by Eli Easton
I took the stool next to Dixon. He gave me a dark look. Guess it would feel pretty shitty to partner with a guy you’d shot and nearly killed.
We worked on the assignment, neither of us saying a word. It had to do with photosynthesis. It was strange to work together while not talking. Sort of like “mimes do science.” Which might have been funny, but it wasn’t. After about ten minutes, Dixon made a sound of disgust and went up and got a hall pass. He left for the restroom.
He didn’t take his black backpack. It was under his chair.
I looked around, wondering if I could get away with searching it. Everyone was busy, and the teacher was strolling around at the front of the room. I told myself not to be a chickenshit. I edged over there and picked up the backpack, sat it on my chair.
God, I was the worst spy. I felt really, really nervous as I unzipped it, like I’d be caught at any moment. And I also felt like a rat fink. My mom had done a good job of grilling certain parameters of politeness into my brain. I made myself continue anyway. Inside the backpack were books, messy papers, and a big binder. I felt around the sides and bottom of the pack. My fingers hit something round and plastic, like a bong or a flashlight. I touched lots of pens. I drew out a plastic baggie with a few pills that looked like aspirin but probably weren’t. I put it back and reached deeper. My fingers touched something sticky, which I did not want to identify.
This was stupid. What was I expecting to find? A signed confession?
A gun?
The very idea had me removing my hand with a jerk. My dad and I had gone to the shooting range a few times, and it had been fun. But now the idea of touching a gun made me want to puke. I zipped up the backpack and put it under Dixon’s chair.
When I straightened up, he was standing there. His normally pale skin had a purple flush and his bugged-out eyes bored into me. He looked at me like I was the scum of the earth, like I’d spat in his face.
What could I say? Sorry? I was looking for a pen? There was nothing I could say, so I moved back to my stool. I didn’t look at him again the rest of class, and I got out of there as fast as I could.
I did learn one thing, though. I realized that I wasn’t afraid of Dixon Adams. Even when he’d looked at me like I was scum, I hadn’t felt like he’d hurt me. And maybe that meant something.
Dixon Adams wasn’t my only suspect. I’d googled Ed Soames, the teacher who’d been fired the year before for using the n-word. If he’d ever been on Facebook or Twitter, he must have deleted his profile. And I couldn’t find any recent mention of him in the news.
On Tuesday after sixth period, I went into the school office. The heavy glass window had been replaced, but there were still holes around the doorframe. The school secretary had been killed in the shooting. She’d been in her forties, and her name was Ginny Wilcox. I didn’t know her well, but one time I’d gone in to give her a doctor’s note when I’d come in to school late. She’d smiled and winked at me and said she hoped it was nothing serious. I told her it was just a routine physical for baseball and she’d playacted like she was hugely relieved, wiping her forehead and making a big to-do. She’d been funny.
Ginny Wilcox didn’t sit at the desk anymore. Instead there was an ancient-looking lady who I’d heard had been the secretary before Ginny. She’d come out of retirement until they found a full-time replacement or something like that. The little sign on her desk said “Mrs. Simpson.” She was typing away on the computer when I went in. And, holy shit, but did she type fast for an old lady. She had hair that was pure white and teased up into a beehive, and white, powdery, wrinkled skin. She still looked formidable.
“Hi, Mrs. Simpson,” I said, going for a charming smile.
She stopped typing and looked up at me, raising her chin. “Hello, young man. What can I do for you?”
“Hi, yeah, um, I’m trying to get in touch with Mr. Soames. He was an English teacher here last year, but he left. I was wondering if you have an address for him?”
“Hmmm.” She pursed her lips and looked me up and down like she was weighing my immortal soul. “Let me look.” She turned back to the computer and typed. Her drawn-on eyebrows went up. “Mr. Soames is no longer with Jefferson Waller High.” She gave me a dismissive sniff like that was the end of that.
“I know that,” I said, keeping my smile plastered on. “Do you know where he went? I’d like to get in touch with him.”
Her eyebrows went up a little higher. “We don’t give out home addresses of teachers, young man. Whether he’s employed here or not, doesn’t matter.”
She had the malleability of a brick wall. Guess working in a public school for thirty-some years will do that to you. “Sure. I totally get why you have that policy. But. Um. I wanted to ask him about a lesson he gave us last year. A quotation. If there was an email or something, that would work.”
She just stared at me.
“Can you at least tell me if he’s still in the area?” I asked with a hopeful hitch in my voice.
Her eyes shifted to glance at the monitor, then back at me. “Do you consider Virginia to be in ‘this area’?”
“No.”
“Then, no. Thank you, Mr. Marshall. Now go to class, please.”
I left the office feeling lucky to have escaped with my life. Wow. Mrs. Simpson must have been ruling hell in her retirement, because she was lit. How had she known who I was? Had she memorized all the student photos? Then again, my face had been in the papers before, thanks to football. And because of the shooting.
I took out my phone and googled “Ed Soames Virginia English teacher,” but I didn’t have any luck in the page or two I could scroll through before I had to get to American history.
I was sitting in class, mulling over what else I could try, when a deep voice interrupted my thoughts.
“Brian. Brian Marshall!”
I looked up to find Mr. Fishbinder looming over my desk. Crap. “Yes, sir?” I asked.
Someone laughed.
“Glad you could put your daydreaming on hold for a few minutes and join us in the real world. I wonder if you can tell me what we’re discussing?”
“Um… the civil rights movement,” I guessed.
Mr. Fishbinder nodded. “Correct. So why don’t you expound on today’s topic for us?”
I stared at him blankly. “Martin Luther King?”
There were more titters in the room, but Fishbinder did not look amused. His jaw ticked. “The essay question for today was the pros and cons of desegregation. Since I’m sure you would not have failed to complete the homework assignment, I’d like to hear your thoughts on the subject, Mr. Marshall.”
Shit. I’d done some homework on the van ride home from Chattanooga, but that assignment hadn’t made the cut. I licked my lips. I could wing this. “The biggest ‘pro’ is that public services like buses and lunch counters shouldn’t be allowed to choose who they’ll serve, or how they’ll serve them, based on the color of their skin. All citizens should be treated the same. It’s in the Constitution.”
Fishbinder nodded, his face serious. “And yet the Supreme Court recently ruled in favor of a baker who refused to make a cake for a gay wedding. Does anyone here know what the grounds were for that ruling?”
A boy raised his hand. “Wasn’t it more about how the state of Colorado had mishandled the case? Why they ruled for the baker, I mean.”
A girl spoke up adamantly. “No! The basis was religious freedom. If you strongly believe that gay marriage is wrong, you shouldn’t have to make a cake for a gay wedding because that violates your right to practice your beliefs.”
A spark of anger flared inside me. “How is that different than racial discrimination? What if it’s your religious conviction that certain races are inferior? Should you be able to refuse to make a cake for them? Because if that’s the case, then we’re right back in the 1940s.”
Fishbinder looked at me in surprise. Honestly, I’d surprised myself. I usually didn’t talk in class, and I never argued. M
aybe Landon was rubbing off on me.
“Interesting point, Brian,” Fishbinder said, walking back up the aisle. “But would returning to the 1940s necessarily be a bad thing? Look at the racial tensions we have right now. Could some of it be avoided if we acknowledged that not everyone wants to live in a homogenized society?” He shrugged. “I’m just asking. Tell me what you think. That’s your next essay, and I want it by the start of class the Monday after Thanksgiving.”
Everyone groaned.
When the bell rang, I grabbed my bag and got out of the room, and then out of the building, as fast as I could. I cut around the front of the school to get to the south parking lot. As usual, Landon’s Volvo was waiting for me there. The sight made me smile. But then I saw someone standing on the sidewalk, staring at me.
It was Cameron.
My steps faltered. He was looking right at me, a tense expression on his face, like he wanted to talk to me. But did I want to talk to him?
Something about the situation woke up that dark little Gollum in my brain. Maybe it was the fact that I was standing outside, out in the open. Maybe it was the sight of Cameron looming there staring at me. Fear prickled the back of my neck, and a wave of weakness went through me. My legs threatened to give out. When that happened, I had no control over my body. All I could do was get away from the trigger.
I got into Landon’s car.
“Hey. Ready to get out of here?” Landon asked.
I nodded, not trusting my voice. As we waited for another car to move, I turned my head and looked back at Cameron. He was still watching me.
Could the shooters have been Cameron and Gordo?
It wasn’t the first time I’d asked myself that. And the answer had always been no. Cameron might be a bigot, but I didn’t think he was capable of mass murder. God, I didn’t want to think so. Also, he wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree. To pull off something so big, with so much precision? Unlikely. True, he didn’t have much of an alibi. He’d told me at Jake’s funeral that he’d been in the bathroom. That seemed… weird. Of course it was possible, but unless there was a party in the john, it meant no one could verify his whereabouts.
But Gordo had been in detention. He’d been barricaded in a room with other people. And I couldn’t imagine Cameron doing it with anyone else.
No. No, it couldn’t be them. It just couldn’t.
“You look like you had a crap day,” Landon said. “Want to go to mine? My dad’s home all week, and he offered to make dinner early so you could eat with us.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Absolutely.”
Chapter 17
Brian
“HEY! HOW was your Thanksgiving?” Landon asked with a huge smile as I got into his car.
I dropped my backpack, filled with stuff for an overnight stay, in the back seat. I felt giddy. I hadn’t been able to see Landon on Thursday or Friday because we had a full house for Thanksgiving. Getting in the car with him felt like making a jailbreak.
“It was okay. Aunts and uncles and cousins I hadn’t seen in years came over. Nothing like nearly dying to make your relatives appreciate you.”
I meant it as a joke, but his smile was sad. “Yeah? Was that nice? Seeing everyone? What’d you guys do?”
I wrinkled my nose. Landon didn’t want to hear about how much my aunt Lucy hated her boss, my grandma’s sciatica, or my dad’s constant “Bull says this” and “Bull says that.”
“It was fine. All my cousins are younger than me, so it was more fun for Lisa. Mostly we watched football and ate. What about you?” I asked. “Anything new?”
Landon’s eyes were bright. He looked excited. “Take a look.” He handed me his phone. It was on his Twitter home page. I scrolled down the messages. There were a lot of messages from people I didn’t know.
“Look at my number of followers,” he said.
11,361.
“Holy shit!”
“I know.”
“What happened?”
“You know how in Chattanooga we all agreed to do video testimonies? Well, Madison and I filmed ours on Thanksgiving Day. And they went live last night on that March for Our Lives site. And the Parkland peeps have been tweeting the video link and recommending people follow us, and it just sort of blew up.”
“Shit.” I scrolled through the messages. Most of them were from people saying how moved they were and being crazy supportive. But some were hate posts. There were quite a few hate posts actually.
I put the phone down and forced a smile. “That’s great, Landon.”
“You can watch my video if you want.”
He sounded proud, and I knew he wanted me to watch it. But I really didn’t want to. I didn’t want to see Landon talking about finding me gut shot.
I’d been so excited to see him, be with him. And now the black feelings were creeping in again. My personal Gollum whispering in my ear. Memories of the cafeteria. Of finding the hole in my stomach. Sweat broke out on my neck.
“I’ll watch it later,” I said, my voice raspy. “So. Um. How was your Thanksgiving? Did you guys eat good?”
Yeah, eat good. That was the level of conversation I was capable of. Landon studied my face before pulling out of my driveway. Fortunately, he went along with the subject change. He talked about the food his mom had made and about how he’d helped his dad work on the furnace because of the cold weather. The way he described them both sitting cross-legged in the basement with hiking headlamps on, reading through the furnace manual, was so beautifully geeky, and so them, that it made me smile.
And then, just like that, the bad feelings receded like floodwater, and the Gollum crept back into his hole.
Mental trauma is really weird. It’s hard to get a handle on something so random.
When we got to Landon’s house, we were both feeling antsy, so we walked over to a nearby park. It was cold outside, and there was hardly anyone there. The fall leaves were gone, giving the park that deserted, barren feeling of winter. Being out in the open was easier when it was just me or one or two other people. It hardly seemed worth someone’s effort to pick us off. Besides, the shooters were hopefully too full of pumpkin pie to bother.
Landon had on a plaid wool coat with sheepskin lining that looked warm and comfortable. I wanted to stick my hands in his pockets. Or lean against him as we stood at the rail at the empty playground. Press chest to chest. Watch our breaths’ steamy condensation mix like fornicating volcanoes.
Forget writing poetry. Landon made me think poetry.
“Your dad didn’t get on your case about Chattanooga, did he?” Landon asked me.
I shook my head. “The holidays are a busy time at the car dealership and then we’ve had so many visitors. He’s been distracted. Hopefully anything he might have seen about it online has passed by now.”
“That’s good.”
“Yup.” I almost said bullet dodged. But the words stuck in my throat. You don’t realize how many idioms have to do with guns or being shot until you’ve, well, been shot. Stupid English language.
Landon’s gaze kept meeting mine, then he’d look away again, then he’d look back into my eyes.
I grabbed the top of the railing and twisted my hands around it, just to keep from reaching out for him. God, I’d missed him. We’d been spending so much time together, it felt unnatural being apart. Like missing a limb. But now that we were together, there was a tension between us that was almost unbearable.
Unbearable. I don’t think that word means what you think it means.
I knew what I wanted, but it was complicated. It was like the potential thing between us was a polyhedron in shape. No matter what angle I tried to approach it from, there were all these pointy bits that looked dangerous. Would he want to be with me if I was closeted? Was it rude to even suggest such a half-assed deal? What if it screwed up our friendship?
Did he want me as much as I wanted him? ’Cause I did want him. So much it hurt. I looked at him, and I’d never seen anyone so breathtakingly
beautiful in my life.
“What?” Landon asked with a puzzled smile.
“Nothing.”
He cleared his throat and took out his phone. Probably checking his Twitter account.
“More new followers?”
He put the phone away guiltily. “Sorry. Just feeling restless.”
“I don’t mind.”
“No, I wanna be with you. I spend too much time on that thing anyway.” His Adam’s apple bobbed after he said it, like he’d given too much away, crossed a line. There was an embarrassed spark in his eyes and an anxious lick of his lips that told me he was as nervous as I was.
This wasn’t flirting. It was, like, denial of flirting. Antiflirting. Which was much more telling, really. I was disconcerting Landon Hughes. Now that was something.
I leaned into him slowly, coat arm to coat arm. He tensed instead of pulling away, so he could hold me up. I turned my head to look at him and gave him a slow smile.
“What?” he said, his gaze darting to mine for just a moment.
“You’re warm.”
He chuckled nervously. Then he looked at me for real. His brow furrowed. He brought up his hand, cold without a glove, and brushed his thumb under my eyes. “Not sleeping again?”
“Cousins,” I lied. “Stayed up too late.”
“Ah.”
I went to pull his hand down, because I was tired of being the invalid. I wanted him to touch me, but not like that. I would have held on to his hand too. But he moved before I could, stepping back. “I’m freezing my butt off. Wanna go back?”
“Wimp.”
“You know it. I prefer my balls room temperature.”
I laughed. “Oh really?”
“Shut up.” Landon smirked.
He shoved me, and I shoved him, and we went back to his house.
Landon
MY DAD picked up Indian takeout for dinner. It was amazing. Potato naan, chicken tikka masala, aloo gobi, and tandoori chicken. All my favorites.