Ripple

by Heather Smith Meloche

“Is she dead?” I ask, every muscle tense, my tone higher than normal.

  She graces me with a quick glance. “Not dead,” she says, and my relief is instant. “But she’s at Worton County Hospital with some pretty bad injuries. I guess she’ll need rehab before she can walk again.”

  “Wow,” Seth says. I realize his hand has left mine. “That sucks.”

  “For sure, right?” Simone says. “Well, I’ve got to get to class, but I’ll see you at the football-cheer mixer on Friday night, right?” I know she asks him for my benefit. He nods. And she smiles all flirty, letting her superior gaze fall on me before strutting off.

  But right now, I don’t care what Simone does. I shiver. My mind is stuck on Emma’s face, on her sad, horrified image as The Scream, but with her elf-like wool hat, the balled tip trailing down her back. I left her in the blinding darkness, alone, to crawl into my own dark with a stranger. And no matter how wrong I knew it was, I couldn’t stop myself from doing it.

  • • •

  The last bell rings. This day has sucked with the news of Emma, and it’s only bound to get worse with a drug deal on my horizon. I head down to the main office to get this new-student tour over with for Juliette. Then I’ll get my “errand” done for Ty. My stomach wrenches.

  When I come into the office, Mrs. Cronson, the school’s head secretary, throws me a wave. “Hey, Tessa.” She gets up from her desk against the wall, then heads to the massive counter between us. She smooths her salt-and-pepper hair around her ears. “Saw your mom at the administration building the other day. Looks like she and I will be working the district fund-raising fair together.”

  I force a broad smile and a “That’s great!” But all I can think of are Ty’s drugs sitting in my bag.

  “We were short one person, so she stepped right up to offer a bit of her free time. So it’ll be me and Principal Levy and your mom doing the concession stand.”

  “Great,” I offer.

  “Your mom is a wonderful gal, Tessa.” She nods.

  “She is,” I say, genuine this time.

  “I hear she’s up for tenure. I’ll keep my fingers crossed for her.” Mrs. Cronson holds up two crossed fingers. Like my mom, she works hard, makes too little money. The drugs in my bag and my guilt burn.

  “What brings you to the office, hon?” Mrs. Cronson asks.

  I turn, spy a short Asian guy with thick, black-rimmed glasses standing by the Forms and Flyers kiosk. He reads a flyer on the human papillomavirus, how it’s spread through sexual contact. “I’m guessing he does.” I walk up to him. “Hi.”

  He ignores me. Keeps reading.

  “Hey,” I say again. “Are you here for the school tour?”

  He lifts his head, looks at me, confused.

  “He is, hon,” Mrs. Cronson says. “He’s just not completely fluent in English.”

  “Oh.” I turn to him, fill my face with some genuine warmth. He smiles back.

  “I thought Juliette was doing the tour today,” Mrs. Cronson says.

  “She’s got a meeting about the Halloween dance, so I told her I’d do it.”

  “Well, his name is Mun-Hee Kwon,” she says.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “He’s a foreign exchange student from Korea. His name is Mun-Hee Kwon.”

  “I’m Mun-Hee Kwon.” He points to himself. “American name is Mo.”

  “Mo.” I think how this tour might be a little awkward with our language barrier, but I offer him a come-follow-me wave. “Okay, let’s do this.”

  “Wait,” Mrs. Cronson says. “You’ve got one more student for the tour.”

  “Where is—” I start, but stop as Jack S. Dalton strolls into the office.

  “I’m here for the student tour,” he says. His gaze sets on me, and a smile streaks across his face.

  “Hi, Jack.” Mrs. Cronson gives him a wave.

  “Hey, Mrs. Cronson. You look especially nice today.”

  She actually blushes. “Thanks, hon.” She points at me. “This is Tessa Leighton. She’ll be taking you on the tour today.”

  A dark brown eyebrow shoots high into Jack’s forehead as he looks at me. One side of his curvy lips ticks upward. “Tessa Leighton.” He says my name like it’s delicious. “Tessa. Okay. Go ahead, Tessa. Guide me.”

  My cheeks burn. My mind shoots right back to me on the ground in the hallway, him on top of me.

  “I’m Mo.” The Korean kid holds his hand out to Jack and pulls me from whatever stupor I’d fallen into.

  Jack towers over him, could probably punt this kid across the entire length of a football field if he gave a crap about football. But he shakes Mo’s hand with tons of gusto. Then throws his arm around his shoulders as if they’ve been friends since birth.

  “Come on, Mo,” Jack says. “Let’s see what amazing things Tessa has to show us.”

  • • •

  I’m speed-walking through the school halls, my tote bag scratching against my thigh because there was no way in hell I was going to leave it in the main office with a baggie of drugs stuffed into it. Jack has long legs, strides easily behind me, but Mo is practically running to catch up. I will myself to slow down, even though I feel Jack’s eyes on me. I’ve already steered us past the media center, several bathrooms, the cafeteria, the large-group instruction rooms, and the science lab.

  Before we started, Jack shoved ten pieces of gum into his mouth. At every stop we make, he rips off a piece from the masticated wad, sticks it on a wall, a desk, at the base of a door.

  “What are you doing?” I finally ask, completely disgusted as he sticks a piece of gum to a bathroom door kick plate.

  “Covering my tracks.” He winks.

  I look at him, confused.

  He pushes his gum wad to one side of his mouth so he can articulate clearly. “At some point in the future, now that I can call this school my own, I may, under certain circumstances, do something that requires an inquiry into my behavior and person. It is simply logic that there are two ways to not get caught when one’s behavior is questioned. One: leave absolutely no traces of DNA. Or two: flood the scene with your DNA. I’m simply marking my territory. You know, just in case.”

  Mo looks blankly at Jack, then nods as if Jack is actually making sense. But my palm itches to smack Jack’s smug face.

  I hustle to the lone door at the end of the west-side hallway. I take a deep breath, then say, “And this is the student center.”

  Jack’s mouth perks up on one side. “We can see that.” He points to the giant “Student Center” sign above the door.

  I suppress a glare, grip the strap of my tote, and talk directly to Mo. “So you come here if you want to get some extra tutoring or have questions about graduation requirements.” I’m talking so fast, even a native English speaker couldn’t understand me. “There’s tons of college information in there, too, in case you want to research your plans after high school.”

  “And what are your plans after high school, Tessa Leighton?” Jack cocks his head, curious.

  “I’ll go to the University of Michigan.” I force confidence into my tone but drop my eyes too quickly.

  “Hmm,” he says.

  I whisk back around. “Okay, then. Let’s go check out the gym. That’s wildly fascinating.”

  “Wait.” Jack’s fingers gently grip my upper arm, stopping me. He’s got that smug look he had at the football game, like some devious plan’s percolating.

  “Why?” I say with caution.

  He ignores me. “Hey, Mo, you want to take the tour that no other student ever gets?”

  Mo looks at Jack, confused. His black-rimmed glasses have fallen down the bridge of his nose.

  Jack slowly nods. Mo nods back just as slowly, but I can tell he doesn’t completely understand.

  “See,” Jack says to me. “Mo wants a better
tour.”

  “No way, Jack.” I shake my head hard. “I can’t.”

  Jack steps closer. “You can.” He says it like we’re about to jump off the edge of the world, like he’s holding his hand out for me, silently asking me to trust him. His lean, lanky body curls like a rescue hook above me.

  I shake my head again, the heavy pressure to be good and successful on my mom’s, my stepdad’s, my grandmother’s terms pushing down on me. “I can’t, Jack. I can’t get into trouble.”

  He stares at me for a moment. His dimpled chin, his forehead beneath the splash of dark bangs, the corners of his mouth, all softened. “I won’t let you get into trouble, Tessa.”

  He throws one arm around Mo. Then gently wraps his other around my shoulders. His scent, like he’s literally a piece of a ripe tree in the forest, instantly crawls into my nose. I will myself not to lean into him.

  And I realize that the way Jack simply looks at me affects me. The tiny flutters Seth gives me seem weak and flat compared with how my insides practically turn over when Jack is near. So I let it happen. I let him take me toward whatever crazy place he wants to go.

  • • •

  “Where are you taking us?” I ask as Jack leads us down the hall. The thought of what I’ll be doing later pokes in my brain like a giant thistle. I just want this tour over.

  Jack gives me a semi-guilty look. “I kind of explored the building before school started this year.”

  I’m only half shocked. “You broke into the school?”

  His gives a quick shrug. “I plead the Fifth on that one.”

  “I bet you do that a lot,” I quip.

  “Again, the Fifth. But there is so much more to this school than you know. So it’s time for me to guide you.” He winks, his face inches from mine.

  I can’t stop wondering what it would be like to kiss him. Want to know how intense he’d be if we were as close as we could get. And for just a second, I question if I could break my rule and hook up with someone right in this school, right in the thick of everything, with my boyfriend right around whatever next hallway.

  But like a sharp reminder, my drug-filled tote bag digs deep into my thigh. Stings there. I’ve already been caught.

  Then Jack stops us in front of a wooden door that says “School Staff Only,” breaks out a paper clip, and picks the lock.

  “I think I should go,” I say.

  The staff-only door swings open to a stairwell. “Too late. Adventure’s already started.” Jack motions at Mo to go first. His fingers link with mine. Something warm and electric shoots through me.

  I think about how, when I’m with Seth or with one of my hookups, when hands are on me, I close my eyes so often, crawl into my own head to make the moment what I want. But I can’t stop staring at Jack’s profile as he leads me forward. And what I feel is so much more powerful. Somehow crackling, heating up with his palm simply pressing against mine. It takes every ounce of my strength not to squeeze his hand back.

  He pulls me up the stairs, lets my hand loose at the top, leaving me cold again. Old desks, broken chairs, file boxes, random papers litter the space. Obviously a storage room. But I notice on one desk against a far wall that the papers have been cleared and a lamp sits next to a mug filled with sharpened pencils. Like someone uses the spot.

  I glance at Jack, but he’s too busy chuckling to himself, watching Mo open random desk drawers, rummage through boxes. Mo clearly doesn’t understand that here in the United States, we love our forensics. Just like Jack said, his DNA could implicate him later.

  We shouldn’t be here.

  “Probably not,” Jack says.

  I startle, realize I’ve said the thought out loud. “It’s just a storage room,” I say. “We’ve seen it. Can we go?”

  He leans in, his lips and silver ring grazing my ear. He whispers, “Tessa, relax. Just wait. It’s so much more than a storage room.”

  Chills sweep through me before I realize he’s slipping the strap of my bag from my shoulder. Panicked, I clutch at it.

  He gives me an odd look. Then softens. “Tessa, put it down just for a minute. I have something else to show you.”

  And, somehow, I let Jack take the bag. He sets it, the drugs inside, against the leg of an old desk. Then he heads toward an unmarked gray door—metal and much thicker than the one to this room. “Over here, Mo.” He motions him over and holds up a key.

  “All right,” he says to him. “This is Break-In 101. Ready?”

  Mo blinks.

  “Wait. What?” I say.

  Jack ignores me, pushes the key into the crack between the door frame and the door. He pulls the handle until the door opens a millimeter, shimmies the key down, then shuts the door again. He lets go of the key sitting in the crack. “Now you try,” he says to Mo, pointing at it.

  “Are you serious?” I ask.

  Without hesitation, Mo steps to the door.

  Jack smiles proudly at him. “This is an important skill to learn.”

  I shake my head. “For a convict, maybe. But he’s probably destined to cure cancer or something.”

  Mo’s bent over the lock and door handle, his thick glasses falling to the end of his nose. He’s completely focused on moving the key down a quarter of a millimeter at a time.

  “Seriously,” I say. “I’m sure breaking and entering is not a skill he needs. Which reminds me, what the hell was that whole thing with the cop today at lunch?”

  “Yeah, that was a misunderstanding.” Jack shrugs. “Happens all the time.”

  “A misunderstanding? You’re such a bullshitter.”

  He gives a thoughtful expression. “I just appreciate a clever spin on the truth.”

  “Oh, please. There’s no difference between that and bullshit.”

  “Wrong,” he says. “One is funnier.”

  My expression turns serious. “Not everything in life is funny, Jack.”

  His face becomes just as serious. “Funny makes all the fucked-up stuff easier to deal with.”

  My mouth falls open. I never considered that Jack might have anything in his life other than spoiled rich kid problems.

  “Ahh,” Mo says, grinning. A shaft of light pours in from outside. Jack steps into it, patting Mo’s back.

  “One hell of a break-in job, Mo,” he says.

  Beyond the door is the school roof with a ladder running up a wall to an even higher roofline. The blue sky dotted with fall clouds hangs above the roofs.

  “Or should I say one hell of a breakout.” Jack winks.

  “Great,” I mutter, trying to ignore how the sunlight makes Jack’s eyes translucent blue and his dark brown hair shine. “So you’ve prepped our newest international student for a prison escape.”

  “Well, school is a lot like prison, don’t you think?”

  I think of how I was excited every day of my sophomore and junior years to walk into the art room. I loved the indie music Mrs. Gretta always had playing. All the bright pieces hanging and drying. The smell of oil-paint fumes and the rich earthiness of clay. But that’s gone for me now.

  “I used to love school,” I tell Jack. “But this year I feel like I can’t live up to what everyone wants me to be. And I’m so freaking afraid I won’t do well enough or screw up somehow and piss people off. Even this little adventure increases my stress level by five hundred percent. So, yeah, school is like prison.” The words tumble out before I realize they are way too personal.

  Mo’s expression is sympathetic. Like he understood everything. And Jack stares at me like he’s collecting every word for future use. My cheeks burn. I curse myself for being too open.

  But Jack’s hand reaches out, locks with mine again, gently tugs me toward the roof outside. “C’mon, Tessa Leighton,” he says. “Let’s go get a better perspective on the world.”

  • • •
<
br />   The school grounds sprawl for hundreds of yards until they hit a border of trees turned bright yellow, orange, and red by fall. Everything is calm with classes done for the day, nobody practicing on the football or baseball fields, the flags in front flapping with a light thwack, thwack.

  “It’s so pretty,” I say, understating what I really think. It’s stunning. Like a painting come to life. The colors are so vibrant, I wish I could bottle them, use them for other art pieces. And I have to admit, seeing orange from this viewpoint makes me hate it a little less.

  “So, so nice.” Mo swivels around to take it all in.

  “It gets better.” Jack leads us up the ladder against the wall. We crawl out onto the next slightly angled roofline and sit down on what looks like an industrial patchwork of metal and opaque glass panels. Through the fuzzy glass, bodies move back and forth. I realize we’re sitting above the gym while people play basketball below us.

  Mo pulls out his cell and snaps photos. He starts rambling, English words and phrases like wow, color, high, smattered in between Korean. He points to the trees, the expanse of sky.

  Jack nods. “I know, Mo.”

  A flock of geese flies past. Mo moves quickly to get a picture.

  “For sure. It’s good to be high,” Jack says, “while the rest of the school is low, Mo.”

  “Will you stop that?” I bark.

  “Stop what?” Jack’s expression is smug.

  “That whole rhyming-with-Mo thing. It’s offensive.”

  “How? I’m just conversing with him.”

  I jab a finger into his chest, pretend I don’t notice it’s muscle-hard. “He can’t help it if he’s still learning English. It’s like you’re making fun of him.”

  Jack, surprisingly, jabs me back. In the chest.

  “I only make fun of people who deserve it because, well, they deserve it. But I think Mo is a great guy.” Jack puts his arm around him and gives him a smile. Mo smiles back. “Seriously. He’s smart. He’s adventurous. And he’s got a good heart. Can’t you tell?”

  His words stop me, make me really look at Mo, who holds up his phone for us to see.

  “Pretty America photo for my family,” he says, making me smile. Mo is a good guy. It’s weird and cool Jack pegged that so quickly.