by Mimi Cross
“Just meet us there, okay? Please?”
In lieu of an answer, I’d growled into the telephone.
Laurel had purred in response. “Lovecats?”
“Lovecats,” I grumbled. Then, because I thought maybe I’d been too hard on her, I added, “Far be it from me to stand in the way of true love.”
“And true love it is. And truly, you are a love. Cat. Thanks.”
In the end it didn’t matter, because I got caught up in practicing. The party started at seven, now it’s after eleven. I text Laurel to tell her I’m here.
Climbing the wide stone steps to reach the front porch is like swimming upstream. Then a group of girls, the current I’m struggling against, inexplicably changes direction. Suddenly, we’re all heading the same way—till the girls come up against a wall of boys who were apparently trailing behind them and who have stopped short now in confusion. So the girls stop too—
Just as Bryn Bennet emerges from the house.
The boys and girls turn as one— flowers toward the sun, an instant audience for Bryn.
A few call out her name. She answers and says something about the music inside. She’s laughing, her long blonde hair shining in the glow of the porch lights. In fact, she’s perfectly positioned so that it appears she’s standing in a spotlight.
But after a second it becomes clear: The porch lights aren’t creating this effect. It’s Bryn herself, radiating beauty and entitlement, the twin stars she was born under.
She doesn’t hear me when I say hi as I slip by.
Inside are more people I know—I wave—and people I don’t know. People I’d like to know—I smile—and those I wouldn’t. Rod Whitaker falls into this last category.
And yet when I see him, towering over the crowd, tall and so good-looking, for a second I’m flattered by the way he stares intently at me, just before he introduces himself.
I laugh a little. “We’ve already met.”
“No, I would remember you. You’re new. Going to be a freshman? What’s your name?”
“A sophomore. Cate Reese. And I’m not exactly new. I’ve been coming to Middleburn my whole life.”
“You’re new to me.” He smiles. It’s a suggestive, expensive smile, the kind that probably paid some orthodontist’s mortgage for a year: all big white teeth that, in conjunction with his full lips, give him the appearance of satisfied carnality. Now he fires off a round of questions, like he has to get to know me as quickly as possible. Like I fascinate him. The transparency of it all kind of amazes me. I’d have expected more subtlety from a senior.
After a brief back-and-forth he says, “Maybe I do know you. From another life.” He runs a finger down my bare arm. “Feels like I know you. You believe in destiny? Fate?”
I roll my eyes. Apparently, he’s never noticed me at the Bennets’, but he’s been hard to miss the dozen or so times I’ve seen him with David’s crowd over the years.
“No. I believe in free will.”
A hip-hop track blares from another room. Good groove, great melody. Misogynistic lyrics. I wonder where Laurel is. It’s definitely time to go look for her. I start to turn away.
“So how about it?” Rod says.
This confuses me. It’s like I’ve missed the first part of whatever he’s said. “Excuse me?”
He laughs and kind of paws my shoulder. Only it turns into a little push, then another.
“Hey!” Somehow as we’ve been talking, we’ve drifted down to a part of the house that’s apparently undesirable. There’s no beer. No food. No bedrooms. We’re in a sort of formal living room, probably the only spot in the house that’s missing at least one of these things. It’s also missing people.
He shoves me again, harder, yet in a way that might look playful to anyone watching. But there is no one watching.
“What are you doing?” I start to move past him. I can just see the crowd through the doorway at the other end of the room—it’s steadily thinning as people head toward the kitchen, or the backyard, or wherever the smell of barbecue is suddenly coming from.
He blocks me. Laughs. I try to dart around him. He grabs my hand. Brings it to his lips.
“What’s your rush?” And this time he doesn’t push me, just comes so close I have to back up or his body will be against mine. I yank my hand from his, but in my hurry to move I trip, almost falling down a pair of steps descending into a den. Shelves full of trophies glint in the low light. He’s not even a second behind me.
He reaches out, makes a fist around my ponytail. “I like your hair.”
My back bumps a bookcase lined with gleaming gold cups. “Stop. Stop it!”
“Want some?” He takes a swig from a silver flask that’s appeared in his free hand. Then he brings the flask to my mouth, pulls my ponytail so hard that my head snaps back. “Here, wrap your lips around this—I’ll give you something bigger in a minute, if you’re a good girl.”
The liquid—vodka?—spills over my mouth.
“The better to kiss you,” he whispers. His lips are wet, the bitter taste of orange juice filling my mouth, along with his tongue. I push, push, push— hard against his chest.
But the only thing that moves is his hand, the one holding the flask. It presses into my back now as one of his massive arms wraps around me, and the front of his body makes its way up against the front of mine. I whimper.
When he finally breaks the kiss, he shoves the flask at me again. Says, “Bite it.”
And I do. I clamp my teeth down on the cold, ridged metal, holding it in my mouth, praying someone will walk in on us before he has a chance to kiss me again.
The sour citrus flavor of him mixes with the metallic taste of the flask and the sharp scent of alcohol. I gag— but even though he must feel my body lurch, he continues pressing against me, tonguing my ear, spewing terrible, twisted words into it.
Now he pulls the flask, hard and fast— my teeth rattle over the metal. His mouth hits my mouth with bruising force.
Then he jerks back— his mouth, his body, mercifully falling away—
And he goes over sideways with a shout.
Something—a crutch—has sent him sprawling. I see another crutch now, and a tall boy supported between the two. David Bennet.
In a daze, I look up at him.
His smile is lopsided.
Rod climbs to his feet howling, “Bennet, you fuck—” Then he slips, crashing to the floor.
Someone flicks on the lights. “What’s going on?”
Laurel. Suddenly, I’m barely holding back tears. I grab her arm. “Let’s go, can we go?”
Dee appears next to Laurel, scowling furiously at her. More people press in from behind them, separating us.
David stands between the growing crowd and me. “Are you all right?”
And I try. So. Hard. To hold myself together. But I’m breaking apart. Bits and pieces of me chip off. Hover overhead. Look down at the scene.
“Fight!” someone shouts.
“Whitaker’s on his ass!”
“No way!”
David’s voice is soft. Steady. “I’m here, Cate. What do you need?”
His words are the ground. Solid. They bring the earth back beneath my feet and I nearly collapse into him with relief. But I don’t, because—of everything. And there are too many people. I don’t want them to know—know anything. David’s on crutches, I might topple him—
My swirling thoughts are interrupted by a shout. The room is terribly crowded now. Rod Whitaker is wrestling with some boy on the floor and there’s laughter and talk of who’s going to come out on top, but then the fight turns ugly. Fists fly. I want to run. Voices twine around me. Laurel’s is somewhere low in the mix. Responding to Dee, then saying, “But she’s okay, right?”
I see the top of her blonde head now—she’s being pushed from the room by a group of senior girls spilling in through another door. She calls out, “David? Is Cate with you?” David gives Laurel a high sign, says something about home. “
Okay!” she shouts over the crowd. “See ya, Cate! I mean I can’t see you, but I’ll see you soon!”
And she doesn’t see. She didn’t see. She doesn’t know.
But David does. I’m humiliated. Embarrassed. I take a step back—
Right into the mass of jostling bodies. Mistake. All the bodies are Rod Whitaker’s body, crushing against me. Stuck in the crowd, feeling sick to my stomach, I go stiff.
Someone shouts, “Hall, man, you’ve got the tiger by the tail!”
“Watch it, Rafe!”
Through the sea of people I can just see Rafe Hall looking unconcerned as he deftly maneuvers Rod away from the boy he’s been fighting. The boy, looking relieved, slips away. With a flash of insight, I relate to him. He hadn’t wanted a fight anymore than I had. Victim. The word springs to mind, but I shove it away just as quickly, focusing on Rafe. It’s astounding how swiftly he’s taken control of the situation.
He’s a head shorter than Rod Whitaker and very slim, and I realize now I’ve seen Rafe Hall with David many times over the years. With his calm demeanor and neat white lacrosse shirt, it’s hard to believe he’s the host of such a rowdy party, but maybe his older brothers are the wild ones, or maybe it’s just the guests who are wild. Animalistic.
“Hall, you black-belt demon! Nice work.”
“Little sloppy there, huh, Whitaker?”
“Yo, that’s what happens when you drain a keg.”
“Shit, Whitaker drains a keg every day.”
“Bet he pays Bennet back big-time.”
“What for? Steckler was the one who practically had him pinned.”
A snort of laughter. “Steckler’s lucky he escaped with his life. Bennet’s the one who took Whitaker down—with a friggin’ crutch! Rod’s not gonna let that slide, not once he sobers up.”
“Yeah, lucky for Bennet, that’s not gonna be anytime soon.”
“Anytime ever.” More laughter.
But David doesn’t appear to be listening to this conversation, or any other. He’s making his way over to where I stand, squashed in the middle of the crowd, a good part of which has started gyrating and grinding—the music’s blaring now, someone’s obviously cranked the volume. I’m not thrilled to be in the middle of the dancers, but I’m happy to be invisible. Nobody knows I had anything to do with what just happened. Nobody except David.
When he reaches me, he lifts a hand, like he’s going to touch my shoulder, or my face. The crutches make the gesture awkward, and then he seems to think better of it anyway and draws his hand back. Someone asks if he saw the fight.
He shrugs. Doesn’t take his eyes from mine. “Was there a fight? I must have missed it.” Then he lowers his voice. “I’ll find us a ride, okay?”
I can’t answer.
There’s a fist in my belly. Another clenching my throat. Squeezing my words.
BLUE
DAVID
I haven’t seen Cate since I walked her home two days ago. Well, nearly home.
I’m not sure what happened between us that afternoon, but it was—something. Even though she walked away like it wasn’t, even though I let her.
And even though I’ve convinced myself that she’s too good for me, too . . . innocent, I can’t forget the way her hand felt in mine when I pulled her up onto the red rocks that mark the entrance to Circle Stables. The way our hands fit.
No, that’s not right; it wasn’t our hands. It was . . . us. It was the way I felt inside when I held her hand in mine. That’s where the fit was. Inside.
Now one of the double doors to the band room slaps open and Cate stalks out, looking like she doesn’t fit anywhere. She walks head down in my direction and I can’t see her face, but I can tell by that walk, by the hunch of her shoulders, that she’s upset, maybe—crying?
“That’s her,” some girl says as she closes a locker.
“Who is she?” her friend asks, looking up from a cell phone.
“Someone who doesn’t need you talking shit about her,” I snap at the two girls, who go wide-eyed before scurrying off. Cate glances up— cuts suddenly across the hall, disappearing into the girls’ room. I lean against the wall near the door, planning on waiting for her to come out. But after standing there a while, I realize she’s not coming out. Not anytime soon.
Reluctantly, I leave my post. But that afternoon, weirdly, it seems like every conversation I overhear is about her.
“She was driving.”
“She was hitching.”
“She was the passenger—she almost died.”
“Did you see his picture online? He was so cute.”
“So cute.”
“Were they—”
“I don’t know.”
Were they? I have no idea. Just like I have no idea when I became someone who listens to other people’s conversations instead of having my own.
It’s difficult to picture Cate, hiding in the girls’ bathroom, surrounded by pink tiles, white sinks. Had she been crying in there? Getting sick? Washing her hands over and over like Bryn did for days after Rafe Hall’s “open house”?
I’m glad Cate’s friend didn’t go to Middleburn. I’d hate to see another locker shrine spring up like last year, when Kenny Miller died. Hate to see Cate have to deal with that.
They made a shrine for Dan. Not at his locker—he was in college—but at Ship to Shore, the store in Portland where he worked part-time. One of the girls from the trip sent a photo of it, tucked into a get-well card filled with sexually explicit wishes for a speedy recovery.
It made me feel bad, but it also reminded me. I really didn’t know Dan, hardly at all.
And yet, I knew that his toothbrush was blue.
I knew this because Dan was always doing “just one more thing” before he turned in. Most nights he’d do all those last-minute things with his toothbrush hanging out of his mouth.
I also know that, for some dark reason, Dan hated his father. I never found out why, though, or how he handled his feelings, because—he died. Because of me.
I guess what I know about Dan spans a wide range. Does that count as knowing him? When do you cross the line between not knowing and knowing someone? How do you cross it?
For a month I lived closely with thirteen other people, surrounded by a wilderness of water. One of us died. The rest of us survived, but only by helping each other.
You’d think that’d be a surefire way of bonding, of knowing each other. But it’s not.
If the girl who sent the photo of Dan’s locker shrine knew me, she wouldn’t have sent it at all.
Because she would have known it would remind me of Jack.
REFLECTION
CATE
Heart skidding in my chest, I jerk upright in bed—
Another bolt of lightning splits the afternoon. The wind is wild, the branches of the huge maple growing just outside the bedroom windows are slapping hard against the house. It’s an old house. The gutters need to be replaced. The rain pours down the glass. Tears pour down my face.
I’d been dreaming about Cal. Looking for him in a hospital emergency room.
There’d been an enormous aquarium—red-orange fish swimming languidly. Like oversized drops of blood, drifting.
For a second I’d felt like I was on the wrong side of the glass and couldn’t breathe. The automatic doors of the emergency room kept sliding open with a whisper: shh. Then closing with a sigh. There was no one there but me, yet the doors kept opening and closing—open, close, open, close. I realized I was standing on the mat that triggers the doors. I stepped off.
“Cal,” I’d tried to say, “slow down.” But my throat closed, like the shushing glass doors.
Now the radiator across the room knock-knocks and I start— then scowl at the ancient coil of metal crouching in the corner like an ill-formed dragon.
I must have fallen asleep. Ketamine . . . it can be kind of tricky like that. One minute you’re totally high, the next you’re out. I only took a little after school, but th
en I laid down.
Now I slip off the bed and go over to the windows. Forehead against cool glass, I look out at the backyard. If I squint, the leaves of the maples that edge the yard become a ring of misty fire. Leaping through would land me in the woods, where it’s already dark. Deciding I’m in the same time zone as the forest—that sleeping really is the best escape—I get ready for bed.
But it nags me, how much I really need to practice. So I get out of bed and sit straight-backed and still, feeling the smooth wood of the guitar through my cotton nightgown . . .
I’m dismayed once again at how different the music sounds without Cal in this world. The deep end of the ocean, metamorphosed into a salt flat.
Still I practice for four hours, until finally, swaying with hunger and the need for sleep, I put the guitar away, wondering suddenly as I do, what it would feel like to never take it out again. To close the case forever, like a coffin.
After brushing my teeth, I climb into bed, reaching over to the nightstand for my phone. Opening the voice memos, I hit “Play,” then close my eyes.
And there he is. There I am. Running notes fill my ears . . .
The Bach sounds the best. Of all the pieces, the Bach showcases our perfection.
But this glorious indulgence is cut with yearning, with the wish for Cal to exist.
And suddenly I realize it’s this—this wanting that I’m listening to. I’m listening to our playing, plus my emotions, the ones I feel now. If I set them aside . . .
Tick, tock, clockwork. Our duets are dry—how did I not hear it before? It’s the same flat expanse I’d experienced while practicing tonight.
There’s another voice memo. It’s us goofing around. I’d forgotten I’d recorded us laughing and improvising and sucking (mostly me) and flying (mostly him). These efforts have something the composed pieces don’t, a kind of passion. An aliveness.
The recording ends now and I listen to it again, then play the first one over. The Bach especially, the one I’d thought was the best, is a desert. A boneyard.
Abruptly I stop the playback. Then skip to a third voice memo.
The recording begins with a burst of laughter, and then Cal is playing like a monster. I come in, my notes tentative as I try to follow his lead. And then—