There’s a silence. Then Katie says, “You’re not alone, you know.”
“I know.”
“Love you.”
“Me too.”
Twenty-Eight
Nothing much else has happened for the past week. It hasn’t had to. The idea that it might is just as bad. And I can’t stop thinking about the possibilities because wherever I turn, it seems like Jason’s there.
He’s smart about it. He doesn’t get too close. But he’s always around just the same. In the corridors. Outside my classrooms. At the door to the gym. A couple of tables away in the library. By the pop machines in the cafeteria. Always with that smirky smile and that cool slouch. Sometimes his shades are on, so I can’t tell for sure if he’s looking at me. But he is.
Luckily, I have Katie. She’s dropped everything, including Ashley, to be with me after school. (She’s told her mom she’s making props for the drama club.) We put in time until I know Mom’ll be back from work, and then Katie walks me home.
For waiting, we mostly go to this little park near the school. It’s getting cold, but we huddle up on a bench and watch the world go by. People walking dogs. Kids rollerblading. Moms, some my age, pushing baby carriages. And every so often, a bunch of geriatrics with walkers. They come on outings from the local old folks’ home. By the time they all get off the bus, it’s time to get back on.
These days I’m a real downer. I don’t know how Katie puts up with me, I’m so insane. Like, I hate Jason, but sometimes I find myself missing him, too. Every so often I tuck my head in, squeeze myself into a ball and sob. Katie puts her arm around me and pats my shoulder until I stop. Maybe Beachball was right. Maybe I should go on tranks or something.
Katie tries to cheer me up. “Being happy isn’t easy. You have to work at it.” Talk about cornball. But Katie looks so serious I can’t help smiling. “See. A smile. Good. Now how about a laugh? ‘Laugh and the world laughs with you.’ That’s what Mom says.”
“Your mom is mental.”
“Come on, Leslie. Remember when you first came here, how you hated leaving Seattle and how miserable you were?”
“Earth to Katie: I’m still miserable.”
“Yeah, but you’re not crying about being homesick anymore.”
“Only because I have better things to cry about.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah, I know what you mean. But, Katie, maybe I don’t feel like being happy right now. Okay?”
“Okay.”
And we sit there, shivering, until it’s time to go home.
I haven’t told Mom about the breakup, but she knows. I can tell because she’s extra nice all of a sudden. Like, even though I haven’t been eating much, she hasn’t made a big deal about it or given me a lecture about anorexia. She hasn’t asked me to clear the table either. Best of all, she hasn’t asked questions.
Last night was a close call, though. She’s scraping plates before doing the dishes when out of nowhere she stops, wipes her hands and comes over.
I’m still at the table staring into space, twisting a napkin. Mom puts her hands on my shoulders. I don’t look up. “What?”
“You know, honey,” she says in her Sympathetic-Mom voice, “somehow things have a habit of working out for the best.” That’s one of the biggest lies in the world, but part of me likes her saying it, because it means she cares. The other part of me gets mad, because even though the breakup makes me feel terrible, I know it makes her feel great.
I guess I should be grateful. She could have said, “I know how you’re feeling” or “Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I shrug off her hands and get up. “Want some help with the dishes? I can dry.”
“That’d be nice,” Mom says, totally stunned. “Thanks.”
If she wasn’t my mother, I might even like her.
This morning when I get to school, everything’s normal except for one thing—Jason’s nowhere in sight. By the end of the day, I’m starting to have a good time. Maybe I am being paranoid. Maybe I don’t need a bodyguard after school.
I get back home feeling great, grab a snack and sit down to check my e-mails. There’s one from Jason headed: “Hi there stranger.” Inside there’s attachments. I click.
Oh god. It’s photos of me and Katie in the park.
Twenty-Nine
I forward the e-mail to Katie. She calls right away. “You still think I’m paranoid?” I say.
Katie tries to control her breathing. “Mom always says if you ignore teasing it’ll go away.”
“That’s what every adult says, and it’s a lie. Do nothing and things get worse.”
“I know,” she says in a scared voice. “But what choice do you have? You can’t stop him going where he wants. You can’t stop him taking pictures.”
She’s right. I decide to pretend everything’s fine, hold my breath and hope for once her mother is right.
She isn’t.
Jason works like magic. I never see him. But at least twice a day, when I open my locker, a card falls out with a cheesy message like “You Complete Me.” On the Net, I’ve changed my Facebook settings and deleted him from my Friends list, but my regular in-box is swarmed with e-mails from strange addresses, headed, “Hi there Leslie” or “UR Hot 2Day Leslie,” and photos of me at the corner store or coming home. I change from Gmail to Hotmail to Yahoo. It doesn’t matter. Within a few days, he’s found my new address and the swarming starts again. Honest to god, just going online gives me a rash, and I shake so bad at my locker, it takes forever to land my combination.
Then there’s the phone. It never stops ringing. I let Mom answer. When it’s him, there’s just a click. Like me, she dials *69. The number’s always blocked.
We turn off the ringer at night. I mean, he’s even called at two and three in the morning. The first couple of times, Mom hurried to answer, thinking it was some emergency. I finally told her it’s Jason.
“You don’t know for sure.” That’s what she said, anyway. I guess she doesn’t know what to do either.
After two weeks, it’s all too much. I open my locker before school and out drops another card. I sink to the floor a nervous wreck. And there he is, lounging against the wall opposite, grinning at me.
“Go away!”
He gives this innocent shrug. “What did I do?”
I’m too freaked out to say anything. But not Katie. She walks right up to him and sticks out her chin. “You know, if you really cared about Leslie, you’d leave her alone!”
“Me leave her alone? She’s the one who won’t let go. Calling my place all the time, sobbing to my mother.” A glance at me. “I wish you’d stop it, Leslie. It’s getting tired.” He sounds so sincere, I can’t believe it.
“You put cards in my locker,” I whimper. “You swarm me with e-mails.”
“What are you talking about?” he laughs. “Are you sending yourself cards and e-mails now? No wonder people think you’re a nutbar.” He cocks his head at Ashley. “Actually, she’s the reason I dropped by.” He smiles at her. “I’ll catch you later, Ash, when Twitch-Brain’s had her meds.” He gives her his famous finger-point, grins and heads off.
Ashley pulls out her books really fast.
“Don’t go after him,” I say. “He’s a rapist.”
“She’s right.” Katie nods.
“And you’re a liar and a baby suck,” Ashley snaps and hurries off. Baby-suck. This from someone whose mom won’t let her wear eye shadow.
Thirty
I don’t eat lunch. I sit with Katie, then go to math. I’m actually looking forward to it, because math puts me to sleep, and sleep is what I need. I usually leave mid-class to snooze in the can, but today I just put my head on the desk.
As always, Mr. Kogawa does his impersonation of a human being, droning away, solving problems on the board and wiping the chalk off with the sleeve of his jacket. But even though I’m dying to pass out, I’m so wired it’s like I’m on Red Bull. All I can think about is Jason. I nee
d some privacy. I put up my hand, Mr. Kogawa waves me off, and in a couple of minutes I’m in the far cubicle of the girls’ second-floor washroom. I figure I’ll stay till school’s over.
After I’ve read the graffiti for the millionth time, I start to nod off—till out of nowhere, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s the weirdest thing. Like when I pick up the phone to call Katie and she’s already on the line. Or when I’m in a place for the first time but it’s like I’ve been there before. Or when I can feel that I’m being stared at.
Like now.
I lean over and check the floor on all sides outside the cubicle. No feet. Of course not. The can was empty when I got here, and no one’s come in since. I’m just freaking myself out. I sit back down, take a few deep breaths. Then this long, slow horror fills me. What if the stare is coming from above?
I look up, afraid of what I’ll see. Sure enough, there he is. Jason. He’s standing on the toilet lid in the cubicle next to me, staring down.
I want to run for it. But if I do, he could hop out and grab me. So I sit there, frozen, like a mouse in front of a snake.
“You’re late,” he whispers.
“What ...?” I struggle to breathe.
“You’re usually here by one-thirty.”
“You’ve been hiding there all along?”
He smirks. I feel sick.
“It’s your own fault,” he says. “How else am I supposed to talk to you? You hang up the phone. You don’t even say thanks for the cards.”
“I thought you wanted Ashley.”
“Got you jealous, didn’t I?”
I want to say, In your wet dreams, pencil dick, but I bite my tongue. “You better get out of here. Someone could catch you.”
“So what? If they do, you’ll be the one in trouble.”
“Pardon?”
“I’ll say you brought me in here for sex.”
My lip quivers.
“Come on, Leslie, don’t be like that. I only wanted to teach you a lesson. I miss you. I need you.” And now he talks like a Hallmark card, like he used to do after he’d hit me. How his life was nothing before he met me and I’m his “special someone” and he’s so sorry and blah blah blah. “I mean it, Leslie,” he pleads, “without you I’ll die.”
“Good!”
“Good?”
“Yeah. Go ahead and die.” Saying it feels great. So great I don’t even think about the consequences. I keep going, getting braver with every word. “What use are you, anyway? You just waste space. So go ahead. Jump off a building. Swallow a medicine cabinet. You think I care?”
Jason’s face contorts. For an instant, I think he’s going to cry. Then—wham wham wham—he smashes the wall of the cubicle with his fist. I squinch my eyes and raise my hands as if his fist could break right through.
He crashes out of his cubicle. He stands in front of my door. He gives it a boot. It shakes on its moorings. He boots it again. And again.
Just when I think it’s going to break off its hinges, he stops. “You’ll be sorry,” he whispers through the crack. Then he turns on his heel, like nothing’s happened, and walks out whistling.
Thirty-One
The e-mails and phone calls have stopped. But not the cards. Just three this past week, but that’s enough.
Katie says it’s a sign he’s getting bored; a few more weeks and he’ll leave me alone for good. I wish I believed her, but I don’t. These cards are different. Instead of being full of sucky love crap, they’re the kind you get after a death in the family—“In Memoriam,” “Deepest Sympathy,” “With the Angels.”
“Leslie, if you really think they’re death threats—tell!”
“Tell what? There’s no handwriting. Nothing to prove they’re from him. If I say anything he’ll deny it and I’ll get accused of being sick, of trying to get attention, of acting out.”
Then, last Monday, I opened my locker and there was a dead mouse on top of my books. I screamed. Some other girls screamed too; a few guys laughed.
Later, Katie tried to reassure me. “I doubt if it’s from Jason. You’re lucky you haven’t had mice before, with all those old sandwiches squashed under your gym bag. Besides, he doesn’t have your combination, does he?”
“I don’t think so.”
But I change my lock all the same.
Meanwhile my marks have been going to hell. I can’t concentrate to study, and as for doing homework, please. Apart from math, which I can do in my sleep, my only decent mark is English.
Katie’s marks are down too. Her mom says it’s my bad influence and it’s got to stop, especially now that exams are coming. That means Katie and I can’t spend time together after school; she has to study.
At least she still walks me home, right up to my apartment. And she waits till I’ve checked the closets and under the beds, too. She says if Jason comes by and starts pounding on the door before Mom gets back from work to call her right away. As if Katie could do anything over the phone.
The worst part of being home alone is having time to think. I think about horrible stuff. Like how last winter there was this teenager out west who got stabbed to death and dumped in the bushes. It took months before they found his body; and when they did, it turned out practically all the kids from the local high school knew he was there, they just hadn’t told anyone. The adults on TV acted shocked about how the kids could have kept this awful secret. Adults can be pretty stupid.
If I get murdered, I hope Mom won’t be mad at me. It’s not as if meeting Jason was my fault, exactly. I don’t know what it was. Bad luck? Fate? Or maybe God answers prayers after all, to teach people a lesson. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.
Katie says it’s sick to talk about this, but if Jason kills me, I want to be cremated. I can’t stand the idea of being stuck in a box forever. It makes me claustrophobic. I’d like my ashes to be kept in the stone jar we got from Granny P. on her last visit before she died. Mom could keep it on the kitchen counter by the window, next to the African violets. Or, if seeing me there all the time would make her sad, I guess she could store them in a closet. Whatever. I just don’t want to get buried or scattered.
If you ever read this journal, Mom, I hope you can forget all the awful things I said to you. I didn’t mean them. I’m sorry I was a disappointment.
Thirty-Two
In slasher flicks, when a babysitter’s alone and hears a strange noise coming from the attic, she always checks it out—even when she knows there’s a psycho prowling the neighborhood who goes after babysitters in attics. If Katie and I are watching the movie together, I always elbow her as the babysitter climbs the creaky stairs and her flashlight goes out. “Here comes the chainsaw.”
“Tell me when I can look,” she squeals, peeking through her fingers.
Part of me thinks those babysitters deserve to die for being so stupid. But the other part of me knows why they do it. It’s because the door at the top of the stairs is alive with this overwhelming question: What’s on the other side? That question pulls them to their deaths like they’re zombies.
I’m in my room cramming for Friday’s geography exam when the phone rings. Nothing bad’s happened for two days, and I’m getting calm enough to memorize all about semi-arid continental climates.
Mom answers. “Hello? Oh hello, Jason. I’m sorry, but she doesn’t want to speak to you.”
I perk up. Jason? He identified himself?
“I’ll give her the message.” Mom sticks her head in. “That was Jason.”
I twirl my hair with my pencil and keep staring at my textbook like I couldn’t care less. “What did he want?”
“Not much. He called to say goodbye. He says he’s been thinking it over, and he’s taking your advice.”
“Oh,” I say absently, but chills run up my spine. My only advice to Jason was to kill himself. He’s doing it? He’s called to say goodbye?
“Is he changing schools?” Mom asks.
“I guess so
,” I yawn.
“Well, that’s good. An odd time, though, right before exams.”
“An odd time for an odd guy.”
Mom laughs. “I’m glad you have your sense of humor back.” She gives me the kind of Earth Mother Look that makes me want to hurl. “The first breakup’s always tough. But I told you you’d get over it. You know, I remember when I was sixteen—”
“Yeah. Chester Martin. You loved how he hiccuped. You’ve told me. I’m studying.”
“Sorry.” And she disappears.
After a quick panic, I reassure myself. No way Jason’s going to kill himself. He just wants to wreck my studying. I won’t let him.
I try to go back to reading. But I can’t. I keep thinking, what if I wake up tomorrow and he’s dead? What if those funeral cards weren’t about me? What if they were about him? What if they were a cry for help? He’s a creep and I hate him, but if he dies, how will I live with myself?
I decide to phone. If he’s really killing himself, maybe I can talk him down or get an ambulance. But I can’t call from here. I don’t want to risk Mom listening in on the extension, like I do when she’s talking to Dad. There’s a pay phone at the end of the street.
“I need a break,” I say, grabbing my coat. “I’m going for a walk to the corner store, maybe pick up some gum.”
“Oh, could you get milk while you’re there?”
“Sure.”
She gives me some money.
“Back in a few minutes.”
All of a sudden I get this crazy thought. What if Jason can read my mind? Like, what if his call is part of a plan to get me outside now it’s dark? What if he’s waiting in the bushes? Hardly anyone’s on the street at night, and I have to pass a couple of alleyways and—this is nuts, just me flipping out. Am I a prisoner in this dump or what?
All the same, to be safe, I go back to my room and write a quick note: “If anything happens to me, it’s Jason.” I put the note on my desk under my geography book. That way Mom won’t walk in and find it by accident, but it’s there just in case.
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