Without a word Jenna turned from me and went to retrieve her sweatshirt.
I was running out of time. I could just feel it. Would Josephine know I was coming for her? I couldn’t see her thinking well enough of me to think that I would.
“Is Josephine all right?” she asked, handing me the sweatshirt.
That wasn’t a question I could answer. “I’ll call you later,” I replied, and gave Jenna a quick kiss on the cheek.
I didn’t bother calling out to see if anyone was in the girls bathroom before I entered it. I figured if there were someone in there the whole school would be crawling with police by now.
“Josephine,” I called out. My voice sounded desperate. Part of me needed her to be able to keep it together until we got out of here, but there was another part of me that needed to see proof again that she felt something over the man’s death. This was real life. Not a movie. I needed her to understand consequences.
I need there to still be consequences.
The door to one of the bathroom stalls slowly opened and Josephine stepped out. I almost lost it at the sight of her. Her face was once again a mask of indifference. Her hair was wildly out of place. Dirt covered her arms; her tank top covered with blood.
I reached out my hand for her. She looked down at it and then back up at me. She shook her head slightly. She didn’t want to be touched, and I could understand that. I held out the sweatshirt for her. She pulled it over her head without a question. I moved to the sink and turned on the water. Josephine stepped up to it and washed off her face. Even with the sweatshirt and the dirt off her face, Josephine looked like hell.
“Ready?” I asked.
She nodded.
I pushed open the bathroom door and began to speed walk down the hall. I just needed to get her out of there. And quickly. The less people who saw me escorting a frazzled Scary Carrie through the hallways the better. We almost made it the entire distance to my car without anyone seeing us. Almost.
If I had been using my brain at all I would have realized the reason the hallways were empty was because most after school activities had ended during the five minutes I was in the bathroom. There was no one in the hallways because they were all in the parking lot.
“What the hell, Middleton? Do you know what coach is going to do to you?” Alec’s face was flushed with anger as he called out to me across the parking lot. A few of the drama club kids and band geeks stopped to watch.
“I had to take care of something,” I yelled back.
Entirely wrong thing to say. Alec’s eyes looked from me to a very disheveled Scary Carrie. Alec clenched his jaw and looked Josephine up and down in disgust.
“I think we’re going to have to have a discussion about your after school activities, Middleton.”
“Sure. But not today.” I pushed past Alec and only turned around once to make sure Josephine was still following. It was hard to ignore how many people had stopped to stare at the two of us walking to my car. I knew how it looked, and I knew the rumors were going to be in full swing tomorrow.
I wasn’t prepared for Jenna who was waiting for me by my car. I felt my throat close up at the sight of her. I didn’t want to lie to her, but I couldn’t tell her the truth either.
Jenna looked from me to Josephine and back to me again. Her smile was pulled tight. I knew what it meant. She was struggling to remain civil despite whatever she was really feeling on the inside. Jenna always believed in manners first.
“Um. Jenna. Look. I gotta take Josephine home.”
So far I wasn’t lying. I knew Josephine had her own car, but I didn’t think now was a very good time for her to be driving.
“Are you all right, Jo?” Jenna asked. I wondered when and how Jenna had earned the privilege of calling her Jo. I never saw the two even talk to each other. Maybe it was something left over from their childhood.
“Thanks for letting me use your sweatshirt,” Josephine replied. How she knew it was Jenna’s I had no idea.
Jenna nodded. “No problem.”
Jenna looked around her and crossed her arms. If there was one thing Jenna avoided it was being part of the rumor mill. She didn’t spread rumors, nor was she really ever the center of one. That certainly wasn’t the case anymore.
“Call me later, Logan? I mean as soon as you can,” she said, looking up at me and letting me know sooner would be much better than later.
I nodded. Jenna walked away from me without another word.
“Where do you live?” I asked Josephine as we pulled out of the parking lot.
“I can’t go home like this,” she quietly replied. “Just drop me off at a Walmart or something so I can get cleaned up.”
“Nonsense. Just tell me where you live.”
“I can’t go home!” Josephine was rocking back and forth in her seat and her fists were pressed against her eyes. She went from zero emotions to crazy faster than I could turn on my turn signal.
“Fine.”
I figured since it would be a few hours before my uncle got home for work, I could take Josephine to my house. He was never home before eight. He always walked in with some story about a client needing him or a call that took too long. It used to really bother me when I was little, but I learned to stop asking for excuses a long time ago. He always came home with takeout and didn’t expect me to do chores. I was pretty lucky. I guess.
Josephine and I didn’t talk anymore during the short drive to my house. Which was a good thing and a bad thing. Good because I wasn’t quite sure how to talk about the whole her taking a human life thing, and bad because it left me time to think about the hell that would await me at school in the morning.
Josephine silently followed me into my house. She was back to being emo girl. I could only imagine what she was thinking as she saw the inside of my house. She had a tendency to mock everything, and I knew my house was mock-worthy. It was much too big for only two people. Leather couches. Large screen television on the wall surrounded by a Bose sound system. A hideously large fish tank embedded in the wall. Then there was all the religious stuff. Old bibles. Painting after painting of fallen angels and the death of Christ. Large wooden crosses. Whenever anyone asked my uncle about the décor he told them it was meant to be ironic.
Even I had to admit it was a tad bit weird.
If Josephine wanted to mock it all she kept it to herself. She followed me silently up to my room. If she was any other girl I might have been embarrassed by the state of it, but she wasn’t any other girl. Lucinda, our maid, wasn’t scheduled to come till Sunday. I always found some way to create a war zone in my room before her visits. Now it was covered with dirty clothes and empty fast food bags. Jenna never liked to hang out at my house, so I never felt a need to keep my room clean. She didn’t particularly enjoy my uncle’s company. My uncle didn’t have any tact, and Jenna always thought out her words carefully.
“Nice room,” Josephine said dully.
“Thanks. The bathroom is over here. If you want to go get cleaned up. I’ll find you something to wear.”
“Try and find something clean. I’m not really down with smelling like whatever goes on in this room.”
At least she was acting a little more like herself.
When I heard the bathroom door close I began to rummage through my closest. What does one wear after shooting someone in the chest? Settling on an old Shepherd Middle School t-shirt I found in the corner of my closest, a shirt I wouldn’t mind never getting back, I waited for Josephine to get done.
When I heard the shower turn on I took a seat on my bed. I wouldn’t be a male if my mind didn’t momentarily wander to thinking about the fact that there was a girl naked in my shower. Jenna had never even used my shower. But I only thought about this for a moment.
When the shower turned off I waited by the bathroom door, the old t-shirt in my hand. The door cracked open and an arm shot out. I placed the t-shirt in her waiting hand. After clutching onto it, Josephine slammed the door shut and I
heard it lock.
Like I would try and go in there.
After a few more minutes, Josephine appeared. Her hair was wrapped in a towel. Her face was flushed from the warm water. The t-shirt fit a little snugly against her chest. And I was staring. And she caught me staring. Josephine frowned and pulled Jenna’s sweatshirt back over her head.
“Your bathroom is disgusting. I mean really disgusting. You need a shower to clean yourself up from taking a shower in that bathroom,” said Josephine.
“Thanks. It takes a lot of effort to create a natural disaster in one’s own home,” I replied.
“There’s nothing natural about what’s going on in there,” she countered.
“So...we going to talk about it?” I was starting to become a little uncomfortable with Josephine hanging out in my room.
“Talk about what?” she asked.
The fact that you killed a man.
Josephine moved to take a seat at my desk, lifting up a crumpled issue of Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit issue so she could sit down in the chair. “I don’t want to know how this magazine got like this,” she said, holding the magazine towards me by the corner.
“Ha. Funny,” I replied, snatching it from her hand and throwing it over my shoulder.
Josephine let free a sigh. “You wanted to talk about something?”
Was she really going to pretend like the whole thing didn’t happen?
“This is really the most disgusting room I have ever seen, and I’m a foster kid.”
Yes. She was.
“How the hell do you know how to shoot a gun?” I finally asked, frustrated by how she was forcing me to bring up the horror of what happened to us.
Josephine pulled her hands inside the long sleeves of Jenna’s sweatshirt. “My father taught me.”
“I thought your father was in jail?”
“He is. He taught me when I was little.”
“Like how little?”
Josephine laughed bitterly. “Real little. I hated it too. I was sick a lot when I was little. Spent time at the hospital. I can’t tell you how much of my time I spent watching cartoons and Disney movies.”
“I don’t really remember you being absent a lot,” I admitted.
“I don’t think I was your favorite recess buddy in elementary school, Logan.”
True.
“When I was about four my father got really into guns. He took me along with him hunting. I cried every time. I kept seeing him kill Bambi or one of the creatures from Sleeping Beauty. One day he got sick of my whining. He forced the gun in my hand and made me shoot. That’s how it went for years. He was brilliant when it came to hunting. And the more I resisted taking part, the more he killed. So, I started learning how to shoot. At least while he was teaching me he wasn’t killing every little Thumper he saw.”
The story was kinda sick. I mean it would never make it on ABC Family. Most unsettling was the way in which Josephine told it; she told the story like it was nothing out of the ordinary. I wondered exactly how screwed up her childhood had been.
“Why did he hide the gun in the flower bed?” I asked.
Josephine shrugged. “Guess he was kind of a paranoid guy. But hell, his paranoia sure worked in our favor.”
“Josephine. You killed that man. I don’t know that anything worked in our favor today.”
Josephine shook her head. “You could be dead right now, Logan. And those men could be...they could be...they...” Josephine closed her eyes and took a shaky breath.
“I know, Josephine. I understand. But it doesn’t change the fact that we saw a man die today.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know you are,” I replied.
“No. That’s not what I meant. I’m sorry I can’t tell you what you need to hear to make yourself feel better about what happened today.”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“You need me to get all weepy and cry on your shoulder. Pretend I regret what happened. Act like I wouldn’t do it again if I had to. But I don’t regret it. I’m glad that man is dead. I’m even more glad that I was the one to kill him.”
“You can’t mean that,” I whispered.
“I’m sorry, Logan. But I do mean it. He deserved to die, and I’ll kill anyone who tries to hurt me.”
“But I saw you crying.”
“I wasn’t crying because I killed that man,” she replied.
“Then why were you crying?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
“Look, me and you, we’re different. We’ll always be different. You don’t have to try to understand how I work just because for some reason we were thrown together.” Her voice had gone dark, cold.
Who was this girl?
Why did I care?
Before I had time to respond, I heard the front door open. I glanced at the clock. It was only six. What was my uncle doing home? Josephine jumped up from her chair. Despite her, Insert Any Angelina Jolie Movie Role Reference Here attitude, the girl was a bit skittish.
“It’s just my uncle.”
“I should go.”
I nodded. “I’ll drive you back to get your car.”
As we trudged down the stairs, I heard my uncle opening a can of beer. Imported beer, soda, and leftovers were the only things that you could count on finding in our fridge. I hoped my uncle wouldn’t make a scene when he saw me coming down the stairs with Josephine whose hair was still dripping wet. He never hid the fact that he wasn’t a fan of Jenna. He told me I was too young to be in a committed relationship. He was probably the only legal guardian who wanted their charge to whore it up.
We almost reached the front door when the sound of my uncle’s voice stopped us. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your new friend?”
With a heavy sigh, I turned around and faced my uncle. Josephine took a slight step behind me. If I wasn’t mistaken she had somehow found a way to almost sink inside of the sweatshirt. She kept her eyes on the ground.
“Uncle Rick, this here is Carrie. She’s a friend of mine from school. We were just working on an English project.”
Carrie? Great. Just great. I was making an even bigger mess of things. And that was saying something.
“Is that so?” he asked, leaning against the wall.
I nodded.
“Well, don’t be shy Carrie. Lift your head up, so I can see if it’s true that my nephew is so shallow that he only hangs out with pretty people. That’s what my secretary was saying. Her daughter attends Shepherd High, and supposedly Logan here is kind of a jerk.”
Josephine reluctantly lifted her head and attempted a smile. “He is kind of a jerk. But only kind of.”
When my uncle caught sight of Josephine, something unfamiliar gleamed in his eyes. Excitement. He rarely got excited about anything besides his court cases. Not even when talking about football, which he only was interested in because he thought I would bring the Middleton family more fame and fortune when I went pro.
He took a step towards Josephine, and I felt her stiffen beside me.
“Beautiful,” he whispered.
“I really have to go, Logan,” Josephine muttered.
“Why don’t you stay for dinner? I was going to order a pizza,” my uncle said, ignoring how obviously uncomfortable he was making Josephine feel.
“No thank you,” she replied. I looked back at her to see her furiously pulling at the sleeves of the sweatshirt.
“Oh. I won’t be staying if that’s what you’re worried about. I have a client I really need to see tonight. I’ll leave the money for you and Logan to enjoy,” he replied, pulling out his wallet.
As seemingly nice as the offer was, I knew it didn’t sound appealing to either of us. Josephine looked like she wanted to bolt out of the house as soon as she could, and I just needed one hour of this forsaken day to be commitment free: no school work, no practice, no trying to talk down possibly psychotic girls.
Uncle Rick sla
pped me on the back. “Seriously. Don’t let the girl rush out on my account. I’ll even call before I come home. Give you two some time to work on that project.”
He was even starting to creep me out. Not at all helped by the fact that he threw me a wink as he walk towards the door.
“It was a pleasure meeting you, Josephine,” said my uncle before he scurried out the front door. Gone just as fast as he came in.
I turned to Josephine, hoping I was quick enough to think of some clever way to explain my uncle’s behavior when I noticed how pale Josephine’s face had become.
“I gotta go,” she whispered.
“All right. Let’s go.”
She shook her head. “No. I’m gonna walk. It’s not that far.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s barely even light outside.”
“I can handle myself,” she snapped.
Her mood swings weren’t one of her best qualities.
“Fine. I’ll see you at school tomorrow,” I replied.
“All right.”
Before I could ask her if she was sure she didn’t want me to drive her back to the school parking lot, Josephine had slammed open the front door and disappeared.
I wasn’t surprised by her erratic behavior, but something about her exit left me feeling unsettled. I was halfway through a pizza when it hit me—I had introduced Josephine as Carrie. When my uncle left he most certainly called her Josephine.
It wasn’t easy for me to believe in coincidences anymore.
My uncle knew who Josephine was, and he knew her for a reason.
Chapter 14
“You can’t be here.”
“Oh, come on. Isn’t this supposed to be really romantic?” I whispered, wrapping my arms tightly around Jenna’s windowsill. I was five minutes from falling, breaking my arm and ending my football season. It’s not like I was a wimp or something. My body was still sore from the day’s time traveling.
Damn that Romeo for making this look easy.
“My father catching you and chasing you down with his gun doesn’t sound particularly amorous,” she replied, looking back towards her bedroom door.
“Crazed man chasing me down in order to kill me? Nothing out of the ordinary. I can handle it.” My arms were starting to shake.
Because You Exist (Light in the Dark #1) Page 7