Violent Ends

by Neal Shusterman

  Carrie’s voice was soothing, lulling me into submission. I had done so many of these chats, I thought I knew what came next. I made the mistake of letting my guard down.

  “Jenny,” she said, brushing her Barbie dream-girl locks behind her ear, leaning in, “you bought Kirby’s coffee that day.”

  “He paid for it.” I don’t know why I thought this was important to add. To show that I wasn’t helping a killer?

  She handed me a tissue as my eyes teared up.

  “What amazes me about this story,” Connie continued, “is that everyone tiptoes around the obvious.”

  I felt tingles in my spine. I knew then where she was going, but I was hoping I was wrong.

  “Kirby obviously knew what was going to happen that day,” said Carrie.

  I nodded.

  “This has been traumatic for you, so I’m sure when the police realized you weren’t involved, they didn’t want to upset you. They chose not to push the issue. But on this show”—she turned to face the camera full-on, not even pretending to care about me anymore—“we do go there.”

  I shifted in my seat. “I—I really didn’t know what was going to happen.” My voice came out small.

  “Of course you didn’t,” said Connie. “No one’s questioning that.”

  My mother squeezed my hand and pulled me to her. She sensed something was off too. “Maybe this is enough. My daughter was a victim too.”

  Carrie softened. “Of course, of course. I was only wondering why Kirby chose to save her.”

  My mother’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? There were many survivors that day.”

  “True,” said Carrie, “but he went out of his way to keep your daughter away from the school.”

  “Who knew what was going through that boy’s head?” my mother sputtered.

  “He knew what he was doing, didn’t he, Jenny?” Connie pressed, talking over my mother. “He drove five miles to get coffee and left you stranded, knowing there was no way you would make it to school on time. Why would he do that?”

  “Stop!” my mother yelled, and someone was screaming and sobbing, and I don’t know if Connie stopped talking.

  Cameramen raced as the screaming continued.

  I heard my voice yelling something about damsels who needed saving. I felt myself being carried off the stage as I cried about kingdoms and knights and princes. Later my mom told me the network refused to air the episode because it was too disturbing and they feared backlash. That was my last interview.

  Before

  In November, Kirby and I lay on the cold metal slats of my balcony. Wrapped in heavy sweaters, we held hands as music played from my phone.

  The star-filled sky made me think of our marching-band show, “A Salute to the Stars,” a tribute to musicians past and present, everything from jazz to classic rock to hip-hop. I loved the change in styles as my fingers played furiously, trying to keep up with the transitions of beats.

  “Want to hang out after tomorrow’s competition?” I asked.

  “Oh right, the competition,” he said.

  I wanted to laugh except that it sounded like he really did forget. “We have one every weekend. How do you not remember?”

  “I have a lot going on,” he said. But in all the times we hung out, we never talked about our lives. Not really. When I was with Kirby, we only lived in that moment. “I have to study.”

  “For what? Midterms are months away.” I rested my head on his shoulder and closed my eyes, letting the music fill me, just like the night at the country club.

  He rubbed his temples. “It’s not just that. I’m a junior. I’ll be looking at colleges soon. I need to focus.”

  I heard it in his voice, but I didn’t want to believe it. I opened my eyes, and it was in his face, too.

  “It’s all too much now,” he said.

  “So you’re quitting band?”

  He looked surprised. “No, I’m staying in band.”

  I replayed the words in my head, trying to make sense of them. He’s staying in band, but things were too much. No, not things. Me. I had gotten to be too much.

  “I can’t focus on school and band and making sure you know where you’re going.”

  His words stung. Letting me follow him was that much of a burden?

  I felt the tears running down my cheeks and didn’t bother wiping them away. “I thought you said marching-band damsels were okay,” I mumbled.

  He took my hands in his and kissed me longer and deeper than he ever had. This wasn’t the kiss of someone wanting to get away. It was a needy kiss. “You’re not a damsel, Jenny.”

  The next day, we lined up in our formations. Joe said that once this competition was over, he was shaking things up. I followed Kirby’s treble clef as I had for months, knowing this would be the last time. My clarinet stayed silent, the notes choked back by silent sobs. I kept wondering what I’d do when there would be new shoes to follow, new shoes that didn’t know they were my ticket out of Little Mexico. I was mad that he was abandoning me, and madder still that I owed him for the past, for keeping me afloat for so long. Because even with him leaving me then, the score was nowhere near even. It was Jenny owes Kirby a hundred times, Kirby owes Jenny one.

  After

  My parents sent me to a shrink after the interview freak-out. I told her I knew he saved me, but I didn’t know why. She had no answers, so I stopped going. I made a habit of staying late after school and roaming the halls, specifically the spots where the bodies were found. I changed up my route in case the school cameras took note. I didn’t want the administrators thinking I was casing out the area, ready for a copycat crime. I just wanted to know why. It seemed wrong to be handpicked for salvation.

  Before the We Go There interview, the reporters always asked if I felt lucky to be alive, and I always said yes. No one wanted to know the truth. They didn’t want to hear that I left pieces of myself behind in those halls too. That each time I passed my locker, I bled. That I wasn’t anything special before I met Kirby, and I felt even emptier after he was gone. I tried explaining this to the shrink, and she called it “survivor’s guilt.” It’s not that. Not only that, anyway. The words are wrong. To have survivor’s guilt, you need to have survived. How can I explain that Jenny no longer exists? How can I explain why I stopped performing on our balcony? How can I explain that, even though they scrubbed and bleached the cement to erase the blood, I still see it everywhere? How can anyone understand that even though I should feel grateful to be alive, I feel dead?

  Before

  After the competition, Joe moved the saxes three rows behind the clarinets. There were trumpets in front of me now, and none of them slowed down enough for me to catch up. I resorted to holding the clarinet by my mouth and not playing. It killed me, but it was either that or ruin the whole formation, and I wasn’t selfish enough to trample over others’ futures.

  I wondered if Kirby still kept an eye on me, checking to see if I could survive the kingdom on my own. He made it clear I was weighing him down, but pathetically, I texted him anyway. He never texted back. Then two months after the breakup, I heard jazz coming from the country club again. I ran to the gazebo. I hoped to find Kirby there, and he was. He looked off. His hair was greasy, his face thinner. He sat on the grass, knees hugged to his chest, staring at the strung-up lights. Beside him was an empty bottle of wine. The good kind, and I wondered if he’d gotten it from the same benefactor who’d given him the appetizers.

  “I’ve been working on my kingdom again,” he told me, like us being together was totally normal.

  I sat beside him. “Oh yeah? Still no knights?”

  He laughed this barking laugh I’d never heard before. “Most definitely not. My kingdom is ruled by the little people.”

  I smiled. “Like the damsels?”

  “That’s right, Jenny. Like the damsels.”

  I thought of something. “But how can it? I mean, the damsels are used to being saved. The little people are used to f
ighting for something. Take away the baddies, and it messes with the rules of survival.” I didn’t really know what I was talking about, but I missed him. I just wanted to keep listening to his words. If he kept speaking, he couldn’t disappear again.

  He nodded, like he’d thought of this too. “They have to learn to survive on their own. They have to be better. March to the beat of their own drummer, so to speak.”

  “And if they can’t?” My weakness disgusted me. Before he’d ditched me, he told me I wasn’t a damsel. Yet since Joe changed the formations, I hadn’t played a note.

  “They die too,” he said.

  I snorted. “You paint a pretty world.”

  He shrugged. “It is what it is.” He got up to leave and started to walk away.

  “Later,” I called after him.

  Then I closed my eyes and imagined playing the country-club music. I imagined marching to the music too. But each time I tried to picture doing both together, the image shattered.

  * * *

  That was the last time Kirby and I hung out until the day of the shootings, two weeks later. Afterward I replayed the conversation in my head, trying to read between the lines, trying to see how I could have changed my words to produce a different result. Trying to see how I could have saved everyone instead of being the damsel. The day of, I was thinking about Kirby. I wanted us to be friends, or whatever we were, again. And that’s when he pulled up beside me, window rolled down.

  His face appeared more drawn than the last time I saw him, but his hair looked clean.

  “Good luck on your midterms,” I said.

  “I need coffee,” he said, unwrapping a chocolate bar. “No way can I pass Mr. D’s test without it.”

  I looked at my watch. We had a half hour before school started. “You better hurry, then.”

  “Come with me. I need the company.”

  Two weeks of calling with no response. I should have walked away. Instead, I felt myself thawing and desperately tried to stop from melting. “Doesn’t your sister usually ride with you?”

  “Not today,” he said.

  I tried to hold my ground. I wanted to be the kind of damsel who could rule Kirby’s kingdom, not the one who needed to be saved. “You’ll be fine on your own. It’s just coffee.” I peered inside the car. The cupholders were brimming with chocolate bars. “Chocolate has caffeine too.”

  He cocked his head and went for the jugular. “You owe me.”

  He had me, and he knew it.

  “Fine,” I said, getting into his car and slamming the door.

  “Munson’s?”

  “Are you kidding me? That’s on the totally opposite end of town!”

  His eye twitched. “No other coffee does it for me.”

  “We’ll be late,” I whined.

  “We have a pep rally. They won’t even notice.”

  I still had my hand on the door handle. He squeezed my knee. The cold left my body. I turned my head to the window so he wouldn’t see.

  “After this, we’re even, okay?” he said.

  “Even,” I said.

  The lot was full when we reached Munson’s, and Kirby let me out. “Here’s a five. Can you just run in? If I park, we’ll definitely be late.”

  I sighed and got out of the car, and Kirby idled illegally in the middle of the lot.

  I was almost inside Munson’s when he called after me. “I meant to tell you, you were right,” he said.

  I stopped, shielding the sun from my eyes. “About what?”

  “My world. I can’t just let a damsel fend for herself if she’s used to being saved,” he said. “It’s a gradual process.”

  The minutes were ticking away, and we had to go, but he got my hopes up. “Does this mean you’ll talk to Joe about moving the saxes?” I asked.

  He shook his head no. “It means, some point soon, you’ll have to be responsible for your own ticket out. But maybe not today.”

  After

  It’s been five months since the shooting, and I quit band shortly after. My parents didn’t try to convince me to stay, but my mom did bring it up with my shrink, who said I’d go back if and when I was ready.

  Some days I picked up my clarinet and even tried to blow, but the music never made it past my lips. I heard the results of competitions. Sometimes our band placed first, sometimes second. I couldn’t help thinking I’d bring them down if I returned.

  My mom says I should do something. Anything. I don’t tell her about my hobby of roaming the halls. We got a new English teacher. She has us reading a lot of Dickens. We never did read The Once and Future King, and I’m not sure I want to anymore anyway.

  At lunch today, I walk to the band room. Joe is there drawing formations. He sees me and motions for me to come over.

  “Look at these with me,” he says.

  My heart beats quickly and my palms start sweating. “I can’t.”

  “We miss you,” he says.

  “I heard you guys have been doing well.”

  “Yeah. The band has.” He looks at me. “He was a good kid.”

  I nod. No one has said that. We’re not allowed. We’re not allowed to say we miss him. I wipe my eyes. I want to say I miss him. Instead I say, “I don’t know how to march and play at the same time.”

  “I know,” Joe says. “But I can help you.”

  I move closer to him and look at the formations. “No more ‘Salute to the Stars’?”

  “No. I tried reworking the shapes but decided to start fresh. There’s room for you.”

  I use my index finger to trace the shapes he created. Circles, rectangles, a flag. I stand up, and Joe starts the music.

  I put one foot in front of the other, close my eyes, and follow the beat.

  THE PERFECT SHOT

  I wait for the perfect shot.

  Mrs. Recupido says that patience is more important for a great photographer to master than proper use of lighting, exposure, or framing. Good photographers, she says, take thousands of pictures hoping they’ll be lucky enough to capture just one beautiful frozen moment in time. But great photographers are willing to hunch down in the heat—their backs aching, sweat pooling in the uncomfortable folds of their skin, while mosquitos suck their blood or bullets explode around them—for that one perfect shot.

  I don’t know his name or why I chose him as the subject of my photography project. There are more interesting students at Middleborough High. Quite a few who are better-looking. I’ve passed him in the hallway before and never noticed anything particularly special about him.

  And yet . . .

  Cameras never lie. When I view him through the lens of my camera—the Nikon D810 I splurged on with the money Nona left me when she died—I don’t see a boy who sometimes sits alone at lunch and sometimes eats a bologna and mustard sandwich. I see the boy I might have been.

  * * *

  “My name is Billie Palermo.”

  “My name is Billie Palermo.”

  “My name is Billie Palermo.”

  I repeat it like a mantra as I stand in the shower washing my hair, letting the hot water run down my back and over my chest. As I carefully choose the perfect outfit for school. As I apply my makeup and gather my unfinished homework and eat my breakfast apple.

  Papa sits across from me at the kitchen table and reads work e-mails on his phone while he shovels cereal into his mouth. Listening to him grind and crunch his Oatholes makes me want to flip the table and beat him with his spoon.

  “You remember to take your pills this morning?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “How’s the new school?” Papa’s gun and badge rest on the counter behind him, though they look out of place now that he wears a suit instead of a uniform. His new job with the Middleborough Police Department may have included a promotion, but we’re both rookies in this town.

  “Fine. It’s fine.”

  “Kids giving you any grief?”

  I shake my head.

  He eats his cereal. Crunch
, crunch, grind. “You’ll tell me if anyone messes with you, right? I can talk to your principal and—”

  “It’s good. Everything’s good.”

  Worry lines crease Papa’s forehead, which grows longer each year as his hair retreats farther back. I’ve tried telling him he’d look younger if he shaved his head, that he’s lost the battle and no longer looks like the young father in that old picture of us at the Jets game he keeps trapped on the fridge with a magnet, but he never listens.

  “I don’t want this to be like your last school, Billie.”

  “It’s not,” I say. “It won’t be. I’m different. Everything’s different here.”

  * * *

  I sit on a bench in front of the library, waiting for him after the last bell. He has Spanish with Ms. Fernandez seventh period. Students at Middleborough are required to take two years of a foreign language. Papa wouldn’t let me sign up for Spanish and pretend I hadn’t grown up speaking it with Nona, even though it would have guaranteed me at least one easy A on my report card. I opted for French instead. Ce n’est pas ma classe préférée.

  My skirt rides up. I tug it down and cross my legs. I keep my camera beside me, resting my hand on top of it while I pretend to read an interesting message on my phone. The last ten texts I received were from Papa. Two telling me he was going to be home late, three reminding me to stop at the store after school, and the rest just checking up on me. I used to receive hundreds of text messages from kids at my last school, which is why I changed my number when we moved.

  A mob of shadows darkens the bench, and I look up. His name is Nate Fiorello. He’s with another boy—Jackson, I think—and his girlfriend, Katy.

  “Chin up,” Nate says. This earns him laughter from the others. I don’t mind the chin jokes so much. After seven years, I’m numb to them. My braces fixed most of my underbite, but my chin still juts out. Fixing it is considered cosmetic, and Papa’s insurance won’t cover it.