Echo

by Kate Morgenroth

  He was so rattled he didn’t even remember that this was when Mr. Franks had appeared in the hallway. It gave him another nasty shock to see the principal ahead, but he was able to keep his wits about him enough to dart into the bathroom.

  Still breathing hard, Justin crossed to the sink and turned on the faucet. He ran his hands under the cold water and splashed some on his face, and he had just squirted some pink soap from the dispenser onto his hands when he heard a sound behind him.

  That’s right, he thought. This is when I talk to Daniel.

  But when he turned around, Daniel wasn’t standing behind him. Justin looked for the source of the sound, and he saw a figure huddled against the wall, head down on his knees.

  “Hey,” Justin called.

  There was no response.

  “Hey,” Justin said a little louder.

  The boy looked up, and it was Daniel. His face was wet with tears.

  “Are you okay?” Justin asked.

  Daniel just looked at him as if he didn’t understand what Justin was saying.

  “Are…you…okay,” Justin repeated, even more slowly.

  But at that, Daniel’s face twisted, and he again hid his face in his arms.

  Justin stared at him for a moment, but Daniel didn’t look up, so Justin turned back to the sink to wash off the soap. But as he held out his hands underneath the water, he saw that instead of pink soap they were smeared with blood.

  For a second he couldn’t breathe.

  He fled from the bathroom and burst out into the hallway, wiping his hands desperately on his shirt.

  I want it to stop. I want you to stop it now, Justin demanded, walking quickly down the hall.

  “I can’t do that,” the voice replied.

  Why not?

  “It’s time,” the voice said gently.

  Justin passed a clock and glanced up. Its hands showed that it was three thirty.

  Justin stopped abruptly.

  I’m not going, he said.

  “You can’t change it now,” the voice told him.

  Yes I can, Justin insisted. If I just stand here and don’t move…

  But he blinked, and suddenly he found he was standing in the corridor by the back staircase.

  He whipped around to check behind him, but there was no one there. He still had time to get away. He turned back—and ran smack into Billy.

  “Justin…,” Billy said.

  Justin spun around to flee in the other direction, but Billy reached out and grabbed his arm.

  “What do you want?” Justin demanded, anxious to get away.

  “I wanted to ask you…”

  Justin stared at Billy. Billy’s mouth was moving, but it was as if Justin were watching a movie and the sound had cut out.

  “What is he saying?” the voice asked.

  Justin didn’t answer. Instead he found himself grabbing Billy and saying desperately, “Just leave me alone, Billy. Okay?”

  Billy laughed. “You want me to leave you alone?” Then he laughed again, but this time it had a strange, hollow sound. It raised goose bumps on Justin’s arms.

  “Shut up,” Justin yelled, shaking Billy hard.

  Billy stopped laughing. “You know what?” he said, suddenly very serious.

  Justin let go of Billy and took a step back. “What?” he asked.

  “I think I know.”

  Justin started backing away, but Billy matched him step for step.

  “What do you know?”

  “I know what’s wrong,” Billy said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Billy replied. “I know it was your fault.”

  Justin spun away, but Billy lunged after him and grabbed him.

  As Justin tried to wrench himself free, he shoved Billy backward.

  Billy teetered for a moment at the edge of the stairs. Justin leapt for him, but as he clutched for Billy’s shirt, instead of grabbing it he actually tipped the delicate balance and sent Billy tumbling back.

  Into thin air.

  Billy’s body made the same graceful arc through space, and then his head struck the iron railing with the same solid thwack.

  Justin stood there, gasping. He felt like he was choking on air.

  At the shrill clamor of the bell he turned and ran. The students poured into the corridor from the classrooms, and he was soon surrounded by other kids, all talking and laughing, happy that it was the end of the day.

  Justin pushed through them, oblivious. His body was on autopilot, and his face had been chipped from a block of ice. But there must have been something strange about his expression, because a lot of the students stopped to stare at him as he went by. Until the air of the hallway was pierced by a scream.

  Everyone else seemed to freeze in place, except for Justin. He kept right on walking. He walked down the hallway, walked out through the front doors, walked down the hill to his bus. As he climbed the steps and went to take a seat, the bus driver turned and stared at him, just as the students had.

  “Hey, kid, are you okay?” the driver called after him as he continued down the aisle.

  Justin stopped and glanced around. He didn’t know why the bus driver would be asking him that. The driver couldn’t know anything. Could he?

  “Yeah,” Justin said. “I’m fine.” Then he hurried on and took a seat toward the back.

  Then the doors closed, and as the bus pulled out of the parking lot, the sirens sounded faintly in the distance.

  26

  When Justin let himself into his house, the stillness seemed bottomless. It was like time had stopped. It was like he was the only one left in the whole world.

  He dropped his bag in the hallway and wandered through the empty living room to the stairs. He climbed slowly, resting his palm on the banister, just brushing the wood. When he reached the second floor, he started down the hall, running his fingertips along the wall. He let his fingers ride over the molding and the door of the bathroom, then of his room, but when he reached the third door, he paused. He dropped his hand to the doorknob, and let it rest there a moment. Then he slowly drew it back again—and continued down the hallway. Strangely, he found it hard to walk a straight line without his fingers brushing the wall. But it was only a few more steps to his parents’ bedroom. He went in, this time without hesitation, and crossed straight to the bureau, opening the bottom drawer and retrieving the bottle of pills. Then he turned and retraced his steps back down the hall to the bathroom, where he filled a glass of water. Then he looked into the mirror. The glass was still shattered, and he stared at his fragmented reflection.

  “I want this to be over,” he said quietly. “I just want this to be over.”

  He stared a moment longer, then abruptly turned away and retreated into his bedroom.

  Sitting on the edge of the bed, he started with one pill. Then a second. And a third. Then, as he worked up his courage, he took them in small handfuls. He kept going—automatically, systematically—until the bottle was empty. Then he lay back down on the bed. As he did, he accidentally pressed the power button on the remote, which was lying, half-hidden, under a fold of the covers, and the TV flicked on. He picked up the remote to turn the TV off, but on second thought he just lowered the sound. Then he lay back down on the bed.

  He closed his eyes….

  When he opened them again, Mark was standing on the other side of the bed, with the gun trained on Justin’s chest.

  Justin sat up so quickly that he felt dizzy.

  “Give that to me,” Justin said urgently, reaching his hand out for the gun.

  “Yeah, like you gave me the remote,” Mark scoffed.

  “I’m serious, Mark,” Justin said.

  “‘I’m serious, Mark,’” Mark mimicked.

  Justin lunged toward him.

  “Hey,” Mark protested, struggling, but Justin grabbed Mark’s wrist in one hand, and wrenched the gun free with the other.

  “See?” Justin said, triumphantly holding up the prize. “What did I s
ay? I always win. You should write it down.”

  Mark just scowled at him.

  “And don’t touch this again,” Justin said. “This isn’t something you should be playing with. And don’t you know you should never, ever point a gun at anyone? How would you like it if I pointed it at you?”

  “I wouldn’t care,” Mark retorted.

  “Oh, you don’t think so? I bet you would.”

  And Justin raised the gun.

  27

  “Wake up.”

  This time Justin didn’t obey the voice. Instead of opening his eyes he squeezed them shut even tighter.

  No, he said. Not again.

  “Once more,” the voice insisted.

  Even with his eyes squeezed shut, a tear managed to seep out from beneath his lashes. I can’t do it again, he whispered.

  “This is the last time,” the voice promised.

  Another tear leaked out, and Justin mutely shook his head.

  “WAKE UP!” the voice commanded.

  Justin’s eyes snapped open. It wasn’t even a choice; it was involuntary, like when the doctor hit your knee with the rubber mallet and your foot jerked up. That’s how it felt when the voice spoke like that.

  He lay there, waiting for the voice to speak again. But it didn’t, and he discovered that the silence was even worse—the longer it stretched, the more tense Justin became.

  Finally he broke.

  I’m getting up, he said breathlessly. I’m getting dressed. I’m going into the bathroom. He reported his actions without further protest.

  Once in the bathroom he squeezed toothpaste onto the toothbrush, ran the bristles under the faucet, and went at his teeth like he was sawing wood. He spit and laid the brush down on the side of the sink, not even bothering to rinse it. Then he splashed water on his face and, still bent over the sink, ran both hands through his hair to smooth it down—all without looking in the mirror. And finally he filled the water glass. He took the vitamin, put it in his mouth, and swallowed the water.

  Only then did he look up into the mirror. He opened his mouth, making sure he couldn’t see the pill. Then he spit it out. It hit the glass and bounced harmlessly into the sink; the mirror remained intact.

  Now that he was looking in the mirror, Justin found himself staring at his reflection. The eyes in the mirror narrowed, the face twisted, and the expression was so ugly and bitter he barely recognized it. But a second later he did—because that’s when he felt the emotion that he saw reflected in the mirror rising inside him like a tidal wave. It flooded over him, swamping him. He felt like he was drowning in it. It was hatred. And loathing. And disgust. And it was all for that stupid face in the mirror.

  And then his fist was in the air, and he was smashing it against the glass, splintering his reflection into a hundred little fragments. He let his hand drop back to his side, staring at the spiderweb of lines that now decorated the mirror. It wasn’t any magic that had shattered the glass; it wasn’t a pill with the force of a bullet. He wished it had been. Somehow, he felt like that had actually been less frightening.

  28

  “Good morning,” his mother said as Justin entered the kitchen.

  “What’s good about it?” Justin heard himself snapping.

  His mother turned quickly away—under the guise of getting the orange juice out of the refrigerator—but she didn’t turn away quickly enough, because Justin caught a glimpse of the look on her face. When he had come in, she’d been smiling, but as soon as he spoke, her face crumpled, as if it were only through an enormous effort of will that she kept from bursting into tears.

  When Justin took a seat at the table across from his father, he saw the newspaper tremble in his father’s hands.

  His mother busied herself getting out a glass, pouring out his orange juice, getting out the prescription bottle, and shaking out a pill. When she turned to Justin again, she had managed to regain control over her face. Her expression when she handed him the orange juice and held the pill out on her palm, was smooth and serene.

  Justin took the pill. He felt guilty about what he’d said, but he couldn’t seem to find the words to apologize. That made him feel even worse, and somehow it all got turned around inside him, and he found himself getting angry at her for making him feel bad. And before he knew it, he was snapping at her again.

  “What, are you going to stand over me like a jailor while I take it?” he demanded.

  She turned away again silently, this time to get the bowl and milk for his cereal, but Justin noticed that both his parents—his mother while she opened the refrigerator and his father by turning the page of the paper—managed to watch covertly as he put the pill in his mouth and drank his orange juice.

  His mother returned to the table with a bowl in one hand, a carton of milk in the other, and the box of Cap’n Crunch under her arm. She never used to let them eat sugar cereals. It was always cornflakes or Grape-Nuts or something equally disgusting and healthy. He and Mark had barely bothered to campaign for anything else. They’d known that they had no chance of winning. But after Mark died, some awful, calculating part of him had known it was an opportunity to get whatever he asked for. So he had asked. His mother tried to put up a fight. She said, “You know I don’t let you eat that junk. It’s not healthy.”

  “So what?” Justin shot back. “It didn’t matter for Mark. He could have had Cap’n Crunch every day of his life, and it wouldn’t have made a bit of difference—except that he might have been a little happier.” Even before the words left his mouth, Justin knew he shouldn’t have said it. But it worked; the next day his mother brought home Cap’n Crunch from the store. The thing was, when his mother set the cereal on the table in front of him that first day, instead of being happy about getting what he wanted, Justin had felt like he’d been punched in the gut. That’s when he’d realized that what he’d really wanted was for his mother to refuse to buy him Cap’n Crunch—just like she’d always refused—because then he would have had proof that what had happened with Mark hadn’t changed everything.

  After the cereal he tried again, with bigger things. He asked for a TV in his room. And then for a PlayStation. And then for a new computer. He was trying to force her to revert back to how she’d been before, but instead, each time his mother put up even less of a fight. Finally Justin had to switch tactics. He started “talking back,” as his mother called it. But Justin knew it was more than just the normal teenage rebellion. He went past the boundaries of normal obnoxiousness. In fact, he tried to be as hurtful as possible. He just wanted to get a response out of her. But it didn’t work. After a few brief battles his mother started ignoring his behavior. In fact, the ruder Justin got, the nicer she became. He knew it didn’t mean anything. Like her getting his breakfast now didn’t mean anything.

  She doesn’t care, Justin told the voice. She just doesn’t want to have to deal with me.

  But even as he said it, he could feel rather than see the covert glance his mother stole to check on him. And he could picture the worried expression that creased her face. And he realized that nothing he’d said was true.

  “No,” the voice agreed. “It isn’t true.”

  Meanwhile, his mother was speaking to his father.

  “You’ve got that presentation today, don’t you?” she asked.

  “Yep. It’s today.”

  “And you didn’t want to ask them to reschedule?”

  This time as Justin listened, it didn’t seem like they were ignoring him. It seemed, in fact, that they were just straining to make conversation to try to keep the appearance of normality in the face of his sullen silence.

  But he still had to get the pill out of his mouth. When he was sure neither of his parents was looking, he brought his hand up to his mouth as if to scratch his nose, and he surreptitiously palmed the pill.

  Something splashed onto the table. He moved his hand, and the next drop fell in his cereal, red immediately turning to pale pink as it dispersed in the milk. He quickl
y dropped his hand to his side, and the next drop fell on the tile next to his chair.

  Blood.

  He must have cut his hand hitting the mirror, he realized. How could he not have noticed?

  He glanced down, trying not to call attention to his movements. It wasn’t a bad cut, he saw with relief. It was the action of making a fist around the pill that had squeezed the blood from the cut. He would have to get a few Band-Aids after his parents left and before he went to catch the bus. He could only hope that until then he would be able to hide it from them.

  “What are you thinking of…”

  Justin glanced up sharply when he realized his mother was speaking to him. His look made her falter.

  “What am I thinking of what?”

  Now all he wanted was for her to ignore him. It was funny: He wanted her attention, but at the same time he didn’t want it. If she saw his hand, he knew she would have a fit. She would demand to know how it had happened, and he would have to tell her about what he’d done to the mirror. He knew instinctively how upset she would be. Then it would turn into this big deal. She would keep after him about why—why had he done it? And he would pretend to be angry at her for asking because the truth was, he couldn’t answer. He didn’t know why. And he couldn’t possibly tell her how scary that was.

  “Why couldn’t you tell her that?” the voice asked.

  Because she’s already scared, Justin said. I’m not sure she can handle any more.

  “But can you handle it?”

  Justin didn’t answer the voice. He didn’t have an answer. So he answered his mother instead—it was easier.

  “What am I what?” he said again, a little more gently, but that seemed to upset her even more than his abruptness.

  “Nothing,” she said, turning away quickly, and he knew she was on the verge of tears. “Well, I’ve got to run,” she said. Her voice had that ring of false brightness, and she made herself very busy gathering up her purse and keys. She started toward the door, then she hesitated and turned back.