—
Alane was back to her old self the following morning, as perky and cheerful with five hours of sleep as I’d never been in my entire life. She didn’t even drink coffee.
I, on the other hand, dragged with every step, even after I’d downed an entire mug of coffee (black). I felt as if the earth were trying to suck me under. I wished I could bottle some sort of essence of Alane, reduce her to a liquid in a perfume bottle and spritz myself every time I was down. I bet it would be pink. Neon pink.
“Lucy, Alane, good morning!” Michael met us at the school gates, his smile too wide and too bright, or maybe that was just my tired eyes whining. “How was your night?”
“So fun!” Alane chirped back. She splayed out her fingers. Her nails were pink. Neon pink. “We had so much fun!”
I wouldn’t have minded dying so much at that moment. The prospect of eternal sleep was just too tempting.
“Your nails look great,” Michael said with vigor. “Lucy, let me see yours!”
I displayed mine, which were also pink, and Michael clucked and cooed over them as well. Michael and Alane were so bright, so cheerful, that it took me a moment to realize Ella was also there, lurking in Michael’s orbit like an asteroid that was about to crash. “Oh, hi, Ella,” I said. I looked up at Michael. “Did you guys carpool again?”
“We live right down the street from each other,” Ella said.
“Oh, you do, Mike?” I said.
Alane linked her arm through mine. “Lucy, we should get to homeroom. I still haven’t done my history homework.”
“Fine,” I said, giving Michael and Ella the side eye. I didn’t think Michael would cheat on me. Nobody cheats on me. But I did think Ella had a thing for him, and I didn’t like that. Whether I wanted him or not, Michael was mine.
I turned to go with Alane, and then I saw Ella’s smile. It was so big it warped her face, making her cheeks huge and her eyes disproportionately tiny. Anger ripped through my chest, and I wrenched my arm free from Alane, who let out a worried squawk.
“See you in Spanish, Mike,” I said, and pulled his face down to meet mine. He kissed me back hungrily, with no hesitation whatsoever. I pulled back and met Ella’s eyes. I was sure mine were shining in triumph. Hers were unmistakably shining with something else. “See you later, Ella.”
I had homework to do first period—an essay on motifs in Jane Eyre, which I’d never read and had no desire whatsoever to read—so I was worn out by second-period Spanish. Not too worn out, however, to notice the flurry of whispers that met me when I stepped through the doorway. They increased with every step I took toward my desk, crescendoing as I sat down. I blinked once, twice. No. It couldn’t be.
Ava was already seated in front of me. Her new earrings brushed her shoulders, a hideous mix of dried flowers that shed wispy petals every time she shook her head. I tapped her on the shoulder. She didn’t move. I tapped again, harder, more of a drumbeat. She finally turned her head, but only a fraction of an inch. “What?” she whispered.
I didn’t know why she was whispering. People were still filing in. We hadn’t even started class yet. “I love your earrings,” I said as enthusiastically as I could manage. “Even more than the ones with the feathers. They’re so…fragrant. Like potpourri. How did you make them?”
All the color drained out of her face, puddled on the floor, and soaked my feet through my shoes, cold and sticky. “I have to pay attention,” she said, pointing feebly in Señor Goldfarb’s direction. He was currently flicking through his phone, probably on RateMyTeachers, trying to figure out why he was the only Spanish teacher without any stars next to his name. “Sorry. Don’t be mad. Please don’t be mad!”
I turned away from Ava, trying hard not to care. I didn’t care about Ava, really. She could think whatever she wanted, really. I had more important people to care about. Really.
Speaking of people I cared about, Michael ran in at the last minute, just as Señor Goldfarb was taking attendance, so despite all my attempts to catch his eye, we didn’t have a chance to talk before class began. Unless he was intentionally avoiding all my attempts to catch his eye. Unless…no. He already knew about my brother. He’d seen firsthand what my brother had wrought. I had to stop being so paranoid.
“All right, then, let’s go through the homework,” Señor Goldfarb said in Spanish. “We’ll go down the rows. Ava, why don’t you start with number one?”
Ava babbled something I could only assume was correct, as Goldfarb moved on to me for number two. “Er…Lucy?”
I met his eyes, but only for a second, since his quickly skittered away like so many roaches in a burst of light. “I don’t have it,” I said in English. I did have the homework. It was right in front of me. Goldfarb could probably read it from where he was standing.
“That’s fine,” he said, still looking at the floor. “Eliza, why don’t you continue with number two?” The whispers started again, swelling from the corners of the room to the center; even Ava leaned over to whisper something in her neighbor’s ear.
They knew. Everybody knew.
I had to get out of here.
I jumped to my feet, bumping into my desk, which lurched forward and slammed into Ava’s chair. Ava leapt to her feet, too, letting out a shriek and stumbling toward the front of the room, covering her head with her hands, like I was going to pull a gun on her. I wouldn’t. I would never. Even if her earrings were a crime against fashion so dire she deserved the death penalty.
“I’m going to the bathroom,” I blurted, and ran for the door. Nobody tried to stop me. I didn’t think anyone would.
Everyone was in class, so the hallways were largely empty. As usual, though, there were a few people walking around: bathroom trips, things forgotten in a locker, teachers patrolling for kids cutting class. Every single one of them glanced at my face and then moved out of my way, some going so far as to flatten themselves against the rows of lockers. They weren’t doing that lightly; those combination locks hurt when you jammed into them.
When one literally threw herself into the lockers, making a bang so loud I nearly dove into the lockers myself from surprise, I spun around to block her way. She was so tiny she had to be a freshman, with braided pigtails and eyeliner so thick it looked like she’d drawn it on with a crayon. I almost felt sorry for her. “How did you find out?” I demanded.
Her eyes had gone so wide I could see all the white around her pupils. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I fought the urge to grab her by her pigtails and throw her across the hall. Instead, I leaned in close; she cringed like she wanted to pull away, but she had nowhere to go besides through the metal of the lockers. “I know you know,” I said. “I know everybody knows. You almost smashed yourself trying to get away from me. Tell me how you know, and I’ll leave you alone.”
Her face was slowly turning a pale shade of violet, as if she had forgotten to breathe. “My friend told me,” she squeaked. “She said some girl stood up and told everyone in her homeroom this morning.”
A horrible feeling roiled in the pit of my stomach. “Do you know who it was?”
She vigorously shook her head, striking me with the ends of her pigtails. “I don’t! I don’t know! Some junior, I think, but I don’t know!”
Some junior. Some junior. I was willing to bet this freshman’s pigtails on the fact that some junior had a black pixie cut and a crush on Michael. “Okay.” I stepped back and watched the freshman flee.
I took a few deep breaths and closed my eyes, just for a moment. I would go to the bathroom, not to actually go to the bathroom, but to sit in a stall for a few minutes and regroup. To get some quiet so I could figure out what my next move should be.
When I opened my eyes, though, ready to head to the handicapped bathroom on the second floor, an old friend was waiting in front of me. Her smile was plastic, and she held a notepad and pen under her arm. Not under her armpit, I noticed. She’d learned. “Jenny,” I said. “I se
e you’re not in jail.”
“Julie Vann,” said my reporter nemesis. And there it was: the lightning bolt of wrong the nickname produced in me. Exactly what I’d wanted when I’d told her, so long ago, to call me Julie instead of Julia. “How have you been?”
“There’s no way you could have made it here from Elkton this fast. Ella just told everyone this morning. Like, two hours ago,” I said. I blinked a few times, hoping I had a brain tumor or something and she was just one of the resulting hallucinations. Alas, no luck.
Jenny clapped her hands together and smiled even wider. She had traces of red lipstick on her teeth, unless it was blood—it was entirely possible she’d just finished eating some babies. “I’m no longer with the Sun,” she said. “My story on the shooting raised my profile so much that I’m now with the Los Angeles Times. When we got this morning’s tip you were here, I volunteered to check it out. How lucky is this?”
I tried to get around her, but she moved to block me. I balled my fists. The only reason I didn’t haul off and punch her was because I knew she’d spin a story around it. Sister of Shooter Goes on School Rampage, Attacks Innocent Reporter Recently Nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. “Please get out of my way,” I said icily. “I need to get to class.”
“You’re going the wrong way, then, aren’t you?” Her smile didn’t budge. It was as if she’d painted it on with her lipstick. “You’re supposed to be in Spanish class right now with Mr. Goldfarb. You share that class with your boyfriend, don’t you? Michael Silverman?”
I ground my teeth and made a mental note to text Michael and Alane as soon as I was out of this hallway: Don’t talk to any strangers about me. Don’t talk to anyone about me. “I’m on my way to the bathroom,” I said. “You’re making me miss our review.”
“Well, I would hate to have you angry at me,” Jenny said. “You’ve been through enough, you poor dear.” Her fingers disappeared into her notebook and came out waving a business card, which she proceeded to shove into my front pocket. “Here’s my new contact info, Julie. Give me a call anytime.”
I plucked her card from my pocket and dropped it; it went whirling onto the floor like a downed helicopter. “I’d rather you go take a long walk off a short cliff.”
The smile still didn’t move as I turned to walk away. I could feel it beaming against my back as I continued down the hallway. Forget the second-floor bathroom—I ducked into a first-floor stall just so I could use my phone without some overeager teacher hauling me off to the office. Actually, today I could probably sit in the middle of the hallway and text and chat away, and nobody would dare approach me.
I texted Alane—telling her not to talk to any reporters or anyone she thought might be a reporter or, really, anyone at all about me—and then Michael. I slipped my phone back into my pocket and strolled right out the back doors of the school.
I knew the black suits would be lurking out front, but I doubted they’d be hanging around in back, where the athletic yards and assorted field houses stretched to the woods. I strode in what I hoped was a purposeful manner past a gym class circling the track (who, running in a pack, nearly stampeded each other in an effort to get away from me). I kept an eye out for more reporters, but I couldn’t see anything besides trees and grass. If I did find reporters, the way I was feeling, I’d probably kill them. With my bare hands. I could if I really wanted to. That was what they wanted, wasn’t it, masked behind all their probing questions and fake-sympathetic smiles? To prove Ryan and I weren’t so different after all?
Beyond all the fields and field houses and the football stadium, which, thanks to kids hanging out under the bleachers, was always surrounded by clouds of smoke, there was a dense forest. It wasn’t like it was endless, or haunted, or anything; it stretched for a few miles and then turned into a highway and a development of blandly identical split-level houses. There was a hidden path—weaving around a surprisingly deep patch of mud that bubbled with the shoes of unwary freshmen and over a log spanning a creek—that took students right behind Crazy Elliot’s on the other side. Otherwise, nobody really came out here. There were plenty of other places to smoke or to get high or to make out, and it was an awfully long way to walk for anything else.
Which meant it was the perfect place for me to meet him. I didn’t waste any time speaking; as soon as I saw him leaning against a tree, I collapsed into his arms and rested my head against his chest. “Everybody knows,” I said. “Ella told. Now everybody hates me. I don’t like being hated. I want everyone to like me again. I can’t have people laughing at me or talking about me behind my back.”
He breathed in, then out; his chest pushed into my cheek, then back. He rubbed my lower back with one hand and pressed my head against him with the other. With his fingers tangled in my hair, tracing lines of warmth onto my scalp, I could breathe again. “I’m so sorry,” he said, his voice slow. “It’s kind of my fault. Is there anything I can do?”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes, there is something we can do.”
* * *
FROM THE JOURNAL OF DR. ATLAS SPENCE
* * *
Re: Ryan Vann, age 17
I’ve now had four sessions with Ryan Vann, if you can really call them that. By four sessions, I mean that I’ve entered the state facility, had Officer Noor and his partner escort me to Ryan’s cell, and then, after a brief exchange of greetings, sat silently under the blinking red eyes of the room’s cameras. I’ve tried everything in my arsenal to get him to talk: asking questions, talking about myself, making assumptions about Ryan and his life, matching his silence with silence of my own.
Today, I’m ashamed to admit, I might have gone too far in my attempts. Today was a talking day; I had planned to talk about Ryan and hoped he would chime in with additions of his own. “Eleven people died in that band room,” I said. “Did you know that?”
His eyes didn’t even flicker in acknowledgment; he just continued staring at the floor. “The world wants to know why,” I said. “Your sister wants to know why.”
His head jerked up. “Julia?” he said. Though he still had that slow, slurred way of speaking, I could hear the passion in his voice. “What about Julia?”
His sister. That was it. I’d tried talking about the parents, but I’d never once mentioned the sister. I should’ve thought of it sooner. “Julia moved south and is living under a false name,” I said. “She had to flee Elkton altogether. She was being harassed because of what you did.”
He’d moved from staring at the floor to staring at the wall, his breaths coming in short bursts like a bull’s. “Is she happy?” he asked.
“She wants to know why,” I said. “She wants to know why you did it.”
He jumped to his feet and balled his right fist, his eyes still trained on the wall. The fingers on his left hand twitched, but they didn’t close all the way. “She knows,” he said, his voice smoldering. “She knows why I did it.”
“Tell me, Ryan,” I urged. “Tell me.”
He sat back down. Folded his hands in his lap, tenderly closing the left one in his right.
Didn’t say another word.
This is where—I’m ashamed to say—I lost it. I leaned forward and yelled in his face. “Why did you even ask me here? Why did you ask for me if you weren’t going to talk?”
My fists had balled, too, and I was pretty sure my eyes were popping from a red face. I flinched when I felt Noor’s hand on my shoulder. “Doctor,” he said, “let’s take a break.”
Ryan didn’t even look up as I left.
I didn’t make it back to Spanish. Or history. But I swaggered into lunch with my chin held high and Michael on my arm. I didn’t feel at all like swaggering, but I knew I’d need some swagger today. Okay, maybe the plan we’d formulated in the woods made me feel a tiny bit like swaggering. Mostly I felt like shriveling under all the stares I knew I’d get when I walked into the cafeteria.
I wasn’t disappointed. People’s eyes slid off me like oil off water as I swept throug
h to our usual table, which was completely empty. I sat down in the middle; Michael sat beside me, and Alane sat across. I was the queen of my own kingdom. Queendom. “Well, this is fun,” I said. “Anyone want to crawl under the table with me?”
“It’s not so bad,” Alane said, but her eyes darted about, and her cheer seemed as plastic as Jenny’s smile. I followed her eyes to Ella, who sat in the far corner with our other usual tablemates. She had been staring as us, but ducked down when she saw us looking, as if it were even possible for her to hide.
“You can go sit with them if you want to,” I said. “It’s okay.”
Alane recoiled like I’d hit her, then slid her sandwich out of her lunch bag and plunked it on the table. “How could you even say that?” she said, opening her ziplock bag as ferociously as it was possible to open a ziplock bag. “Be real, Lucy. Eat your freaking lunch.”
“You might as well call me Julia now,” I said. “Everyone knows anyway.”
She cocked her head and considered as she chewed. “Do you want us to call you Julia?”
I considered, too. Julia had a brother who did horrible things. Everybody hated Julia. But Lucy hadn’t exactly been a nice person. Lucy had pushed her friends away because she was so terrified of getting close to somebody again and then having them collapse in a pool of blood. Which wasn’t exactly an irrational fear for someone who had once been Julia. “Yes,” I said. “I want you to call me Julia.”
The afternoon went about as well as I’d expected: more stares, more whispers, more people jumping away from me as I walked down the hall. I felt almost like Moses parting the Red Sea. So I was more relieved than anything when the intercom crackled to life in the middle of chemistry and summoned me to the principal’s office. I didn’t even have to wait; her secretary waved me right in. I assumed that had something to do with Jenny, who did seem to be waiting; she pursed her lips and crossed her legs when she saw me, probably biting back questions about Elkton or my brother or the sounds Michael made when I kissed him. I didn’t say hello, and entertained thoughts of her getting detention as I walked by.
Damage Done Page 15