by Elle Casey
My father’s shoulders sagged and his face fell. “I really hate that you went to law school sometimes. You get all … lawyery and it’s seriously interfering in my ability to ever win an argument about anything.”
She threw her arms around him and hugged him hard. His hands slipped around her lower back as he pulled her in close.
My mom spoke into his chest. “I don’t want her going over there any more than you do, but imagine what it’s like to be Chuck right now. He must be devastated. I’m upset with myself that I haven’t gone over there and given him our support yet.”
My mom pulled away from my dad and looked over her shoulder at me. “We’ll go over as a family tomorrow morning.”
I tried to calm the zip of electric happiness that shot through my body. It could be a trap. My parents are seriously awesome at setting them and I usually fell right into them too. “But I have school.”
“You can miss a couple periods in the morning.”
I wanted to leap for joy, but I was afraid to enjoy the victory too much. My dad was on a hair trigger, and it wouldn’t take much for him to veto my mom’s decision. They have some crazy rule that each one of them gets a no-questions-asked veto that cannot be argued against. I’ve only seen it used once in all the years I’ve been alive, but it was ironclad. No way did I want to invoke one of those.
“I’m going to do some homework and then go to bed.”
My father looked down at my mom. “Who is that kid and what has she done with our daughter?”
“Ha, ha,” I said, walking by them.
I was almost out of range when my dad grabbed my arm and pulled me back. Soon I was enveloped in a Katy sandwich, my parents the bread and me the meat.
“We love you, Katydid,” my father mumbled into my hair. “We’re not ogres. We just want to protect you from the terrible things out there in the world.”
“You can’t protect me forever,” I said, my voice catching in my throat. How I wished their love could be enough to turn back time and stop Jason from making such a terrible mistake with his life.
“Yes, I can. I’m your father.”
I know he meant it as a joke, but I had to show him I was an adult now. I looked up and stared him and my mom in the face. “Tell that to Mr. Bradley tomorrow. I’ll bet he thought he could protect Jason too.”
My mom’s eyes teared up and she and my dad squeezed me so hard, I thought I was going to pee a little. When they finally let me go, I separated myself and grabbed the camera on the side table, intent on deleting any photos on the memory card before giving it back to its owner.
I went upstairs to my room with a lighter step but a heavier heart. Things just kept getting more complicated, and I didn’t see my future being any better.
Chapter Twenty-Three
FORGET HOMEWORK. I WAS MORE interested in playing camera hacker than learning about matrices and determinants. Pre-calc. Bleck.
After texting Bobby, telling him I’d fill him in on all the drama at lunch tomorrow, I pulled the memory card from the camera and put it into the slot on the side of my computer. Images started loading into my photo program, and I hummed to myself as I waited.
Carwash … mmm-mmm mmm-mmm mmm-mmm mmm-mmm… talkin’ ‘bout the car wash, yeah…
Inspiration struck as the old-school tunes kept rolling through my brain, so I opened up my music library and quickly put together a playlist that I thought Jason might like. Deciding that Facebook might be the best way to contact him, I did a search of his name.
His page was the first one that came up under my search, even though I was sure there were hundreds of Jason Bradleys around the country, maybe even the world. That meant I was probably one of a thousand people who’d gone looking for him online recently. It made my heart hurt to imagine why all those people suddenly cared about him. Surely it wasn’t to ‘friend’ him. What a joke.
His page was loaded with new messages and images, all of which were sickening. It was clear Jason hadn’t been online in awhile, otherwise for sure he would have deleted all of it. Hell, if it were me, I would have closed the account down entirely.
His wall was covered in people saying horrible things to him and about him. There was a meme that said, DEATH PENALTY in big letters, superimposed over Jason’s yearbook photo from last year.
The whole thing made me nauseated, and I prayed silently that Jason would never see it. The police had taken his computer. Maybe he wouldn’t be allowed to have one for a while. Maybe I could talk to his dad about getting onto Jason’s account and deleting his Facebook page before he saw it.
I abandoned the idea of sending a friend request and instead decided to get a new email address for him. That way I could put stuff in there without anyone knowing about it, and his dad could get stuff off it for him. It was bold and crazy and definitely impulsive, but I didn’t let those little nagging doubts stop me. Using Google, I signed up for a new account with my name as the owner.
I smiled in satisfaction after writing the user and password info down on a post-it note, feeling so super-spy it wasn’t even funny. I sent a message to the new address with a link to the playlist on my cloud account. Hopefully his dad wouldn’t think it was weird that I’d done all this. I’m not sure why I was more worried about Jason’s father’s reaction than Jason’s himself, but I was. Everything was upside down and inside out, not making the least bit of sense.
Would his dad think I was a stalker? A wannabe girlfriend?
My stomach kind of flipped around at that thought. I didn’t want that, I was sure of it. My interest in Jason was purely friend-oriented. I could ignore the knowledge that murder hadn’t changed the fact that he was the hottest guy in school.
The pictures had finished loading, so I clicked over to my photo program and started sifting through the images. Anything was better than second-guessing my motivations where Jason was concerned. Jason and his fine butt.
Argh. I hated that I’d noticed that and couldn’t forget it.
All of the most recent pictures were of my front door, my lawn, my dad’s car, Jason’s house, Jason’s windows, Jason’s fence and then several of me and Jason’s dad coming out of the house with a crowd in the background. The camera guy even caught a shot of the microphone smashing into my face. I looked like a serious freak with my mouth hanging open and my eyes crossed. I deleted that one first.
The rest of the photos were taken during the daytime, of football players I recognized from my school. The pictures were either individual shots of players walking or several of them standing around in small groups. There were some younger boys hanging out near them, kind of on the outskirts of the groups, like they were fans of the players. I couldn’t figure out where the shots were taken until I saw a sign in the background of one of the photos. I pressed the zoom key until I could read it.
“Big Brothers of South Banner,” I said out loud into the room.
After a few seconds it rang a bell in my brain. Big Brothers of Banner was one of the coach’s pet charities. It had been mentioned in the news about a million times since the murder last week. Yep, Jason had killed a saint.
I quickly shut my photo program down, and when the window popped up asking me whether I wanted to save or delete the photos from the camera’s memory card, I selected Delete.
That’ll teach that assmunch to invade our privacy.
After pulling it from the computer, I also laid both sides of it on a giant magnet I had in my room from a failed science project, circa sixth grade. I had no idea if a magnet could do anything helpful, but I saw on a CSI episode once that they were able to get photos off an erased memory card, and I didn’t want that picture of me or Jason’s father seeing the light of day. Magnets erase all kinds of digital stuff, I knew this for a fact. Putting one on top of our TV when I was twelve had totally messed up my dad’s screen and made him cranky for a week.
I would have just kept the memory card or broken it into bits, but I didn’t want to be accused of stealing on
top of all the other shit I was sure to be accused of. After seeing what was on Jason’s Facebook wall, I could only imagine the fresh horror that awaited me in school tomorrow. I was so glad it was going to be a Friday and I’d be missing first period.
After I put the card on my desk, I dressed in my pajamas, which consisted of a long t-shirt and sweat-shorts with the words Hot Stuff on the buttcheeks. The card was back in the camera ready to be delivered to its owner when he came knocking, which I was fairly certain he’d do tomorrow morning. If I were a vulture, that’s what I’d do.
Sleep did not come easily to me that night. I tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. When I did finally succumb to endless visions of sheep jumping a white picket fence sometime after two in the morning, I had a horrible dream about the coach.
He was the coach, of that I was sure, but he had this giant, grotesquely-shaped head and claws for hands. Then, just as I was about to turn away, his face changed and it was Jason there looking like he was about to eat me alive.
I woke up screaming and never did get back to sleep that night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
AFTER SPENDING WAY TOO MUCH time staring at the sad state of my closet and finally picking out an outfit to wear, I went downstairs. My mother and father were already at the breakfast table, dressed and prepared to head over to Jason’s house. My mother seemed peppy, and my father a mystery, hiding behind the morning paper.
“Did you call Jason’s dad first?” I asked, pouring myself a bowl of muesli cereal. I hated the stuff, but it made my mom happy when I ate it, so I was going to make the effort. It was the least I could do after she spared me from being roasted over a pit of punishments last night.
“No. Should we have?” My mom paused in the middle of pouring me a glass of orange juice.
I shrugged, talking around a mouthful of cereal. “No. Maybe. I dunno.”
My dad bent the newspaper so he could see me over it. “Having second thoughts? Because we could just walk away, let this thing just die off.”
I rolled my eyes, trying to control my temper and keep my gaze directed towards my bowl of floating bits. Unfortunately my mouth wasn’t on board with that plan. I crunched my oats a few more times before the sarcastic comment flew out.
“Yeah, sure. Literally, since they’re going for lethal injection.” I looked up at my father and narrowed my eyes.
“Don’t start,” my mother said, setting my orange juice down in front of me. “We’re going over there, and we’ll make our decision about next steps after we do that, okay? And I don’t want you two at each other’s throats about this either, or neither one of you are going to be happy with the result.”
I chewed slowly, feeling guilty that I’d tried to make my dad feel bad. He was just being a parent. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
My father put his paper back up and didn’t say a word.
My mom and I shared a look. Her silent words told me she’d make sure he acted reasonably. My silent words were telling her good luck with that.
My dad had obviously decided this whole thing was a bad idea and he was only going along with our visit this morning to appease my mother. It was going to take some kind of miracle to get him to change his mind.
I wasn’t too proud to use my mother’s power to my advantage, but I wasn’t so dumb that I thought it could last through anything. I made a vow right then to do everything I could to make my father happy, even if it meant swallowing a whole buffet’s-worth of words I’d rather say aloud. Until Jason’s situation was determined, I would be the model child.
Ugh. Even thinking it in my head made me want to gag.
“Are you feeling okay?” my mom asked, stepping over to rub my back. “You look at little green around the gills.”
“I’m fine,” I said, swirling my grains and nuts around in the pool of tepid milk. “Just worried about Jason is all.”
My father’s paper jerked like he’d just snorted.
I ignored him. “I’m going to get my stuff. Are you guys ready to go?” I stood and brought my bowl to the sink, dumping the uneaten cereal down the disposal before putting the dish in the washer.
“Five minutes,” my mom said, heading off to her room. “I just need to brush my teeth.”
I was almost out of the room before my father’s voice stopped me.
“The question is, are you ready?”
I paused, my hand on the doorway to the kitchen. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
My father folded up his paper and put it down next to his plate on the table, turning partway in his chair to face me when he was done.
“I’m worried that you have this schoolgirl fantasy view of what’s going on here. That you see this cute boy who needs a friend and think you’re going to ride in there and save the world and maybe get a new boyfriend while you’re at it.”
I couldn’t keep the look of extreme disgust off my face. Screw being the perfect daughter.
“Are you serious?” I shook my head. “Jesus, Dad, I’m not ten, okay? Give me a break.” I stormed down the hallway as I sent my last shot. “Thanks for ruining my morning, by the way!” My face was burning, possibly from the last part of his comment. I wasn’t in this to get a new boyfriend. I didn’t even want a boyfriend, and if I did, it definitely wouldn’t be the guy everyone hated.
My father mumbled something in response, but I didn’t hear it. Instead, I went to the bathroom attached to my bedroom and brushed my teeth, taking extra time to floss and use mouthwash too. I kept telling myself I wasn’t using the mouthwash because I was hoping Jason would get close enough to smell my breath. I did it because gingivitis is a serious problem that I didn’t want to have.
Chapter Twenty-Five
“GINGIVITIS,” I SAID, BEFORE I could think straight.
Jason half-smiled, half-frowned at me. “Gingivitis?”
“Yeah.” I nodded several times, enough that I probably looked like a crazed bobble head doll. We were standing face to face in front of the sink in his kitchen, pausing in the process of loading the dishwasher while our parents talked in the living room.
I hadn’t meant to get this close to him, but he’d insisted on helping me clean up — something I was only doing to kiss up to all the freaked-out parents in the house — and then he was just there. Right in my face. Close enough to smell my breath, maybe. Hopefully not. I’d just had a bagel with lox and cream cheese on it.
“I use mouthwash because I’m afraid of getting gingivitis. Have you seen those commercials?” I fake-shuddered, trying to play off the fact that I was completely dorking-out.
“And you’re telling me this because …” Jason just stood there with a bagel plate in his hand, waiting for me to explain the spontaneous Rainman issue I appeared to be suffering. I’m an excellent driver … ack!
If there was a magical power that could make the earth open up and swallow me whole, I’d want that one. And I’d have used it right then if I had it, too. The more I tried to salvage the situation, the worse it got.
“You were staring at my mouth,” I explained, “so I thought maybe you smelled my mouthwash and I was explaining the reason why I use it.”
“I was staring at the cream cheese on the edge of your lip, actually.”
My hand flew to my face, wiping like crazy. “Are you serious? Oh my god, how embarrassing.”
Jason started laughing his ass off, barely holding on to the plate in his hand.
I yanked it away and pushed him away from me, not sure now whether he was messing with me or I actually did have an eating disorder that caused everything that passed through my mouth to end up on my face.
“Shut up, you idiot. And go over there and get me those glasses off the table.”
“Bossy, bossy,” he said, doing what I told him to do without question.
He put the glasses in the top rack of the dishwasher while I rinsed my hands in the sink. My face was burning from embarrassment, so I kept my gaze off him and on anything else. There wa
s a lopsided ceramic frog holding a steel-wool scrubbing pad on the edge of the sink that held my attention for a while.
“Sorry, I was just messing with you.”
“I noticed.” Scrub, scrub, scrub. Just keep scrubbing. My ears were burning.
“I can’t seem to help myself. You’re so gullible.”
I scrubbed the soap on my hands around and around. “That’s me. The gullible idiot.”
He put his hand on my arm. “You’re going to scrub your skin off if you don’t stop.”
My hands stilled and my wrists lowered to rest on the edge of the sink. “Sorry … I’m just … nervous, I guess.”
He let me go and shut the dishwasher door. As he dried his hands off on a towel, he leaned his hip on the counter, facing me.
“What are you nervous about? You’re not the one on trial for murder.”
I think he meant it as a joke, but all it did was make me feel worse. I let the water run over my hands, watching the bubbles disappear from my skin. It was too awkward to look at him, so I pretended that the physics of the surface tension of my skin was fascinating to me.
I sighed. It was time for a little truthiness. “I’m worried my parents will tell me I can’t come over here anymore.”
“They gave you some shit, huh?” He sounded defeated.
“Mostly my father. But my mother’s worried too.”
“Do you blame them?”
My head jerked up at his tone. “They’re not worried about you, about what you would do. They’re worried about the rest of the world.”
“I find that hard to believe.” He threw the towel down and crossed his arms over his chest. “I murdered a grown man, Katy. With my bare hands.” He pulled one hand out and looked at the back of it. “This bare hand.”
The cuts and bruises were still there. This insane idea that they’d never go away, that they’d always be there to remind the world of what he’d done, popped into my head.
I reached out without thinking and placed my hand over his. I wasn’t able to cover most of it because it was about twice the size of mine, but I did hide the injuries that were so blatantly supporting his claim of being a murderer.