by Deb Loughead
“What’s that got to do with me?” I feel sick right down to my toes.
“So, I came up with this plan. And trust me, it’s great. It’ll work. Okay, so, on Friday night I get my mom to drop me off at your place for the weekend. I’ll tell her we have to work on a project with a bunch of other kids or something. Then I’ll tell her we’re all going to the Sadie Hawkins dance on Saturday night, too. And I’ll actually stay over with you on Friday night.”
I hate the sound of her plan already. “What if I’m busy Friday night?”
It’s like I haven’t even spoken. Her eyes are weird and bright, and she’s gesturing madly, as though she’s directing an orchestra. I spot some marks on her upper arm and think of a banana for some reason. Then I remember how her mom grabbed her and yanked her through the door the other day. Did she do that? It’s hard to believe, but she really was pissed at her.
“Saturday morning Mac will pick me up, and we’ll head over to party at the university for the night. He’ll drop me off at your place before noon on Sunday, and my mom can pick me up there. I’ll stay in touch with her all weekend: I’ll tell her how our project is coming along and how fun the dance is. She won’t even suspect that I’m not with you.”
Ellie takes a deep breath then sits there with this wide, rapturous smile, as though she’s just come up with a solution to end world hunger.
“Are you out of your mind? You’ll never get away with it.”
“Not if you don’t help me.” Her smile dissolves, her dark eyes narrow. “You will help me, won’t you? Because if you don’t …”
When a hand lands hard on my shoulder, I jump, and so does Ellie. I look up. Aubrey is standing on the stage, leaning over us.
“When shall we three meet again?” she says in a dramatic, witchy voice as she wraps an arm around each of our shoulders.
“In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” I croak back at her.
Ellie’s nose wrinkles as her face turns sour. “You really are a witch, Aubrey. With a capital B.” She jumps from the stage and glares at us before walking off to pout in one of the auditorium seats. Saved by Macbeth’s witches, act I, scene 1. For now, anyway.
“Wow. Sorry, did I interrupt something?” Aubrey sits beside me on the edge of the stage. “Because, seriously, Ellie’s face looks like she just stepped in dog crap.” Aubrey adjusts her paisley bandana. How I envy those wispy curls that spring from her head in every direction. My own hair is flat-iron straight, all the time.
“Nope, we were done,” I say, grinning for probably the first time that day. I almost feel like hugging her for coming to my rescue.
Ellie isn’t thrilled about my relationship with Aubrey. She feels threatened or something because the more time I spend with Aubrey, the less I have to devote to her.
The very best thing about this new friend of mine is that she wasn’t at the quarry that night. She will never be part of the plot, because she’ll never have a clue what really happened.
When I’m around Aubrey, I can almost feel close to normal, close to the carefree way I used to feel all the time. And even though she’s loud and can be a bit goofy sometimes, Aubrey can always find a way to make me smile.
Which is more than I can say about Ellie.
When I stop by my locker to grab my lunch, Jake is loitering nearby. Just randomly leaning against the wall by the lockers, trying to look casual as he chews on a fingernail. It’s a dead giveaway. Our eyes meet, and he raises his brows, trying to look cool or surprised or something.
“Oh, hey, Clem, I didn’t know your locker was here.”
“Well, now you do,” I tell him as I spin my combination lock, and my heart thumps right up into my throat. “So, are you holding up the wall or waiting for a bus or what?”
Jake grins. “You crack me up. You always say exactly what you’re thinking, don’t you? There’s just no pretending with you.”
“Depends on the circumstances,” I say with my head shoved inside my locker, so he won’t see me blushing. I crouch over and pretend to rifle around for something until the burning stops. He has no idea how good I am at pretending.
“Okay, so you figured it out.” From the corner of my eye, I can see him coming closer. “I was actually looking for you just now. I asked someone where your locker is. Because I need to talk to you. About what happened yesterday. In the store.”
I jerk up and bash my forehead on my locker shelf. I stand there rubbing the sore spot. And I thought it was hard to look at him before.
“Ouch,” he says, closer still. “That’s gotta hurt.”
“So, what about the store?” I say to my reflection in my locker mirror. Hopefully not too bad of a bump, but I look half-stunned. Ugh.
“Sorry I bounced like that.” He’s right beside me now, speaking in a low voice as if he wants to be sure nobody else will hear. The halls are always packed with kids just before lunch period, but it almost feels like we’re the only ones there.
“You lied about needing to be somewhere yesterday, didn’t you?” I say. “And totally ditched me. With them.”
Now I can see his grim face beside mine in the mirror. His nostrils flare slightly, and his blue eyes are blinking way too fast, like he’s having trouble keeping it together. He rubs them with the heel of his hand and sighs. “Okay, so you figured that out. What else, Clem? Are you thinking of going to Ms. Stitski to tell her you know something? If Spencer’s name comes up again, she’ll be sold on it.”
I am totally speechless for a moment. He turns to walk away. No way am I letting him go this time. I grab the back of his T-shirt, and he turns around.
“God, Jake, is that what you really think? That I’d rat Spencer out? Why would I do that?”
He twists free of my grip. “I don’t even know what the hell to think anymore,” he says in a dismal voice. “Because I don’t trust anybody. Kit’s mom is out to get someone, and it could be any of us if somebody says the wrong thing to the cops.” He scrubs his face again. “It’s making me crazy!”
“Me, too,” I confess. “You know what? I threw your five bucks at the clerk and ran out of the store yesterday, too. Bolted just like you did.” I think for a second. If Jake’s afraid to talk to the cops about the quarry party, then maybe we have more in common than I thought. I take a chance. “How about we go find some place to talk, Jake?”
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he says.
We head for the music room, a space not much bigger than a storage closet, where the piano and all the music stands and stools are stored. It’s right beside the auditorium, and nobody ever goes in there unless we’re setting up for a play or concert.
We sit on stools facing the wall instead of each other. I unpack my lunch, a tuna sandwich that I made this morning, and a juice box. Jake bought a chicken wrap and pop in the cafeteria. We eat quietly for a few minutes. Should I risk it and speak first? In the muffled closeness of the room, Kit’s ghost seems to drift like bonfire smoke over our heads.
Jake sucks in a deep breath. “I couldn’t even go to the funeral.”
“Me neither,” I admit. “I still can’t face his family.”
“Okay, so I really need to get this off my chest, Clem. But please don’t breathe a word to anyone, okay?” A long and suffocating pause. “I think Kit died because of me.”
7
I can’t even speak. I can’t believe he just said what I was about to say myself. If I’d taken the chance and spoken first, Jake would have heard identical words: I think Kit died because of me.
“Why would you ever think that?” I manage to choke out through a mouthful of sandwich.
Another long pause as Jake slowly chews and stares into space.
“He was there because of me,” he finally says.
My sandwich is squashed in my hand now. “Come on. You can’t blame yourself for him being there. Word got out wa
y too fast. Everyone was going on about it.”
Jake looks at me sideways with a sickly smile.
“Yeah, but he actually went with me. I ran into him. Right near his house. He told me where he was going and asked if we could walk together.” Jake crumples his food wrapper into a tight ball and pitches it into a trash can. “And you know, for a second I thought maybe I should just take him home. That maybe it wasn’t such a great idea for him to be at the quarry that night. But then I thought, what the hell? Kit deserves to have fun sometimes. He shouldn’t have to miss out on so much stuff just ’cause he’s challenged.”
“I know what you mean. I always felt sorry for him back in middle school because he couldn’t do the same things as the rest of us. But, god, remember how he danced non-stop with everyone at dance-a-thons? He loved parties. He loved to do what everyone else was doing.”
“He cracked me up whenever he tried out my skateboard. He’d sort of tip over sideways in slow motion. He was a really cool kid.”
“I was in a couple of school plays with him. He learned his lines, and everyone else’s, like a champ, but he was totally unpredictable. Sometimes he’d just wander onstage in the middle of a scene, and the audience would laugh because it was so sweet.” I can’t help but laugh a little just reminiscing. Then I feel guilty for it.
“And that thing with the watches, how he sometimes wore three at once. He’d always check your wrist to see if you were wearing one.” Jake grins and shakes his head. “I heard everyone wore a watch to his funeral.”
“Yeah, I heard that, too. Remember how sometimes kids would even give him their old watches? And how he was obsessed with the weather? He always gave a daily weather report during morning announcements. He sounded just like a real radio announcer.”
We actually smile at each other, just recalling our memories of Kit.
“Clem, I honestly planned to keep an eye on him that night, and I did most of the time, but then he disappeared.” Jake’s voice is huskier now. “I thought he just went home. And like a total loser, I didn’t even check. Because I was having too much fun partying.”
And I was having a crap time watching you party and wishing you’d notice me.
“So, what’s the deal with Spencer?” I say instead. “What’s freaking him out so much? And why are you working so hard to protect him?”
Jake slumps forward, elbows on his knees, chin on his hands. He stares at the wall. “Spencer did it again that night. Gave Kit a hard time, trying to impress some girls, make them laugh or something. Now it’s blowing up in his face. You were there. You saw what happened, right?”
My nod is a lie. I saw a commotion in the shadows near the fire. I didn’t see what caused it. I didn’t see how it ended. I didn’t see anything else but Jake. All I heard were the rumours afterward that started over the summer, about Spencer bullying Kit. About some sort of scuffle.
“That stupid rumour about a fight started spreading, and it turned into something way worse than it actually was. Spencer’s scared Ms. Stitski thinks it went further than it actually did, because she’s never heard the real version of the story. But Kit didn’t even get upset after Spencer tripped him. Remember? He just sat on the ground and laughed. And then some kids helped him get up.”
Oh, god. Spencer is sitting on his own prickly secret.
“And I pulled Spencer aside and bitched him out after it happened. I told him that Kit came to the party with me and I was looking out for him.”
“God, Jake,” I whisper. “I never even knew that.”
“There was no way I could step forward and tell the cops that, because I was scared to get questioned even more, maybe even blamed for everything else that went wrong that night. For letting him follow me there in the first place, then not taking care of him.” He gulps hard.
“So you’re covering each other’s butts?”
“Pretty much. Some other kids were nearby that night and saw what Spencer did. A couple even told the cops that a fight never happened, but what if the cops don’t believe it? And what if someone decides to throw his name out there to Ms. Stitski again, when she already has him on her radar screen? He needs all the backup he can get right now. So do I. And he knows that Kit followed me there. He’s the only one who knows, besides you now. So I have to help him out, right?”
“You mean he’s making sure you help him out by getting you to kill all the stupid rumours?”
Jake nods slowly. “That’s right, and I’m doing my best. But the thing is, right after those kids helped Kit up, he took off toward the bushes. The rest of us went on partying. Didn’t follow him or watch out for him. And I just can’t forgive myself for that.” A tear glints in the corner of his eye. He looks away.
I cram the rest of my sandwich back into my lunch bag. Jake has no clue that while he was partying, I was watching him. As he whooped and hollered around the fire, dancing like crazy to the blasting music, I’d followed his every move.
There’s no way I’m going to tell him that. That I’d danced alone in the shadows, watching and waiting and hoping that maybe he’d notice me, maybe even talk to me — but way too nervous to make a move myself. The pretty girls who lusted after him were lurking nearby that night, too, flirting madly, and I knew I didn’t stand a chance. But it didn’t stop my pathetic, sappy longing.
I should be crazy happy now that Jake is sitting right beside me. Instead, though, something like a quiet calm has settled over me. Maybe this is a good thing. He may not be a potential boyfriend, or even a date for the Sadie Hawkins, but maybe I’ve found myself a companion in misery.
But, I can’t let him go on believing that the whole thing is his fault.
“Well, guess what, Jake? It wasn’t your fault, or Spencer’s. It was mine. Because, actually, I was the last one to see him alive that night.”
Jake spins on his stool and stares straight at me. “What are you talking about?”
I don’t look away, don’t even blink. It’s my turn to share a secret.
“I’m pretty sure that right after Kit went toward the bushes, he practically ran right into me. And you know what? It gets even worse.”
Then I tell him what nobody else but Ellie knows. About how Kit needed to find a place to pee in private that night, and I’d sent him into the bushes. How I was probably the very last person to see him, but just like Jake, I hadn’t gone looking for him.
Jake’s face changes as he listens to my version of that night, as if a light is growing brighter behind his eyes. I explain how I kept my mouth shut when the police were asking questions and looking for witnesses, because I didn’t want my own truth to come out. There were so many people who would be disappointed in me, and who might stop trusting me because I took my eyes off Kit. And then there was Ms. Stitski, the pitbull lawyer. I couldn’t take that risk. Jake nods and admits that’s exactly why he did the same dumbass thing. It’s almost as if we’re partners in a crime we didn’t really commit.
We stare at each other for a few seconds, trying to take it all in, I guess. For the first time in months I don’t feel so alone.
“So, now what?” I ask. “It’s almost like we opened up Pandora’s box, isn’t it? All this horrible stuff is flying out, and there’s no way to put it back.”
“Well, I don’t know about you, but I feel better now that’s all out in the open, at least between us, even though it doesn’t kill the guilt. And from what I remember about the Pandora myth, there was Hope in the box, too, right?”
“Huh, that’s true.” And then I think of something that hadn’t hit me before. “But what if someone else really did see something and isn’t saying, just like us?”
“But the inquest ruled it was death by misadventure,” Jake reminds me.
“Maybe that’s what they had to say. Maybe since nobody offered them any solid leads, and because of the lack of evidence, the investigation had t
o end there. But what if there is more to it than that? What if something happened to Kit after he met up with me?”
“Oh, come on, Clem.” Jake seems to force a chuckle. “That’s a bit of a stretch. Kit got lost in the dark and slipped into the quarry, just like they said. Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe. But maybe not. Because if we couldn’t talk about it ’til now, Jake …”
He reaches out and touches my hand. “Then who else still can’t talk about it. And why?”
I squeeze his hand. “Right. Did they hurt Kit, or are they just afraid, like us? Because I sure don’t want to take the fall for someone else.”
Jake thinks for a moment. “That’s right, Clem. If someone else comes forward about Kit, our names might come up. Like, what if Spencer gets scared and decides to tell Ms. Stitski about my part in getting Kit there?” Jake looks sick again. “She’s a lawyer. She’s obviously great at building cases. Criminal negligence causing death. Isn’t that an actual offence? And even if I didn’t commit a crime, I showed a total lack of responsibility. I’ll look like a complete asshole to everyone in town. God, I’ll never even be able to get a job or anything. Who would ever want to trust me?”
“Me too, Jake,” I murmur.
We both sit perfectly still in the hush of the music room, the concrete walls and closed door muffling the din of an ordinary school day. It feels safe here, especially now that all the raw nastiness we’ve been concealing has finally been exposed to somebody we can trust. Each other.
“So, what should we do?” I whisper, as my heart flutters with a new understanding that we have to try and do something. We can’t just let this thing go.
“I have no clue,” Jake tells me. “It was almost easier just hanging on to everything.”
“That’s true. But you know what I think we should do first?”