Between These Lines (A Young Adult Novel)

by Murgia, Jennifer

  Aunt Claudie forgot to pack me a lunch today, which was fine. For some reason my appetite seems to have been nonexistent since the party. I decided to spend the lunch hour on The Green. For October it was unusually mild and I needed the fresh air to clear my head. My hands still hurt from the burns but I peeled the gauze from them hoping the air would help dry the blisters. I pulled the papers from my pocket. Not one page, but three, fell out of my locker today.

  October 14th

  Today I found out two things: 1) Shane used me, and 2) I’m falling for Chase.

  October 15th

  You know the saying ‘you can’t see the forest for the trees’? That explains the past few months being Shane Whitley’s girlfriend, and the day I became his girlfriend is a day I wish

  I could take back.

  I finally know that it wasn’t because he liked me that we ended up together. It was because I was just another thing for him to have. It was always about Shane - never about me, or more importantly, us. I finally see that.

  Chase, on the other hand, remains a mystery. A perfect one, maybe. Hiding behind those eyes. It’s his quietness that caught me, even though everyone else said he was strange.

  I think he’s cautious. He has good reason to be. It’s amazing when life smacks you over the head, isn’t it? I finally know that my life with Shane was a lie – and Chase Mitman just might be a miracle.

  The last one spread chills across my skin.

  October 16th

  Please God, please let Chase be safe tonight. Shane might do something horrible. And I might not be able to do anything about it.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Friday

  It’s been a week. I wonder if that explains why I feel so off this morning. I woke a million times last night feeling like I was hallucinating. I dreamt of fire, but it was cold, and I heard my parents calling for me. Most days I can barely remember their faces.

  When I awoke this morning, after finally drifting into a deep, strange sleep, I felt sick enough to consider skipping today, but I couldn’t bring myself to miss out on finding another page from Evie’s diary.

  I decided to beat the system, and kept my belongings in my backpack rather than my locker.

  I didn’t want to see anything disappear, like my English folder, so it seemed better just to leave my locker empty. The hallway was unusually crowded as I made my way down the science wing. My head still felt fuzzy, but I kept moving. A bad feeling brewed in the pit of my stomach that I couldn’t put my finger on since getting dressed, and I forced my legs to move faster.

  I am a freak. I had become dependent on finding a way to be with Evie every day in my locker.

  The dial turned and stopped. Jammed.

  Dammit, no!

  I stared, waiting for it to come to life and spring open on its own. This couldn’t be happening.

  I looked over my shoulder and cringed, knowing I’d be late for Mr. Generro’s class. This would earn me at least three pink slips today, but as far as I could see, there was no other way around it. I pounded on the door just above the lock, testing it. Then, backing up, I placed a good distance between myself and the metal, and, at full speed across the width of the hall, I hurled myself forward, jumped, and forced my foot into the lever. My breathing felt labored, heavy, and I closed my eyes as the strange feeling washed over me again, making me dizzy. By the time

  I opened them I was amazed no one had heard—even more amazing, my locker door was wide open, without a single dent.

  The inside of the door was empty, and I panicked.

  I probably knocked it off with my super ninja skills.

  Then I saw the crisp paper lying at the bottom, folded perfectly into a precise two inch square. The same feeling that gripped me earlier came again, but I shrugged it off as I stared down at the paper, suddenly nervous to reach down and pick it up.

  But I did.

  I opened it.

  I stared at the date, knowing it couldn’t be right. This was a mistake. It had to be.

  Evie’s handwriting was the printed across the top, just like it had been on all the others. The same writing, the same type of journal paper, only the date couldn’t be right.

  October 17th

  Forgive me. I am so sorry. It was all a mistake, bringing you into this. Everything was a mistake except for how I still feel about you.

  I stopped reading for a second. How she still felt about me? I looked at the date again.

  Oh, my God, Chase – I can’t believe what’s happened. I don’t remember how I made it home.

  She made it home? My hands were shook so much I could barely hold the paper steady. My mind flashed to lunch and for the briefest, most impossible stretch of seconds, I let myself believe what couldn’t possibly be.

  The date proved it.

  This was written the day after the party.

  I leaned against the lockers to steady myself, suddenly coping with the endless stream of questions that pounded my brain—questions I was certain could never be viable. Baffled. Elated. You name it, I felt it. I folded the paper back into the perfect square it had been when it was still lying innocently at the bottom of my locker and headed home, searching for Evie the entire way.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Monday

  I stared at my phone and willed it to chime. My thumbs had punched at least twenty texts to Evie over the weekend, but nothing came back. Maybe her phone had been damaged by the fire. Maybe her parents were home for once, finding good reason to enjoy their daughter after her close brush with death. Regardless, my phone was in my pocket, just in case, keeping company with each diary entry I had collected this past week.

  A hollow metallic echo sounded throughout the corridor as I made my way to Mr. Generro’s class. As I approached, the noise ceased, replaced by the jingling of a master set of keys. A small group of men in dark blue jackets huddled around the section near Evie’s locker, and I eyed them with curiosity.

  “What are they looking for?” Someone asked in the small crowd that had formed behind me.

  “Everyone to the auditorium please, you may go to your lockers in a moment.” Headmaster Whitley ushered the students away from the area, his face pale and sweaty. I wondered if this had anything to do with our original arrangement. The one I thought he had decided against.

  I stayed put, however, and watched from behind the bend in the hall as the men worked away at the lock. The metal hinge on Evie’s locker snapped off easily, allowing the door to swing wide open. Inside were her belongings: a rainbow of notebooks stacked neatly on the top shelf, text books towered on the bottom, a bag of gym clothes. Her coat still hung on the hook. I stared with disbelief at the contents—my head reeling, my stomach feeling punched as it all came rushing back: Evie, her life, the things she owned, the things she touched. It’s been a week since the party. How could her locker still be so—normal?

  “Have you found it?” Headmaster Whitley stood tense as the men continued their search.

  “Got it.” The man whose arm was deep inside Evie’s locker motioned to the stack of books, and reached behind, pulling into view a white envelope, and my pulse raced as I relived the moment Shane dropped it between the slats. With a gloved hand the man placed it into a plastic evidence bag. “It should match the prints from the folder taken at the house.”

  My stomach dropped. My finger prints were all over that folder. I was the one who had delivered it to the party. My blood ran cold as I thought of how ruthless Shane could be, but I didn’t mess up. I went through with the deal. He had no reason to follow through with his threat. I began talking myself into all the rational avenues this investigation could take. There were three sets of prints on that manila folder: Ty’s, mine and Shane’s. The men had it wrong, mine were never on the envelope that had just been lifted from Evie’s locker.

  “Is there anyone we should question, Mr. Whitley?” the blue-jacketed man asked.

  “No. We have a statement from my nephew, and oth
er boy’s locker has been cleared.”

  The man in the jacket checked a clipboard, paused, then looked up, “And the other boy? Chase Mitman. He’s no longer a student here?”

  My heart stammered. I looked at Headmaster Whitley, panicking as I waited for him to explain that this was a terrible mistake, but he remained composed as he gave a short nod.

  The only thing I could think of was Shane’s final word to have me expelled. Somehow, he had found a way to take me down with him. I wiped the perspiration beading beneath my hair and slowly backed away, determined not to have Headmaster Whitley turn around and find me eavesdropping. I had to get to my locker before he pulled me into his office. I had to find one more note from Evie.

  But when I opened my locker it stood completely empty. There was no note.

  In a way, part of me was relieved to be spared the agony of reading one more page. But I wasn’t expecting the disappointment that hit my stomach. No one asked me if it could end here. There was no notice shoved in my locker, giving me the heads up that my subscription to Evie’s diary was about to expire, no chance for renewal.

  Done. Zip.

  And now I was about to be thrown out of school for something I didn’t do.

  I stood in front of the empty locker and closed my eyes. I had felt closer to Evie this last week because of those little papers. These pages ripped from her journal, left for me, helped ease the pain from that awful night. I felt the phone in my pocket. It was still silent. Maybe this was a sick joke after all. The date on yesterday’s entry had to be a mistake. It had to be. Nothing else would explain why she still hadn’t texted me, called me, anything . . . except that Evie died in the boathouse at the party. And part of me died with her.

  I closed the door and pressed my forehead to it, never hearing the soft approach of footsteps behind me until they stopped right behind my back. My fists balled as I drew in the deep breath that would help me pivot around. I turned, just as the slender hand holding the cream paper with lavender lines swept past my eyes, and I watched as the note disappeared between the slats with a gentle, almost reluctant, push.

  Desperate to stop this repetitious torture of reading the past, I reached out for the paper, my hand brushing against the hand holding it . . .

  . . . and passing weightlessly through . . .

  Stunned, I stared at Evie only she looked back at me strangely—looked through me, with sad eyes that stared at the locker behind me.

  “Evie,” I whispered softly. “You’re okay.” My hand reached out to touch her cheek as a tear escaped the corner of her eye and began its decent. My thumb moved to swipe it away. I needed to feel her skin. I needed to tell her how I felt, how much she meant to me. Only my thumb hovered strangely over her skin as if a barrier were guarding her against my touch, and then she turned and my hand collided with the side of her face, skin overlapping skin, moving through it. She turned and walked away, never saying anything back, never pausing long enough for my heart to give her what it wanted—as if it never happened.

  Evie.

  I was torn between running after her and standing dumbfounded. I held my hands out in front of me and turned them over, touching them—pressing them onto any surface I could find to prove to myself I hadn’t just flipped from being normal to being absolutely insane.

  Mr. Floyd approached from the opposite end of the hall. I ran to him and stopped short, waiting for the reprimand that I rushed too quickly through the hall. He said nothing. He didn’t urge me to join the others in the auditorium. He didn’t suggest I move along to class at a pace that was more appropriate.

  He walked right past me.

  He didn’t even see me.

  I stared after him, my heart in my throat, a scream building in my chest. No, no, no . . . I wandered the hall, searching for Evie, hoping she would somehow explain what was going on, as disbelief’s heavy hand struck me again and again. I touched everything and watched my hand repeatedly slip right through objects I was sure I would feel. Panic settled in as I began to rush up to other students now filing out of the auditorium, trying to get their attention, trying to poke them, grab them—but every attempt failed miserably.

  Desperate, I ran back toward the Science wing, back to the safety of my locker and found myself standing in front of it, wondering if I would be able to feel the dial and turn it. I stretched my hand out in front of me and watched it hover over the black disk as I closed my hand around it.

  The dial swept clear through my hand.

  The note Evie had just brought was on the other side of the metal door and the deep pull to reach in and get it was unbearable. I tried again and again to fumble with the dial, the lock, anything that would let me open my locker. I failed miserably each and every time. Exhausted, I slumped to the floor. Somehow, I knew what was written on that piece of paper, as if I were holding it in front of my face.

  Evie’s words were as clear as day to me. Even now, as the hallway faded, I pictured every word she had ever written for me. I let them weave throughout my head, knowing they were more than just words. They were little gifts no one had ever been allowed to see. Pieces of her flowed between them, winding in and out of the truth she put down on the creamy paper. They were clear to me because she let me see what was between them, let me see the secrets the words held, no longer invisible like me.

  Chapter Forty

  Evie

  “Is it Friday yet?” Tara bit the polish off her nails and spit the bits of color out of her mouth, letting them scatter to the ground like confetti.

  “Nope, it’s Tuesday.” I let the papers I’d been looking through rest in my lap. It was actually nice out today, perfect for our free period, and we were sitting on our sweaters beneath the trees on The Green, enjoying the tiny patch of grass between the two buildings that made up our school.

  She exhaled a huge breath and flopped herself back flat on the grass. “I swear the clocks in this school are rigged.”

  I barely paid attention to Tara, and instead, found myself staring across at the breezeway, as if expecting someone to walk through it. Expecting him. Knowing I’d never see the flip of hair, never see the comforting chocolate eyes that stared into me like no one else had.

  “Evie,” she whispered.

  “I can’t talk about it yet. Please don’t try.”

  Since the party Tara had changed, as if the cruel sarcastic Tara sloughed away leaving a softer, tender one behind. She nodded, giving me space. I had said my goodbyes the only way I knew how, and now, there was one more thing to do, and it was killing me.

  When enough silence had passed for her liking she exhaled a long breath and sat up. “Think it’ll be the same around here?”

  I didn’t answer. It’ll never be the same.

  “He’ll probably come back.” Tara’s voice was cautious.

  That’s impossible, I thought, but then I realized she was talking about Shane. I looked at her and didn’t quite know what to make of the look in her eyes. She was sorry. She didn’t have to actually come out and say it, but I could tell. She was sorry for what she knew, for what she’d covered up—for everything. Her gaze dipped to her hands, which rested uncomfortably in her lap. “I hope he doesn’t come back for a long time.”

  It didn’t matter if he did. Things were different now. I was different now.

  Tara rifled through her bag then brushed something against my arm. “It’s today’s.”

  I gingerly took the newspaper from her and read the headline to myself. I’d expected to see Chase’s picture, expected the horrific timeline of the other night in detail—the prank exposed, the loss—feeling more responsible than anyone gave me credit for, but Shane’s yearbook picture stared back at me, not Chase’s. I scanned the article then looked up at Tara.

  “He was arrested this morning.” Her voice was a tiny earthquake. “Conspiracy. Drug charges. Malicious intent. . . and rape.”

  My face paled.

  Nervous, I skimmed the story again. There it was, in bla
ck and white: the proof. The true account of Shane’s dark soul. And to my relief, there was no mention of the girl Shane had assaulted. No name. No indication at all. No minor, cryptic reference to me or that night in the kitchen.

  “How?” I looked up, studying Tara’s face for a clue.

  “The party. I was drunk. I never said yes to him.” Awkward silence ensued. “And neither did you.”

  Without realizing it, my hand found its way up to my cheek. “But I never told you he . . . hurt me like that.”

  “You didn’t have to.”

  I rose to my feet, wiped the grass off my skirt, and tugged at the tops of my knee socks.

  “Uniforms are pretty lame, aren’t they?” Tara mumbled. I knew her well enough that she wanted to say a whole lot more on the subject, but was holding back because of me.

  “Pretty much.”

  “I still wish it was Friday.”

  We grabbed our bags and headed toward the main building together. “Don’t worry, you’ll get to wear those new jeans soon enough.”

  “I’m not patient.”

  “You never were.”

  “Still can’t believe Headmaster Whitley’s letting us wear our own clothes every Friday. But it’s cool.”

  I watched as she shook her head, trying not to look too excited. Mr. Floyd had convinced the Board that while we were still a unified group of peers, it was best to let us show our differences every once in a while.

  “Oh, before I forget,” Tara reached into her messenger bag and pulled out a shiny clear folder, then handed it to me.

  Surprised, I took it from her, watching how her eager face waited for me to say something.

  “Since when do you type papers?”

  “Yeah, well, I figured I had to try it sometime. It’s for you. It’s the Sylvia Plath paper. Don’t look too closely at the timeline. I’m not good at charts and graphs yet.”