by Lauryn April
“I don’t have to stay if you don’t want, if you’re worried about your mom, or…”
“I want you to stay, Brant.”
He smiled at me and I got into bed. As I pulled my comforter up to my chin, I watched him shed his jacket and slip off his shoes. He placed the dark coat over the back of my desk chair and left the shoes beside the bed. Then he hesitated for a moment as if unsure of how comfortable he was allowed to get. After a few minutes, he mustered up some courage as he pulled off his t-shirt, setting it with his jacket, and then began to unclasp his belt.
As he undressed, I found that I was incapable of offering him the same politeness that he had offered me. My eyes seemed to be glued to the muscles of his back with every move he made. His body was lean, not a hulking mass of muscles, but fit and athletic. Then he turned back to me and my eyes darted away from his sun-kissed skin and sought out his eyes. I felt myself blush just ever so slightly but did my best to hide my embarrassment. Brant stalked toward the bed in nothing but his boxers and quickly slid beneath the covers to lie beside me.
We lied side by side for a moment, facing one another but not touching. His eyes traced the outline of my face as I took in all of his features just the same. It was almost as if we were both afraid to move anything more than the eyeballs in our heads, as if by doing so the moment we had would be lost.
“Ivy, I really do, I… I like you a lot.”
I smiled. “I feel the same about you.”
I scooted closer to him and his arms wrapped around me. He pulled me tight to him and kissed me softly on the forehead. His skin against mine, the heat of his body keeping me warm, it reminded me that I’m not alone. I nestled into his form.
“Brant?” I asked after a moment, my voice reverberating through the shadows.
“Yeah?”
“What did you do after your mom left?”
I felt him stiffen behind me and I worried that I’d overstepped some invisible boundary, worried that what I’d asked wasn’t for me to know. Then I felt him exhale and he relaxed.
“We looked for her… at first it was just calling friends and family, then the police. Her photo was on the news, in papers, posters. We did a lot of things.” He was quiet for a moment and when he spoke again, it was with a softer voice. “None of it made any difference though, we didn’t find her. Didn’t find any clues, no credit card receipts to tell where she may have been, didn’t catch a glimpse of her on a security camera, nothing. She just vanished.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be… maybe there’s just some things we can’t control… and sometimes I wonder if it’s better not knowing.”
I nodded into my pillow, understanding completely what he meant. Brant tightened his arms around me and within his embrace, I found the comfort I needed to find a peaceful sleep.
26
Save Me
I woke that morning at five a.m. to the screeching of my alarm clock. It startled me from sleep, but the feeling of Brant’s arm wrapped around my middle quickly calmed me. As I reached toward my end table to silence my alarm, I felt his hold on me tighten, the soft hairs on his arm tickling the exposed skin between my tank top and the waistband of my shorts. I twisted around in his grasp so that I was facing him and I found his eyes open. They twinkled down at me, their lids still heavy with sleep and he smiled.
“Morning.”
“We should get up,” I said, my voice still sleepy and low.
“We have an hour before we need to be there.”
“I need to get ready.”
He frowned, “You don’t need to get all dressed up to do what we need to do today.”
I stared at him for a moment thinking things over. I wanted to do nothing but lie in bed with him all day. I didn’t need to kiss him, didn’t need to be wrapped up in some passionate affair with him. Being beside him was enough. I resigned to stay in bed for a short while longer, but eventually did get up to shower and throw on a little makeup.
I dressed simply, in jeans and a navy V-neck t-shirt. I threw my hair up into a ponytail then left the bathroom and walked quietly back into my room. There I found Brant already dressed and waiting for me. Little conversation passed between us as I found shoes and grabbed my orange ALH zip up from my closet. Even though I wasn’t actually planning to go to the assembly, I still dressed in our school colors. Partly because I didn’t want to stand out, but also because they were comfy and didn’t require much thought as far as planning an outfit goes. We were the Alta Ladera Eagles and our colors were burnt orange and navy blue. Those would be practically the only colors I would see that day. Except on Brant, he was dressed in varying dark shades of black and grey. That was just Brant though, I couldn’t picture him in burnt orange, it wouldn’t look right.
Cautiously we left my room, Brant following behind me as I peered out into the hallway to make sure that my mom wasn’t up yet. She wasn’t, as the house was still silent. Quietly we made our way downstairs and I left Mom a note on the kitchen counter saying I’d gone to school early to talk to one of my teachers. Then we left.
Charlie was waiting for us on the common when we arrived. She stood nervously with her arms crossed over her orange ALH tee. Brant had parked around the block from my house the night before, and he left his car there that day as we drove together in my Scion. When we parked at school, I noticed that there were few cars in the parking lot. I’d never been to school that early before and it was strange seeing it so empty, so quiet. It was like a ghost town from some old Western movie, I could even imagine tumbleweeds blowing across the sidewalk.
Once Brant and I met up with Charlie, we made our way into the school. We walked quietly side by side, watching the few students that were there pass us by. An odd kind of silence came over all of us during that short walk through the front doors and down the hall to the basement entrance. It felt as if what we were doing wasn’t real. Like it was just something imagined in a dream. It felt as if I was watching the events around me on a television screen and the unnerving quiet that surrounded me was from setting it to mute. However, none of us were sleeping, we weren’t watching some show. It was real, but despite knowing that, it still felt illusory.
“Ready?” Brant asked as he picked the lock to the basement door.
Wordlessly, Charlie and I glanced at one another then he opened the door and we followed him down. As I moved into the fluorescent-lit basement of the school, it felt as if I were in a trance. One foot in front of the other, stepping on dusty cement steps, my hand held the metal railing and I listened to the soft nothingness that floated through the air. If anyone else was in the basement with us, there was no sign of them.
Brant and I followed Charlie as she led us through the basement so that we were directly below the gym. We walked down a hallway where dozens of pipes created a maze above our heads, and the sound of rushing water flowed into my ears. We past a door that was marked ‘Boiler Room’ then made our way around a sharp corner. I saw bright blue wrestling mats stacked against the wall, and a rack of weights, bins filled with basketballs, and a gymnastic horse. My eyes rolled over every piece as I scanned the room. Then I stopped. The gym equipment, exercise bikes and baseball bats, they blurred into the background as if my eyes were the focusing lens of a camera and readjusted to look at something else. It was then that I saw him, saw it, all of it. It was that image that knocked me out of my trancelike state and back into reality. I blinked as if hoping that it all were just a mirage before me, but it didn’t vanish from my sight.
In cartoons, bombs were always made of bright red sticks of dynamite and large round ticking clocks. I hadn’t really expected to see anything like that down there, but I hadn’t expected to see what I did either. Sometimes on TV, in spy shows, or in the movies, you see these tiny little bombs, small constructs of wire and a play-dough-like grey brick of C4 that, despite their size, seem to be able to destroy entire city blocks. This wasn’t like that either. What I saw before me was a massive cons
truct of gallon jugs that once held milk but had been emptied and refilled with an amber-colored liquid. There were wires and duct tape wrapped around the structure, spiraling from one piece to another like taffy twisting on a pull. I don’t know enough about bombs to say what every piece did, but I did know that there were a lot of explosives, more than enough to destroy the school gym.
Eric Thompson was staring down at the thing he had created. I could only see the side of his face, his plump cheeks, and thick brow. His hair was greasy and black; his shoulders were hunched and brooding. He turned to us and I saw his eyes. I was expecting them to be black and empty, but they weren’t. They were deep and filled with pain and confusion which seemed to visibly swirl around within his brown orbs. He looked over the three of us and for a moment I thought he looked relieved. I’d later come to realize that he wasn’t looking to have someone stop him as I’d thought at the time, he wanted someone to see what he was doing because he wanted it to be known that it was him who’d done it.
It’s too late, he thought.
“No, Eric, it’s not too late, you don’t have to do this.”
His eyes darted to mine, looking surprised. He was wondering how we got in the basement, then he shook his head. “Yes, I do… I have to show them.”
“Not like this. This isn’t the answer.”
His lips twisted into a frown and he shook his head. “Then what is?” He grew angry and I saw his plump cheeks flush red, “What will it take to make them see? Nothing.”
“If nothing will make them see, then why do this?” Charlie asked.
Eric let out an agitated growl. “Because they deserve to die.” His answer was cold and his words sent a shiver through me that was as cold as ice. “This isn’t just about me, it’s not about revenge. It’s about showing them that I’m someone.” His hand was fisted and he pounded it against his chest as he spoke.
“No one deserves to die like this,” Brant said.
Slowly, I took a step toward Eric, my eyes steady and unmoving from his form. “Eric,” I began.
“Don’t, it’s too late now. It’s all set to go… You can’t stop us.”
“No, it doesn’t have to be like…” My words drifted off like an echo falling away into oblivion. I paused and could feel the crease forming between my brows. Us… “Us?” Suddenly it rushed back to me, the voice from the library, the voice that wasn’t quite Eric Thompsons. It won’t be a big enough explosion, we need more. We, I thought, we, I had thought about that very sentence a thousand times over and never before had the word ‘we’ stuck out. How could I have missed that? We should never have been looking for one bomber; we should have been looking for two.
Oh God, there’s two of them, Charlie thought and similar realization passed through Brant’s mind.
“Eric, who else is working with you?”
“I said it doesn’t matter now.” I have to do this. Eric’s eyes were back staring at his bomb like it was the accumulation of his life’s work.
Ivy, we’re running out of time. People are gonna start showing up in the gym soon, Brant’s voice rang in my mind. He was right.
“Eric, I can’t let you do this.” He took a step back then and I saw him reaching for something. “Charlie, where’s the most likely place for the other bomber to be?”
“Um,” she said and froze.
“Charlie,” I said again more firmly.
“Uh, the locker rooms… probably the boys, you’d risk running into Farrow in the girls.” I watched Eric as she spoke, and saw the slight widening of his eyes.
She still won’t get to him in time, I’ll keep them here, he thought, and I knew that was it.
“Eric, please, there has to be something… you can’t really want everyone dead.”
“It’s not about them… they’re just a means to an end.”
Again his worlds chilled me. I realized there was no reasoning with him. “Brant,” I said and slowly he took a step toward Eric.
Right then, on to plan B.
Brant moved forward and Eric took another step back. He and Brant stood like that for a moment, stuck in limbo where they were both weary of the other’s movement. Brant, ready to attack him and Eric, ready to dive for the trigger of his bomb in a last attempt to keep his plan from completely going under. The air was tense and thick with anticipation. We were all dominoes standing in a circle, waiting to see who would be the first to tumble and set the rest of us off into our actions. Then finally it happened.
I’m not sure who moved first, if it were Brant or if Eric had moved for the trigger to the bomb, but suddenly Brant was flying in the air and hit Eric in the chest. He wavered for a moment, unsteady on his feet. I saw him reach out toward the bomb again, but now Brant had him knocked to the floor. To my right, Charlie was dialing her phone. I looked back to Brant and saw him seemingly take the upper hand. He looked to me for a moment, just a quick glance.
“Go!” he shouted and I was off.
I think I’d been waiting for that, like a swimmer standing at the edge of the pool waiting for that gun shot. It took the sound of Brant’s voice to get me to jump in, but once I was in, I was all in. I ran through the basement and raced up the stairs, taking them two at a time. I could hear Charlie behind me, she was on the phone, but it seemed that she was making her way upstairs to find immediate help as well.
None of this had gone as I had expected. I had thought it would have been easier to talk to him. I thought I could reason with him. I thought we would have gotten there before he would have had any time to set up. I had thought that there was only Eric. When I hit the hallway, I stopped for a second to orient myself and then I ran toward the gym. More students filled the halls than before. Every minute, more kids were arriving. They were going to their lockers, standing in the halls, they were in my way. I pushed past people as I moved, nearly tripping over some, but I kept going. I wasn’t going to stop for anything. This was too important. I neared the door of the gym, it was only a step away, but then as it came into view, so did Tiana, Christy and Eliza.
I stopped dead in my tracks as did they. For a moment, my mind went blank. For a moment, I forgot what I was doing.
“Well look who it is,” Eliza said.
“I’m surprised to see you without Brant,” Christy added.
I saw Tiana look to her. God, who cares anymore, Christy, she thought.
“Guys,” I said, “I don’t have time for this right now,” I tried to get past them but they wouldn’t move out of the doorway.
“Jesus, Ivy, what’s so important?” Christy asked. “Maybe if you spent less time running around, you’d still have friends.”
I rolled my eyes then and pushed past them. As I entered the gym, however, I turned around.
“By the way, Christy, maybe if you spent less time being so self-absorbed, you’d realize that there are more important things in this world than yourself. Everyone and everything around you doesn’t need to be so freaking perfect all the time. Maybe then you could have been there for Tiana when she needed your support, but you don’t even know why she was really upset about me seeing Brant,”
Christy looked to Ti and Ti’s eyes went wide.
“Or maybe, like there’s someone in the guy’s locker room planning to set off a bomb and kill us all, not that anyone seems to have noticed that one but me.”
“What?”
“She’s not being serious,” Eliza said.
“Actually, yeah, I am, you should all go, get out, and see if you can get anyone to leave with you.” I turned and walked toward the locker room again.
“Wait,” Christy called out to me, “Where are you going?”
“To try and stop him.”
She stared at me with her mouth agape, but I turned from her and raced toward the boys’ room. A moment before I walked into the locker room, I heard her think about how stupid that was; but she still didn’t understand. This wasn’t about me. I wasn’t doing it to save me.
27
&
nbsp; Feel the Heat
It was humid in the locker room and it smelled oddly clean, like fresh soap. Although, considering no one had used the locker room to change for gym yet that day, it made sense that it would be void of the oily smell of sweat. My shoes squeaked against the tile floor as I walked past the showers and toward the large open area of red lockers. Fear was making my whole body shake. I felt like a small child that had been locked in a closet, afraid of the sleeves of the coats behind me as if they were monsters in the dark, and the pounding of my fists against the closet door was the panicked rhythm of my heartbeat. As I walked through the locker room, my heart was beating so hard I worried it would break my ribcage. Then I heard a noise and held my breath, something metal clanking against the tile and a murmured voice. I took a deep breath and stopped walking. I closed my eyes and calmed myself. I could do this.
I opened my eyes with a newfound sense of self-assurance and walked around the corner. There I saw him. His back was turned to me, light brown hair sitting in a mop on his head. He was hunched over, looking at what appeared to be a propane tank. Even hunched over and facing away from me, I could tell that he was tall and seemed to be fairly fit.
That should do it, I heard him think, and I knew his voice was the one that I had heard on the common and in the library.
Hearing that voice again made me angry and it helped me muster up some confidence. For a moment, I felt almost cocky, adrenaline was pumping through my veins. Adrenaline that started to flow the second I saw Eric in the basement when fear and reality had started to set in, adrenaline that had pushed me up the stairs and made me rush to the locker room. Now that adrenaline was just sitting stagnant in my veins as I stood still. It had me feeling hyper as if I were riding on a caffeine-induced sugar high. It had me feeling like I could say or do anything.
