by Zoe Cannon
She pushed the thought away. She could deal with it later. Much later.
“Wait.” Her mom frowned. “What do you mean, send spies to talk to her friends?”
“That guy I went out with? Turns out he was just trying to get information about Heather.” She tried to make it sound like it was no big deal. Her voice still came out angry.
Her mom’s lips tightened. “And why was he trying to get this information from you? Why not from Heather?”
“How should I know? I guess he thought I’d be less likely to suspect him.”
Her mom straightened her shoulders. She looked like she was preparing for battle. “This is completely inappropriate. They should have arrested that girl along with her parents. To let her go and then spy on my daughter, as though you’re the criminal here… and taking you on a date to do it, no less…” She brought her focus back to Becca. “This is going to stop right now.” She pulled out her phone. “What’s his name?”
“Jake.” Becca thought. “He never told me his last name.”
Her mom dialed a number. She walked into the kitchen as she spoke. Becca couldn’t make out the words, but there was no misinterpreting the tone of her voice.
And then, abruptly, her voice softened, shifted from furious to subdued.
She came back into the living room. The anger in her eyes was gone, replaced with confusion. “Since you didn’t know his name, I asked about all surveillance on Heather.” She hesitated.
“And?”
“There is no surveillance on Heather.”
Chapter Seven
Jake’s house was half the size of Heather’s aunt’s, with peeling brown paint and a half-unhinged screen door. A few dead plants lined the front walk. Becca had driven past it three times before she had finally spotted it. It was one of those places she had stopped seeing a long time ago after passing it on the ride to and from school every day.
She pulled into the driveway and winced as she hit a pothole. She slammed the car door and strode up the walk, choking on the smell of exhaust from the busy road.
Whatever game Jake was playing, Becca was going to get an explanation.
If he was home. There weren’t any other cars in the driveway. She couldn’t even see if there were any lights on inside the house; the curtains were pulled tight.
She had spent most of the day trying to figure out what to do about what she had found out yesterday. Then she had spent another twenty minutes convincing her mom to let her use the car, when her mom had wanted to spend her rare free evening doing some mother-daughter bonding. It had never occurred to her that Jake might not be home.
She reached out to ring the doorbell—but it had no button, just a couple of wires spilling out of the hole where the button should have been. She opened the screen door and knocked instead.
No answer.
Maybe nobody was home. Maybe she had made this trip for nothing.
Maybe it was a sign.
She could leave and spend the rest of the day at the playground avoiding her mom. She could just write Jake off as a liar and a creep, and walk in the other direction whenever she saw him at school.
No. She wasn’t giving up yet. Jake owed her an explanation.
She knocked again, louder.
Still no answer—but to her right, one of the curtains twitched.
She knocked a third time, loud enough that Jake would probably think she was Enforcement. Not that Enforcement usually bothered to knock at all.
Slowly, the door swung open.
Becca opened her mouth, ready to get some answers out of Jake—and snapped it shut again when she saw a man with a tangled gray beard wearing a pair of ratty pajamas. Definitely not Jake.
They blinked at each other for a few seconds.
This man had to be Jake’s dad. Becca had assumed Jake had been lying about his dad just like he had lied about his mom. Now, looking at the man in front of her, she wondered if that part had actually been true.
“Is Jake home?” Becca asked.
“I thought you were dead,” the man exclaimed at the same moment.
His eyes were round; his mouth hung slightly open. He fixed his eyes on her like he was afraid she would disappear if he looked away.
Before Becca could try to figure out what he meant, he opened the door wider and motioned her inside.
Becca hung back. “I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’m just looking for Jake. I know him from school.”
He shook his head so hard that Becca felt dizzy. “Don’t lie to me. Why are you lying to me? I’d know you anywhere.” He grabbed her wrist and, before she could think of resisting, pulled her inside.
She stumbled through the front door. Immediately she jerked her arm away and turned back around, but he had already slammed the door shut behind her. He stood between her and the exit, tears streaming down his face. “You were gone so long.” His voice broke. “You let me think you were dead. How could you? Didn’t you know how much we missed you?”
Becca tried to keep her voice level. “There’s been some mistake. I’m not who you think I am.” She searched the room for something she could use as a weapon if he turned violent. The room was practically bare. A tattered couch, a TV in the corner showing executions. Four neat but precariously tall stacks of unopened mail next to the door. On the wall, a picture hung the wrong way around, so that all Becca could see was the back of the frame.
That was it. Nothing Becca could use. Nothing to protect her from this lunatic.
He reached a trembling hand toward her hair, but stopped just short of touching her. “You can’t be alive. You can’t. I saw you die.”
“I’m sorry about whatever happened,” said Becca, making her speech low and soothing, trying not to let him see her fear. She didn’t know what might set him off. “But whoever you’re looking for… I’m not her.” Could she open the window and climb out? Probably not before he caught her. “Just step away from the door and let me leave. Please.”
The door burst open, catching Jake’s dad in the back. He yelped and stumbled out of the way.
Jake rushed into the house, clutching two bulging bags of groceries. “Dad? What happened? Whose car is—” He saw Becca and froze. He dropped the bags to the floor, and Becca heard the crunch of breaking glass.
“What the hell are you doing here?” Jake roared. His voice filled the tiny room. However frightening he had sounded when he had threatened Laine, it was nothing compared to now.
Her thoughts of confrontation evaporated. “I came to ask you something, but it wasn’t important. I was just leaving.”
Yellow liquid seeped out of one of the grocery bags. Jake either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “How dare you come into my home? How dare you come near my family?”
“I wasn’t… he thought…” Becca gave up on explanations. She started for the door, but Jake was still standing between her and the way out.
Jake slowly walked up to her until his toes touched hers. Abruptly, his voice dropped to a whisper. “If you ever come near my father again,” he hissed, “I’ll kill you.”
Before Becca could react, Jake grabbed for her. He dug his fingers into her arm and propelled her out the door. She only just managed to stay on her feet.
“Get out!” he screamed as she ran for the car.
* * *
From her vantage point at the top of the slide, Becca spotted the rust-ridden death trap of a car as soon as it pulled up.
The engine shut off with a strangled growl. Becca knew who was inside before the driver’s-side door opened. That was the same car that had been parked beside hers when she had left Jake’s house an hour ago.
Jake walked across the playground to her. He stopped at the bottom of the slide. “I was hoping you’d be here.” His smile was nowhere to be found. Instead, his face was a mess of relief and hope and fear. He looked… vulnerable. His shoulders were hunched; he walked with small, hesitant steps. A jarring contrast to his earlier fury.
�
��I thought you didn’t ever want to see me again.” She managed to keep most of the fear out of her voice.
“I’m sorry about what happened back there. I didn’t mean to yell at you like that.” He sounded like a different person. All his carefree confidence was gone.
He watched her like he was waiting for an answer. She didn’t give him one. What was she supposed to say? It’s okay that you lied to me, tried to manipulate me, and then threatened to kill me. That wasn’t going to happen. Not without a really good reason.
Seeing him down there reminded her of the first time she had run into him at the playground. She frowned at the memory. It had taken her almost twenty minutes to get back here from Jake’s house this afternoon… and yet Jake had just happened to come here the other day to think? Becca’s skin prickled.
When she didn’t answer, Jake motioned her down the ladder. “Come down here and we’ll talk.”
“I’d rather not.” She crouched in a defensive position, waiting for him to climb the ladder after her.
Instead, he sat at the bottom of the rusted slide. “Why did you come to my house, anyway?”
Now that she didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger, Becca’s earlier anger began to boil up, overtaking her fear.
She was so sick of being lied to.
“I’m not the one who needs to explain myself. If you’re not working for Internal, why did you want to know about Heather? Why did you take me on that date? Why did you lie about your mom? Who did your dad think I was?” Her voice rose with every question. “And why did you go nuts when I came to your house?”
“I told you,” said Jake. Not angry like she had expected. Quiet. Defeated. “I wanted to know about Heather because I didn’t think it was right the way everyone was treating her. That’s it. And I took you out to dinner because I like you—is that so hard to believe? As for the rest…” He looked up at her with pleading eyes. “Can’t you just forget about all that?”
Becca raised her eyebrows. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m sorry, okay? I don’t know what was wrong with me. As soon as I realized what I had said to you…” He hunched over, curling his hands into fists. “I just want to make things right.”
“If you don’t want to tell me the truth, fine,” said Becca. “You leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone. But don’t try to pretend we have some kind of relationship, and don’t ever lie to me again.”
“Please. Let’s start over.” He sounded like the words were choking him, like Becca’s answer was a matter of life and death.
“I already gave you that chance. We’re going in circles here. Tell me what’s going on, or don’t talk to me again.”
She waited… and waited. He didn’t speak. He didn’t even move.
He wasn’t going to answer her.
But he didn’t look like he was planning on leaving, either. And Becca couldn’t stay here all night.
He didn’t hurt me earlier, even as angry as he was, she told herself. He won’t hurt me now. But the hate in his voice when he had threatened Laine still echoed in her ears.
She started climbing down the ladder.
Jake didn’t move as she made it to the bottom of the ladder, as she began walking toward the road. She paused and looked back at him one more time. He was still sitting a the bottom of the slide, eyes closed, fists clenched. She couldn’t even tell whether he knew she had moved.
Becca wanted to scream at him, to rush up and shake him until some sort of logical explanation fell out. But no matter what Jake told her, it wouldn’t be what she wanted. He could explain what he had done, but he could never explain her mother.
She kept walking.
As she reached the road, Jake called after her. “Wait.”
She stopped.
“I’ll tell you what you want to know.”
Becca waited while Jake dragged himself across the sea of weeds. When he reached her, he opened his mouth, then closed it again. It took him a moment to get the words out.
“Three years ago, Internal arrested me and my family.” It came out in a rush. “We weren’t dissidents. A friend of my dad’s was staying with us that year, and it turned out he was publishing a dissident newspaper. We didn’t find out until it was too late.” He looked at her with fear in his eyes. “We weren’t dissidents,” he repeated.
Most people probably wouldn’t have believed his denials. But Becca’s mom had told her stories most people never heard. Every once in a while, Internal made a mistake.
Of course, that was what she had kept telling herself about Heather’s parents.
But her mom had kil— They had been executed. Jake and his dad were still alive. Just like Heather.
“They let you go,” she said, thinking aloud. “So they must have realized they were wrong about you.”
Jake nodded. “But not until… not for a while. My mom died in there.”
Had they made her confess to something she hadn’t done? She tried to push the thought away. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s over now.” Jake moved his shoulders in a convulsive imitation of a shrug. “But that’s why I got like that when I saw you at my house. No one ever comes there—just me and my dad. And you saw what he’s like now. He’s… fragile. When I saw you inside, all I could think was that someone might hurt him.”
And no wonder, after what had happened to his mom. She shuddered.
“And that’s why I was asking about Heather,” Jake continued. “I wasn’t spying for anyone. I just wanted to know how she was doing, because I know what it’s like.”
“So why talk to me?” Becca asked. “Why not go to her directly?”
“I didn’t know if she’d want to talk to me. I figured she might just want to be left alone. Besides…” He paused. “It wasn’t just about Heather. I wanted to get to know you.”
Becca, still trying to process his revelation about his arrest, couldn’t respond with anything but a blank stare.
“When Internal let us go, everyone knew what had happened,” said Jake. “None of my friends would speak to me, except to call me a dissident. I got beaten up every day. I couldn’t fight back, in case hurting them got me arrested again. They broke one of my ribs once. I was afraid one day they’d go too far and kill me.” He rubbed his chest like he could still feel the pain of the broken rib. “We moved out to live with my grandparents—my mom’s parents—for a while. No one at my new school knew about any of it. I kept waiting for someone to call me a dissident, or to say something about my mom, but they never found out. I almost got used to it—being normal again.
“Of course, then my grandparents decided they’d rather pay for us to move back here than keep us in their house any longer than they had to. I guess I should be grateful they kept us around as long as they did—my dad isn’t exactly easy to live with. So they pay the rent and send us just enough money to live on—” A hint of bitterness crept into his voice. “—And we stay here where they don’t have to deal with us.”
He paused for a moment, staring at the ground. “When we came back here, I stayed as invisible as possible. I didn’t want anybody to recognize me. A few people have, but it’s nothing like before. But that’s only because I don’t let them notice me. I make sure not to be too loud, or too quiet, or too smart, or too anything.”
But he hadn’t been invisible when he had confronted Laine. He had risked having people notice him to help Heather.
She kept listening.
“I saw it happen all over again with Heather. But you didn’t turn on her, even after people started calling you a dissident too. I thought…” He laughed a little. “It sounds pathetic. I thought with you maybe I wouldn’t have to be invisible.”
What could Becca say to all that?
“I had no idea.” She shook her head. “I thought you were using me somehow—either to get information about Heather for Internal, or… I didn’t even know what.” She paused. “I’m sorry.”
“How were you supposed to kno
w?” He stood awkwardly, hands jammed into his pockets. “So… can we start over?” His smile was so slight, Becca almost didn’t see it. “Again?”
By telling her what had happened to him, he had risked her turning against him like everybody else. He had poured his heart out to her. How could she turn him away after that?
She smiled back. A peace offering. “Of course we can.”
* * *
Becca’s head was still full of her conversation with Jake when she scanned the cafeteria for Heather the next Monday.
She almost didn’t recognize her. Heather wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her hair stuck out in tangled curls. She moved without grace; as Becca watched, she stumbled to an empty table in the corner and set her tray down so hard a drop of chili jumped up onto her shirt. She didn’t seem to notice.
Becca crossed the room and slid her tray into the space across from Heather.
“Whoever you are, just leave me alone,” Heather muttered. She looked up. “Oh,” she said flatly. “It’s you.”
Becca sat down. “I’ve been looking for you all morning. I thought maybe you had skipped school again.”
Heather studied her chili as though it were an alien lifeform. “What do you want?” For a second Becca wasn’t sure whether Heather was talking to her or the chili.
Becca took a deep breath. “I’m sorry.”
She’d had all day Sunday to think about her conversation with Heather, and about what Jake had told her. And the more she thought, the more she knew she had been wrong to push Heather about what she had found in her mom’s files. Heather didn’t need that kind of pressure right now. She didn’t need that reminder of what her parents had been.
That would leave Becca with nobody to talk to about what she had found. But that didn’t matter right now. Heather needed a friend—Becca’s conversation with Jake had shown her just how much—and she had nobody else.
“I’m sorry about… everything I said,” Becca continued. She couldn’t get more specific than that. Not here. “I won’t talk to you about it anymore, if you don’t want.”