by Allie Gail
I noticed when I sat down with my tray that Riley was conspicuously missing from our group. When I scanned the lunchroom, I caught sight of him sitting at another table with some other guys from the football team. Was he that reluctant to face me, or had someone here said something to him? What a dipshit - he couldn’t avoid me forever. Not only did we have drama class together, but he was playing Romeo alongside my Juliet. Now that was bound to get awkward.
“’Sup, losers,” I greeted everyone as I slid into a chair between Rob and Dana. She had a mouthful of turkey sandwich and was trying to talk to me through it.
“Uh neefum hep.”
“Okay - I have no idea what you just said.”
She chewed and swallowed before repeating, “I need some help. Do you have a lot of homework tonight?”
“No, not really. Whatcha need help with?”
“This scholarship essay I’m working on. I’m so bad at this kind of stuff. I have no idea what to say.”
“What’s the theme?”
“‘Who has been the most influential person in your life?’”
“Well, that’s easy,” Trent declared. “You just start with, ‘Trent Myers has without a doubt been the most influential person in my life. Without his rippling abs, bedroom eyes and magnetic personality I would not be the fulfilled woman I am today. With his extraordinary hotness he has taught me that every other male on the planet sucks ass in comparison.’ You getting this down?”
“Photographic memory,” she giggled.
“Come over after school and we’ll work on it,” I told her.
“Thanks. Did you already get your application filled out?”
“Mm-hm. I did it online.” I’d also applied to three other schools as a fallback, but I was counting on getting into Frostburg. I had an impressive GPA and their acceptance rate was fairly high, so I wasn’t too worried.
“You coming to my Halloween party, Sara?” Colin asked me.
“I didn’t know you were having one.”
“You should have a text from me. I invited the whole senior class. Check your phone lately?”
“Oh…no. Not since this morning. I left it in my locker.”
“It’s gonna be at my cousin’s cabin on Savage River. Costume party. BYOB.”
Oh goody, another opportunity to watch him get dry humped by Staci. How could I pass that up? “I don’t know…we’ll see. I might have other plans.” I glanced over at Rob, wondering whether he was planning on going. I couldn’t really picture it. Particularly the costume thing - that I definitely couldn’t visualize. “You going?” I asked Dana.
“Yes, so you have to come too. And you have to help me find a costume.”
“I’ll go shopping with you, but no promises. I told Peyton I’d be home passing out candy. She wants me to see her in her ballerina costume.” There was no way I was disappointing her. Not after she told me she was dressing up as a ballerina so she could be just like me. Whenever she sees me coming home with the duffel bag I keep my dance stuff in, she always runs over and asks if she can try on my pointe shoes. How stinking cute is that?
“You’d rather pass out candy to a bunch of rugrats than party with us?” Trent closed his eyes and covered his heart dramatically. “That hurts.”
“You can come afterwards,” Dana insisted. “You aren’t seriously going to stay home by yourself on your birthday, are you?”
This caught Doug’s attention. “Your birthday? When’s your birthday?”
“Halloween.”
“Your birthday’s on Halloween? That’s so awesome!”
“Her mom got tricked instead of treated,” Dana joked.
“Har, har.” I finally broke down and asked Rob, “Are you gonna go?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“He’s coming,” Trent assured me.
Uh-huh. I’d believe that when I saw it.
“There is a potential for severe thunderstorms along a strong cold front that’s pushing its way in through the evening hours tonight. These storms are expected to bring damaging gusts of up to sixty miles per hour and may produce locally heavy rainfall. An intense area of low pressure -”
The weather advisory was cut short as I switched off the Tahoe’s engine and looked expectantly over at the yard next door. It was Wednesday and Peyton was usually watching for me from the window, waiting for me to get home from ballet class so she could pounce on me. I wasn’t that surprised when she didn’t appear. The cloudy, moonless sky made it seem a lot later than 5:45, and on top of that the wind was already kicking up. Thankfully the rain held off until I made it home. I hate driving in the rain.
Rob was curled up on the sofa with his laptop when I came breezing through, loaded down with my school backpack, dance bag and the KFC I’d picked up at the drive thru. “Hey.” I dropped the KFC bag on the coffee table. “Put that in the kitchen for me, will you?” I’d already texted him earlier to say that I was bringing home dinner.
“Smells good.” He moved his laptop to poke around in the bag.
“Go ahead and eat if you want to. I’m gonna take a bath first. I feel gross.” After a full day of school and two hours of dance practice, I wasn’t exactly feeling fresh as a daisy. Dropping my belongings on the floor of my bedroom, I stripped out of the leotard and tights and locked myself in the bathroom for a nice hot soak. Yes, I was still locking the door. Ever since he barged in on me that time, I was paranoid about him doing it again, especially when Dad wasn’t around. He probably wouldn’t, but still…the last thing I needed was him walking in on me while I was on the toilet or something equally mortifying.
After the bath I rubbed my legs down with Sweet Cinnamon Pumpkin body lotion, then wrapped myself in a pink bathrobe and went into the kitchen to fix myself a plate before joining Rob in the living room. He was already done eating and was stretched out on the sofa, but he moved his feet so I could sit down by him. Outside, the bottom had finally dropped out of the sky and the downpour sounded like Niagara Falls had been relocated to our front yard.
“What’re we watching?” I asked, poking at my mashed potatoes with a fork. It looked like movie previews.
“I just put in The Strangers. There’s no satellite signal. Okay with you?”
“Ooh…scary movie. Good choice.”
“Not gonna freak you out?”
“No. Should it?”
He shrugged with a sly grin. “Just checking. Didn’t know if you might be afraid of the boogeyman.”
“Yeah, right. Am I supposed to be worried about crazy psycho killers in masks banging on the door tonight?” I started pulling pieces of chicken breast off the bone and piling them on my plate. “If anything, I figure watching this movie decreases the odds of something like that happening. It would be way too coincidental. Applying that logic, horror movies actually serve to keep us safe. Think about it.”
“Damn. That almost makes sense. Sort of.”
“And if you’re considering trying to scare me, I’d think again. I don’t know from experience but I’ve heard that getting kicked in the nuts can be quite excruciating.”
He winced. “Remind me never to jump out at you.”
“I don’t recommend it.” I cocked my eyebrows before popping a piece of chicken in my mouth. In a way I was only half joking. Once when I was six my dad and I were playing hide and seek and he made the mistake of jumping out at me. I screamed bloody murder and started flailing my arms like a windmill. It could have been worse. His nose stopped bleeding eventually.
By the time I was done eating, the movie was starting to get good. Nice and creepy. But it was hard to concentrate when all I could think about was how Rob might react if I decided to scoot over there and snuggle up against him. Ever since that night at the overlook I hadn’t been able to stop daydreaming about how good it felt to be in his arms and how much I wanted to be there again. But he’d gone back to keeping his distance and I couldn’t figure out what was swimming through that head of his.
Satur
day night he was flirting with me hot and heavy, kissing me like there was no tomorrow. Telling me his secrets. Sending me sexy texts. Then Sunday morning it was straight back to the old Rob…friendly but quiet. Polite but distant. It was enough to make my head numb.
And as for the revelation he’d shared…I wasn’t sure what to make of that either. I couldn’t see Rob straight up lying to me, but how could something like what he’d hinted at go on for years without anyone noticing? If there was physical abuse, wouldn’t someone have seen it? Plus my father would never have been friends with the kind of person who was capable of that. Not if he knew - and you couldn’t hide something like that. Could you?
No more than you could hide a case of arson. Right?
“Rob…?” His name fell off my lips before I could stop it. I didn’t even know what I wanted to ask him. Well, yes I did - I just didn’t know how to ask it without sounding like a creep.
“Hm?” Engrossed in the movie, he didn’t even look at me. I hesitated, thinking maybe it was a bad idea to bring this up. He might get pissed. Or worse, tell me something I didn’t want to hear. When I didn’t say anything, he finally pulled his attention away from the screen. “What?”
I looked into those olive-tinted eyes and almost forgot the whole thing. Almost, but not quite. “Can I ask you a question? Without you getting mad?”
Intrigued, he picked up the remote and paused the movie. “What is it?”
“First you have to promise you won’t get mad at me.”
“All right…I promise I won’t get mad at you.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
“Sara, I’m not going to get mad! Now what’s the question?”
Okay then…just spit it out. Wetting my lips, I timidly asked him, “Did you start that fire?”
To my surprise, instead of getting all defensive or ticked off he actually laughed. “Oh. You heard that rumor too.”
Heartened by his reaction, I relaxed and allowed myself a relieved smile. “Yeah. Kinda.”
“Ah…come on now. Do you really think I’d do something like that? Set my own house on fire and murder my parents - even if they were a couple of assholes?” He shook his head. “I may be fucked up but I’m not that fucked up.”
He didn’t do it. Of course he didn’t do it. How could I ever have thought for one second that he had? I was such an idiot. My father tried to tell me it was faulty wiring - I should have listened instead of letting my imagination run away with me. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to insinuate…well, you know. I’m sorry.” Shit. There really was no smooth way of whitewashing this, was there?
“Did you really think I did that?” Tilting his head, he looked at me curiously. He didn’t seem angry, just…surprised.
“No, not really.” I found it hard to look him straight in the eye. “I just…I heard it at school so I thought I’d ask. And because you said you weren’t sorry about their deaths and all, it just kind of made me wonder. I know, it was stupid.”
“It’s not stupid to question things, Sara. It’s a lot more stupid to just accept things blindly.”
It didn’t make me feel any less guilty that he was being so nice about it. Still, there was one more thing I needed to know. “Were they really that bad, Rob?”
From the way his jaw clenched and his eyes hardened, I knew the answer before he ever said a word. “Yes. They were really that bad.”
“Do you want to tell me about it?”
“I don’t think so. Some things are better left in the ashes.”
“Well…can I just ask you one more thing?”
“Yes.”
“How come nobody knew?”
He hesitated a moment before admitting, “Maybe it was because I didn’t want anybody to know.”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Do you remember the first time I came to school dressed like a goth?”
“Seventh grade, right?”
“Right. It all started as a fluke. I came up with the idea one day when I was trying to figure out how to cover up a black eye. Turns out smeared eyeliner works like a charm. Crazy thing was, Trent and Doug thought it was so cool they started dressing that way too. Then Jordan started hanging out with us because she assumed we were all radicals or something. Just kinda became our thing after that. It’s actually pretty funny when you think about it.”
I didn’t see anything funny about it. A black eye, for God’s sake? “None of them ever knew the truth?”
“I think Trent may have suspected, but he never said anything. Pretty sure Doug and Jordan never had a clue. Anyway, eventually I got tired of looking like a douche so I tried out for the football team at the end of ninth grade. I figured a contact sport would provide a good cover for any bruises that might show up. Besides, by that time I’d learned how to stay out of his way so I wasn’t getting smacked around as much. I was also working out a lot. He stopped hitting me after that. Maybe he was afraid I’d start to hit back.”
“But why did you bother trying to cover up for him? Why didn’t you tell someone?”
“Do you remember my dad, Sara?”
“Yeah…”
“And what did you think of him?”
“I don’t know. I guess I always thought he was nice.”
“Precisely. To everyone else he was the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet. Had friends all over town - everyone liked him. It was only me who brought out that other side of him. It was always only me.” Leaning back against the arm of the couch, he crossed his arms and sighed. “Back in fourth grade I had this teacher I really liked. Mrs. Higgins. You weren’t in that class, I don’t think.”
“No. I had Mrs. Kennedy.”
“Well, anyway…one day we were supposed to write this essay on something we didn’t like. So I wrote about my dad and why I didn’t like him, thinking once she read it she’d feel all sorry for me and find a way to fix things somehow. Instead she made me stay after school and told me I ought to be ashamed for making up a story like that. Then she called Buck and told him what I’d done. You don’t even want to know the hell I went through that night. I missed school the rest of the week. After that I made damn sure to keep my mouth shut.”
“Unbelievable...” I wanted to go find Mrs. Higgins and whop her right in the mouth for betraying his childish trust. We’re taught from a young age that authority figures are to be trusted, that they’re here to help us. This woman failed miserably in her duty. And I swore right then that I would never be the kind of teacher who turns her back on her students. Who simply dismisses their cries for help as lies told for attention. Never.
“So does that answer your question?”
I nodded wordlessly.
“You don’t have to give me that pitiful look, Sara. I got through it. Things are going good now. There’s no reason to dwell on the past.”
“Yeah, but that wasn’t just your past. That was, like…your whole life. Up until now. Well, up until recently.”
“Dr. Saunders had a favorite saying. ‘Today is the first day of the rest of your life.’ I think he hit the nail on the head with that one.”
“Dr. Saunders? Was that your therapist?” I knew he’d recently stopped going to his sessions. I wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.
“Mm-hm. That was all your dad’s idea, by the way. He assumed I must have been traumatized by the loss. Hell, I was just wishing it had happened sooner. Typical that they’d wait until a week before my eighteenth birthday to check out. I’d been trying to save money from my part time jobs so I could buy a car and hopefully move out soon, but my mom cleaned out my bank account to put a down payment on that POS house they were trying to renovate.”
“Your mother stole your money?” Holy cow, this just kept getting better and better.
“Her name was on my checking account since I was under eighteen. So, yeah…I really don’t think it was her idea though. Buck was the one who wanted to buy the place.” He laughed to himself. “Karma�
�s a bitch, huh?”
No wonder he had no love for these people. They sounded like monsters. “I’d say Karma did you a favor.”
“Yep. Better late than never.” He picked up the remote, clearly having said all he intended to say. “How about we finish watching this, and then I need to get to bed. I didn’t sleep well last night.”
I wondered how he managed to sleep at all.
12
It was precisely 10:48 when the power went out. I know this because I had just turned my head to look at the digital alarm clock when it happened. It went dark along with everything else because I’d brilliantly taken the backup batteries out to use in my TV remote a few weeks ago.
I don’t mind the dark. The dark is quiet and comforting. It’s just that the sudden loss of background noise from the stereo on my dresser seemed to amplify the wind’s howling. It was kicking up like a mofo out there. That’s why I’d left it on in the first place - to try and drown out that escalating whooshing. Some of the gusts were so violent the walls seemed to shake from the force. I was really starting to wonder how the trees weren’t all being uprooted out of the ground. Seriously, it sounded that bad.
I pulled the covers up over my ears and tried not to think about all the news reports I’d seen where people got squashed by trees falling on their homes during tornadoes. This wasn’t anything like that, it was just a cold front for Pete’s sake. So why did it sound like a friggin’ category five hurricane?
In the inky darkness I couldn’t see what hit the ground just outside my window - I assumed it was a tree, of course - but the loud WHUMP shook the whole house and sent me flying out of bed. “Okay - screw this!” Groping around on the nightstand for my iPhone, I used its LED to find my way down the hallway to Rob’s room. When I pounced on his bed, he didn’t even budge.
“Hey,” I said, reaching out to shake him. He was lying belly down with his face pressed into the pillow and still didn’t move. “Hey!” I shook him a little harder.