Call It What You Want

by Brigid Kemmerer

  She looks gobsmacked.

  I look away from her and shove my tray forward with more force than necessary.

  She hovers behind me, but I refuse to look at her.

  “Wait,” she says after a moment. “Considered? Past tense? You don’t consider him your friend anymore?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” And I don’t. Half a day later, and I still have no idea how to reconcile what Rob told me. He carried around so much anger about how people thought he was involved with his father’s thefts. So much anger that he’d built steel walls around himself. He resented that. I know he did.

  But then to start stealing anyway—it makes no sense.

  “Please?” Rachel takes advantage of my silence and jumps around to get in front of me. “Maegan. I’m sorry. But he was bad news. Please talk to me. I’ve been so worried about you. I actually got in his face this morning, but then—”

  “Wait. You got in whose face?”

  “Rob Lachlan’s. I thought he was pulling you away from your friends, and that’s a warning sign—”

  “Oh my god, Rachel. Do you live in an advice column? Rob wasn’t pulling me away from my friends.” I grit my teeth and glare at her. “My friends were being jerks.”

  Now she looks like I punched her. “We were looking out for you.”

  “Replay everything Drew said to Rob at Taco Taco and convince yourself of that. Go ahead. I’ll wait.”

  Rachel purses her lips. “Drew wasn’t wrong.”

  “He wasn’t wrong after Rob left. He didn’t need to be nasty to Rob’s face. Rob didn’t do anything to him.” I pause, and her face twists like she’s going to defend Drew further. “Just because he’s right about some things doesn’t mean he’s right about everything. You can be right and be a jerk at the same time. You’ve heard Drew make little comments to me, too, so don’t try to deny it.”

  She inhales to say something, then closes her mouth.

  Exactly. I push forward with my tray.

  Rachel follows me. “So, what are you saying? Rob’s completely innocent and everyone is all wrong about him?”

  I hesitate.

  She seizes it. “He’s not. If he had nothing to hide, he wouldn’t lurk around the school like he’s on death row, and you know it.”

  “You’re missing the entire point.” I slide my tray along.

  Rachel says nothing. I say nothing.

  This sucks.

  “I don’t want to fight with you,” she finally says.

  “I don’t want to fight with you, either.” And that’s true. I miss her friendship. I appreciate that she was looking out for me, regardless of how misguided it was.

  I just don’t feel like dealing with Rachel+Drew.

  “Do you want to sit with us?” she says as we approach the register.

  Her tone implies she wants to brush everything under the rug and go back to the status quo. I can’t do that.

  “Not today,” I say. I type my student ID number into the machine next to the cash register and walk away.

  When I turn to face the cafeteria, I realize I’m left without a destination. A week ago, I would have gone slinking back to Rachel’s table, or I would have found a place to eat by myself. All these secrets would have pressed into my shoulders until I finally gave in and played tattletale.

  I’m not doing that today. I storm across the cafeteria and slap my tray down beside Owen.

  They both look up at me in surprise. Before they can say anything, I glare at Rob and say, “What are you doing?”

  He glares right back at me. I’d forgotten that he’s not one to wilt from confrontation—and I was the one who ran from him in math class this morning. “Eating lunch. What are you doing?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  Owen clears his throat. “Should I leave?”

  “Does he know?” I demand.

  Rob hesitates, and some of the attitude melts out of his eyes. “Yeah. He does.”

  “Know what?” says Owen.

  Rob looks at him, and his voice drops. “About … everything.”

  “Why are you doing it?” I say. “You made it this huge deal about how you weren’t—”

  “Would you keep your voice down?”

  I don’t lower my voice at all. “I want an answer.”

  “Then sit down.” He casts a look around, but we haven’t attracted too much attention yet. “Stop making a scene.”

  I sit.

  Rob says nothing. Owen glances between us.

  “Hi,” he says after a moment. He holds out a hand. “I’m Owen.”

  I know, but I shake his hand anyway, like this is some kind of bizarre business meeting. “I’m Maegan.”

  Rob’s looking at his food now. He’s not getting off that easy.

  “You spent all that time telling me you weren’t a thief,” I whisper at him. “And now you are?”

  “It’s not like that,” he says.

  “It’s exactly like that.”

  His eyes flash up. “It’s not all black and white, Officer.”

  “Did you take something that didn’t belong to you?”

  Silence falls over the table, and he pokes at his sandwich. When he finally speaks, his voice is very low. “I didn’t steal for me. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of it.”

  It shouldn’t make a difference. I don’t want it to make a difference. But the tone of his voice plucks a chord of mercy inside me. “Fine. Who?”

  “For anyone,” says Rob. “Anyone who needs it.” He hesitates. “It started with this ten-dollar bill that Connor dropped. He wouldn’t take it back.” He nods at Owen. “So, I gave it to Owen. And then the bake sale cash box fell, and I had to help Connor clean it up, so I swiped a couple of twenties, and Owen gave it to a girl who needed it. Then Owen’s mom’s work shoes broke, and she didn’t have a hundred bucks to replace them, and—”

  All the breath leaves my lungs. “You’re stealing to help people.”

  He grits his teeth and looks away. He looks antsy, fidgety. That’s not him at all. This is really weighing on him.

  “You don’t want to do this,” I guess.

  “I don’t want any of this,” he says. “I don’t want everyone thinking I’m a thief. I don’t—I don’t want to have to live with what my father did. If I can give something back, then maybe—” He breaks off with a disgusted noise and starts throwing his half-finished lunch back into his sack.

  “If you’re not eating that, give it to me,” says Owen.

  Rob shoves the food across the table, then jerks at the zipper on his backpack.

  “You’re leaving?” I say to him.

  “Yeah.” To my surprise, he does. He stands up and stalks away from the table.

  I don’t understand anything at all.

  Owen picks up the abandoned sandwich. “We weren’t going to hurt anyone,” he says. “You think the bake sale is going to miss forty bucks?”

  “That doesn’t make it right,” I say.

  “I eat a cheese sandwich every day, but the lacrosse team is getting new sticks because some kids could afford to pay three bucks for a cookie. You think that’s right?”

  I open my mouth, then close it.

  Owen’s eyes are piercing. “His former best friend beat him up for going to that party. You think that’s right?”

  “Wait, what?”

  “My mom would lose her job if she didn’t have uniform shoes, but you’re going to get up in arms about earrings someone doesn’t even know are missing?”

  “I’m not—who beat up—what?”

  “I get why you’re mad,” Owen says. “But to pretend it’s all one side or the other is just stupid.” He polishes off the last of the sandwich, and his voice drops. “You want to come storming over here to call him a thief, go ahead. But sometimes I think everyone needs to take a long look in the mirror before they go making an issue about someone else’s life.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. It’s
a little too close to the argument I just had with Rachel.

  “He’s not hurting anyone.” Owen grabs his backpack and stands up. “I think he’s trying to undo the harm his father caused.”

  I frown. He can’t solve a crime by committing more—but Owen’s words about a three-dollar cookie are lodged in my brain, and I can’t work them loose.

  “Think about it.” Owen throws his backpack over his shoulder and turns away. “We weren’t all raised by cops, Maegan.”

  Once again, I’m left alone, everyone’s secrets sitting in a pile on my shoulders.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Rob

  Dinner is meatloaf and mashed potatoes, which is usually a favorite of mine. Tonight, I wish I could hole up in my room so I could avoid Mom’s prying questions and Dad’s blank stare.

  The earrings are burning a hole in my pocket. I drove to a pawn shop after school, but I couldn’t find the nerve to go in. I don’t know if they’d ask me where they came from, but I wasn’t ready to risk it. I’m not a liar. I’m not even a very good actor.

  Then again, I’ve got Mom convinced that I’m seeking counseling and I’m working out every day.

  At least half of that is true. The cold morning air feels like a punishment. A penance.

  She’s not really prying at me with questions more complicated than how was school anyway. It’s my own guilt that makes every word out of her mouth feel like an interrogation. I shovel meatloaf into my mouth and hope that’s enough.

  When a lull falls between us, her gaze turns piercing, and I can feel that the topic is going to turn more personal. Before she can pry, I swallow my food and say, “How’s everything going at work?”

  She hesitates and gives me a small smile. “Everything is fine.”

  “They’re convinced you know the alphabet now?”

  “Better than that. They’ve mentioned that they might like to hire me on full-time.”

  I glance up. “Really?”

  “Yes.” She hesitates. “I’ve developed a good rapport with Gregory.”

  I glance at Dad. He clearly doesn’t care. “What—ah, would that change anything?”

  “I don’t know yet.” She stabs a piece of meatloaf. “I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.”

  There’s a tone in her voice I can’t identify, but I don’t like the way it’s making me feel. “What kinds of things?”

  “Just … things.” Another stab at her meatloaf. “Like—”

  A solid knock sounds at the front door.

  I freeze.

  Mom freezes.

  Dad … well. He keeps on doing what he always does.

  No one ever comes here for any good reason. I think about Maegan. Her father. The earrings. I didn’t hear sirens, but then there wouldn’t be sirens if they were coming to pick me up to take me to jail.

  One of us is going to have to move. I place my napkin next to my silverware. “I’ll get it.”

  Dread curls through my body as I approach the door. I remember answering the door for the paramedics after I found Dad, and while this is completely different, it’s also similar.

  I throw the lock and yank the door open.

  Connor stands on my doorstep. I’d be less surprised to find Santa Claus. My thoughts twist between anger at his presence and panic that he somehow figured out that I stole his mother’s earrings.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” I say.

  “Hi,” he says in response.

  Mom must pick up on my tone or my tension, because she calls from the dining room. “Who is it, Rob?”

  “No one.” I move to swing the door closed.

  Connor catches it and all but growls at me. “Grow up.”

  Mom appears behind me. “Connor! It’s been ages.” She pauses. “Rob? Invite him in.”

  I want to refuse, but that will only make me look petulant, and Mom will get her way in the end. I step back and hold the door open. “Fine. Come in.”

  “Are you hungry?” Mom says. “There’s plenty of meatloaf.”

  His eyes flick to me and back to her, and he says, “Yes. Thank you.”

  When he steps across the threshold I want to punch him in the gut. Or maybe I don’t. I’m not sure. He walks past me, unzipping his jacket as he goes, and hangs it in the front closet like he’s been coming for dinner every week this year.

  I wait for him to be surprised by the sparse decor, the way Maegan was, but then I remember he was already in here two days ago, when he staked out my room to sucker punch me in the stomach.

  Never mind. I do want to hit him.

  He’s already in the dining room, though, and he pauses for a second when his eyes fall on my father, his feeding pump click-click-clicking. Mom has hurriedly prepared a plate for Connor in the kitchen, and she slides it in front of him with a smile.

  He waits for her to sit before taking his own seat. It puts him directly across from me. Hooray.

  “You still haven’t said what you’re doing here,” I say.

  “Rob,” Mom says.

  Connor takes a forkful of meatloaf. “I was driving around. I thought I’d stop by.”

  I don’t believe that for a minute.

  “How are your parents?” says Mom.

  His eyes glance at my father, who’s still staring dumbly from the opposite end of the table. Connor is unnerved. He’s doing a good job of hiding it, but I can tell. “They’re—they’re great. Dad’s business has really taken off.”

  Mom doesn’t say anything to that. Her hand tightens on her fork, and now she’s the one to stab at a piece of meatloaf. Connor’s father got a lot of my father’s clients when everything collapsed. Mr. Tunstall was apparently a real hero to people who still had money left.

  “Sorry,” says Connor. “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “No!” Mom’s voice is full of false cheer. “It’s wonderful. I’m glad your family is still doing well.” She takes a gulp of wine from her glass. “Marjorie hadn’t mentioned that.”

  “She probably didn’t want to be insensitive,” I say.

  “No,” Mom says. “It’s—” Her cell phone rings from the kitchen, the happy chimes a direct contrast to the bizarre tension in this room.

  She stands. “I’ll be right back, boys.”

  We’re left alone. Connor eats, his fork scraping against the plate in a way that probably isn’t very loud but sounds like a circular saw in the quiet of the dining room. He hasn’t met my eyes since I opened the front door.

  He can’t be here about the earrings. He would have said something by now.

  All of a sudden, I’m tired. I don’t want to be at war with Connor. I don’t want to be hiding things from my mother. I don’t want to have cried on Mr. London’s desk, talking about how much I miss my father. I don’t want any of this.

  “Hey,” he says.

  I refuse to look up.

  “Rob.”

  “What?”

  “I just …” He hesitates. “I’m sorry.”

  I have no idea what he’s referring to, but the list of what he could apologize for is long and winding and he’s full of shit anyway. “No, you’re not.”

  He frowns. “What do you even think I’m talking about?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” My voice is full of acid, but I keep the volume down because I don’t want to start arguing and trigger something with Dad. “You’re not sorry. What do you want? Do you feel bad all of a sudden? What was the little show on the quad? You want a cookie?”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  I look back at my food. Jab my fork into my mashed potatoes. The worst part about this conversation is that a tiny scrap of my consciousness wishes his apology were real. Like we could snap our fingers and go back to the way things were.

  Mom’s in the kitchen, laughing lightly. It must be one of her new friends.

  I’ve been thinking about a lot of things.

  She never said what kinds of things.

  “Trevor Casternan took your at
tacker position,” says Connor, interrupting my thoughts.

  “Good for him,” I say.

  “He’s pretty good with the stick, but he’s slow—”

  “What are you doing?”

  “Talking.” He scoops up some mashed potatoes. “Like I was saying, he’s slow. We got killed by those guys at Carroll High. Coach was pissed.”

  I’m tense, pushing food around my plate now. I remember Trevor, and I remember the team from Carroll, so it’s not tough to envision how that would go. My brain is snapping into autopilot, wanting to hear more details so we can pick apart the game.

  Connor speaks into the silence. “We all had to run laps after the game. I heard him tell Trevor he wasn’t going to be able to play attacker in the spring if he can’t—”

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I say. My fork is clutched in my hand so tightly that it’s all but vibrating against the plate.

  Across the table, Connor goes still. His mismatched eyes are fixed on mine. He swallows, his throat working like it hurts.

  He knows what I’m asking.

  He clears his throat. Looks away. “Rob—”

  “Forget it. Leave.”

  He doesn’t move, so I stand up. “Fine. If you won’t leave, I will.”

  I’m in the dining room doorway when he says, “My dad wouldn’t let me call.”

  I go still. It doesn’t undo anything, but this is a scenario I’ve never considered.

  Connor continues, “I got your message and I didn’t … you were … I don’t know. It was awful. I’ve never—I’ve never heard you like that. I panicked.” His voice breaks, but he catches it. “I asked Dad what to do. I thought he’d drive us over. I thought—I don’t know what I thought. He wouldn’t let me call you.”

  I turn back and look at him. “Why?”

  “I don’t—I don’t know.” His face has paled a shade.

  “Bullshit.”

  “What do you want me to say?” he demands. “He wouldn’t let me call you. He wouldn’t let me come over here. And then when they all said you were in on it—”

  “Go to hell, Connor.” I turn around and walk out of the dining room. This is somehow worse.

  He comes after me. “Rob. Stop. I’m trying to talk to you.”

  I don’t stop.