The Guardian's Playlist

by J Powell Ogden

  “Trust me. That’s not all of them.”

  “The article can’t all be true,” I practically pleaded. He raised his eyebrows at me like he thought I was so naïve. But I knew there had to be more to the story.

  “The pot?”

  He raised his hand and made an exaggerated checkmark in the air above the cliff. “Check,” he said.

  “The assault?”

  “Check.”

  I shook my head in sorrow. What had happened to him? He continued on in monotone, firing off his sins rapidly, one after another.

  “Smoking? Check. Drinking? Check. Pills? Check. Stealing? Check. Hooking up?” He paused and looked up at me and then lowered his long lashes and looked away. “Check.”

  Oh God, he was only fifteen…

  “What about the Ritalin?” I whispered.

  He just shook his head disgustedly.

  “Not everyone believes you’re the one who brought the Ritalin to the park,” I tried.

  He closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the cliff. His mouth clamped tightly shut.

  “If you won’t talk to me about what really happened on that cliff, I know other people who will.”

  “Go ahead,” he said quietly. “I really don’t care what anyone thinks.”

  “I could talk to Shawn.”

  “Shawn won’t tell you anything.”

  I cast about, looking for something to leverage against him, to pry him open. “Luke Devlin thinks you’re innocent.”

  That name got his attention, and he snapped his head up. “How do you know Devlin?”

  “He was at your wake, and then I ran into him in the courtyard at school. He broke up a shoving match between Shawn and Lance and—”

  Michael vanished and reappeared instantly a few inches in front of my face, his eyes wild and dark. He was leaning forward on his fingertips, his toes only partially on the edge of the cliff, and for a split second I was worried he might fall again.

  “Promise me you’ll stay away from Devlin,” he spat.

  I gasped, and pressed myself back against the cliff, feeling as if I’d had the wind knocked out of me. He rocked back on his heels, which were over the edge, and ran a hand through his hair. He flickered violently.

  “Oh shit…I’m sorry…I…” He glanced down at the frothy river and the jagged boulders one hundred feet below him and back up to my face, which was probably as pale as his was at the moment. “Sorry, shit…” He leapt back over to where he’d been sitting a few seconds before. My heart pounded in my chest.

  “Catherine, I—”

  “Who’s Luke Devlin?”

  “No one you need to know.”

  “Look, I’ll make you a deal,” I said, thinking I’d finally found my way in. “I’ll stay away from Luke if you tell me who he is and what happened last August. I really, really think it’s important.”

  He snorted and looked away.

  “I can call him right now. He gave me his number.” Which of course he hadn’t, but I started to pull out my phone anyway. Michael glared at the phone, his eyes in turmoil, and when I started to dial, he threw his nearly translucent hand out in front of me.

  “Just…wait…” He rested his head back against the cliff and said softly, “Just…promise me you’ll stay away from both Shawn and Devlin and that you’ll stay…clean.”

  It took me a second to realize what he was asking me. I almost laughed. “What. You think I’m going to hit up Luke or Shawn for a fix?” Right. That sounded like me.

  “And you think you’re too perfect? Too good? You think you’re immune?” he asked derisively. “It’s always the smart ones.”

  “Fine! Whatever,” I shot back, but he nodded, accepting my coerced agreement to his conditions.

  The cuts and bruises, still fresh on his rugged chin and arms, seemed to stand out more starkly against his pale skin as he faced me and set his jaw. “Fine. Go ahead. What do you want to know?”

  This wasn’t the way I’d wanted to start this discussion, but I’d take what I could get. “Was Luke your dealer?”

  “Was. Before.”

  “Before what?”

  His breathing quickened, but he didn’t answer.

  “Before what?” I persisted.

  “Just before, okay? Before I decided I didn’t want to be a stoner anymore.”

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “The reason doesn’t exist anymore.”

  I was startled to see him starting to fade again, so I backed off that question. “So, is that how Luke knows you’re innocent? Because you weren’t buying anymore?”

  “Devlin knew I quit.” He paused and laughed darkly. “Yeah, he knew I quit alright. I quit just about everything—pot, pills, drinking, skipping school—everything except smoking. I was still working on that when…”

  “When you fell?” I prompted gently.

  “Yeah…”

  “So, if you quit, where did the Ritalin come from?”

  He shifted his weight uncomfortably and looked up at the sky, as if trying to decide whether or not he would stick to our bargain. “I guess it doesn’t really matter anymore,” he mumbled, and then he ran his fingers back and forth through his hair so it stood up wildly over the top of his head.

  “Shawn lives behind the Gardiners,” he began, “and when I first moved in with them last fall, Shawn and I used to smoke pot together in the cement drain pipe at the park down the street. After I quit, I would just smoke while he got high.” He looked up anxiously to see the expression on my face, which I fought to keep neutral. Then, the story poured out of him, effortless, like air flowing out of hole in a tire, releasing pressure.

  “So I transfer to Saint Joan, right? And when I met with them in August, they told me I was way behind in reading and writing. Big surprise. So, they’re like, “Oh, we have all kinds of programs for that, Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner.”” He did a perfect Sister Larry high-pitched phlegmy accent, and I bit back a grin as I imagined how that meeting must have gone. He ignored me and kept talking. He was on a roll.

  “So, I’m really trying, you know? I even got that book you guys supposedly read over the summer, um, The Red…?” He looked up and scratched the back of his head.

  “The Red Badge of Courage,” I filled in for him.

  He snapped his fingers. “Right. Anyway, from the way she said programs, I knew that could mean only one thing—more work for me.” He smiled ruefully. “I knew I needed it, but I didn’t want it. Then, I made Big Mistake Number One. I complained to Shawn about how dumb I was and how stupid they were, and he said, ‘Can’t you take drugs to help with that?’ And I reminded him that I’d quit all that shit. The day I died, we went down in the park to hang out. It was so damn hot, I just had to get out of the house—”

  “I know the feeling,” I interrupted. He looked at me impatiently. “Sorry.”

  “Shawn drove over to pick me up, and after he splattered me with Higher, he must have seen the Ritalin in Bill and Sue’s medicine cabinet. Shawn has a bad habit of helping himself in other people’s medicine cabinets. When he saw the Ritalin, he probably figured he’d hit the jackpot. It’s sorta like speed or cocaine-light for us non-ADD types. He brought it that day for himself, but he said it would help me. Right. Sure.” He clenched his fist as he remembered.

  “We were sitting in the front seat of his car in the Nature Center’s parking lot, burning up in the heat, and I was so mad when he showed me the bottle. I was trying to figure out how to get the pills back in the Gardiner’s cabinet without them knowing when he said, ‘So, like are you gonna take it or what?’ And I told him, ‘No, you stupid dumbass.’ Shawn just smiled and said, ‘Well, then I guess there’s more for me.’”

  Michael paused and shook his head in disbelief. “He’s such a fucking idiot! I should have taken the pills from him right then. I mean, I weigh at least thirty pounds more than he does, it would have been easy. Right? But I just sat there and watched as he pulled out a couple
of tablets. He said, ‘The guy I talked to told me I should take two if I wanted to clear my head and study better.’ He dropped five in a plastic baggie and set it on the dashboard, and then he pounded them into powder with the flat side of his pocketknife. I told Shawn, ‘Whatever. But I’m not taking any.’” Michael rolled his eyes, remembering. “So he opened the bag and said, ‘I know,’ and then he gave me this stupid grin. Then he dumped most of the powder onto his tongue, and I was like, ‘What the fuck, Shawn? You’re gonna waste yourself,’ and he’s like, ‘That’s the plan.’ Then he pressed his nose to the inside of the bag and snorted the rest.”

  “Wait. Shawn took all of them? All five?” I interrupted, incredulous.

  “Yeah. He’s really stupid.” Michael shook his head again, disgusted, and then went on. “At that point, I was just worried that I was going to have to drive the fucking car home. I never even got my temps and never had any practice. ‘Just wait,’ Shawn said. Then he leaned his head back on the seat to wait for the buzz to kick in. ‘How long?’ I asked him, and he said, ‘The guy I talked to said about thirty minutes.’ And I’m like, ‘The same guy who told you to take only two? How the hell does he know?’ But Shawn just said, ‘Dude. He knows. Like, he knows everything.’”

  “Do you think he was talking about Luke?” I asked.

  “Maybe, but I haven’t known Devlin to deal in pharms.” He thought about that for a moment. “I don’t know.”

  His eyes narrowed again as he searched for the thread of his story and when he found it he groaned. “I was really pissed so I got out of the car, slammed the door, and went through the Nature Center to the deck out back that looks out onto the river. I thought about leaving him there. I could have walked home. It would have taken a while, but I could have done it. I thought about calling Sue and Bill, but I didn’t have my phone. So I just stood there and stared at the water. It was running so low and the sun was reflecting off these long slow ripples. It calmed me down, and I thought maybe I would just go back out to the car and sit with him, you know? Make sure he didn’t do anything stupid.” The soft laughter that followed that statement had a dark, serrated edge to it. It could have cut through steel.

  “Big Mistake Number Two,” Michael said. “Shawn was already out of the car, and as soon as he saw me, he started talking a mile a minute. He wanted to go check out the cliff. He wanted to race me up to the top. He was talking to moms and kids who were on their way down and telling them his plans, and I thought, ‘Oh shit, here we go.’ I looked back in the car to see if I could grab the bottle and at least keep him from taking any more, but he just grinned at me and patted his front pocket.

  “I said, ‘Come on Shawn, give me the pills. Let’s just get back in the car and wait for you to come back down. You can have your buzz, and I’ll just take a nap or something.’ But he wouldn’t listen. He didn’t want to waste his buzz sitting in the car, and he started up the trail to the top. I followed him. Big Mistake Number Three.”

  He paused there and tensed his jaw again. “I’m so stupid! I should have dragged his ass back into the car. What was I thinking?”

  “You were—” He looked at me with eyes that smoldered. “Okay…shutting up now,” I said, and he dropped his gaze and sighed.

  “Look, Catherine, this is really hard.”

  I had no idea how to make it easier, so I just nodded while Michael pushed on.

  “So Shawn, when he finally got to the top, he was like, ‘This is so awesome! Do you see this?’ He couldn’t get enough of the view, couldn’t get close enough, and when he hopped the fence, I didn’t even think. I just knew I had to get him away from the edge.” Michael’s eyes filled with fear. His chest heaved.

  “Then the whole fucking cliff just disappeared under my foot, and I thought I was done right then!” He paused and slowed his breathing down. “I thought I was going to make it, you know? When I grabbed onto that root…”

  “And I knew you wouldn’t,” I murmured.

  His anguished eyes found mine and searched them, reaching through the shadows that I knew were still there whenever I thought about his death. His expression softened as he finally realized how I must have felt that day, watching him die. We both looked away, the intimacy of the moment too much for words. We just sat there, wordlessly, side by side, watching the world go by below us, hoping that maybe it would move on to a new scene soon. Something different. Something better. It didn’t. It still sucked. The whole thing just sucked.

  After a while, I looked back over at him. He had his face buried in his knees again and was rocking back and forth. I reached out my hand, wanting to comfort him. He must have sensed my tentative fingers, even with his eyes closed, because he flinched away.

  “I don’t care about all the things you did,” I whispered. He lifted his chin and rested it on his knees, his eyes expressionless, lost in thought. I studied his quiet profile, thinking through all of the things he’d told me, and realized there was one thing that didn’t add up.

  “Michael,” I called his name softly. He blinked his way back from wherever he had retreated and bounced his back restlessly on the face of the cliff behind him. “There’s one thing that’s bothering me. If Shawn had the pills in his pocket, how did they end up next to you at the base of the cliff?”

  He cocked his head to the side and thought about that. “That son of a bitch. Shawn must have tossed them over the cliff after I fell. It shouldn’t surprise me. He wouldn’t have wanted to get caught with them. I was as good as dead, and they came from my house so who would know the difference?”

  I thought about Shawn, looking over the edge of the cliff at the broken body of his friend far below and deliberately tossing the pills down on top of him, ridding himself of the evidence that he was the one responsible. “It’s not fair—”

  “Catherine—”

  “Everyone thinks you screwed up again, and you didn’t. I’ll kick his ass!”

  The corners of Michael’s lips twitched upward at my suggestion.

  “Why do you think that’s so funny? Don’t you see? Maybe that’s what I’m supposed to do for you. Maybe I’m supposed to clear your name.”

  “Who the fuck cares about my name?” His words bit. Hard. Then he said in a voice I could barely hear, “There aren’t any Casey’s left anyway.”

  “I care. You should. I could talk to Luke. He seemed to know—”

  “For Christ’s sake, Catherine! You promised me you’d stay away from him if I spilled my guts to you. I did. If I can’t trust you…I swear to God, I’ll…”

  His chest was heaving harder than it had when he’d talked about his fall from the cliff, and I wondered what could be worse. I’d seen him start to fade or look away when he was upset, but his strong emotions didn’t repel him from me this time, and his eyes held onto mine like a powerful vise, refusing to let go. I was easily overpowered.

  “Okay, Michael. Okay.” I surrendered, “I’ll stay away from Luke. I promise. You can trust me.”

  He finally tore his gaze away and looked down at his hands. “He’s dangerous, Catherine. He fucks up people’s lives. You have no idea—”

  “It’s just not fair,” I said again. “You should hear what people are saying.” It wasn’t right. Justice hadn’t been served at all.

  “Like I said. Who cares? It’s not like it really messes up my lifetime GPA,” he pointed out sarcastically. “So maybe I would have gotten a C+ for the last three months of my life. I still get an F for the first fifteen and a half years. That’s F for—”

  “Enough with the F-words already!”

  A grin spread over his lips. “What. You think maybe I cuss too much?”

  “Maybe a little.”

  He tried to stifle a laugh. “You just said ass, and I’ve heard you say shit about a dozen times.”

  I could feel my face coloring. “The F-word is different.”

  He tried to look contrite, but it was a no go. Instead he just said, “So…maybe you shouldn’t keep brin
ging up shit I don’t want to talk about?”

  “Maybe,” I murmured, but I knew I wouldn’t stop pushing him, not until we’d figured out why he was still here. I looked out over the gorge and saw that the sun was about to set behind the cliff in the distance. I glanced over at Michael reluctantly. It was time to leave. “I have to go. You know, parents, car, homework…”

  He rolled his eyes and stood up. “Yeah. You do have all that. But you’ll be back?” The look in his eyes was a mixture of forced tolerance, worry, and hopefulness. In other words, I was all he had. If he wanted to talk to someone, it was me or nobody.

  “I’ll come back later this week, maybe even tomorrow if I can get the car.” I lifted my eyes up toward the clearing among the oaks above us and then glanced back to say goodbye, but he was gone.

  “Why do you do that to me?” I whined.

  “Dramatic effect,” he murmured from somewhere nearby, and then I heard muffled laughter.

  “Stupid ghost.”

  FOURTEEN

  THE GHOST, THE WITCH &

  THE JACK-O’-LANTERN

  LUKE DEVLIN. I’D promised Michael I’d stay away from him, and I intended to keep that promise, but that didn’t stop me from watching him, and when I did, I found him discretely massaging every part of the student body. He regularly met with kids from every social caste in every grade level, and I was shocked that I hadn’t realized he dealt drugs before. But if he was so dangerous, why had he stepped in to help when Lance threatened me? And what did he know that convinced him Michael was clean when he died? Keeping my promise was driving me crazy. I wanted answers to those questions.

  On the flip side, I did make it back to the woods to see Michael the next day, and aside from the days I volunteered at the wildlife hospital with Grace, I saw him almost every day for the next few weeks. I told my mom I was going to Jai Ho to study. She couldn’t leave Mina alone, so she never needed the van, and she could see how much I wanted to get out of the house. She didn’t ask me why I felt that way, and I didn’t ask her why she was practically killing herself to take care of her mother alone, but it was becoming increasingly obvious that she didn’t want that choice to burden the rest of us. It was her sacrifice. That meant whenever I wanted to go anywhere, I pretty much got the green light without the third degree.