Chapter Six
3 Years, 26 Weeks, 3 Days
East Summit High could take a nuke and nothing about it would change. Except the PE field. And maybe a bit of architecture. But the food would survive the blast because I’m 99 percent sure it’s cockroach flesh, and Mrs. Borsche would remain standing because let’s get serious, everyone knows she’s an undercover Cold War agent genetically engineered to survive minor things like rapid atomic decompression.
When I pull into the parking lot, Kayla is standing there on the curb, waiting for me. She dashes over while someone almost runs her over and we smash into each other hug.
“You’re alive!”
“Marginally.” I laugh. She smells like coconut and the tears of every boy who will never have a chance with her. It’s like coming home. Hugging her is the best feeling next to the feeling I got sleeping in my own bed—er, air mattress—last night. And then I see Wren walking toward us. And Kayla sees him, too. She darts to his side and drags him over, his glasses nearly falling off but a small half smile on his face.
“Isis!” he exclaims.
“Yes, it is I. Alive in the flesh. Temporarily. In roughly seventy years I gotta die again.”
Wren laughs and one-arm hugs me in that awkward way boys sometimes do. “It’s good to have you back.”
“Things have been totally boring around here,” Kayla laments. “Avery’s been quiet and weird and Jack’s been quiet and weird, like even more quiet than his iceberg days. It’s so weird!”
“Global warming,” I offer.
“And no one’s tried to escape out the science lab window—”
“Cowards!”
“—and Principal Evans won’t shut up about Jack—”
“A crime worthy of execution!”
“—and someone wrote ‘Isis Blake is a crazy fat bitch’ on the bathroom stall in F building.”
“Let us give them a standing ovation for originality.”
Wren laughs, and Kayla frowns, but it doesn’t take her long to start laughing, too. And unlike five months ago when I first started here, I walk under the brick arch that reads East Summit High. But this time I’m not alone. This time, I walk under it with two people who are my friends. I have friends. I have friends. Do you hear that, past me? You have friends. Ones who care about you, who laugh with you. You get them, someday.
So don’t cry.
You have friends.
Sophia was wrong. I’m not pretending to be someone else around them. I’m myself right now, in all my awful glory. This is who I am—I’m not afraid of showing them that. I can show them my true, loud, obnoxious self, even if it’s too hard to tell them about my past, and they still like me for it.
I bite my lip and walk faster so they can’t see the unsightly water oozing from my ducts.
“Hey! Isis! Slow down!” Wren calls.
“What’s the rush? It’s just Benson’s class! All he’s gonna talk about are plant vaginas!” Kayla shouts. I laugh and walk faster. A familiar shaved head passes me, and I back up and explode.
“Knife Guy! How’re you doing, old pal?”
“We’ve known each other five months,” he corrects. I sling an arm around his shoulder.
“Five months in dog years is like, ten years. We’re practically family.”
“Are you crying?”
I sniff. “What, this? Nah, just a piece of teen angst stuck in my eye. Nirvana would be proud.”
Knife Guy grunts. “It’s good. That you’re back.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Jack was a pain without you to take him down a peg. Or nine.”
He grumpily stares at nothing. I ruffle his almost-forming Mohawk.
“Stop touching me. People might think I’m normal.”
“God forbid that.” I laugh.
“And Jack will kill me.”
“Jack?” I buzz my lips. “Jack doesn’t give a jackshit about me. No, wait, I got that backward. I don’t give a jackshit about Jack the Shit.”
Knife Guy ducks out of my arm. When I give him a quizzical “why spurn my beautiful friendship arm” look, he nods behind me.
“I’m smart enough not to get between you two.”
I turn around, and there he is. Jack’s less than six feet away, scowling like he’s sucked an entire lemon farm. His ruffled tawny hair and ice-blue eyes look different in the light of day versus the pale sickly light of the hospital.
“Ah! If it isn’t Jack. Jack the Ripper of female self-esteems everywhere. Jack Sparrow who flies around and shits on heads. Jackoff into everyone’s punch bowl and ruin their day.”
“The head injury’s certainly made you more creative. And fortunately, less coherent,” he drones, and then looks at Knife Guy. “And who is this charming young man? An admirer?”
Jack waves a hand in front of his face.
“Is he blind? Or just stupid?”
Something in me draws taut and snaps in a split second. I can’t remember much of Jack, but I sure as hell remember Knife Guy and the way he was nice to me. Small, disturbing ways, but ways nonetheless!
“Why do I have the sudden urge to perform violence on your face?” I cock my head. I could be imagining it, but his chest swells slightly. Anger? Of course it’s anger.
“That would be your body remembering the time you socked me so hard I saw through time and space,” he says.
“Did you like what you saw? Goopy aliens? Supernovas? Mantorok, God of Corpses?”
“I saw an alternate universe without you. It was like paradise.”
Knife Guy suddenly chuckles. Jack sneers at him.
“Something funny?”
“You haven’t talked to anybody in school in three weeks, and now she’s back, and you’re—” Knife Guy shakes his head. “Whatever.”
I watch him leave. Jack’s quiet, his lips drawn. I take a deep breath and rock on the balls of my feet.
“You really hate me, huh?” I ask. Jack’s ice-blue eyes snap up to lock with mine.
“What?”
“Like Knife Guy said. You don’t talk when I’m gone, and I come back and you’re slinging the insults. So you must really hate me to bother breaking your silence. I get it.”
I read the letter you sent Sophia. I know how much you despise me.
Knife Guy has no idea how much it means.
Isis slung her arm around his neck like it meant nothing. She’s only ever done that to Wren, and that’s because he’s less intimidating than a puppy. But Knife Guy is different. He’s intimidating, he’s angry-looking, he’s tall, and he has muscles beneath those Black Sabbath shirts. He’s not Wren. He’s a man. A month ago, my touch reduced her to panic and tears. It was a memory so painful she blocked it out, and now here she is, touching him like it’s easy for her.
My heart beats so hard I can feel it in my fingertips. I’m hot all over, a heat wave sweeping through me like wildfire. I should control it. I should turn on my heel and walk away. I buried my hope. I thought it was dead. But then she revived it that night in the hospital, like a skilled necromancer. Like I hadn’t buried it at all. And now I can’t possibly control myself. Not when she’s there, not when she’s touching—
I’m behind her. Knife Guy glances warily at me, and she turns. Her purple streaks are a little more faded. She’s not as pale as she was in the hospital—a rosy bloom on both cheeks. A little smile plays on her lips, and like the moron I am, I let that smile fuel the heat wave in me hotter and higher.
“Why do I have the sudden urge to perform violence on your face?” She cocks her head to the side, like a little angry bird. That one motion reminds me so much of the night at Avery’s. I inhale sharply as the memories flood back—her bare collarbone, her smile as she told me she could feel my pulse, her soft sighs—
Control, Jack. Control yourself. You’re the old Jack. The one who thought her an annoying nuisance.
Isis asks if I hate her, and the sirens in my head go off instantly.
“No,” I blurt, and then stop myself from saying more. No, Jesus, that’s not it at all. But how can I tell her that? How can I tell her how I—
“Look, it’s fine.” She smiles. “I’m still grateful you saved Mom. That’s the only reason I didn’t hit you just then. Also, I’m becoming a beautiful mature butterfly. But mostly it’s for Mom. We clearly rubbed each other the wrong way back then. You stay away from me; I’ll stay away from you. We both go on with our lives. Sound good?”
My stomach drops. No. No, it doesn’t sound good at all. It’s the last thing I want.
“So you’re running away? That’s your solution?” I snap. “I’m part of your past, Isis. You ran from Will Cavanaugh, but you can’t run again. Nothing will be solved that way, and you won’t get any peace.”
At the mention of his name, she recoils, curling in on herself before straightening and glowering at me. “What the hell do you think you know about me?”
“You can’t just write me out of your life like you did that scumbag. I’m not him. So don’t treat me like him.”
“You hate me,” she says dully. “He hates me. I find it better to cut the people who hate me out of my life.”
Everything in me screams to move to hold her. To hug her. To show her I don’t hate her. But that’s not something the Jack she can barely remember would do.
“You annoy me,” I say coldly. “I don’t hate you. There’s a difference.”
She laughs. “Not much of one.”
“I respect you. I don’t agree with you on most things, but I respect you.”
She scoffs.
“Believe it or don’t believe it, I don’t care. It’s still the truth. Before Leo attacked you, we respected each other. I hope someday you can remember that much.”
“All I can remember is that dumb kiss.”
“Which one?” I’ve longed to know the answer to this since she talked about it in the hospital. Her eyes widen, slowly, until they’re the size of amber coins.
“Which one? What are you talking—”
The bell rings shrilly just above us. She winces at the noise, and I take the opportunity to duck into a stairwell and leave her behind. Calculus can’t even penetrate my haze of disbelief. I nervously jiggle my leg the entire lesson, tapping my pencil on my paper. What the hell did I just do? I can’t control myself around her. I thought I could. I promised I would. But the idea of her presence and her actual presence are two very, very different things. I blurt things. I let slip betraying body language.
I’m not in control when she’s around.
And it terrifies me. Because what she needs the most from me—no, from any man—is for him to control himself.
After calculus is over, I glance out the window. Isis walks by just under me, with Kayla. She’s happier, a smile on her face in place of the frown I caused earlier. I only ever make her frown. And that’s when I see it. There, on her scalp, is a pale white scar. It isn’t big, but it isn’t small. It’s jagged and pink at the edges. Just healing. Just barely healing. The sight of it sends a surge of anger into my throat, my lungs.
She got hurt because I wasn’t fast enough.
It is Sophia, all over again.
I grab my books and push out the door. I need air. I need not-air. I need silence. The wall behind the cafeteria is the only place in school people can smoke without being seen. A few other people are here, too, laughing. I lean against the wall and light one. The smoke spirals up and the burn in my throat finally matches the burning guilt in my chest.
“Hey,” a voice says next to me. Knife Guy.
“What do you want?” I grunt.
He shrugs. “You don’t look so good. Thought I’d ask if you were gonna throw up. You know, just so I know not to stand too close.”
“You’re standing close now.”
“If you can talk, you aren’t gonna throw up. When did you start smoking?” he asks. “Thought you were all clean-cut and going to Harvard or some shit.”
“When did you?” I fire back.
“When my old man told me I was too wussy to smoke. Out of spite, I guess.”
“Where’s he now?” I ask.
“Jail.”
There’s a long quiet. Knife Guy puts out his cigarette.
“You’ve seen it, right?” He looks at me.
“Seen what?”
“That thing on Isis’s arm.”
“What thing?”
He chuckles. “For someone so smart and observant, you sure are slow.”
I don’t have the energy to do much more than curl my lip in his general direction.
“It’s been fun.” He finally speaks again. “Watching you two. Most fun I’ve had in a long time in this shithole. So I’ll give you some advice; don’t smoke around Isis.”
“What makes you think—”
“She won’t like it. Trust me.”
“Did she tell you that she hates it?”
“She didn’t have to.”
Knife Guy squints, and before I can interrogate him further, he’s gone around the wall. I mull it over for minutes, racking my brain to put the pieces together. And then it clicks. Just as the bell rings for next period, it all clicks together.
My insides start to boil.
If I ever come face to face with Will Cavanaugh, it will be his death sentence.
Principal Evans is thrilled to see me. And by that, I mean he’s pacing around his office popping aspirin like candy.
“Evans!” I throw my arms out and yell. “Long time no see, buddy!”
“Isis, please, I have a headache—”
“HOW’RE THE WIFE AND KIDS?”
He groans. “You like tormenting me.”
“I like everything that isn’t boring.” I flop in the armchair across from his desk. “So? To what do I owe this illustrious summons?”
He gingerly removes his hands from his ears and reaches into his desk, pulling out an envelope with stately ink words on it and a logo of a building of some kind.
“Is that what I think it is?” I ask.
“Stanford,” Evans says calmly. “I imagine you’ll get one at home, but they sent a faculty confirmation here, too.”
“And you practiced enough self-restraint to not open it! You’re amazing, Evans. Really. You’ve grown up from the little boy who pasted my fat pictures everywhere.”
He flinches. “How about you open it?”
“How about I switch your apple juice with piss?”
“Isis—”
“Look, Evans.” I inhale. “My mom’s got a trial coming up. Dunno if you heard. She’s gonna need me. Probably for a long time. And I mean, I can do your catch-up homework thing and graduate or whatever, but the truth is, I’m not the best student. Obviously. Obviously you know that. I’m fine on paper, but I cause trouble and I’m immature and I say stupid stuff. So I didn’t really earn this. I mean, I did, but I don’t belong in college. Especially not a big huge fancy college or whatever. They’d be better off giving the place to like, someone from Korea? Someone really dedicated and mature. Someone not-me.”
I push the letter back at him.
“So, you know. You can open that. Or trash it. I don’t care. But I’m not going.”
Evans is quiet. When he finally looks up at me, he somehow seems so much older. The wrinkles under his eyes are deeper, and his forehead creases with dozens of years of being tired.
“You’re doing the same thing Jack did.”
“What?”
“Refusing to go because of the people you love. Refusing to—to become amazing. You have so much potential, Isis. And you’re throwing it away.”
“What do you mean, refuse? Did he?”
“You don’t remember? He wanted to stay here, in Ohio, to take care of that girl, Sophia. He had offers from every Ivy League in the country, practically.”
“But he’s going to Harvard now. People won’t shut up about it.”
“Yes. But he only changed his mind after— I don’t know what changed his mind, actually. But I can’t let you do the same thing. Please. I know I said it would be your decision, but please. Open the letter, read it, and think it over. And if you still don’t want to go, I’ll respect your decision.”
I snort. I stare at the envelope for a few moments before snatching it back.
“Fine. Fine. But don’t expect a happy ending.”
Evans smiles wanly. “I never do.”
I get up to leave, and he calls out to me.
“Oh, and Isis? Good luck with the trial. I hope that man who injured you gets the justice he deserves.”
I clench my fists and slam the door behind me. What does Evans know about justice? He was the scumbag who, in a desperate attempt to please the Jack warring with me and get him to apply to Harvard, pasted pictures of my old, overweight self everywhere, and then he tried to make up for it when he found out I’m decent at grades by shoving me into the gaping, greedy maw of every snooty college in the world.
I push out the doors and into the quad. Chilly February air bites at my ankles, but the sun is out, and it warms my face. It’s a calming contrast. I see Kayla sitting on a low brick wall and staring off into the distance.
“You look like you’re thinking,” I say. “Should I take a picture to commemorate the moment?”
She rolls her eyes. “Very funny. Hilarious, even.”
“I try.” I sit next to her. She knits her eyebrows and goes back to staring at nothing. Before I think up a quip to jolt her out of her gloomy mood, she turns to me and suddenly says, “Why does Wren act weird when he sees Jack?”
“Good question. I can’t be sure, since half my brain leaked out onto my hall floor a while ago, but I’m pretty sure it’s because he did something bad. At least, that’s what Wren and my foggy memories say.”
“Jack did something bad? Like…like what?”
“I don’t know.” I stare at the grass. “I honestly don’t know and it kills me on a daily basis, but I somehow manage to revive and shuffle around in a mockery of living.”
“I remember they were friends,” Kayla says. “I came here in, like, fourth grade. Wren and Jack and Avery and that Sophia girl were all friends. Really tight. Like a circle no one could get into. I was jealous of them. I didn’t have good friends—just people who liked the snacks in my house and my makeup kit.”
It sounds lonely. I don’t say that, though.
“So it’s Wren you’re thinking about? Why are you thinking so hard about him? You told me he’s a nerd.”
Kayla flushes. “W-Well, yeah. He’s the nerd king. But— I don’t know! He just gets so…so freaked when he sees Jack. It’s weird.”
“All I know is something happened in middle school. Avery did something to hurt Sophia, and Jack stopped it. And Wren was there, with a camera, because Avery bullied him into filming it.”
Kayla’s eyes go wide. “Do you think there’s a tape of it? If Wren filmed it—”
“I doubt he’d keep it. He’s so guilty, he probably destroyed it. You can ask him about it. But it really stresses him out. And he’s kind of always on the edge already. Never relaxes. It might not be the best thing to talk about.”
“Yeah,” she says softly.
“Why all the sudden concernicus, Copernicus? Do you…do you like him or something?”
Kayla’s face is engulfed in a red-hot blush, and she stands instantly.
“W-What? No! Don’t be stupid! He’s not my type!”
I laugh and follow her as she strides through the crisp grass.
“You’re a bad liar,” I say.
“You’re a bad…a bad…eyeliner-put-on-er!” she snaps. I try to smother my laughter and mildly fail.
“Look, I’m curious, too. I’ve been curious for a while about this. Wren said something to me in the hospital about Lake Galonagah. Avery has a—”
“Family cabin up there,” Kayla finishes. “Yeah. I’ve been to it every summer for the last four years. It’s beautiful, and huge, and the lake is like, five steps from the door, and the hammock is silk, and the chandelier used to be Michael Jackson’s, I think—”
“MJ’s table lamp aside, do you think that’s where whatever it was happened?”
Kayla shrugs. “I just know Avery has a cabin up there. And a lot of crazy parties happen there, too. Her parents practically let her have the place to herself.”
I munch on my lip. A cabin in the middle of the woods on a lake, the lake Wren mentioned, in which Avery is used to total autonomy. Whatever happened all those years ago might well have happened there. If not, at the very least we could look around and see what the place is like.
“We should visit. Maybe not her actual house. Because that would be trespassing. So instead we could lightly trespass around her house,” I say. Kayla bites her lip.
“Now that you mention it—” She shakes her head. “Never mind.”
“Ah yes, the old trick of leaving me in suspense. You crafty minx, you. Stop playing with my heart and my burning desire for the truth.”
“No, it’s just a dumb little thing,” Kayla insists. “I think—I think I remember something about the place. Something weird. But it’s so far back I can’t remember clearly.”
“Well, that’s mildly promising.”
“Maybe if we go, it’ll jog my memory. If it happened a long time ago, there’s probably nothing left. No solid clues or anything.” She shrugs. “So don’t get your hopes up or try to play Nancy Drew.”
“I’m not!” I insist. “I just want to see what it’s like up there! Do you think you can remember the way to her cabin?”
“Did Chanel’s spring/summer 1991 collection redefine postmodern feminism in the fashion world?” she asks.
There’s a pause.
“Translation?” I say.
Kayla throws her arms up. “It means yes!”
“Awesome. Saturday, ten a.m., my place. I’ll drive. You provide the atmosphere. And Gatorade.”
“Saturday? I’m going with my mom to get her hair cut. Why not Friday?”
“That’s when the trial happens,” I grunt. Kayla’s eyes widen.
“Oh. Right. I forgot about that.”
“I didn’t,” I singsong.
“Do you…do you want me to come? I could, I don’t know. Provide moral support? And Gatorade?”
I chuckle. “Yeah. I’d like that. A lot.”
Kayla laces her arm with mine and smiles. There’s a nice quiet as we walk, the quiet that settles between two people who’ve said everything they’d been burning to say, only cool ashes floating to the ground. It’s peaceful and comforting, and it helps calm my first-day-back nerves like a soothing balm.
And then Kayla promptly starts lecturing me on the fine points of Chanel’s spring/summer 1991 collection and why I should care about extended shoulder pads and Technicolor peacoats.
And somehow, that’s even more comforting.
The world changes, and I change.
But some things always stay the same.
Mom isn’t home after school, so I take my pants off the second I walk in the door and sigh with relief. Hellspawn glares up at me with his big yellow eyes.
“Don’t give me that look. I know where you poop. And sleep. Sometimes both at once.”
He slinks upstairs to vomit in my dirty clothes basket or something equally elegant. I chuck my jeans after him, and they land on the railing with a sad thunk, and then I plop down on the sofa and stare at the envelope Evans gave me, and the one that came in my mailbox. The Stanford logos peer up at me in red and white. They reek of pretentiousness, and I haven’t even opened them yet. I can smell the pretense gunk oozing up from the cracks in the envelopes.
They’re taunting me. So I get up and throw them in the fireplace.
The cold fireplace. With no actual fire in it. But in all fairness, if I was made of paper, the mere presence of old coal ash rubbing up against my white butt would make me sweat ink for days.
“Scared yet?” I ask. The envelopes remain plucky. By the time I work up the courage to open one of them, I’ve spent a half hour staring at it. Just staring and watching a bunch of terrifyingly important life choices flash before my eyes. Mom needs me more than Stanford does. But it’s Stanford. Stan-freaking-ford. Stan-is-so-loaded-his-last-name-might-be-Ford-like-the-guy-who-invented-that-one-car-Ford. They’ve got money out the butt and they’ve contacted me early. It’s a rejection. It has to be. A place like Stanford would never want a regular, boring Midwestern white girl like me. I get good grades—so what? I don’t do a million charity after-school things like Wren, I’m not Mensa status like Jack, and I’m not loaded like Avery. There is literally nothing to set me apart from everyone else.
But if they accepted me—just if—then Evans is right. I hate the taste of those words on my tongue, but he’s right. Stanford would transform me. I’d go there, and learn so much, and become so much more. Or less. Or maybe I’d flunk. I’d fail, probably. But if I didn’t, places like Europe and things I’ve always wanted to do, like learn Spanish fluently or dive into women’s studies or peruse the mysteries of microorganisms—all that would be in reach of my grubby little hands.
I could get away from here. I could start over, fresh and new.
The sight of the bills piled on the table hits me like a ton of lead bricks. Who am I kidding? Even if this is an acceptance letter, there’s no way Mom could afford it. I’d be working my ass off 24-7 just to make tuition, and even then I’d owe a trillion in student loans when I got out. I’d probably be miserable. It’d be smarter to just stay home, here, with Mom, and get a job and attend the local community college. It’d save both of us money. It’d be the sensible, grown-up thing to do.
I grab the envelope and make a mad dash for my room. I belly-flop onto my bed and pull Ms. Muffin to my side.
“Okay, you open it.”
I manipulate her little paws, my hands shaking, and she opens the envelope and extracts the letter. It flops open on the bedspread. I choke on my own saliva.
There’s more than just a letter. There’s a form of some kind.
Don’t be such a wuss! Ms. Muffin seems to chime. But don’t get hasty! Read the letter first!
“Dear Ms. Blake. Congratulations! We are pleased to inform you you’ve been accepted to Stanford University for the fall 2016 semesterOHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD.”
Breathe! Ms. Muffin wails. Don’t forget to breathe! It is kind of required!
My mind is blank—all thoughts of Jack, and what he said about “which kiss,” flying out the window. I temporarily forget about Lake Galonagah and Sophia’s anger. I just have a minor coronary and collapse in on myself like a dying star. The peach tree outside my window is summarily impressed.
“I got in! I got into Stanford!” I shout at the ceiling. The letter shakes in my hand as I eagerly devour the rest of it. There’s something about a housing form, and a financial aid form, and at the very bottom is a mention of a grant. Grant? I never applied for a grant. Did Evans…?
And then my eyes widen at the amount on the attached paper. Thirty thousand dollars, for four years or until I get my bachelor’s, on the terms I keep a 4.0 average. It’s not a lot to Stanford, but it’ll put a huge dent in the tuition costs for me. I could actually keep afloat, if I got some more scholarships and worked. It’s doable. My heart squeezes and un-squeezes rapidly. I can do it. I can do something different, something wild and massive and incredible with my life—
“Isis?” Mom’s voice filters up from downstairs. “Isis, are you home?”
I jump up and rush down the stairs, slipping on the bottom one but catching myself gracefully and launching into her chest.
“I got in!” I scream. “I got into Stanford!”
Mom’s eyes widen. “W-What? Stanford? How—”
I shove the letter in her hands and quiver on the edge of a knife for an entire ten seconds as she reads it. Her face lights up from the inside, like a candle through a frosted pane, glowing in all directions at once. She hugs me, harder than when I woke up in the hospital, harder than when I came home from the hospital, harder than when I arrived at the airport in Ohio from Florida.
“Oh, sweetheart. I’m—I’m so proud. This is amazing! When did you apply to Stanford? And without telling me?”
“I just…I just put it in for kicks. I didn’t expect anything to actually happen,” I lie. Worry lines overshadow Mom’s joy, but she’s trying hard to hide them for me. It’s then I notice her coat and the new prescription pills sticking out of her purse. But her smile is broad and unwavering, trying its best even if it’s difficult.
“Let’s talk about this after dinner, all right? Call your father and tell him!” Mom insists.
Dad’s just as thrilled. He offers to help me with some of the costs, the pride in his voice unmistakable.
“Kelly! Kelly!” I hear him call to my stepmom. “Isis got into Stanford!”
“Stanford!” Kelly’s saccharine voice pierces through the receiver. “Quick, give me the phone.”
I suck in a breath and brace myself for the inevitable showdown.
“Isis!” Kelly exclaims.
“Kelly!” I imitate. “It’s so nice to talk to you again. Once every two years isn’t enough.”
“I agree! Stanford…wow. That’s incredible. I hope Charlotte and Marissa can be as smart as you when they get older.”
“They can try,” I say sweetly. She laughs, but under that laugh is the obvious—we dislike each other. We’ve just never said it out loud.
“You should really come visit us this summer,” Kelly presses. “Your father and I are taking the kids”—she puts emphasis on “kids”, rubbing it in my face that I’m not included in that category—“to Hawaii. We should all go together before you head off.”
“Aw, but I like you so much more when you are a generally enormous distance away from me.”
She laughs, short and biting. “Well, I’ll give the phone back to your father now. Congratulations again!”
Dad comes back on. “So, what’s the plan? Do we fill out the FAFSA? I’m coming to your graduation—we could drive out there. A road trip—Ohio to California—for just you and me! How would you like that?”
I smile at the floor. Yeah. That’d be great. If I were five years old. He’s trying to make up for lost time. It’s so obvious and so ridiculous. He hasn’t spent more than a week at Christmas with me each year since the divorce. It’s clear he doesn’t give a real shit about me. He’s started over, with a new family, but he still thinks he can treat me like I’m a child. I’m not a kid anymore. He missed out on his chance to raise me. At least Mom tried, even if it was at the very end of my time as a kid.
“I dunno, Dad. I’ll think about it.”
“Okay! Keep up the good grades, and we’ll talk more about it later. Love you.”
“Love you, too.”
The words are hollow. He’s my dad, but he’s never been my Dad. And he never will be.
Sometimes, realizing the truth feels hollow, too.
Mom bustles around the kitchen making a celebratory dinner. She’s forcing herself to be happy for me, but I know something’s wrong, and it’s not just the looming trial this time. She’s so wrapped up in her BLT making I can’t get a serious answer out of her, so I go upstairs and turn on my laptop and stare at pictures of Stanford. I do more research; there are amazing overseas programs. England, France, Italy, Belgium. The campus is something straight out of a magazine—perfect green lawns and whitewashed buildings and the California sunshine turning everything golden. Their math program is incredible, with really famous professors I’d only read about in scientific journals. Not that I read that nerd shit. I just, uh, look at them while I’m on the toilet.
But still.
It’s everything I’ve never known I wanted.
I scroll though my email, to thank them for my scholarship, and pause at one particular message. It’s new, sent just four hours ago, from a weird address. At first I think it’s spam, but then I read the title:
Isis, I know you’re there
Creepy-possible-serial-killer title aside, I click on it. What’s the worst that could happen? My firewalls are tight, and if it’s a phishing email I just won’t click on anything inside it. There’s a single line in the body:
Jack Hunter is evil, you know.
It’s a joke. It has to be a crappy joke email from someone at school. I’ve heard these exact words from people there—but in an email like this, it’s creepy. It’s somehow more threatening, and real. I try to trace the email by putting it in Google, but nothing comes up. It’s a jumble of letters and numbers that might as well be a spambot, but it’s not. It’s someone who knows my name, and someone who thinks Jack Hunter is evil. I’m conflicted about him for sure, but I don’t think he’s evil. He’s cruel and callous. But evil? Really, truly evil? That’s going a little far.
And that’s when I see it.
There’s an image attached to the email.
I open it. It’s blurry, but I see trees and the pine needles covering the ground. I see the dark lump that looks like it has limbs (a person?) lying on the ground, and I see the hand carrying a bat in the corner. A bat stained with something dark on the tip.
My mouth goes dry. I know that hand. Memories surge up like a rapid tide. I grabbed that hand, with its slight veins and long fingers. I held it, both of us sitting on a bed, and I confessed something. Something that meant a lot to me. Thumping music. The taste of booze. Dancing. A bed.
I know whose hand is holding that stained baseball bat.
It’s Jack’s.
Jack is looming over what looks like a dead body.