They ran down the hallway until they got to Ms. Fenster’s door. Jazz squeezed his hand then let go, opened the door, and walked inside, trying to ignore Fenster’s scowl. Hunter followed right behind
There weren’t two empty seats next to each other, so Jazz sat in the back row while Hunter sat in the row in front of her and to the side.
*****
Hunter still saw Jazz’s face in front of his, tears on her cheeks, but smiling. Adrenaline streamed throughout his body. She would help him.
He tried to focus on Fenster’s lesson but couldn’t. Scenes ran through his mind. The fire, Tucker’s reaction after reading his story, the basketball on the road, his dad’s face that morning.
He felt a paper wad hit his neck. He turned around and saw Jazz with her computer lid up, gesturing for him to do the same. He opened his computer, noticing the red dot on his Mail icon.
An email from Jazz: Can I open the files now?
Yes, he replied. At least now, Jazz knew the context for the stories. Still, he felt he was baring himself in front of her. Would she understand that he didn’t make up the stories, and that they had appeared to him?
He then looked through the two documents he had sent her, wondering how she would react. He was halfway through Anthony’s story when the thumping started. He grabbed his head. The sound was much louder and more frequent than earlier. It seemed like two different sounds playing together at different speeds.
“Hunter! Pay attention!” yelled Fenster.
“Yes, ma’am.” He tried to watch Fenster draw numbers on her SMART Board and copy them on his computer.
Then he saw himself walk down the hall and stop at the door.
“What’s wrong with you?” a woman shouted. “I waited two weeks for this? I can’t take this anymore!”
He heard a door slam from inside. Then silence.
He walked down the hall into a gravel driveway outside a house in the woods. The moon was almost full, lighting up the scraggly primrose and dandelions around the edges of the gravel. He started typing.
Jazz rubbed the shoulders of a tired, haggard woman slumped at the kitchen table while the faint sound of a shower could be heard in the background. She wore a faded nightgown. A smear of blue eye-shadow highlighted her blood-shot eyes; the red on her lips caked in the corners of her mouth, which occasionally puckered around a straw to drink from a tall glass next to her. Her hair lay in tangles on her head. One of her cheeks was bruised.
“Jazz, you should be a masseuse. That feels so good.”
“Lean over, Mom.” Her mother bent forward as Jazz kneaded her muscles slowly, forcing groans from her mother’s lips. Jazz massaged her scalp then dragged her fingernails down her back a few times. “Feel better now?”
“Mmmm.” She poured a little more Coke into her glass and sipped again. “Want some?” She lifted the glass toward Jazz.
“Yes.” She sipped and grimaced. “Lots of vodka in there, Mom.” Way too much!
“I know. My hand was shaking so much when I poured in the vodka that more came out than I wanted.”
Jazz rolled her eyes, took another sip, and put the glass on the table. Jazz knew why her mom drank, but when she got too drunk, she let him do anything to her.
The sound of the shower stopped. They both looked up toward a door just down the hall from the kitchen.
“You going to be OK?” asked Jazz.
“Sure, honey.”
“Don’t take any shit tonight.”
Her mother lit a cigarette, blew the smoke above her head, and sipped some more of her drink. Jazz wrinkled her nose, waved the smoke away, then kissed her mom’s head. “I’ll be close by.” Jazz walked out of the room and sat on the sofa in the living room, listening.
Soon she heard a door open and knew that Leon would be emerging from the bathroom. Jazz thought him disgusting—covered in hair and tats, his head shaved, a silver chain necklace hanging on his bloated, sagging chest. Yet he thought he was God’s gift to women. Why did her mother latch onto these worthless assholes?
“Already drunk, aren’t you?” he sneered. “Claire, you’re really something to come home to. Couldn’t you fix yourself up a little bit? Do something with your hair? Wear something pretty? Act like you care about me at all?” He slapped the table.
All her senses sparking, Jazz sat up straighter on the sofa and reached for her pack next to her.
“How much have you drunk today?” Jazz heard his footsteps. “That’s almost pure vodka. And you’ve been drinking that all day, haven’t you?”
Jazz heard her mother yelp and gritted her teeth. C’mon, Mom, don’t take it!
“Haven’t you? You used to be pretty. You used to be fun to be with. Now you’re just a fat, ugly drunk. I don’t even want to come home to you.”
“Then don’t,” she mumbled softly.
Jazz smiled a little then braced for his response. She knew what he would do.
“You want that?” Leon yelled. “You want me to leave. Is that it?” Her mother yelped again. “Answer me!”
“No, Leon, I can’t wait for you to come home every night. Don’t know what I’d do without you.” She chuckled.
Jazz unzipped her pack as she heard him slap her face, then the crash of a glass hitting the floor. Jazz stood, baring her teeth, her muscles tensing.
“You need to clean that up,” Leon growled.
“You did it.” Claire’s voice quavered. “Why should I clean it up?”
“Because you made me do it. Now clean it up!”
Jazz heard her mother scream and stumble. Jazz reached into her pack. She heard a chair scrape across the floor. C’mon, Mom! Fight back.
“I wish I’d never met you, bitch! You’ve ruined my life! You and that ugly daughter of yours. Now clean up that mess!”
Jazz heard what sounded like the table being pushed across the floor then her mother’s scream.
Her blood boiling, Jazz yanked a pistol from her pack.
Her mother screamed. “Aah! Please! Stop! I’ll clean it up.”
“Hurry up, bitch!”
Jazz burst into the kitchen holding the gun in front of her with two hands. Leon had lifted a chair above his head, ready to bring it down on her mother crying on the floor.
“Get out!” Jazz snarled at Leon as she pointed the gun at his face, moving slowly toward him. “I told you to get out!”
“Jazz, don’t,” Claire pleaded.
“He will not hurt you again. Ever.” She pulled back the hammer and planted her feet wide apart. “I will shoot you.”
Leon smiled and tilted his head. “What d’ya know? Jazz got herself a gun.” He laughed. “But I don’t think you’ll shoot it.”
He took a step forward. Jazz smiled and pulled the trigger, sending a bullet past the side of his head, thudding into the wall.
Leon flinched and turned sideways. “Shit, girl!”
Narrowing her eyes, Jazz calmed her breathing and made sure he would not doubt her intentions. “The next one goes into your face. Now get out!”
Claire pulled herself off the floor. “Get out, Leon!”
“I don’t have any clothes on!”
Jazz pulled the hammer back. She so wanted to fire again. Her pulse pounded in her ears.
Claire walked quickly into the bathroom and came out with his jeans, shirt, and shoes. “Here.” She dropped them on the floor.
“Get dressed and leave,” said Jazz. “I won’t say it again.”
She kept the gun pointed at his face as he scrambled to put on his jeans and shirt.
“I’ve got things here that belong to me!” he yelled as he pulled on his shoes.
“We’ll make arrangements with the trooper to be here when you get your things,” said Jazz. “Other than that time, you will never come back here. If I ever see you around my momma, I will shoot your ass. Got it?”
“You crazy bitches deserve each other. Hope you enjoy livin
g with your drunk-ass mother.”
Jazz jerked the gun toward the door. “Out!”
He bolted out of the house, jumped into his truck, and left.
Claire collapsed onto Jazz crying.
“It’s OK, Mom. He’s gone.” Jazz’s hands trembled. She led her mother to a seat and helped her sit down. “He won’t hit you anymore,” she said through a thick throat. Her legs wobbled as she tried to slow her breathing.
“Thank you, Jazz. I’m so sorry. So sorry.” She put her head onto the table, crying in spasms while Jazz rubbed her head.
Hunter gasped. “No!” He coughed then choked.
“Gross!” someone yelled.
He turned around to look at Jazz, tears forming in his eyes.
“Hunter? What’s wrong?” asked Jazz. Her face was ashen.
He coughed again, then turned around and stood. “I’m going to be sick.”
“Then get to the bathroom. Don’t you dare puke in here!” shouted Fenster.
He grabbed his computer and bolted out of the room. Stumbling down the hall, coughing and crying, he made it to the bathroom where he found an open stall. He dropped to the floor, his computer scraping across the tile, then he heaved into the toilet. His body jerked as he cried, his face vibrating on his arms flung across the toilet lid.
He spat and tried to deepen his breaths. After another minute he pulled himself up to sit on the toilet seat, holding his head in his hands.
Calming down, he tore off toilet paper and blew his nose. Then pulled off some more to wipe his face. He reached for his computer on the floor and put it on his lap.
He opened the lid and started typing the rest of the dream out. He had to get it out.
Jazz helped her mother stand and led her back into her room at the end of the hall. She pulled back the covers and helped Claire lay down then kissed her cheek as her mother cried herself to sleep.
Jazz walked back into the kitchen and pulled a glass and vodka bottle out of the cabinet. Once again they’d be short on cash. Her brain felt numb. She poured two inches of liquor into the glass, added ice, and sat at the table, staring out the window. What would they do now? Her mother would sleep, and Jazz would drink herself to oblivion. She felt so empty, so alone. Tears spilled over her lashes as she tried to think of her grandparents.
The scene faded in his mind, but Jazz’s face lingered, as if in a tiny spotlight gradually blurring to darkness. Hunter had never seen her look so sad. She was always happy, always smiling when he saw her. Now he had some idea what memories she wanted to forget.
Sweat ran down his neck. He grabbed more paper and pushed it across his forehead.
“Hunter?” Jazz yelled from outside the bathroom.
“Yeah! I’m in here.” He saved the file and closed the lid.
The door burst open. “Where are you?”
Hunter stood up and opened the stall door. “You can’t be in here.”
“Says who?” She ran to him and hugged him. “Are you OK?” She pulled her hands from his back. “You’re sopping wet.”
“Yeah. Always happens once the vision fades. Sorry.”
“I don’t mind.” She hugged him again. “C’mon. We need to get out of here.” Holding his hand, she pulled him toward the door exiting the building.
Chapter Nine
Hunter sat in the front seat of Jazz’s old Ford Ranger, clutching his computer to his chest as Jazz pulled out of the school parking lot. Was Jazz’s story real? Had she threatened Leon with a gun, even fired at him? What a horrible life she’d had to endure with her mother and Leon. And the drinking. Did Jazz drink?
He couldn’t get the last image of Jazz out of his head, sitting at a table with a glass of vodka, with such a look of fatigue and defeat. How could she endure that home life and be so happy and caring at school?
Jazz was his best friend, but they hadn’t talked about home issues. He’d never mentioned the silence between him and his father. She’d never talked about her mother or Leon. Science, world events, school gossip, and his Tremarian stories filled up their time. Now he realized that was all a façade. The real stuff was much darker.
But how did he know any of what he saw was real?
Every story he’d seen today was about someone he’d been physically close to. Two of the three stories were tragic, while the other seemed almost too perfect. Both Eric and Vanessa were willing players in the seduction, no hesitation or doubts, yet a teacher and a student had steamy sex. There was no conflict, unlike in the story his dad had read.
Why?
He had to figure out whether the stories were real events or not.
“Why are you so quiet, Hunter?” Jazz asked as she slowed for one of only five stop signs in town and looked at him. Her brow wrinkled as her mouth tightened.
“Just trying to figure things out.” He returned her gaze. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“How long did Leon live with you and your mother?”
Jazz’s jaw dropped. “Much too long. How do you know about him?”
“He was in the last story I wrote. Along with your mother.”
They locked eyes with each other for a few seconds until Jazz turned hers toward the road as she crossed the intersection.
“Hunter, this is too weird.”
“Ya think?”
“You had three visions this morning?”
“Yeah.”
“Is that normal?”
“No. Never been that many before lunch. I don’t see how I can pass my classes if this keeps happening.”
“Was I in the story?”
“Yes, very much so.”
“Did I have all my clothes on?” She looked over at him and winked.
“Yes. Why’d you ask?”
“After reading about Eric and Vanessa, I wondered. Maybe you’d fantasize about me, too.”
“I didn’t fantasize anything, Jazz!”
“OK. Calm down.”
“How would I know about Leon? Explain that to me. You’ve never mentioned him. Or that your mother drinks vodka and Coke.”
Jazz slowed her truck just before the end of the road and looked at him.
“Or that you drink, too.”
Her eyes widened slightly. “You saw that?”
“Yes.”
Jazz blew out a slow breath as she turned into her gravel and dirt driveway barely visible through a clump of trees, toward her house hidden from the street.
She set the gear to park and turned the key. “What happened in the story?”
“I’ll tell you inside. I need to check something out first.”
“You think you can eat something?”
“Yeah.”
“By the way, my house is a mess. I’m not very tidy except in the lab. I’ve been living by myself for several weeks.”
“Where’s your mom?”
Jazz sighed. “She finally went to rehab. She’s an alcoholic, which I guess you already knew.”
“Sorry.”
“I haven’t told anyone she’s gone. Most wouldn’t notice anyway since she rarely left the house except to go to the bar. I thought she’d kill herself with how much she was drinking, so I finally convinced her to go.”
Jazz opened the truck door and walked toward the log house, Hunter following close behind. Water dripped from clumps of snow stuck in the valleys of the roof. The front door opened into the mudroom where she removed her boots and jacket. Hunter did the same.
Jazz stopped and looked at the kitchen. “Holy shit! You don’t realize how much of a mess you’ve made until you show it to someone else.”
Her stove was covered in pots and skillets, while her counter and sink were full of dirty dishes. A metal trashcan sat in the corner, its lid propped up by folded food cartons, which didn’t fit inside. A pile of laundry rested on the table, topped by a large red bra.
Hunter widened his eyes. “Whoa.”
Jazz blushed and quickly grabbed the clothes. “Woops! Forgot to put these away last night.”
“Don’t worry about the mess. If I lived here by myself, the place would look worse.”
She carried the clothes to another room.
Hunter walked to a wall to his left and moved his fingers near the doorjamb from chest-high to above his head.
Jazz returned. “What are you doing?”
“Here.” His pinky finger fit into a hole at eye-level.
“What’s that?”
“You don’t know? You made it.”
“How?”
Hunter saw the blank look on her face. The story had to be real because the bullet hole was there. “When did Leon leave?”
Jazz’s eyes searched his face then moved to the ceiling. Her eyebrows scrunched together. “I don’t remember.”
“What’s your last memory of him?”
“He came home from work, smelly and covered in dirt as usual. I was washing dishes. Mom was cooking dinner, but she burned it. He called her horrible names then disappeared into the bathroom for a shower.”
“So why isn’t he living here anymore?”
She tried to think. “Maybe you should tell me.”
Hunter opened his computer and found the document. “You should read this.”
Jazz sat at the table in front of the computer. As she read, her skin turned red, her breathing quickened, and emotions flashed hot across her face, like she was reliving the event. After a few minutes, she leaned back in her chair and pressed her head with her hands. After a few deep breaths, she stood. “OK, there’s no way I would’ve forgotten that story, but I did. As I read this, the memory came flooding back into my brain.”
She walked to the wall with the bullet hole and put her pinkie into it. After several seconds, she turned around with a jerk. “I got it! I was trying to remember when I might have thought about Leon and Mom around you. It was right after you told me about wanting to drive into the trees this morning. My mind flashed to my Mom crying about how miserable she was with Leon, claiming she just wanted to drive off a cliff. That was just before Leon came home that last time.”
Someone To Kiss My Scars: A Teen Thriller Page 7