Cold Hard Truth

by Brown, Anne Greenwood;

  Um, no. No, he didn’t. No matter from what angle Dr. Linda wanted him to look at things, the fact remained: what happened to Jade was his fault. And everybody who knew her knew it.

  Max blinked, and the movie screen blurred into blobs of colored water. What the hell? He touched the corner of his eye. Was he tearing up? Here? In the middle of some trailer for the zombie apocalypse? He blinked his eyes a few more times and cleared his throat.

  There was a slight movement to his left, then someone whispered, “Shepherd.”

  Max looked over, trying to calm his features, thankful that the lights were down. Jordy’s arm moved and something lifted into the air, coming right for him. Max snagged the vague shape out of the darkness with a crunching sound, then looked down to see what it was. It was a bag of M&M’s.

  Max looked up at Chris and smiled, because damn if his eyes didn’t clear. Maybe Jordy was really on to something. Could something as simple as a candy-coated mind trick help him get control and back in the game? It sounded pretty stupid, but damn if he didn’t feel just a little bit better.

  Or maybe it was because the M&M’s also made him think of Emmie?

  Max ripped open the bag and settled back into his seat, letting the dark theater envelop him. The guys got quiet. The movie started. Assault rifles ratcheted up the plot when things got slow. A building blew up. Debris flew at the camera, and Max thought this flick would be a whole lot better in 3-D.

  Halfway into the movie, something tickled the right side of his neck. He reached across his body to brush it away, but it was still there. He glanced to his right and about launched out of his seat, swinging his right fist backward and knocking over his Coke with his left. There was nothing but ice in it, but Chris dodged to his left to avoid getting splashed, and Katie—who was sitting in the seat directly behind Max—lurched backward to avoid getting smacked in the face.

  “Shit! What are you doing in here?” Max whisper-yelled at Katie. “You about gave me a heart attack.”

  Her fingertips were now back on his shoulder, and he tensed under her touch.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Just wanted you to know that Elizabeth’s having a party after the movie. I was wondering if you wanted to go.”

  It took Max a second to process what she was saying. “You couldn’t have texted me that?”

  She shrugged. “Thought you’d appreciate the personal touch.” She gave his shoulder another squeeze. Max twitched away, hopefully without seeming rude. There was no way he was getting personal with Katie. “I’ll let the guys know after the movie is over.”

  The man in the next row turned around and shushed them.

  “If they don’t want to go,” Katie whispered, her breath hot against his neck, “you could go with me. I drove.” She rose to leave without waiting for his answer. Max watched her go down the stairs, her pale hand trailing the wall. As he watched, he missed what was likely the best line of the movie, because the whole theater erupted in laughter.

  “What did I miss?” he asked Chris.

  Chris raked his hand through his thick hair, then leaned into Max’s ear. “Apparently the fact that Katie’s got it bad for you. Make a move, Max. Time to get on with life.”

  Max turned his face to really look at Chris, but his friend’s eyes were locked on the screen. Max sat back hard in his seat. Was Chris serious? Get on with life? Wasn’t that exactly what he was doing? He was going to school. He’d stuck with the team. He was paying for his mistakes. He was out at a goddamn movie!

  Max was definitely getting on with life. Getting it on with Jade’s cousin was out of the question.

  In fact—he turned toward the stairs, but by this time Katie was gone—just the idea of spending time with her made his chest shake and his stomach churn. She’d want to talk about Jade. She still wanted to know the details, and Max couldn’t do that to her. Once you had those pictures in your head, it wasn’t like you could shake them. If he told her all that shit, she’d never be able to think of Jade in any other way but broken. Bloody. He had to live with that. Jade’s mom had to live with that.

  Max used to get along great with Jade’s mom. Now she’d cross to the other side of the street if she saw him coming. That’s what came from sharing a trauma. You avoided as many triggers as you could. Sometimes that included avoiding the only people who understood your nightmare. Sometimes avoidance was the only way not to shatter.

  When he looked up at the screen, everybody in the movie had died. Jade, he thought. I’m so sorry. So sorry. So sorry.

  The credits ran, and Max’s head was suddenly filled with the high-pitched keening of metal on metal. It wouldn’t stop. Like a glass-shattering note that just kept going and going and going. The M&M’s weren’t working anymore. His queasiness had moved well past nausea. His fingers were twitching, and he knew if he stayed where he was, he was going to lose it. Right here in front of everyone.

  “I got to get some fresh air,” Max said; then he bolted from the theater. He ran down the hallway and crashed his palms into the bar on the exit door before stepping onto the sidewalk. The cold air slapped him hard across the face.

  He paced back and forth a couple times, his hands shoved deep into his coat pockets, trying to decide whether he should go back inside or head for Chris’s car. Going inside meant talking about what they were going to do next. He didn’t want to go to the party. He didn’t want to talk to Katie. Hell, he didn’t want to talk to anyone. He wanted to go home.

  Max ran in the direction of Chris’s car, punching an SUV with the side of his hand as he ran past and setting off its security alarm. The sound scared him so badly he nearly tripped. He wove through the aisles, finally finding Chris’s car, but of course it was locked.

  He picked up a dirty chunk of ice and launched it at a light pole. The ice shattered and rained down in little black chunks. It felt kind of good, so he chucked another. Then another.

  He shouldn’t be here, and he didn’t mean the parking lot. Why couldn’t he have been thrown against a light pole and smashed to pieces? Life would be so much easier for everyone if that were the case. Max hauled off with another ice chunk, letting it fly while cursing loudly at the sky.

  It took the guys another five minutes to catch up to him. By the time they got to the car, Max had his cap pulled down low, his hands shoved into his coat pockets, and was feeling about as deep in the well as he could. That’s what Quack Linda called it: being in the well. That dark, lonely place where nobody could reach him.

  “Got enough fresh air?” Chris asked.

  “Just take me home,” Max said, blowing a puff of frosty breath into the cold, night air.

  “Whatever you want,” Jordy said, so about ten minutes later, they were dropping him off on the sidewalk outside his house. Max shoved his hands in his pockets and pulled out the crinkled M&M’s wrapper. He exhaled a slow steady stream that vaporized on the air, then turned the paper over in his hands a couple times before pressing it flat against his thigh so only one M showed.

  Emmie.

  He breathed deeply. Weird how a stupid logo could give him the same feeling as taking off all his pads after a game. That feeling like he was suddenly weightless. Tonight, he thought, tonight might be the first night in a long time he wouldn’t hope to die in his sleep.

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHEMISTRY

  THURSDAY

  Emmie was perched on a high stool at her lab table. She hadn’t been in school enough last year to pass chemistry, so now that she was back at WPHS, she was taking it again. Apparently being present in class wasn’t going to make the subject any more understandable. She couldn’t get her mind to settle on what Mr. Beck, the student teacher, was saying. He might as well have been talking in Latin, or Elvish like the kid who sat behind her in calculus.

  To be fair though, she hadn’t been able to get her mind to settle on much of anything since Saturday. It wasn’t the near-death-by-refrigerator experience that was troubling her, though that was something. Rather,
it was the nagging question of why she had been so cold to Max Shepherd when he had only been trying to be friendly. The answer kept slipping away even as she grasped it—like eating soup with a fork—until a familiar voice spoke in her head.

  Why would anyone want to be your friend when you betrayed the ones you had?

  Nick.

  Emmie blinked and tried to refocus on Mr. Beck. He was sitting on the table at the front of the classroom, swinging his legs. His khakis were pulled up around his ankles, showing off a pair of purple argyle socks. He was still talking, as evidenced by the dull buzz in the back of Emmie’s head.

  Two girls with flat-ironed hair sat at the lab table to Emmie’s left. They were whispering about the upcoming Snow Ball. The guy behind Emmie was drum-rolling two pencils against his table like he was auditioning for a garage band.

  “This works well for a simple explanation.” Mr. Beck kept swinging his legs, making him look like a kindergartner waiting for his milk break. It was mesmerizing—the purple argyle, back and forth, back and forth—and it took Emmie’s mind off more troublesome thoughts.

  “But it doesn’t really explain why the properties of certain things change under different elements, such as why metals give off a characteristic color when heated in a flame, am I right?” Mr. Beck paused, and the silence lengthened to the point of discomfort.

  Emmie looked up to make sure he wasn’t staring at her, and that she hadn’t missed a question. Ah. He was doing her dad’s trick; he was waiting them out. Someone would answer eventually.

  Or not.

  Mr. Beck smiled and hopped off the table. By now, the static electricity from all that swinging had caused the bottom of his khakis to stick to the top of his socks. “And it doesn’t explain why lasers give off a particular wavelength. Now atoms,” he said, and Emmie zoned out again until Mr. Beck’s voice became small and hollow, and a million light-years away.

  You and I are alike, came the memory of Nick’s voice as they sat together on the couch, three movies into a Star Wars marathon. Pea pods.

  It’s two peas in a pod, Emmie’d said, which had earned her a pinch on the back of her arm.

  She’d tried to move to the other side of the couch, but Nick had put his arm around her and pulled her close. Why you always so tense? Is it because your momma’s looking twitchy again? Maybe I need to kiss you like I did last night.

  Now safely seated in Mr. Beck’s chemistry class, Emmie wondered how she might change under different elements. Could she be a different version of herself now that she was away from Nick? Could she relax? Could she be nice?

  She felt steely and cold most of the time, like metal. Max was definitely more of a flame. She resolved to attempt a chemistry experiment. Next Saturday. She would try to have a normal conversation with Max.

  Her father would like to see her getting back to her old self. Maybe if she did, he’d stop trying to figure out what he’d done to make her want to go live with her mom. What he didn’t understand was that he’d done nothing wrong. Emmie could see that now, even if at the time she thought his house rules bordered on abuse. She had a whole different perspective on things now. Butting heads over curfew and household chores was nothing compared to putting makeup over a black eye.

  The girls to her left were now hypothesizing about who would make good couples for the Snow Ball and who might end up on the winter court. Emmie turned to look at them and in the process spotted a familiar profile waiting in the hallway.

  Max freaking Shepherd.

  That nervous twisting sensation was back, somewhere low in her gut. She fought the urge to smooth down the frizz in her curls. So ridiculous. It was going to be hard to be nice if the mere sight of him turned her into an idiot. What was the deal? And also, how had she gone all week and never noticed that he had chemistry right after her? Maybe he wasn’t usually so early to class. The bell for next hour hadn’t even rung yet.

  Emmie’s throat tightened at the thought of having to pass him in the doorway. It had been five days since she saw him last, but the memory of Max Shepherd, his tricep bulging as he leaned against her folding table, was fixed on her brain. I think you’re cool. I thought we could be good friends.

  At the forefront of those thoughts was how different Max was from Nick, in both body and personality. Both were tall, but Nick was thin, his belly nearly concave and his muscles long and taut. Max was broad and solid. As if someone had opened up his head and filled his entire body with concrete.

  Nick was all about adrenaline and excitement, always seeking the next rush. Max was…well, not that exactly. Max seemed more like energy trying to be contained. Like an atom bomb.

  “The atom,” Mr. Beck said, “has a wavelength…”

  Emmie sighed. When it came to chemistry, she and Max were hardly on the same wavelength. That was just the cold, hard truth.

  “De Broglie’s prediction of the duality of matter opened the door to a new branch of science called quantum mechanics,” Mr. Beck said. “Do you know what the major difference between classical and quantum mechanics is?”

  No one answered. The bell rang, and the class stood up in response. Mr. Beck kept talking. “In classical mechanics, the motions of bodies are much larger than the atoms that make it up. The energy seems to be absorbed…”

  Then Mr. Beck stopped, and a look of disgust clouded his face. “Holy—! Did one of you really just fart that smell? That’s not healthy. That is not the smell of a human fart.”

  A small group of guys laughed so hard Emmie thought they might actually turn inside out. She tried to ignore them and put her head down as she passed through the door.

  As she did, something warm gently squeezed her wrist. Her head jerked up, and Max met her eyes. He didn’t say a word, but when he released her, the corners of his mouth twitched.

  Out of habit, Emmie stiffened and braced for Nick’s retribution, but of course it never came. Still, she walked down the hall as quickly as she could, paying no mind to the people she jostled and allowing reality to settle back in.

  What was Max doing, touching her like that? Was he trying to get a rise out of her, teasing her for being such a cold fish on Saturday? She felt a strange wave of sadness when she realized that was exactly what he was doing.

  Emmie straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat. No matter. Why should she care? There was no reason to stress over a friendship she’d never had and never even wanted. There was no reason to fantasize…well, not fantasize fantasize, but, like, think about being friends with him. Not even good friends.

  After French, Emmie met Marissa at the lunch table. Sarah was there, too, and already halfway through her salad. She was wearing her downhill-ski-team sweatshirt. The tan lines around her eyes had nearly faded. It was spaghetti day. Marissa was quick to comment on Emmie’s new white blouse and how she’d never wear white on spaghetti day.

  “Should I get a garbage bag from one of the lunch ladies?” Sarah asked. “I can cut armholes, and you can wear it like a smock.”

  “Thanks, but no thanks,” Emmie said. She turned to Marissa. “How’d your sociology test go?”

  “Awesome. I think it’s my calling. Either that or anthropology. Or maybe archeology. Can’t you see me on one of those desert digs?”

  Emmie could totally see it. Marissa was just the type. She was all about science, and she didn’t mind getting dirty. But before Emmie could answer her, there was an eruption of laughter from a few tables behind them.

  Marissa looked past Emmie’s shoulder. “And speaking of the study of man…” Marissa said under her breath.

  Emmie turned on her stool. The hockey guys weren’t in matching jerseys today, but there was no mistaking them. If it wasn’t their hair, which most of them wore longer than any of the other guys in school, it was the swarm of gnat-girls hovering around their table. Tiny, flighty, spray-tanned things. Each one of them nearly identical and indistinguishable to Emmie’s eye.

  It didn’t take her more than a second to spot M
ax in the mix. He was apparently the cause of the laughter because he was in the midst of telling a very animated story. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but judging by his hand gestures, it had something to do with his time on the work crew. Weird that he would want to advertise that.

  There was something else she noticed. It was the same thing she’d noticed after he caught her in the hallway the first day, that posture that told her despite his easy smile and animated gestures, there was something raw hiding underneath it all.

  Olivia arrived and plopped down on the stool next to Emmie. “Everyone going to the pep rally?” she asked.

  Marissa and Sarah nodded; then a second later the girls began discussing the pep rally that was coming up next hour, as well as the winter formal. It occurred to Emmie that she needed to pay more attention to what was going on around this school because that dance was all anyone seemed to want to talk about. Had there been posters? Was this like a big thing?

  “I heard Simon Godfrey might ask Joanna to Snow Ball,” Olivia said.

  Sarah shook her head. “No. She’s already going with Chad.”

  Emmie wondered which one of the gnat-girls Max was going to ask to the dance. There’d been at least three of them flitting around his head last time she checked. There was no way in hell she would ever flit.

  Even so, the next thing she knew, she was thinking about what it would be like to dance with Max with his head bent low and that hair falling over his eyes. And then she thought about what an idiot she was being. Again. For like the tenth time that day.

  She turned around one more time to look at him just as Max—still mid-story—glanced up. Emmie sucked in a breath. Max stopped talking. Their eyes locked.

  Emmie could remember certain moments when time stood still. Like when she told Nick her mom needed some “help,” and he left her waiting…breathless…waiting, waiting before he finally said, “I’ll see what I can do.” Or the moment they all noticed B. J.’s arms laid out awkwardly against the cracked linoleum in Nick’s kitchen, unmoving, and everyone waited to see who would be the first person to check his pulse.