Still Waters

by Ash Parsons

  After all that. And after Mr. Lance and Ms. Jay—the group home “mother” and “father”—asked if Danny could swap into my room because he was having “personality conflicts” with Alex. Which was a bunch of bull because Danny wouldn’t conflict with a flea, but whatever.

  And after the New Year’s party—soda out of plastic cups and Chex Mix—where nothing much happened except Alex kept hassling Danny about wanting to watch the crystal ball drop, changing the channels just to see him get upset.

  And after the homebound teacher came and collected the schoolwork, and after the judge met with me and my advocate again.

  It was finally official.

  All of it was over, cleared—done with. Even though people were dead. And the bartender was out on disability, and Beast’s dad was still talking about a civil suit. It was over.

  Over.

  And they said I should go back to regular school.

  So I went back. Climbed onto the bus in front of the house. Told myself to ignore the stares. Figured if people avoided me before, they’ll sure as hell avoid me now. Now that I’ve . . . now that he’s dead.

  Him. What they knew of him. King of the school. Mr. Popular Super Jock.

  What they know of me. Iceman. Psycho.

  Killer.

  His supposed friend.

  But it was all right. It was all right. All morning, eyes followed me like crap magnets—and I didn’t even wonder, much, what everyone knew. Or thought they knew. What everyone had heard about it all. About how it happened.

  I avoided them. Head on desk, empty gaze out the window. It hadn’t even been half a day. But I was already looking at it as time. Doing time. Waiting it out. Thinking the rest of the semester would be like this. Empty eyes to hostile faces.

  Letting time pass, and me insulated from it all.

  Clay stayed with me, through the day, through the stares and murmurs. Meeting me at break, between classes.

  Then Beast found us. Fell into step beside me as we walked into the lunchroom. Slapped hands like we were friends. Followed me through the line, then to a table. The other kids got up and left.

  Beast and Clay stayed.

  We didn’t talk during lunch. Just ate. Looked at the table. Or out the window. Or stared into nothing. Behind me, some kids hissed and taunted. It started out low, and as nothing happened, gained in volume and nerve.

  I didn’t care, didn’t respond. Beast turned and glared, asked if they had a problem.

  I could have told him that wouldn’t work. You have to back it up. You can’t just put on a show.

  Clay, sitting across from me, locked eyes with one of them.

  The voices rose. Something bounced off my back and rolled under my feet. A small orange.

  Clay slammed his tray flat on the table with a tremendous bang. The remnants of his lunch scattered. He stood, holding the edges of the tray in a tight-knuckled grip.

  “You don’t know jack, so shut your damn mouth.” He hauled the tray sideways in one hand, holding it like a sword—or a rock. Then he hurled it, a gorgeous, spinning plane—like skipping a stone, or throwing a Frisbee.

  It clocked a guy. Knocked him off his seat. His friends brayed with laughter.

  The guy stood, holding his nose. He glared at Clay.

  Clay held his gaze. His hands flexed near my tray.

  The guy dropped his eyes. Said something about getting out of there before coach came over and handed out detentions. His friends laughed at him but followed as he left.

  Clay sat back down.

  Conversations around us started up again.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked Clay.

  Clay picked up the trash that had spilled off his tray. Finally looked at me and said, “I’m still a pacifist.” Then he shrugged. “Sometimes you have to take a stand for something.”

  “I thought ‘violence begets violence.’”

  “So you have been listening.” His lips quirked up in a half-smile. He gestured at the now-empty table behind me. “Who knows where that started? And it’s not over now. They’ll take the part I added, take it down the road, put it off onto someone else.”

  Beast’s massive head bobbed in agreement.

  Clay’s eyes linked on mine and pulled. “But it had to pass. Had to flow past you. Enough.” He paused, waiting for my eyes to meet his again. “Enough.”

  Sometimes that’s the best you can do. Blunt the impact by accepting it. Or take a stand and deflect it. Hope it loses force as it ricochets past.

  And I wasn’t deep enough to weigh the cost. To know which choice was best. Always just watching out for myself or Janie. But even I recognized Clay’s truth, and mine, meshed together, like that snake that eats its own tail.

  Violence begets violence.

  And sometimes violence is the only way to stop it.

  I nodded at Clay, trying to thank him. And wanting to argue with his choice. The choice I always would have taken before. Not knowing if I was sad or happy that he saw what I saw now.

  The bell rang.

  “See you tomorrow, man,” Beast said. Grabbed my tray with his and carted it to the trash.

  Clay fell into step beside me as I walked out of the cafeteria. “See you after class.” He started to walk away. Stopped to help a freshman pick up a wash of papers that spilled across the floor.

  I joined him, grabbing up pages, straightening them and handing them to the kid. “Hey, thanks,” he mumbled, and didn’t look at either of us, cheeks pink with embarrassment.

  “No problem. Pass it on,” Clay said, rolling his eyes at the hokey sound of it.

  Something shifted in my chest.

  I lifted my eyes and watched as the other kids filed past, and for the first time, really didn’t care what they thought.

  Kept my head up on the walk to class. Met Mr. Stewart’s eyes and didn’t look down once.

  After school I went where I knew she’d be waiting for me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  The old gym was dim and cold, February rain spattering on the vaulted roof. Cyndra stood by the heavy bag, tucked slightly behind it like it could put an arm around her.

  “I heard you were back,” she said. Stating the obvious, because it was the easiest.

  My lips felt glued. Looking at her was enough.

  “You want to go somewhere? We don’t have to do anything but talk,” she said, and I knew what she was offering. Everything but what I wanted the most.

  Pain razored my heart, black-red knowledge welling up from the gash.

  “No,” I said. Not trying to hurt her, but wanting to cauterize it.

  Her eyes glimmered. She blinked it back and dredged up more courage. “Why wouldn’t you talk to me?”

  The phone calls, the silence on the line. The stupid stutter my nowhere heart would give at the sound of her breath.

  “I was waiting for you,” I said.

  She moved closer, looking like she wanted to touch me, hugging herself instead.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I know I hurt you.”

  “You saved my life.” Met her eyes as I said it.

  Cyndra tilted her head. “Does that mean you can forgive me? For not—” She couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say what we both knew.

  That she hadn’t loved me enough.

  I’d been wondering if I could. If I could let go of the edge of pain. What had been real. If she was as trapped as I used to be. What it would even mean: my forgiveness.

  What she was really asking.

  I sighed.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  Her smile went nova. She stepped in, reaching her arms up.

  I took her wrists and pushed her away, gently.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?”

  “Because nothing feels real
anymore. Or important. And I don’t know what’s left.”

  I didn’t say of me.

  “I know what’s important,” she said. “I was confused and so scared. But I wanted you. I want you.”

  “If I could believe you.” I didn’t say more.

  What she had to offer wasn’t enough.

  Guilt is not a substitute for love.

  She didn’t hear the meaning of my words, only heard the if. Saw the chance. She smiled at me, that sweet, perfect smile.

  “You can believe me.” She stepped in again.

  I backed away.

  Could I let go of the numbness? It would be like unclenching your fist from the blade of a knife. You don’t feel how deep the cut is until you let go. But the wound can’t close until you do.

  Feeling and numbness. What it takes to choose between them.

  “Listen.” Cyndra’s emerald eyes searched mine. “Haven’t you ever made a mistake?”

  The laugh compressed out my mouth.

  It seemed like all I ever made were mistakes.

  Cyndra’s eyes wouldn’t let mine go. “Then you know, right? What it feels like. That’s how I feel about all of this. That I made a mistake being with him. Maybe not from the beginning, but somewhere after. After me and you.”

  She opened her hands, little cups of hope. “Haven’t you ever held on to one thing? And kept holding, even when things began to go bad? Even when they were bad?”

  The Plan.

  That I was going to do something. That I was going to save Janie. Save myself. That there was something worth fighting for. A purpose.

  Revenge.

  Cyndra gripped my arms. Her jaw tightened, and her eyes narrowed. Like it took everything she had. Like she was opening herself to a madman with a knife.

  “You have to really forgive me. You have to feel that much. There’s got to be something. You’ve got to feel something for me. I know you do.”

  “You’re right.”

  Her fingers gripped tighter, digging into my upper arms. “It’s not small, either. What you feel.” Her chin lifted, a fighter, daring me with the target.

  “I loved you.”

  “You love me.”

  Something shifted inside my chest. A small movement. A buoy released and rocketing toward the surface.

  “Fight for it,” she said.

  I’d have to trust her—and something outside of myself. Beyond my control. That she saw something I couldn’t. Something in me.

  Would that be enough? Or would it cost too much to feel it?

  Cyndra loosed her hands, like she saw my choice before I made it. That smile torqued her lips. Her arms lifted to my shoulders. “I’m a fighter. So are you.”

  I felt my arms going around her. Squeezing her against me, pulling, desperately tight. Something unraveling inside, spooling into the darkness and piercing it there.

  Her lips were clean water, and I needed to drown.

  • • •

  That night, I walked her to the Mercedes, the only car left in the school lot. I needed to get back to the home before curfew—and before I cracked in two from the swelling of my heart.

  “I could drive you,” Cyndra said, settling into my arms for another hug.

  “You and I both know we’d never even get the car started.”

  She laughed but tipped her head back and studied me. She waited.

  “It’s been a long day,” I said. “I need the walk.”

  “Okay.” Her lips brushed over mine. “I’ll pick you up in the morning, though?”

  “Definitely.”

  Berry-flavored kisses, soothing and stinging at the same time. Medicine doing its work.

  The walk back to the group home wasn’t bad. I wandered down tree-lined streets, past small houses with postage-stamp yards, fences and yappy dogs, wind chimes and rusted grills.

  I thought about what Michael had said, that there are two types of people in the world. Feeling his words ping in my head like sonar searching for belief. Hitting on something, a jagged outcropping of truth.

  He was right. There are users. There are the used. But sometimes people can be both at once.

  And there’s more than that. Victims and victors, and how a person can journey from one to the other. Like Janie. How she’s so much stronger than I ever knew. Digging deep in that trench. Then climbing out again. And Cyndra. Her courage to face it. To risk pain. Strength that isn’t about power, or force, or how hard you can hit. Strength that is resilience. If you can come back, all the way back, from anything.

  And then reach out, beyond yourself, to grab on to something bigger.

  Like Clay, an activist at heart, all the way down, not just pretty words. How he’d take anything, put up with anything directed at him, but how he was willing to cross that line for me.

  How everyone is struggling for something. Trying to keep the balance.

  Struggling to find their way back. Doing the best they can with what they’ve been dealt. Staying in place, doing anything to keep from sinking. To keep from rising.

  Until something changes. Like a day at school, a friend at lunch, someone standing up for you.

  And the choice to feel. Standing before you.

  Realizing what part is yours. What you can and can’t do. Who you are. Who you are meant to be.

  More than the sum of all your broken parts.

  In the group home TV room, Danny was crying, the robot dog in two pieces in his hands.

  Alex sprawled on the sofa, flipping channels. His eyes slid to me, assessed the threat level, and slid back to the TV, unimpressed.

  Something inside me burst with the silent force of an underwater explosion. The final piece breaking away. The last of the captive water rushed away in a torrent.

  My hands curled into fists, fingertips lifting and pressing into the flesh. Thumbs locked in front. Left fist poised for a jab. Right fist cocked for the straight drive.

  Fight back. Punch Alex in the gut, then drive an elbow up into his face, knock him back. Knock him flat. He’d fall against the bookshelf, take it with him. Mr. Lance and Ms. Jay would come. Alex would get grounded and lose phone privileges for breaking the dog. I’d get sent to juvie.

  And Danny would be scared of me. And nothing would change. Nothing would be saved or solved. Nothing ever is.

  But you can’t just accept it. You can’t just take it, because it will never stop. Just gather and grow, this dark weight in your chest, a sucking wound that eats more of you away. All the pain that you hide, and never let yourself feel. Never let out.

  Lies, half-truths, and things you tell yourself to feel better.

  It wasn’t that bad.

  I have a plan.

  I can take it.

  I’m in control.

  Something, anything, to keep from being a victim. To keep from being helpless.

  You can lose yourself to it. To the need to be anything other than never enough.

  What Clay said. That’s not pacifism, that’s self-annihilation—that’s not you.

  I will never just stand by. So what choice do I have?

  My hands loosened. I opened my fingers wide, stretching out the fist. Letting go of it.

  “Danny,” I said. “Give it here. Maybe I can fix it.”

  Alex flicked a glance up at my eyes. So I gave him the smile that Cyndra said wasn’t real. To show him how close it was—the choice.

  How close it still was.

  Alex smirked but looked away.

  Danny walked over, holding out the toy. Gave it to me.

  It sat in my open hands.

  I let my glare press on Alex. Let him feel the weight of its promise.

  Alex glanced at me, popping his knuckles. The show he’d have to back up. I held his gaze until he dropped it.

>   “Come on,” I said to Danny, and led him out of the room.

  “You ever have a real dog?” Danny asked as we climbed the stairs.

  “Nah. Too much trouble.”

  “Yeah. Too much trouble.”

  I stopped. Danny bumped into me.

  “It might not be too much trouble for you, Danny. Not if you really want one. It’s no trouble at all, then.”

  Danny’s smile was wide, like he was letting me in on a secret. “They said you were trouble. When you got here.”

  I laughed. “They did, huh?”

  The smile on my face felt like it belonged there.

  That was the choice I had to make. How to move on. What part was mine. How to handle every shitty thing that had happened—or ever would. The choice to let it ride in me, like a bullet lodged in bone, poisoning everything. Or let it pass through, leaving a scar, a mutilated tissue-trail. The possibility and the choices after, everything that’s left after the violence has passed.

  Scars prove that you’re still here. That you can move on. Maybe missing a chunk of yourself, but here, goddamn it, surviving.

  And who knows? Maybe you heal.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  TO BORROW AND ADAPT from the Bard, I were but little grateful if I could say how much. However, I must attempt it, so here goes.

  First and foremost, to my editor, Michael Green. This book exists because of your vision and understanding. It takes a truly gallant heart to see light through the darkness, thank you.

  Thanks also to the team at Philomel, and assistant editor Brian Geffen, for his many invaluable additions and for calling down the lightning.

  Special thanks to Jodi Reamer, whose passion for this book absolutely blows me away. Your intuition is impeccable; particular thanks for helping me find Clay.

  There are people who come along and change the course of your life. Chantel Acevedo, Eve Engle, and Rachel Hawkins, you crazy, brilliant, wonderful life-changers! Thanks for the encouragement, wisdom, sanity-preservation, and most of all, love.

  Doraine Bennett, Kara Bietz, and Vicky Shecter: When I picture the four of us, we’re in a treetop fort and we’re kids, and I’ve known you all my life. Thanks for your contributions and for helping excavate the ending. Our retreats at the Roost are some of my happiest writer days.