Chapter 15
WOLF
“I can’t believe it!” Fitz bawls. “She – She was working for Dad the whole time? I thought – I thought I’d see it coming, but not her! Anybody but Bee!”
Burn is deathly quiet, but his knuckles on the steering wheel are ghost-white. Fitz sniffs wetly, burying his face in his hands.
And I watch the trees flash by.
I’m so numb I feel like I’ve been shot up with Novocain all over. I can’t feel the wind on my face, or the seat beneath me. I can’t smell anything – not the night air, not the exhaust of the convertible. Everything is muted and senseless, a harsh, buzzing static ricocheting in my ears.
She betrayed us.
She betrayed me.
“We should’ve known better,” I say. Burn looks up at me in the rearview mirror. “After Kristin we should’ve known Dad would try the same trick twice, but with a better liar.”
“Wolf - ” Burn starts.
“She’s probably reported everything to him,” I interrupt him. “Your drugs and hacking included, Fitz.”
“You’re being awfully cold about this!” Fitz sniffs and glares at me. “I thought you like her!”
I ignore the burning in my stomach. “Liked. Past tense.”
“That simple, huh?” Burn asks.
“She betrayed us,” I snarl at him.
“And I’m just as pissed about it as you are,” Burn agrees. “But maybe she had her reasons.”
“What reasons? There’s no reason good enough to fake being our friend, to fake being nice to us, to fake smile and fake laugh and –”
All I can think about is the feeling of her stroking my hair, and I hate it. I recoil at it, at the fact it wasn’t real affection. It wasn’t real warmth, and I was an idiot for thinking it was. Fitz explodes suddenly.
“You were the one who threatened to take her scholarship in the first place, Wolf!”
“So you’re blaming me? Me, instead of the person who really deserves it?”
“You did try to take her scholarship,” Burn says. “You know how much it means to her.”
“Yeah,” Fitz interjects. “That was her ticket to NYU. And you tried to screw it!”
“She didn’t deserve to be here,” I snap. “She didn’t deserve to be here, working her ass off for someone else’s mental health! What about her own? What about her own goals and dreams? She wanted to write, you know. Her essay said she wanted to be a writer, to go to school for writing, but she gave it all up for her Dad. What kind of life is that? I wasn’t going to stand around and let her do that to herself!”
“So you threatened to take it all away,” Burn muttered. “And Dad offered it all back, in exchange for spying on us.”
“I’d take it,” Fitz says immediately, wiping his eyes. “If I was her…I’d take that deal, too.”
“So that’s it? All of a sudden I’m the bad guy?”
“You forced her into a corner, Wolf,” Burn says.
“What about you two? You told me she’d been running with you every morning. You think she did that because she likes it? She did it because Dad told her to.”
Burn’s silent, eyes narrow. I point at Fitz.
“You think she was actually failing her History class? You think she actually needed you to tutor her?”
“We had fun,” Fitz defends sullenly.
“Yeah, because she planned it that way,” I insist. “Everything down to the last laugh was planned by her, to get on your good side. Our good side. Every secret we told her went straight to Dad. Everything we did with her went straight to Dad.”
They’re silent. The car ride feels so long and torturous, like I’m sitting in an iron maiden with the lid closed instead of a car. When we’re finally home, Fitz and I retreat to our rooms. And like always, Burn puts his shoes on so he can go for a run, somewhere far away from us; somewhere he doesn’t have to deal with our emotions.
“Seriously?” I snap. “You’re seriously going to go for a run right now?”
“What else is there to do?” Burn mutters, tying his laces.
“We need you here,” I say. “We need to talk about this.”
“Talking won’t fix what’s been done.”
“Well it sure as hell would make us feel better!”
“Us? Or just you?”
Burn jerks his head to Fitz’s door, which is, for once, closed, all the lights off. Usually there’s the pale blue glow of at least one computer shining from beneath the door. He’s hiding. He always hides – in drugs, in girls – to stay away from confronting reality.
Burn takes my silence as an opportunity to leave, and I watch him go with disgust; disgust at him, disgust at Fitz. At Beatrix.
At myself.
I retreat to my room and pull the essay out. I reach for the lighter I keep in my drawer and hold the fire to the well-worn paper, the wrinkles I made and the finger imprints on the sheets eaten alive by the flames. Her words are consumed, once and for all, and I watch the ashes fall into the trash can one by one.
I was a moron.
I was a moron for ever believing someone like me could be loved.
****
BEATRIX
This is where I am now, pen-and-paper.
You’re caught up. That’s all the story I have, leading up to this night. An hour ago, I came home. Mom was, of course, gone, and Dad stared into the distance as he watched TV. I was numb, too, so I sat and watched a good hour of it with him, letting the bright, blaring commercials wash my mind free, for a moment. I’d never be free of what I’d done. But the yogurt ads and car ads let you pretend for a little while.
“Dad?”
“Hrm?” He grunted.
“Are you and Mom getting divorced?”
He went still for a moment, then let out a weary exhale. “I can’t lie to you, Bee. I don’t know what’s going to happen between your mother and I. It’s hard to think about.”
“Yeah.”
We watched another few mindless episodes of some sitcom. The guy lamented about how marriage was a ‘ball and chain’, and I inwardly flinched the whole way through.
“I finished my writing,” Dad said suddenly.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s pretty good.”
“That’s great.”
More silence.
“What do you want for your birthday?” Dad asked. I thought about it, staring long and hard at the scan lines in the corner of the old screen.
“A hug.”
Dad laughed. It was faint, and so tired, but it was nice hearing his voice happy.
“I think I can manage that.”
I leaned into him and he wrapped his arms around my sides, and we stayed like that, unmoving, unspeaking. We were both too exhausted to question the other about what happened tonight. I’m sure when Mom comes home – if she ever comes home – she’ll confront me about taking the car and sneaking out. But that’s wasn’t what was happening right then. Right then, I was hugging dad. If I closed my eyes I could imagine I was young again, small, like six or seven, before he got too sick. Before Lakecrest. Before the Blackthorns. Before all of it.
“Do you remember the old playground?” Dad asked. “The one I took you to when you were young?”
“The one on the bluff? Yeah,” I nodded. “I liked that place.”
“Me too.”
The commercials came blaring on again, selling a movie this time. An escape.
“I don’t say this enough,” Dad muttered into my hair. “But I’m very proud of you, Bee.”
I fought back tears until I realized there was nothing left to cry. I was dried up from the parking lot.
I knew moments like this never lasted. Tomorrow, the next day – who knows? Dad might lock himself in his room again, or not smile at all, ever. But for now, he’s here. For now, in this moment, he really does feel like my Dad again, instead of an unpredictable stranger. I hold him close, and wish with all my might that time would just freeze.
But it didn’t. It kept ticking on, and Dad fell asleep on the couch. I extracted myself from under his arms (his arms are too light, too thin) and headed to my room. I opened my notebook, got a nice pen, my favorite pen, and here we are.
I wrote all of this, everything I could remember. My eyes feel dry and shriveled and old. I don’t know what time it is right now, let me check my phone. Crap – it’s not turning on. I’ll turn my laptop. Four am? Sounds about right. I have an entire week before I have to face the funeral music of going back to Lakecrest one last time. Dad said he’s proud of me, but how proud will he be when I tell him I lost my scholarship? Mom will flip. Everything is wrong – this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I feel like I’m living in another timeline, the bad one, and the real timeline is continuing on somewhere without me, happily and naively.
I can’t sleep. I try to, but Burn and Fitz’s faces haunt me, Wolf’s expression the most painful memory. I fucked up. I fucked up and the worst feeling is the helplessness – I can’t do anything to take it back. I can’t do anything to make it right again. Nothing will be the same, again. No amount of study or preparation can save this. No textbook has the answer. There’s no test I can take, and make it all okay again.
My name is Beatrix Cruz, and no matter what anyone says, no matter what happens tomorrow, this was the story of how it went down.
This is how Lakecrest ruined my life.
This is how Wolfgang Blackthorn destroyed me.
***
When I wake up the next morning – at 2 in the afternoon – Dad still hasn’t come out of his room. I’m perversely grateful for it; explaining to him why I’m staying home would be so much harder with him on one of his good days. Mom comes home in two days– theoretically. But two days come and go, me puttering around the house, explaining to Dad the second day, when he comes out of his room, that I’m sick, and staying home from school. He lets me off the hook, and we order pizza. Mom never comes home.
“Maybe she got a hotel somewhere,” I offer. Dad nods.
“Maybe.”
I don’t press him for details on the fight between them – the last thing he needs right now is someone interrogating him. We eat pizza and watch TV and I avoid my semi-broken phone, which, when it actually does turn on, lights up with a dozen text messages – all of them from Kristin. I can’t bear to answer her, or talk to anyone. I just want to be left alone.
Dad talks about clearing some stuff out of his room – stuff he doesn’t use anymore – so I help him load cardboard boxes of old comics and baseballs cards and shirts and golf clubs. It’s sort of a repeat of what he helped me do with my old stuff, when I found out I was going to Lakecrest. We’d boxed it all up together. Something nags at me. I stop duct taping everything and look up.
“Hey Dad?”
“Hm?” He struggles with an old, broken typewriter, gingerly placing it into a box.
“How’re you, um, feeling?”
It’s a dangerous topic, but I have to ask. Dad doesn’t immediately fly off the handle, which I’m grateful for. He just heaves a sigh.
“I’m fine, Bee. I just wanted to clear some of this old junk out. Start fresh, you know? Or, as fresh as I can get at my age.”
He laughs, and I try to laugh with him. I really do. But all the textbooks I’ve read – everything points to getting rid of old things or giving them away as a bad sign. It’s called reconciling, I think, or something like that. And no matter how much he says he’s okay, I can’t help the uneasy gurgle in my stomach. He seems fine for the next two days – he eats well whenever I make pancakes or sandwiches, and when I check his pill bottle the correct amount is missing. Taking his meds regularly and eating right is a huge step up. So things can’t be going wrong.
They can’t be.
On the fourth day, Mom finally calls me. It takes her three tries, since my phone gives out twice.
“Finally, honey! Is something wrong with your phone?”
I swallowed. “I, er, dropped it in the sink.”
“God, sweetie –“
“I know, I know! We can’t afford another one. Don’t worry – I put it in rice. It’s just a little slower, is all.”
Mom breathed out. “Well, if you’re sure. How are things over there?”
“Good. Dad’s eating a lot.”
“That’s good.” She said, though it sounded a little strained. “And how about you? How are you doing?”
I’m shitty. I wish you were home. I wish you’d just come home and make up with Dad. I wish I was in school. I wish my friends didn’t hate me. I wish, I wish - so many wishes and not enough realities.
“I’m okay. I think I’m coming down with something, though. My throat feels weird.”
“Okay, well – don’t be afraid to take a school day off. God knows you work yourself to the bone to stay in that place. If they give you a hard time, just have them call me. I’ll set them straight.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Did you know the director of the hospital I work at went to Lakecrest, too? He studied at Yale, and when I told him you were at Lakecrest he was so surprised. I told him you were keeping a scholarship there, and oh, the look on his face, honey. You should’ve seen it. People are so impressed by you – people you don’t even know!”
Every word is a red-hot iron nail straight to my heart. I clear my throat.
“Yeah. Um. Mom, about that –“
“What?” Mom shouts in another direction. Someone’s voice echoes, too distant for me to make out the words. “Okay! Bee, I have to go – I’ve taken Candace’s shift and they need me in ICU. I’m sorry, can we talk later?”
“Yeah, no, it’s fine,” I lie, though I’m secretly relieved. “I love you.”
“I love you too, Bee.”
She hangs up, leaving me to empty silence and crushing guilt. I can’t keep putting off telling her forever. Or Dad. Eventually they have to know. Eventually my little façade will come crumbling down. But if I can put it off for even one more day, that’s good enough for me. That seems to be their mentality, too – avoid things. I guess I took a master class in avoidance from them while I was still in the womb.
Eventually, I have to venture outside. Turns out the refrigerator doesn’t just automatically refill itself. I put on a jacket and big, old sunglasses and make my way to the grocery store. When I’m done, I glance at the paper bag in the backseat, the one I brought from the house. I figure while I’m out, I might as well tie up a few loose ends.
It takes me a few tries, but I finally find the right streets and take the right turns. The houses become familiar. Unlike the first time I came here on the back of Wolf’s bike, all the leaves are gone from the trees, all the flowers brown and wilted and dead. It’s amazing how the world just loves to smack me in the face with sad metaphors these days. I park on the street across from Seamus’s house.
I take the paper bag in my arms and walk up to his door. After a few rings of the doorbell, I wait. I almost turn and run back to the car twice – what am I even doing here? What if the brothers are here by some stroke of unluck? I don’t think I could face them. Would they tell Seamus what I’d done? Would he hate me?
My fears are dispelled when Seamus answers the door, his glasses making his smiling eyes look huge.
“Ah! Miss Cruz. It’s a pleasure to see you again. Come in, come in.”
“Thanks,” I cross the threshold. He tries to steer me towards the kitchen for tea, but I stand my ground in the hallway. “I just came to give this back to you.”
I hand him the paper bag, and he unfurls the wrapping inside to reveal the sky-blue dress. He shakes his head.
“No, no no. I won’t take this.”
“There’s no way I can repay you,” I said. “And – And I messed up. Taking care of the brothers. You asked me to, and I messed up, so. I don’t deserve this.” I can’t meet Seamus’s eyes, my own riveted to the floor as I sigh. “I let…a lot of people down.”
Seamus is quiet, and then; “You’re awfully young to sound so old, my dear.”
“It tends to happen,” I say. “When you mess up everything real badly.”
“Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad –“
“It was,” I insist. “It was the worst. I’m the worst.”
He’s silent again, and then; “Well, if you’re the worst, then you absolutely must keep the dress.”
“Why?” I blink.
“So that every time you look at it, you’re reminded of your mistake, and are inspired to become better.”
“I –“
“But for me,” He interrupts smoothly. “That dress has a very different meaning. For me, that dress is a reminder of just how pretty and happy you looked in it. And when you came out here,” He motions to the living room. “And the brothers saw you, they too became a little happier. Why, I never think I’ve seen Wolf quite as dumbfounded as he was in that moment.”
My heart twists around. “Dumbfounded isn’t happy.”
“No. But at least it’s something other than sad.”
Something other than sad. I knew the value of that. Something other than sad was a good day, for Dad. Something other than sad is what I’d kill to be, at this moment. Seamus puts a gnarled hand on my shoulder.
“For what it’s worth, my dear, life is very long, and memories are very short.”
“But –“
“Whatever you did can be undone,” He says. “It may take months. It may take years. But as long as there is breath in your body, there is a chance to make up for what you’ve done. It will be slow, and difficult. But some would say it’s worth it. If you care about the people you hurt, you cannot run away. That would only cause you more pain. You must be kind to yourself.”
“I can’t. I ruined everything.”
“Perhaps. But if you are powerful enough to ruin everything, then perhaps you are powerful enough to make it right again.”
I’m struck quiet. Maybe, just maybe, he’s right. Maybe I can see everyone else’s problems so clearly, and not my own. Maybe all the textbooks in the world can’t make me turn my knowledge in on myself. The longer I wallow, the deeper I inflict guilt and shame on myself. The deeper the cuts go, the harder it’ll be to think positively about myself ever again. I’m not all bad. I know that. I love my Dad. I love Mom. I love –
“Wolf,” Seamus says, surprised. “What are you doing here?”
Dread petrifies me, but I break out of it. I can’t lock up. I have to move forward, even if it’s just one aching step at a time. I whirl around to face Wolf, his leather motorcycle jacket and gloves as black as his windswept hair. His eagle brows knit when he sees me, jade eyes burning laser-hot holes in my forehead. He’s looking through me, not at me, like I don’t exist.
“I see you’re busy, Seamus,” Wolf says, his voice quietly ablaze. “I’ll come back later.”
He turns and makes for his motorcycle on the curb. I dash after him.
“Wolf, wait –“
He keeps walking, never once stopping. I try desperately to catch up with him.
“Wolf, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. About everything.”
He puts his helmet back on, lowering the visor without a beat and settling into the seat of his motorcycle. I might as well be the wind, a blade of grass, something inconsequential.
“I know you can’t forgive me,” I say quickly. “I know that. And I don’t want you to. But I’ll work hard, I promise. Even if it takes a year, four years, ten years – I’ll keep working hard to be a better person. And then maybe someday – ” I swallow, my throat closing up. Don’t cry. Not now. Be strong. “Maybe someday, you’ll talk to me again.”
He leans back, taking off the kickstand. He’s going to start it and drive away. And that’s fine. I smile.
“I’d like that. To talk with you again.”
There’s a second. Just one. And then he revs the engine and roars off down the street. I watch him go for as long as I can, until he’s a tiny speck. I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I look over to see Seamus smile at me.
“That was a good first step. Come in, have some tea. I’m not much of a fixer, but I like to think myself good at listening. If you feel like talking, that is.”
“I don’t want to bother you,” I say.
“Nonsense. Wolf was my only client today, and he did say he’d be back later. We have some time.”
I clench my fists. Seamus put his arm around my shoulder.
“Come. The sidewalk is no place for a girl who looks as sad as you do.”
Seamus has a way of making me feel at ease. It may be the sweet tea he serves, or his gentle accent, or maybe it’s how old and wise he seems. Whatever it is, two cups of chamomile and honey tea later, and I feel better. Slightly. But the worst isn’t over yet. I have a long way to go before I can even look at myself in the mirror, again.
I pour through the old textbooks, searching desperately for some hint, some step. Something to tell me what to do, what to say, how to act. But there’s nothing. Nothing in the books tell me how to apologize after a royal fuck up. No one has the answers to that.
The only thing I can do is try. Even if it’s stupid. Even if it doesn’t work.
I start, of course, with Fitz. Because he’s the easiest. The easiest in the best way – the most open, the most clever, the most honest. I decide to draw him something, something small and simple, and leave it on my computer desktop. I’m sure he’ll get around to finding it. He’s not the type to ignore me completely like Wolf and Burn might. He’ll want to know why, why I did it, why he didn’t realize it sooner, and he’ll go snooping around on my computer for evidence.
It might not be much, but it’s all I can do, right now.
The picture is a bad Microsoft Paint masterpiece, complete with the terrible stick figures he and I liked to make in our tutoring sessions. Wolf, with his long hair and stiff uniform, perched on his motorcycle like a gargoyle. Burn, with his gargantuan height, skydiving from a badly-drawn plane. And finally I draw Fitz, sitting at a computer hacking, and his shirt reads; “World’s No. 1 Cool Guy”. I try to make it as ironic and dumb as possible. Stick-figure girls with huge boobs surround him, and I draw myself in the back of the well-endowed crowd, cheering Fitz’s hacking endeavors on with the rest of them. I sign the corner of it ‘Madam Cruz’, as if I’m some fancy renaissance painter. It’s perfect. Or at the very least, I hope it’s just good enough to make Fitz smile. I hide the file behind a bunch of folders, so deep in my computer that even I lose it for a second. I leave a trail of little notepad hints to the next clue inside my computer that ultimately lead to the picture, all of the clues labeled ‘To The Best Hacker Ever!!!11’. It’s like a scavenger hunt. If it won’t make him smile, it might at least give him ten minutes of distraction from his own busy mind.
The second is, and always will be, Burn.
There’s only one place I’ll be able to contact Burn, and that’s on the trail we ran on every morning. I went looking for him the first morning after that awful night, but of course he wasn’t there. He’s avoiding me. It’s a long shot, but maybe he’d come back to the trail, to that overlook on the cliff where we watched so many sunrises together in blissful silence. It’s all I have to go on.
For Burn, there’s only one thing I can think of. Something to keep him safe, while he’s out there driving at breakneck speeds and standing on cliff edges and running marathons around the marathon-runners. I used to see them all the time – tiny keychains, words suspended in a sturdy plastic covering that said something to the effect of ‘keep this one safe’. Some were religious. Some weren’t. Some had stupid cartoon characters on them. But all of them were meant to keep the bearer out of harm’s way.
So I make one. Cheap plastic keychain material isn’t hard to find, but I got worried it wouldn’t stand up to the heavy wear-and-tear exercise Burn put himself through, so I used up what I had left and bought the expensive, sturdy material, the kind you couldn’t snap in two if you ran it over with a car. That was the easy part. The hard bit was figuring out what to write inside. Everything I came up with either sounded too cheesy or too aggressive. But then I realized it just needed to reflect who he is – someone to-the-point. Someone pure and simple. I carefully outlined with dark ink, and filled the words in with sensible blue and gray colors. Colors that reminded me of him. I slide the paper into the keychain, the words fitting perfectly. I held it up to the light, watching it spin.
‘Be Safe’, it read.
I put it in a box, inside a plastic bag to keep it dry. I walked up the trail one evening, leaving it below the bench he always sat on. It was stupid – I knew that the second I left the box there. Anybody else could pick it up. The likelihood Burn would ever receive it was slim to none. He probably wouldn’t come up here at all, anymore. If I was him, I’d want to put as much space between me and someone who betrayed me as I could.
They feel like farewell gifts, and in a way, they are. I don’t know if I’ll ever get to speak to the Blackthorn brothers again. But these small things are my way of saying goodbye, to be safe, to smile. Now that I think about it, if they ever find them, they’ll probably just laugh at how pathetic they are. I made the gifts out of paper and plastic and pixels – nothing like they’re used to. Compared to the sheer amount of money they have, I’m sure stuff like this is just considered garbage.
Sunday night comes, Monday is the day I have to go to Lakecrest, and I still don’t know what to give to Wolf.
What can I give? I have nothing that suits him. Nothing good enough. All I hold is a handful of ‘sorry’s and an endless well of heartache.
And then, one day when I’m out grocery shopping, I see it.
There’s a pawn shop next to the grocer’s, a seedy little place with neon lights and few customers. But in the window I spot the most perfect silver ring, sitting on top of a pile of them. It’s not chunky, but it’s not thin, just the right size for his graceful fingers. It’s carved into the shape of a wolf that curls around itself, brave and fearsome. It’s perfect.
“Hi,” I push into the pawn shop breathlessly. “How much is the wolf ring in the window?”
The pawnbroker, a reedy man with a proud chin, narrows his eyes at me.
“I don’t sell to teenagers. Now get out.”
“Please,” I stand firm. “I need to know how much that ring is.”
He looked me up and down. “You don’t have the money for it, I already know that. Stop wasting my time.”
“How much?”
The man, clearly expecting me to have left already, threw up his hands.
“Ninety-five. I won’t take a dime less.”
“Fifty,” I say once I get over my flinch. He sneers.
“You don’t have fifty. Seventy-five, and that’s my final offer.”
“Seventy.”
“I swear to God, if you don’t get out of my store –“
I know a thing or two about bargaining – there’s a lot of it in psychology.
“Seventy, and I take it off your hands today.”
He eyed me, and there was a terse moment of quiet. I needed that ring, but I couldn’t show it, or he’d just hike up the price again. I kept my face stone, ice, steel, something featureless and cold.
“Fine. But I close at six. If you don’t come before then the deal’s off.”
I look at the array of clocks on the wall. It’s five-thirty. If I drive fast, I can make it back home. I piled the groceries in the car and tore down the highway, screeching into our driveway and rocketing up the stairs into the house.
“Dad!” I called. “Dad! I found something!”
He started up from his place, asleep on the couch in front of the TV. “F-Found what?”
“Something you can get me for my birthday. But we have to get to the store before six!”
Dad mussed his hair, looking bewilderedly at the clock. “Bee, it’s five-fifty –“
“Please, Dad,” I grasped his hands, pleading with my eyes. “It’s perfect. It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”
He scrubbed his face with his hands and sighed. “Fine. Let’s go.”
I felt bad about dragging him out of the house, looking disheveled, but he didn’t seem to mind. He never seemed to mind, these days. He pulled on a coat and we were back on the freeway in minutes. Dad kept telling me to slow down, but I’d only do it for a second before revving back into gear. We got to the pawn shop with only one minute to spare. I ushered Dad across the parking lot as fast as he’d go, which wasn’t very fast at all. The owner of the shop glared at us through the window, taking Dad’s appearance in with disdain. When we came in, he raised his voice.
“Who is this? You’re not going to get me to sell to some homeless guy.”
I squared my shoulders. “This is my dad.”
The shop owner froze. I looked at Dad, but he was staring at the counter, eyes empty. Maybe he hadn’t heard. No – of course he did. And he didn’t show an ounce of emotion about it. My stomach twisted like I was gonna be sick. Dad should’ve said something. He should’ve at least frowned, or winced, or blinked. But….nothing.
The sight of the wolf ring made me tamp down the gnawing worry.
Dad sighs. “Seventy dollars is a lot, Bee.”
“I know,” I blurt quickly. “I know. It’s just – this ring is so pretty. And – “
What am I doing? What am I doing, asking Dad to spend this much on a ring for a boy who hates me when he could be saving that for therapy? For food? For our rent that looms bigger and scarier by the day? Who am I to ask him to spend this much on me?
I shake my head and smile. “Actually – crap, I’m sorry. For dragging you out here. We don’t have to get it. I don’t – I don’t really want it, anyway.”
Dad’s quiet as he stares at the ring. I pull at his arm, trying to distract him from it.
“Come on. Let’s go. Are you hungry? I’ll make something when we get home –”
Dad slaps four twenties on the counter, and the shop owner gives him change. My stomach falls.
“Dad, don’t, please, I’ve changed my mind. It’s ugly, and stupid. I don’t want it –”
The owner hands over the ring to Dad, and he hands it to me with a soft gaze.
“You deserve to get a gift, Bee,” He murmurs. “For your birthday. So don’t worry so much.”
I close my shaking fingers over the ring, the cool metal of it a shock against my hot palm. I don’t know what I deserve anymore. But I hug it to my chest, and then throw my arms around him.
“Thank you, Dad.”
I smile, and he tries on a smile as best he can, and it only breaks my heart a little, today.
When we’re home, I marvel at the silver ring alone in my room. It’s so perfect. Wolf will definitely like something like this. The more he has, the better he feels, right? His rings were only part therapy – the other part was clearly fashion. And this ring is certainly the coolest looking one I’ve ever seen. Not to mention it’s his namesake.
Now it was just a matter of getting it to him.
School isn’t an option. Or is it?
I’m so pumped about getting the ring to him that I only start to get nervous once I step out of the house the next morning. The nerves didn’t get me during breakfast, or as I brush my teeth, or when I dress – but the moment the cold air hit my cheeks, all the bottled-up anxiety I thought I’d thrown into the sea comes crashing back on my head like a tidal wave.
I can do this.
I have to do this.
I time my arrival at school way before the first bell – a whole twenty minutes early. Barely anyone is on campus, the empty halls and quad infested by dreary mist instead of students. I inwardly say goodbye to the few places on campus I remember fondly – my locker that I empty out, my History class, the cafeteria. Mr. Brant waves at me from his desk when he sees me at the door. He pulls it open and flashes me a smile.
“Hi, Bee.”
“Hey, Mr. Brant.” I can’t meet his gaze, shame overwhelming me. “I – I just wanted to say thank you. For everything.”
“What? Why does this sound like a goodbye?”
“You didn’t hear? My scholarship got pulled.”
His eyes light up. “Oh, right. But I thought that was just a rumor – why are they doing that? Sure, you dipped a little in my class, but you clawed your way right back up. You’re the brightest student in your year!”
“I wouldn’t say that –“
“I would, Bee. I’ve seen kids come and go, and you’re the smartest I’ve ever had the honor of teaching. They can’t pull the McCaroll from you, not with how hard you work. I’m going to have a word with them –“
“Don’t!” I protest. “I mean, don’t. I’m not – I’m not completely blameless. I did something pretty bad. So.”
God, I wish I could stare at something other than my feet, but my head feels so heavy. My whole body feels heavy. Mr. Brant sighs.
“Well, if that’s the case, I hate to see you go.”
“Yeah. I’ll miss your class, Mr. Brant. Thank you for everything.”
“Anytime, Bee. If you need a recommendation for that NYU application, you let me know.”
“I will. Thanks.”
We part ways, and I head to the Auto Shop. Mr. Francis is, thankfully, in the garage, welding an exhaust pipe back into shape. I shout over the sound of the plasma torch.
“Mr. Francis!”
Nothing. Fire and sparks and his aproned body turned away.
“Mr. Francis!!!!!!!!”
He turns, finally, taking his metal faceguard off and flashing me a grin.
“Oh, Bee. You’re early. Something you need?”
I guess he wasn’t told I got kicked out, either. Somehow it just gets harder and harder to say it out-loud to every smiling face that’s been teaching me the past few months.
“Listen, Mr. Francis, I need a huge favor.”
“Ooookay.” He smudges his cheek with soot. “Can’t promise anything until you tell me what it is.”
“I’m not going to be able to make it to class today.”
“And why’s that?”
“D-Dentist appointment,” I say. “There’s something I have to give someone in the class. But I won’t be there.”
“And you want me to give this person that something?”
“Yeah,” I pull out the small, paper-wrapped box I put the ring in. “If you could give this to Wolf, I’d be really grateful.”
He eyed the tiny box, looking relieved it wasn’t as big as he thought it was going to be. “Alright. I can do that. Do you want me to tell him anything to go along with it?”
“No!” I lowered my voice. “I mean, no. Just – if you could leave my name out of it altogether, that would probably be for the best. He might throw it in the trash can, otherwise.”
Mr. Francis frowned. “It isn’t anything illegal, right?”
“No, I swear. I can open it right now and show you and re-wrap it – it’s a ring. Shake it.”
He does, the metallic clink clear enough for both our ears. He nods.
“Okay. I’ll be sure he gets it, and that you’ll remain a mystery.”
“Thank you, Mr. Francis. It means a lot to me. And thanks…for accepting me into your class. It was fun.”
“I’m glad,” He smiles. “Alright, get out of here. I’ve got a lot of pipe to weld and there’ll be sparks all over.”
I nod, and start up the stairs to the quad. On my way back to the parking lot, one building catches my eye – one beautiful shining building. The library.
It can’t hurt if I step in it one last time. Just once more. And then I’ll say goodbye to it forever.
I walk in, the librarian nowhere to be seen. Her cart’s perched at the back of the nonfiction section, so she must be shelving books. I inhale the smell of the library – the comforting smell of old pages and well-worn carpet and sun-bleached wood. I walk quietly up the stairs to the plush chair by the window I spent most of my time after school in. I’d say this was the place where I’d spent the most time in this school, period. I flopped in the chair and looked out at the sprawling lawn and gorgeous, morning-kissed trees one last time.
“It’s weird,” I whisper to no one. “How much I used to hate this school. I mean, I don’t like it or anything. But at least now I don’t resent it so much.”
The trees and pale-peach sky don’t answer me. Why would they? They have much better things to do than contemplate my life choices with me. I close my eyes and lean back and breathe out. One last time. And I pray someday, someone will find this little oasis of calm and quiet, and love it as much as I did.
The librarian is at her desk as I leave, and she shoots me a sad smile.
“I heard about your scholarship.”
“Yeah,” I nod. “It’s okay.”
“That’s just how private schools are. Fickle, blind, and a little stupid, if you ask me.”
She winks. All I have the energy to do is crook one corner of my lips in a half-grin.
“You’ll do just fine, Beatrix.” She continues. “Lakecrest, in my opinion, is an idiot for letting you go. You’ll go on to bigger and better things in no time, and they’ll be sorry, then.”
“I don’t know. But thanks for the sentiment.”
“It’s not sentiment! It’s fact. Where do you want to go college, anyway?”
Sarah Lawrence, my heart says.
“NYU. But that’s over. Without Lakecrest it’s pointless. The acceptance rate is so low -”
She ponders this for a moment. “You know, I have a sister that went to NYU.”
“Really?”
“Mhm. And she didn’t go to Lakecrest. She was from a tiny, backwater public high school in West Virginia, but she worked her behind off. And let me tell you – the amount of effort she put into studying was maybe half of what you do.”
“You can’t know that,” I say, willing my stuttering heart to stop clinging to hope.
“Of course I do. I’ve seen you upstairs every day, checking out book after book. You stay here reading long after every other student has gone home. If there’s one thing I know, it’s that someone who loves reading as much as you do can never be stopped. No matter where you go, you’ll have whole worlds in your head. No matter how hard life gets, you’ll have whole people’s lives worth of experience tucked away inside you. No matter how hard the world tries to silence you, there are millions and millions of words just waiting to burst from you.”
She pauses. “Well. I flubbed that metaphor, maybe. It sounds like I was talking about zits.”
I laugh. “No, I – I think I get what you’re saying. I get it. Maybe. Or maybe it’ll take me time to really understand it.”
“That’s a start.” She smiles. “The school might not have you, but if you ever manage to sneak back onto campus, my library is open.”
I thank her, turn one last time and look at the sunny spot of my sanctuary, and leave.
This is it.
This is how my world ends.
Not with a bang, but with a library.
Everything I’ve done up until this moment seals itself away inside those glass doors.
I left my old school for nothing. I came here every day and poured myself into every test and lecture for nothing. I abandoned my old friends for nothing. I stayed up so many sleepless nights studying for nothing. I made Mom and Dad proud for nothing.
My perfect plan dies here, the flawless one, the one that would save what was left of our family.
No - it was stupid of me to think a school could help Dad. It’s not the school that can help him. It’s me. Lakecrest was the fast-track, and now I have to lower myself onto the slow track. That’s all. I can work twice as hard in public school and make it to NYU just the same. Nothing has changed. I go home, I make dinner for Dad, I start the laundry and sweep the house. I make sure his pills are down two from yesterday. I search the internet for Algebra II practice so I don’t fall behind. I look up part-time jobs to see if there isn’t something I can do after school to help pay for Dad’s therapy fund, now that I won’t have as much crushing Lakecrest homework. It’s better now that the Blackthorn brothers hate me. Now I don’t have to shirk my duties to go to parties, or hang out with them. No friends. No distractions.
I am, and always will be, the only one who can do something. I’m the only one who can help my family.
It’s better this way.