“It was your idea,” I snapped. “Plus, the weird part is that everyone was nice to me today. It was like they all had amnesia and made a collective decision to forget who I was. Even Paisley was tolerable.”
“People in town would give up both kidneys if they thought it’d make our football team win. Hanging out with you is mildly more comfortable than death by organ donation. If Adam likes you, then so do they. Stir.” He pointed. I grabbed the pipette and swished it around our mixture. I had promised Adam we’d find some other way to make him feel, and while I watched froth tendrils crawl along the black surface of the countertop, I realized that I might know what that something was. What he needed was a chemical reaction.
“Can I borrow forty bucks?” I picked my bag off the floor. The lab partners next to us had somehow succeeded only in boiling water, or at least that was what it looked like.
“Were you even listening to me?” Owen scratched behind his ear. “Because sometimes I get this weird sense that voices in your head are way louder than the voices out here.” He drew a circle in the air with his pencil eraser.
“Please, you make me sound crazy.”
“I think you accomplish that all on your own.”
I held my hand out, palm up. Owen stared at it.
“You literally just won a hundred dollars last night at the carnival. What do you need a loan from the Bloch Bank for?”
I tapped my foot on the floor. “Because I need that money for a cell phone, remember? Again…” I shrugged. “Your idea.”
He rolled his eyes but fished his wallet out of the back pocket of his jeans and reluctantly forked over two twenties. I snatched the crisp bills and folded them in half. “Thanks. You know, sometimes I think I’m the only sane one here.” I headed to the front of the classroom, and just as my hand found the doorknob, a shrill voice came from behind me.
“Ms. Frankenstein?” it said. “Where do you think you’re going? Class isn’t over for five more minutes.”
I knew the “time is relative” joke wouldn’t fly on Ms. Dot, who taught chemistry, not physics, but that didn’t stop me from considering it. Instead, I turned slowly on the spot, composing my mouth into something I hoped resembled a smile. To put this in perspective, for the past seven years, every single photograph in a yearbook that appeared over the words, Frankenstein, Victoria depicted a girl with a haircut that no matter the grade always seemed to be recovering from some sort of salon calamity and absolutely no smile. So I wasn’t what one would call a traditional “charmer.”
“Owen and I finished our experiment, Ms. Dot.” Smile stayed pinned in place. “I’m sorry, did you have something else planned for today?” Keep smiling, keep smiling.
Ms. Dot was a woman of cheesy holiday sweaters and, just by looking at her, you could tell she knew how to knit. The corners of her glasses swooped into purple wings that mimicked the patches of frizz on either side of her head. “No, I suppose not. But there’s still—”
“Thanks, Ms. Dot.” I cut over her like but there’s still were a perfectly natural end to whatever it was she was trying to say, and I didn’t feel bad because, really, if teachers expected me to sit through an entire period, wasn’t it their job to keep me interested enough to stay there?
The later lunch slot was still in session, and the hallway smelled like cafeteria burritos. I heard the door open behind me, and I picked up my pace, expecting to hear Ms. Dot.
“What are you doing?” This was a Ms. Dot thing to say, but unless Ms. Dot had swallowed a teenage boy whose voice just cracked, it wasn’t her.
I turned to see Owen following after me in what had to be the least athletic run of all time. His skinny legs bowed inward, and his ankles seemed to be made of melted cheese.
“Setting up an experiment,” I said. “Keep up, Bloch.” I led him to a card table draped in orange and black streamers and a puff-painted sign. A girl glanced up from her phone screen. “Four Homecoming tickets.” That was a sentence I never thought I’d say.
Owen’s money disappeared into the girl’s lockbox, and Owen groaned. “Has anyone ever told you, you don’t have a lot of patience?”
I counted the four tickets and handed one to Owen. “No, I try not to talk to anyone besides you and Adam.”
The bell rang to mark the end of the period. I grabbed Owen’s hand and pulled him toward the school’s west wing, where Adam had History. Students began pouring out of classrooms, and it was like trying to walk up a waterfall.
I spotted Adam’s head over the crowd, the expression on his face as vacant as if he’d truly been dead. I waved my hand. His eyes brightened, and he returned an excited wave, knocking a passerby in the skull with his elbow. He didn’t notice, and the kid slunk away, rubbing his scalp.
I had to admit, it was a good feeling being someone else’s Christmas morning. Adam hugged me, and my feet lifted off the ground. “Adam.” I held him by the elbows so that he would focus. “Remember what we talked about this morning?”
His eyebrows squished together. “No more kissing?”
“Wait, what?” Owen butted into our brain trust.
“No more kissing me,” I corrected.
“Wait, huh?” Owen looked from me to Adam then back to me. “When did this happen?”
“I need you to do something, okay?” I asked Adam. “You like Cassidy, right? Well, I want you to take these two tickets and ask her if she wants to go to Homecoming with you. Say it nicely, though.”
“Ask her to come with us?”
“No, ask her to go with you. Only you.” I put my finger on his chest.
“Can we go back to this kissing thing?” Owen was asking. Another bell rang. “Because I feel like I missed something here.” He raised his hand. “Follow-up question: Was there tongue?”
I spotted Cassidy applying fresh lip gloss in her locker mirror. How many times a day did a girl need to apply goo to her mouth, I wondered, and for a second, I questioned my plan to send Adam gallivanting off into the arms of someone who probably spent upward of ten minutes a day maintaining the appropriate level of goo to a part of the body that was intended for eating. And kissing, I quickly added in my mind. At least for girls like Cassidy Hyde.
It didn’t matter. She was, as Owen said, a perfect specimen, and it helped that she also wasn’t completely brain-dead. I pointed to where she was now shaking her long hair over her shoulders and pulling it into a ponytail. “She’s right over there. She’ll like it, Adam. I promise. You like Cassidy, right?”
Adam looked between us. “Yes, she’s nice to me and smiles.”
“Great, then go. Shoo!” I waved him across the hall toward her and shrank back to observe.
Like a kid being sent to his first day of preschool, Adam ventured to the other end of the hall with his tickets in hand, only a single glance back at us. I tugged Owen along for a closer view. We stayed half hidden behind a trophy case. I leaned forward so that I could see better.
“You have officially become a creepy helicopter mom. Does this concern you? I mean, you’re only seventeen, and conventional wisdom would say that you should probably be getting drunk and making out with dudes of the non-dead variety.”
“Shhh!” I slapped Owen’s arm. Adam was talking to Cassidy. Adam looked happy about talking to Cassidy. True, Adam liked just about everyone, but he watched Cassidy Hyde as all guys watched Cassidy Hyde. This was good. This was what was supposed to happen. Positive feelings, Adam. My teeth dug into my lip like I could will him to feel something for her. Who knew? Hopefully, I could.
“What?” Owen whispered. “I’m just saying, I’m available, too.”
Maybe Owen was right about me turning into a helicopter mom, because I had this weird, expanding sensation in my chest like someone were tying a balloon animal in there. Adam shoved the tickets in Cassidy’s face. I cringed. It wasn’t exactly a smooth presentation. What did helicopter moms wear? I had a flash of myself wearing pearls and a cable-knit sweater while I led my man-child Adam aroun
d by the hand. Right, scratch that.
I steepled my fingers in front of my chin. Come on. Come on. Cassidy Hyde was the good-time girl, the biggest flirt in school, and all I could do was pray that she didn’t fail me now.
Cassidy stared at the tickets. Daintily, she picked one. With her hand on Adam’s shoulder, she stood on her tippy-toes and whispered something in his ear, and then her overly glossed lips drifted to within a centimeter of Adam’s, hovering close so that I knew she must feel the puff of his breath on her nose. My stomach clenched, and I held my breath for what felt like an excruciatingly long moment before she closed the gap and fit her mouth into his. Adam closed his eyes and wrapped his arm around the small of her waist, and he kissed her.
TWENTY-TWO
Adam’s scars have turned from pink to silver-white. They are smooth, stretched skin that branch across his chest and torso. His other cuts continue to heal, too. Many of the scabs on his legs have peeled off. The cut on his side is a dark red and looks like it will take longer to heal, but it’s not fresh and there’s no gangrene, so I’ll continue to watch it and hope for the best.
* * *
Three days until the Homecoming game and a foreign visitor—if our town ever had any foreign visitors—would have thought the Olympics were coming to Hollow Pines. In reality, it was a football game. A high school football game, no less.
The closer the game got, the less the town thought about the dead boys whose legs had gone mysteriously missing. Hopes for the Oilers’ season dominated the headlines, and the recent memory of the gruesome murders floated into the background.
“Gray or black?” Cassidy held up two suits for Adam, Owen, and me to judge. After what had started as two Homecoming tickets, an ingenious plan by me, and a kiss, Adam and Cassidy had been dating for an entire week. The presence of googly eyes were at an all-time high, but I was already busy counting this phase of the experiment as a rousing success. The two clearly liked each other. Thank you, raging teenage hormones.
Both of the suits that Cassidy showed us looked linty under the fluorescent lights of HP Gold Formalwear, a store located conveniently between the food court and Foot Locker. I’d only agreed to come so I could pick up a cheap prepaid cell phone and rejoin the land of the living.
Almost overnight, Adam and Cassidy had become the front-runners for Homecoming king and queen, the winners of which would be announced the Saturday following the game at the Homecoming dance. It had all the makings of a fairy-tale ending if your small-town fairy tale involved a sticky gymnasium floor and a balloon arch. I could tell Cassidy’s did.
Adam scratched his head and glanced over. “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I fully intend to wear these.” I tapped my Converse sneakers.
“You two are hopeless.” She dropped both hangers to her side and returned her attention to the racks.
Stage 3 of the experiment: take Adam’s emotional development from animal instincts to actual feelings. Here I observed as Cassidy turned Adam into what is known in layman’s terms as a “boyfriend.”
“Check this out.” Owen held out his arms to model a powder-blue blazer thrown over a Smokey the Bear T-shirt. “Looks pretty snazzy, don’t you think?” He thrust out his hip and struck a pose.
“Focus!” Cassidy clapped her hands. “Now, Adam, which do you think would look better with a red dress. Gray, black, or this pinstripe suit?” She leveled her chin and stared up at him like he was supposed to be making a choice between his children or something.
Adam rocked back on his heels and put his hands on the sides of his face. “I don’t know,” he groaned. “Can Victoria please choose?”
One look at me and Cassidy sighed. None of us exactly screamed “fashion critic.”
“Let’s try them all on,” she said, and added another suit in a different shade of gray to the pile. I started to sit down in one of the chairs reserved for people-who-hated-to-shop-so-much-they-could-no-longer-physically-stand, but just as my rear end grazed the cheap, red velour fabric, Cassidy snatched me by the elbow. “Not so fast. We need you in there.”
Owen was performing a slow pirouette in the mirror. “I think I’m going to get this,” he said, tugging on the lapels. “I look very dapper, if I do say so myself.”
“You’re missing the pants.” I pointed at his jeans, cuffed over a pair of untied sneakers.
“Ew, Tor. These are rentals. Someone else’s balls have been in those.”
Cassidy glared. Owen blushed and he tugged on the neck of his shirt.
Cassidy pulled Adam and me toward the back of the store to a row of dressing rooms. I cast Owen a help me look. He responded by waving, then returning to browse.
The dressing rooms of HP Gold Formalwear hadn’t been updated since back before that powder-blue blazer was in style. Four narrow stalls with full-length mirrors lined the back wall. The carpets were a sea of shaggy red. The store seemed really into the red motif. I guessed it was supposed to be fancy or romantic or something. It all looked as if it could use a good cleaning.
I thought about Owen’s “balls” comment. Something told me patrons would be even less pleased to learn that a dead guy had worn these clothes, not to mention while he was actually dead.
People were weird about getting too close to death. It was like it was contagious. There was a house down the road that took five whole years to sell because the former owner had killed himself in the kitchen. Even then, the buyers mowed it down and used the land for farming. Pretty soon, the field where we found the body would have its own urban legends, I imagined.
Cassidy stuffed a heap of suits onto a set of hooks inside one of the fitting rooms on the right and ushered Adam in. “You have to come out and model,” she said, closing the door behind her. We both plopped down on a bench—more red velour—outside of the fitting room.
Underneath the door, we could see Adam’s jeans drop to his ankles. I wondered if Cassidy would be horrified to learn how many times I’d seen Adam in his underwear.
Cassidy bumped shoulders with me and looked at me out of the corner of her eye with a small smile playing on her lips. “Paisley says I should worry about you.” At this, she rolled her eyes. “But you know her. She can be such an alpha bitch sometimes. It’s been such a freaking relief having you around. Seriously, Victoria.”
Seriously what?
Fabric rustled from behind the closed door, and I watched as a pair of socked feet stepped in and out of slacks. Cassidy kept her voice low. “If I didn’t know you two were practically siblings, maybe I’d feel threatened, I guess. I mean, I’d have to if y’all’s connection was more full frontal than familial.”
A strangled sound came from the dressing room. “Are you okay in there?” I called.
There was a grunt and then a pause before the door flew open and banged into the wall behind it. Adam stood in the frame. His eyes were dark pools, hooded in shadow. I recognized the clench in his jaw as the same look as after a recharge. Something was wrong.
The gray suit was too tight around the chest and not long enough in the leg. The hem hovered an inch above his tennis shoes. Cassidy crossed the space between them and led Adam to a larger mirror with three reflective sides so he could see the panoramic view. She hovered behind him and tugged one of the sleeves down over the cuff of his white dress shirt. “A little snug, but what do you think of the color?”
Adam mumbled something unintelligible. I didn’t think Cassidy was even listening, because without another word, she pushed him back into the dressing room. “Next! Don’t forget, the black suit goes with the black shirt.” Turning to me—“Did that color say Wall Street or James Bond to you? I don’t want to go too middle-aged corporate, if you know what I mean.”
“It’s strange. Menswear has always been very quiet around me.”
“Ha. Ha.” She sat down again and crossed her legs. “You know, no girl is too good for a dress. Not even you, Victoria Frankenstein. I could help you look for one.”
It wasn’t that
I was too good for a dress, it was that I had better things to do than care about dresses, but it wasn’t worth explaining the difference.
Owen strolled up with his chin lifted and a plaid ascot tied around his neck. “Ladies.” He adjusted the puffy neck scarf.
His expression drooped when Cassidy totally ignored him. When it came to my scrawny, towheaded best friend, she seemed to have a wide blind spot. “Seems like he’s taking a long time, doesn’t it?” She went to the door and knocked. “How’s it coming, Adam?”
Moments later the latch clicked and the door slowly drifted open. Adam was breathing heavy. His fists constricted into tight balls at his sides. His lower teeth jutted out in front of his upper ones. The all-black getup only served to make him look more dangerous.
Cassidy buttoned his collar. “If you don’t like this one, maybe you’ll like the pinstripe better.” The black suit was long enough for each of his limbs and the pant legs reached all the way to the floor as they were supposed to.
“No.” Adam’s eyes cut away from her.
She cocked her head. “Navy then? You really do look handsome in the black, though. With a silver tie, I think.” She frowned.
He trained his gaze on his tennis shoes, which looked out of place when paired with the dress pants. “I look like a monster.”
My eyes snapped up. A monster. The word roared in my ears like the sound of an 18-wheeler on a highway. I peered around him into the fitting room and the long mirror inside, and it all clicked into place. Adam didn’t have a mirror in the cellar. Adam had been given strict instructions not to change or shower with the other boys on the team. Adam was different. But he’d never seen the full extent of just how much so.
I felt as if I were trying to swallow a wad of steel wool. Cassidy’s laugh was shaky and high-pitched. “You’re a tough one to figure out, Smith.” Then she balanced on her tippy-toes and kissed his cheek. Adam couldn’t feel it, I knew, and seemed only vaguely aware that Cassidy’s mouth was grazing his own cold, dead skin.
A monster.
I wouldn’t have thought of it like that, and I was a little angry at him for using that particular noun. A monster. His features grew darker and more sunken in, as if Adam was actually retreating into himself. Before now, he’d looked down and seen the scars left on his body. Why didn’t I realize the full extent of the damage, once finally appreciated, would bother him?
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