by daisy harris
“I have no idea where he is.”
The girl wandered away, cell phone pressed to her ear.
I turned to Julius. “Y’all related or something?”
“Natasha? Yes, she’s my sister. You didn’t know that?” Julius’s expression was unreadable.
“No. Why would I?”
“People talk.” Julius crossed his arms.
I tensed, struck with the sudden sense that he might be fucking with me. “Did you get me into that fight on purpose to piss her off?”
“With Hal?” Julius scoffed. “You two were arguing before I sat down.”
“Barely.” I couldn’t remember the precise course of events.
“You sat at the swim team’s extra table. I’m surprised none of your so-called friends pointed that out to you.”
I flinched. They weren’t my so-called friends. Bethany and those guys seemed to honestly like me. And who was Julius to judge friendship? At lunch, he’d been alone. “They were being nice.”
“And do you like that?”
I blinked. “What do you mean?”
“You seem smart, compared to most people, that is. I’d think you’d strive for something more interesting than ‘nice.’” Julius glanced past the cars. “God, I’m bored. The least Hal could have done was come around and scare you a little.”
I got the feeling Julius was trying to frighten me in Hal’s place, and I didn’t appreciate it. “Hal and his stoner friends? Yeah, right.” I peered at the grassy area overlooking the lake. The green-on-black landscape was strange, but beautiful. Kind of like Julius himself. No wonder both he and Seattle had me intrigued.
“No.” He sighed melodramatically. “I suppose none of them are terribly frightening.” Julius wore a small smile now. “Every year, they find some freshman to race down to Madrona beach. Frankly, I’d hoped to get the honor this year, but you beat me to it.”
Before I could answer, he spun on his heel and headed in his sister’s direction. “Is your boyfriend coming or not? Silence of the Lambs is on at nine and you know I like to post my comments in real time.”
“He’s not coming.” Natasha stalked from the lookout point. “He left me a voice mail saying he wasn’t feeling well, and he was staying in tonight.” Her words drifted by Julius’s left shoulder.
The black SUV pulled out of the lot, followed by the Subaru.
“So that’s it?” I rubbed my arms, not bothering to pretend that I wasn’t freezing anymore. “We all go home?”
Natasha regarded me like something stuck to her shoe. “You can do whatever you want. I’m leaving.”
“Too bad.” Julius nodded his chin at the road that wound downhill. “Would have been a nice night for it.”
I wished he hadn’t backed up as he said it, slipping through the door of his sister’s SUV. Inside, it was perfectly clean. I wouldn’t have been surprised if classical piano came from the sound system, but when his sister flicked on the radio, it blasted Macklemore.
“Maybe some other time?” I asked before I could stop myself. I probably sounded desperate and pathetic, but Julius obviously lived in the neighborhood.
Julius tilted his head to the side, watching me. Whatever he saw in me couldn’t have impressed him that much, because he closed the door and they drove away.
Tuesdays and Thursdays were math and science mornings. When I got to the Mathematical Concepts in Trigonometry class, everyone was whispering. For a split second, I wondered if it had something to do with me. I quieted the thought, keeping my eyes lowered as I walked. Nothing much had happened the night before. Whatever the topic of gossip, I probably wasn't involved.
Bethany was in my class, and across the room I recognized Thea. To my surprise, Julius was sitting at the front corner desk. He’d donned a black vest over his black dress shirt today. Where yesterday his shoes had been Converse like mine, today he wore slick combat boots.
I wanted to sit near him, especially since he was the only kid in class not muttering to a friend, but I made my way to the opposite corner. I wasn’t sure he and I were friends yet, or even if he wanted to be.
“Hey.” Bethany lifted out of her seat as I passed. She bit the edge of her lip. “How’d it go last night?”
I glanced to Julius like he would give me the right answer. “It was okay. I—”
Knocking sounded at the door, and the short woman from the office stuck her head inside. “Julius?”
All attention snapped to him. Then the lady scanned the room and her gaze landed on me. “Oh, and Henry Walker. You too. Liz wants to see you both.”
It took me a second to realize that by Liz, she meant Liz Cantor-Chang, our principal. I went stiff.
Bethany’s eyes went wide, and she shrank back into her seat. People were looking at me with a mixture of disgust and grudging respect.
Julius, they didn’t seem to notice. Maybe he got called to the principal’s office all the time or maybe they already knew what they thought of him. When I got to the door, he glanced at me with a bit of an eye roll, as if I should have known what was going on. I rubbed my face, looking away. Something was up. The hair was standing up on the back of my neck. But as much as I ran through the events of the past twenty-four hours, I couldn’t imagine what I’d done wrong.
“You’re not in trouble,” the woman said when we’d both reached the door. I wished I remembered her name. She must have introduced herself the day before.
Julius kept quiet all the way to the office, so I followed his lead, walking silently at his side.
“You boys wait here.” The woman pointed to the same two seats we’d been in when we’d met the day before.
“Maureen,” Julius said as he crossed one ankle over the opposite knee.
“What?” I couldn’t stop biting at the edges of my finger. For years I’d worked to get rid of that nervous habit, but though my cuticles weren’t red and raw anymore, I still nibbled like a caffeinated rabbit when stressed.
“Her name. It’s Maureen. I could tell that you don’t remember it.”
“I remember.” I folded my arms, tucking my hands into my armpits.
“There’s no point lying. I can always tell.”
I called bullshit, but not out loud. Mostly I just wished Julius would stop talking.
“Like now. You don’t believe me, but you don’t want to say it.”
I snarled, because I so did not sign on to be analyzed that morning. “No one would believe you know what I’m thinking.”
He shrugged. “Whatever.” He lowered his gaze, tapping his middle fingertip against his thumb. “I also know you have no idea what this is about. If you were being nicer, I might tell you.”
He’d pissed me off, so there was no way I’d ask for his help. Luckily, Maureen came out of a door marked Head of School, so I didn’t have to admit he was right. “Boys. Liz is ready for you.”
For us not being in trouble, Maureen seemed extremely tense. Her lips were tight and her face pale. As Julius and I passed through the door, she leaned over a coworker’s shoulders and whispered, “Do you think they had something to do with it?”
“Stop worrying so loudly,” Julius murmured. “You’re making us look guilty.”
I rubbed my face, wishing I could appear more self-confident.
Julius didn’t have that problem. He walked confidently through the door and strode up to Liz’s desk. “How are you doing this morning? Did you have a nice summer?”
Her face was pinched the way my mom’s got when we couldn’t reach my dad for a few days. She tapped her desk, knuckles white. “Yes, I had a lovely summer. Take a seat.”
Julius and I sat across from her in twin armchairs.
“Julius, Henry, I have to ask you . . . What happened between you two and Hal Stubenmeyer yesterday?”
Like I had a twitch in my neck, I glanced at Julius. His expression was flat and pleasant, his forehead smooth and there was a slight curve to his lips.
He knew the ins and outs of this place
, so he should have been the one to answer. That’s why it was so infuriating when he just returned my stare calmly. “I don’t recall, Liz. Henry, do you remember?”
I could have smacked him.
“It seems that you three had a disagreement in the cafeteria.” Liz said. “I wanted to make sure that—”
“We didn’t—” I stopped short when I saw Julius’s quick shake of the head.
What was his problem? One minute he tried to get me to talk, and the next he all but told me to shut up. I gave him a hard look, trying not to glower in front of Liz.
She sighed. “I’m sure that whatever was said, you both feel horrible. I wanted to talk to you about it before the rumors started flying.”
I didn’t dare check Julius’s reaction. “I’m sorry?”
“You don’t know?” Liz tipped her head.
“Know what?”
Liz looked at some papers on her desk, lines around her eyes tense and her mouth tight.
Julius leaned toward me and tapped me on the arm. When I glanced at him, he sighed and said, “Hal Stubenmeyer tried to kill himself last night.”
I don’t startle easily. Years of being an Army brat had made me immune to certain kinds of shock. But right then my mouth hung open. Sure, I didn’t know Hal. Nor did I really like him, but it was still weird to hear that he’d been so unhappy.
Anyway, who made it to senior year and then offed themselves? After slogging through junior high and three years of high school, that seemed crazy. He’d almost graduated. Not to mention that Hal was popular and had a girlfriend. He was attracted to the right people. And they liked him back.
“My sister told me this morning.” Julius frowned mildly. “I was sorry to hear it.”
“Wait,” I rubbed my face, trying to sort out my thoughts. “What happened?”
Liz raised her eyebrows, giving Julius a hard stare. “I hope you won’t continue to pass this information around. This isn’t a matter for gossip.” Liz picked up a pencil and jotted something down on a Post-it.
“I wasn’t planning to tell anyone.” Julius folded his hands on his knees. “But I’m fairly certain the entire senior class knows already. According to Natasha, he tried to hang himself with a climbing rope in his garage, but the carabiner slipped off the bike hook he’d been using, and in the process of falling, he was hit in the head with a stand-up paddleboard.”
Without meaning to, I snickered. “Death by sporting equipment?” Immediately, I cleared my throat, cursing my habit of making jokes at the worst of times.
Unfortunately, the edges of Julius’s mouth curled into a contained smirk. I’d seen his fake smile a few times, and he was handsome even when he was frowning. When his eyes sparkled, though? He could have committed murder with the cut of his cheekbones.
“Not death, luckily.” Liz’s face was stony. I guessed my joke hadn’t gone over as well with her. “But he was injured.”
“He got a concussion and a sprained ankle,” Julius said with enough pep to make it clear he liked being in-the-know. “He’s still in the hospital.”
Liz frowned. “Nothing happened with you three yesterday? Maybe you said something you didn’t mean? We understand that in the heat of the moment, teasing occurs, but you must know that we take bullying very seriously.”
I wanted to argue with her. We had not been bullying Hal. He’d been bullying us. Or at least me. Julius had been goading Hal from the start, but Julius certainly hadn’t said something bad enough to make Hal try to kill himself.
Julius stroked his chin. “I can’t think of anything. He asked to borrow a chair and we said yes. That’s all.”
Liz clicked softly with her tongue; she clearly didn’t believe us but in the end, she shook her head. “Well, since the session only began yesterday, this can’t have been an ongoing issue. I still think we need an all-school assembly to talk about this.”
“That’s a wonderful idea,” Julius said.
“Uh-huh.” I couldn’t think of what else to say.
“I will have to contact both your parents. We don’t always reach out for small matters like an argument in the lunchroom, but given what happened . . .”
There it was. The shoe-drop I’d been waiting for. It didn’t matter that I’d done nothing whatsoever to Hal, or that I’d only met the guy yesterday. When my mom got that phone call—or more likely, read that email—she’d be on the warpath.
“Yes, I understand.” Julius’s gaze was calculating. “Could I have a moment to myself? This is a lot to take in.”
“Yes, of course.” Liz rose from her desk. “It’s fine if you take a few minutes to find your center. Would you like some time too, Henry? I know it’s only your second day. Maybe I could call in the school counselor? Dr. Cochow opened his schedule for today, and—”
Simultaneously, Julius and I said, “No.”
“Ah, yes.” Liz headed to the door. “I’ve read Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. I’m sure you boys need to deal with this on your own at first. Just tell Maureen if you need to schedule a session for later.”
As soon as the door was closed and Liz was gone, Julius snarled, rubbing his face. “This is horrible.”
“I know,” I whispered. “Poor guy must have been miserable.”
Julius threw me a sarcastic look. “Hal is in no way a poor guy. He’s an asshole.” He crossed to the window and tucked his fingers under the blinds to peek into the main office. “What I meant was, ‘This is horrible for me.’” He turned to pace the room. “I don’t have much time.”
I blinked. “For what?”
“If Hal was depressed, I’ll give myself a concussion with a paddleboard.”
“Maybe he was depressed.” All people got that way sometimes. I’d had my low moments, and I’d never mentioned them to my mom or anyone else.
“He’s too stupid to be depressed.” Julius clasped his hands, fingers steepled. His expression had a faraway look to it. “Liz will have already emailed our parents. We need to visit him today, after school. I suspect whoever you have at home will ground you for fighting, correct?”
I frowned. “Maybe.” Mom probably would, but I didn’t want Julius knowing about it.
“For less than three days, I’m guessing, but that might be too much time. We have to talk to Hal while he’s still there.”
“Where?” My mind reeled. Julius wasn’t making any sense, and his agitated pacing was making my shoulders bunch up.
“The hospital.” Julius pulled out his phone again and typed furiously. “Natasha will know the hospital name by the end of the day, which will save me the trouble of sneaking into his files.” He headed to the door, but paused with his palm on the handle. “Can you brave your mother’s wrath for long enough to come, or are you expecting me to handle this on my own?”
I jumped to my feet. “Why would we want to question him? Liz said we weren’t in trouble.”
“And you believe her?”
Not really. I chewed my lip. The last thing I needed was to be labeled a troublemaker the first week of school.
“No matter what she says, the administration is going to remember this forever unless we can find out what really happened. I know her, Henry. She seems all sweetness and light, but she’s like an elephant. We’ll be forever associated with Hal and whatever idiocy he’s involved with unless we clear our names.”
“I find that hard to believe.” My understanding was that rich kids like Julius got away with whatever they pulled in high school. Though, come to think of it, that might have been a bit prejudiced on my part.
“Then believe this: I refuse to let my parents put me in therapy three times a week again for some imagined mental disorder.” Julius’s eyes flared. “I’ve been misdiagnosed with Asperger’s, depression, bipolar, mania, OCD, sociopathy, and a half dozen other conditions when the only problem I have is being in possession of an IQ of a hundred and eighty.” He tossed his hands up. “I know your mother will want to ground you over this, but probably o
nly for a day or two. So what you need to do is—”
“Okay, okay. I’ll come.”
Julius turned the handle, and opened the door a couple of inches, but I couldn’t tell if he was really leaving or whether he was embarrassed to have admitted so much about his mental health history. With his hair falling in his face I could only see his tight lips.
It was nerve-racking being close to him. I didn’t want him to leave. My heart rose in my chest, and the first words I could think of bubbled out of my mouth. “How do you know Mom would ground me?”
Julius let go of the doorknob. “Your clothes are cheap, but they’re clean and pressed. So your mother has limited means but takes the time to iron your laundry. She’s fastidious, so she has to ground you. Or at least pretend to ground you.”
He raised his ice-blue gaze to my face. “But there’s a hole on the back of your right shoe. As soon as it starts raining, your feet are going to get soaked. No self-respecting helicopter parent would let your shoes get that ratty. So your mom must be ignoring the hole on purpose. Conclusion: a single parent who doesn’t want to make you part with your favorite pair of sneakers.”
“How did you know they’re my favorite?”
“I didn’t until now.” Julius glanced to the side. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to class.” He opened the door. “And you may as well drop that accent,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re not fooling anyone.”
“What in the heck is wrong with my accent?” I’d known people would sass me about it when I got to Clinton, but for some reason I’d expected Julius to be different.
“You’ve got Texas and Kentucky battling one another, but overall you’re mimicking some part of Louisiana, even though it’s pretty obvious you’ve never lived there.”
My dad was from Louisiana. “I’m not mimicking anything.”
“You’ll stop once you no longer need it.” His expression shifted, becoming guarded. “Anyway, I bet the girls love it.”
Before I could ponder what he’d said, Julius was out the door and walking through the reception area.