by Tara K Ross
Tom clears his throat and breaks the unusual music-free silence. “So, Frizz, care to fill me in on what happened there?”
I shoot him a quick glance in hopes of deciphering his intention with that question. His face is slack. Should he be driving? “Tom, are you—”
“I asked you the question.”
Okay, he’s not mellow enough to be high. “What exactly are you wanting me to fill you in on?”
“Let’s start with why you bolted across the street from the skate park with some dude I’ve never seen before.” He stares me down while waiting for the dreadfully timed traffic light.
“Yeah, he’s not—”
“Or you could tell me about the smashed guy who wanted to join you in my car.”
“Okay, I can’t explain how he got that way.”
“And correct me if I’m wrong, but is that even the shirt you left with?”
“No, but that I can explain.”
“How about why you were fifteen minutes late. You are never late.” His ghost-white knuckles jerk the steering wheel to round the bend in the road. “We had an agreement.”
“I’m sorry, Tom.” I wait to see if my apology will help to calm him down. “I don’t think Mom or Dad will notice if we slip in the—”
“I’m not worried about them.” A quiver enters his voice. “I’m worried about you.” He wipes his nose with the back of his jacket sleeve.
“But …” I look at my phone and scroll through the text messages. There is not just a missed call from Tom, but more than ten separate messages from him over the course of the last hour. I scroll through the messages. They start off typical Tom: “Call when you are ready.” “Coming in 10.” “Waiting out front.” But the messages that come after eleven take on an irrational, panicked quality, a feeling I thought I had exclusive rights to in my family. “Where are you?” “Why are you not responding?” “Thea, if I don’t hear from you soon, I’m coming in.” “How did you not tell Ashley where you were going?” “Call Now.”
“I’m sorry, Tom.” I touch the arm of his jacket. He shakes my hand off and averts his gaze. My brother rarely cries. And he never shows a lick of real concern for what’s going on in my life. So why all of a sudden is he falling apart? It can’t be over me. He can’t be breaking down. I need him to be the new rock of the family. The stable one I can rely on when things get rough at home. “I should have checked my phone. I should have thought to … I should have thought of you.”
We roll up to the curb near our house. He cuts the engine and closes his eyes. I hear only his weighted breath. The interior lights time out, and he shifts his entire upper body toward me. “Can you promise me that you will never do anything stupid?”
“Like leaving my friends to go off with a virtual stranger and not letting anyone know?”
“That is stupid, yes.” He clicks the mini flashlight on his keychain on and off, then meets my eyes again. “I mean really stupid,” his voice breaks, “like hurting yourself or something worse.”
I nod slowly. This is not a joke for him.
He leaves me alone in the car with the realization of what an insensitive idiot I am. He. Knew. Malin. How did I not remember this until now? He worked with her. He probably saw her most Wednesdays and Saturdays for over a year before he left in September. What if he didn’t hear about what happened to her until this weekend? And then I go off the grid and show up late. The car light again fades away.
I thrust open the door and despite the pain, chase after him down the side of our house. “I forgot you knew her.”
“It’s fine. Drop it.” He slides the side door open and lowers his voice. “Take off those shoes before you give us both away.”
“But, I’m an idiot and I should have—”
“Drop it.” He thrusts an open palm in front of my face and jerks his head toward inside.
The house is dark but anything from quiet. My parents’ voices are muffled by layers of insulation and drywall, but the cheap thin doors do nothing to dampen their tones. This is not an argument that will be ending soon.
Woolie’s soft body curls around my legs, followed by a low meow. It’s not his normal welcome, but more one of distress.
“Shh.” I pick up his mass of fur and stroke behind his ear to quiet him. I feel along the wall toward the basement.
“Just take him with you tonight,” Tom whispers, giving him an uncharacteristic rub.
We head up the stairs using his flashlight as our guide. We don’t need to worry about the creaks tonight.
Mom’s voice shrills through their closed double doors. “If you ever took the time to actually talk with me, then maybe we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
“I’m sorry if I had to ruin your perfect plan.” Dad’s low tone sounds more deflated than usual.
Woolie presses his head into my hand as though to distract me from listening. It works long enough for me to enter my room and change into pajamas. If I didn’t need to pee out the hot chocolate, I would have just stayed. I close my door softly to keep Woolie confined and head for the toilet. I turn around and startle backwards into my closed door. Tom stands motionless in the hallway. He glares at our parents’ bedroom as if he is willing the handle to open through a Jedi mind trick.
“Tom,” I breathe. “What are you doing?”
He doesn’t respond. Still clad in his leather jacket and work pants, he just stares. I tiptoe over to him. Deep lines furrow between his eyebrows. He does not want to interrupt this. I’ve tried and failed miserably in past fights. Thea, did we ask for your opinion? I gently direct his shoulders toward his room. Surprisingly, he doesn’t resist.
“They’ll figure it out,” I say, sounding Tom-like in my wisdom regarding our parents’ failing marriage. “They always do.” This I say more to remind myself than provide legitimate reassurance.
I veer for the bathroom and peer at my reflection in the glow of the nightlight. I shake my head. What were you thinking? Caked eyeliner and mascara have seeped down to meet with what I thought was subtle bronzer. In this light it could be mistaken as the stripes football players put under their eyes. Why did I think I could pull off being Ashley? Or anyone like her?
Splashing warm water on my face never felt so cleansing. When I was a kid, Mom gave me a Robert Munsch book called Makeup Mess. As I wipe off the remnants of the crusted black goop onto a once-upon-a-time white towel, I rephrase the book’s moral punch line to myself. “Now Thea, you are finally learning how to wear makeup.”
The yelling continues until past midnight. The door to their bedroom opens and the spare room door slams shut. My body unravels a layer of tension with the resulting silence, but then a wave of guilt hits me. Was Tom still listening when the doors released the aftermath of tonight’s parental breakdown? As much as misery loves company, he didn’t need to hear that with all the emotional baggage he must be carrying. The last thing he needs is a reason to go back to getting high every night. Maybe he’s already there. I’ve been so caught up in my own life I haven’t even been thinking about him. This last summer was rough for him, with breaking up with his long-term girlfriend, realizing that his dream of becoming a radio DJ was futile, and then Grams’ death. Now he’s studying his butt off to prove to Dad he can make it at his alma mater and that he’s not a complete write-off. Then throw Malin’s suicide into the mix.
How well did Tom know her? Maybe he knows what led her to jump off the Ridge into an unknown emptiness. Maybe that is why he was so freaked out for me. He knows I’m a heap of anxiety. He’s probably figured out Mom’s got me in counseling too. And maybe that’s okay. Another layer of tension uncurls from beneath my four layers of blankets. It’s actually nice knowing he’s got my back. Or at least knowing I register in his thoughts. When he left for school this year, part of me thought he left this family behind. But after tonight, I don’t think that could be true. He still cares. A lot.
My muscles twitch. My lids droop farther over my eyes. My tension gives way.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Monday arrives in all its glory. Cue vomit. The notion of going to school this week is so unappealing I contemplate eating two-week-expired yogurt. I’m that desperate. All the previous daydreams of random lovestruck encounters with Gavin have, in one short night, turned to dread. Crossing his path today would most certainly cause me to upchuck. Even without the planned food poisoning. I toss the yogurt and grab a Clif bar from the snack cupboard instead. A public spewing would be like a cherry on my social-suicide sundae.
Instead of waiting until this morning, I should have been using my premeditative energies on Sunday to finagle the parents into letting me stay home today. Claim emotional fatigue due to incessant bickering. Given Mom’s poor conflict resolution model, she would have provided a free pass through the gauntlet of forgiveness Sunday morning. And Dad would have supported any claim regarding the need for a mental health day. He seems to be using the same excuse with his own place of employment. Case in point, the only remaining sound before I drag my butt out the front door is his borderline sleep-apnea snoring. My final chance for these arguments would have been last night. Today, Mom had an early shift at the hospital, or so she said. And I don’t dare wake Dad.
An oil splotch on the road next to our house is all that is left from Tom. He drove off without so much as a text message to say he was leaving early. By the time I opened my shutters, he had already rattled his Civic off to school. Mind you, he could have left Sunday morning for all we would have noticed. All of yesterday, he barricaded himself in his room, coming out only for the bathroom, meals, and, quite surprisingly, to do his laundry.
Something is definitely wrong. I should have checked back about Saturday night. But his incessant hand-twisting and knuckle-cracking were telltale signs of a ticking Tom-bomb. If there is one thing I’ve learned about him over the past sixteen years, it’s that when he is brooding, you give him space or face spontaneous combustion. I make a note on my calendar to text him midweek.
A new flow of text messages crowds the screen on my phone. All from Jade. I attach graphic novel images to each of her texts. First, she’s using a magnifying glass to ensure every strand of her eyebrows and eyelashes are in place before hitting send; next, she’s bouncing her leg on the car ride to school, which gets her there an hour early; then, she gnaws through her pencil while waiting for my reply at the library. A satisfying heaviness calms my fluttering stomach. Jade is my perfect Pepto-Bismol. She needs me today. Well, maybe not so much me as Evan’s notebook being returned with one key sketch missing. If only I could erase my ridiculous flirt-failure from Saturday night in the same way: a crumpled ball of fuchsia paper in the trash can. But that’s not happening.
At least the distraction of helping her work through this debacle takes some of my thoughts off stressing over a possible encounter with Gavin. Jade spent hours masterminding her plan for fixing things up with Evan, but I’m also a crucial player, with having the journal and having picked up key intel about his girlfriend’s accident. I need to keep my breakfast down for her if nothing else.
As Jade and I arranged, I stop by M&H and pick up my two London Fogs. If there’d been time, I would have tried to debrief with Nadia about my crazies from Saturday night. But not now. Plus, a quiver shoots down my spine when a Gavin doppelganger enters while I’m paying. The door swings closed behind me, and I realize I’ve created a new mantra: At least I have Khi. At least I have Khi.
What I have with Khi, though, is a very good question. He certainly doesn’t want a quick fling. But he watches me with an intensity that seems more than platonic. Maybe that’s just my Magic 8 Ball request. Whatever our relationship is, I can firmly say it feels secure. Like he’s watching out for me, even when I’m too stupid to do it for myself. It’s funny. Despite the discomforting first impression he gave Tom, I think my brother would actually like him.
When I arrive at Ridgefield, exactly ten minutes before the bell, the foyer is, as expected, congested with meandering teens in their usual social clusters. Jade stands out in her isolation by the academic awards cabinets. She stoops over her cell phone, bobbed hair concealing all but her gnawed bottom lip. How she managed to cram herself between the cabinets of plaques from brainiacs past is beyond me.
“Interesting place to hide given your predicament,” I say.
“Shush.” Her catlike eyes dart in all directions. “You said to meet in the front foyer. This is the front foyer, is it not?”
“Never mind.” She is in no frame of mind for irony this morning. “So, have you seen him come in yet?”
“Both went that way.” She indicates with her head toward the grade eleven corridor.
“What do you mean both?” I glance down the hall and catch sight of Gavin pounding on Lennox, likely for some joke he made about me. A cold sweat, like the one you get as you run to the toilet to vomit, hits my body. “Never mind.”
“We can wait until later when he—I mean, Evan is somewhere else,” Jade says.
The two teas in my hands say otherwise. “I’ve got an in right now. It’ll be awkward later.”
“Done. I’ll distract Gavin and Lennox. It’ll be fine.”
She squeezes my arm as we zigzag around the milling students toward Evan’s open locker. She shoots past him as if he could be infectious. With record precision and speed, she opens her own locker, using it as a barricade. It manages to provide a shallow spy cover for her and obstructs Gavin’s view of me. I pause in front of Evan’s metal compartment and breathe deeply. Just as we practiced, Thea.
After clearing my throat, I start into the script. “Hey, Evan. How was your weekend?”
His door squeaks open to reveal the full mess of his locker and an expression that should be reserved for tequila shots. “How do you think it was?” His voice matches the overall pinched expression on his face. He pulls out a binder and restrains the toppling pile of loose-leaf paper, most filled with sketches and doodles.
The sheer height of the papers and books looks like a stationery monsoon went through his locker. How can he find anything in there? Maybe this is going to be easier to pull off than we thought.
“I got you an extra tea, because well, I heard—”
“Yeah, everyone heard.” He slams the locker shut. “But she wasn’t trying to kill herself, in case you were planning to ask that next.”
“I know—I mean, I shouldn’t know. I was at the hospital on the weekend and saw her. She was doing really well. The nurse said it was a bad accident.”
The scowl that previously etched his features softens. He picks at the skin just below his ear. “What were you doing at the hospital? Isn’t patient stuff supposed to be confidential?”
This was the part I had practiced and memorized like lines for a play. If Mom ever found out I shared the phone conversation she had with a colleague, I’d never get out of the gauntlet. “I was visiting my mom. You know she’s a nurse, right?”
He nods slowly as if I’m questioning his intelligence. He was probably at the hospital more than I was during primary school. Back when his mother grew ill. But there’s no way he could’ve remembered my mom in the constant rotation of teal, uniformed staff.
I continue, despite the growing look of disgust on his face. “And she was talking to another nurse about a girl who came through the ER, and it matched Nora’s injuries, so I just asked how she was doing.” I force myself to pause. “They didn’t say her name, but I knew it was her because they said it was related to a golf cart. And that was how she hurt herself, right?”
His lips purse. He stuffs a textbook into his bag. “Well, at least someone knows the truth.”
I sigh in relief, having made it through the first stage of our plan.
He finally accepts my feeble peace offering.
I thrust the tea toward him and wait without breathing. He takes a long sip.
“These things are pretty good. Thanks for, you know, not judging like everyone else.”
He takes
another sip and walks away.
I can’t help but smile as warmth travels down my own throat and calms my agitated stomach a little. See, not crazy—just gifted with uncanny compassion.
Jade stands farther down the hallway, having left her spy hole to distract Gavin. She watches like a hummingbird, darting between easy and relaxed with Gavin to nervous and spastic with Evan’s approach.
Right. Complete the mission, Thea.
On impulse, I snag Evan’s arm. Tea spatters from his mouth. A girl within radius lets out a squeal. Steaming liquid narrowly misses her boots. A clichéd silence worthy of a scene from a teenage sitcom follows. On another day, with other people, it would have been quite comical. But not today. Countless gawking expressions focus on me. Despite only lasting for a moment—a horribly awkward, feels-like-an-eternity moment—it is long enough for Gavin to find me in the mannequin-like crowd. And any previously calming tea effects are annihilated by stomach acid climbing up my throat.
Jade breaks the silence, continuing her attempt at distraction, but judging from the forward thrust of Gavin’s clenched jaw, he has no intention of being reengaged. He approaches like a lion stalking its prey, and something tells me he’s planning to play with me before the kill.
I pilfer through my bag and fling Evan’s notebook at him. “I’m so sorry, Evan, I just wanted to give you this.” I push the spiral-bound pages into his free hand. “I found it in the cafeteria on Friday and”—Gavin continues to stride through the students—“and I tried to find you, but you left so I kept it for the weekend.”
After shaking his fingers free of tea, he takes the book from me. As he clues in to which book has been returned, his bottom lip lowers. He knows exactly what this is, despite the disorganized state of his locker. “Did you look—”
“I only glanced at a couple of pages to see who it belonged to.” Which is partially true, given that Jade searched through the rest, removed the sketch, and replaced it with a heartfelt apology note of the same color.