by Jason Segel
“So?” I ask.
“So he may look like he lives under a bridge, but he’s really a rich kid. I did a little cybersleuthing for my film, and from what I can tell, he didn’t own a scrap of black clothing before Christmas. The Goth stoner thing is just an act. He’s pretending to be something he’s not.”
I shrug. “Aren’t we all?” I can think of a million things to hold against the guy, but that’s not one of them. “New school, new identity. We were all someone else before we moved to Brockenhurst.”
“Speak for yourself,” says Busara. “By the way, you might be interested to know that Marlow and his new friends are having a party tonight.”
“Are you trying to ask me out?” I give her a faux-flirty wink.
“I’m not into boys,” Busara says flatly. “Or girls, for that matter.”
“So you’re an android?”
One side of her mouth twitches, but she doesn’t quite laugh. “I wondered the same thing myself, but then I passed the Voight-Kampff test, so I’m fairly confident that I’m human. Here—watch this.”
She swivels back to the computer and rewinds through the footage of Kat and her friends. She stops and turns up the volume on the speakers and hits Play. Marlow is talking about a place known as Elmer’s—an abandoned horse-rendering plant and glue factory a few miles from school. It’s little more than a ruin, but it used to be the best party spot in town. Now the place is posted with No Trespassing signs, and the cops watch it on weekends. They don’t bother to watch it during the week. I guess they assume kids aren’t going to get crazy on a Monday. The world is built on false assumptions.
On the video, I hear Marlow say the building is going to be demolished. Some corporation just bought the land. The plant deserves one last party before it becomes an eco-friendly rock-climbing facility on a new company campus. I have no idea whether any of it’s true—or how Marlow could have found out.
My eyes are still fixed on the computer screen when the camera pans away from Kat’s friends and focuses momentarily on a car at the edge of the parking lot. There’s a man inside. I can’t see much of him, but he’s wearing glasses, and his head is turned toward Kat and the other kids vaping in the lot.
“Who’s that?” I ask. He looks official. The last thing Kat needs is to be busted for drugs on campus.
Busara looks back at the screen. It’s impossible to read her expression. “How would I know?” she asks.
I can’t think of a worse place to be at nine o’clock on a Monday night than hunched down behind a bush, waiting for an illegal party to kick off at an old horse-rendering plant. But now that I’m here, I’m not going anywhere. It took two hours to walk to Elmer’s. I’m not allowed to drive anymore, though the judge wasn’t the one who imposed the punishment. It was my father’s brilliant idea. Good ol’ Grant is chock-full of brilliant ideas. The coydogs are out tonight, and I hear them yapping away all around me. I’m pretty sure they won’t attack. I’m too big for them now. They know I’m more likely to eat one of them. Still, it’s really f-ing cold out here, and I’m seriously starting to worry that I might lose a finger to frostbite.
But I will stay here and wait, because I will get Kat back. That kiss shook up everything inside me that had started to settle.
A gust of wind sets the world in motion. I watch the shadows of the scrub pines on the perimeter of the lot dance against the dim glow of distant streetlights. Their fragrance fills the cold air, and I find myself thinking about my family’s holiday tradition. On the Friday before Christmas, my parents would pour themselves glasses of Scotch and watch me open a pile of gifts. On Saturday, they’d leave. My mother’s family is Jewish. I’m not sure what my father’s excuse was. They always spent Christmas Day together. Until I was nine, I spent mine with the staff. The nanny my mother hired after she fired Mrs. Kozmatka was the one who came up with the idea for the tree. I can’t even remember the woman’s name. She was only with us for a few months, due to mental health issues that will soon become evident. That year, before they left for parts unknown, my parents had given her an envelope full of cash to take me shopping. On Christmas morning, I came downstairs to find that she’d hung all the bills on the tree.
I plucked them off, crammed them into my pockets and disappeared into the woods before any of my keepers woke up. I didn’t want to intrude on Kat and her mother, but I couldn’t stay away. I was lurking outside the house when Kat came out on the porch in her pj’s.
“What took you so long?” she asked with a yawn. “I’ve been up since six. You coming in or what?”
I remember wrapping paper strewn all over the floor. Linda was there in her nightgown. She and Kat were both drinking cocoa made from a mix that came in little paper pouches. Linda’s cup smelled like chocolate and bourbon.
“Here,” Kat said, shoving something into my hands. The item was oddly shaped, and I could see that she’d struggled to wrap it. I tore off the paper and found a homemade slingshot. I looked up to see Kat jamming her sockless feet into boots. “Come on, I’ll teach you how to use it.”
“Wait a second,” I said. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the wad of bills. “This is for you. Sorry, I didn’t have time to wrap it all up.”
—
After that, I spent my holidays with the Foleys. Every Christmas, Kat would give me something she’d made herself, and I would give her the wad of cash my parents had left for me. I always felt like I got the better deal. Then, the year I turned thirteen, I arrived at Kat’s house to find there wasn’t a present under the tree for me.
“It’s outside,” Kat said, crooking a finger as she opened the door. “Come on. Follow me.”
As soon as we were out of sight of the house, she stopped. I didn’t see anything that might be a present. And then she put her arms around my neck and kissed me. And I realized I’d been madly in love with her all those years.
For a brief but beautiful moment, I figured it had all been decided. But then nothing happened. In the two weeks that followed, I watched and waited for another sign, but none came. It was like the world had reset and we were back where we’d started.
I never kissed Kat again.
Of course, anyone who saw us assumed we were boyfriend and girlfriend. Or, thanks to my kishka, maybe they assumed we weren’t—but that I wanted more. What no one could understand is that there was nothing bigger than what we had. Kat was my best friend, and I was hers, and that was everything.
I might have loved her, but there was too much to lose.
The kiss behind the dumpster made me think that maybe—just maybe—all this time she’d been in love with me, too.
It’s just after ten, and the party’s in full swing. Flashlights are dancing in the glassless windows. I’m still not sure what I’m doing here. If Kat finds out, she’ll be royally pissed. Still, I need to know why she’s using the town losers as camouflage. And for the sake of my sanity, I have to find out just how deep undercover she’s gone.
A few cars are parked behind the building, and from what I can tell, there are over half a dozen people inside on the second floor. I let out a deep breath. It’s time to go in.
Kat and I explored the crumbling brick building on countless occasions over the years, so I have no trouble slipping in unnoticed and locating the stairs. On my way to the third floor, I use a trick Kat taught me: I stop and scatter a handful of dry twigs that I gathered on one of the stairs. I’ll hear them snap if anyone follows me up. I know I’m being overly cautious. Everyone avoids the third floor of Elmer’s. There’s a rumor that they found a dead body up here years ago. I have no idea if it’s true or just urban legend, but there’s no arguing with the wisdom of staying off the third story. It’s clearly unsafe. The boards creak under my feet, and the entire floor is riddled with holes that are hard to make out after dark.
I take my time and maneuver carefully to one of the openings, and then I get down on my knees. The hole is big enough that I have a good view of what’s going on b
elow. The first person I spot is one of the Horsemen, a psycho named Brian. He lives a few houses away from me. He moved in when we were both in fourth grade and introduced himself by squeezing the guts out of a toad. His personality hasn’t improved since then. I always thought he’d be in jail by now, but he’s captain of the lacrosse team, which makes him invincible around here. He’s smoking something with West, the addict. Probably pot, though I’d be surprised if that was West’s poison of choice these days. He’s lost about forty pounds since freshman year, and he looks like he hasn’t had the munchies in months.
I crawl across the floor to another hole and see Jackson, Mr. Chlamydia, making out with a girl I don’t recognize. Probably a sucker from some other town—everyone in Brockenhurst knows he’s polluted. Then I spot Kat, huddled in a dusty corner, her knees pulled up to her chest. She’s nursing a drink in a Solo cup. Marlow’s right there next her, talking her ear off, though I don’t think she’s listening. Her eyes are focused on something far away—someplace she’d rather be.
I wonder if she’s back in the Otherworld ice cave. The giant avatar is gone. It’s just the two of us together again in our own private world. For a second, it’s nice to imagine I might be inside her head—the way she’s always in mine.
A snap startles me. Someone’s climbing the stairs and they just stepped right on the twigs I left there. The footsteps pause for a moment and then continue. But there’s enough time for me to scuttle into the darkness on the other side of the room. I end up in an alcove I had no idea existed. I can’t see much, but there’s something soft beneath my feet. I bend over and touch it. I’m pretty sure it’s a down sleeping bag. I guess someone was planning to get lucky up here tonight.
I peek around the corner and see a figure standing at the top of the stairs. It’s just a dark shadow with arms and legs. I can’t even tell if it’s male or female. For a minute, it doesn’t move. It seems to be thinking. Or waiting. Then it stretches out an arm and tosses a small round object. The thing sails in an arc through the air and then plunges straight through a hole in the middle of the floor.
“Hey!” yelps a voice from below. Whatever it was must have come close to beaning someone. The music below stops and there’s an eerie quiet.
A kid laughs. “What the hell?”
“What is that?” someone else asks.
The party has come to a halt, and the figure who threw the object is gone. I cautiously step out of the alcove and make my way toward the hole. I want to see for myself what’s going on, but when I peer down, the object is hidden from view. Everyone at the party is huddled around it. Everyone, I notice, except Marlow and Kat.
“Hey, get back!” someone says. I can’t see who said it, but it sounded like Marlow. No one’s listening, though. There’s an electric-blue light shining through the cracks between the kids.
“He’s right! Don’t mess with it!” This time it’s Kat.
Directly below me, Brian the psycho looks straight up at the ceiling, and I barely back away in time.
“Who’s up there?” he shouts. He doesn’t sound angry. He must think it was one of his friends playing a joke. But I realize I’m still in serious shit. Unless I hurl myself through a window, there’s no way to get out now. One-on-one I could beat Brian. I can’t take on everyone here.
I’m scrambling for cover when the whole building groans like some massive beast that’s been woken. I drop back down to my hands and knees, and tremors course through the floor. The tremors become a rumble and end with a crack and a deafening crash. A girl’s scream is cut short. I don’t think it’s Kat, but it might be. I rush to one of the holes in the wooden floor, but all I see below me is a cloud of dust. Then I hear the waterfall of debris and I know what’s happened: the second floor of the building has collapsed.
“Kat!” I shout.
I hear a muffled cry. Someone down there is alive.
Thank God the stairwell is still intact. I fly down the stairs, stopping briefly on the second and first floors to check the main part of the building. Both floors are almost completely gone. Everyone and everything has crashed straight through to the basement.
I’ve been inside the factory a hundred times, but I didn’t know there was a basement. There’s no time to hunt for the entrance, so I grab the edge of what used to be the first floor and drop down into the darkness. The fall is much farther than I thought it would be, and the landing knocks the wind out of me. I try to stand and the ground gives way beneath me and I’m suddenly surfing down a mountain of wood and bricks. I skid to a stop at the bottom and freeze for a second, getting my bearings. It’s pitch-black except for the beam of a flashlight shining from beneath the debris. I dig it out and shine it around me, illuminating a pile of rubble unlike any I’ve ever seen. A guy’s arm is protruding from the wreckage and I scramble over to him, clamping my fingers down on the vein in his wrist. No matter how hard I press, I can’t detect a pulse.
I snatch my hand back and fight the urge to vomit. My heart is pummeling my rib cage, and I’m sucking in dust-filled air that clogs my lungs. Then the beam of the flashlight lands on a swatch of copper-colored hair, and I’m there, digging like a dog, hurling boards and pipes and bricks behind me until I finally unearth Kat’s head and shoulders. She’s either unconscious or dead, and her angelic expression scares me more than anything I’ve seen tonight. I close my eyes and press my fingers against her jugular. Her heart is still beating. I dig even faster, and when I reach her legs, I realize how badly she’s injured. Blood is gushing from her left leg, and the spray splatters my face. I rip off my belt and tie it as tightly as I can around her thigh. When the flow of blood has been reduced from a gush to a trickle, I fish out my phone and start to dial 911.
Then I hang up.
I can hear ambulances. Multiple ambulances. Someone’s already called for help. I look around. There’s no one moving in the building but me.
The EMT said the tourniquet saved Kat’s life. A nail nicked an artery in her left leg, and without my size thirty-two belt she would have bled out. When we arrived at the hospital, no one asked me what happened or what I saw. They were all frantically treating the wounded. I wasn’t injured, so they probably assumed I wasn’t with the others when the floor collapsed. Given my criminal record—and the fact that I hadn’t exactly been invited to the party—I figured it was best not to volunteer any information just yet.
Four people died. I knew at least one of the kids hadn’t made it, but hearing the body count made the horror too real. I thank any God that’s listening for sparing Kat’s life. And given the extent of her injuries, I pray it will be a life worth living.
The clock on the wall says it’s almost five a.m. In a few hours the sun will rise, and Kat still hasn’t woken up. Aside from the leg wound, she’s suffered serious head trauma, a punctured lung and three broken ribs. The doctor says she’s hopeful, but I’m not stupid. I know there’s a fair chance that Kat might never come to. I think that’s the reason they’re letting me stay in her room. Or maybe they realize that removing me would be potentially life-threatening. Not for Kat, but for me.
—
Her mother arrived about an hour after we did. I hadn’t seen Linda since I returned to Brockenhurst, and the difference was startling. When I knew her, Linda always drank too much and smoked like a chimney. But I spent years wishing she was my mother. She hugged every kid who ever entered her house. She told raunchy jokes and laughed harder than anyone else. And she always made sure that the kitchen was stocked with my favorite, Flamin’ Hot Cheetos—even though she and Kat both despised them. Now Linda’s dressed in chinos and her bleach blond hair is now dyed a respectable shade of auburn. The hair’s an improvement, but she looks like her spirit is broken. I have a hunch that marriage has not been kind to her.
Linda barreled through the door and flung herself over Kat’s body. I was busy making sure she wasn’t going to accidentally rip the IV out of Kat’s arm when Wayne Gibson appeared in the doorway. He wasn�
��t pleased to see me standing beside the bed. He grabbed a nurse who was passing by. “Get this kid out of here,” he ordered without bothering to lower his voice. “I don’t want to see him again.”
That’s when Linda lifted her head. Her eye makeup was a blur. Most of it had rubbed off, leaving smudgy black circles on Kat’s blanket. “No,” she said. “You can leave if you want to, Wayne, but Simon is going to stay.”
I saw Wayne Gibson’s jaw clench so hard he could have bitten through rebar. Linda was going to pay for her words when they got home, but Wayne wasn’t the kind of guy who’d make a scene in public. “You let your child run wild. I told you something like this was going to happen,” he said in a low, steady voice. “Now that it has, the last thing she needs is a criminal camped out in her hospital room.”
“She’s my daughter,” Linda replied softly. “I know what’s best for her.”
“If you knew what was best for her, Linda, Katherine wouldn’t be here.”
At that point, I stepped forward to face him. If I’d ever had to live with an asshole like that, I would have turned to drugs in a heartbeat. I could only imagine how he must have tortured Kat. And she was right about one thing—if I ever found out, I’d probably kill him.
I put my hand on the man’s chest and shoved him out of the hospital room and into the hall. “See ya, Wayne,” I said before I slammed the door in his face. “I’ll take it from here.”
—
When Linda said she was going home to gather a few of Kat’s things, I had a hunch Wayne wasn’t going to let her come back. I think she must have known too. Before she left, she signed a form giving me full access to her daughter’s room. The paper is folded up and tucked away in my back pocket in case anyone challenges me. So far everyone has left us alone. Yesterday, I would have traded my soul for some time with Kat. Now we’re together in a beige room with a floral border and a cheesy mass-produced watercolor of a sunrise. I feel like some poor bastard from a fairy tale who was granted a wish but forgot to phrase it correctly. I asked to have Kat to myself, and I got what I wanted. Her body is here with me, but the rest of her is gone.