Final Girl

by Michelle Schusterman

  And now I had something brand-new to worry about. Could Dad possibly think I wanted to live with Mom?

  I entered my room and found the beds neatly made. Dad had gotten up when I did; I was pretty sure there was a conference call going on in Lidia’s room. The cleaning staff must have come in right after we’d left. I kicked off my shoes and headed straight for my bed. But then I noticed my camera on the night table and froze.

  I’d left the Elapse on top of Mi Jin’s script, like a paperweight. But now, the script was gone.

  For nearly ten minutes, I searched every place I could think of. The drawers, under the bed, on top of the TV. I even looked through Dad’s paperwork on the desk, thinking maybe the cleaning staff had put all the papers together or something. Finally, I sat on the bed and stared at my reflection in the mirror. My stomach turned as I pictured my dad’s contract, all torn to shreds.

  The Thing had Mi Jin’s script, I was positive. But what was it going to do to it?

  CHAPTER TEN

  PSYCHO(LOGY)

  Rumorz

  All the celebrity gossip you need (and then some)!

  JACK SINCLAIR’S DAUGHTER SEES DEATH OMEN IN BEIJING

  by Shelly Mathers

  Spoilers ahead for episode 33 of Passport to Paranormal, which aired yesterday evening.

  Last night’s episode of P2P has stirred up a bit of controversy—almost as much as the infamous Daems Penitentiary episode, when the crew received an unwanted visit from former host Emily Rosinski! But this time, the visitor crashing the party wasn’t human. Well, not quite.

  A supposed “ghost” with a face bearing a remarkable resemblance to host Jack Sinclair’s daughter, Kat, was spotted on the Yongheng Bridge . . . while Kat herself looked on from another part of the bridge. The startling footage sent the P2P fandom into overdrive; some have already posted their own reviews examining the clip frame by frame. Many seem to have latched on to the theory that the apparition was a doppelganger—including Kat Sinclair, who seemed unfazed by the incident and went so far as to tease the idea that the sighting may indicate she’ll meet an untimely end in the season finale.

  Her rather laid-back attitude has caused many fans to speculate that this is another of the show’s infamous publicity stunts. Either way, one can’t help but wonder what P2P ’s latest host is thinking right now. Whether he’s just using his daughter for ratings or putting her in real danger, Jack Sinclair isn’t about to win Father of the Year.

  AVOIDING someone is hard to do when you’re traveling together. I spent our last few days in Beijing searching everywhere for Mi Jin’s script—I even asked the receptionist to check with the cleaning staff to see if it had been accidentally thrown away—but it was gone. For now.

  Obviously, Mi Jin had the script on her laptop, so it wasn’t like the original was gone. But I was too embarrassed to admit to her that I’d lost the copy she’d given me. And I still hadn’t figured out how to give her actual criticism. So I did the mature thing: total avoidance.

  The night before we left for Seoul, the Yongheng Bridge episode aired. I pretended to have a stomachache and hid out in my room while everyone else watched it together. The next morning, I waited until she got into one airport van before hopping into the second. I hung in the back of the security line at the airport, then hid out at one of the shops in the concourse pretending to look at books while she and the rest of the crew got coffee. I walked five gates down to use the restroom just in case she decided to use the one closest to our gate.

  “You’re such a chicken,” Oscar said when I slumped back down in the chair next to him. “Just tell her what happened and ask her for another copy.”

  “I don’t need another copy,” I muttered. “I already read it. She wants feedback from me.”

  “So tell her what you thought.”

  “But she wants me to, like, tell her things to fix.”

  “So tell her what to fix. You said you had some ideas.”

  “Oscar, it’s not—I don’t . . .” I sputtered. “It’s weird. What do I know about writing?”

  He shrugged. “Nothing, I guess. Except for the whole thing where you have a blog with like a billion followers.”

  “This is different,” I argued, my face going hot. “It’s a screenplay.”

  “Yeah. For a horror movie,” Oscar agreed. “Like the kind your grandmother starred in. Like the kind you’re totally obsessed with.” He eyed the Cannibal Clown Circus tee I had on over my long-sleeved thermal shirt. “And base your entire wardrobe on.”

  I crossed my arms over the clown’s grotesque smile. “Mi Jin’s our teacher. And she’s really smart, and . . .”

  “And you’re a chicken,” Oscar finished, his expression smug. “Like I said.”

  I scowled, because I couldn’t argue with that, because he was totally right. Someone cleared his throat, and the smile slipped from Oscar’s face. I turned to see Roland settling into the chair behind mine, holding a giant coffee cup.

  “Ready?” He directed the question at Oscar, who suddenly looked nervous.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  “I asked Roland if I could talk to him about . . .” Oscar waved his hand vaguely. “You know. The Emily stuff.”

  “Oh!” I felt a rush of guilt. I’d been so wrapped up in my own problems lately, I’d completely forgotten about Oscar’s. “Right. Um. I’ll just . . .” I started to stand, but Oscar grabbed my arm.

  “You can stay,” he said quickly. “I mean, if you want.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  Roland took a sip of his coffee. “So. The ‘Emily stuff.’” He made air quotes, and Oscar sighed.

  “Right.”

  For the next fifteen minutes, I sat quietly as Oscar told Roland all about how jumpy and paranoid he’d been lately, about how he kept replaying what had happened back at Daems in his mind like a waking nightmare.

  I’d had vague unsettling dreams last night, like I did most nights now. The only detail I remembered was seeing words scratched into the bathroom mirror, just like the Thing had done back in Buenos Aires. Except it was slightly different. The words weren’t I got out, but I couldn’t quite recall what they were.

  Also, in my dream, I was the one scratching them into the mirror.

  “And I keep thinking I should’ve reacted faster,” Oscar was saying. “I just . . . I saw her coming out of the cell, and I didn’t react fast enough because I was so focused on Aunt Lidia. I should’ve . . . ducked. Or, I don’t know, hit her.” He rolled his eyes, as if even he found the thought of him physically fighting a stalker armed with a knife ridiculous. “Or . . . I could’ve at least warned Kat in time. I mean, Emily just dragged her off, she could’ve killed her, and it was my fault.”

  Surprised, I immediately opened my mouth to argue. But Roland touched my elbow, and I pressed my lips together. I hadn’t realized Oscar had been feeling guilty about what Emily had done to me.

  “I know you know this, Oscar,” Roland said. “But everything Emily did was Emily’s fault. Not yours, not anyone else’s.”

  Oscar sighed. “Yeah, yeah. Aunt Lidia’s said the same thing to me a million times. You didn’t do anything wrong. Doesn’t change the fact that I didn’t do anything right, though. If I’d moved faster, Emily wouldn’t have knocked me out. I could’ve run for help, or just . . . done something.”

  Roland raised his eyebrows. “I thought you said you hadn’t talked to Lidia about this.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “So her saying you didn’t do anything wrong is about . . .”

  “Oh.” Oscar shot me a mildly panicked look. “Um. Something else.”

  An awkward silence fell. Roland took another sip of coffee. “Okay, well, you don’t have to tell me,” he said lightly. “But generally speaking, the more a patient discloses in therapy, the more he gets out of the sess
ion.”

  “It’s just . . .” Oscar swallowed. “It’s not relevant.”

  Roland grinned. “Ooh, I love when patients say that. They’re always wrong.”

  I stifled a giggle, and Oscar shot me a dirty look. “Fine.” He glanced around, then leaned forward and took a deep breath.

  “Last year I told my best friend I had a crush on him and he freaked out and told everyone and they did a bunch of mean stuff and we got in a fight and I punched him and got expelled and yeah I know he’s the bully not me and I know it’s his fault not mine but that doesn’t change the fact that if I hadn’t said anything to begin with he wouldn’t have bullied me and I wouldn’t have punched him and I wouldn’t have been expelled.”

  Oscar finally stopped, breathing heavily. He and I watched Roland carefully, but his expression hadn’t changed.

  “And when that happened, did you replay the situation?” he asked. “Like you’re doing now, with Emily?”

  “No.”

  “Oh, yes you did,” I blurted out. “You kept the mean notes Mark wrote. To read them.”

  Oscar scowled. “Like you did with that troll’s comments on your blog, you mean?”

  “Okay,” Roland cut in just as I opened my mouth. “One patient at a time.” He rested his coffee cup on the armrest between Oscar’s chair and mine. “Oscar, you said you know what happened in Brussels was Emily’s fault. You said you know Mark’s the bully. But I kinda think you don’t fully believe that. Otherwise, you wouldn’t be punishing yourself like this.”

  “Punishing myself?” Oscar repeated.

  Roland nodded. “By imagining all the different things you could’ve done—or have not done. You know what Emily could’ve not done? Violently attacked a couple of kids. You know what your friend could’ve not done? Made your life miserable instead of being supportive, like a friend should.” He drummed his fingers on the back of my chair, studying Oscar thoughtfully. “I’m wondering if this could be a pattern. Coping when someone mistreats you by blaming yourself.”

  Oscar shifted uncomfortably. “What? No, I—I just need to stop being all paranoid. I thought you could just, I don’t know, give me antianxiety pills or something. So I can sleep.”

  “I can’t prescribe anything until I have a diagnosis.” Roland squinted at Oscar. “Antianxiety pills? Have you taken those before?”

  I watched as Oscar became suddenly fixated on untying the knot on one of his hoodie’s strings. “Yeah, a long time ago.” Roland said nothing, just waited expectantly. After nearly half a minute, Oscar sighed. “When my dad went to prison.”

  “Ah.” Roland leaned back, looking like someone who’d just found a missing puzzle piece. “I see.”

  I looked from Roland to Oscar and back again, my whole body tense. I’d talked to Oscar enough about his dad to know how this went. Push too hard, ask one too many questions, and he’d get all irritated and shut down.

  But Roland didn’t push or ask questions. He didn’t even look at Oscar. He just . . . sat there. Sipping his coffee, watching people walk past our gate, looking all calm and disinterested like he wasn’t in the middle of an intense conversation.

  So I followed his lead, gazing at the TV hanging under our gate number but watching Oscar out of the corner of my eye. He finished untying the knot, then tied it again, then double knotted it. Then, very quietly, he started talking again.

  “I was in fifth grade during his trial. It was for embezzlement . . . I didn’t even know what that meant. I still kind of don’t. Anyway, since it was just me and my dad when I was little, he’d bring me to his café after school when he had to work late. I’d do my homework in his office, play games on his iPad . . . just hang out.” Oscar paused, blinking several times. “He used to have meetings with this one guy after the café was closed. Mr. Boyle. He had this really ugly wig that he pretended wasn’t a wig, it was kind of . . .” He shook his head. “Creepy-looking. Anyway. During the trial, my dad’s lawyer told me the people trying to put my dad in prison were going to ask me questions, since I spent so much time with him at work. He told me to just be honest. So when I went up there, they asked if I’d ever seen Mr. Boyle before, and I said yes, and they asked where, and . . . and my dad was just sitting there, staring at me with this totally panicked look, it really freaked me out, right? But his lawyer had told me to be honest, so . . . so I told the truth. That my dad and Mr. Boyle had some meetings after the café closed. And as soon as I said that, my dad just . . .” Oscar pressed his lips together, then looked up at Roland. “I could tell I’d messed up. I wasn’t supposed to tell them about Mr. Boyle.”

  “It proved your dad was guilty?” I couldn’t help asking.

  Oscar nodded. “Basically. I mean, there was other evidence. But I guess once the other lawyers knew about those meetings with Mr. Boyle, they found a whole bunch of other evidence, and . . . yeah.”

  “You blamed yourself for your dad going to prison,” I said in disbelief. “When you were in fifth grade? Oscar, that’s . . .” I trailed off, because I’d almost said crazy. But I couldn’t think of a better word. “You know it’s not your fault.”

  “Yeah, well.” Oscar shrugged. “Knowing it and believing it aren’t the same thing.”

  Roland cleared his throat. “Sounds like we found the beginning of your pattern.”

  I gazed down at my hands, thinking hard. When I’d first met Roland, he’d said Oscar and I were a lot alike—and he’d been right. I’d punished myself by reading that troll’s comments about me, just like Oscar had punished himself by reading Mark’s notes. And even though I thought it was totally ridiculous that Oscar blamed himself for his father going to prison, I also understood why he felt that way.

  After all, hadn’t I always blamed myself for my mother leaving?

  The first few times she’d bailed, I’d sworn to myself that if she came back, I’d be the perfect daughter. Well, her idea of a perfect daughter. Each time, my vow had only lasted a few weeks before I’d give up and just go back to being me. And each time, my vision of the Thing had grown stronger, clearer. The mother-approved version of myself I honestly believed could get her to stay. Then last spring, when Mom took off again, I hadn’t been sad. I’d been angry. I thought I’d been angry at her. I mean, I had been angry at her.

  But mostly, I’d been angry at myself.

  I blamed myself for her leaving. I hated myself for it. I couldn’t even stand seeing myself on camera, the ugly version of me that wasn’t good enough, that drove Mom away.

  It was just like Oscar said. I knew, logically, that my mother leaving wasn’t actually my fault. But I just didn’t believe it.

  “Hey, Kat, got a minute?”

  Startled, I looked up to see Mi Jin standing over us. She smiled at me kind of uncertainly, and my stomach dropped.

  “Sure!” I left Oscar with Roland and followed her over a few rows to where she’d left her backpack on a chair. She sat next to it, and after a moment’s hesitation, I sat on the other side so that the backpack was between us.

  “Okay.” Mi Jin took a deep breath, then unzipped her bag. “So . . . I found this in my camera bag last night.”

  A wave of foreboding washed over me, and I knew what it was a split second before Mi Jin pulled it out of her backpack. Her screenplay.

  She held it up, and I relaxed a tiny bit. The Thing hadn’t shredded it, then. That was something. Then I saw the words scrawled in red ink over the title page.

  Worst. Movie. Ever.

  “Oh no,” I whispered. My hands suddenly felt cold and clammy, but my face was burning hot. “Mi Jin, I . . .” But I stopped, because she had started flipping through the pages. And every single one was covered in comments. Rude, awful comments. Comments like Terrible! and Ugh, seriously? and “My Little Pony” is scarier than this.

  Several seconds passed where I just sat there, mortified. Then I realized
Mi Jin was laughing.

  “Wait, is this . . . a joke?” I asked in disbelief. “Did you write that?”

  “What? No!” she exclaimed. “No, it’s just . . . well, I asked you for feedback and boy, you gave it to me.”

  “I didn’t!” It came out so loud, I saw Dad and Jess glance up from across the gate. “I—it was . . .” I squeezed my eyes closed, trying not to cry.

  “Your doppelganger?” Mi Jin said, and my eyes flew open.

  “What?”

  Mi Jin glanced down at the script, then back at me. “I know you, Kat. These comments . . . they’re not you. I mean, they don’t sound like you.” My shoulders sagged in relief, but then she continued: “But thanks to all the time I’ve spent grading your homework, I also know your handwriting. And”—she tapped the script—“this is a match.”

  “Because it has my handwriting,” I said desperately. “The Th . . . my doppelganger.”

  “Yeah, that would make sense.” Mi Jin chewed her lip. “It’s just . . . well, to be honest, I’ve noticed that ever since I gave you my script, you’ve been avoiding me.” I ducked my head, my cheeks warm again. “And it’s fine, Kat! Really. I actually thought maybe I was just imagining it. But . . .” She paused, waiting until I looked up. “Did you read it?”

  “The night you gave it to me,” I said quickly. “And I absolutely loved it.”

  Mi Jin smiled. “Thanks. But you had some criticism, too, right? Otherwise, you would’ve just told me the next day.”

  “I was nervous,” I told her. “I—I did have some notes, but . . . I don’t know. You’re my teacher! Giving you notes is . . . weird. But that?” I pointed at the script. “Those aren’t my notes, I swear.”