Aftermath by Kelley Armstrong (11)

Apparently I’m joining the newspaper. I text Mae to say I’ll be late – I was wrong about the meeting time. Then I follow Mr. Vaughn’s directions… and spend the next ten minutes hunting for the office. Seems he can’t tell his left from his right. He’s correct, too, that it’s easy to miss the office. It’s just a printed sign posted beside the door, announcing HOME OF THE RIVCOL TIMES!

I knock. Knock louder. Look around, and then crouch to peer under the door. It’s dark inside. I try the knob, to be sure, but it’s locked from the outside.

I look at the sign and see, in faded print, JOIN US! WEEKLY MEETINGS THURSDAY 3:30 P.M. LEADS WELCOME.

Today is Wednesday. I sigh, heft my bag and head down the hall. As I walk, a text comes in from Mae.

I wince at that, but I do like pizza, and I know she’s trying.

Pause. Pause.

“It’s a lie, you know,” a girl says down a side hall.

My gaze shoots up, away from my screen.

The girl continues. “Her brother shot all those kids, but her family has money. They bought off the cops. Made them blame the other guys. That’s what I heard.”

“And her mom’s crazy. Everyone knew that. The whole family’s got problems. Even Luka.”

“Especially Luka. I went to summer drama school, just to get to know him. And I did get to know him… I got to know he was weird. Seriously weird. When I heard he was the one who shot those kids, I knew it was true.”

I’m frozen in place. Frozen on the outside – boiling on the inside.

My brother didn’t shoot anyone. And buying off the cops? Seriously? We aren’t rich. We just have enough money that we could pick up and get the hell away from people like this. People who call a woman who’s clinically depressed “crazy.” People who call an amazing, quirky guy “weird.”

My phone dings with an incoming text, and I look down to see two from Mae. I sign off fast and start walking.

I’m not going to stand here and pretend I don’t hear. Not this time.

As I march toward the voices, they fall to whispers, as if the girls hear someone coming. They’re right around the next corner. I wheel past the lockers and —

The hall is empty.

“I hear she got kicked out of her last school.” The voice comes from around the next corner. “They found her with a gun.”

I march toward the voices. Around the corner and…

The hall is empty.

“Are you serious?” The voice comes from farther down. I’ve misjudged. It’s so quiet that they sound closer than they are.

I keep walking, quieter now, muffling my footfalls as the other girl says, “Totally serious. She said it was for self-defense but, yeah, right. She’s planning something. We need to get the petition filled, fast. Lana says if we take it to the media —”

I spin around the next corner while she’s still talking and…

I’m staring down a short corridor of lockers with no doors or exits. A dead end.

I look around, searching for where the voices could have come from. A hidden recording? That’s the only answer.

The only answer?

I didn’t imagine those voices. I know I didn’t.

I spin around, run down the hall, and turn —

I bash into a guy standing around the corner. I send him staggering back, me stumbling, and I’m waiting for the inevitable “Watch where you’re going!” Instead, there’s silence.

I look up and —

“Jesse?”

He gives a gruff “Hey” without making eye contact.

“I’m sorry. I was… I was running late. For the next bus. And I got turned around.”

He nods.

“Are you okay? I hit you pretty hard.” I didn’t, but it’s an excuse to keep talking.

“I’m fine,” he mumbles. He stands there, hands stuffed in his pockets, hood raised, expression unreadable. I want to flee. Flee as fast as I can. But I dig in my heels and say, “I’m sorry if this is awkward. Having me here.”

A shrug and a mumbled, “It’s fine.”

“Someone should have warned you. I would have insisted on it if I knew you were here, but I was told you’d gone to Southfield. That’s why I chose RivCol.”

He stiffens, as if insulted.

I hurry on. “I didn’t want it to be awkward for you. You’ve been through a lot —”

“I said I’m fine.” A split-second pause. “Don’t you have a bus to catch?”

Isn’t there somewhere you need to be, Gilchrist? 

“I just wanted to say —”

“You said it. I’m fine. I have a meeting.”

He walks away.

 

I’m outside the doors, and I’m shaking, and it’s partly embarrassment but partly anger, too. I didn’t linger. Didn’t pester him or, God forbid, ask him to go grab a soda. I said exactly the right things, and he was a jerk about it.

Now I’m outside catching my breath and remembering where Jesse was when I crashed into him. Standing in a hall that ultimately led nowhere… except to me.

I head back inside. When I hear footfalls, I duck around a corner, but it’s just Owen. I circle around, and then I hear more footfalls. Not the deliberate slaps of Owen’s work boots but the scuffling walk of someone not going anywhere in a hurry.

I peek around the corner to see Jesse. He’s moving at a stroll. Keeping my distance, I follow as he heads down one hall, then another… and eventually ends up back where he started. There he glances at his phone, as if checking the time. He nods, satisfied, and makes a quick left, toward the rear exit.

Here for a meeting, you said? 

He’s been killing time. I could take offense at that, presume the “meeting” was a lie to get rid of me, and that he then wandered around to ensure he didn’t bump into me again. But that raises the question of what he was doing here in the first place, hanging around where the only thing nearby was me.

I keep thinking about that anonymous email. Jesse’s interest in school has obviously dropped, but I remember him as the math whiz who planned a career in software engineering. A kid who was a genius with a keyboard.

I hear my voice, from a distant memory. “Hey, Jesse, question for you. Purely hypothetical.”

We’re sitting on a wall outside the playground. Sun setting, children playing, parents shouting “One last time” before they herd their kids home to dinner. Jesse and me, on the wall, our heels kicking it, impatiently waiting for the moment when the park will be ours.

The parents and kids will leave, and the sun will set, and I’ll jump from the wall and hop onto a swing. Jesse will smile and shake his head, but he’ll follow eventually, and we’ll swing and talk, and later – if it’s dark enough – I can even coax him onto the twisting slide, hear him laugh as he forgets he’s thirteen, supposed to be past all this.

“Hey, Jesse, question for you. Purely hypothetical.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Let’s say one wanted to access the school computers. Maybe… fix a few things.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not grades. That’d be wrong. But, you know, erase some comments on a student record. Where a student might have done some things that got totally blown out of proportion but could look bad on a college application.”

He slants a look at me. “No one’s going to check a middle school record for college.”

“I was thinking of high school. Could you hack those records?”

“You don’t have a high school record yet, Skye.”

“I’m planning ahead.”

He laughs, startling a babysitter, who squints over, as if thinking that laugh couldn’t possibly have come from the somber boy at my side.

“You could just stop getting in trouble,” he says.

“Yeah… so, hacking the school system?”

He smiles and shakes his head. “Theoretically, yes. But ethically, no. Sorry. Not even for you.”

But you could, right, Jesse? You could crack my school account and send an email to Mr. Vaughn. 

And those voices I was chasing – you could do that, too, couldn’t you? 

Another kind of technology. Throw prerecorded voices, and when I don’t find the source, I’ll think I’m losing my mind.

What about the other day, when I got locked in the office? You knew I was in detention. You’re the only kid who did. 

According to Owen, I’m not the first student Mr. Vaughn has forgotten there.

Did you know that, Jesse? Did you find a way to distract Mr. Vaughn, help him to forget about me? 

And then there’s the video clip.

My shoulders tense, as if throwing off the very thought. That wasn’t Jesse. Could not be Jesse.

Am I sure?

Earlier, I searched the phone number and discovered it was fake. Spoofed. Something a guy with tech skills could do.

I remember the opening shot on the clip. The kitten. Like real videos Jesse used to send me. A way to guarantee I would hit Play.

No. I don’t care how much he’s changed. I cannot believe the boy I know would compile that video, much less send it to me.

What about the voices I heard Monday? The ones replaying that conversation from the girls’ bathroom. I was alone in that bathroom. So how could anyone have recorded them?

That should suggest it’s not Jesse.

It should also suggest it wasn’t anyone. That none of this is happening.

Isn’t there a better answer? A more obvious one? 

That I am losing it.

Just like Mom.

Just like Luka.