by David Hopen
“Nope.”
“Maybe you should,” Noah suggested, after some hesitation.
I dipped my non-casted hand into the water, made waves. I thought about how, somewhere below, God’s secret name inhabited the depths. “I have nothing to say to him.”
“Come on, Drew,” Noah said. “Scream at him. Tell him he’s a maniac. Clear the air. Then we can all go back to normal.”
Amir leaned forward, eyes grave. “You don’t think he did it, you know, on purpose, do you?”
Silence.
“Jesus, Amir,” Oliver said, after it’d become clear no one else was speaking. “Why would you put that in his head?”
Amir shrugged. “It is Evan.”
“Dude. Crashing a boat?” Noah asked. “You think that’s like one of his weird experiments?” We each grew quiet at this thought. “I mean, can’t be, right? It’s—he could’ve died.”
“I’m not pretending to understand him,” Amir said. “I’m just putting it out there. Would it really surprise you?”
“Yeah, actually,” Noah said, trying his best to muster an air of decisiveness. “Of course it would.”
“Yeah, shut up, Amir,” Oliver said. “This is crazy talk.”
“Right,” Amir said, frowning, “because setting school grounds on fire or conjuring the dead or throwing a Picasso into a bonfire—none of that is crazy, is it? It’s all perfectly normal behavior, boys being boys?”
“Okay. It was kind of fucked,” Noah admitted. “But a different sort of crazy. There’s harmless crazy and then there’s—I don’t know, murderous crazy.”
“Like when he drugged me?” I said suddenly.
“Exactly,” Oliver said. “Harmless crazy.”
“He can be—wild,” Noah said delicately. “Distasteful, for sure—”
Amir kicked his bare feet in the water. “Vile.”
“Fine. Vile,” Noah said. “But this is Ev. We’ve known him our whole lives. He was always a pretty happy kid, right? We know he wasn’t this way at all, not until Caroline—not until that happened. We know what he’s been through, we know the good, the not so good, and when you add all that up—the person you’d always rely on, the kid who threatened the fifth grader who used to pick on Oliver—I just don’t think we can call him, well, a murderer.”
Amir laid his head in the grass. “At what point do we acknowledge what’s in front of us?”
“Which is?” Noah asked.
“That he’s kind of nuts,” Amir said. “That he really does have some sort of disturbing system or plan.”
Oliver turned my way. “Let Eden decide. He was there.”
I didn’t answer.
* * *
THE CLOSE OF MARCH BROUGHT REJECTIONS. Northwestern said no. Cornell and Penn followed suit, as did Haverford and Bowdoin. (Bowdoin? I didn’t even remember applying there.) I deleted the emails when they came. I didn’t tell my mother.
“So. What’s your plan?” Kayla would press, after an attempt to comfort me. “What’re your safety schools?”
“Don’t have any.”
“Sensible,” she said, hands in her lap, spinning one of her funky pencils through her fingers. “So then what? You’re just—waiting it out?”
I shrugged, raising my hands to emphasize defeat. A searing pain shot through my casted right arm, suspended limply in a sling. “Guess so.”
“But what if—”
“I know, Kayla,” I snapped. “I’ll deal with that when it happens.”
She folded her arms. “I don’t want to bother you, Ari, and I know you detest advice, but maybe you should see Ballinger. You could discuss taking a gap year and reapplying?”
“Yeah, maybe,” I cut in, knowing I’d do no such thing.
* * *
EVAN WAS RELEASED ON A FRIDAY, some two weeks after I was discharged. It rained that day. Noah told me he was going with Amir and Oliver to visit on Saturday, but said he’d understand if I didn’t feel up to joining. “These things take time, I’m sure,” he said, struggling for the words. “No pressure.”
I didn’t go. I ate with my parents, slept a good portion of the day. When I got bored I read the Miami Herald by my pool. It was a long Shabbat and I was restless, but I decided that if Evan wanted to talk, he ought to come to me.
* * *
HE DID ON SUNDAY NIGHT. I was in bed, nearly asleep, when there was a cautious knock at my door.
“You have a—guest,” my mother said tonelessly, poking her head inside.
“Who?”
“Believe it or not,” she said, dropping her voice, “Evan Stark.”
I straightened.
“I’m telling him to leave,” she said hurriedly. “Honestly, I was so taken aback to find him that I slammed the door without actually saying anything. He’s still standing there, but I absolutely do not want that boy in this house.”
“Nah, it’s all right.” I stood. “Let him in.”
He looked like hell. His right leg was in an enormous boot and he walked with a bad limp, leaning heavily on a cane. His hair was wild and he hadn’t shaved in weeks, making that dark look in his eyes more pronounced. A red scar ran down his left cheek, just as his father had predicted. “Well,” he finally said from the doorway to my room, after we’d stared at each other for a good while, “aren’t you going to offer me a seat? I’m crippled now.”
I led him to my desk chair before returning to the safety of the edge of my bed.
“You didn’t come yesterday,” he said, resting his cane across his legs.
“I was busy.”
He looked over the books stacked on my floor. “I seem to be intruding. Or at least your mother gave me that impression.” Chin up, he surveyed the contents of my room: my open closet, with my few shirts strewn around; my whiskey from Oliver; my unmade bed; the sea of loose-leaf papers and school notes engulfing my desk. “How’s the claw treating you?”
“It’s pretty mangled,” I said, eyes on the floor.
“Want me to sign it?”
“Not particularly. Is that cane necessary?”
“The physical therapist seems to think so. I don’t know, makes me look like I crawled out of a James Bond movie, don’t you think?”
“No. What’s with your leg?”
“I’m walking,” he said. “At first they were a little worried about that. But here I am, up and moving.”
A trembling, buried rage awoke somewhere in my chest. I tried blinking it off. “We’re both just inordinately lucky, aren’t we?”
“So they insist.” He massaged his leg. “Well,” he said, leaning toward me. “You’re obviously hostile.”
Fuck you, I wanted to say. I don’t trust you, I wanted to say. “For good reason, don’t you think?”
“Maybe,” Evan said, “but how come you’re not actually hostile enough to, you know, fight me or throw me out?”
“I swear,” I mumbled, quickly returning my gaze to the floor, “do not start.”
He raised his hands above his head. “You’re pissed, Eden, I know, I get that. But you’re too smart to really believe it was anything other than a mistake. A colossal one, no doubt, but I was only screwing around. Clearly I didn’t think you’d grab the wheel—”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I yelled suddenly, unable to stop myself. Immediately, I glanced worriedly at my door, half-expecting my mother to rush in, brandishing a kitchen knife. “You came here to blame me?”
He seemed slightly taken aback that I’d raised my voice, though quickly tried recovering his usual expression of calm indifference. The effect, however, was unconvincing. Maybe it was the scar, maybe it was the sleeplessness in his eyes, but he looked, in that moment, genuinely disquieted. “Of course not,” he said hesitantly. “I appreciate you even let me inside. I’m just saying it was, you know, a pretty hazy night, we got into some deep stuff, we were smoking, we polished off that bottle—”
I clenched my fists. “I don’t want to hear it.”
&n
bsp; “Fine.” He gritted his teeth, nodded to himself, as if consciously moving to another strategy. Paranoid, I allowed myself to wonder whether any of this was real or if it was all just performative. “Look,” he said. “I came to say sorry.”
“This is you apologizing?”
He played with the cane, passing it back and forth in his hands. “Yeah, as a matter of fact.”
“You’re sorry for what, exactly?”
“Jesus, Eden,” he said, frowning, “you’re not the most gracious recipient of an apology.”
“We were about to fucking crash. Are you too demented nowadays to realize that?”
He shook his head patiently, as if mollifying a child. “I knew what I was doing, Eden. At least I thought I did. I was going to veer. I mean, I’ve done it before.”
“Bullshit.” And then, less sure of myself suddenly: “There was no time to veer.”
“Yeah, well, maybe not. As I’m admitting, my judgment wasn’t exactly unimpaired.”
“You nearly killed us.”
“Now that’s quite the claim.”
“I’m serious.”
He smiled darkly, unable to help himself, and in that smile I glimpsed the Evan I knew. “I just see a few bruises.”
“I keep trying to figure it out,” I said, after a long beat. “What you were trying to do.”
All emotion left his face again. “You know what Bloom likes to tell me sometimes? A little too often, actually?”
“What?”
“That you’re the one in the group with great moral instincts. And I think he’s right.” Evan stretched his leg, tried not to grimace. “So just listen to what your gut is telling you.”
I paused. “I don’t want to say aloud what my gut is telling me.”
“Cut it out, Eden.” He shook his head. “If you really believed that, if you really thought that’s what happened, then we both know I wouldn’t be allowed to be sitting here with you.”
His head bobbing in the bay, water spurting violently from his mouth as I struck his stomach. “I almost did leave you,” I said, eyes on my sneakers, shocked I was actually verbalizing this. “I almost didn’t pull you out.”
“Yes, but you did pull me out, Eden. In your heart of hearts, when you had to decide? You let me live. That was your answer.” He chewed his lower lip, the way Sophia did. “And now I really need a favor.”
I allowed myself a forced, spiteful laugh. “You’re kidding. What do you possibly want?”
“I’m facing some legal headaches.”
“DUI?”
He stretched again, eyes temporarily unfocused in pain. “I’m told it may become slightly messier than that.”
“How messy?”
“They can make my life unpleasant,” he said. “Rehab. Prison. Both. I have a court date scheduled for the fifth.”
“Better get a good lawyer.”
He exhaled, rubbed his kneecap. “I—well, believe it or not, I really need your help. I need you to testify.”
“Testify? It’s a DUI.”
“Having you there, I’m told, will make things considerably easier.”
“As what? A witness?”
“As the only other person present, Eden. As the person who saw what happened, who had just as much to drink and smoke, who grabbed the wheel—”
“You want me to take the hit for you? What if I tell them I was, I don’t know, forced to save us as you tried smashing us into a jetty? What if I tell them you took me out against my will?”
Evan sat there fidgeting, attempting to hold my gaze. “Or you could tell them the truth. You could tell them this was a terrible accident, an anomalous mistake. That I wasn’t visibly drunk. That I’ve expressed to you how sorry I am, that I want to make amends with your parents and Remi’s dad and anyone else who cares. You could even tell them I was reckless and going too fast and playing a stupid game of chicken and that, in your estimation, it’ll never happen again. And,” he added, biting his lip, making an effort to remain calm, “hopefully you could tell them that you’ve accepted my apology and thereby save me a rather great deal of trouble.”
I considered his request. I felt a strong conviction forming in me, an instinctual sense of friendship and loyalty. I thought, for a second, that I’d forgiven him. Then I had a sudden vision of Evan gripping Sophia, their bodies collapsing on each other, their voices crying out. I willed myself into numbness and returned my attention to Evan. “I can’t do that for you.”
He looked me over, saying nothing, only smiling. Slowly, with effort, he rose to his feet, limped out and closed the door.
* * *
THE FOLLOWING DAY I LEFT math to find Sophia leaning against my locker. I paused briefly before approaching. Unwelcome clarity came over me at the realization that seeing her there still made me exuberant, despite the way she’d treated me, despite surviving the crash, despite the problem of deciding what to do about Evan. I found this thought depressing: I’d faced an objectively life-altering moment, and still what felt most monumental were ordinary manifestations of love and hope and suffering. “Hi,” I said.
“Who knew you were one to stay late after a math class?”
“Had to talk to Porter about my progress, or lack thereof.” The hallway was empty. The next period had already begun. “You’ve been waiting?”
She nodded.
“Guess that means I should be worried.”
“Don’t look so alarmed. It’s insulting.”
“Sorry, I’m just scarred. Last time I found you waiting for me wasn’t much fun.” Balancing my math textbook against my chest, I tried, clumsily, opening my locker with my functional hand.
She touched my shoulder, gently moved me aside. A chill descended through my vertebral column. “Your combination?”
“You want my code?”
“Don’t trust me?”
“Of course I do, but I’m okay, I can do it myself—”
“You’ve got one working arm, your dexterity sucks.”
“Thanks, but—”
“You’re being kind of weird about this.”
“Fine,” I said, instantly red-cheeked. “Zero-seven-two-four.”
She looked me over, stifled a smile. “Isn’t that just the strangest coincidence?”
“You don’t say.”
“Believe it or not, July twenty-fourth happens to be my birthday.”
“Sorry, I never got around to changing—”
She spun the lock, jiggled it open. “I mean, what’re the odds? Well, I guess I’m not really asking a numbers expert, am I?”
“Low blow.” I placed my books inside.
She peered into my locker. “Ari,” she said, dropping her voice, “I need to ask you something confidentially.”
Inexplicably, my heart soared. “Of course.”
“Swear you won’t be mad.”
“How could I be mad?”
“Seriously. Promise.”
“I promise I won’t be mad.”
She glanced around, making sure we were alone. “I know what Evan asked you.”
I tried maintaining a stoic expression. I utilized my old strategy, focusing my attention on only one feature of her face, this time her chin, smooth and sharp and lovely. After a moment or two I failed, and when I took in the entirety of Sophia Winter’s face I saw only a mask. “You do?”
“And, yeah, I don’t blame you for refusing. Truly, I mean that. Actually you’re probably right for saying no. It’s—well, even I see that.”
I studied my textbooks, the ridiculous poster of Avril Lavigne that Oliver had taped recently to the back of my locker. “Why would he possibly tell you?”
“You still speak to me, don’t you?”
I fell silent, ungracefully gathering folders and binders into my backpack.
“You don’t think I know I’m a fool? It’s just—he’s in so much trouble, Ari. His entire life will be ruined, everything he has left, and if it’s my fault—”
“This has not
hing to do with you, Soph. You weren’t there, you didn’t see what he was like. You haven’t seen all the things he’s done this year.”
“I’ve seen enough to know I don’t want to be responsible for breaking him.”
I moved away, unable to make eye contact. “I don’t even know what you’re talking about.”
“I”—she stopped, bit her lip—“I know.”
“Something happened.”
“Yes,” she said, “something did happen. And that feeling, Ari, of undoing someone, even after the world’s already had its way? Of contributing to such . . . willful self-destruction?” She played with her wrists. “I couldn’t bear it, Ari.”
“So therefore you want me to testify for him.”
“For my sake. For me.”
“Okay,” I said, knowing then, after Yeats had shown me only in the abstract, what it was to feel pale from imagined love, “then I will.”
She didn’t dare move, she didn’t dare touch me. Instead she looked at me with the knowledge that I was someone over whom her power was absolute. “You’re much better than we are, Ari.”
“I don’t like when you say that.”
“It’s the truth. ‘One man picked out of ten thousand.’”
I dug into my pockets. The beginning of sunset cast a glassy, yellow light over us through the hallway windows. “I’m not very good at all.”
* * *
I WAS LYING IN BED the night before we were due in court, distracting myself by flipping absentmindedly through last-minute revisions for a Hartman paper, when my mother knocked. “Something came for you,” she said tersely. She handed over a thick, cream-colored envelope. “Could be a college?”
I bolted upward. “Where’s it from?”
“The . . . Rousseau Institute?”
My face fell. “Junk mail.”
She took my good hand. “Everything okay? You seem on edge.”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“How’s your arm feeling?”
“Better.”
“Seriously, Aryeh, why do you look so nervous?”
“Just this Coleridge paper,” I lied. “It’s due tomorrow.”
“Sounds fun. And stressful, I guess. I’ll leave you to it. But if you need something, you’ll call?”