by Jo Ramsey
Not sure what time yet. Need to check with Dad. Give me fifteen minutes and I’ll let you know.
No problem.
I’d expected him to complain about having to wait. He must have been in a better mood than the night before. Hopefully he would be back to his typical self today, and we could have fun hanging out together.
Leaving the phone in my room, I went into the bathroom to take a fast shower, then went back to my room to get dressed and get my dirty clothes together. While I was still picking up some of the things I’d tossed into the corner instead of the hamper, someone knocked on my door.
“Come in.” I bent over to pick up a pair of panties. No matter who was at the door, it was certain to be someone who didn’t need to see my underwear.
The door swung open. “I was about to wake you,” Dad said. “You don’t usually sleep this late. Are you feeling all right?”
“Yeah.” I dropped the panties into the laundry basket and turned to face him. “I had trouble sleeping, that’s all. I’m going to start the laundry right now. Do I need to get yours and Olin’s?”
“I already took ours down to the basement.” Dad leaned against the door frame. “I cleaned the kitchen too.”
“I’m sorry.” We always split the work of cleaning the shared rooms. Olin did the living room, Dad did the bathroom, and I did the kitchen. Dad shouldn’t have had to do my job.
“Don’t worry about it.” He smiled. “I got a call a little while ago from Lee-Anne. She said she’s bringing Rob over around one, so I figured we should get the house clean before then.”
“One?” I glanced at my clock. I had five minutes to start the laundry before Rob showed up. “I had a text from Rob. He asked me what time he could come over.”
“Maybe Lee-Anne didn’t talk to him before she called me.” He shook his head. “You would think she would have told him she’s bringing him here.”
“She did. Just not what time.” I picked up the laundry. “No point in texting him now. They’re probably on the way.”
“Probably. Do you want breakfast food or lunch?”
“Lunch.” It was too late for breakfast.
“I’ll see what I can do.” He left the room.
I took my laundry downstairs to the washing machine Dad and Mom had bought before Olin was born. It and the dryer had broken down more than once, but somehow Dad always managed to get them working again. We couldn’t afford to pay anyone to repair them, let alone buy new ones.
As I sorted the laundry into piles of light and dark, I heard footsteps and voices above me. A moment later, someone came down the stairs. “Mira?”
“Over here, Rob.” I finished sorting the clothes and started scooping the lights into the washer.
Rob walked over to me, and I glanced at him over my shoulder. His hair was greasy and sticking up, and dark bags showed under his eyes. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I hated seeing him looking so messed up. No matter how tired or upset he’d been in the past, he always took care of himself. Our talk must not have helped him as much as I’d believed. “Didn’t sleep much?”
“I’m not sure if I slept at all.” He yawned loudly. “I had dreams, though, so I guess I did. I look like shit, huh?”
I didn’t want to insult him, but I wasn’t going to lie. “You’ve looked better. Are you okay other than not sleeping?”
“I don’t know.”
I poured detergent on top of the laundry and started the machine. My hands shook a little. Aside from Rob’s appearance, something about him just felt off. I didn’t know how else to describe it. He sounded like his normal self, but something was definitely wrong. More than him not getting enough sleep. I couldn’t put my finger on it, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
“Did you eat yet?” I asked, trying to cover my concern.
“I wasn’t hungry.” He cleared his throat. “Do we have to go anywhere? I don’t know if I’m allowed to leave your house, to be honest. My father’s wife made it sound like I have to stay here until she comes back to pick me up, but she didn’t say so, so I could probably leave. If you want to. I’d kind of rather not, though.”
He was rambling. Not a good sign. I turned to look at him. He was staring with wide eyes at the small window at the top of the wall. The only thing visible was the mulch Dad had put around our shrubs to try to keep them alive, but I didn’t think that mattered. I was pretty sure Rob wasn’t actually seeing anything. He was lost in his brain, and I had to pull him out.
“If you don’t want to go anywhere, we can hang out here,” I said, trying to sound casual, as if Rob hadn’t asked a question that made no sense. We almost never went anywhere when we hung out. Walking around town was pretty boring, since none of the shops had anything interesting and the only other place to go was the library. The only other place we could have gone was the mall a few towns over, but that would have meant asking Dad to drive us, and I didn’t like to bother him on his days off.
I wasn’t only worried about the question, though. Rob sounded terrified about the idea of leaving the house, and the way he was looking at absolutely nothing only added to my concern about him.
“Good.” He looked at me and quirked the corners of his mouth, and just like that he was back to his version of normal. “It’s safer here. I’m probably being really paranoid, but if we went anywhere, those guys or their friends might show up. I don’t want to deal with them. I want to have a couple of days when I don’t have to think about school or getting the crap beaten out of me.”
“I understand.” I tried to relax. Of course he was scared to go anywhere. We didn’t know what had happened to Craig and Seth. They might be anywhere around town. Going anywhere other than from the house to a car was too much of a risk.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I said. “Dad said he was going to make something to eat, so hopefully he has. You must be really hungry.”
“No. I don’t feel well.” He shrugged. “Yeah. No point in standing around down here.”
“Right.” I studied him, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what was going on in his head. I was probably better off. At least now that he knew we were staying in the house, he seemed calmer.
We went up to the kitchen. Dad was standing at the stove, flipping burgers in our cast iron pan. He glanced over his shoulder. “I hope you two want hamburgers. I probably should have asked first.”
“Burgers are good.” I sat at the table and motioned for Rob to do the same. “Can we rent a movie with the on-demand thing? We just want to relax.”
“As long as it’s one of the cheap ones.” Dad turned back to the stove. “And Olin might have something to say about it.”
“We don’t have to watch a movie,” Rob said. “I kind of don’t want to, to be honest. I think I wouldn’t be able to pay attention, so it would be a waste of money.”
“Okay.” There went my plan to distract us. I would have to come up with something else to do. Otherwise we would spend Rob’s entire visit obsessing about the goons from school, and Rob would wind up convincing himself everyone was out to murder him or something. He was good at coming up with the worst possibilities.
“It’s a nice day,” Dad said. “Are you two sure you want to stick around here? I wouldn’t mind driving you someplace. Or you could even go for a walk, though I know that isn’t the most exciting thing to do around here.”
“We don’t want to go anywhere,” I said quickly. “We’re both too tired to go for a walk, and you shouldn’t have to play chauffeur for us. I just wanted company.”
Rob shot me a grateful look. “Same here. I don’t have anyone to talk to at home. At least Mira listens to me, even though I probably annoy her.”
“You don’t annoy me.” I hoped he was kidding.
“It’s nice of you to say so.” Rob leaned forward with his elbows on the table. “It’s good to have a friend.”
“Yeah, it is.” Dad looked at us again. “Mira, would you get plates out of the cupboard, please? And Rob, l
et Olin know the food’s almost ready. He’s in the living room.”
Rob looked surprised. He shouldn’t have been. Dad always treated him like family. Rob couldn’t have forgotten that, and surely he didn’t think anything had changed. He had no reason to think so.
I got the plates, Rob got Olin, and the four of us sat down to eat. The only one who really talked was Olin, who took advantage of having a captive audience for his stories about getting used to his first year of high school, trying out for sports, and all the other things he thought were important. Sometimes I got irked when he wouldn’t let anyone else say a word, but this time, I was glad of it. Any other conversation would have been way too awkward.
I’d never felt this uncomfortable around Rob, not even the times lately when I’d been a little afraid of him. I didn’t like it.
After lunch, he and I went up to my room. The awkwardness grew to tension, and my stomach rolled. I closed the door and sat on my bed. “Are you feeling any better?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s still only Saturday. I have to get through all day tomorrow with my so-called family before I go back to hell on Monday. If they make me go. I don’t know when they’re going to fill me in about that. I guess I have to assume I’m going.”
I leaned against the wall. “Probably. Like you said, they always make you go. Just because they’re pissed at Ms. Cramer doesn’t mean they’ll keep you home. You can sit down if you want.”
“Huh? Yeah.” He sat at the tiny computer desk Dad had given me for Christmas last year and touched my laptop. “Can I check my profile?”
“Sure.” I frowned. Rob never went on social media. He had accounts on most of the same sites as everyone else, but he didn’t like looking at them.
He tapped one of the laptop keys to wake it up, then opened a browser window and went to one of his profiles.
A message popped up at the bottom of the screen. Quickly, I got up to read over Rob’s shoulder.
You’re in for it Monday, freak. I hope you’re ready.
Rob made a strangled sound and looked up at me, ghost-white. “See? You see, Mira? I’m never going to be safe anywhere!”
“Easy.” I touched his shoulder and hoped he wouldn’t notice my hand was shaking. “Someone’s just being a dickhead, that’s all. It’s okay. They’re just trying to scare you.”
“No. You’re wrong.” He stared at the screen again. He was trembling and breathing the way he had in the office when he found out the police were arresting Craig and Seth. “This isn’t the first one. That’s why I wanted to check.”
“What do you mean? The first what?” I read the message again. I didn’t recognize the name on it. “Who is that?”
He shrugged. “The profile is blank. I get notifications on my phone when someone messages me on here. No one ever does, but this morning, someone did. The same person as this. I deleted that one. It said something about I’d better hire a bodyguard.”
He shoved the wheeled chair away from the desk and spun to face me. “They’re out to get me. All of them. If I go to school Monday…. Hell, I probably won’t even make it to school. They’ll ambush me on the way or something. You’d better not meet me, because they’ll attack you too.”
“I’m not going to let you deal with them alone. If someone really is planning something, I’ll be with you.” My heart pounded. Despite Ms. Cramer’s warnings, I hadn’t actually believed there would be any fallout from the arrests. But it sounded as if someone planned to seriously hurt Rob. “We have to tell someone about this, Rob.”
“Who?” He narrowed his eyes. “No one’s going to care. We don’t even know who sent the message. If we tell anyone about it, they’ll say it’s someone playing a joke or something.”
“Dad wouldn’t.” I didn’t know what Dad would be able to do, but he could at least help us figure out how to handle it.
“Don’t tell your father.” He sighed. “Don’t tell anyone. There’s no point. It’s just another case of me whining, right?”
“No!” I knelt in front of him so I could look him in the eyes. “This is real. You aren’t whining. You have every reason to be worried, and I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
“You’re the only one.” He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to die on Monday. That’s it.”
“Stop saying that!” I sat back on my heels and looked at my laptop again. There had to be some way to help Rob. Something I could do to make people leave him alone, or something I could say to convince the school and his parents to protect him. He didn’t deserve to be this afraid all the time. I hated the people who knew about it and didn’t do a damn thing to help him.
“It is what it is.” Without looking, he reached behind him and closed the laptop. “I don’t want to think about it anymore. It doesn’t matter. None of this is going to matter.”
“It does matter. You should be able to feel safe.” His deadened tone and blank expression scared me again. Not to mention his talk about dying. He might not mean someone else would kill him. Maybe he was planning to take care of it himself.
I had to talk to Dad, even if Rob didn’t want me to. If Rob was serious about wanting to die, I needed someone to help me help him. And I couldn’t protect him by myself either.
“Don’t worry about it.” He stood. “And don’t tell your dad or anyone else. Promise. Otherwise I won’t be able to trust you, and then I won’t have anyone. I need to trust you, Mira.”
“I….” I couldn’t say much to that. He was right. I was his best friend. If I went behind his back, even if I only talked to Dad, I wouldn’t be any better than Talia. “Okay. I promise not to say anything if you promise you won’t hurt yourself.”
“I promise I won’t if I can avoid it.”
That wasn’t good enough. He might decide he couldn’t avoid it. But before I could argue with him, he opened the door. “I think I’m ready to go home now. Thanks for letting me come over.”
“I thought your stepmother was picking you up.” I couldn’t let him leave yet. I had to calm him down first.
He shrugged again. “I’ll call her on the way home. Talk to you soon.”
And then he walked away.
Rob’s Journal—September 24, 11:35 p.m.
IT’S SUNDAY night, and I’m done. Completely, totally done.
I thought the messages yesterday were bad. They were nothing compared to today. All day long, different accounts, and every account gets deleted before I can look at it. Not even blank profiles this time. Deleted ones. They’re hiding from me.
Sending me threats. I’m going to die. I need a bodyguard. I should be ready to fight. I should be ready to get killed. Over and over. Calling me a fag. Saying they should rape me. Saying they’ll hurt Mira.
Mira pissed me off yesterday. She wouldn’t leave me alone. She thought I was going to kill myself. I wanted to. If I wasn’t around, no one would be able to hurt me. She better not have told her dad what I said. I told her not to.
She probably didn’t, though. If she had, her dad would have called my father, and I would have heard more bullshit about how much of a crybaby I am. My father hasn’t said a word to me since Friday, so Mira must have kept her mouth shut. I just couldn’t stick around her house anymore yesterday, and I didn’t want to talk to her after I left. She probably would have convinced me I needed to be locked up just like they said.
But Mira isn’t like that. She’s on my side. She was just saying all that crap yesterday because she doesn’t want anyone to hurt me, even me. But I’m not the one who’s going to get hurt, and I’ll make sure she doesn’t either.
I’m not going to take this shit anymore. I don’t think all the messages are from the same person. More than one of them is threatening me. They want to see me cave, and I’m not giving them what they want.
They’re doing this on purpose. They’re fucking with me because they think I’m going to roll over and show my belly the way I always do. They think no one can do any
thing to stop them because they’re hiding behind the fake names. They can’t hide forever, though, and I’m not rolling over. This time, they’re going to see that they’ve pushed me too far. They think they’re going to scare me?
Not this time. I’m not taking it anymore. They’ve shit all over me for years now. I’m not going to keep walking around pretending it doesn’t bother me. I’m not going to keep being terrified. No one else is going to help me, not even Mira. She can’t do anything without risking them hurting her too. She wanted to tell her father, but what the hell could he do? He would probably say talk to the school or the police, and that would only make things worse.
I’m taking care of it myself. For once, my father did me a favor. All the times he’s ranted about being a citizen and having the right to defend himself. He didn’t think I knew about the gun, but it was pretty obvious he had one when he kept talking about gun control.
Guns don’t need to be controlled. People do, and sometimes guns are the tool someone uses to take control. My father thinks he has the right to own a gun, but he ignores all the stuff about keeping it locked up out of reach. I know where he hides things. Always the same place. All I had to do was open his closet and open the box, and there it was.
He probably thought I was too stupid to figure out that he had it. Or too stupid to know how to use it. Maybe I should show him I know what to do with a gun.
No. If I did that, someone would stop me before I got to school. I hate my father and his wife, but they aren’t the ones who deserve to die. They’ll have to live knowing that if they’d listened to me just once, maybe everything would have been okay. This will be their fault. That will be worse than dying.
I’m going to school tomorrow, and I’m going to make sure I never have to be afraid again. Tomorrow will be the last day of the rest of my life. And everyone else’s.