by daisy harris
A chill air blew through the trees, making drops of water fall from the leaves. I brushed the dampness from my hair.
“No. You don’t.” His phone was still in his hand, and I pointed at it. “You don’t need to be talking to her, and you don’t even need to solve this thing. Why is this your problem? Is this about what happened to you in sixth grade?” I knew I should stop talking. Julius’s face was turning red. I’d opened the floodgates, though, and couldn’t stop all my suspicions from spilling out of my mouth. “Is this about what happened with you and—”
“Do not say his name,” Julius snarled. His hair framed his face in stark curtains. “You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.”
Adrenaline rushing through my system, I fisted my hands. “I think I do.”
He pulled his lips into a tight, pale line. “You’re an asshole.”
“Yeah?” I lifted my chin, staring at the passing traffic. “But at least I’m not the one who keeps falling for psychos.”
Julius’s face went ashen. “Perhaps I do.” He looked down his nose at me. “But at least I’m not scared to go after what I want.”
A sparkling Mercedes G-Class pulled up in front of us, Natasha leaning out the window. “Mrs. Hundstead asked me to pick you up. What in the hell trouble have you gotten yourself into this time, Julius?”
“We’re done here.” Julius headed for the SUV.
Regret washed over me, making my stomach empty and cold. “I’ll stay and follow Stacey this afternoon,” I called to him. “Just for an hour or two. Maybe I can get a peek at her phone.” I wished I could take back everything I’d said. Bringing up Kyle had been way out of line; I should have asked him about that days ago, when I was calm. Now I’d taken his worst memories and thrown them in his face. “You could come if you want,” I said hopefully. “It would be fun.”
Quietly, Bethany climbed into the far side of the SUV. She probably thought I’d been a dick too.
Julius lifted his chin. “I can’t. My parents have me in therapy this afternoon.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I stepped toward him, feeling shittier by the second. Guilt festered in my chest, making me cross my arms to get rid of the ache. “I didn’t know.”
“Yeah, well, it’s a new guy. My parents asked the school for a recommendation after what they’d heard about my bullying Hal.”
Insides going cold, I nibbled my fingernail. “But it probably won’t be that bad. You can talk to him about other stuff.”
From Julius’s frown, he clearly thought therapy could be pretty bad. “Here’s hoping I can get through this without a medication change. I don’t mind antidepressants, but I despise Xanax.” He twisted his lips on one side in the most fake smile I’d ever seen him give anyone.
“I’ll watch Stacey on my own this afternoon. It’s probably nothing—”
“It is nothing.”
“But I want to be sure.”
“Fine.” Julius exhaled.
I wanted to fix things. To tell him that I was sorry. That I believed him even if no one else did. I wanted to tell him that despite his history of emotional problems, I still wanted to be his friend.
But Natasha pulled away from the curb, and Julius had already bent his head, like he was staring at his phone. His hair was in his face, so I couldn’t see his expression. But he was wiping something out of his eyes.
I trailed Stacey from school to the nearby Whole Foods. At first I headed down the produce aisle, trying to hide behind piles of greens and stands full of potatoes. But I looked stupid without a cart so I grabbed a basket by the cashiers. By the time I’d found her again, she was in the cereal aisle.
Turning away, I pretended to read a box of bran flakes.
Out the corner of my eye, I saw Stacey stick her hand in her pocket and pull something out. I thought it was a cell phone, but perhaps that was a trick of the light. Unfortunately, she glanced in my direction at that point, and wrinkled her forehead. My power of invisibility seemed to fail without Julius around.
“Hey.” Stacey jutted her chin. “Aren’t you that kid from the dance? What are you doing here?”
I froze, mind going blank. “Uh . . . My mom needed some groceries. So, uh . . .”
“She sent you in?” Stacey glanced down the aisle.
No one was coming to my rescue. Not Julius or Bethany or even my mother. I should have been smarter. After the stuff Julius and I had done together, I should have known what I was doing. “Actually, yeah. She’s out in the car.” I hoped my voice didn’t quiver.
“Zoe isn’t here, if that’s who you’re looking for.” Stacey crossed her arms and stepped to the side of her shopping cart.
“Oh. Well, anyway. I need to go. My mom’ll be worried.” I couldn’t bring myself to pass her, so I grabbed the closest box of cereal and spun in the opposite direction. My mind raced as I hurried through the grocery store, and called myself every dirty name in the book.
On the way to the door, I ditched my basket, along with the incriminating cereal. No way could I get through the line and still disappear before Stacey was done shopping. Moreover, I didn’t have any money.
My phone buzzed. It was Bethany. Did you follow her?
I checked over my shoulder, making sure Stacey didn’t see me cross the street. Yes, I texted. That was stupid. I shouldn’t have gone after her alone.
It’s okay. We’ll follow her online. Talk to Julius, he might have found something worthwhile. That was Bethany’s way of pointing out Julius was the brains of our little detective operation.
The bus pulled up in front of me, and I ground my teeth as I boarded. I hated to admit it, but Bethany had a point: without Julius, I had nothing.
“Julius! You have a friend here,” Mrs. Hundstead called up the stairs when I stopped by the Drake house that evening. “Be gentle with him,” she murmured. “He’s in a bit of a mood. Might not be the best company.”
I climbed the stairs. The house was silent other than the bubbling of the koi pond, so maybe Natasha was out with friends. If she were home, at least she’d grouse at Julius and me for being idiots. The giant living room felt too empty without her snarky comments ringing down the upstairs hall.
“Hey.” I knocked on Julius’s door. When there was no answer, I called, “It’s me. Henry. Can I come in?”
“Go away,” Julius said.
Swallowing hard, I got up my courage. “I get that you’re in a shit mood, but I want to talk to you about something.” I turned the handle on his doorknob. His door didn’t lock. Apparently, his parents hadn’t thought their kids would need privacy.
“Whatever it is, I’m sure you can tell me tomorrow.” Julius was lying on his bed, staring at the top bunk. The lights were off and the shades drawn. Kid furniture or not, his room felt like a morgue.
“You okay?” I ducked under the top bunk to sit on his bed.
His face was puffy and his eyes red. I’d never noticed before how Julius’s hair, though long, had always been precisely straight. Now it was a messy mop. What had this therapist done to make Julius’s perfect exterior crack? “Did he believe you about not bullying Hal?” I kept my voice low, knowing that if Julius told me anything, it would be in whispers.
“No.” His voice was raspy. He wiped a hand across his face. “He’d been thoroughly briefed by my parents, who are under the impression I’m either lying or delusional.”
“Was it a one-off session? Maybe you won’t have to go again.”
Julius sighed. “Technically, I need to consent to treatment since I’m fourteen.” He waved a hand limply. “But if I don’t, my parents have threatened to send me to boarding school, so . . .” He looked to the side, blinking. “Mrs. Hundstead would be lost without me.”
I wanted to take his hand, but I resisted the urge to reach out. Julius clearly hadn’t been close to too many people in his life. After what I’d said that afternoon, I suspected my chances of being on hand-holding terms were slim.
“The doctor recomme
nded another assessment. A two-day battery. I’ll have to miss school.” Julius slammed his fist into his mattress. “And I know that whatever results the tests show, he’s going to want to increase my meds.”
“You don’t know that.” I doubted anyone would want to force a kid to take more drugs unless they had to. Anyway, Julius’s behavior wasn’t terrible. He did great in school.
“He’s an adolescent psychosis specialist. A man like that doesn’t make money telling parents their kids are fine.”
I ground my teeth together. “They can’t force you to take medicine if you don’t want to.” My mom was a nurse. I knew this stuff. Anyone who wanted could refuse medical care. Unless they tried to detain him on mental health grounds—but there was no reason to think Julius was a danger to himself or anyone else.
Julius stared at the top bunk, his gaze empty. “You want me to get sent away?”
I yearned to grip his arm, or give him a hug, or something. I knew he wouldn’t let me. “What happened with that teacher, Julius?” I asked, like I should have before, instead of jumping to my own conclusions.
“Nothing.” His voice was dead and dry, like he’d practiced saying it again and again. “He was nice to me. That’s all it was.” His breath hitched. “Anything else was in my head.”
My nose got hot, and next thing I knew my eyes were as damp as Julius’s. I held it together long enough to whisper, “I know that’s not true.”
Julius pulled in a shaky breath, and for a second I thought he would open up. But then, with a hearty sniffle, he rolled onto his side. “I’m sorry to be rude.” Julius’s voice was thick. “But you need to leave.”
This time, I didn’t argue. I rose from his bed and headed for the door, and though I paused in his threshold, I couldn’t come up with anything to say. I’d hurt him too badly. So I left, wiping my face as I went.
On my way out, I heard voices in the kitchen. One was Mrs. Hundstead’s. The other was airy and unfocused, but with a cultured edge. “I understand, Mrs. Hundstead, but you’re just going to have to change your plans. Richard and I simply cannot come back from St. Thomas any sooner.”
As I crossed into the kitchen, I saw Mrs. Hundstead and a tall woman with black hair. The latter wore a crisp white dress shirt tucked into tailored gray slacks, and was so thin I might have lost track of her if she turned sideways. While on some women that kind of skinniness made them look fragile, the cut of muscles in her forearms suggested she could kick my ass.
“Uh . . . hi.” I assumed this lady was Julius’s mother, but waited for an introduction.
To Mrs. Hundstead, the woman said, “You didn’t tell me the children had friends over.”
Normally, nothing seemed to bother Julius’s nanny. However, this time her nostrils flared. “This is Henry Walker. He’s in Julius’s class. Henry, this is Mrs. Drake.”
“Hi, Mrs. Drake.” I held out my hand for a shake. Apparently, Julius’s mother wasn’t down with the Seattle custom of kids calling adults by their first names.
Her fingers met mine for only a second. As she glanced me over, I knew exactly what she saw. My shoes with holes in them. The jeans Mom had cuffed for me after I got them secondhand. Every little detail that Julius might have noticed I could see in his mother’s sneer.
“You were that boy who got Julius in trouble earlier this year, weren’t you?”
I swallowed hard, not knowing how to answer. “You mean with Hal Stubenmeyer? I only met him that day.”
“Regardless. I’m surprised you weren’t suspended. My son is troubled. He doesn’t need friends who’ll be a bad influence.”
I looked at the floor, having no defense against her words. Every step of the way, Julius had been leading. I’d never meant to get him in trouble. But now, having seen the happiness drain from his eyes, I worried some of this was my fault.
“I’m sorry,” I muttered.
“It’s getting late, Henry. I assume you have someone who expects you home?” She cocked her eyebrows, dismissing me from her life.
Part of me wanted to lash out and say, “No, actually, I’m homeless. Living on the streets in a box. Going to Clinton Academy is part of my cunning plan to befriend your son and ruin your life.”
There was no point. She was right. I had no place in her world.
“Well, bye.” I turned. “Bye, Mrs. Hundstead.”
She gave me a sad smile. “Have a nice evening, Henry.”
“Where have you been?”
I froze in the doorway to my apartment, surprised to see Mom standing in the kitchen. “At a friend’s house.” I set my backpack on the floor and dug through it for my cell phone. The time read nine thirty, but more importantly there were five missed texts from Mom. “Oh, sorry.” My chest felt cold. “I didn’t see the messages.”
“You know, I gave you a cell phone so I could reach you when you were out,” she said in a clipped tone. Her forehead was lined with worry.
“I said I was sorry!” After the day I’d had, I didn’t give a shit about Mom’s nannying. A boy at school was missing, I’d hurt the one person I cared most about in the world, and it wasn’t like my mom was around a lot anyway. She’d been working so much I’d barely seen her in days. “I thought you were at the hospital. There really isn’t a reason for me to be here instead of at a friend’s house.”
“Reason? You need a reason to be home at night?” Her voice rose. “What were you doing all evening, may I ask?”
“Nothing.” I crossed my arms, realizing that with one phone call, she could find out that I hadn’t even gone to school that day.
Silence stretched between us, my mother staring at me stonily, and me with my muscles so tight I might have broken a concrete slab with my tension.
In the end, it was Mom who cracked first. “I want you home for a few days,” she snapped as she reached in the cabinet for a wineglass. “You can go to your after-school activities, but other than those, you need to come straight home.” Her words were as sharp as a drill sergeant’s. “Text me when you get here.”
“Yeah. Fine, okay.” I ground my teeth because what else was I going to say? I could point out that she had no real way of enforcing this grounding, at least not if she was at work.
But then what? If I said she had no real control over me, all I’d get was a mother crying hysterically, days of the silent treatment, and even less contact with her than I had now.
There was no choice but to play by the rules, no matter how arbitrary. “I’m going to do my homework.” Without looking in her direction, I headed to my bed and pulled out my books.
“Have you eaten yet?”
“Not really.” My phone buzzed. It was probably a text from Bethany, but I didn’t dare look. The last thing I wanted was to get my phone taken away. So I furtively put it on mute and focused on the book in my lap, even though my eyes were so damp I couldn’t see the words.
Julius was late to school the next morning, and he hadn’t returned my texts. I shouldn’t have worried. Maybe he’d taken a sick day, and he was probably still mad. Nevertheless, I headed to the office to see if I could pump Maureen for information on his whereabouts.
“Is there a problem, Henry?” Maureen glanced behind her. “We’re a little busy. If it’s not urgent, you might want to come back in the afternoon.”
“Oh, it’s no big deal. But I wondered if Julius—”
The door to Liz Cantor-Chang’s office opened and a couple of adults came out, followed by Dr. Cochow, and finally, a very distressed Todd Terwillager. His eyes were bruised with crying and his hair a mess. In the time since I’d last seen him, he seemed to have aged five years.
“Oh hell.” I didn’t know whether I was relieved to see Todd or just surprised.
“Yes.” Maureen smiled, apparently not minding that I’d cursed. “Todd’s fine. He returned home last night, and he’ll be back in school starting tomorrow.”
“What? Where did he go? And why?”
“You know I can’t share
details.” Maureen tutted. “But I can tell you that there is something fishy going on with a fake online account that’s been causing trouble for some students here.”
My pulse kicked up, beating so hard in my neck I thought it might strangle me. “Really? A fake account?”
“Indeed.”
Todd and his parents stood in a huddle nearby, with Todd clearly shaken. The honey-brown hair he’d always gelled within an inch of its life hung limp around his face.
“I’m glad he’s okay,” I said honestly. Not that Todd was my favorite person, but I was glad he wasn’t dead.
“We all are. But the school needs to take action on this. We’re declaring today a cell phone–free day, and student devices are going to be confiscated before lunch.”
My heart lurched, and I struggled not to rip open my backpack. All my texts, posts, and updates. Everything Julius, Bethany, and I had said about The Other Woman was stored in that little palm-sized brick. What if someone managed to crack my pass code? I was screwed.
“You gotta do what you gotta do,” I said. “I guess I should grab mine out of my locker, then.” Please, God, don’t let my phone ring. I backed out of the office, holding my painfully fake smile. When I got into the hallway, I ran as fast as I could.
Ducking into a bathroom, I pulled out my phone. I was unsure whether to contact Bethany or Julius first, so I sent a message to both of them.
I need to talk to you NOW. Where are you??
Bethany’s message came first: What’s up? I told her to meet me outside the fire doors in the senior hall. Unfortunately, Julius didn’t answer. All I could do was hope he’d stayed home. If Julius’s parents learned about him texting a psycho, he’d be lucky to get out of therapy before college.
I ignored the bell for class, hurrying to the meeting spot. Outside, the sky was gray and a light drizzle coated my sweatshirt. I’d only started going through my phone when Bethany appeared, jogging around the side of the building. As soon as I glanced her direction, her eyes widened. She pulled out her phone as she sprinted to my side.
