by Katie Nelson
I thought for a minute. “No. I really don’t.”
“Buy me a latte?”
The nearest Starbucks was almost back to campus, a good fifty miles away. It was the easiest choice I’d ever made. I stood and pulled my keys out of my pocket. “Sounds perfect.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
IT WAS ALMOST TWO IN the morning, and the dorm was glowing. Literally. It could have been some kind of nuclear lab in one of those cheesy sci-fi movies, just after the reactor bursts wide open. Every light downstairs was on, and most of the rooms on the upper floors, too.
I was screwed.
Rick was supposed to be on duty. He was supposed to be holed up in the office, fighting wizards and elves online with his equally desperate cyber-friends. Clearly, the plan had broken down.
The girls’ dorm was dark—only the service lights were on—and I should have felt relieved that at least Kelsey wouldn’t get caught. Somehow, seeing the difference made me feel worse. Like this was all a trap or some kind of conspiracy, and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get away from it.
I shifted into park and lay my head down on the steering wheel.
“What do you think is going on?” Kelsey asked.
“Somebody must have said something. They’re obviously waiting for us.”
“So what are you going to do?”
I sat up. “What can I do? Go in and face it. They already know.”
Kelsey put her hand on my knee and squeezed. “Good luck. Text me and let me know what happens.”
We climbed out of my truck, careful to shut the doors as quietly as we could. Kelsey went around to the back stairwell and slipped through the laundry room door, which had been left open by Amanda, the other RA in the Duke’s “favor circle.” Apparently, the Duke’s system hadn’t completely imploded.
I was almost two hours past curfew. I knew it, and they knew it. With nothing more to lose, I decided on the direct route. I walked up to the front doors, found them unlocked, and went inside.
“Mr. McKay. You’re late. Care to explain?”
My chem teacher and dorm parent, Mr. Simpson, sat with one of the campus security guys on the sofas in the common room, drinking coffee while infomercials played on the TV. Mike, the daytime RA, sat in the office in a pair of dirty sweats, yawning.
“The battery died on my truck. I was stuck in a parking lot until a tow driver took pity on me and gave me a jump.” The lie came out so easily.
“Why didn’t you call?”
“My phone was dead. I was planning on charging it in my truck but, obviously, I couldn’t. Ford’s electrical system is a joke. My buddy warned me when I bought the thing, but I didn’t think it would be this bad.”
Mr. Simpson took a sip of his coffee. “We tried locating your phone. There was no signal.”
I held up my phone. It was off, not dead, and I hoped the school’s monitoring software couldn’t tell the difference.
“What year is your truck?”
“1996.”
Mr. Simpson nodded. “My wife and I had an Explorer when we were first married. A ’97. After it stranded her on her way to work, she made me sell it. Been driving Toyotas ever since.”
I gave him my most understanding smile.
“So you weren’t with the others?”
“Who?” I asked.
Mr. Simpson shook his bald head. “I’m sure you’ll hear all about it tomorrow. Go on up to bed. It’s late.”
I put my index finger on the scanner outside the office to sign back in. My picture flashed on the screen, followed by the time stamp.
Mike asked, “Am I writing him up, Mr. Simpson?”
I stopped.
“Just a warning. I assume you have a clean record, Mr. McKay?”
I looked at Mike, who shrugged. “Yes, sir,” I said.
“Keep it that way.” Mr. Simpson turned back to the TV and the zit control commercial he’d been watching before I came in.
As he turned the volume up, I turned to Mike. “What happened to Rick?” Mike glanced at Mr. Simpson and the security guy, who were both staring at the screen. “I don’t know. They searched his room. Then I got a call at 11:15 that I had to cover his shift. Apparently, he isn’t coming back.”
I nodded and took the stairs two at a time, thinking about what this could mean. Did Rick still have Sam’s meds? Would he tell them where he’d gotten them? For a second, I thought about texting the Duke and the other guys, warning them. I didn’t. I’m not sure why.
When I reached our floor, most of the lights were on, bedroom doors opened. I didn’t want to talk to anyone. So even though I heard my name shouted as I passed, I walked to my room, unlocked the door, and slipped inside.
As usual, Huang was snoring.
I woke the next morning when my phone hit me in the face. When I opened my eyes, rubbing my stinging cheekbone, Huang was sitting at his desk, his back to me.
“It’s been buzzing for the last half hour,” he said. “Either answer it or shut it off. I don’t really care.”
I squinted at the screen. Seven texts. Three missed calls. One voicemail. Before I opened any of them, I knew. I couldn’t hide anymore.
I ignored the calls and scrolled through the texts. Two from Kelsey asking if I was up yet. The rest were from Abby, starting around 3:00 a.m.
Is the Duke okay? Have you talked to him since I left?
He’s not answering my texts. He probably hates me.
I know it looks like I took Blake’s side, but I was trying to get him out of there. Can you tell him that?
Then two from this morning.
Have you seen him? Is he okay? How bad does his face look?
You need to call me. My mom is worried about Sam. It’s pretty bad. She thinks you should come see him. She’s going to keep calling you.
My stomach twisted as I dialed voicemail. Aunt Kristy’s voice was raspy, like she’d just woken up:
Tanner, this is Kristy. Abby says you already know, but Sam is still at Memorial. They’re trying to get his pain under control. He’s not cooperating. Your mom is a wreck. She’s skinnier than I’ve ever seen her, and it’s not like she had twenty pounds to lose, like I do. I know you’re busy, and she’ll probably be mad when she hears I called you, but I really think you need to go see them. I know it would cheer her up. I’m going to call your school and fill them in, and I’m sure they’ll give you permission to come visit today. Anyway, call me and we can talk more. Love you, buddy!
I deleted the message and lay back on my bed, squeezing my eyes shut as tightly as I could. That was even worse. I pictured them both—my mom, bone-thin and ragged, and my brother, writhing in pain in a hospital bed. I couldn’t stay here. I couldn’t go talk about the party last night and be Abby’s little messenger and all that other pointless crap that everyone here did on the weekends. My mom and brother needed me. I had to go. But I was terrified.
I texted Kelsey back. Wish I could do breakfast, but I have to go home. I’ll text you when I get back. Maybe dinner?
Before she had time to reply, I pulled on my jeans and stuffed the phone in my pocket. My keys were inside a baseball hat on my desk. I grabbed both, slid my feet into my shoes, and ran down the stairs before I could change my mind.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MY MOM HAD WORKED AT this hospital since I was seven and I’d visited her there hundreds of times. I knew most of the staff. I knew which elevators were always crowded and which foods in the cafeteria were inedible. I’d watched as she irrigated wounds and removed IVs and even treated a burn victim. I was sure I’d seen just about everything here over the years, but I was unprepared for what I saw when I opened the door to Sam’s room.
He was in bed, held in place by restraints on his shoulders, hips, legs, and arms. An IV hung from a pole behind the bed, dripping fluids into a tube taped to his hand. There was a bandage on his head and his left eye was bruised and almost swollen shut. But it was his right eye that gutted me. It was looking ri
ght at me, had seen me come in, but there was no recognition there. No reaction. He didn’t know me. Didn’t seem to know anything.
My mom was asleep in the chair next to the bed.
Kristy was right. She looked pretty bad. Her hair was all messed up and her lip was swollen and bruised. I watched them both, wondering if I should wake her up, straining to hear Sam’s breathing, so slow and steady that I wasn’t sure it was real, barely audible above my mom’s snoring. Then she stopped. She didn’t breathe, and even though it was only for a second or two, my chest burned; I was paralyzed with panic. Until she gasped and snorted and twitched in the crackling vinyl chair.
Standing in that room, my feet stuck to the squeaky floor, the dripping of the IV rattling in my brain, I realized what a coward I was. This was my fault. I’d done this to my family—put my brother in so much pain that he had to be kept from hurting himself, and made my mom watch it happen, helpless to stop it.
I always knew I could get caught. I could get expelled. Charged with a felony. Sent to juvie, all of that. It scared me, the prospect of being locked up with gang members and psychopaths. I didn’t know if I could survive something like that.
But in all the times I’d worried, it never occurred to me that Sam or my mom would suffer in my place. I knew I was playing a dangerous game, but it wasn’t until that moment that I realized just how much was at stake.
This was the ricocheting bullet—the shot that was meant for the target but struck the innocent instead. I hadn’t meant to do it, but I’d pulled the trigger all the same.
And for what? So I could get away with partying with my friends. So I could win some tournaments and feel like a big shot.
I’d spent over a decade of my life hating my dad for what he’d done to Sam, to all of us, swearing I’d never let anything like that happen again. But I had. I was no better than he was. Looking at Sam, lying there in that bed—I’d never hated myself more than I did in that moment.
I walked over to the bed and took Sam’s hand. His long, bony fingers were cold. I squeezed them and waited for a reaction. I waited for him to say my name, Tan-ner, emphasis on both syllables, in his slow voice that sometimes annoyed me because it took so long to get a sentence out. But Sam was silent.
What if he didn’t come out of this? What if I never heard him talk back to Ellen while he watched her show? What if he never walked again, never made the sound of an engine shifting gears as he sped up, his cane hitting the ground in that staccato rhythm? What if I never saw his smile again, his eyes full of excitement and trust and a little bit of mischief?
What if he never got to hear me say how much I look up to him, how much more I want for him, how I pushed him away these last couple of months because I didn’t want him to see what I’d become. I didn’t want to lose the one person in my life who thought I could do anything.
But through my cowardice, I might have lost him anyway.
Mom stirred. I let go of Sam’s hand and wiped my face. I couldn’t let her see me like this. I had to get out of there. I opened the door and walked back to the elevator, head down, as fast as I could without running. Why had I even come? I couldn’t help them. I only made things worse.
The elevator doors opened.
“Tanner?” Aunt Kristy stepped off and wrapped her arms around me. Her hair was in my nose and her necklace was digging into my chest, and it was all I could do not to pry her arms off and make a run for the stairwell.
When she finally let go, the doors were closing, and I was stuck.
“I’m so glad you made it,” she said, putting her arm around my shoulders. “I’ll bet it made your mom so happy. You’re not leaving, are you?”
“They were both sleeping. I didn’t want to bother them.”
“But you drove all the way out here. You’ve gotta at least give your mom a hug!”
I shook my head. “I can’t. Big test tomorrow. Give her one for me.”
I took off down the hall before she could argue. I was almost running, past the nurse’s station, past the supply closets where I used to play hide-and-seek when I was a kid. The doors to the service elevator opened, and one of the volunteers pushed a gurney onto the floor. As the doors were closing, I slipped inside.
I don’t remember leaving the parking garage, or merging onto the freeway, or stopping at any of the lights on El Camino. I just know that about an hour and a half later, I pulled in front of the dorm and parked my Bronco. My stomach growled—I hadn’t eaten all day—but I couldn’t go to the dining hall, or the library, or up to my room. So I crawled into the back seat, pulled my knees to my chest, and fell asleep.
Garrett found me a few hours later. In typical Garrett fashion, he thought it was hilarious, and told everyone where I was. I didn’t even have the energy to be pissed at him.
I let him talk while he followed me back to my room. “What are you doing?” he asked.
“I’ve got a lot of homework.”
“It can wait. You got the text. We’re meeting in the Duke’s room. Emergency summit.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Did you lose your phone? Check your messages.”
I’d turned it off at the hospital, and wasn’t ready to deal with whatever I might have missed. So I kept it in my pocket and followed Garrett to the Duke’s room. He had a private room, at the end of the hall, with a small leather couch and a mini-fridge in the corner. Tomas and Jason were already there, playing Xbox. The Duke was lying on his stomach on his bed, talking on his phone—to a girl, I’d guess, based on what I was hearing. Garrett shut the door and took the Duke’s desk chair, but I stayed where I was, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
“Listen, love, I gotta go. Find me tomorrow, okay?” The Duke put his phone down and sat up. For the first time since the party, I got a look at him. His lip was cut and swollen, and there was a nasty bruise on his cheek. He had his sunglasses on, so he probably had a black eye, too.
“Get a good look, mate?”
“Did Blake do that?” I asked.
“Don’t act like you don’t know,” Garrett said.
“I didn’t. I mean, I figured he would. It’s kind of the natural reaction when you find out some guy is messing around with your girlfriend, but—”
“I couldn’t care less about Blake and Abby,” the Duke said, grabbing the remote from his desk and turning off the TV. “We need to talk about this thing with Rick.”
“What happened to him?” I asked.
Tomas rolled his eyes. “Did you hit your head? How can you not know about this?”
“Because I’m not a girl who sits around gossiping while my nail polish is drying.”
Tomas flipped me off. Jason sighed. “Nobody knows exactly, but someone tipped off the administration. They searched his room. Brought the cops in and everything. He was hauled away in handcuffs. The rest is speculation.”
“Exactly,” the Duke said. “We all know what Rick can say. And I guarantee this, if he thinks it will buy him an ounce of leniency, Rick won’t hesitate to rat us all out. Which is why it’s important we all have our stories straight.”
“Why?” I asked. “If he talks we’re screwed.”
The Duke shook his head. “Not necessarily. They want to believe us. We’re the poster boys for this place. They don’t want to expel us. And they won’t, if it’s just Rick’s word against ours. Especially if we stick together.”
“So what do we say?” Garrett asked.
The rest of the guys looked at the Duke, waiting for the answers, waiting for him to fix everything. They still didn’t get it.
He couldn’t protect us. He couldn’t choose who he hurt. He wasn’t God, in spite of the fact that they treated him like one. The Duke was just a kid.
“As little as possible,” the Duke replied. “If they call any of us in, we deny it. We never broke curfew. Never broke any of the rules. We study and we work on our debate cases. When we need to blow off steam, we order pizza and play Xbox and watc
h movies. Everything they want to believe about us and nothing they don’t. Understand?”
The guys were all staring at the carpet, but they nodded. After everything, they still trusted the Duke. They still believed in him. Still wanted his approval.
But I didn’t. And I wondered why I ever had.
Satisfied, the Duke stood and opened the mini-fridge under his window. “Anyone want a Coke?”
“Don’t you have anything stronger?” Tomas asked.
The Duke shook his head. “Later. Until this blows over, I’m a Boy Scout.”
They all laughed. I pushed myself off the wall. “I’ve got homework. We done?”
The Duke walked over and opened the door for me, patting my shoulder. “Sure, mate. We’ll talk more tomorrow, okay?”
I walked back to my room without answering.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
THE NEXT DAY, IN THE middle of American lit, I got the call. Report to the dean’s office. As I gathered my stuff and walked out of the classroom, Tomas gave me a thumbs-up. If it was supposed to reassure me, it didn’t work.
When I opened the door to the office, there were two men seated, sharing drinks in crystal glasses. Neither stood. The dean sat behind a huge, dark wood desk. His monitor was turned so we could all see it. On the screen was my school photo and a record of every time I’d checked in and out of the dorm, as well as my last report card and progress report.
The dean pointed at the armchair next to the other man. I sat.
“Mr. McKay,” the dean said. “We have a few questions to ask you.” He took a sip of brownish liquid. It was ten-thirty in the morning. Wasn’t it a little early for that?
The dean pointed at the man sitting next to me. He was wearing a dark suit and leaning back in his chair, one leg casually crossed over the other. “This is Stan Shackleford. He’s the school’s attorney.”
I pressed my lips into a thin line and nodded. I’d watched enough legal dramas on TV to know to keep my mouth shut, unless they asked me a question.
Stan smiled at me. “I understand you’re a Policy Debater. I was, too. Went to State my senior year. I still remember most of our affirmative case. Topic was prison overcrowding.”