by Ryan Schow
“Kinda hard to get lady wood over someone who looks like family,” Victoria says. This is the kind of joke that would normally have us in fits, but Victoria barely gets a smile.
“And what are the freaking odds of you going to her grave?”
I’ve been wondering about that all night. It sort of gives me the creeps, how I got to this point in my investigation. How of all the people…
The knock on the door brings the conversation to a halt. I let Brayden in a moment later. He sees us all and says, “Pajama party?” like he’s dying for a yes, but I tell him no one’s in the mood. He looks like he doesn’t know what to say so he shrugs his shoulders and clams right up.
“Me and Brayden have some homework to do,” I say. “I’ll see you in the morning?”
The girls say good-night, even though the conversation isn’t quite done, which leaves me and Brayden all alone.
“So,” I tell him, giving my best smile, “I need you to break into the Placer County Sheriff’s Department and get me whatever you can find on an unsolved murder investigation.”
Behold, the Dead Girl…
1
Brayden lights up like a spotlight the minute I mention hacking the local Sheriff’s Department. I tell him what I want and he sits down and goes to work. His fingers fly across the keyboard. He hardly even blinks. For nearly fifteen minutes he sits like a zombie in front of the computer, his fingers blazing. It’s like his soul has vacated his body to become the ghost in the machine.
In the bathroom I get ready for bed. Off come the clothes, on come a pair of oversized girl boxers I sometimes sleep in and a long nightshirt. The bra stays on, and—of course—so does the makeup. There’s no sense in Brayden seeing the real me when it’s far less appealing than the made-up me.
From the other room comes a strained sigh and some curse words. Then more typing. I brush my teeth, floss, check and recheck my hair, then finally sit down next to him. Something in his expression changes and I can tell he’s back.
“I think it might be easier to hack the FBI.”
“Really?”
“No. I just thought it would be easier. I found a server with an encryption key, but the FBI apparently shut down that server so I found another, finally, and grabbed it.”
“That’s good?”
“I’m downloading the file to your hard drive now.” I shoot him a look. He takes a deep breath, blows it out, then says, “Basically the department runs advanced encryption software so its files, even if hacked, can’t be read unless you have the key that unlocks the software’s coding. I already have the files, but without the encryption key it’s just a bunch of letters, numbers and symbols that make no sense. With all the fear about cyber attacks, software companies all over the country are going balls deep when it comes to cyber security. They’re going way overboard and, of course, this means less available keys. Anyway, I finally found the key I needed, but it’s going to be about five or ten minutes. We have to wait.”
“Oh.” My insides sag with disappointment, the weight of the day finally bearing down upon me. Did I really think Brayden would just log in like he did with the school’s system and then leave? I guess I did. “So now what?”
“Now you tell me about you. What defines you, and don’t say your tragedies because teenage angst gives me a big softy.”
“What if I am defined by my tragedies?”
“Then that makes you boring.”
How do I respond to that? Truthfully, I am defined by my tragedies. Margaret, the press, my pitiful looks, the teasing over the years, the disappointment of being Atticus Van Duyn’s not-adopted daughter—this is what makes me me. “I guess I am boring because really, teenage angst is all I have.”
“Yeah,” he says, quieter, like he’s thinking about himself now, “isn’t that all any of us have?”
“So what defines you?” I challenge, not really into this conversation and ready to pass the baton back to him. “And don’t tell me the world is at your beck and call, and life is just grand or I swear I’ll tear my own ears off not to hear it. And I like my ears.”
“Sure thing,” he says. “But I asked you first.”
Damn. “Okay,” I finally say. “My looks shouldn’t define me, but it seems the minute people see me, they want nothing to do with me. It’s like they feel sorry for me, but only at a distance, you know?”
He flips his fine, shiny mop of a hairdo to the side, but only because it’s in his eyes. It’s not sexy or attractive. Part of me wants to introduce him to hair gel, or shaping wax, but part of me suspects maybe he’ll look even worse, so I say nothing.
“People say I look like a butt-ugly Peter Parker. Like Tobey Maguire’s retarded younger brother.”
“That’s what I first thought,” I admit. His face remains blank. “You want to know what people call me?”
“Besides a disgusting pig?”
I laugh, not because it’s funny or even painful to hear, but because it’s true. “Last year at my old school, this girl I don’t even know posted on Facebook that I look like a dumpster mutt. I still don’t know what provoked her. But that name started a bottomless thread of cruelty that had me avoiding Facebook for like six months. These names I could handle, but in eighth grade they got worse. When I was ten I had a bicycle accident that left my face with scars. The teasing that I suffered before was nothing compared to the level some people took it to.”
Brayden’s eyes search my face, trying to find the scars, not finding them, looking again. If it was anyone else, I wouldn’t want the attention, but the truth is, I don’t think he’ll care one way or the other if he sees them. He might even think of me as more human. At least, I hope he’s that way.
“Margaret bought me a great concealer, but for a year my nickname was Al. Everywhere I went people would say, ‘What’s up Al?’ or ‘Where’s your little friend, Al?’”
“Who’s Al?”
“You know, Al Pacino from Scarface? ‘Say hello to my little friend!’ I hate that gosh damn name.”
“I want to see.”
I turn away, considering it. No freaking way.
“I have scars, too,” he says. Standing up, he slowly turns around, hesitates, then lifts his shirt and all over his pale, skinny back are tissue nicks, and longer white streaks. It looks like a splatter painting on his skin, except he experienced violence rather than artful acrylics. Turning back around, he has them on his stomach as well. “Seventh grade was hell. These idiots used to tease me, like really bad. They made fun of my looks, calling me the kind of names I still can’t repeat.”
I can see the memories flooding back, the humiliation encroaching. It’s reminiscent of my own taunting, minus the physical violence.
“They used to throw rocks at me.” Smiling through the pain, he says, “You know me, I give what I get, so I turned around and threw one of the rocks back at them. It hit this one kid in the face and that really set them off. There were four of them, these four dickheads from a rival junior high school. They held me down, started punching and kicking me, but then one of them said the belt would be better.”
As Brayden recounts the story, I watch the emotions trek through his eyes, his features, his now trembling hands. He has that faraway look.
“I tried to get away, but they were too strong. They ripped my shirt off me and started whipping my back, first with leather, then with buckles. The one I hit in the face with the rock, he was bleeding, so he said I’d bleed, too. They rolled me over, pinned my arms and legs down, then whipped my chest and stomach repeatedly. I passed out from the pain, but then woke back up when…when…”
I am afraid for him, for what he is about to say next. There’s not a nurturing bone in my body, and I don’t know anything about showing affection, but I want to hold Brayden, to not leave him alone with the burden of these terrible memories. The next thing I know I’m taking him into my arms, pulling him close. He stiffens, then relaxes. His insides are shivering and a tear skims his cheek.
“All four of them were pissing on me,” he says into my ear, still sounding caught in the memory. “They were pissing in my cuts. Pissing all over my face.”
He finally cracks under the revelation and I stand amazed at how he went from this great, witty kid with what I thought was an even disposition about life, to this. His arms come around my waist, hugging me lightly, as he surrenders to his emotions.
After a moment he pulls away, wipes his eyes and says, “How’s that for defining yourself by your tragedies?”
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I say. “I really am.”
He looks at the computer, then at me, and he says, “It’s done.” He says, “What’s your dead girl’s name?” I spell it for him. He wipes his eyes, types it in, then: “Here it is.”
“Print what you have,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
I’m still hurting for him inside, thinking about his story, the terror of it, the humiliation. In the mirror I take off my makeup, all of it. The patchwork of scars against my mocha colored cheek are hideous. I slip off my bra, realizing it’s no longer necessary. After what he told me, I trust him.
God, am I actually doing this?
Before chickening out, I walk back out into my room where Brayden is pulling the police report off the printer. He staples the pages, then looks up and sees my face. His reaction is not what I expect. He stands, face to face with me, and touches the scars. He cradles my face, and I can see him processing the mess. Perhaps knowing what this meant for me. How it effected me. When he hugs me it is a moment of tenderness I’ve never experienced. Margaret could never be like this. Not even my father. With Brayden, however, I don’t want to let go. In him, there are walls and wreckage, things that are broken and lost, things I can relate to. Perhaps this is why I lowered my guard. Why I trust him.
After a long moment he says, “I don’t want to let go. You’re boobs feel so good.”
He laughs and I push him off.
“Okay, pervert.”
“Hey, I’m a male, right?” We kind of look at each other and he says, “The hug was real, my crack about your boobs, that was…real, too, but not as real as my hug.”
“It’s okay,” I say. “Jerk.”
“Tell me about your scars,” he says. “How you got them.”
We sit down on my bed, me holding the murder report but not really looking at it. Mostly it’s a distraction from my feelings, my inner turmoil.
“I got my first real bicycle when I was nine, or ten. Margaret—my mother—didn’t want me riding it because I fell and skinned my knee. She said riding bikes was dangerous. Anyway, she was always trying to get me off it, but I kept riding away from her and it pissed her off. One day, when I was cruising down a nearby hill trying for the first time to ride with no hands, my front wheel started to wobble and the next thing I knew the bike shot sideways and I went down. It was like skidding across broken glass. Margaret never forgave me. The first thing she tried to do was take me to her plastic surgeon for a consultation. My father said no. He told her my skin would heal, but if it didn’t, the decision for plastic surgery would be mine, when I was eighteen. On the way home from the hospital she left my bike at a nearby hospice. That was the first time I said I hated her.”
“She was upset at you for…falling?”
“For ruining what was already an embarrassment of a face. She still stares at my cheek, even with my concealer on, and wonders out loud if the imperfections can ever be remedied.”
“Your mom kinda sounds like a—”
I know exactly what he wants to say and I am in complete agreement. “Yeah, she is. Last year, during a particularly spectacular fight, she said, ‘Looks like I’ll have to be beautiful enough for the both of us. At least until your father lets you go under the knife, in which case I have a long list of improvements we can make, starting with those hideous scars. And that nose.’ That’s how I learned Margaret hates my nose. At least with my breasts I can pad my bras. But my nose? What the hell am I supposed to do about that?”
“You pad your bras?”
Suddenly I realize my slip and this has me blistering with embarrassment. Margaret made such a huge deal about my lopsided breasts I just got used to talking openly about them. Now I’ve gone and said something I can’t take back.
“I won’t say anything,” he says, not teasing. “A lot of girls do it.”
“I stuff just one side,” I admit, my face inflamed. “Didn’t you see the pictures? In The Enquirer?”
“Yeah, but I thought…well…I don’t know what I thought. Are they really that bad?” He was trying not to look at them, but twice he inadvertently glanced down, curious.
I thought about his scarred back and chest, about his vulnerability, and how he had done something I never expected a boy his age to do, and that was be honest about his pain. His gesture was too profound for words, something special between us. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not in love or anything, I’m just used to being hurt by boys. You know, rejected and ignored. But Brayden seems different. To steal his description, he seems human.
Slowly—and I don’t know why I am doing this, but I’m telling myself to just trust—I lift my shirt and reveal my bare breasts. His sharp intake of breath startles me, but the look on his face isn’t disgust. Only a boy could gaze at a pair of Frankenstein tits and sport such a satisfied expression. I look down at them and…what the hell? What happened to my breasts?
2
I pull my shirt down, hurry to the bathroom mirror and look at them again. They’re…almost twins. My nipples are practically the same size. Brayden comes in the bathroom and I pull my shirt down again.
“You have to go,” I tell him, panicked.
“But—”
“Now, Brayden!”
On the way out he says, “For the record, they look amazing. Nothing like The Enquirer picture.”
When he’s gone I lock the door and hurry back to the bathroom mirror. I pull off my shirt and he’s right: they look incredible. I swing sideways and my swollen gut has shrunken significantly, too. It’s not flat, but it’s nearly gone! And my boobs aren’t so floppy anymore. Certainly not so sad. I won’t go so far as to say they’re perky, because they’re not, but they don’t hang so low anymore. Which is impossible. What amazes me most, though, is how my nipples are nearly identical. When did I last look at them? A month ago? Five days?
When you have as ugly of a body as me, you don’t look at it. You look around it, you hide it, you never want to see it because how it looks leaves you so depressed you don’t know what to do but suffer. And hate.
Suddenly the idea that Gerhard’s shots are going to heal me becomes plausible. My skin being a little darker was nothing to be excited about. I can tan like anyone else. And the Alaska birthmark is amazing, for sure, but not like this. To fix something that has been so wrong with me for so long, truly the core of my defining tragedies, and in such a short amount of time…who would’ve guessed?!
I’m too excited to sleep, which is actually okay, but the pain I expected to hit about nine-thirty or ten doesn’t come. About twelve-thirty, or somewhere near there, I fall asleep. Then at four I’m ripped from my sleep by such immense physical agony I feel like I’m being torn in two from the inside out. I grab my pills, shake four out just in case.
My tolerance for pain, my threshold, has increased measurably to the point where I believe I can tolerate more than most people. My logic is this: the more pain I endure, the greater its intensity, the less all the misery around me actually affects me. If I can take more pain like this, then everything horrible I experience during the day will pale in comparison. One day, when my tolerance for suffering is high enough, no one will ever hurt me again. At least, that’s the crazy thought that holds my head hostage at the moment. Jake, Professor Teller, would call this a defense mechanism. Or would it be a coping mechanism? Either way, I’m pretty sure it will work.
For two more hours, I ride the pain’s crest, crying
and huffing, my pills always at my side, always in reach. My bones ache. My muscles are stepped-on spaghetti. Even my organs are so upset they feel collapsed, cancerous, infectious. Lying on damp sheets with the blankets thrown off the bed, I sweat through my clothes, moaning. Finally I think, this is stupid, so I take the pills and within a few minutes the pain subsides. Falling asleep becomes easy. It’s waking up an hour later that nearly kills me.
Dear, sweet Jesus, I’m freaking exhausted!
I shower, shave my legs and get ready for the day, spending a good ten minutes in front of the mirror looking at my new body. Not only is gravity having less of an effect on my chest, my butt is now getting smaller, firmer, less soggy-looking. Part of me wonders how much of this is from the shots and how much is from the treadmill and the new diet.
Gerhard’s shots are most definitely playing a huge role in how I look, but the diet and the exercise must be working, too. Speeding progress along. Never-the-less, I feel terrific studying myself. I’m still not hot—not by a mile—but I’m not so shitty looking either.
With my backpack slung over my shoulder, I’m halfway out the door when I remember the police report. I head back inside, stuff the report in my backpack and walk to the cafeteria to meet the girls for breakfast, not realizing the trouble I’m about to get into.
3
The note from Headmistress Klein comes for me during first period. Apparently I’m supposed to leave class right away. I expect someone to say, “Busted!” but no one does. My leaving seems to have no affect on anyone.
Shocker…
In the Headmistress’s office, I see Cameron, Julie and Bridget. Me and Bridget smile at each other, but our smiles are weak because we know what this is about. Cameron has a huge red mark across her face where Bridget assaulted her, and a black eye from subsequent punches to her nose. Julie no doubt has her own injury, though I can’t see anything obvious.