“Why can’t I wait in the car?” My mother’s won this small battle. I don’t want to be out, out where everyone’s looking at me. Where everyone wants to talk. Yet here I am.
My mother sighs and shakes her head. “Staying inside is doing stuff to your head.”
Since Detective Williams’s visit, my mother thinks I’m losing it. She’s even threatened to take me to a therapist, but I know she won’t. She doesn’t believe in them since the divorce—since the marriage counselor failed to save their relationship.
It doesn’t matter what she thinks anyway. Staying inside the car has nothing to do with it. Here’s the reality: Devin keeps finding me. At least in the car, no one else will be around to see her find me. I know it’s not just because I was in her house, poking around in her room. She’s in my house, too. Maybe she’s everywhere I am. She’s haunting me because of what I did. But I can’t tell anyone. So now what?
My mother throws her keys into her purse. “If you won’t go on your own, you’ll come with me.” She turns toward me. “What are you going to do when school starts?”
I roll my eyes and open the car door. School is like a hundred years from now. Like a million. I slam the door shut.
My mother glares at me. “Not necessary.”
“Neither is making me come with you.”
“In your opinion,” she says. “Let’s go.”
It’s hot outside, and the humid air presses against me. I sweat as I make my way across the parking lot.
We walk together into Dreyer’s Pharmacy and Surgical Supplies. I chew on my nail, grinding at it. I haven’t been here since the day Devin stole the lip gloss.
My mother grabs a cart.
“I thought all you needed was laundry detergent,” I say.
“Don’t be smart,” she says. “As long as we’re here, there are a few other things, too.” She considers me for a moment, then delivers one of her famous lines. “Why don’t you poke through cosmetics? Maybe find something fun?” She smiles. Now I glare at her.
“It was just a suggestion,” she says. “Do what you want.”
“I will,” I say. I don’t want to look for cosmetics. But I don’t want to hang around with my mother either, so I leave her and make my way down another aisle.
I pass by crafts, aspirins, allergy meds, until I hit the magazine stacks. A little kid is sitting on the floor reading something with a caterpillar on the front.
He looks up at me with big brown eyes. “I’m good at word searches,” he says. “I like to find things.”
“That’s great.” I’m in no mood for small talk, but I like little kids and I’m good with them. “Did you find any words yet?”
“Yeah,” he says, his eyes wide. “I found bug, ant, and butterfly.” His mother is at the other end of the aisle. She looks over at me, and I smile, offering up a small wave. She smiles back, a little more relaxed, and goes back to what she was doing.
“Ooh, butterfly,” I say, sitting down next to him. “That’s a hard one.”
He smiles. “Told you I was good! Want to watch me find more?”
“Sure,” I say.
The boy goes back to his puzzle, and I pick up a fashion magazine. I don’t know why; it was always Devin’s thing, not mine. I flip through the pages of starving, overly made-up women, and remember immediately why I don’t read them.
“What’s that?” the boy asks.
“Nothing,” I say, putting the magazine down on the floor next to me. “Your word search is much more interesting.”
He grins. “Yeah, look: ladybug!”
“Genius!” I say, smiling at him. His mom walks toward me down the aisle. “What’s your name?” she asks.
“Cass,” I say. “Cass Kirschner.”
“Do you babysit?”
“I do, I—” I love to babysit, but that’s my old life. Although sitting here right now, with the little boy, makes me feel lighter than I have in a long time.
“Great,” she says. “I’d love to get your number before we leave.”
“Lucas,” she said, turning to her son. “I’m just running across to the shampoo aisle. I can see you from there. Be a good boy and read your magazine with Cass, okay?” She smiles at me. “You can get to know each other a bit.”
“Sure,” I say, realizing that I hadn’t known the boy’s name. I’m not going anywhere anyway.
“Yay!” Lucas says. “You can help me find the rest of the words. Wait—I don’t need your help—you just watch.”
“Okay,” I say. Lucas’s mom throws one more smile my way, then walks across to the shampoo aisle.
I watch Lucas work on his puzzle. He sticks his tongue out to the side when he thinks, and it’s very cute. No one here except my mother knows who I really am. Knows what happened. For now I’m just Cass, almost tenth-grader, sitting here with a cute little kid in the pharmacy. It’s amazing how free I feel when I’m away from everyone I know.
“Oh, really!” says a voice from the next aisle. It’s unfamiliar but sounds like a girl my age. She’s giggling. She still has things to be happy about. My heart gets going. Is that someone I know? God, I do not want to run into anyone.
I need to see who it is, see if I need to duck out of there. “Hey, Lucas,” I say. “Stay here. I just want to peek around the aisle, okay?”
“Uh-huh.” He’s too engrossed in his puzzle to care.
“You are too funny!” the girl says as I creep toward the end of the aisle.
“You think so, huh?” says another voice. My heart gets a jolt. I know that second voice. I poke my head around the aisle.
Chad. Devin’s Chad. Wearing the green Dreyer’s Pharmacy and Surgical Supplies vest with a name tag. I guess good ol’ Chad no longer works in produce at the WayMart.
I pull back again behind the shelves of my aisle. My heart gets going, knocking quickly against my chest. I haven’t seen Chad since that day, since the day it all happened, and I don’t want to.
I peek out again from behind the aisle. The girl isn’t from my school either. She’s very thin, pretty, with long straight brown hair that comes down to the middle of her back. Her back is arched, likely for optimal cleavage effect, and she’s laughing. Chad’s giving her his million-dollar smile, the one he flashed over and over at Devin. Every time he smiles, my stomach sinks deeper and deeper inside me. How is he so damn happy? Why is he so damn happy?
“Come here,” he says to the girl.
“What?” she says. I swear she’s batting her eyes.
Chad doesn’t wait for her to respond; he just grabs her. He looks around, no doubt for the manager, then pulls her close. He’s got her from behind. She’s smiling, but his large arm slowly pushes up against her neck, upward toward her chin. For a moment her eyes grow wide, and she stops smiling.
My head starts to spin. Oh, my God. I step backward and accidentally catch Lucas’s hand underneath my foot.
“Ouch!” he says. “What’d you do that for?”
“Sorry,” I say. I grab onto a nearby shelf. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
His mother looks up from across the aisle. I offer up a small smile, and she goes back to examining shampoo bottles.
Lucas frowns. “How come you’re not watching me do my puzzle?”
“Sorry.” I take a look at his hand. I’m steady again. “Are you okay?”
He shrugs. “Yeah. I’m tough.”
I force a smile. “Yes, you are.” But I’m still thinking about what I just saw. I need to look again.
“Stay right here,” I say. “Really, don’t move.”
“Don’t step on me again,” he says.
“I won’t step on you if you stay right there.” I hold up my hand, like I’m taking an oath. “Promise.”
Lucas sits back down on the gray industrial carpet and picks up his magazine.
I poke my head out again from behind the shelves. Chad and the girl are gone. Crap. I should be relieved. The last person I want to see, the absolute last,
is him. That night was enough. And yet seeing him here with that girl has got my mind going places, bad places.
A hand grabs my shoulder and squeezes. My arms, my legs, everything, feels weak. My body is unsteady, as if I might topple over.
“You usually spy on people in drugstores?” I turn around. Chad is standing beside me, his large hand digging into my shoulder.
Before
“I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE really wearing that,” I whispered. Devin and I were in the backseat of her father’s Volvo, on our way to meet Chad and Marcus at the mall. She’d just shown me the satin, baby-pink lacy bra she was wearing under her too-tight top. She also had on a denim jacket—for now. Parent camouflage.
“Why not?” she whispered back. “It’s hot.”
“Well, for starters,” I said, “your shirt is white.”
“So?”
“So you can see the bra right through your shirt.”
“So?” she said again, grinning this time, her teeth white as ever. She stuck out her chest, much smaller than mine, but at the moment way more prominent in the tight white shirt.
I stared for a moment. I couldn’t help it. Her breasts were perfect, round like peaches, and the part of her chest spilling out of her shirt was very white, almost the same color as the shirt.
I looked up, and Devin was staring back at me, her eyebrows raised, a crooked grin stretched across her face. “A picture’ll last longer,” she said.
“Shut up,” I said. My cheeks grew warm. “It’s just”—I shook my head—“it’s a little much, don’t you think?”
She tilted her head to the side. “Really?” she said. She looked down at her chest, then back at me. Those blue reflective pools stared at me. I turned away. I didn’t like what I saw.
“You know what I think, Cass?” she said. “I think that’s not the problem.”
God, I hated when she did that. The way she saw through me, saw the things I didn’t want her to see. The things I didn’t want anyone to see.
“You don’t even know this guy,” I said.
“So what?” she said softly. “In life you meet new people, Cass.” She leaned in next to me. “If you’re lucky, you meet smoldering hot new people like Chad.”
“I hear you girls are going to catch a movie tonight?” said Mr. Rhodes. He smiled at us from the rearview mirror.
“I already told you that, Dad,” said Devin.
“All right,” he said. “Just making conversation. You don’t mind right, Cass?” He winked at me. I loved how he was so happily oblivious. He would likely drop us off, maybe stop at the supermarket for an errand, then head home to have a relaxing gourmet dinner cooked by Mrs. Rhodes, none the wiser to his daughter’s plans. “You girls let me know when you need me to pick you up later,” he added.
Devin rolled her eyes at me. “Sorry,” she mouthed.
I smiled because I didn’t mind. I liked Mr. Rhodes. I saw him a lot more than my own father, anyway, and at least he was interested enough to ask. “Thanks, Mr. Rhodes,” I said. He smiled at me again but didn’t say anything else.
I leaned in close to Devin, so Mr. Rhodes wouldn’t hear. “Maybe you should keep your jean jacket on until you decide whether or not you like him.” I wasn’t fooling anyone. Even though I was skeptical of the Chad/Marcus wonder duo, Devin knew I was really saying: Please, please give me a chance. Don’t show up looking so hot that Chad and Marcus both like you. Let me have a chance even if it’s with a guy named Marcus who might end up being a total waste of my time, for all we know.
I tugged on the shirt Devin had chosen for me from my closet after I confessed I never went shopping. It was loose enough to cover the rolls, fitted enough to flatter my chest.
“Fair enough,” she said. “If I don’t like him, the jacket stays on. If I do, it comes off.” She ran her fingers through her bangs. “That’s the signal, okay?”
By “the signal” she meant that if she didn’t like Chad, we’d make some dumb excuse like we left a Bundt cake in the oven, then make a run for it and call her dad to ask him to pick us up. If she liked Chad, Marcus and I would need to find a hard plastic mall bench on which to spend the evening. There was always a signal.
“Don’t worry, Cass,” she said, leaning back into the seat. “I have a good feeling about this.”
“That makes one of us.” I was aware of my buzzkill status. I just couldn’t help myself.
Devin was about to open the car door when she stopped. “It’ll be okay,” she said. She scrunched up her lips, then tilted her head and smiled. She leaned in close again, placed her hand on my knee, and squeezed. It hurt at first, and I squirmed. But she didn’t let go. She was no longer smiling, and her eyes were wide, and I knew, I knew so clearly, at least for that moment, that I was her best friend and she still needed me. A warm sensation rushed up my leg and through my body, and suddenly I didn’t mind that she was squeezing a little too hard. Because it also meant she was holding on. She was holding on to me.
She smiled again, only slightly. “Trust me, Cass.” Her voice was low. It wasn’t a big car. “Best friends, right?”
I nodded. “Right.” When she let go I felt the imprint of her hand on my knee, solid and binding. It lingered strong and steady, long after we’d left her father’s car and made our way into the crowded mall to find the boys.
AFTER
“I WASN’T SPYING,” I tell Chad. My shoulder hurts. I can feel little, sharp prickles where Chad’s fingers hold on. Lucas looks up from his magazine.
Chad scowls. “I saw you watching from—hey—” His eyes narrow. “I know you.”
Duh. “Please let go,” I say. Lucas looks from me to Chad, then back at me again. He’s clearly not sure what to make of this.
Chad takes a step backward and releases his grip. “You were friends with her. With that girl, Devin.”
I nod. “Yeah,” I say. “That was me.”
“What’s your name again?”
“Cass,” I say softly. It’s amazing to me that he’s forgotten. That he could forget anything about that night.
“Right, Cass—the guitar chick! You and my buddy Marcus—”
“Yes, okay, I said that was me.”
“Who’s he?” asks Lucas. I’d already forgotten he was there.
“Just someone I know,” I say. “It’s okay.”
Chad shakes his head. “Crazy shit, all of this. You know what I mean?”
“You said a bad word!” says Lucas.
“Do you mind?” I say. But he’s right—crazy, yes. Definitely crazy.
“Sorry, kid,” says Chad. Lucas nods at him, satisfied.
Chad leans in closer and lowers his voice. “A girl dies and I’m out with her that night. Crazy, crazy shit.”
“Yeah, you already said that.”
He’s still close. “How is Marcus anyway?”
“I don’t know,” I say. Doesn’t he?
“No kidding? I thought you guys were—”
“We’re not,” I say. “Aren’t you supposed to be his friend?”
Chad waved his hand dismissively. “Haven’t seen the kid in a while—not since right after your friend, well, you know.” He rolls his eyes. “Probably freaked out or something. He’s totally MIA now.” He shrugged. “Whatever.”
Marcus is not MIA, at least as far as I’m concerned. Why is he avoiding Chad? I wonder if that’s what Marcus wants to tell me—the reason why he wants to talk.
Chad moves in closer. “You know,” he says in almost a whisper, “a detective came to my house.”
“Really?” I say, probably unconvincingly.
“Yeah,” he says. “I thought I was gonna lose it. I mean, a detective?”
He leans forward again. “He asks me all these questions, and I’m like, dude, I don’t know what happened. But he keeps asking.” He shakes his head. “I had a headache when he left.” Chad’s already said more to me than he did the entire time we all went out.
“Cops ask questions,” I say.<
br />
“Yeah, you have no idea. No idea. Man,” he says, slamming his hand against the magazine rack. “I never should’ve gone out with that chick.” He’s shaking his head.
“Is that your boyfriend?” Lucas is looking up again from his magazine.
“No,” I say quickly.
“No way, kid,” says Chad, an awkward grin spreading across his face. Even now, even after everything that happened, he’s all over the I-don’t-date-the-fat-girl thing. One of the many reasons I’d like to punch him.
Adding to that impulse he says, “Devin was a hassle. No offense.”
“Right,” I say. “Because there’s an inoffensive way to take that.” I lower my voice. “She’s dead, okay? Leave her alone.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he says, getting right in my face. “You’re not going to tell anyone I said that?”
Up close I remember how scary he was—how scary he is. Lucas is watching us now, closely, and I don’t want to freak him out. I shrug. “Whatever,” I say, hoping no one can hear how loudly my heart is beating. “It doesn’t matter what you think. Unless—” My voice drops. We never saw Chad again after, well, after.
I can smell his Polo aftershave, see the bits of straw-like stubble on his face. “I didn’t do anything.” He grabs onto my arm and squeezes.
“Ow.” I move away from him, trying to free my arm. He holds on.
“What are you saying? That I had something to do with it?”
“I didn’t say that.” My arm is killing me. Chad is scary, but he’s also scared. Maybe he has a reason to be.
“I didn’t do anything.” He’s still holding on to my arm. “You were there that night.” He’s nodding. His eyes are wide. “With good old Marcus. What were you two doing again?”
“Please, let go,” I say, looking over at Lucas. “You’re scaring him.” He was scaring me.
“Do you kiss and tell?” Chad says, smirking. “Or is there nothing to tell?” He wags his tongue at me.
“Leave me alone.”
“Bet you already spoke to the detective? What’d you tell him?”
“Ow, please.” My voice is low. I’m hurting, but I don’t want to call attention to this.
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