The S-Word
Page 24
They stare at me, mesmerized, like they’re working out a math problem. The thought reminds me of Marvin, and suddenly I’m searching the crowd for his unruly head. All along the aisles, parents are taking stock of the Police Situation, gathering information and passing it down like they’re playing a game of Telephone. Under different circumstances, it would be hilarious, but I can’t focus on it.
I’ve located Marvin.
He’s staring right at me. His face isn’t red. He almost looks . . . impressed.
Same with Shelby: she’s sitting much closer, in the Jesse/Kennedy cluster.
Kennedy gives me a nod. Even Cara and Elliot, whose gowns have suffered my scissors’ wrath, are looking at me with a mixture of relief and awe.
They realize I’ve spared them.
And suddenly, the last people in the school who should come to my defense start chanting for me, over and over again, until others join in:
“RAPIST,” they murmur, softly at first, their voices heavy with the weight of the word.
“RAPIST,” they shout to the red-faced, wide-eyed boy who’s managed to exit the stage. He’s cowering there, at the foot of the stairs. His graduation gown is balled up in his hands. Really, there’s nowhere for him to go. Even if he manages to slip behind the curtains, the cops will eventually find him. It’s not like he’s going to make it to Mexico.
He might not even make it to his house.
I almost smile.
But I can’t. The chant is getting louder, weaving its way into my brain. “RAPIST.” It’s ringing in my ears and making my heart pound. “RAPIST.” I actually kind of wish they would stop. Even whispered quietly, that word has the power to turn your stomach. But maybe that’s why it’s important to say it out loud. Maybe we can’t be afraid of talking about it if we ever want it to stop.
Maybe the first step to stomping out the world’s ugliness is dragging it into the light.
Quietly, I start chanting the word, though I hate how it sounds and how it tastes. I’m not screaming—I’m barely speaking above a whisper—but it’s enough to attract the attention of its target. Drake finds me in the crowd, eyes nervously settling on mine for one drawn-out second. His lips form the word “BITCH.”
I mouth “RAPIST” back to him because, honestly, if bitch is the alternative, I’ll be a bitch for the rest of my life.
I won’t feel bad.
And Drake knows it. He knows he’s lost his power over me. With one last, desperate glance at the cops, he bolts, disappearing behind the curtain. The chants turn to unintelligible screams. I stand, preparing to go after him.
Both Kennedy and Jesse hold me back.
The crowd swells forward. Now that Drake has broken loose, people feel like it’s safe to follow. The cops are yelling at us to stop, one of them hurrying down the aisle while the other barks into his walkie-talkie and pushes out of the auditorium doors. Probably, he’s calling for backup. I can only hope they were smart enough to position a third guy at the back door. I hope, too, that they catch Drake quickly, because chaos is starting to break out, and somebody could get hurt.
Somebody could get trampled, and their blood would be on my hands.
Not really thinking about what I’m doing, I break free from my captors’ grasp. Jesse catches my wrist, but I’m able to slide out easily enough. He refuses to contain me, even to protect me.
I kind of love that about him.
I hear Kennedy’s calm, condescending voice calling out, “You’re an idiot,” and Jesse saying, “Please . . .” and then I’m gone, into the chaos, the noise. People are elbowing me without even trying. My heart is thundering, telling me to return to safety. Anything could happen behind that curtain. Drake could resist arrest and get his arm twisted behind his back.
He could be shot.
I could be shot.
I push on. The red velvet curtain feels heavy in my hands as I slip behind it. The crowd in here isn’t that hard to get by. There are maybe ten students, and they’ve formed a circle like they’re watching a boxing match. But what’s happening inside is no contest.
Drake is sprawled out on the floor.
Drake, the first boy I ever kissed.
Drake, who cradled me in his arms whenever I stayed the night.
Drake, who told me once, when he was wasted beyond oblivion, that he was terrified of becoming his parents, though he never told me why.
I know this boy.
I thought I did.
But when he looks at me, it’s like we’re strangers.
“You,” he breathes. His cheeks are red, and I think maybe he’s been crying. “She’s lying,” he snarls, as the cop struggles to contain him. “She’s a lying bitch.”
Ouch, Drake. You kissed my best friend with that mouth?
“She just wants attention.”
Seriously, does he hear himself? Then he says something honest: “Wait till you hear what she did at school—”
My heart skips.
“She pretended to be a dead girl.”
“N-no, I didn’t.” I take a step forward.
“Get back,” the cop yells. I listen, but only because I don’t want a bullet in the chest.
Still, I can’t stop myself from asking, “What did I do, Drake?”
He sneers. He thinks he’s got me in his crosshairs. “You stole the diary,” he spits.
See, that one I can use.
“What diary?” I crouch a safe distance away. For one, brief moment, he’s locked in my gaze. “No one said anything about a diary.”
He freezes, unable to think of a response.
“You mean the one with your fingerprints all over it?” I lean in. The cop is not thrilled with me, but he can’t intervene without taking his attention from Drake.
So I get in one last dig. “The diary that’s already in police custody?”
Drake howls like an animal locked in a trap. I close my eyes and see visions of canines gnawing off their own limbs. Blood and bone. Such desperation. Back in the real world, Drake’s scrabbling to catch me, but he can’t go far with a knee in his back. “You set me up, you fucking bitch! I’ll get you for this!”
“Oh, that one’s damning, I bet.” I step back. I’m waiting for the cuffs to go around his wrists. But he’s resisting so badly, the cop goes for something else.
Oh, God.
I try to warn him: “Don’t resist.”
I try to look away.
Close my eyes.
Anything.
But I can’t. I’ve come this far.
I practically fucking orchestrated it.
So I stay and watch. I watch the gun slide out of the man’s holster. Freed of its bindings, it’s ready to do its dirty work. I smell gunpowder and nothing has even happened yet.
The officer’s finger curls around the trigger, soft, like he’s caressing it. Bile rises in my throat.
“Harrison.”
The voice comes from behind our backs. Together, we turn. Two cops are hurrying in, one with a gun, one gripping a Taser.
That’s the one who kneels down beside Drake.
That’s the one who detains him.
I close my eyes, relief flooding my body. But Drake’s scream pulls me out of the darkness. I see his body trembling on the floor. I see his teeth cutting into his lips. Then I don’t see anything except the dark, heavy curtain as I make my way toward it.
I have to get out of here.
I train my eyes on the space in front of me, not looking back. Still, I hear the cuffs clicking around his wrists. I hear the opening to the Miranda rights. I know that they’ve got him. And I realize, as I pass through the crowded aisle and out into the light, that I’m the reason all of this happened the way it did.
I’m not powerless. I found a way to let everyone know how dangerous Drake is.
I did something.
twenty-nine
THE QUIET OF Fir Point Cemetery is startling compared to the bustling auditorium. I can hear my heart beating in t
his kind of quiet. At the top of the hill, this great angelic beast looks down at the rest of the world. The most expensive plots are situated around it. It’s nice to know that class distinctions don’t die when we do.
Right.
Down below, skeleton trees take the place of fancy statues. The grass grows in patches around twisting stone paths. Maybe the seeder is a drunk. My heels squish in grass one minute and mud the next. You’d think I could just walk on the stones, but they don’t actually lead to anything. They’re just for decoration.
Lizzie’s plot sits near the base of the hill, as if to say she had some money at least. There’s a scattered bouquet of daisies rotting in the grass. I lay my graduation gown beside them and kneel on the fabric. And I just start talking.
“I always thought it was weird that people put flowers on graves. I mean, picked flowers are essentially dead, so you’re bringing this decaying offering to an already . . .” I pause. “You know what I mean. Maybe the idea is to bring company. Like they say, misery loves company. Maybe the dead love company too . . . God, I’m rambling.”
But I have to keep talking. The silence is too dangerous. Even though I know Lizzie is not here—she couldn’t be—I still feel like her voice will chime in if I fall silent for too long.
She’ll question me about not visiting since the day she was buried.
She’ll ask me why I treated her the way I did.
She won’t even be angry, she’ll just look at me with those big, sad eyes. A little ghost girl, come to haunt me.
I can’t allow it. So I just talk. I talk about the weather. I talk about graduation and my tentative plans for college. Then, when I’ve talked about every stupid, meaningless thing I can think of, I ask the one thing I’ve been terrified to ask.
“Lizzie . . . why didn’t you tell me how you felt? I would’ve accepted you. I loved you. I—” I close my eyes, fiddling with the stems of the daisies. It’s comforting, considering who brought them. “You could’ve trusted me. I could’ve trusted you too. And I’m sorry for that. I shouldn’t have left you alone after . . .” I pause, curling my fingers into fists. “But I’m going to make sure he never hurts anyone again.”
The voice comes at my back. “Calling the cops was a pretty good start.”
I don’t turn. After a minute he comes up beside me. He’s still dressed in his gown, and he stands over me like he’s God or something. And I wonder why I’m always thinking about gods and angels if I don’t believe in that stuff. Maybe a part of me wants to. Maybe I need it right now.
“Do you think I’m a horrible person?” I ask.
Jesse looks at me. His eyes are dark to match the sky. I’m so sick of living in this perpetual winter. But I’m starting to fear that moving is just running away.
“No,” he says.
“You sure?”
He shrugs. “I said I thought people should be warned about him.”
“But you don’t like how I went about it?”
“See, that’s the thing.” He runs his hand through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about it a lot. And I can’t think of a good way to go about it. I mean, this is a really messed-up situation. So maybe it isn’t about doing what’s good. Maybe it’s about doing what’s necessary.”
“To protect people.”
“Right.”
I catch his eye. “Do you think that’s why I did it?”
“I think it was one of your reasons.”
I want to tell him that he’s wrong, that my reasons were selfish and vengeful. But he’s right. He knows he’s right. I exposed Drake because I didn’t want him to hurt anyone else. Maybe my other reasons aren’t as important as that.
“Are you mad?” I ask, my voice quiet against the wind.
“No.”
“Okay, well . . .” I pat the ground beside me. “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”
He hesitates. “I don’t know.”
“Are you worried about the gown?”
“It was expensive,” he says without emotion, like he’s just stating a fact. I’m fairly certain he came here to tell me good-bye. I don’t even know why I assume he came here for me as well as for Lizzie. I just feel it.
I lift up the corner of my gown. Beneath the little patch of fabric, I can see the jagged edge where I attacked it with Kennedy’s scissors. “Hey, grass stains are nothing compared to this.”
He stares at it with widened eyes. “You went after yourself too.”
“Was there ever any doubt?”
He watches me a minute. I honestly have no idea what he’s thinking. Then he unzips his gown and lays it beside mine.
“Oh my God.” My smile catches me by surprise.
“Do not say anything.” His arms go around himself.
“Oh, Jesse. You look—”
“Stop—”
“Amazing.”
“Really?”
“Are you kidding? You’re wearing a suit. A suit.”
He blushes as he sits down, folding his legs carefully so as not to wrinkle the pants. “It would look better on you.”
“Don’t be modest.” I touch the collar of his jacket. “This is really nice.”
“It was my grandfather’s. My mom has all these old suits in the back of her closet.”
“I love suits,” I say. “I mean, on people who know how to wear them.”
“Do I?”
“Oh, yeah. But you wear everything well.”
He smiles, those cheeks round and rosy in the fading light. “I’m an asshole, by the way. I’ve been thinking about how beautiful you look in that dress since I got here but I haven’t been able to put my tongue back in my mouth.”
“We had more important things to say.”
He nods like he knows compliments make me uncomfortable. That smile is still tugging at his lips. “It fits perfectly. She’d have been so happy—”
“She really did buy it for me? I always kind of wondered.”
He’s shaking his head. “She didn’t buy it, Angie. She made it.”
The words hit me in my gut. Another secret she kept from me.
No. The words come from outside of me. Another secret she didn’t trust you with.
“She was afraid of me,” I say. “My best friend was afraid of me.”
I wait for Jesse’s hand on my back, his sweetness. I look up to find him grinning.
“I’m a little afraid of you,” he says.
“What— Why?”
“You’re not someone to cross. You might come after me with a blowtorch.”
“I don’t go after everyone.” I want to sound playful but that sorrow creeps in. I can’t go five minutes without it finding me.
“No,” he says. He’s looking at the ground now, at the daisies I know he left for Lizzie. “But Drake wasn’t your only target.”
So he does want to talk about it. He almost had me fooled. “Nope,” I say.
“What changed your mind?”
I don’t really want to answer. No, I don’t know how. Was it love that stopped me, or fear? Or was it the fact that, for the first time since Lizzie died, I felt hope brewing inside me?
I look up at him and he looks like hope embodied. At least, for the time being, I can pretend I did it for him. But even that feels wrong—another lie out of a million.
I tell him the only truth I can find. “I compromised.”
He stares at me with that sweetness in his eyes. He hasn’t touched me since he got here, not even my hand. I can feel him holding back.
Finally I just ask. I can’t help it with him so close. “Is this over? I mean, are we . . .”
I wait for him to nod but he doesn’t. He just sits there looking at me. I get the feeling he likes it. Maybe that will be reason enough to stay?
His lips part. I focus on them, in case his words hurt me. “I’ve thought about that a lot too. About you and me. I was willing to turn my whole world upside down for you. But I never got the feeling you would do that for me.”
“Go on,” I say shakily.
“But that’s probably not fair, and it’s probably not true. You were going to turn your world upside down just to punish yourself.”
I nod.
“And if I’m truly honest with myself, that’s what bothered me,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“The truth is, I was way more scared of you hurting yourself than I was of you hurting others. I’d already lost Lizzie, and you and I had just started to be friends. I couldn’t handle losing you too.” He pauses, fingers playing with the grass. “There was even a part of me that wanted you to go after her dad. I just couldn’t admit it. It made me sick to think I wanted you to hurt somebody because I couldn’t.”
“Jesse.”
“But I couldn’t,” he says again. “I can’t hurt people. Even if they hurt me.”
“You shouldn’t,” I say. “You shouldn’t lower yourself to their level.”
“That’s the thing. That’s why I think we’re good for each other. You can help me stand up for myself and I can help you choose love over hate.”
It sounds beautiful. God, it sounds perfect. But nothing ever is. “You said before you couldn’t be a part of my life.”
“If you went through with your plans. But you compromised.”
“Yeah?”
“So I can compromise too.”
“What does that mean?”
He takes my hand. Finally. I feel warmth like I’ve never known. “It means I can’t walk out of your life. I’ve tried to stop talking to you; I can’t, Angie.”
“But you’re afraid?” I know it’s true because I’m afraid too. I swear we can feel each other’s emotions.
“Hell yeah.” He smiles but it vanishes almost instantly. “I’m terrified. Every time I think about love, I think about losing. Especially with someone who pulls away so hard.”
I lower my eyes.
“I’m sorry.” His hand goes to my cheek, just for a second. “But it’s true.”