Wrong, Jayce. Always wrong.
Yesterday I’d wrestled down my brushed-off feelings and headed to Jake’s urbex location in Columbus on my own, only to end up getting pulled over. Well, not really “pulled over” as I jerk-skidded into the breakdown lane when I saw the flashing red-and-blue lights…before careening down the hill. I remembered the scream-swears and my chest going so tight. I remembered thinking that my car was about to flip or smack into a tree—and how, at the same time, I’d sort of wanted it to.
Dr. Donaldson sat forward, clasping his lanky fingers together. “We know there have been instances of danger in Jaycee’s recent life. Situations that she has sought out—”
“I’m not suicidal!”
He acted as though I hadn’t said a word. I suspected that he didn’t like me, which meant that my mom had been badmouthing me—or that they were sleeping together, an idea that seemed more likely every time I was here. He continued. “I want us to try to see beyond. What are the good things that Jaycee has to look forward to in her life?”
“Hemorrhoids,” I said. “Oh, I know. Becoming the old lady who works in the bookstore and scares the undergrads!”
My dad ignored me as well. They always ignored me when Dr. Donaldson was in the room. “Well, she did hang out with her old best friend, Natalie, after graduation. And oh, Jaycee went on a date with Ryan Mikivikious a few weeks ago.” He beamed.
My hand twitched toward my cell phone. I’d heard nothing since Mik drove off in Moonville. There had been no response to the apology-excuse I’d texted to him. Not even another empty message bubble. My fingers curled tightly around my cell, and I imagined the glass cracking and going to crystal splinters in my hand.
“No phones, JC,” Dr. Donaldson said in that passive-aggressive way he had of abbreviating my name.
“Jaycee.” I highlighted the flow of the word with a wave of my hand. “Six letters, not two. It’s not nice to cut someone’s name short, Dr. Donald.”
He nodded, strangling me in his thoughts, no doubt. “And who is Ryan Mikivikious?”
“A nice boy,” my mom said through a sigh. “He’s had a crush on Jaycee since they were both playing with LEGOs. It’s sweet.”
“He has not!” I said. “Mik was Jake’s best friend when we were kids.” Considering the fact that my mom was at Stanwood because of Jake, I was always annoyed by how little my brother came up in conversation. The phrase avoided like the plague sprung to mind. “Besides, it was not a date.”
Shame rained down my face, making my whole expression dampen. I glanced at my phone, praying for a message from Mik. Something to prove that he understood.
“JC…”
“I’m checking the time.” I turned the phone to show Dr. Donaldson the screen. “And look at that. It’s up.” I stood, and my mom pulled me back onto the couch, hip to hip. She held on to me, and I let her. It was the best I could do.
“I don’t like Natalie,” my mom said, surprising me. “She was not there for you when she should have been.”
No shit.
“She didn’t know what to do, Mom. What to say,” I added, somewhat shocked that I was defending Natalie. “No one does. There’re only two kinds of people. Those who saw Jake crack his neck”—I looked over the blank faces of my parents—“and those who didn’t.” I swallowed hard. “Natalie didn’t see. She doesn’t get it. End of story.”
“You don’t think we ‘get it’?” my mom asked, her words sparking with something I referred to as Dead Son Momma Rage, which would be a really sweet band name, come to think of it. “You’re telling me that I don’t understand?”
“It’s time to go,” my dad said, standing up. “Jaycee has to get to work.”
My mom let go of me with something like a mild shove. I managed not to say, Oh yes, Mom, sorry. I forgot that your feelings trump everyone else’s. Instead, I kissed her forehead like she was the kid and I was the parent. It was an arrangement that worked best for us these days. I said nothing to Dr. Donaldson, but as I shut the door, I heard the sound of my mom getting off the couch. Undoubtedly to move a heck of a lot closer to her therapist.
I glanced at my dad. Did he have any idea? Probably not.
In the car, my dad did a bunch of heavy sighing. Pure provoking behavior.
“What?” I finally asked.
My dad held the steering wheel with both hands. The perfect ten and two. “Why wasn’t it a date, Jaycee?”
“With Mik? Because I’m not…you know. I’m too busy.” Yes. That sounded good. I was too busy with this Jake stuff to completely switch directions and head down Happily Ever After Road with Mik. Not too busy, however, to stop thinking about him.
I fiddled with my phone, turned it on and then back off. On. Off. Maybe it was broken. Maybe Dobby had magically stolen all of my friends’ messages. I snorted. Wow, that Harry Potter stuff really gets into your psyche, but isn’t that what kid experiences are supposed to do? Give you a safe way to interpret all the sharp edges of adulthood? Then again, even childhood has a few razors in the sandbox. Hell, poor Dobby got a knife to the chest.
“Jaycee, have you told Ryan that you’re not interested in him?”
“Not in so many words,” I said, thinking of Mik’s face so close to mine in the tunnel. “Keep in mind, he doesn’t talk to me.” I turned in my seat to face my dad straight on. “But he talks to you.”
“Of course he talks to me. I’ve known him since he was learning to talk.”
“Well, so have I. Why won’t he talk to me?”
“Because you make him nervous.” My dad glanced over, his grip slipping on the wheel. “You know you intimidate people, Jayce. You do it on purpose. There are very few of us who know that there’s a lot more going on beneath that cement surface.”
“I’m not cement. I’m a peach,” I said.
“Be a peach to Dr. Donaldson next time. It’ll make your mom happy.”
“Dr. Donaldson makes mom happy,” I muttered.
“What was that?”
I slapped the dashboard. “They’re sleeping together. Don’t you see it?”
“No, I don’t.” His expression hardened. “Don’t be paranoid on your way to being mean.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“You don’t make sense. You press yourself into my business and your mother’s business and then you hide and pretend like you were never there.” His voice sent shock waves through the car, effectively shorting out any comebacks.
I strapped my hair into its ponytail. My mom liked it when I wore it down, so I did that for her. A peach, indeed. Although suddenly, all I could picture was Natalie and her band of lost boys hanging out in a café, making anecdotal jokes about the one weekend they’d spent with Jaycee the sad, off-putting, morbid girl.
When we were back in uptown Athens, my dad pulled up outside the bookstore.
“Jaycee.”
I waited, but he didn’t have anything more than my name. It was accusation, plea, and affection, all rolled into one. “I know, I know,” I said. “I’ll be a peach.”
“I love you, sweetie.” He waited for my mandatory response with his eyebrows slightly raised. Some impatient jerk honked behind us.
“Every time you say I love you like that instead of just saying goodbye, I imagine myself dying. Every single time. It’s like you think I might never come home again, and so I go ahead and imagine that I won’t.”
My dad’s eyes glassed with tears. “Jayce…”
“Never mind. I love you, Dad.”
I got out of the car and raced into the store. I clocked in before slipping behind the stockroom boxes. Why did it always feel like only my honesty was unwelcome? My mom was allowed to act destroyed. My dad was allowed to act peppy, and yet they both treated me like I needed to be…something else.
“Jaycee?” my boss called out from t
he stockroom door. “You back here?”
“Yes,” I croaked, hiding behind a stack of cookbooks.
“Are you all right?”
I heard my dad’s voice like he was trying to take over my thoughts. Say you’re fine. Say that you miss him, but don’t say how much. Don’t make everyone else feel bad. It’s not their fault he’s gone.
So whose fault is it? I argued back. Whichever one of Jake’s brainless friends dared him up there? The guy who built the swing set or hammered down the blacktop? Or hey, how about the jackass who bought him the beer?
“Jaycee?”
“I’m crying, Mrs. Munson. Be done soon, and then I’ll fix the window display.”
Tears leaked down my face while I dug Jake’s map out of my pocket. I spread it out on a box of children’s books. My brother felt close to me through his scribbles. He felt real. Alive. Maybe I could hitchhike to these places. How long would it take to walk to Cleveland?
Don’t even think about it. My dad’s voice was back. If we lost you too, we couldn’t go on.
Oh yeah, right. I forgot. My parents had me and I had them, whether we liked it or not.
I folded up my brother’s map and slipped it in my pocket. Jake wasn’t here, so he couldn’t be disappointing. Couldn’t let me down like everyone else. He got a free pass. Apparently dying was the easiest way to turn into a peach.
Chapter 22
Natalie
Natalie watched Jaycee through the glass front of the bookstore. She was clearly supposed to be setting up books in the case, but instead she was the display: a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, hunched over a text exchange on her phone.
Natalie’s own phone buzzed in her pocket, making her jump and pull it out.
Tell Zach tonight. Time’s up.
She cleared Bishop’s latest message and dropped her phone in her bag, suddenly swearing in a way that would have made Jaycee proud. She walked away from the window and leaned on the brick. Her breath cut in fast, and she pressed her hands over her eyes. Goddamn it, Bishop, she was trying! She’d texted Tyler. Even cornered him on the street. Zach’s brother was avoiding her like it was a game, and Natalie felt toyed with, cat-and-mouse style.
At least Tyler hadn’t sent any more half-naked pictures to Zach—although she knew they were on his phone, lying in wait.
Natalie tried to focus, but her thoughts zoomed to something even worse. The day Jake hit the blacktop like a meteorite. Natalie had run home in the middle of the hysterics and crawled into her bed. When her mother came in and asked if she knew what had happened on the playground, Natalie had said no out of some strange, self-preservation instinct. No, I’ve been here all afternoon. I have a stomachache. The lie had felt so good that she’d made it into a lifeline. Nope, Natalie hadn’t been there. She hadn’t seen. She wasn’t horribly scarred like all those other kids.
Her heart suddenly raced as she stepped forward and knocked on the glass. Jaycee looked up with an intense scowl. “See? That’s your first problem,” Natalie said loudly. “Why is your initial reaction always so hostile?”
“How about my secondary reaction?” Jaycee held up her middle finger.
Natalie ignored it and walked into the store. The clerk behind the counter greeted her and was in the middle of asking Natalie if she needed help finding anything when Jaycee crawled out of the display stage.
“My customer,” Jaycee said. “She’s my Ghost of Christmas Past.”
The clerk smirked, muttered, and walked toward the back.
“How do you get to talk to everyone like that?” Natalie asked.
“It’s a dead brother thing. Everyone feels bad for me.”
“It isn’t,” Natalie said. “You’ve been like this forever. How were we ever compatible?”
“Oh, I have something to show you!” Jaycee ran to the door and held it open. “It’s the exit. Why don’t you use it?”
Natalie leaned on the front counter and checked her nails. Don’t let her get to you. “Bishop wants to go urban hiking again. Zach too.”
“Urban exploring,” Jaycee corrected before pausing to lift an eyebrow. “You did that on purpose. You never mess things up. You trying to rile me, Cheng?”
“I think you came pre-riled today.”
Jaycee’s face twitched with several conflicting emotions. “Well, if you guys were so into it, how come you disappeared for two weeks?”
Natalie had anticipated the anger, but there was more. A twitch on Jaycee’s cheek belied that she was, well, hurt. Unbelievable. Jaycee Strangelove had missed her.
“We were all busy, I guess. Sorry.”
“Whatever. I don’t need you guys.” Jaycee’s hostility was shrinking into an earthworm, tiny and easily squished. Natalie worried she might step on it.
“You know, I didn’t even think you were here. Why isn’t your car out front?”
Jaycee moved behind the counter. “Lost my license,” she mumbled.
“What?”
“I lost my license!” she yelled. “For reckless driving.”
Natalie twisted a finger in her ear. “Well, that was bound to happen, wasn’t it?”
“When you gloat, you look like a toad.”
Natalie glared. “I’m trying to ask if you want to go to another one of the places on your brother’s map, Jayce. With us. So do you?”
“What map?”
Jaycee lied so poorly. Natalie leaned over the counter and snagged the paper sticking out of Jaycee’s pocket.
“Hey! That’s mine! You’ll just mess it all up like last time.”
Natalie unfolded the map and smoothed it down on the counter. “These places in Cleveland will have to be a solid weekend trip, so…” She pointed at Columbus. “There. The Gates of Hell. We’ll go tonight. I’ll drive. Meet at Zach’s house. You text Mik.”
Jaycee took the map back. “No way.”
“Why not? Have you even seen him since you gave him the cold shoulder?”
Jaycee looked up, and anxiety lined each word. “First off, he doesn’t text me, so I’m not going to text him. Secondly, I see him all the time because he’s borderline stalking.” She pointed out the window. “He walks back forth on the green at least twice a day.”
“Eww,” Natalie said. “That’s a problem.”
“It looks like he’s going to Alden Library, but I don’t know what he’d be doing there.”
“Studying?”
“Studying what?” Jaycee asked, and Natalie knew the question wasn’t for her. It was a huge, dangling, who the hell is he kind of question.
“Maybe he’s in college. There’s a strong correlation between selective mutism and high intelligence.”
“Look who’s been googling.”
“Well, it is my superpower.”
Jaycee pulled out her phone. She opened a text conversation and turned it over to Natalie. “See. He doesn’t text me. He sent me one message with nothing in it. And I saw him talk to my dad. So apparently he talks, just not to me. Not even to text.”
Natalie read the conversation. A blank bubble, followed by Jaycee’s demand that Mik pick her up and go to Moonville. And then? “‘You freaked me out’?” she read aloud. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“That he scared me. It’s an apology for…what I said.”
“What did you say?”
Jaycee stared at the floor. “Nothing that wasn’t true.”
Natalie sighed. “An apology is an apology, Jayce. This sounds like an accusation.”
Jaycee looked like she might be sick, and then her face went even paler. “Devil,” she said, pointing out the window. “Speaking of.”
Natalie caught sight of Mik. He was walking under the arch toward the green, his all-black clothes like a heavy line against the redbrick walkway. “I’m going to talk to him.”
“No! Don’t!” Jaycee yelled.
Natalie was already out the door. She jaywalked across Court Street, making for the green. Mik was easy to find, sitting on the stairs before the rather idiotically designed veterans statue that looked like a penis with a soldier on top. He was reading a huge textbook, and perhaps she was wrong, but it did actually look like he was studying. She sat down beside him and crossed her legs.
“Hey there, Mikivikious.”
He closed his book and shoved it in his bag. Then he checked her from shoe to hair like she might be armed. Natalie’s reaction was so different. So strong. Her heart started to tear itself up as she looked at Mik and memories of that night two weeks ago sprang forward. Her mouth started running, and she didn’t try to stop it. “I’ve worked it out. Maybe you thought Jaycee would be at that party. After all, she’d taken Zach home, and God knows he probably tried to get her to go out drinking with him.”
Mik blinked at her. He was not as mysterious in the daylight as he was in the dark of the woods or the creepy confines of The Ridges. He actually looked fairly normal apart from the trench coat. One of her top priorities would be to help him lose it.
Natalie bit her lip before returning to her line of explanations. “Or maybe you were invited to that party. You went to school with most of those guys, I bet. Like…Tyler Ferris. He was a grade older than you.”
Mik made a fist and his knuckles went starkly white.
“Clearly you do know him.” Natalie took a deep breath. “I think I know why you took me to Jaycee’s after you found me. We used to be friends. Maybe you thought she’d help me. But whatever, you took me to her house, and Jaycee’s filled me in on the rest.”
Mik looked across the street toward the bookstore, and Natalie followed his gaze.
“She thinks you’re stalking her,” Natalie admitted.
Mik’s face sunk into his hands, and Natalie might have imagined it, but she was pretty sure his muffled groan was a swear.
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