You Were Here

by Cori McCarthy

  “I thought you wanted to talk.”

  “I thought you didn’t,” Bishop returned.

  “Not about Tyler, I don’t.” Zach growled and rubbed his hands over his face. “Do you have any idea how hard it’s been to erase what Tyler did with Natalie from my brain? If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t even be able to look at her. And you just want me to talk about it?! Yeah, Bishop, why don’t we talk about how Marrakesh dumped you? Wouldn’t that be fun?”

  Bishop’s hand went astray, a line of spray paint messing up a letter. He turned, and his glare was very dark. “I’m only going to say this once, Zach. Don’t belittle my broken heart.”

  “She was horrible, Bishop! A cheater! I think she slept with half of Tyler’s frat. I definitely saw the pictures when Tyler texted them at me, and I tried to tell you!”

  Bishop surged at him. Zach leaned back against the balcony bars with an echoing bang that made the railing shake and show off all the places where the screws had come loose.

  “I don’t care why I shouldn’t have loved her. I care that I did. I don’t expect you to understand that. You’re narrow, Zach. Shallow. Immature.” Bishop pulled a phone out of his pocket and waved it at Zach. “And I know all about Marrakesh’s exploits because I found them on your brother’s phone when I was trying to delete the half-naked pictures of Natalie he took. I didn’t want you to have to see those.”

  Zach looked away. “Thanks.”

  “Your brother is sick, Zach. Not sick like a dirty frat boy, but something is messed up in his head.” Bishop’s eyes glinted strangely. Damply?

  “Are you crying?”

  Bishop’s fist tightened around the phone. “I’ve spent the last five months trying to find something that put my pain over Marrakesh in perspective. I’ve found it, and now I wish I hadn’t. There’s something you need to see. Well, no one needs to see it, but I can’t get it out of my head. So, here. It’s four seconds.” Bishop turned the phone on and called up a paused video. He held the screen out to Zach. “He’s your brother. You tell me what the hell I should do. Call your dad? The police? Get your brother in trouble for having a snuff film?”

  “Jesus,” Zach said. A what film? What the hell could have Bishop this riled? Was it porn? Because for fuck’s sake, Tyler liked gross porn, and Zach did not need to see that. He glanced at the paused image of a few dozen people outside on a sunny day.

  He pressed play.

  The camera pointed up to where a boy in a cap and gown stood atop a swing set.

  Zach stopped existing for the four seconds that it took for Jake to grin madly, flip—and crack against the blacktop. As fast as it had started, the clip ended, cutting off with screams and a jerk of the screen.

  Zach dropped the phone. He staggered a few feet away and started to gag.

  “I know.” Bishop gripped his shoulder. “It’s… Can you believe your brother has that on his phone? What does he do with it? Show people at parties?”

  Of course he does, Zach thought miserably, but he couldn’t respond because his brain was frying. Surging. All the black feelings he kept locked up in his mind’s basement flew out of control, and he attacked Bishop. His fists flew into Bishop’s stomach and face. They rolled on the ground, through plaster and broken glass. Bishop didn’t want to fight and kept trying to get away, but Zach went at him harder and faster. He went at Bishop like Tyler always went after Zach when they were kids—with bared teeth and fists that aimed for kidneys.

  Finally Bishop swung back. He landed a punch on Zach’s side that left a shooting ache every time Zach lifted his arm. But the pain felt great. Fantastic. Distracting.

  At some point, Jaycee ran by them, sobbing and holding onto her shirt like she’d been attacked, but not even that made them stop. It wasn’t until he heard yelling from across the mall that Bishop managed to pin Zach down. “Did you hear that? Was that Natalie?”

  Zach put a quick kick to his stomach. He didn’t care who was yelling. He couldn’t stop. If he stopped, he’d remember why they were fighting. He’d picture that disgusting, twisting, snapping end, and he’d hear all of those people crying out. Zach’s body went insane. His arms spun fiercely until Bishop was knocked hard against the railing. A huge section of it broke away, smashing into the floor with an echoing chaotic crash.

  From across the mall, Jaycee started screaming. But Zach’s eyes were fastened to Bishop’s as he grasped at the air, one leg dangling over the drop and the rest of him tipping back…

  Chapter 46

  Natalie

  Natalie sat against the fitting room door and turned on her party mix, which just so happened to be her London Philharmonic Orchestra jams. The run of brass and timpani set her heart alight while she really did try to distract herself from whatever was happening behind her. Was Jaycee getting her first kiss? Were they confessing their love for one another?

  Anything was possible. If she and Zach could come off of the Tyler disaster with renewed energy for one another, anything really was possible. She even thought that maybe, just maybe, she was becoming friends with Jaycee again, and that was such a relief that she wanted to cry out Braveheart-style. God, Zach had made her watch that movie way too many times.

  Natalie turned the volume down on her music and eavesdropped. Whispers and slight rustling. She smirked and left her guard at the door. They would come out when they were ready. Mission accomplished. She walked to the balcony and looked over the railing at the chaos of the ruined mall below. Everything was going to line itself up now. She could feel it.

  She walked around the cavernous, cave-in of a mall, ignoring everything in favor of the gleaming skylights. She found the second-floor elevator door. This one was propped upon a few feet like the one below, and she wanted to look inside. Bad idea. You could fall.

  I am Natalie, and no, I won’t.

  She stepped to the edge and glanced down, down, down. It wasn’t so hard after all.

  Rather proud of herself, she leaned in farther, thinking about Jaycee’s mom at that behavioral hospital. Jaycee probably thought she was going off her rocker because all she had to compare herself to was her mom, but Natalie could tell her the truth. She could teach Jaycee all the things she’d memorized in her years of therapy—about asking for help and talking to people.

  Then maybe all those things might actually work so that Natalie didn’t wind up letting someone like Tyler touch her ever again. Natalie looked down even farther at the dangling, greasy suspension ropes and the support bars that, stripped of their elevator, now had nothing to support. Across the way, her eyes caught on a little piece of graffiti next to the counter weights. Jake’s signature and a scribble that might call itself a spider.

  It felt like Jake Strangelove was screaming, I’m right here! And Natalie shouted back, “Not anymore, you jerk!” Her voice echoed fiercely.

  Ultimately, she could tell Jaycee the hard-earned truth that had taken Natalie all of these years to figure out. She’d tell Jaycee that uphill was slow and steady and cautiously planned. It was all about college visits and SAT prep classes and counting dates between sexual advances. But downhill? It wasn’t a slope or progress. It was as simple as changing directions. Turning around. Like swallowing a whole handful of pills.

  Or watching a boy snap his neck.

  Natalie pulled herself back to the safety of the walkway, just in time to see Jaycee.

  She was running in Natalie’s direction and holding herself. Sobbing. “You just have to force everything, don’t you?” Jaycee yelled. She flew toward Natalie in a way that pushed Natalie right up against the wobbly, broken elevator doors. “You ruined him and me!”

  “What happened?” Natalie had never known Jaycee to be so upset—which could only mean one thing. “Oh no. Mik told you about Jake? Right now? What an idiot!”

  Jaycee’s face went from destroyed to irate in a flash. “You knew what he did?”
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br />   Natalie tried to back up but only slipped closer to the crevice and what could only be described as a suicide fall. “Jaycee, did you let him explain?”

  “Explain what? That he started all of this?” She was shaking so hard, but Natalie couldn’t reach out to her. She had to hold on to the elevator and hope that Jaycee didn’t push her farther.

  “But this is the truth, Jayce! You know, that thing you prize above people and possessions. That thing you’ve had a death grip on your whole life! And you know what? There’s more to the story, so if you want to know what happened, you have to listen.”

  “That’s hilarious coming from you! You’re so good at lying that you don’t even know when you’re doing it!”

  Natalie felt like she was bursting. Her chest was heaving, and she wasn’t against the elevator anymore because she was pushing Jaycee with both hands. Back, back, back to the second-floor railing. “Jake was being awful to Mik that day. Egging his stupid drunken friends on so that they were all making fun of Mik for not drinking. For not talking. Think about it, Jayce. Make yourself remember how cruel he could be!”

  Jaycee struggled to speak. “So that’s it…you and Mik…you’ve had long chats about this? Is it fun for you two to reminisce about how he died?” Jaycee tried to clasp her hands over her ears, but Natalie pulled them down.

  “No! Mik and I have never talked about this.”

  “Then how do you—”

  “Because I was there, Jayce. Hiding under the slide so I could tattle on Jake for drinking.” The words flew out, and Natalie was empty. She nearly fell over and took hold of the wobbly railing. “I saw Mik dare Jake. I saw Jake climb the swing set. I watched him break his neck, and then I ran away and lied, and I’ve been in a permanent anxiety attack every single day of my life since. So there.”

  Chapter 47

  Jaycee

  “Did you see me?”

  My voice sounded like it was coming from another human, another state away. “Did you see me after he hit the blacktop, and I was standing there calling out his name and staring at that blown-fuse look on his face?”

  Natalie opened her mouth, but nothing came out. She nodded.

  “And then you ran home and lied?” My eyes were flooding, but the tremble in my chest was the worst part. Mik’s confession had hatchet-slammed my heart into half throbs, and then less. Fractions of beats. And now Natalie’s words were grinding whatever was left into splinters.

  “So you do know how bad that day really was, and yet you still spent the last five years passing me in the hall and looking at me like I’d lost my mind?”

  “I’ve always felt bad about Jake,” Natalie said, her voice shrunken to a hundredth of the volume it had been moments ago. “But I’m dead inside over abandoning you. The guilt…it makes me doubt everything I do. Every decision. Every friend. Everything. It makes me feel like I’m not even me.”

  “You deserve it,” I growled, trying to get back to anger and not being able to. Jake was gone, and this? This was the truth that couldn’t be rejected. Couldn’t be embraced. It could only exist with me tangled inside of it. Maybe this was the other side that I ached for when I was drunk. Maybe this was as good as my terrible life could get.

  A huge, crashing, echoing sound shot Natalie and me to the balcony. All at once, I was sure that the mall was coming down around us. We looked out across the open center of the building to where Bishop and Zach were fighting on the far side.

  “They’re trying to kill each other!” Natalie yelled out to them, but they only fell over, wrestling, and Zach landed a kick to Bishop’s stomach that sent him slamming against the railing.

  Another earthquake of a crack ripped through the second floor, so much stronger than the first, and a huge section of the railing fell, fell, fell.

  I looked down with it.

  “Mik!” I screamed.

  Too late.

  Chapter 48

  Mikivikious

  Geauga Lake

  Chapter 49

  Zach

  Zach and Bishop sprinted down the frozen escalator. They beat Natalie and Jaycee to where Mik lay unmoving. They tried and failed to pick up the huge section of railing.

  “He’s knocked out,” Bishop yelled. He reached through the bars and felt Mik’s neck. “I think he has a pulse.”

  Jaycee and Natalie arrived. Natalie was holding Jaycee upright as though she’d dragged her all the way down the stairs. “We have to lift it together. Everyone get to a corner.” She shook Jaycee and pointed to where she should stand. The four of them collected around the railing, and Natalie yelled, “On three!”

  She counted and then they lifted it together. It started to fall apart before they’d moved it far enough, and Bishop and Zach both swung their side out so that the whole thing spun when it hit the floor, breaking into smaller sections.

  Mik was all twisted, and his head was bleeding from an ugly spot by his temple.

  “Don’t move him. He could have spinal damage.” Natalie held her ear toward Mik’s mouth. “He’s breathing.”

  Zach couldn’t believe how focused she was. He couldn’t even think straight.

  Natalie thrust her phone toward Bishop. “Call 911.”

  Bishop dialed the number, swearing. Zach stood there watching Natalie tug on Jaycee, trying to get her to come closer to Mik. To talk to him. Jaycee looked like something had broken inside, and when Natalie pulled too hard on her hand, she slumped to the floor like someone had taken out her knees.

  “Zach! Zach!” How long had Natalie been yelling his name? “Zach, go outside, flag the ambulance down, and lead them straight here.”

  Zach ran for the front entrance. He snagged an old cash register off the floor and threw it with everything he had through the glass door. The burst of shattering shards filled the air with chaos, and he ran outside into the dawn.

  When the ambulance and cop cars roared across that cemetery of a parking lot, he waved his hands and jumped up and down, screaming until his voice broke. They came straight for him at a million miles an hour, and though he’d seen just about every blockbuster movie on the planet, nothing prepared him for the stabbing reality of true emergency.

  He stayed outside while the paramedics rushed in, slumped on the curb with his head hanging between his knees. They brought Mik out on a stretcher and took him off in a blare of lights. When Zach looked up, Natalie, Jaycee, and Bishop were standing there talking to a cop who was busy filling out a report.

  “Are you going to arrest us?” Natalie asked the woman.

  “I need all your information, but you can go to the hospital to wait on your friend.”

  “We were exploring,” Natalie said, holding up her headlamp. “We didn’t break anything. We weren’t vandalizing. Well, Zach broke the door, but that’s because he needed to get your attention.”

  The cop sighed loud and long. “That’s beside the point. You’re not the first kids we’ve had to pull out of here. Not the last, I bet. We need to contact the property manager. He’ll decide if he’s going to press charges, but you might get lucky.”

  “How are we lucky?” Jaycee asked, her eyes as red and dark as something rabid.

  “They’re planning on ripping this place down really soon. I doubt the property manager is going to want to deal with the headache, especially after you…nearly lost your friend in there.”

  “Give it a little more time,” Bishop said. “It’ll rip itself down.”

  Natalie led Jaycee away, and together the four of them crossed the parking lot to Natalie’s car. Zach offered to drive, and he immediately felt better when he was in the front seat. His hands twisted on the wheel as Natalie gave directions to the hospital.

  Zach drove mindlessly. All turns and speed. When he pulled up in front of the emergency room, Jaycee and Natalie jumped out without even looking back at him.

&n
bsp; Bishop got out too, but he leaned back in and looked at Zach strangely. “You all right?” Zach squeezed the steering wheel and managed a small nod. Bishop reached in and placed Tyler’s phone on the passenger seat. Zach glared at it. “Go park. I’ll see you inside.”

  “Yeah,” Zach said, his voice cracking, but when he peeled out of the emergency room turnaround, he didn’t stop. He got on the highway. He headed home, and his mind hardened around one impulse. There was nothing he could do for Mik, but there was definitely something he could do about Tyler.

  He’d never felt so lucid. There were no superheroes in his head. No trees turning into Groots or plastic LEGO blocks to make him feel safe. There was only the highway running beneath him and his foot holding down the gas pedal.

  Zach pulled into his driveway around nine in the morning. Tyler’s car was inside the garage, and Zach’s father’s car was missing—probably at his girlfriend’s house. Two brilliant strands of luck, he thought as he made his way inside.

  He busted open Tyler’s bedroom door. His brother sat up in bed, and Zach went at him.

  “What the—” Tyler started, but Zach was too fast.

  He dragged Tyler to the floor. He didn’t want to fight him; he wanted to hurt him. He yanked Tyler’s old football injury arm behind his back until his shoulder popped at a horrible angle and Tyler howled.

  “Get off me!”

  Zach used his weight to pin him down and pressed Tyler’s phone against his face. “How could you be so sick?”

  “What? Where’d you get my—I knew you bastards stole my phone!”

  “I stole it. Explain yourself!”

  “I take pictures of the girls I bang. They know I’m doing it. It’s not a crime!”

  Alianna appeared in the doorway in her pajamas. She looked terrified.