Betting Blind (Betting Blind #1)

by Stephanie Guerra

  It was a bunch of crap. We’re not all the same underneath, and anybody who says so is high. But it seemed like something Mueller would like. I had to doctor it to fit the assignment, but it didn’t take long.

  As soon as I hit “Send,” I bolted out of my seat and dug my stash out of the closet. I bet tonight I could unload a quarter of the stuff at least, and pass along the rest to Kyle. I wanted to get it off my hands.

  Forrest had his own entrance, and the bass was shaking the door. I walked into a cloud of smoke and a buffet of California Pizza Kitchen lined up by two pony kegs, thanks to Forrest’s parents. They were the types who wanted to be cool so bad they probably would have catered crack if he had asked them to. The place was packed with people talking and dancing and playing quarters, or just standing in front of the kegs, trying to get trashed before the beer ran out.

  Kyle hollered, “Gabe!” and shoved through the crowd to give me a one-armed hug. “We’re done, dude! Least for this quarter. Cheers!” He tried to clink glasses, realized I didn’t have a drink, and handed me his. “Thisses scotch. My grandpa ordered it twenty years ago, with special oak and stuff. Been cooking for twenty years! You like scotch?”

  I downed the glass. “Tastes okay to me.”

  “That drink you took! Thass like fifty dollars!” Kyle laughed.

  “Got any more?”

  He held up a finger. “Be right back.”

  I wandered through the crowd until I found my people: Forrest, some other rowers, and a bunch of fine women. Matt’s parents didn’t let him go to Forrest’s parties, which was probably good because he would have taken one look and left anyway.

  Kyle came back soon with a bottle, and we passed it around and talked about—finals?

  At first I thought I was hearing things. Were these freaks seriously rehashing the test questions at a party? I couldn’t believe I’d spent all week being tortured and now had to relive stuff like “Why did Hamlet … ?” Did these people know how to have fun?

  Even though I thought they were crazy, I couldn’t help listening, and I realized: they knew what they were talking about. And their answers were different from mine.

  Suddenly I was so pissed, I wanted to punch something, wanted them all to shut up, these smart bastards who knew things about Hamlet that I couldn’t figure out if you cut open my head and scanned in the whole play.

  I took another swig of scotch, slid the backpack off my shoulder, and dropped it on Forrest’s bed. “Open for business,” I said.

  It was a magnet. People crowded around, digging out cash, talking with their friends about what to buy. One dude actually tried to write me a check. The scotch was potent, and I wasn’t thinking straight, or I wouldn’t have been doing business in the open like that. But it turned out fine. I unloaded the designer dope right away because people were curious, and then the Oxies and e started disappearing, too.

  A hand shoved four bills at me, hundreds, and I looked up to see Forrest’s face. Everything was spinning, and I felt hot. He scooped up a bottle of Oxies, didn’t even ask how much they were. He knew four hundred was way overpaying.

  “I—” My tongue was thick, crowding my mouth.

  Forrest looked up, and our eyes held—his weird gray cat eyes—and then he dipped his head and melted away.

  The next person pushed cash toward me, and I noticed my hands were shaking. This was wrong, messed up; I hadn’t meant to sell to Forrest. But I didn’t know what to do. Something. I had to do something.

  “Can you take over?” I asked Kyle.

  “Sure. Lemme count.” He started to count what was left—Kyle was straight business like that—but I waved him away.

  “I trust you, man. Just handle it.” I took a last swig of scotch and left the room. What if I went after Forrest and asked for the dope back? Told him I made a mistake? I looked around, but I couldn’t see him, and the crowd was pulsing as if I were underwater.

  I pushed outside for some air. Forrest lived on his own little nature preserve. You couldn’t see another building except for his greenhouse, and there were thick pines all around and a deck with two levels. The cold wind felt good, and the smell of the trees made me realize how nasty it had been inside. A group of girls was hanging out on the deck. Every now and then they gave me looks, and laughter cut through the air.

  I dropped into a deck chair and ignored them. Things were swirling and unsteady. Where was Forrest?

  Then one of the girls broke off and came over. It was Becky. She was wearing a dress about as big as a Band-Aid, with nothing but a ruffle to hold it up. She had to have been freezing. I pulled her onto my lap. She laughed and squirmed, but she didn’t get up.

  “You look good,” I said, nuzzling her neck. “That’s a nice dress.” She kissed me back, and I started to pull up her skirt. I was so hammered, I didn’t care that we had an audience, but she stopped me.

  “Let’s go in there,” she whispered, looking at the greenhouse.

  I picked her up and carried her past her giggling girlfriends into Forrest’s backyard. Forrest’s forest. Ha. I set her down, or maybe dropped her, and opened the door. We stumbled into the greenhouse, laughing, and I grabbed her and kissed her. It smelled so good in there, like flowers and rain, and there were ferns falling from pots in the ceiling, tickling my shoulders.

  Becky whispered, “Gabe, hold on. I need to ask you something.”

  I ran my hands down her body. “Huh.”

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.” I stopped, took my hands off her chest. “Yes.” There was a horrible silence as Irina’s face zoomed out of the fuzzy back corner of my mind.

  “Yeah, it kind of seemed like you were avoiding me at school. And I heard you were still seeing that Russian girl.” Becky’s voice was flat. She tugged her dress down.

  “I’m sorry.” I stepped back. “I’m trying not to cheat on her. Shit.”

  Becky gave me a small smile. “You’re not a very good boyfriend, are you?”

  “No.” I pressed my fists against my eyes, rubbed, and tried to clear my head.

  Becky brushed a fern out of her face. “Why do you like her so much?”

  “She’s … Why are we talking about her?”

  Becky’s eyes were gleaming in the dark. “Because I want to know.”

  I leaned against the cool glass wall and tipped my head back, looking at a plant with white flowers. “She’s different. She’s smart and funny. I just like how weird she is. I know it’s crazy.” My words were coming out thick.

  Becky shook her head. “Then be good to her.” A second later, the door creaked closed behind her.

  I breathed in the rain smell and blinked. There were halos of light around the potted cactus. My thoughts were muddy but definite:

  Becky had saved me from my stupid self.

  She was a nice girl, and I shouldn’t have treated her like I did.

  I had to be good; Irina was worth it.

  I had been leaning there, thinking, for ten minutes, maybe twenty, when I heard yells and laughter outside really close. I took a breath and pushed out of the greenhouse. The moon was a strange orange color, heavy and ill.

  Kyle streaked past, hauling Erin by the arm. He was laughing, trying to rip off his shirt with his free hand. A beer bottle arced in the air like a shining rocket.

  Then Forrest flew past me, arms pumping, breathing rough. I almost didn’t recognize him, he looked so fierce, like some kind of animal. His body was lit up with that unnatural electricity that turns the skinniest fiend into someone who can lift cars—if the right pill is underneath. He roared something, I couldn’t tell what, and threw another bottle in the sky. There was a tinkle of glass.

  “Follow the fucking leader!” screamed Forrest. He disappeared into the trees.

  I felt hot and sick. I stared after him.

  I knew dealing was bad and I did it anyway and … now I had this feeling Forrest would have to pay for it. I should be the one paying for my own screwups, but
the world doesn’t work like that.

  I wandered across the lawn, the wet grass soaking my shoes. Shadows were thick on the ground. There was a bubbling sound and I stopped. A pond. Orange bodies flashed through the water. I watched, trying to find a pattern. I wanted there to be a pattern, didn’t want them to be just swimming around blind.

  I shoved my hand in my pocket and pulled out the cash I’d made earlier. Forrest’s bills were on top, the only hundreds in the stack. I clenched the ends and twisted, but they wouldn’t rip. My hands weren’t working too good. I peeled off the top bill and tore it in half; then I did the rest of them, letting the pieces drop into the pond. They floated on the surface. I kneeled and pushed them to the bottom, and when they floated back up, I put on rocks to weigh them down.

  When the money was gone, I wiped my hands on the grass and looked at the sky. I hoped God was real. I hoped he cared about humans and would take care of Forrest. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  I staggered across the lawn, around the house, to the cars lining the sidewalk. There was my Altima, finally a car I could be proud of.

  I touched the hood. Mine.

  Blood money.

  I got in and put the key in the ignition … but some dinosaur part of my brain said, No. You’re too wasted.

  Okay. I could wait a little while. I leaned back in the seat and closed my eyes. Let things go black.

  The next morning, I woke up still in my car, feeling like somebody was suctioning my brain through my ears. Even the gray Seattle light hurt my eyes. I stared blankly at the windshield, covered with fat drops of rain—and I groaned as the night came flooding back.

  Becky. Forrest. The money I’d ripped up.

  Had I really done that? I worked my hand into my pocket. Empty.

  I rested my head on the seatback and closed my eyes again. What good had that done? What was I thinking? Trying to be noble or something? But there was nobody around to see.

  My stomach, my head, everything felt wrong. Clips of last night drifted through my brain: The dope spread out on Forrest’s blanket like a street fair. Becky’s eyes when she said, Be good to her. Forrest’s crazy yell as he ran through the yard. The fish swimming over money. It was like dirt to them; they couldn’t eat it or breathe it … We couldn’t eat it or breathe it, either, but we worshipped the stuff.

  Suddenly I got the strangest feeling. All the ragged thoughts in my head floated away, and I went still inside. I waited. I felt something coming. I was sinking into myself, and my edges were matching up, solid and sure.

  Something was telling me:

  It was good I ripped up the money.

  I had done a good thing.

  I was finished dealing.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We had two days off between quarters, most of which I spent back in White Center playing cards with Mr. Gonzales and Marquis. On Wednesday, when school started up again, I had that hollow amp you get before a big poker game. That night was Irina’s concert. But before that, I had three massive finals grades coming in: English, math, and science. I knew I’d done okay on math, because it wasn’t a bubble test. If I got at least a B-on the English and science finals, I would pass.

  I pictured Irina’s face to calm me down. The last week had felt like a year, but soon I’d be holding her. I thought about the part in her hair, because that’s what I always saw when she was in my arms. It was so straight, like somebody drew it with a ruler.

  I parked in the front lot—I’d been doing that a lot since I got the Altima—and walked past the quad, zoned out. On my way through the door to English, Jamie Elliott whacked me on the shoulder. “You could at least say hi!”

  “Oh, sorry, hey.” But my eyes were on my desk. Like all the other empty desks, it had an upside-down paper on it. I could almost see the big red stamp on the other side: “Plagiarism.” That was a word that all the Claremont teachers made sure we knew very well.

  I walked fast to my desk and turned it over. A-.

  A-! And I had screwed up some of the spelling on purpose. Relief is sweet even when you don’t deserve it. But after a second a devil whispered inside my head, That paper was a B, maybe a C. She gave you an A-because Newport is pressuring her. You’re a charity case. They’re all teaming up to help you graduate, even though you’re a loser and a fake. I shoved the paper into my backpack and slouched at my desk.

  Ms. Mueller gave a speech about how we all did a good job and deserved a break, and she passed out cookies, which was nice of her, except they were crammed with seeds and raisins. Typical Mueller: she could even mess up a cookie. I felt so twitchy and screwed up that I ate three of them anyway. Then she put on a cheesy documentary about Charles Dickens. I looked over to roll my eyes at Forrest—and he wasn’t there.

  I got a cold feeling as I looked at his chair. Forrest cut plenty, so that was probably it. He just didn’t feel like coming to English. Dude could have taught the class himself. Still I texted him under the desk. WRU@

  I hadn’t talked to him since his party.

  I checked my phone three times, risking Mueller’s wrath, but he never texted back.

  My head was going in bad directions. Oh shit. I started sweating.

  He’d bought a whole bottle of pills.

  Four hundred for a whole bottle of pills. I bet he did them all at once. You weren’t supposed to do that. What if he overdosed?

  I knew a few people who had OD’d. You didn’t talk about it, after they were gone. But we all remembered. There was Alyssa in eighth grade. She and her boyfriend, Connor, were doing junk in his dad’s garage, and they went to sleep there. When Connor woke up the next morning, Alyssa was blue.

  And there was Malik Hernandez. He—

  The door opened, and my head whipped around. It was Forrest.

  He looked like hell, but it was him. I was so relieved, my breath felt funny.

  He slid into his chair and gave me a weak nod—he looked totally thrashed—and set his head on his arms. He was okay. At least for right now.

  With dope, you can never say once and for all that somebody is okay.

  The second I saw Newport’s face, I knew I’d failed. There’s nothing more pathetic than when somebody you admire (yeah, I sort of admired him) looks at you like they’re so, so sorry for you. He didn’t want to break the news, you could tell. In fact, he didn’t give us back our tests in class, even though everyone was bugging him about it. He said he wasn’t done grading and he’d e-mail grades that night.

  I knew he was lying. This was about me, and the fact that I’d failed. He didn’t want me to see a big red F without getting to talk to me about it first.

  When he kept me after class, I knew for sure. He took off his thick glasses and polished them on his shirt. He looked younger without them. “Gabe, I—”

  “I know I failed.”

  His eyes widened. “What—did you fail on purpose?”

  “No. I can just tell from how you’re acting.”

  Newport looked down at his desk and his cheeks got red. “I’m sorry, Gabe. I didn’t prepare you well enough. I know you’ve been trying during our study sessions, and we just didn’t … I guess I’m confused. You were doing so well. You seemed to know a lot of this stuff, but it just didn’t come through on the test. I’m going to—I’m going to let you do a makeup test, though.”

  You could tell it cost him to say that. He had a “no makeup test” rule. The poor fool. He didn’t know a lost cause when it was staring at him like a mug shot.

  “Thank you, Mr. Newport. But that’s okay.”

  “Gabe, I really want you to take it. I feel like it’s just not fair to dump you in a school this competitive without the right preparation.” But you could see his spark had gone out. He was finally getting it that no matter what he did, he couldn’t fix me.

  He started talking again, about telomeres and DNA strands and a makeup project, but his words fell on my ears, clink clink clink, not connected. My vision was weirdly clear and sharp. I could see t
he small letters on the human body poster behind him. Smell the whiteboard pens and air freshener and stale coffee. The books were closing in on me, books and papers and things I couldn’t handle.

  I interrupted him. “You’re the best teacher I ever had. Thank you.” I hoisted my backpack over my shoulder and walked toward the door.

  “Gabe! Don’t take this too hard. This was a setback, that’s all. I’ll e-mail you tonight. We have the rest of the year to work on this, and by the time you take my class in summer school, it’ll be cake. Gabe!”

  I let the door shut behind me. I was quiet inside, and very focused. I walked down the hall, down the steps, and into the parking lot. I got into my ride and started the engine and drove slowly out of that place, past all the rows of sweet cars and redbrick buildings—all nice containers for people whose brains worked right.

  The leather seats and smell of my car told me I wasn’t a complete screwup, though; I’d managed to hustle and get myself something. Because that’s what life was, right? A big hustle, all of us racing around trying to get the biggest piece of the pie, build our forts, trick them out, load up on diamonds until we were staggering, wondering, What am I gonna do with all this shit?

  I turned left down Mountebank, past the “Children at Play” sign. If life was a poker game, it was rigged. Some people were born already holding whole stacks of chips in their arms. Some people had the best plays wired into their brains, ready to—ticktock—start making money.

  And then there was the rest of us. We had to fight for it, hustle for it, figure out a way to not be forty years old, raising a kid alone, living in a shitty town house bought by some guy who was married to someone else.

  I barely noticed the time going by, and it felt like I was home instantly. Walking up to the front door, I wondered how my mom would react. She wanted so badly for me to be the first person in our family to go to college. I’d never planned on going, but it was sort of nice that she thought I could. And maybe in a corner of my brain I had started playing with the idea, because of Irina and Mr. Newport and Kyle and Matt and Forrest.