Perception

by Kim Harrington

  I gave a little chuckle.

  “I had problems with bullies, problems fitting in.” He looked at me with genuine concern. “But things will improve, Clare. I promise you.”

  I’d never had a teacher reach out to me like that before. Acknowledge that things were difficult for me here. And though his promise was empty — he couldn’t guarantee things were going to get all sunny in my life anytime soon — I was grateful anyway.

  “Thanks, Mr. Rylander.”

  He seemed pleased with my response. He patted his hands on his jeans, stood, and walked back toward his desk. His pep talk over, his voice switched from confidant mode back to serious-teacher mode. “Think more about your future. If you have any questions about careers in science, let me know.” He wagged a finger at me. “And ignore those guidance tests.”

  I left the classroom thinking that Rylander’s little speech came at a good time, since I’d been doing some soul searching myself. And I knew for sure what I wanted to do. Rylander’s science idea was nice, but that wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

  Perry, however, had me pegged correctly. And I would ignore the guidance test.

  Because I doubted one of the options on it was Spider-Man: Sassy Girl Detective.

  I took the long way home. No more cutting through the woods for me. I decided to stop at Mallory’s house. She needed a friend right now. She might not want that person to be me, but I sure as hell was going to try.

  There were no cars in the driveway, but both her parents worked, so I expected that. I rang the doorbell a couple times and waited. After what seemed like an eternity, Mallory opened the door, wearing black pajamas with little white skulls on them. Her hair stuck out at crazy angles.

  “Sorry,” I said. “Did I wake you up?”

  “No.” She opened the door wide, motioning for me to come in. “I took a mental health day. No showering allowed. Only lying on the couch and watching soap operas.”

  “I texted you a few times to see if you were okay. Are you still mad at me?”

  “No, I don’t have the energy to be.” She slouched back on the couch and curled her legs up, making room for me. “Phone’s up in my room. I’ve been down here all day.”

  I sat beside her. A sandwich with only one bite taken out of it lay abandoned on the coffee table. “So you heard about Sierra?” I asked softly.

  She gave a little nod. Her eyes were focused on the television, a shell-shocked look to them. I glanced at the screen and saw it was only a detergent commercial.

  In the awkward silence, I patted her knee, though the gesture felt insignificant. She wasn’t a five-year-old who’d just dropped her ice cream. But I didn’t know what else to do.

  “I’m all right,” she said, possibly to make me feel better. “I’ll be back at school tomorrow afternoon.”

  “That’s good,” I said.

  She let out a long breath and drew in a deeper one. “It’s weird. I feel like I already grieved for her. Like she died when she left.” Her voice was flat. “And I shouldn’t even be upset anyway. It wasn’t like she was a great friend to me.”

  “It’s only natural, Mallory.” I’d been feeling like the air had been sucked out of my lungs all day and I’d never even known Sierra. Never even spoken to her. I could only imagine how Mallory felt.

  I watched as her face turned red from the effort of fighting back tears. She brought her fists up to her eyes.

  “You can let it out,” I said.

  She pulled her knees up and lowered her face to rest against them. Her voice was muffled as she spoke. “My parents both work so much and even when they’re home, they’re busy with their hobbies. The only reason I picked up photography was so my dad and I would have something to talk about. And school, well, you know how our school is. But I never minded how lonely I was during the day because I had Sierra waiting for me every afternoon.” She lifted her face and wiped her tears away with the back of her hand. “In school, I’d focus on classes and my work, and then I’d come home to my only friend.”

  I felt a lump in my throat, relating to Mallory’s loneliness. “It must have hurt a lot when she started ignoring you.”

  Mallory shrugged. “I should have expected it. She was always selfish. When we were little, she always got to pick what game we’d play. She always got to be Barbie and I had to be the sidekick. Even last year, for movie nights, she had to pick out the movie.”

  “Sounds bossy and self-centered,” I said.

  “It was half my fault because I let her do it. I never stood up for myself. When she said the homeschooling thing was done, I was so excited. Even though she was a year ahead and we wouldn’t share any classes, I’d still at least have a friend in the building. But instead, she apparently made a new friend or a boyfriend. She didn’t need me anymore.”

  Mallory paused to swallow hard. “She was my best friend and I was nothing to her.” Her eyes turned wearily to me. “So why does it hurt? Why do I care?”

  “Because you can’t stop being a good person, even when your friend is being an ass. I know this from experience.”

  She smiled sincerely through her tears and I used my sleeve to wipe her cheeks.

  “Thanks for listening.”

  “Thanks for letting me in,” I replied. “You should know … I’m not Sierra. I’m not going to dump you for some other friend I deem better. And I told Brooke off that day after you left the lockers.”

  “You did?”

  “Hell, yeah. I don’t think any of it sunk in, but I tried.”

  She broke into a smile and then sighed. “Can we talk about something else? Something light and meaningless?”

  “Sure. Whatever you want.”

  “Who did you choose?” She pulled herself up straight, and life returned to her eyes. “To ask to the dance?”

  I didn’t even want to think about the dance, much less talk about it, but Mallory needed this right now. “You know what might help you feel a little better?” I said. “If you went to the dance.”

  She shook her head. “No, no.”

  “It would take your mind off things.”

  “I have no one to go with.”

  “What about the person you wanted to ask before? The long shot, who was it?”

  She grimaced. “I’d rather not say. I don’t want you to feel weird.”

  “I won’t,” I insisted. “Just tell me.”

  She hesitated a moment. “It was your brother. I had such a crush on him when he went to our school, and I know he didn’t go away to college, so I thought maybe …”

  Perry? He was her big secret crush? I was surprised, though I shouldn’t have been. Almost every girl at our school had crushed on him at some point. Ick.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me?” I asked.

  “I didn’t want you to think I was using you to get close to your brother. It’s nothing like that. I want to be friends with you for you.”

  “I know.” I shoved her jokingly. “I’m not sure if he’d go to the dance, though.” I didn’t want to share Perry’s aversion to leaving the house, since that was personal, so instead I said, “He’s sort of done with the whole high school scene, you know?”

  “Oh, that’s okay,” Mallory said, nervously pulling a strand of hair across her face and turning the other way.

  I was about to start listing other possible guys she could ask, but I knew her mind wasn’t on that anymore. She was staring out the window and that dull haze had returned to her eyes. I followed her line of sight and saw Sierra’s house through the glass.

  “I want to know what happened,” she said, with a catch in her voice. “I want to know who did this to her.”

  “You don’t have any idea who she would have left with?”

  She only shook her head.

  A pat on the knee would do nothing to ease this sadness. Neither would a date with Perry. But one thing might help.

  “We’ll find out, Mallory,” I said, staring with her out the window. “I promise I’
m going to find out.”

  MOM DRUMMED THE STEERING WHEEL NERVOUSLY while she waited for me to settle in. I dropped my book bag on the floor between my feet.

  “Thanks for driving me to school.” I snapped my seat belt into the buckle and adjusted it so it would stop strangling me.

  “I’ll pick you up this afternoon, too,” Mom said, her voice tight.

  I looked at her, confused. “But you like to be home in case we get business. Send Perry.”

  Her mouth turned down. “Perry’s unreliable and I don’t want you walking home anymore.”

  The news about Sierra Waldman’s murder had hit our house like a bomb. Mom went on high alert, pacing the floors, checking and rechecking the locks before bed. Perry headed into his room and, from what I’d seen, hadn’t come out. My heart went out to him. This had to be bringing back bad memories, and that was something he didn’t need right now.

  “Okay,” I said. “But I don’t want it to interfere with the business. I can get a ride from friends.”

  “I don’t care about the business right now.”

  Starla Fern was normally as likely to say those words as she was to speak Latin backward. I gave her a sideways look.

  “In fact,” she said, drawing the words out slowly as she looked both ways at a stop sign, “I’m thinking of taking a little break. Thinking the family should go away for a while.”

  I stared at her. “What?”

  “Until Sierra’s killer is caught,” she clarified, as if I didn’t already know what had kicked off this overreaction.

  “I can’t miss school,” I said.

  “You can miss a few days.”

  “But what if the case isn’t solved that quickly? What if it takes weeks? Months? I’m not going to repeat eleventh grade because of this, Mom.”

  Her jaw was set. “Maybe you should if it means keeping you safe.”

  I couldn’t believe this was happening. I finally had a life outside of my house. I had friends. I had Justin and Gabriel. I had things to look forward to. The bonfire Friday night. Perhaps even the dance Saturday night. I was not going to scurry away and leave everything behind because of what happened to someone I didn’t even know. Plus, I wanted to help the investigation, not hide from it.

  But now I definitely couldn’t tell Mom about my intentions.

  “Sierra Waldman was killed,” I said carefully. “One person. That doesn’t mean we have a serial killer on our hands out there looking for his next victim. She got involved with the wrong person and ended up dead. It’s terrible, but it has nothing to do with me.”

  “Victoria Happel’s death this summer had nothing to do with you until you involved yourself.”

  “If I hadn’t involved myself, Perry would be in prison right now.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you about this, Clare. You need to promise me you’re going to stay away from this case, or we’re packing up and leaving. I don’t care about school or any plans you have. All I care about is you.”

  Her eyes were wild. I’d never seen her so panicked. I understood, though. After what went down this summer, she’d barely let me out of her sight for a month. And now she was scared. She didn’t want to be in the position Tracy Waldman was in.

  I’d told Mrs. Waldman I’d help. And I’d promised Mallory I’d find out the truth, too. But the only way I could salvage my life was to assure Mom that I wouldn’t involve myself. And then decide which promise to break.

  The car eased up to the curb in front of the school. I turned to face my mom. “If I promise not to investigate, we can stay?”

  “Yes.”

  “What if the police ask for my help again?”

  “This time, we’ll say no,” she said firmly.

  “Okay. I’ll stay out of it.”

  Mom sighed in relief, leaned over, and kissed the top of my head. I was always going to be her little girl. She would always worry and her first instinct was always going to be to overreact and overprotect me. That’s just how she was. I grabbed my stuff and headed toward the front door of the school, sure of one thing.

  If I wanted to stay in Eastport and hold on to my life as I knew it, I couldn’t tell Mom about my secret admirer.

  My teachers had apparently all conspired to give quizzes — planned and pop — on the same day. I aced Rylander’s but wasn’t as prepared for Mr. Frederick’s and Mrs. Cotler’s. I was mentally exhausted by the time the bell rang at the end of the last period.

  The sounds of slamming lockers and simultaneous conversations filled the hall as I riffled through my stuff, pulling out the books and notebooks that needed to come home. Finally, I slung my backpack over my shoulder and joined the exiting crowd. Instead of heading toward the back door, I was among the stream of kids bottlenecked at the stairwell, all shuffling toward the front exit, where buses and cars idled.

  Just as I was almost at the front doors, I felt something in my eye. I blinked rapidly, but the pain only worsened. Groaning, I turned around and staggered against the flow of traffic toward the closest bathroom. I pushed the door open, one hand over my closed eye, and rushed up to the mirror. I pulled down on my lower lid and saw the sucker. Eyelash. I got it out and sighed in relief as the irritation went away.

  Only then did I realize I wasn’t alone.

  Kendra was in the corner, hovering over the last sink, using one of those rough brown paper towels to wipe smudged makeup from beneath her eyes. Her face was blotchy and red, as if she’d been crying.

  I reached into my book bag and pulled a tissue from the little travel pack I always kept in there. “Here,” I said, passing it to her. “That’ll work better.”

  “Thanks,” she said softly, refusing to meet my gaze.

  The reason I knew how much it sucked to wipe away tears with a hard, cheap, school paper towel was because I’d done it myself. Quite a few times over the years, because of Kendra and her friends.

  I wondered if she realized it.

  “You all right?” I said, moving closer.

  She turned away. “Just leave me alone.”

  I thought about the times I’d hidden in here, locked myself in a stall, hoping no one would come in and catch me crying quietly. But a small part of me had simultaneously wished someone would walk in. They’d ask me what was wrong. They’d care.

  “You can tell me what’s wrong if you want.”

  “Yeah, right.” She looked up with her swollen eyes. “Why would you care? You hate me.”

  “I’m standing here talking to you after what you did to me at your party. That has to count for something.”

  “Brooke said you told her off.”

  I shrugged. “You two never wanted to be my friends. You wanted to use me as your circus monkey. That’s not what friends do.” I paused. “Friends also don’t compete with each other. Go after their guys.”

  Kendra’s mouth drew tight and she looked down at the dirty linoleum floor. So that’s what the tears were for. Tiffany’s betrayal.

  “I don’t have a date to the homecoming dance,” she said.

  “Don’t go. Not everyone goes.”

  She rolled her eyes. “Kendra Kiger goes. I can’t be voted princess if I don’t go.”

  “What’s that?”

  “In the Homecoming Court. Two seniors are voted king and queen and two juniors are voted prince and princess.”

  I wondered how much of this pressure she was putting on herself and how much of it was coming from her mother. But to mention that would lead to telling Kendra about the vision I’d had in her house. And … that would be awkward.

  I lifted myself up onto the counter and swung my legs as I talked. “There are plenty of guys still without dates.”

  “Yeah, they’re either losers or Clare Fern holdouts.”

  I laughed.

  “Seriously,” she said, giving a little giggle herself. “Just ask one of them or put them both out of their misery.”

  “We’re not talking about me right now,” I said. “How abou
t you go with a girlfriend? Go with Brooke.”

  “She’s going with Jordan. They got back together at my party. Plus, my mother would freak out. I need to go with a hot guy. Homecoming King material. Brendan was perfect, but I was playing hard to get and waited too long to ask him. I never thought Tiffany would turn around and ask him behind my back.”

  I held my hands up in an I told you so kind of way.

  “I know,” Kendra said. “But she hated you. I didn’t think she’d do something skeezy to a friend.”

  Suddenly, I remembered that my mother was sitting outside in the car, waiting for me.

  “You’ll think of someone. It’ll all work out.” I slid down off the counter. “But I’ve got to go. My ride’s waiting.” And probably thinking I’ve been kidnapped by a serial killer at this point.

  “I’m going to stay here for a few more minutes,” Kendra said, her eyes returning to the mirror. “I don’t want anyone to see me like this.”

  I pulled open the heavy bathroom door and stepped into the quiet of the now deserted hallway. My sneakers squeaked on the waxed floor. A door closed somewhere behind me. Muffled conversation drifted up from downstairs.

  I had almost reached the end of the hallway when I heard a sudden, quickening shuffle behind me. Then I was slammed against a locker. A forearm clamped like a vise on my neck, smushing my face against the cold metal.

  A voice, hot in my ear, snarled, “You think you’re soooo special, don’t you, Clare?”

  I STRAINED TO TURN MY HEAD AND FACE MY attacker. My struggling only made him laugh. My arms were pinned, but my feet were free and I calculated, aimed, and brought my heel down hard on his foot.

  He yelped and stepped back, releasing me.

  I brought my arms up defensively, then relaxed when I saw who it was. Cody Rowe. That useless moron. I wasn’t afraid of him.

  He narrowed his eyes and gave me one of his smarmy looks. “You’re walking around here thinking you’re hot shit,” he said. “You think you’re so special with your family of freaks. I had to pay cash money to get my car fixed, bitch.” He pointed in my face. “My dad was pissed.”