Damage Done

by Amanda Panitch

  His friends retreated as I approached, leaving Michael alone. He turned away, showing me his back, and rummaged in his locker. When I’d been standing there for a full five seconds, he glanced over his shoulder. “Oh, hey,” he said dispassionately. “Didn’t see you there.”

  I had to keep him safe, but I couldn’t bear to let him continue thinking I hated him. I rolled my eyes, then grabbed him by the shoulders, spun him around so fast his shoes squeaked, and kissed him hard on the mouth. It was almost like kissing a cat; his muscles were stiff under his skin, bunched like coiled springs. He gasped as I pulled away, and in the corner of my eye I could see people staring. I didn’t care.

  “Well, hello to you, too,” he said.

  “I don’t like playing games,” I said. “I like you. You like me. And I appreciate all you’ve done for me and the way you’ve kept my secret. But we have to keep our distance for a little while.” I looked from side to side, then spun quickly to look behind me. I turned back with a pointed look. Sure, I’d been dramatic, but I had to make sure he got—really got—what I was saying. “My brother could be anywhere.”

  “Julia—”

  “Call me Lucy.”

  “Lucy, come on. I’m not scared. If he—”

  “I have to go.” I turned my back and walked away, nearly running down Ella, who’d been hovering nearby. She wrinkled her nose at me and I was sure she was going to say something, but I just kept walking.

  That was my attitude for the rest of the day: I just kept clear. When Ava of the hideous feathery earrings turned around to model her newest creation (a necklace made of pinecones and birdseed), I smiled tightly and turned my attention to Señor Goldfarb, who was talking about some verb tense or other. When Michael threw notes at me, I let them bounce off my chest and land with crisp thuds on the floor. When I saw Alane waiting for me after show choir to give me a ride, her knee jiggling nervously, I backed away, texted her that my mom was going to pick me up, and used another exit. I lived about a forty-minute walk from the school. That was acceptable. That was okay. For now. Maybe one of the black suits would give me a ride.

  My parents weren’t home when I got there, but our new security system was blinking a reassuring green. I didn’t think Ryan would hurt me.

  Still, it never hurt to be careful.

  I had never gone inside this house’s garage, and it took ten minutes of deep-breathing and relaxation exercises to calm myself enough to do so. Even then, my hands shook and my throat went dry as I opened the door. A blast of musty air hit me, and as I flipped on the light, spots I hoped were spiders skittered in the corners of my vision.

  I hadn’t driven since the car accident that killed Aiden. I hadn’t been driving then, either, actually, but after that I’d never wanted to put my foot on a gas pedal again. It had taken lots and lots of relaxation exercises even to make myself get into the passenger seat of a vehicle.

  Aiden was my very first kiss and my very first boyfriend and the very first boy (besides my brother, of course, which was a very different case) to whom I said “I love you,” even if I hadn’t really meant it. I’d loved his eyes that flashed from brown to gold in the sun, sure, and the pale stubble that graced his glass-cut jaw. I’d loved the way he’d hold me to him as if otherwise I’d float away, and the way my knees would literally wobble when he touched me. I loved the way my throat would go raw from cheering every time he scored a goal on the soccer field, and the envious glances I’d get from the other girls every time Aiden would stop at the sidelines to scoop me into his arms for a good-luck kiss. But I hadn’t loved him.

  My sophomore year. Aiden’s senior year. An old car that was always failing: the brakes were frayed, the air conditioning was the breeze from an open window (and the windows were always open because the levers were broken), and the radio was stuck on a country-music station, which I thought was the worst part of all. It really wasn’t much of a surprise when the brakes stopped working altogether and we’d sailed through the fog, shrieking and screaming, into one of Elkton’s monumental ivy-covered trees.

  I tumbled out of the car with some scrapes, some bruises, and a broken wrist. Aiden was pierced through the chest with a tree branch as thick as his leg. He’d barely had the chance to wheeze out one final cry before his eyes fluttered shut forever.

  The tree didn’t make it, either; it was shattered into mulch that now carpeted some stranger’s garden.

  Without my brother, I might have died, too. Somehow he was there, pulling me from the wreckage. He’d cradled me by the side of the road, whispering into my hair, as Aiden blinked his last blink and my wrist dissolved into symphonies of pain.

  Just the thought made me shudder. This car, in this garage, wasn’t the same car as then, but it looked too close for my taste: four wheels, a windshield, a steering wheel I really, really didn’t want to sit behind. I brushed hair out of my eyes; strands stuck to the sweat beading on my forehead. I couldn’t depend on my brother anymore, obviously. I couldn’t depend on Michael or Alane. I had to depend on myself, and in order to depend on myself, I had to be able to drive a car.

  I got as far as touching the door handle before my heart seized and my throat swelled shut. I gasped for breath. Funnily enough, as soon as I backed away I could breathe just fine, though my heart still hammered. Maybe the problem was that I was allergic to my car.

  Well, forty minutes wasn’t so long to walk to school.

  As I went back inside, I consoled myself with the thought that I’d be getting a ton of exercise. I’d be so healthy I’d squeak. My legs would be super toned and I would maybe even get my first-ever tan and—

  Something creaked. I froze.

  My parents hadn’t gotten home yet; they would’ve pulled into the garage, or I would’ve heard them in the driveway. “Hello?” I called. “Ryan? Is that you?” A footstep, then the yawn of a door. I froze. A black suit? “Ryan William Vann, you have thirty seconds to show yourself or I’m going to scream.”

  “Whoa. Whoa, Lucy, whoa.” It was Michael’s voice; I relaxed a tiny bit but remained alert. Ryan could be holding a gun to his head for all I knew.

  “What am I, a horse?” I called. “How did you get in my house?”

  “Dude, I was worried about you!” This was Alane. I crept through the hallway until they came into view—Michael and Alane stood in the entryway, their foreheads creased in concern, and then there was also…Ella. Ella of the black pixie cut and the crush on Michael. Worry wormed through me. Had she heard me call for Ryan? Of course she’d heard me call for Ryan. I had practically been screaming. “Your text felt weird, and someone told me they’d seen you walking into the woods after school. I was afraid you were mad at me or something.” She paused for a moment. “Also, your door is open. You shouldn’t just leave it open like that.”

  Had I left the door open? I didn’t think I’d left the door open. But I might have. I hoped I had.

  I stole a glance at Ella. She was smiling a small, secretive smile. That was bad. Did she recognize my brother’s name? “Ella, why are you here?”

  She stole my glance back and directed it at Michael. “Michael’s giving me a lift home,” she said. “I’m just along for the ride.”

  That was right. Ella was a swimmer, too. My breathing came a little bit easier. “You guys shouldn’t be here,” I said. “You should go.”

  Alane and Michael stood like statues, their legs spread and arms crossed. Ella looked back and forth between them and shrugged, then pierced me with her eyes. “I’m not getting in the middle of this,” she said. “I’ll be waiting in the car, Mike.”

  Mike? Really? “Why’d she call you Mike?”

  “Because it’s my name,” Michael said. “Listen. We need to talk.”

  That kiss in the hall had clearly been a mistake. I just hadn’t wanted him to think I really didn’t like him. He was clearly too dumb to understand the intricacies that came with kissing Lucy Black or Julia Vann. “No, you listen,” I said. “You know all my sec
rets. You know what happened to my last boyfriend and my last best friend. I can’t take the chance my brother will go after you.” Alane opened her mouth, but I steamrollered right over her. “Don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

  “I talked to my dad,” Michael said. I remembered the warmth around that family table. “The state police are out searching. His department is helping them. They’re all looking for him, and they’re going to find him.”

  “He will stop at nothing,” I said flatly, “to get to me.”

  “You’ve said that,” Alane said. There was something different about her I couldn’t quite put my finger on; it was as if she’d rechanneled her nervous energy and cheer into a fierce sort of determination. That was it—she wasn’t fluttering her hands or patting me on the shoulder. She stood still, erect, her chin high, her eyes flashing. “Which is why we can’t let you do this alone.”

  “You trusted us with your secret,” Michael said. “Now trust us with this.”

  I felt like I was going to choke on the tears rising in my throat. “You guys…”

  Alane stepped forward and slung an arm around my shoulders. “Michael’s going to go take Ella home, and we are going to do something suitably girly and frivolous,” she said. “I could go for painting my nails. Do you want to paint your nails?”

  I smiled through the blur of tears. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

  She tightened her arm, nearly choking me again. “Only you’ll have to do both of us, because I can’t paint my nails without getting the polish all over. I’m pretty sure my cuticles are still tinted orange from the last time.”

  “Are you kidding me? Your fingers are still orange from the last time.” I forced a fake laugh and let her hug me so hard I could barely breathe.

  Everything would be okay. I had to believe that, or else I’d drown for real.

  * * *

  FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. ATLAS SPENCE

  * * *

  Re: Ryan Vann, age 17

  I was right.

  Generally being right doesn’t make one this unhappy.

  Nine months ago, Ryan William Vann shot and killed eleven people in his high school band room. His sister, Julia, traumatized, shaking, covered in blood, was the only one to come out alive. Well, Ryan—the client, now—came out alive: in an attempt to shoot himself in the head, he put himself into a coma for a few days. Or the doctors had put him into a medical coma. I’m still not entirely sure. There’s a reason medical doctors call us fake doctors.

  A week or so after the shooting the client opened his eyes, blinked, and asked, “Where am I?”

  This is all according to the state police, who are on the case. They hadn’t leaked any of this to the media. They’d taken the client to one of their secure facilities, ostensibly for rehab before the stress of a trial. Off the record, one mentioned Ryan had said a few very interesting things as he was coming out of his coma, things that merited observation before throwing him to the lions of the public and the justice system.

  Officer Ali Noor is the one who came to find me. “You’re Dr. Atlas Spence, correct?” he said, glancing down at his fancy, slick phone.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “And you had Ryan Vann as a client when he was a child, correct?”

  I tensed. “I’m not speaking about this to the press,” I said, already retreating into the safety of my office. “Have a nice—”

  He put out his hand and stopped my door from closing. It was that one gesture, that expression of authority, that made me listen.

  “Let me speak with you inside,” he said.

  He explained that he was from the state police, and then let me examine his ID and phone two of his superiors. He explained that Ryan Vann had awoken from his coma almost nine months ago. “But I haven’t seen that in the papers,” I said.

  “You wouldn’t have,” Noor said. His manner was crisp, efficient. “We’re keeping it quiet. We want him to have the chance to complete his rehab, to finish relearning how to talk, and then we want to talk to him before the lynch mob comes out. Find out why he did it.” He chewed on the inside of his cheek. “He said a few…things when he was half-conscious and coming out of the coma, but once he woke up for real, he clammed up. He’s finally well enough to be interrogated.”

  “Interesting,” I said cautiously. “So what does this have to do with me?”

  Noor sat back in his chair, folding his hands on his lap. “He says he’ll only talk to you, Doctor,” he said. “So what do you say?”

  What do you say to something like that? Obviously I said yes. This was the career opportunity of a lifetime. I wouldn’t just be Atlas Spence, PhD, psychologist. I would be Atlas Spence, PhD, criminal psychologist brought in to consult with the state police. Who knows? This could be the first of many cases.

  I hadn’t seen the client in many years and had braced myself for how he was sure to look, but I still had to hold in a gasp after Noor and another officer escorted me to Ryan’s room at the secure state facility. I walked into the tiny, spare white room, outfitted with a cot and a sink and a toilet like a jail cell, to see Ryan sitting on his bed, facing the wall. Or maybe the window. There was a small window, high up on the wall. Barred, obviously. I couldn’t imagine he could see out of it, but maybe he just liked facing it. Pretending he could feel the air on his face. “Good afternoon, Ryan,” I said.

  He turned. “Is it afternoon?” he said. His words were slow and slurred and looked painful as they came out; only the right half of his mouth opened all the way. “It’s hard to keep track sometimes.”

  He seemed sane; that’s what surprised me most. He was painfully skinny, and his chin was covered in a patchy coating of stubble. He moved one arm, his right, restlessly, tapping out a beat on his knee. The other, the left, hung by his side. Paralyzed, maybe, or partially paralyzed.

  “It’s three o’clock in the afternoon,” I said. “I heard you wanted to talk to me.”

  “I do,” he said, quite agreeably, quite different from the belligerent boy I remembered from so many years ago.

  I moved closer, smiling in what I hoped was an approachable way. “Then let’s talk,” I said. “How are you today?”

  And he didn’t say another word.

  That’s the Ryan Vann I remember.

  Alane stayed over that night; she’d already brought a bag with a change of clothes and a toothbrush, so she was pretty serious about this whole staying-by-my-side thing. “It’s Michael’s shift tomorrow,” she said, and then wagged her finger in my face. “But no sleeping over for him, missy!”

  I rolled my eyes. Alane hadn’t so much as kissed a boy before, and as far as I knew, she had no plans to kiss anyone in the near future. It was as much a lack of access as it was a lack of desire; there were no straight boys in show choir, which was where she spent most of her time outside of school. There, or voice lessons. I’d heard her sing several times, and her voice always raised goose bumps on my arms.

  Alane fell asleep quickly on the air mattress I’d pulled out of storage, her breaths dissolving into gaspy snores and the occasional squeak. I stretched out on my bed and watched her. Her eye kept twitching and the corners of her mouth kept going up and down, like she was trying to smile—or scream.

  When I couldn’t bear to lie there and stare at Alane or at my ceiling any longer, I climbed out of bed and tiptoed down the hallway. I could hear the TV murmuring behind my parents’ door. I’d never knocked to ask, but I had a feeling they hadn’t slept much this past year, either. Not like they would tell me even if I had knocked. That would mean they’d actually have to talk to me.

  I paused at the end of the hallway, which overlooked the great picture window opening out on our backyard. I couldn’t see much in the dark, but so many things were croaking and chirping and sawing there might as well have been an orchestra out there. Something was moving, though, a shadow, a man-shaped shadow, maybe a man in a black suit….

  I squinted, and the shadow was gone.


  Sometimes I felt like that was the story of my life: I’d try too hard to think about something, or to figure something out, and even if the answer was right there, in front of my face, I’d just keep staring blindly through it. That feeling applied especially to those twelve minutes—the twelve minutes that elapsed between my brother shooting Penelope Wong in the head and putting a bullet in his own.

  I wondered if I’d begged for my life; maybe I’d thrown myself on the floor before him, touched my forehead to his toes, sprinkled the carpet with tears. Or maybe I was stoic and resolute, facing death with my chin held high. Or maybe he hadn’t meant to kill me at all. Maybe that was when he told me why he’d done it. Information my old pal Jenny wouldn’t hesitate to suck out of me the way the ancient Egyptians would suck a soon-to-be mummy’s brain out through his or her nose.

  The answer was in there somewhere, swimming through my cerebral fluid like an electric eel; sometimes I felt the twitch or shock of it peeking through, but it always whooshed away before I could grab it. I didn’t know whether I wanted to find it or not. Maybe I was better off if it stayed gone.

  Wait. I squinted and scoured the darkness outside. There was a shadow beneath one of our trees. The eel twitched.

  —

  Alane opened her eyes blearily as I slipped back inside my room. “I thought I heard you,” she said, rubbing them with the back of her hand. “Where were you?”

  “Bathroom,” I said, and climbed back into bed. A few clippings of grass scattered on my sheets, and I brushed them into the slot between my bed and the wall.

  She sat up. Her jaw cracked with a yawn. “Everything okay? You were in there an awfully long time.”

  I flopped back and said a silent hello to my old friend the ceiling. “I’m fine. Everything is fine.” My eyes burned. “Go back to sleep.”