“Trust me, getting rid of Griffin just made this town a whole lot safer.”
“Why, because of the strychnine? I looked that up. Nobody laces LSD with strychnine; it’s an urban legend cops and teachers tell kids to scare them. Deputy Thompson probably even believes it. I did, too.”
“Look who has a Wiki app on his phone,” Ryder said sarcastically.
“You didn’t want Griffin in jail so he’d stop,” I realized. “You wanted Griffin in jail so you could take over.”
I clenched my key chain in my fist, about to crush it. I knew it’d leave an imprint in my palm.
Ryder half smiled. He looked almost pleased I’d figured it out; that he would get credit from someone for having masterminded the coup. “I cut out the middle man, too,” he said. “Nailing Steve was a bonus. Now I control all the guys who worked for him.”
“No more Steve, no more Griffin,” I reiterated slowly. “It’s all you now. Why did you have me throw the game? I bet there wasn’t even any money at stake.”
“There was a shit-ton of money at stake. Steve was done with dealing, he wanted out by the summer. It meant nothing to him. It was a lark, it was ski-trip money; he didn’t need the money—not the way I needed it. He wanted to play soccer for some school in the Midwest, wanted a good showing at the game on Friday. I told him I’d guarantee him the win if he handed over his list of buyers and dealers to me after graduation. I figured I’d take over after he left for college.”
“But then you got impatient, didn’t want to wait that long.”
“I was pissed at him for busting up your foot.”
“Yeah, right. You don’t give a crap about that. You wanted Griffin and Steve out of the way, and now they are.”
“I tried to protect you,” he said, putting a hand on my shoulder. “You weren’t supposed to get hurt.”
“You were just protecting yourself. You used me because you knew I still feel like I owe you.”
Ryder’s face transformed into a mask of rage. “You do owe me.”
“Little League was six years ago!” I cried.
His mask cracked, revealing genuine confusion. “Little League? Who the fuck said anything about Little League? What are you talking about?”
“When you threw the bat for me, got me into soccer, made sure I had friends going into seventh grade.”
He looked really uncomfortable. “You think I did that for you? I was bored with baseball and I hated Coach Tierson. I just wanted to mess with him.”
“You did it to help me. You threw away a real shot at baseball to help me.”
Ryder shook his head, refused to look me in the eyes. “Nobody has a friend like that,” he said. “Nobody has a friend that good.”
But I had. I know I had. It was Ryder who didn’t have a friend like that.
Not a single friend good enough to risk his own neck to help him freshman year. I’d abandoned him. I’d stuck to the soccer team; I’d let him drown, let him get picked off by the bullies and the druggies, with only his brother to save him. Which was worse than not being saved at all.
“Then why did you think I owed you?” I asked.
“My mom’s painkillers are what started this. After we had to move, after she got beat up on the job and my dad went to prison defending her, she got hooked on pills and Griffin started skimming off the top and selling them. It wasn’t long before he graduated into harder stuff.”
“You said you never blamed me for your family’s shit.”
“I didn’t. I don’t. I’m just telling you cause and effect. Do we have a problem?” he said, indicating the miniature assembly line behind him.
“No.”
“Are you going to tell anyone about this?”
“How can I, without implicating myself?” I pointed out.
“You can’t. You’re part of it. Every payoff proves it.”
Maybe he had bought my silence, but not with money. He’d bought it on the baseball field six years ago, and the price was high, higher than I could’ve imagined. And now we didn’t even have that.
“I warned you,” Ryder said. “I told you to let it go. I did warn you.”
“Why?”
He shrugged. “Old habit. Like smoking.”
If Ryder and I hadn’t become friends, what would my life in Palm Valley have been like? Would I have been a pariah going into seventh grade, as I’d always feared, or would people have forgotten about the events of the summer? Could I have owned up to my sci-fi leanings, or would that have been social suicide?
Who was I at Palm Valley High if not a beckham?
“It was Josh who framed me,” I said quietly. “He’s the one who drove Salvador to the hospital in my car.”
“He wanted you out of Friday’s game. He figured you’d be so distracted by the sheriff’s department, or drinking so much, that Coach would have to bench you.”
“And now he’s the one unlocking the window for you.”
“He proved himself by throwing the game after you got sent out,” Ryder said matter-of-factly.
“Oh, well, good for him. He’s a better version of me than I am.”
Josh hadn’t wanted me out of the game so he could play; he’d wanted me out of the game so he could cheat. He’d been on Ryder’s payroll all along, same as me.
“He didn’t trust you to get the job done. He didn’t think you’d screw over Patrick and the rest of the guys like that. To be honest, neither did I,” Ryder said.
I felt like throwing up, so I turned around to leave the way I’d come in. “You take care, now. Don’t forget to lock up when you’re done,” I muttered.
“Charlie, come on.”
I whirled around, giving in to my fury for a split-second. “What?”
“I think you were grateful the rest of that summer, maybe even the rest of junior high. But I think part of you was furious that I had to step in and save you. That you were too much of a pussy to stand up to Coach yourself.”
“Sure, why not,” I said, pushing down every ounce of emotion I possessed. I wouldn’t freak out in front of him. I wouldn’t point out that the last person to call me a pussy had been Coach Tierson himself. “If it makes you feel better.”
“And you were more than happy to take my money these last few months. Don’t act you like didn’t benefit.”
“I’m not acting. This is me, not acting. This is me, walking away. Can I walk away now? With my one good foot?”
I calmly hobbled through the chem lab closet door and back into the history classroom.
My veins filled up with ice, hardening inside my skin, like glass IV tubes I could never pull out and never shatter, and I made a vow I would never be played by anyone again.
THE TRUTH ABOUT ELLIE
ON TUESDAY, I PAID A VISIT TO JANE THOMAS. AS EDITOR, SHE was leading the staff meeting and doling out assignments. I requested a private conference, and when she shot me an irritated look, sweeping her hand in the direction of her reporters, I said, “I’m here to finish what Maria Salvador started.”
That got her attention. Jane yanked me into a corner and I nearly tripped over my feet.
“You have proof teachers have been tampering with grades?” she whispered.
“No. I used to have proof, but not anymore. I have something else that could help vindicate Maria. I have proof an LSD assembly lab is operating at night, right here in the school. I have dates and times. But it’s going to cost you.”
“I told you, I never pay for stories,” said Jane.
“All I want in return is a printout of Ellie Chen’s file. I want to see where she sent her transcripts, see where she applied.”
“You were awfully cuddly at Café Kismet yesterday. Everyone knows you’re back together. Why don’t you just ask her where she’s going?” Jane wondered.
“I have asked her. Her answers don’t add up. If I can see for myself, then I’ll rest easy.”
“Pretend I agree, and I hand over her file,” said Jane. “What if you don�
��t like what you find out? Will you take it out on the messenger?”
“I won’t.”
“You really have proof of this alleged drug lab?” she said.
“Photos.”
At the mall with Ellie the previous night, I’d picked up a key-chain camera, the kind Salvador had used, and I’d brought it with me to school. I was in possession of photos of Ryder (from the neck down), the chem lab, and the supplies.
Maybe it wouldn’t stop him. Maybe it was useless information. But at least he couldn’t use school anymore. At least I could put a stop to that.
I handed over the key chain. I hadn’t made any backups; I was beyond that now. Beyond caring, beyond planning ahead with foolproof ideas in the hopes of finding justice or peace. There was no justice for Maria Salvador. There was no peace for her or her family.
Jane told me to come back at the end of fifth and she’d give me an answer.
I did as requested, and still she held out on me.
“Just ask yourself, wouldn’t you rather talk to Ellie about this instead of going behind her back?”
“I want to know if I can trust her.”
“I think the real question is, can she trust you?” Jane pointed out.
“If you’re using the material I gave you, hand over Ellie’s file. If you’re not using the material, we can forget the whole thing.”
She pursed her lips, then handed me the file.
I didn’t wait to get home to open it. I found a vacant desk in the journalism room and tore through it. Transcripts and jewelry portfolios had been e-mailed out, all right. Plenty of them. The closest place she’d applied was Northwestern. There were even transcripts sent to England and Ireland. Three or four to New York. And of course the acceptance from Maine.
There was no transcript sent to Lambert College.
The bell rang, a droning sound I was pretty sure I’d hear the rest of my life.
I invited Ellie over that night and we sat in the backyard under the awning, even though it was windy and dark. The San Gabriel Mountains loomed overhead, the impenetrable fortress between Palm Valley and the rest of the world, perpetually keeping us out.
“I don’t know why I’m surprised,” I said. “You were always going to leave, from the moment you moved here. It was your main attribute.”
“What are you talking about, Charlie?” she asked, puzzled. She rested her slim fingers on my arm. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Not yet, but you will be. In the fall.”
“Not this again,” she said, drawing her hand back and clenching it in her lap. “I know it freaked you out seeing all those brochures. And I’ll admit, my dad wants me to go someplace else. But I don’t care! I can go to Lambert! Okay? This is the last time we’re going to have this conversation. I mean it.”
“Stop lying,” I said. “Stop lying!”
She jumped at my voice, looking scared. “I’m not lying. Why won’t you just believe me?”
I felt like a scab she’d picked off and discarded, leaving behind a small, pinched scar. “Face it, it was never going to last between us. Not the first time, and definitely not this time. I was never your long-haul boyfriend. I was just your California boyfriend, the one you look back on fondly, on the way to better things.”
“Or not so fondly,” Ellie snapped. She was done being scared of me and had moved on to being angry. “I’m not sure what I’m being accused of here?”
But I barely heard her. I’d started a good circular ramble, and I wasn’t ready to take the off ramp. “Your California boyfriend who always pays for gas and soda and movie tickets—that is, when you deign to go to the movies, that lower-class pursuit, God forbid—the easygoing boyfriend, quick to make you laugh, buy you presents, eager to please, do whatever you want, even if it’s never what I want. I don’t think you ever really knew me, and now you’re leaving me behind but you refuse to admit it! Just admit it.”
Ellie stared at me. Tears fell from her eyes and dripped onto the table. It made me think of Jonathan, at the top of the stairs, the flash drive in his hand.
So there it was; I’d said it. She didn’t know me. I didn’t even know myself.
There were no correct answers to the multiple-choice questions of me. That’s why my parents could never quite figure me out, pin me down. There was only Ellie with a pencil, filling in the dots and then changing her mind, erasing them, and seeing what formed up in their place; altering people’s futures, like Donovan and his tests.
The only thing I knew about myself was that I was drunk again, and by my incoherent monologue, Ellie knew it, too. I’d taken a hit of vodka before she arrived; Granddad’s latest drink of choice.
“I would’ve become whoever it was that would make you stay. But now I know it doesn’t matter,” I said, standing up and swaying on my feet. “And it never did. But it’s okay, Ellie. I get it,” I added bitterly. “You’re doing what you have to do. At MECA. In Maine.”
“I still don’t understand what you’re saying. If I get accepted at Lambert, I’ll go there,” Ellie said, remaining at the table, staring up at me with tear-glossed eyes.
“It’s pretty difficult to be accepted at a college you never applied to, don’t you think?”
“I’m telling you, I applied,” she sobbed.
“And I’m telling you I know you’re lying. I’m so sick of guessing what you might like. I’m so sick of worrying about when you’re going to leave me. And now that I know, I just want you to admit it.” I got down on my knees and clasped my hands together. I really did. “Please, Ellie, just admit it.”
She closed her eyes, rubbed the tears off her cheeks. It was a long time before she spoke. “Sex was a big deal to me,” she said at last.
I think she was thinking of the safety bar, my arm across her chest. The feeling that told her the ride was just beginning; it was only going to get better and more exciting, but I’d be with her the whole way, dependable and safe.
“If I didn’t think we had a future, I wouldn’t have had sex with you,” she finished.
I stood up and dusted off my knees. “It was a big deal to me, too,” I said, but I might’ve been lying. I might’ve wanted it to be true, or felt that it should’ve been true, but the sex was always secondary. The sex was a side effect of being together; it hadn’t bound us any closer. It hadn’t made the relationship any more likely to succeed; it hadn’t kept her with me. “Just tell me the truth. You’re not going to college with me, and you never were.”
She cried into her hands, and I watched her back rise and fall, her delicate shoulder blades shivering. When she stopped, a minute or so later, her eyes were pink and her face looked puffy.
She approached me, and I looked away: at the ground, at our shoes, anyplace but at her eyes.
“I really did love you,” she said. “I’m sorry you don’t believe me. I’m sorry you don’t trust me. I’m sorry you think I don’t know you.” Her voice was distorted, magnified by her tears. “I didn’t realize you were so angry at me. Good-bye, Charlie. Please don’t talk to me at school.”
She weaved, a dizzy mess, and when she reached the end of the yard, she tripped, and fell into the grass.
I didn’t help her up.
I walked inside and picked up Granddad’s left-behind bottle of vodka and poured myself another slosh with trembling hands.
A minute later, the garage opened. I downed my drink and filled part of the vodka bottle with tap water to replace what I’d taken. You water it down enough times and sooner or later the only person it affects is you. If I changed the cells out one by one, at what point did it stop being liquor and start being water, the drink I’d truly wanted all along?
Dad walked in and saw me standing by the sink. I pretended to be filling my glass with water.
“Did I see Ellie outside? She looked terrible.”
“Yeah, she just left. Things … It didn’t work out. Between us.”
“But you guys seemed so close on Saturday … and with
her going to Lambert next year … I thought you had a good shot.”
“She’s not going to Lambert. She never sent in her paperwork. She told me she had, but she hadn’t.”
“No, I saw her Friday morning. She dropped off her portfolio in person. I saw her outside the admissions office and we said hello.”
The glass I was holding fell to the floor, where it clattered and rolled away, but it also stayed with me, waiting to be filled.
It was inside me, in the place where my happiness was supposed to be.
SPRING BREAK
THE MONEY WAS MINE TO SPEND, SO I GAVE MY COLLEGE fund, every last dollar, to Maria Salvador’s family. I couldn’t go to Lambert College now even if I’d wanted to.
“Is this because of Ellie?” my parents wanted to know.
“It’s not because of Ellie,” I said, explaining myself for once, so they wouldn’t have to. I knew myself better now, like an acquaintance I was still getting used to, more and more each day. “It’s because of me, of how I lived. So long as the ref doesn’t see, it’s okay; so long as you don’t get caught, you can do whatever you want. I feel like I have to do this—I have to help her. Even if that means working for a year or two and saving up and starting over. Maybe what happened to Maria wasn’t my fault. Maybe it was the fault of too many people to name, and I was just one of them.”
“Maybe I was one of them, too,” said Mom, and when she went to brush my hair off my forehead, I let her.
I told them the whole story, from the drunken party, to my quest to find the flash drive, to the flash drive’s contents, to Ryder’s betrayal and my own foolishness.
They had no theories about me now. I was impossible to understand, like a Chekhov story, minus the Russian or the literary quality or an ending. I’d just have to find a way to continue from this point, start a new chapter, and hurtle toward whatever it was I was going to become.
I’d finally stumped my parents, so they listened until I was through.
For the next two months I visited Salvador once a week after school, hoping upon hope she’d wake up, the way I was trying to.
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