Premeditated

by Mcquein, Josin L.

  “I have to go.” Brooks’ voice turned as hollow as the empty glaze in his eyes. “My dad …”

  “Don’t tell me someone emailed him the video, too.” Miraculously, my voice still worked.

  He shook his head, still staring at the phone in his lap. He hadn’t even stood up.

  “College recruiters …”

  “Someone sent it to college recruiters?”

  I kicked myself for not thinking of that one.

  “No. I had interviews this week on Wednesday and Friday, but the recruiters called the house upset because I wasn’t in either of their offices today. Dad heard the message, so he called them back, saying there’d been some kind of mistake. But someone had emailed them and changed my interview schedule at the last minute. I have to go. I’m sorry. I just … I have to go now.”

  Just like that, the kiss was forgotten. Brooks didn’t use the pulley to get down; he chose to climb—anything to extend the trip home, I guess. He walked around the house instead of cutting through, and got in his car and left, chanting “He’s going to kill me” the whole way.

  Knowing what little I did of his dad, I couldn’t even say it was out of the question.

  “You were brilliant!”

  Tabs burst out of the house, where she’d hidden after she’d finished her part in the next phase of our plan. Since there was no way to get to Brooks’ car when it was at his house, and no way for Tabs or Brucey to get into the Lowry lot to reach it during school, we settled on luring him to my house, where the car would be in the open. His dad’s phone call was a bonus.

  In five minutes, Brucey would report an erratic driver to the police, who would pull Brooks over and find the minibar Tabs had just stashed behind his seat. As out of it as he was, they’d probably give him a Breathalyzer on the spot.

  “Did you do it?” I asked, horrified that someone had actually seen the kiss.

  “Yeah. There’s a half-empty bottle of vodka, minus fingerprints, under the seat with a couple of empty beer cans I found beside the Dumpster at the bodega. I threw in Mom’s expired pain pills from the dentist, too. Don’t worry, I didn’t leave the bottle, just the pills in a Baggie. No names.”

  Vicodin and vodka would definitely get some attention.

  “The way he tore out of here, we might not need Brucey’s call,” she said. “I bet he was doing ninety-five by the time he hit the main road. Why are you not celebrating? This is a good thing, isn’t it?”

  “What?” I asked, barely listening. “Yeah, of course it’s a good thing. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were flirting for real. Dinah, please tell me I know better.”

  I didn’t answer her. Tabs is one of the only people in the world who can tell when I’m lying, and even though I wanted to say “Yes, it was all an act, none of that was real,” I couldn’t. I was terrified she’d see a truth I wasn’t entirely sure of myself.

  23

  I didn’t sleep well that night, so it was a good thing that neither Uncle Paul nor Aunt Helen dropped by the house where they could see me pacing the downstairs. I couldn’t get Brooks’ face out of my head.

  That look of hopelessness and horror he’d worn—I’d put it there.

  The way he had to force himself to hold his breath and run to make it to his car before he changed his mind—I’d done that.

  The feeling of hopeless claustrophobia as his world began to collapse in on him for no apparent reason—I’d caused it.

  Me.

  It should have been a moment of triumph. I was supposed to be the good guy in all this, Claire’s avenger in the real world while Mitch was on duty guarding the angel room. I wasn’t the one who’d hurt someone who didn’t deserve it, so why was I the one with the malfunctioning conscience that insisted on screaming at me at two in the morning?

  And I couldn’t stop thinking about that kiss, either. I was still trying my best to push it out of my sleep-deprived mind when I dragged myself into Lowry’s main hall the next morning. Sure, going moon-eyed and tripping over my own tongue would have sold the idea that I was falling for Brooks, but I was hoping to find a way to pull off a fake fall while maintaining a healthy distance. Preferably one that didn’t involve references to anyone’s tongue renting space in the wrong mouth.

  “You look awful.” Dex fell into step beside me at the base of the staircase. “Actually, you look hungover. I thought you’d sworn off partying in favor of hospital duty.”

  “I’m sleepwalking,” I said. “Which means I’m not legally liable for my actions—something you should keep in mind.”

  “Have you thought about it?”

  “Pushing you over the bannister to stop your voice from echoing in my head? Yes. I’m thinking about it right now. Would you rather hit the marble, or do you want me to aim for a fish to break your fall?”

  I’ve been drunk exactly once in my life (Brucey tried to make sangria punch out of Kool-Aid, wine coolers, and canned fruit cocktail—long story, bad ending), and the headache I had the morning after was nothing compared to the elephant tap-line currently prancing behind my eyes.

  “Have you thought about the carnival,” he clarified. “You aren’t still mad at me, are you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe you’re mad or maybe you’ll go with me?”

  “Pick one.”

  It felt like one of those tap-dancing elephants was twirling a fire baton. When I closed my eyes, there were actual sparks.

  “The season’s closing at the end of the week, and I’m not afraid of begging in public. I’ll get on my knees right here on the stairs and everyone will think it’s charming and romantic.”

  “Try desperate and pathetic.”

  I pulled him back up by the arm, dragging him with me as I continued to climb.

  “There, now we’re even for the arm thing. You have no excuse to say no.”

  “Fine! Stop bugging me and I’ll upgrade you to a definite maybe.”

  “I’ll take it.”

  The idiot kissed me on the cheek and ran the rest of the stairs two at a time. I lugged myself to trig at half his pace, relying on the hope that Brooks would look worse than I felt to get me there, but Brooks wasn’t in his seat.

  Class started and he never came in.

  He wasn’t in the hall before history, and my attempted inquiry to Chandi about where he’d gone was cut off by Dex’s arrival and her quick escape into the room.

  By lunch, curiosity was turning into worry. I’d been betting on Brooks’ mood to get him pulled over, but it could just have easily distracted him into crashing his car. Instead of walking a straight line for the highway patrol, he could have ended up in the hospital, or put someone else there if he hit another car instead of a tree or guardrail. Surely, I thought, if Brooks was in trouble, one of his friends would know, and then the whole school would.

  I hadn’t heard so much as a whisper, and didn’t until last period, when he showed up in class.

  “Where have you been?” I slid into the seat next to him.

  “At the hospital annex, in their blood lab,” he said.

  “Are you sick?”

  “Sick would be an improvement. A brain tumor would be an improvement. Right now, dead would be an improvement. Sorry. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  He straightened in his seat long enough to answer the roll call, then ducked back down.

  “If you’re not sick, then why were you at the hospital?”

  “For a drug test.”

  The picture in his lap was stuck in a holding pattern. Brooks traced and retraced the same lines, making them darker and wider until he scratched through the paper. He ripped it out and started over.

  “I got stopped two blocks from home after I left your place. I wasn’t thinking about speed limits, just trying to defuse my dad. The cop said I was doing ninety-seven.”

  “You didn’t argue with him, did you? That only makes it worse.”

  “No, I didn’
t argue. I told him I had an emergency at home and that I hadn’t been paying attention. But whoever’s got it in for me must have gotten bored with taking shots from behind their computer.”

  “I don’t get it. What happened?” I hoped I sounded more curious than eager.

  “He was going to let me off with a warning, until a quarter-full bottle of vodka rolled out from under my seat.”

  Another sheet of paper died a horrible, inky death.

  “Someone stashed the bottle in my car, along with empty beer cans and enough pills that the cop dragged me down to the police station. They towed my car. They called my dad. This isn’t funny anymore, Dinah.”

  I thought I was going to faint straight out of my seat when he looked up and our eyes met; I think my heart stopped for a beat or two before it sank in that he wasn’t calling me out for the traffic stop.

  “W-was it ever funny?” I asked, praying the hitch in my throat didn’t actually make it into my voice.

  “No, but until now, I thought this was some idiot trying to show off. I thought they’d get bored and move on to someone else if I didn’t retaliate or give them any attention. My own father thinks I’m an addict … how is that a joke?”

  It wasn’t, but it was coming very close to justice. I even let myself hope that Brooks would be leaving Lowry before me, and I’d have however many days between his expulsion and Claire’s return to actually enjoy myself with Abigail-not-Abby at lunch or hang out with Dex.

  “Who does something like this?” Brooks’ rant had continued while I zoned out. “Both of my top college picks have probably blackballed me. Headmistress Kuykendall informed me that I’m on strike two and one short step from being kicked out of here, which means I’m half that far from being kicked out of my house, as Dad says I’m a disgrace to my mother’s memory. I have a police report with my name on it. I have an arrest record. They ask that when you get a job, don’t they?”

  He groaned, grabbing the sides of his head with his hands.

  “Why is this happening to me?”

  “Psycho ex-girlfriend?” I suggested.

  “I don’t date psychos. I don’t even know any psychos.”

  That was an interesting thought. I’d heard Brucey talk about his sessions with Dr. Useless and all the things he’d learned snooping through her office when she had to leave to take calls or other quick emergencies. She had a patient who would black out and wake up hours later with no memory of what he’d done, even horrible or dangerous things. Maybe that was what was wrong with Brooks. Multiple personalities would go a long way toward explaining why the Brooks I’d seen and spoken to was nothing like the one in Claire’s letters. And if that was it, at least his dad had the cash to get him serious help.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” he asked as Mr. Cavanaugh called time on the last presentation and made us start class for real.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “I think you’re about the only one.”

  Our conversation ended there, replaced by Mr. Cavanaugh’s insistence that everyone line up on either side of the stage for what he called “drama drills” (charades for a grade). The rest of last period ticked by sixty seconds at a time while we pulled every identity from space cowboy to beached mermaid out of a hat in an attempt to get our character across. (No, it wasn’t funny when Jordan drew “the Venus de Milo,” pulled her arms in her sleeves, and Dex yelled out “Dinah’s first day” as his guess.)

  I was anxious to get home and fill Tabs and Brucey in on how well things were going. We’d finally made progress, and Brooks was becoming acquainted with that suffocating crush that had plagued my every moment since I’d first found his name on Claire’s computer. When the bell finally released us for the day, I was ready to skip the stage steps and jump into the pit just to shorten the wait that much more, but I forced myself to stay inconspicuous.

  Brooks beat me back to our seats, and by the time I got there he had my bag in his hand stuffing something under the front flap.

  “What are you doing?”

  He froze with his back to me, and I watched his ears turn red the way my dad’s do when he’s embarrassed. A folded piece of blue paper was in his hand.

  “I wanted to give you something, but now it feels stupid,” he said, facing me. “I was trying to sneak it into your bag so you wouldn’t see me with it.”

  “What is it?”

  “Probably me losing whatever shred of sanity I had left before today. I had a lot of wait time at the hospital this morning; I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it that didn’t involve self-mutilation and a longer stay in the hospital.”

  He shoved the page into my hand.

  “Don’t open that until I’m out of here. And I’m sorry I can’t draw people.”

  Brooks snatched up his stuff and bolted without bothering to put the strap from his bag over his shoulder.

  The folded page stayed clutched in my hand, slightly rumpled from the way he’d crushed it trying to fit it into my bag. I opened it, dreading whatever poisonous viper inside would explain the sudden change in Brooks’ skin tone. After all, there wasn’t much chance of this being a signed confession.

  It was my tree house.

  Brooks had drawn the tree house from Uncle Paul’s backyard, finished it and made into the kind of palace Dad had dreamed of building, complete with a tower. There was an arrow pointing to the rear, labeled “Broom Parking in Back,” and where we’d taken the pulley up, it read “Flight Pad: No Mortals Allowed.” Instead of a rope, the pulley had been threaded with the braid coming off the head of a stick-figure princess leaning out the window. He’d even remembered the dish for the TV.

  Tabs was going to kill me.

  24

  Three days was a record for me keeping a secret from Tabs, and I think the only reason I lasted that long was because I forgot I’d stuck Brooks’ drawing in my bag after the first one.

  For those three days, I went to class, failed most of them miserably, pretended to listen to Abigail-not-Abby at lunch, and consider meeting Dex when he got off his shift at the fairgrounds, all between running to the hospital, only to be told there’d been no change with Claire, and waiting for word of Brooks’ drug test failure.

  The short version on that one is: TV lies. Drug tests take days, not hours. This was not a pleasant discovery. Waiting made me sloppy and forgetful.

  “You’ll be lucky if they get results in under a week,” Tabs said as we headed back to Uncle Paul’s house from one of those pointless hospital treks. “If his dad’s like you say, he probably wanted the detailed kind that only like two labs in the country can do.”

  She followed that with a request for gum, which I told her to get out of my bag. Tabs dumped it out in the seat between us, and that forgotten piece of blue paper fell out with everything else.

  “What’s this?” she asked.

  “Nothing.” I tried to grab it, but the car swerved and I had to put both hands back on the wheel.

  “He did this, didn’t he? Because of the lip lock in the tree.”

  “What difference does it make?” I asked, and made another grab. She held it out of reach. “Give it back.”

  Instead, she unfolded it to let it flap over the side of the car, where the wind tattered the top. I made a grab for it again, not really sure why I cared what she was going to do with my picture.

  “You have to destroy it, Dinah.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you don’t hang on to things created by your sworn enemy,” she said.

  “He doesn’t know we’re enemies. He thought he was being nice.”

  “And I’m getting the feeling that you think it’s nice, too. He’s sucking you in. It’s like those movies where a bunch of kids stumble on an evil artifact and one sneaks it home without telling the others. They start acting all weird because it connects them to thing trying to kill them. Destroy it.”

  “I don’t care who made it—I like it.”

  It was what Dad would h
ave made me if Mom hadn’t got in the way. My appreciation of the image had nothing to do with the person who had created it. Maybe.

  “I care,” she said, crushing the page, and the dream it held, into a ball.

  “Tabs!”

  “I care because this is not helpful. This is a distraction. This is him baiting the hook and you falling for it.”

  “It’s a piece of paper with pencil scratches on it, not GHB in a Coke.”

  “No, this is a problem, and the only way to handle problems is to get rid of them.”

  She let it drop. In a matter of seconds, my tree palace was flying through the air behind us, to land somewhere on the side of the road in an overgrown ditch full of stagnant rainwater. There was no chance of saving it, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try. I coasted the car onto the shoulder and jumped out, hoping there was something left, but it was floating out of reach.

  I tried snapping off a stick to draw it closer, because I couldn’t tell how deep the ditch was or if there was anything alive in it.

  “Look at yourself,” Tabs ordered. She pried my hand out of the muck and held it in front of my face, shaking it so that grimy bits of water hit me in the nose. “You’re fried, D. You need a break.”

  “I’ll take a break once I’m done with Brooks. Once he’s gone, I’ll stop going to class until Lowry calls Uncle Paul to tell him they’ve removed me from the roster for truancy. Satisfied?”

  “No. You’re coming with me and we’re going to do something crazy like normal teenage girls with a car, cash, and no adult supervision.”

  “The only place I’m going is home.” I threw my stick down and pulled my feet out of the slosh, shaking them to get the mud off.

  “Are you seriously pouting because of this?”

  “I am not pouting!”

  Does anyone not say, or at least not think, that when they’re accused of pouting? Especially if it’s true.