“Okay. Meet me at the library at eight.”
“The library?” I snort. I’ve never once stepped foot inside the library. I stare out the window – I can see the library from here, just across the street. Uptown Westerville is only a small district of the city – most people just head to downtown Columbus instead.
“It’s low-key, isn’t it? Who do you know that would ever go anywhere near the library at night?” he questions, and I go quiet. “Exactly,” he says. “And Operation Harr-assassinate is strictly a secret.”
“Operation Harr-assassinate?” Did he seriously just say that? Either way, it makes me laugh. He’s taking this way too seriously, but he’s being playful about it too. I didn’t know plotting to screw with someone’s life could be so . . . fun. “Okay. Library at eight. Wear all black. Don’t forget a dark hoodie and gloves, Captain Washington,” I say, joining in with his charade. Two teenagers hellbent on revenge, conjuring up a secret masterplan from within the silent depths of the Westerville Public Library . . . I can roll with this.
“Roger, Nessie. See you at the library,” Kai declares. “Captain Washington, over and out.”
He hangs up and the line goes dead, but yet I keep the phone pressed to my ear for a while, so lost in a trance that I’m blissfully unaware of the couple of hipster dog-walkers outside the window who think I’m grinning at them.
When I snap out of it and turn back to Chyna, she looks utterly horrified. “Surely I need to get my hearing tested because there’s no way in hell you just called that guy Captain Washington, right?”
“Sorry, private information,” I tease, clamping my lips shut for dramatic effect.
Chyna looks like she might hurl the remaining slop of her ice cream at me, but her attention is diverted when her phone buzzes on the table. She reaches for it and sighs. “My dad,” she says. “Time to explain why I haven’t been in classes. Don’t worry, I’ll just say you’re going through some guy drama and you needed your best friend for moral support.” She answers the call and angles away from me.
I glance down at my own phone, like I’m expecting a call from my dad to come through any second. I should know better. I can’t remember the last time my father so much as texted me. A couple weeks ago, maybe, and that was only to ask me to drop by the store for milk. I would do anything for him to call me up right now and yell at me down the line. I would do anything for him to demand to know where I’ve run off to. To know why I’m stuffing my face with ice cream rather than taking notes in English Lit. And I would do anything for him to ask me if I’m okay, because then maybe I could take a chance and tell him that I’m not.
*
The Green McRusty isn’t in the driveway when I get home later that afternoon. It’s a good thing. It means Dad’s at work – he quit the intense cop game when we lost Mom and now strolls around Kohl’s every day as a Loss Prevention Officer – and not huddled over the dining table adding to his obsession with this dream of a trip to Ireland. I know he’s not all there anymore, so I worry about him. The new job doesn’t ask anything of him, and I wish he saw his friends more, but I don’t think he has any left. It feels like he’s cut ties with them. We have a huge extended family, but us Murphys are scattered all over the Midwest, so any visits are few and far between. I figure he’s lonely, too wrapped up in his own head to notice, until one day I’m guessing he will glance up and realize he’s pushed everyone away. Long gone are the days when he’d take Kennedy and me out for dinner and a movie every Thursday, and the nights where he’d have a poker game going with his friends in our kitchen, and the romantic weekends he’d whisk Mom away on. All of those moments are lost forever.
The house is quiet when I walk through the front door. Kennedy is cross-legged on the couch in the living room, noticeably tense, staring at a paused TV screen.
“Hey,” I say as I pass, but I come to a halt when I don’t get a reply out of her. I turn back around. “I said hey.”
“I know about the video,” Kennedy states, her tone blank. She can’t bring herself to turn around to look at me, but it’s okay because I can’t look her in the eye either. “All my friends were talking about it. They were calling you a—”
“I know,” I cut in, my heart sinking in my chest. I don’t want to hear my sister say it. I can fill in the gaps myself. “But I didn’t do anything wrong. That video was supposed to be private between Harrison and me. Did you . . . did you watch it?”
“Only the first few seconds,” she says. “I didn’t believe them, so I had to check.”
A new rage storms up inside of me, a new fury at Harrison for putting my sister through this too. She attends Westerville North – she will hear all the snickering and the gossiping, and I can’t think of anything worse than my own sister being humiliated because of me. At least she hasn’t watched the video. The thought of her watching it . . . I shudder.
“Can you do me a favor?” I ask quietly as I sit down on the arm of the couch, bumping my knee against hers. “Talk to me about it as much as you like, but . . . please don’t mention it to Dad.”
“Like he’d hear me, anyway,” she mumbles, and I stare helplessly down at her still figure.
She knows it too: we’re both invisible to him. Talking to Dad is like throwing your words out into an empty void. No matter how raspy your voice gets, no matter how badly your lungs hurt, you can scream for all eternity and never get a response. He’s a shell of a man, like his entire heart and soul was ripped out of his chest when Mom took her last breath, leaving nothing in its place.
“Thanks,” is all I say, and I squeeze her shoulder in solidarity. A sisterly gesture to remind her that I know exactly how she feels. “And just a heads up, I’m getting Harrison back for this. So, your life lesson for the day is to never let a guy screw with you. And if he does, then you screw with him.”
I squeeze her shoulder again and, finally, Kennedy looks up at me. “How are you going to do that?” she asks, a curious shine to her gaze.
“Haven’t figured out that part,” I admit, “but I do have some help from an outside source who seems willing to do whatever it takes.”
She groans out loud. “Oh, you’re so gonna get yourself in trouble.”
“Good thing Dad doesn’t care then, huh?” I wink, and we both snicker. We’ve grown all too used to this kind of dark humor. Easier to joke around than admit that what we really want – what we need, now our mom is gone – is for our father to act like one.
“I guess this means I’ll never get to date Harrison’s brother,” she says. “Thanks for that, sis.” She heaves a sigh as she resumes watching her TV show and I roll my eyes as I head for the stairs. But not before reminding her to switch off the TV and finish her homework in five.
I feel mentally drained yet energetic at the same time. Mentally drained, because so many different thoughts have been running through my head all day, like what if some of my teachers watch that video? What if someone posts it to some porn site with a billion subscribers? What if it doesn’t blow over and people are still making snide remarks about it until graduation? What if the video follows me all the way to college, and beyond, where I’ll forever be haunted by the fear of someone discovering it? I’ve heard the stories of heartbreak and lawsuits. I know that these throwaway moments ruin lives.
That’s why I’m buzzed on the idea of ruining Harrison’s too. He doesn’t get to do this to me and come out the other side unscathed. No, he’s going to pay, and I can’t wait to think of all the wicked, twisted ways to do it. Mess with his truck? His friends? His place on the football team? His family? So many possibilities . . . And I don’t care that payback makes me just as bad as he is. I want revenge, and I’ll do anything to get it. It’s the sweet price he’ll pay for such betrayal.
I climb the stairs, but I come to an abrupt halt on the landing. On the wall in front of me is a photo of Mom when she was a teenager. Young and beautiful, grinning into the camera with her smile that was always too wide and a hand tou
ching the ends of her bouffant of hair, those permed curls hairsprayed into a style that she swore was cool and fashionable back in the 1980s. I look at that picture every day. Every morning when I leave my room, every evening when I come home . . . but my heart feels heavier than usual today, too heavy for my mom’s fashion fails to make me smile. I know it’s because I feel guilty. If she were here, she’d be disappointed.
I think back to sixth grade. The day every parent received a letter home from school reminding them to warn their kids about the dangers of social media. Mom sitting me down in the kitchen. Going over some simple rules with me. Never curse online. Never say anything nasty about any of my peers. Never give out private information. Never take inappropriate pictures of myself . . .
I’ve broken every single one of those rules. How would she feel now if she knew there was a video of me circling around social media and into the far reaches of the internet? How would she handle that shame – both mine and hers – knowing I didn’t listen to her advice? That I’ve betrayed her trust, I’ve been stupid and reckless, and I haven’t lived up to the standards she set for me before she was gone?
I cringe with shame. I regret it now. I knew what Harrison was doing. It’s so easy in hindsight to know that I should have told him to put that phone away, to stop recording something so private. But I thought it was sexy. I thought it was intimate. I thought I could trust him.
I wish Mom were here. Even if it meant she would yell the house down at me. Even if it meant she would ground me forever. Even if it meant I would slam my bedroom door in her face.
At least she would care.
At least she would be alive.
5
I grab the car keys and leave the house without saying a word to Dad. Why waste my breath? I leave him in the living room with a cold cup of coffee and a cigarette in hand as he stares at the ceiling. God, I wish he would do something to prove that there’s still some life left in him. I wish he’d go see his friends, maybe grab a beer with them, because there is nothing worse than feeling pity for my own father.
It’s approaching nine, and there’s a weird, jittery feeling in my stomach at the thought of meeting Kai. I still don’t know exactly what I’m getting myself into. What is Kai’s definition of revenge? What if he wants to take things further than I do? What if his operation includes crazy plans to, like, get Harrison kicked out of school? Beaten up? Arrested? I guess I’ll find out.
I climb into the Toyota SUV that’s older than I am and internally groan as the Green McRusty’s antique engine struggles to come to life. I only drive this piece of junk under the cover of nightfall when no one can see that it’s me behind the wheel. Talk about social suicide. Although right now, I doubt I have much of a social standing anyway. Dad wants to run this heap into the ground before he considers an upgrade, which is why I have a totally rational fear of the whole bucket of rust exploding into flames while I’m cruising down the highway one day.
I pull out of the drive and head toward Uptown Westerville. I must live in the only suburb in the world that refers to their downtown area as uptown. It’s like how Westerville Central is actually further north than Westerville North. Westerville is just . . . odd. But it’s cruel of me to make fun of Westerville, because I do actually like living here. We’re twenty minutes north of downtown Columbus, so city life is right on our doorstep, yet Westerville continues to feel like a quaint town with a certain charm to it. A safe college town with a close-knit community. Which is usually a good thing so as long as you behave. In a tight community like ours, there’s no room for mistakes.
When I get uptown, I’m not surprised to find the streets quiet. It’s late on a November Monday – too cold and dark for casual strolls down our little main street. It’s the kind of downtown area that movie sets are based on. The kind where most of the stores and restaurants are independent, old-fashioned ones that are loved and supported by the community. I can see the ski and outdoor gear shop on the corner of the block, and I grip my steering wheel tighter.
Our library is just across the street from Rollies where I sat with Chyna this morning, shoveling chocolate chip ice cream into my mouth. I’ve never been here before, so I take a minute to scout out the building as I approach. I pull around back into a parking lot where only a handful of cars sit. Kai was right. The library isn’t going to be packed an hour before closing on a Monday night, and anyone who is there won’t be under the age of twenty-five, most likely. Maybe one of the cars is Kai’s? I abandon the Green McRusty across two bays because I’m too lazy to straighten up, then lock up and apprehensively head toward the building in search of the entrance. Do I need a library card to even step foot through the door?
I shove my hands into the pockets of my leather jacket. Black, of course, to match my jeans. Like a gangster, lurking around town late at night. I keep my head down and shuffle past the main desk, but the intense silence in here makes me feel as though there’s a giant spotlight shining over my head. There’s no librarian at the desk, thank God. There’s a woman stacking books onto shelves over in the children’s area. A man typing ferociously on one of the computers. A girl browsing the crime section while balancing a tower of paperbacks in her arms.
“Psssst.”
I glance over, and I spot Kai peering at me through a gap in the shelves of the self-help section. He glances around as though any of the three other people here are actually paying attention, then waves me over.
Seeing Kai’s blue eyes again makes my heart pump a couple beats quicker. I walk over to meet him behind the shelves, and I bite back a smile when I discover his attire. He’s wearing a black Nike hoodie, ripped black jeans, and black sneakers. He got my memo. “Excuse me, where are your gloves?” I say, folding my arms across my chest and feigning disappointment.
Kai reaches into the front pouch of his hoodie and pulls out a pair of red football gloves. “Do these count?” When I laugh, he puts them away again and runs a hand along the spines of the books to his left. “Unfortunately, there isn’t an idiot’s guide on how to exact revenge. We’ll have to do the hard work ourselves.”
“I have ideas,” I say. “I just need your help executing them.”
“Well, damn, call me The Executor.” He clears his throat, pulls a tiny notepad out of the back pocket of his jeans, then reaches for the pen he has resting behind his ear. It’s all very serious. “Let’s get started, Nessie.”
I have yet to decide if his attitude is entertaining or annoying. It’s refreshing, for sure. The guys at Westerville North aren’t like this. Maybe it’s a Central thing. Maybe they’re more laid-back. Maybe they couldn’t care less about trying to impress. Or maybe this is just Kai.
I follow him over to some tables in the center of the library floor and he pulls out a chair, straddling it. I sit down next to him, leaving a safe gap of a single empty chair between us. At the end of the day, I don’t even know this guy. Personal space is a must.
“Can you stop calling me the name of some mythical Scottish legend?” I say before we get started. I mean, seriously? Nessie? When has that ever been an acceptable nickname for Vanessa?
Kai sets down the notepad and clicks his pen, arching a brow at me. “You thought of a better one?”
“No, but . . .”
“Ideas, Nessie,” he says, cutting me off. He hovers the pen patiently in mid-air and smiles at me the same way he did in the school office. A devious smirk, yet the warmth in his blue-gray eyes makes his expression seem less ruthless. “Share them.”
My shoulders sink. Nessie it is, I guess. “Well, I want to slash his truck tires,” I admit, propping an elbow up on the table as I watch him scribble down my words in the notepad. His handwriting is steady and neat, making my heart tilt as I remember how he held my hand to write on it earlier.
He looks up from the notepad. “What else?”
“Can we hack into his phone? Or at least mess with his social media accounts somehow? My best friend can help.”
“We would need to get our hands on his phone in the first place, but it’s definitely an idea.” His smile widens and he begins to write again. Without looking up, he quietly asks, “By the way . . . How’s the backlash? You know, after today?” The concern in his words surprises me.
But I also want to scream at the reminder of that stupid video. I sink further into my chair and shrug, casting a quick glance around the library to make sure no one from school has suddenly turned up. As if anyone would. “I skipped classes and I haven’t opened Twitter all day, so honestly, I’ve been running from it. But it doesn’t take a genius to know what everyone is saying about me.” As I watch Kai write down some notes, chewing on his lower lip, an awful thought creeps into my mind. A curiosity that I need to indulge. “Did you watch it? That video?”
He glances up, his expression blank. “No.”
“No?” I echo in disbelief. It feels subconscious, the way I pull my jacket shut around me, shrinking into it. I’m almost afraid to look him in the eye.
“Not everyone is a jerk, you know,” he says, his voice soft and reassuring, and it stuns me when he places a hand on my shoulder – even makes me gulp. He leans in closer and offers me a smile that eases the tightness in my chest just a little. “I promise you, hand on heart, that I haven’t watched that video and I don’t plan to. Captain Washington doesn’t judge, but Harrison is a scumbag for leaking it. That’s why we’re gonna inflict some serious damage in return.” He takes his hand from my shoulder, focuses his attention back on the notepad.
It’s oddly comforting that this stranger with zero loyalties to me chose not to watch the video and bask in my misfortune. He could have sneered just like everyone else, but he didn’t. It gives me hope that perhaps there are others at school like him, that there is a small minority out there who are capable of taking a moral stance even when everyone else is so quick to grab a moment’s amusement at someone else’s misery. I was never one of those people – but now I wish I had been. What goes around comes around . . . Ugh.
The Wrong Side of Kai Page 6