by Tara Kelly
“We can’t hear you,” she said.
Christian’s face crumpled like a wet dishrag. “I’m sorry, okay? I’m sorry.”
Jenika laughed. It was bitter. Vile. “No, you’re not.”
The two of them stared each other down for what felt like forever. Every muscle in my body tensed.
“Say it.”
He said it again. Louder this time. His lips curled up into a snarl. His hands balled up in tight fists.
“How’s it feel?” she asked him, her voice oddly calm.
“What?” he muttered.
“How’s it feel to have no idea what happens next?”
He didn’t answer, but I could see the realization in his eyes. He didn’t know how far they’d go.
Neither did I.
Alex kept his head down, his eyes closed.
“Turn it off,” Jenika said to Matt. Then she walked up to Christian and kicked him right between the legs.
He collapsed to the ground, on his knees, buckling over. His naked back shivered in the dim light of the moon.
Jenika stood over him, her stare cold. “Tell anyone about this, and I’ll make sure that video gets sent to everyone you’ve ever known.” She picked up his jeans and threw them at his head.
He clutched his jeans, his breaths still fast, panicked. We left him there. Crumpled. Broken. Alone.
I didn’t say anything. Alex didn’t say anything. We just got in the car and started driving, the hum of Alice in Chains in the background.
Acid was gnawing at my gut, inching up to the back of my throat. “Take me home,” I said. I didn’t look at him. I couldn’t.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
Sorry. Sorry like Christian? “For which part?” My voice came out low and choked.
“All of it.”
Was he?
“I didn’t know that was going down—the video,” he continued.
“Is that what the cakes did to you?”
He inhaled sharply, but he didn’t speak. Seconds passed. It felt like hours. I didn’t want to hear what came next. It hurt too much to imagine him like Christian, beat down and terrified. Made to say those things, for all to see.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Only they held me down and ripped my clothes off. It was Christian and two older guys. Amber just stood there and watched.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, the pressure unbearable. I couldn’t hold it in anymore. He was so quiet back then. So skinny. So unseen. “Why didn’t you tell me everything? Let me help you?”
Every time I asked for details he said he didn’t want to talk about it. He was embarrassed, didn’t want to relive it. I respected that. But now… I wished I’d pushed. Maybe we wouldn’t be here like this. Maybe he wouldn’t be a stranger.
“I didn’t want…” He paused. The car accelerated. “I didn’t want to give you another reason to feel sorry for me.”
I finally turned toward him, my eyes hot with tears. “I don’t feel sorry for you!”
“Yes, you do.”
My mouth opened, but nothing came out. Maybe I was overprotective sometimes. All I ever wanted was to make things better for him. To see him happy.
“Is that why you went to Jenika instead? Told her everything?”
He rolled down the window, draping his arm over the edge, feeling the air through his fingers. “It came out.”
“Yeah? Clearly it came out to the wrong person.”
I took in his hard jaw. The way he stared at the road, so intense. As if it might swallow him.
“You scared me tonight.” I watched the lights blur by as we drove down my street.
“I’m so fucked up right now.” He slowed in front of my house and stopped. “Sometimes I feel everything. Sometimes I feel nothing. Sometimes…I don’t want to be here.”
I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to do. “I want you here.”
His eyes shut. “I don’t want to keep hurting you.”
“What are you saying?”
“You can’t help me, Nova.” He hesitated. “I know you want to, but you can’t.”
I held my breath, fighting the urge to scream. “What a bunch of defeatist bullshit.”
“Nova…” he said.
I got out and slammed the door shut, making his window rattle. If I looked back, I may not have had the strength to walk away.
And I needed to walk away.
Sunday, June 29
It takes a long time to strangle someone, even with their hands tied behind their back. Minutes seem like hours. She almost broke away and, for a second, I almost let her.
Then I heard your voice, reminding me again and again.
She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not a victim. She is not
Chapter Eleven
There was blood on my hands. I scrubbed until my skin was red and raw, but it kept pooling inside my palms. I needed to get it to stop. I needed to get help. But my body was weak. Numb. I could barely take a full breath.
Then I woke up, my skin clammy, the bitter taste of nausea in my throat. Rays of sun blasted through the gaps in my curtains, a harsh reminder.
Last night happened.
A siren wailed in the distance. Other sirens joined in soon after, dozens of them coming from different directions. Long and mournful. Jagged and staccato. It seemed like they went on forever, fading away and getting louder again.
My chest went heavy with dread, and it felt as if ants were skittering down my arms and legs. The only time I’d heard that many sirens was when that ten-car pileup happened on Highway 101. It was a couple years ago, when we had a freak snowstorm right before Christmas. At least a half dozen people were ejected from their cars and lying on the icy pavement.
The house was so quiet I could hear the walls settling. It was after eight. If Gavin were here, he’d be in my room by now, yelling at me to get up. When that didn’t work, he’d grab food from the fridge and stuff it under my covers. Usually I had to babysit him on my days off, but Mom always tried to give me at least one Gavin-free day.
I actually wished she hadn’t picked today.
The doorbell rang, sending a jolt down the back of my neck. It was followed by four meaty knocks, the sound of someone who wanted to make sure they were heard.
What if Christian went to the cops? I remembered him telling Zach once that there was nothing more lowly than a rat.
I scrambled out of bed and ran to the living room, peering through the cracks in our blinds. What I saw in our driveway was almost as bad as a cop car—Zach’s green Mustang. He wasn’t one to rise before nine—unless he got hungry. And it would take a hell of a lot for him to show up here.
I moved in front of the door, pressing my hands against the chipping white paint. “What do you want, Zach?”
“To talk.”
“About?”
“Just open the door.” His voice sounded somewhere between commanding and pleading. “It’s about Alex, okay?”
My heart jumped a little in my chest. Christian had to explain how he got beat up somehow. If he wanted retaliation, I was the easiest target. He knew Jenika hated me. And she had the video.
I looked out the peephole. Zach was the only one standing on my porch, his nose oddly elongated through the glass. “You’ll have to wait a minute,” I said.
I took that moment to peek out the living room window again, as well as the windows in our small den. Both gave me a good view of the front yard, his car in our driveway, and our porch. As far as I could tell, he was co
mpletely alone.
After throwing on jeans and a T-shirt, I finger-combed my tangled hair into a ponytail. I’d never been one to doll up for guys, but I did for Zach when we went out. As if straightening my hair and wearing retro sundresses and red lipstick actually changed how he saw me.
I opened the front door a crack, enough for him to see a sliver of me. His eyes were bloodshot, and his lips were pale. Even his golden-brown skin lacked color.
“You look like shit,” I said.
“Yeah.” He pulled his elbows closer to his body, as if he was freezing. “I feel it.”
He didn’t look like someone hell-bent on revenge. He looked scared shitless.
I opened the door to let him in, and he took a hesitant step inside, taking a few seconds to move past me.
My stomach used to flutter every time I saw him. His long, tangled hair always damp from surfing. That gentle smile.
Now the only tug I felt was regret.
He smelled how I remembered—like the lemon-scented body wash he always used. It was this expensive aromatherapy stuff his mom bought.
I directed him to our old white leather couch. The bright rays of sunlight showed every crack and stain. I couldn’t help but feel a little shame…everything in his house was pristine.
“What about Alex?” I asked, sitting on the brown recliner next to the couch.
He leaned forward, clasping his hands and studying my face. “He beat the shit out of Christian last night.”
I swallowed back the tightness in my throat, trying not to let my expression falter. “Is that what Christian said?”
“He won’t say who did it.”
“Then how—”
“Yesterday, in the diner, Alex looked him right in the eye and said he was going to fuck him up.”
My thumbs traced circles against my jeans. “That’s talk. Not proof.” But there was proof.
He squinted at me before looking away. “I saw him with Jenika a few days ago. When did that happen?”
“A while ago, I guess.” The words came out muted. I wasn’t even sure he heard me.
But he nodded slowly. I could see his wheels turning.
“He’s going through a lot right now. His grandpa just died. He’s…” I trailed off, realizing I sounded like Zach. Listing excuses for my friend’s asshat behavior. But I still had this need to protect Alex. I didn’t know if it would ever go away.
“He’s got serious problems,” Zach said.
“You want to talk about serious problems?” I asked. “Let’s start with what Christian and your friends did. Making him say those things. Videotaping him.”
“What things?” His voice rose. “What video?” He and his parents were in Mexico that summer, and he’d always played it like he knew as much as I did. But I wondered if that was even true.
“I don’t know what happened that night, okay?” he continued. “Believe it or not, I don’t know about every fucked-up thing Christian does.”
“But you’re his loyal lapdog.”
He turned away then, his forehead tensing. “Look, I know you hate me—”
“Then why did you come here?”
“I should’ve told you the truth. I know that,” he mumbled.
“The truth?”
He stared hard at his clasped hands. “My mom found out we spent the night together. She said I couldn’t see you anymore.”
“Or what—she’d take your car?”
His eyes shut, and the muscles around his mouth tensed.
“That’s it? You dumped me for a car?”
“It was more than that. A lot more.”
It was getting harder to sit still. “Are you going to tell me?”
“You wouldn’t get it.” His voice was low. Bitter. “You never did.”
“That’s such a cop-out!”
“I don’t live in a trailer. I have two parents. I don’t have real problems, remember?”
He used to complain that his parents were on his case, about his grades, his lack of interest in college—even his hair. It was hard to turn that voice off in my head, the one that said he didn’t have actual problems. If he wanted to go to college, it was all paid for. He could try it out. See if it was for him. No years of paying off student loans.
One time I got mad enough to tell him just that. I felt bad and apologized later, even told him I didn’t mean it. But I did…
“You don’t get to do this,” I said. “You don’t get to make yourself the victim here.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. I got nothing on poor little Alex.”
“We’re talking about me and you. What does he have to do with it?”
He shook his head, his lips stretching up at the corners. As if he was in on some private joke. His finger ran along the leather arm of the couch, slow and deliberate.
“You told everyone I slept around.” My heart pounded as I spoke. “Do you have any idea what I’ve been through because of you?”
“You really think that was me?” He paused for a moment. “Of course you do.”
“You took my virginity and dumped me the next day. Why the hell not?”
His eyes combed my face. “Everyone said you were cheating on me with Matt.”
“And that makes saying those things okay?”
His face scrunched up. “It doesn’t matter anymore. This isn’t why I came here.”
I waited for him to continue, but there was nothing. Just the ringing in my ears. The hum of the water cooler in the kitchen.
“I think Amber’s dead,” he said, finally, his voice tight. “But nobody will admit it. They keep making excuses. They keep saying she ran away.”
“And you’re sure she didn’t?”
He paused, his fingers gripping the couch arm. “I know her. She would’ve been back by now.”
My thoughts exactly, I wanted to say. But was that what he wanted to hear? I’d be holding on to any hope I could find.
“I heard you guys had a fight at the party.” I kept my tone gentle, unassuming.
“And?”
“What was it about?”
“That’s between us.” He looked away, his eyebrows pinching together.
I knew that expression. It was the same one he got every time he saw me after we broke up.
“Alex was there that night,” he said. “Amber was yelling all this crap at him. She wouldn’t stop…”
“So?”
He was completely focused on me now. “The timing of it all is…interesting.”
Zach became convinced that Alex wasn’t right in the head within minutes of meeting him last summer. He kept insisting that Alex was obsessed with me, that one day he was going to snap. I’d told him to knock it off or we were done.
“It’s also interesting that you and Amber had a fight right before she disappeared,” I said. “Look, I heard she was really drunk. If she went off on her own… A lot of things could’ve happened.”
“If it was an accident, she would’ve turned up by now.”
“Maybe… Maybe not.” I wanted to say something reassuring. But what? Some people got swept out to sea and never came back. Some people walked off the beaten path and got lost, forever.
Zach shook his head, his mouth tensing. “I got an email last night, telling me to watch my back. I’m guessing it was from Alex?”
“He wouldn’t be dumb enough to threaten someone in an email.”
“You sure?” His gaze turned hard and accusing. “He threatened Christian in front of me and Gabi.”
It was still their word against Alex’s. Sending an email, even anonymously, was undeniable proof. You might as well have written the threat on paper and signed it, unless you really knew how to cover your tracks. Which Alex did…
“I know you’re freaked out,” I said. “But—”
“Freaked out?” he snapped. “I don’t sleep anymore, Nova. I get in my car and drive around all night, every night. I don’t know what the fuck else to do.”
I took him in agai
n. His hungry, red-rimmed eyes. His hair, caked and ragged with yesterday’s gel. As much as I wanted to hate him, I couldn’t.
“Why do you think Alex sent it?” I asked.
“Who else would send me that?” His dark eyebrows rose. “Besides you.”
“Watch your back” was something Matt said. And he was definitely the type to act first and think…never. But as far as I knew, he hated the cakes in general. Why target Zach specifically?
“Forward it to me,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because I might be able to help you figure out who sent it.” A lot of email programs still displayed the sender’s IP address in the header—you just had to know where to look. It was how I figured out who some of my anonymous email senders were. Sometimes it was as simple as a Google search.
Zach studied me for a few seconds, suspicion written all over his expression. “You know it was Alex.”
“I don’t know anything until I see proof. You gonna send it or not?” I stood to get my laptop.
“Fine.” He dug his phone out of his jean pocket.
I was almost out of the living room when I heard a murmur from him. It wasn’t a word or anything recognizable. Just a noise that came from his throat.
He was staring at the display on his phone, his expression contorted. At first I wasn’t sure if he was about to laugh or cry. Then he looked up at me, the muscles in his face going slack.
“Is this a joke? What is this?” he asked.
A chill spread across my skin. I moved back toward him, my steps small and hesitant.
He dropped his phone on the coffee table, like it was contaminated, and hunched forward, his hands braced on his knees.
I knelt down, wincing as the wood floor creaked loudly underneath me, and picked up his phone.
The picture on his display was a jumble of color at first. White. Red. Varying shades of gray and brown. It took me a few seconds to register what I was seeing. A face as white as paper. Half-open eyes rimmed in black. A crimson smile with dagger-sharp edges.
Dark, jagged lines stretched downward from both eyes and stopped about midcheek, resembling mascara streaks.
It was definitely a girl. The clown makeup didn’t hide her delicate features or the roundness of her jawline. She was lying on what looked like wet sand, her tangled hair spread out like a fan above her head. One hand was next to her face, palm facing up, fingers slightly curled.