by Liz Fichera
“Seems you fit another description,” the officer said finally.
“Really?” Sam said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. “And what the hell did I do now?”
“Armed robbery in Casa Grande earlier today.”
“What?”
The officer slammed the door and I couldn’t hear the rest.
He finally let Sam back into the car. With the handcuffs, Sam couldn’t even drag his hands through his hair and neither could I. I wanted to pound my fist against the plastic separating us.
We sat in stunned silence all the way to Phoenix. Sam rocked in his seat the whole way as if his chest was going to explode.
The day had just grown a million times worse.
46
Sam
The whole drive into Phoenix, all I could think about were the people who’d be disappointed in me, regardless of what I’d actually done or not done.
My parents: They would certainly kill me. My Dad? I was finally living up to his expectations.
My grandmother: She wouldn’t say anything, but she wouldn’t need to. Her disappointment would engrave itself in her face. I was the one who was supposed to go places in the family. The one who was supposed to do big things for our tribe. Going to juvenile lockup wasn’t on the list.
Mr. Romero: Clearly I wouldn’t be invited to next year’s leadership conference, all fees paid. And it wasn’t as much about the dumb conference as it was about him. He’d been the one person at Lone Butte who believed in me from my freshman year. He’d pushed me to take classes that I didn’t think I could handle. He saw me as more than someone who could kick ass on a football team or a wrestling team or whatever. But now I’d have the cloud of this arrest over my head, even though I’d done nothing wrong—well, maybe except for ditching and driving without a motorcycle license.
Trevor: My bike would be impounded. It’d probably cost me a lifetime of bussing tables before I could get it back. I promised Trevor I’d take care of the bike and look what had happened. One cracked rearview and scuff marks all along the frame, and I’d only owned it a couple of weeks.
Riley: Because of my temper, she’d almost gotten killed. Killed! The word burned in my throat.
Myself: I could probably kiss any thought of an academic scholarship goodbye. I was pretty sure colleges frowned upon applicants with criminal records.
But here’s who I hadn’t added to my list: Mr. and Mrs. Berenger. They weren’t part of my guilt-ridden equation. So how was it that they had arrived at Durango before Riley and me? Did white people have access to a secret police hotline that the rest of us didn’t have?
I never caught the officer’s name, and his badge was covered beneath his poncho. He parked the squad car at the front of the building and then led us through two thick doors and a glass-enclosed counter called Processing, his hand wrapped around my elbow tight as duct tape. And, seriously. How far could I get with my hands cuffed behind my back?
My shoulders ached from the pull and my clothes clung to my skin. The moment we were out of the squad car and Riley was beside me again, she reached up and ran cool fingers through my hair, lifting it from my forehead. Despite the chaos happening around us, my whole body shivered from that single touch. The officer glared at Riley, but she ignored him. I liked that. And what did he think she would do? Slip me a shiv that she’d whittled from a pencil in the police car on the way to this dump?
As we walked through the colorless hallways at Durango, boys in orange jumpsuits filed toward us in a single line, some no older than ten or eleven. They were led by an officer at the front and the rear like teachers used to do in grade school. A few of the boys snickered when we passed. Riley pressed closer the deeper we walked down the hallway.
I glared at the inmates who snickered and the grins of at least two of the boys promptly disappeared. I towered over them. Truth was, I was scared, but I’d never let them see that. Never. I could never let anyone see I was scared. I just wasn’t wired that way.
Jeez, the sooner my dad could get here and bail me out, the happier I would be. I didn’t want to stick around long enough to be issued an orange jumpsuit and paraded about in single-file lines.
The officer led us into a windowless room with a gray metal desk and four chairs. Mr. and Mrs. Berenger jumped out of two of the chairs as if they’d just been electrocuted.
“Riley!” Mrs. Berenger yelped. I recognized her from the hospital after Fred’s father’s heart attack. Without her blue scrubs and stethoscope, she just looked like a mom—a mom who’d been doing a lot of crying. Splotchy dots covered her pale cheeks. She ran to Riley and enveloped her in a tight hug.
Riley’s whole body stiffened. She stood in her mother’s arms, speechless, as if she were as startled to see them as I was.
Mr. Berenger stood watching his wife and daughter, scratching the side of his head, as if he didn’t know what to say. Silent, he put his arms around both of them, but kept one eye on me.
I heard a click and looked over my shoulder.
Officer What’s-His-Name removed my handcuffs. Without a word, he moved to stand outside the opened door.
Instantly I rubbed my wrists, grateful to have the use of my hands again.
Mrs. Berenger released Riley, her eyes narrowing, her head shaking. “Riley?” she said again, this time in a hiss. “What happened? Where have you been? Your father and I have been worried sick. Are you kids all right?”
“You hopped on a motorcycle? And just drove off?” Mr. Berenger said, looking from me to Riley for an explanation.
It felt like I’d just swallowed a glass of sand. “Um…” I said.
“This is my fault,” Riley said, taking a step back so she stood beside me again.
I stood straighter.
But then she started talking like she was in a race. “IaskedSamtoditch—”
“Ditch?” Mrs. Berenger interrupted, as if she’d never heard the word before. “Since when do you ditch?”
“Mom. Lemme finish,” Riley said. “We just wanted to go for a ride. And we just decided to ride to…” Her face crumpled. “San Diego.”
“San Diego?” Mrs. Berenger’s voice turned to a roar. She looked from me to Riley. “But I told you not to leave the house. You disobeyed me.”
Well, duh.
Riley drew back a breath.
“You should have called us,” Mrs. Berenger said.
“You took away my cell phone!” Riley said.
“Do not lay blame on me, young lady.” Mrs. Berenger jabbed her finger in the air. Then in a softer voice, she added, “Why, Riley? Why are you acting this way? This is not like you. I don’t understand where this is coming from….”
Again Mr. and Mrs. Berenger’s eyes darted at me and I just stood there, my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth. They wanted—no, needed—someone to blame. And for now it was me. Standing there, wet and silent, I was the best candidate.
“This has nothing to do with Sam,” Riley said, talking full-speed again. “In fact, if it hadn’t been for Sam…” Riley let her voice trail off. She looked at me for confirmation on what to say, how much to reveal.
Truthfully, I didn’t know anymore. All of the lying had become too much.
Riley touched my forearm, and the only thing I could do was shrug my shoulders.
Then the officer was behind me again, his breath too close to my neck, like needles in my skin. “He needs to come with me,” he said.
“Where?” Riley asked.
“Riley!” Mrs. Berenger said.
“What?” She spun around, glaring at her mother. “We’ve got to help him. This is all my fault.”
“So you’ve stated,” Mr. Berenger said, looking unconvinced.
My stomach tightened from the invisible gut punch.
“Dad!” Riley screeched as Officer What’s-His-Name grabbed my arm again, tugging me toward the door. “Do something. Help him!” she pleaded, raising all ten of her bitten fingernails.
Mr. Berenger
licked his lips but said nothing.
“Sam!” Riley said. She began to do that hyperventilating thing she did when she didn’t get her way.
“Let’s go, son,” the officer said. “We’ve got some paperwork to do while we wait for your folks.”
Good. They’d been called. Hopefully that meant I wouldn’t be staying the night. Right?
Riley ran to the door. Her eyes begged me to do something, say something, but what? Anything I’d say or do would only make everything worse. All I could muster was a tired shrug.
When the officer and I turned a corner, Riley was still calling out my name, now through her tears. Her sobs echoed around me as we made our way down the hallway.
47
Riley
I spent the rest of the weekend in a total emotional coma. I didn’t eat, didn’t speak and barely moved a muscle.
I was still on the No Phone and No Internet Privileges Till Further Notice Punishment Plan. My mother only begrudgingly returned my laptop when I explained that I needed to write an essay on Lord of the Flies for AP English, which she allowed as long as I did my homework in the kitchen with the screen facing her so she could check it whenever she walked by—which she did only about ten thousand times.
Whenever I asked, “What do you think happened to Sam?” my dad would shake his head, his gaze never quite meeting mine. He didn’t like Sam; that much was obvious. But he had no right. He didn’t even know him. He didn’t know—couldn’t know—all the things Sam had done for me. And all that he meant to me.
“Have you forgotten Sam Tracy saved my life?” I said over my laptop.
Dad didn’t answer. He returned to rustling the newspaper and snapping the sports page in my direction. Mom emptied the dishwasher in silence.
I sighed, loudly, and returned to my English essay, despite not having finished the book yet.
Ryan was as distant as my parents, acting like I’d suddenly developed leprosy. When I thought about all the times I’d covered for him, supported him when he screwed up, it only fueled my anger, bubbling inside me like a volcano.
But Ryan was my only link to life outside the walls of our house. “Could you ask Fred to call Sam?” I begged him when my parents weren’t eavesdropping. “Would Fred know if he made it back home?” Like Dad, Ryan only grunted noncommittal answers.
By Sunday, I was too sick of everything to care. I needed to see Sam. In all the chaos of the past few weeks, I had come to realize that he had been the only constant. He saw me and that crazy ninja alternate-personality who lived inside of me and didn’t run away—well, not totally. He saw me at my worst and found a reason to still be my friend.
The thing was, I got him, too. He couldn’t fool me with his brooding, stoic personality. He was a total pushover when no one was looking. I liked that—no, scratch that. I loved that about him. I just hoped I hadn’t ruined everything that was beginning to become clear between us.
I hoped I still had a chance.
Unable to concentrate on my essay, I sketched instead, pushing down on my pencil until my fingers ached.
*
Monday morning, Mom wouldn’t let me ride to school with Ryan. She insisted that Dad drop me off on his way to work, which he did. If only he could have dropped me off behind the school or in another country completely.
The second I turned away from Dad’s car, two hundred pairs of eyes watched me walk from the curb down the sidewalk. It was even more intense than the Monday following the rescue on the Mogollon Rim. At least that morning I’d felt a little special. Today I felt like I was carrying the bubonic plague.
I threaded my messenger bag across my chest and pretended everybody was invisible, which worked for about .00001 seconds. For the first time, I actually heard the spray from the courtyard fountain. None of the students seated around it uttered a word. It was a little creepy.
I was halfway to the double glass doors when someone said, “Hey, Wild Girl! Where’ve you been? Over here!”
Jay Hawkins.
“Long time, no see,” he added but there was something else in his tone, a familiarity that I didn’t care for. His eyes never spoke to me with quiet kindness like Sam’s did. Jay’s eyes were cold and empty. Why hadn’t I noticed that before?
My stomach did a somersault as a few snickers and giggles spread throughout the courtyard. I could hear the muffled voices drumming through my body.
I swallowed hard, lifted my chin and leveled Jay with a steady gaze.
Jay was wearing a white bandage across his nose but acted like it was invisible. Both cheeks, I noted with some satisfaction, were purple, just below the eyes. He was flanked by two other juniors from the wrestling team. I recognized them from yearbook pictures but didn’t know their names.
I nodded at them, even forced the tiniest of smiles to show him that nothing that he could say or do would bother me. And kept walking.
“Did you hear the news about your boyfriend?” Jay called out, a happy-bearer-of-bad-news tone in his voice.
Boyfriend?
I froze on the sidewalk and glanced back at him over my shoulder.
Beneath his bandages, a toothy grin spread across his face as I waited for him to speak. “Just Sam got suspended till Thursday. Got lucky,” he said. Then, in a voice that made the hairs prickle on the back of my neck, he added, “He won’t be so lucky next time.”
Good, I thought with relief. That meant Sam was home. Didn’t it? I needed to find Fred. She would know.
But then I remembered how awful I’d been to her, how I’d lied and interfered with her and Ryan. She probably didn’t want anything to do with me, and I couldn’t blame her.
I barely wanted anything to do with me, either.
I swallowed again and nodded at Jay as if I could not have cared less what he had to say. Then I locked eyes with Drew, who was watching the exchange from outside the front door. I’m sorry, I mouthed to her.
Drew gave me the hint of an apologetic smile and a little wave and then turned around for the cafeteria. I supposed that would have to do for now.
First thing I needed to do was find Fred. I darted straight for the library.
It was too early for the library to be busy. Even the librarian was missing. I walked to the gray cubicles beneath the Ww-Xx bookshelf sign. Fred was inside one, her back to me, a strand of her shiny black hair wrapped around her finger as she huddled over a book.
“Fred.” I exhaled an urgent breath behind her. There wasn’t much time till the first bell.
“Riley?” She stood one second after turning. Before I could utter another word, her arms wrapped around me in a hug that I didn’t deserve. “Jeez,” she said, pulling back to look at me, shaking her head. “I am so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m fine,” I said.
“If you’re looking for Ryan, he won’t be back till noon.”
I shook my head. “No, I’m not looking for him. I was looking for you.” My tongue dragged over my lips. Then the words rushed out like a waterfall. “FredI’msosorryIdidn’tmeantointerfere—”
Fred reached out a hand. “Whoa. Slow down, Riley.”
I drew in a breath. Then I started again. “I didn’t mean to get between you and Ryan. It was stupid stupid stupid. I am so sorry. This is all my fault.” I paused for another breath, surprised to find that my eyes had welled with relieved tears. I blinked at her.
Fred’s mouth opened a fraction. Clearly she hadn’t been expecting this. She was acting as if she wasn’t even aware of my meddling, and that made me feel worse. She deserved my apology more than anyone else. Then she chuckled, “It’s okay, Riley. It’s okay. Everything’s gonna be okay.” She hugged me again, stroking the back of my head until my breathing calmed.
“What do you know about Sam? Is he okay?” I sniffed back my tears. “I suppose you heard everything from Ryan.”
Her head tilted. “Not everything. Just bits and pieces.”
“What can you tell me? Did you see Sam over the weeke
nd?”
She shook her head and my body felt like it could crumple. “Not since his fight at school with Jay Hawkins.”
I pressed my hands against my stomach. “Oh, god,” I said. “I hope he’s not still at…”
“Durango?” Fred finished for me. “No. My brother spoke to him yesterday. Sam’s home.”
I reached out for the edge of the cubicle. “Oh, thank god,” I said, my knees turning wobbly. “I’ve been so worried about him.”
Fred reached out her hand, finding my forearm. “Didn’t Ryan tell you?”
“Ryan doesn’t tell me anything.”
Her eyes narrowed, as if she didn’t believe me. “Your dad…?” she said it like a question.
“What about him?” My dad and I were barely speaking to each other.
“Your dad went back to Durango. He talked to the judge. It was all a big stupid misunderstanding or something.”
“Dad? My dad?”
Fred nodded.
Dad had dropped Mom and me off at home, and then he’d said he had to go back to the office. I would have bet every dollar in my college fund that he’d never go back downtown to check on Sam Tracy, not after the way he’d glared at Sam like he was some kind of seasoned criminal. “But…I…” I stammered “There was something about an armed robbery. They said he did something he didn’t.”
Fred’s eyes softened. She returned her hands to my shoulders to steady me. “I know. At the same time that robbery happened in Casa Grande, your Dad was able to show that you and Sam were pumping gas in Yuma, a million miles away—well, maybe not a million, but you know what I mean. The gas station had cameras. Your dad got the tape and showed it to the judge. Case closed. Your dad totally rocks.”
“Yeah, rocks.” My vision turned fuzzy. My dad did that?
“Even the ticket got changed to a warning.”
I leaned against the cubicle wall for more support. And to think I’d ignored Dad all weekend. Even this morning on the drive to school, when he’d tried to make small talk about my art class, I hadn’t answered him. I officially felt lower than dirt.
“But what about his scholarships?” Sam had mentioned that he’d been contacted by a couple of college recruiters already for interviews.
