensical. I rub my ears, trying to make it all go away. There are hands on my shoulders, and then Riley is in front of me, breathing hard.
“I want to get out of here,” I say. “I want to get out of here now.” My voice sounds harsh out in the open air, and I remember that I’ve left my black clutch sitting on the table, my phone tucked inside, but I couldn’t care less. There’s no reason to stay here, not anymore. Ben and Delilah, the look on their faces, caught red-handed—it all reminds me that there’s no going back, that there’s nothing left for me here. I should’ve gone to my grandmother’s when I had the chance, moved in with Grace—anything but stayed here, the place I will always be known as Luke’s sister, the guy who murdered fifteen people, gunning them down like animals. I’ve been holding on so tight that I’ve barely noticed that there’s nothing left to hold on to at all, my fists closing around miles of empty air. I’ve fought so hard against the idea of running away, starting over, and now, standing here in the parking lot, stars hidden by thick clouds, it’s hard to remember exactly what I’ve been fighting for. If I leave here, no one besides my mother will care, no one at all. I’ll become a faded memory, a ghost haunting the town when the nights are long and cold.
You know whose sister she was, right?
“Okay,” Riley says, his body stiffening slightly, fishing his keys from his pocket. I don’t know what he’s thinking or if he’s angry with me, Ben, or just the whole world. “I’ll take you home.” He begins to walk toward the parking lot, and I call out, glitter shining on the shoulders of his jacket.
“Riley!” He stops, turning around. “Not home. I don’t want to go home. I want to get out of here.”
“What do you mean?”
“Out of this crappy town, out of this state, maybe even out of the fucking country.” I can feel the desperation seeping out of every orifice of my body, out of the follicles of my hair, the pores of my skin.
I take a step toward Riley, then another, the ground shaky beneath my feet, and then I am in his arms, breathing deep, his hand coming around to draw me closer. We are holding on to each other as if we are lost at sea, our bodies the only thing keeping us afloat. I need him right now, need something, his hair soft in my hands. Lost. I close my eyes and think about disappearing into the darkness inside Riley’s car, his hand on the gearshift, the heavy purr of the motor drowning out the possibility of thought.
We are lost.
“All right,” he mumbles, pulling me against him more tightly now until I can barely think, barely breathe. “Let’s go.”
FIFTEEN
The road stretches out before us, black as licorice. Dark candy. Outside Madison, we stop for gas, and Riley takes off his jacket, rolling up his shirtsleeves. On the freeway, he drives with one hand, sitting back as if he’s parked on a beach somewhere, all the time in the world at his fingertips. The headlights illuminate only patches of the interstate at a time, and I’m transfixed by the crimson swirl of taillights, the smell of cold air and exhaust, how the pavement looks shiny, almost wet, in the absence of daylight.
“Where do you want to go?” Riley turns down the music, his iPod playing old blues tunes, low-pitche
d growling amid the plucking of guitars, strings vibrating through the speakers.
I watch the exit signs as we pass by, the turnoff to Chicago looming up ahead. The freeway will fork in two—just like my life. There will always be the memory of my life before the shooting. And after. My whole existence reduced to two separate, distinct spheres that have little to do with each other.
“What about Chicago?” he suggests before I can speak. He puts on his blinker and changes lanes effortlessly, barely looking in the rearview mirror. “I’ve never been there,” he admits, glancing at me briefly. I can’t tell if he’s worried about the fact that we’re leaving or if he’s as relieved to be getting out of town as I am. I don’t dare ask when we’re coming back, what we’ll do for money after tonight, or even where we’ll stay. It’s enough to be here in the car with him, the green glow from the radio, the heat pumping from the vents wrapping us in a cocoon that sways in the dark.
“Me neither,” I say, although I think I was there once, with my parents and Luke when I was super little, but since I can’t remember the trip or what we did there in detail anyway, I decide that it doesn’t really count.
“Chi-town it is,” Riley says decisively, switching lanes again to follow the exit. “Do you want to call your mom?” he asks lightly, trying not to make a big deal of the question. I picture my phone tucked inside my purse, sitting innocuously on the table draped with cloth and crepe paper, ringing intermittently beneath the heavy thump of the music.
“Not really,” I answer, because I don’t. “Not now.”
I imagine her panic rising through the phone, latching on to my body, my brain, my heart beating faster. I know that she is waiting up for me, a book in her lap, unread. Tomorrow will be soon enough.
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