Change of Heart

by Norah McClintock

  Mac? Nick always used to call my father Mr. Hunter.

  “No problem,” my father said. “And don’t forget Thursday night. You know where we’re supposed to be, right?”

  We? What was going on?

  Nick nodded. He barely glanced at me as he strode out of my dad’s office, through the enormous living space, to the front door where I stood frozen by surprise and longing. When he got close, I had to fight the urge to reach out and touch him. He nodded curtly at me as he passed but didn’t say a word. The door clicked shut behind me, and I heard footsteps—boot steps—going down the stairs.

  “What was he doing here?” I said.

  “It’s a personal matter, Robbie.”

  “Is he all right?” Nick had been in plenty of trouble in his life, a lot of it involving the law. Most of the time he tried to do the right thing, but not all the time.

  “As far as I can tell,” my father said.

  “What did he want?”

  “I told you, Robbie. It’s personal.”

  “What are you two doing on Thursday night?”

  “I can’t tell you that.”

  My father used to be a police officer. He was always good at keeping secrets or, as he put it, not discussing official police matters with civilians, which included me. Now that he’s retired from the police and has his own private security business, he’s even better at keeping secrets. I could threaten, I could argue, I could cry, but all I would get is, “Sorry, Robbie. No can do.”

  I hovered near the door, torn between staying and going. Nick’s footsteps grew fainter until I heard nothing at all. I dropped my backpack to the floor, kicked off my boots, and headed for my dad’s guest room, which doubles as my bedroom. I didn’t slam the door, but I did close it firmly behind me.

  It took longer than I expected—a full ten minutes—before my father knocked.

  “Come on, Robbie,” he said from the other side of the door. “You’re not mad at me, are you?”

  I was. But I got up off the bed and opened the door anyway.

  “He’s not in trouble, if that’s what’s bothering you,” my dad said.

  It wasn’t.

  “Did he ask about me?”

  My dad looked me directly in the eye. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Robbie.”

  So was I.

  “I have to run out and get some groceries,” my dad said. “You want to help me make dinner?”

  I said okay, even though food was the last thing on my mind.

  My dad shopped. We cooked. We ate. We cleaned up. Then Morgan called.

  “You have to do something for me,” she said. “You have to talk to Billy. You have to make him stop.”

  “D

  o you want me to wait for you?” my dad said. We were sitting in his Porsche at the curb outside of Billy’s house.

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t know how long I’m going to be,” I said. “I’ll just go home after.” My mom’s house was only a couple of blocks from Billy’s. My dad lived much farther away.

  My dad said okay. He probably thought I was still mad at him, but I wasn’t. I was mad at Nick. Like I said, it was complicated.

  I kissed my dad on the cheek to show him there were no hard feelings. After he drove away, I rang Billy’s doorbell.

  Billy’s mother answered.

  “He’s upstairs,” she said. She meant the third-floor family room, where I found Billy slumped in front of the TV, his cell phone in one hand, the remote in the other, a damp cloth in a bowl of melting ice on his lap, and what looked like a history essay beside him on the couch. Both of his eyes were black, and his nose was swollen. He didn’t even glance at me when I entered the room.

  “Hey, Billy,” I said. “Are you okay? How’s your nose? Is it broken?”

  No answer.

  “I called you,” I said. “Didn’t you get my message?”

  Nothing.

  “Come on, Billy. Talk to me.”

  Instead, all I got was stony silence. He reminded me of Nick—which was weird because Billy is nothing like Nick. I crossed the room and shut off the TV. Billy clicked it back on. I stood in front of the screen to block his view.

  “Leave me alone, Robyn,” he said.

  “No way. You’re my friend.”

  “He stole her from me.”

  I turned off the TV again, pried the remote from his hand, and sat down beside him.

  “She likes him, Billy. I know it hurts, and I’m really sorry. ” I had told him that dozens of times already. “But you’re making yourself crazy. You have to try to get over it.”

  “But I love her.”

  I knew how that felt. There’s nothing worse than wanting to be with someone who doesn’t want to be with you.

  “Billy, the more you harass her, the worse you make it.”

  “Harass her?” He looked hurt and confused.

  “Morgan called me—”

  “She said I was harassing her?”

  “She says you’ve been phoning her nonstop. She says you follow her around. Billy, you attacked Sean.”

  He hung his head.

  “I know it was wrong,” he said. “I knew it even while I was doing it. But he gave me this look. And he said—” He broke off abruptly.

  “He said what?”

  “It doesn’t matter.” His eyes glistened when he looked back up at me. “I couldn’t help it, Robyn. I lost my temper.” I tried to remember the last time that had happened. Billy was good-natured, laid-back. I didn’t think he had a temper. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t stop thinking about her. I just want to talk to her. But she won’t take my calls. She won’t even speak to me.”

  “She wants you to leave her alone.”

  “What am I going to do?”

  I touched his arm. “Come on, Billy. You know Morgan. You know how she is once she makes up her mind about something. There’s nothing you can do.”

  I stayed for another hour and listened while Billy told me—again—about finding Morgan and Sean together that first time (“He was kissing her, Robyn, and he saw me. He looked right at me and he kept right on kissing her”) and about confronting Morgan (“She said, ‘I should have told you.’ You know what that means, right, Robyn? It means she was seeing him while we were still together.”). He told me that all he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was to talk to her.

  “If I could just explain to her how I feel—”

  “Billy, it doesn’t make any difference how you feel. Not about this.” I’d told him that over and over again, but he didn’t listen. Not that I blamed him. I understood his pain and confusion a whole lot better than I understood why Morgan had dumped him.

  “But I love her,” he said—again.

  I sighed.

  “You got suspended for three days, Billy. That’s big trouble. The next step is getting expelled. You don’t want that to happen, do you?”

  He looked at me with liquid eyes. Finally he shook his head.

  When I got up to leave, he said, “Is Dennis okay?”

  “What?”

  “Dennis. Sean didn’t hassle him after I left, did he?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, he’d better not,” Billy said fiercely. “Dennis is different, but he’s not stupid. He’s a good guy. He’s out every single morning during migration season, picking up birds. He’s smart, too. Way smarter than Sean. Even the professors are impressed by how much Dennis knows about birds.” He meant the two university professors who supported DARC, the Downtown Avian Rescue Club that Billy had founded. The club helped save injured migratory birds. According to Billy, Dennis was one of its most enthusiastic members.

  “I don’t think Sean would ever do anything to Dennis,” I said. “He was just in pain.”

  Billy looked doubtful. “Sean Sloane isn’t what Morgan thinks, Robyn,” he said. “He may be a good hockey player, but that doesn’t make him a good guy. You should tell Morgan—”

  I was tired of bei
ng in the middle. Morgan and Billy were my oldest and closest friends, but we never hung around together anymore, and I was always worrying what one of them would think if I was spotted with the other one.

  “It’s Morgan’s life,” I said. “I’m not telling her anything.” I glanced at the essay on the couch beside him. “You want me to hand that in for you?”

  He just shrugged. I reached across him, picked up the essay, and read the first paragraph.

  “I’ll put it in Ms. Carver’s box for you.” No response. “And I’ll bring you your homework assignments tomorrow, okay?” Nothing. “Billy?”

  “Okay,” he said finally.

  Morgan was waiting for me outside school the next morning.

  “Did you talk to him?” she said.

  I nodded.

  “And? Is he going to leave me alone?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why is everyone making this so hard for us?”

  “Everyone?”

  “Billy is harassing me. Tamara is harassing Sean.”

  “She is?”

  “She thinks she’s a big deal because she hosts that lame teen show on TV,” Morgan said. “Now she’s after him to do some stupid documentary. If you ask me, she’s just trying to get him back. But it’s not going to work.” She looked defiantly at me. Then she said, “You really should get to know him, Robyn. You’d like him.”

  Like everyone else in my school, I knew of Sean. But I didn’t actually know him. He was a senior, so he wasn’t in any of my classes, and, to be honest, after Morgan started going out with him I had no interest in getting acquainted. Billy would have been so hurt if he’d seen me hanging out with Morgan and Sean. But Billy wasn’t going to be at school for the next couple of days, and I was kind of curious to find out more about the guy who had stolen Morgan’s heart.

  “Come on,” Morgan said, looping her arm through mine. “I’ll introduce you. You’ll see what I mean.”

  We trooped into school and up the stairs to the second floor, where Sean’s locker was. It was hard to miss. Someone—not Sean, according to Morgan—had pasted a big gold star decorated with a hockey stick and a puck to the front of it. So far no one—not the janitorial staff, not the school administration, not even surly Mr. Dormer—had removed it, even though decorating the outside of locker doors was strictly against the rules.

  Morgan came to an abrupt stop as soon as we rounded the corner. A crowd had gathered around the locker. Morgan stared at it for a moment before rushing to Sean’s side.

  “What happened?” she said.

  My first guess, as I elbowed my way through the crowd, was that both a tornado and a paper shredder had slammed into his locker. The locker door was open, and the floor in front of it was covered with ripped and crumpled paper.

  “Someone tore up all my notes,” Sean said. “And a major assignment that I was supposed to hand in today. And look.” He bent down and picked up a flash drive—well, what had been a flash drive. It looked as if someone had stomped on it with construction boots. “Every assignment I’ve ever done was on there.”

  “What’s going on here?” said a stern voice. Mr. Dormer. He had a knack for showing up where the action was.

  Sean said that he had arrived at school to find that the lock had been cut off his locker—he showed it to Mr. Dormer—and that everything inside, except his textbooks, had been torn to shreds.

  “Even the picture of my girlfriend,” he said, slipping an arm around Morgan, who went from looking indignant on his behalf to looking as if she were about to melt.

  “But you have everything backed up on your computer at home, right, Sean?” she said.

  Sean shook his head.

  “My brothers and I share the computer.” Sean had two older brothers—Colin, who was still in school, and Kevin, who had graduated two years ago. “They’re always fooling with my stuff, so I don’t keep anything important on the hard drive.” He turned and sought out someone in the crowd—Colin. “Isn’t that right?”

  Colin looked down at the floor for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “That’s right.”

  “All my assignments were on here.” Sean held out the mangled flash drive. “And now they’re gone.”

  “Do you have any idea who might have done this?” Mr. Dormer said.

  Morgan avoided my eyes as she said, “I do.”

  She and Sean followed Mr. Dormer to the office.

  I caught up with Morgan in the library at lunchtime. There was a stack of books on the table in front of her. It looked like she was researching a biology assignment, but that didn’t make sense. She wasn’t taking biology this year.

  “Why did you do that?” I said.

  “Why did I do what?”

  “Why did you tell Mr. Dormer that Billy vandalized Sean’s locker? You don’t know it was him. Besides, he’s suspended. He’s not even at school today.”

  “Then how come the head janitor saw him here at seven thirty this morning?” Morgan said.

  “He did?”

  “Mr. Dormer checked with all the staff to see if anyone had seen anything. The head janitor saw Billy going down the stairs to one of the back exits.”

  “He’s sure it was Billy?”

  Morgan nodded grimly.

  “Did he see Billy vandalize Sean’s locker?”

  “No. But who else could it have been, Robyn? You saw the fight yesterday. And look at this.” She produced a crumpled envelope from her purse and handed it to me. “Go ahead. Open it.”

  I pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope. It was a letter from Billy.

  “When did he send this?”

  “He didn’t send it. He left it in my locker this morning, probably right before he trashed Sean’s locker.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “It wasn’t there yesterday when I left school,” Morgan said. “Sean has been getting phone calls, too. Someone has been calling him night and day. When he answers, all he hears is breathing. When he doesn’t answer, the caller leaves a message telling him he’s going to be sorry.”

  “The caller? Are you saying it’s Billy?”

  “Of course it’s Billy,” Morgan said.

  “You’ve heard his voice? You know for a fact it’s him?”

  “The person always calls from a number that’s listed as private. Sean tried calling back, but he couldn’t get through. And the voice sounds weird, like, scrambled. But I know it’s Billy. Who else would it be? And now he’s trashed Sean’s locker and wrecked all of Sean’s notes. He destroyed a bio project that Sean was supposed to hand in today.” I glanced at the stack of books in front of Morgan. “His teacher is giving him an extension. I’m helping him get it done.”

  Sean was a lucky guy. Morgan is a straight-A student.

  “Billy better stop acting like a psycho,” Morgan said. “If he doesn’t, he’s going to end up in serious trouble.”

  I was on my way out of school when I remembered Billy’s history essay. I dashed back to the office. The place was deserted except for Ms. Arthurs, who was on the phone. She glanced at me. I told her I wanted to hand something in to Ms. Carver.

  “You can put it in her mailbox,” she said, putting one hand over the phone’s mouthpiece and waving at the door that led to the copy room where the teachers’ mailboxes were. She went back to her phone call.

  I pushed open the door, startling the room’s only occupant. Aaron Arthurs was standing at the photocopier. He spun around when I walked in.

  “What are you doing in here?” he said.

  “I’m dropping off something,” I said, not that it was any of his business. “Your mom said it was okay.” I scanned the mailboxes for Ms. Carver’s name. “What are you doing?”

  He gave me a look like he thought I was brain-dead for asking. He was making a copy—obviously. I could see some sheets in the photocopier’s output tray and tried to see what they were. Aaron stepped in front of it, blocking my view. Whatever. I found Ms Carver’s mailbox and slipped Billy
’s essay into it.

  Then I went to his house and rang the doorbell, but no one answered. I tried to call Billy. Still no answer. I slid his assignments through the mail slot and went home.

  Billy wasn’t making things easy on himself. He was standing outside school when I got off the bus the next morning. His hair was disheveled. His eyes were swollen and bruised. The rest of his face was pale. He looked like he’d been up all night.

  “Did you get the homework assignments I left you?” I said.

  He didn’t even look at me. Instead, he looked up the street. I was willing to bet he was watching for Morgan.

  “Billy—” I touched his arm.

  Then, boom, just like that, Sean appeared. He grabbed Billy and spun him around.

  “Stay away from her, you got that?” he said. “Stay away from her and stay away from me.”

  Billy just stared at him. Colin stood beside Sean, ready to back him up—not that Sean needed backup. Like Sean, Colin also played hockey, but everyone said he wasn’t as good. I’d heard that he’d suffered a couple of concussions on the ice. He hadn’t graduated yet, even though he was older than Sean.

  “You hear me?” Sean said. He had the front of Billy’s jacket bunched up in his fists while he talked. Kids passing us on the way into school stopped to watch what was going on. “Do you hear what I’m telling you?”

  “Leave him alone,” I said to Sean. Okay, so maybe he was Morgan’s boyfriend and maybe Morgan was one of my best friends, but so was Billy—even if he was acting like a lunatic.

  “This creep is stalking my girlfriend,” Sean said, barely glancing at me. Billy flinched at the accusation.

  “He spied on her while she was at my house last night,” he said. He turned to Billy. “I know you were there. There were footprints outside the den window. You were watching us, and then you followed her home. Right, Colin?” Colin nodded. “Colin saw you watching us,” Sean said. “He followed you.”

  I glanced at Billy. His face turned red.

  “Stay away from Morgan and stay away from me,” Sean said again, “or you’ll be sorry. I know where you live, Royal.” He shoved Billy backward and then stalked off. Colin followed him. The kids who had been watching and listening all stared at Billy. But when nothing else happened, they quickly lost interest.