by April Henry
The Seventh Day
Kayla
“YOU’RE MY MASTER,” I told him after he knocked me to the floor.
And at that moment, I split apart. There’s one girl who has to do what he says. The girl who doesn’t even have a name. The one who’s like a dog that’s been beaten so many times it no longer bothers to lift its head or bare its teeth. And then there’s the real Kayla. The one who screams and rages and swears. She’s inside the other girl, like one of those Russian nesting dolls. Hidden away.
“Good, slave girl,” he said, and the nausea rose in me again.
I barely made it to the toilet in the corner of the room. It’s just out in the open, so there’s no privacy. No place to hide. It’s not a portable toilet, it flushes, but the smell of it still made me retch again and again. He grunted in disgust, and I—the real Kayla—made a mental note even as I tried to hold my hair out of the way. Blood and vomit. He doesn’t like either one.
“I’ll be back,” he said, like the Terminator, only with no accent. And it wasn’t funny.
After he left, I curled up on the bed. I wasn’t thinking anymore. I just breathed in and out. I must have slept for a while.
This time when I wake up, there’s a plate of food on the floor. The sight of the sandwich and apple fills my mouth with so much water it runs down my chin. I haven’t had anything to eat since I gobbled the box of granola bars. I stuff the sandwich in my mouth so fast I almost choke. It’s just brown bread with mustard and bright yellow processed cheese, but I moan at the taste. I eat the whole thing in about three bites and then suck my fingers. My stomach is a hard little knot, like it doesn’t know what to do with food after such a long absence.
Only then do I wonder if he mixed something in the mustard. The sharp tang would hide a lot. I think about making myself throw up, but I don’t.
Instead I sink my teeth into the small red and yellow apple. It’s crisp and juicy. I eat it down to the core, spitting the seeds out onto the heavy white ceramic plate.
Then I drink two bottles of water from the bottom shelf of the bookcase. I want to drink more, but make myself stop. What if he doesn’t bring me any more? He hasn’t replaced the ones I drank earlier. I put all the empty bottles next to the white plate that rests on a black rubber tray. The tray looks like the ones they use at the school cafeteria. Already, the idea of school seems unreal. The only reality is this tiny room with its white walls and navy blue futon bed. I don’t exist outside this room. I’m not too sure I exist inside it.
There’s no clock in here, so I don’t know what time it is. And it’s not like the sandwich is a big clue. It could be lunchtime, dinnertime, or no time at all. For all I know, it’s two in the morning. I don’t even know what day it is. But it feels like I’ve been here for a long time. Like I’ve been here forever.
I wish there was a chair I could wedge under the door handle, at least when I’m asleep. I can’t keep him out of here or I won’t get any more food. But I don’t like waking up to him standing over me. That’s the worst.
And I don’t like waking up and figuring out he’s been here without my knowing. Maybe I could drag the bookcase over. I’ll have to try later. Right now I don’t feel strong enough to lift the TV down and empty out the shelves.
The TV! If I can find a news broadcast, I might be able to hear about how they’re looking for me, figure out what they know. I want to hear my name. I want to hear they’re closing in.
I press the On button. But there’s no cable leading from the back, just the power cord. I click through the channels one by one. All I see and hear is static. In between the buzz and pops, I think I can almost hear words. Almost.
Maybe.
I think.
But I never hear words that sound like Kayla Cutler.
Evidentiary Search Warrant
The place to be searched is the residence of the suspected party, Cody Renfrew, located at 3707 NW Hazelfern, Portland. The residence is a single-family home, white with blue trim, and is the last house on the left on Hazelfern, the front door of which faces north. The vehicle to be searched also belongs to the suspected party. The vehicle is a brown (previously white) Toyota pickup, registered in the state of Oregon with license plate NWE 530.
To ascertain if there is at said suspected premises and vehicle items constituting evidence of an offense, to wit:
Evidence concerning an investigation of the crime of murder, including, but not limited to, the human remains of Kayla Cutler, blood, physiological fluids and secretions, hair, fibers, fingerprints, palm prints, footprints, shoe prints, shoes, clothing and other garments, weapons, cutting instruments and tools, rope or other restraining devices, blunt force instruments, or items containing traces of any of the preceding articles.
The Seventh Day
Drew
I GO THROUGH my classes like a zombie. In English, Mrs. Lorton goes on and on about symbolism. I do what I do best. I keep my head down and don’t attract attention.
Why did Gabie kiss me? Why did she push me away?
Was it only because I was there, someone to hold her when she was shaking? And did she push me away when she remembered it was really only me, Drew Lyle, the straight-C stoner?
I’ve kissed girls before, of course. Behind our house there’s a huge park. Part of it has been left wild, cut off from the rest by a narrow stream. It has a hundred or so old tall fir trees, but no tennis courts, no paths, no playground. Just soft needles. Nobody walks dogs or pushes baby strollers through it. It’s its own little forest. Some kids hang out there after school and get stoned. Maybe do a few more things after dark.
The only time I saw an adult there was when this yellow Lab came tearing through the woods, eyes rolling, mouth clenched around a neon tennis ball. Then twenty seconds later, some older guy in running clothes burst in after her. He was yelling, “Bella, come back here!” His eyes went wide when he realized he wasn’t alone. He yelled out, “Bella, come!” and then pushed his way back out without saying a single word to us.
But yeah, I’ve kissed a girl or two there. When it’s dark, and you just need to hold on to someone because she’s warm and her mouth is soft. But that’s not why I kissed Gabie.
Or technically, kissed Gabie back.
That’s what I don’t understand. What happened wasn’t my idea, but when she pushed me away, she acted like it was.
And there’s something else, something that hurts so much I don’t even want to think about it. What Gabie said, the look on her face, when I talked about the color of the sky.
After an eternity, the bell rings and school is out. At my locker, I grab my longboard and then push down the endless corridor. Finally I’m outside, away from the noise of people marching along like ants, one behind the next. I drop my board and skate down the sidewalk, carving to the left and right to avoid clumps of people. At the intersection, I just go on through against the light. I’ve timed it right so I can slip between the cars. But some old lady in a big maroon-colored Lincoln gets nervous. Instead of keeping to the same speed, she hits the brakes. I have to brace myself on her trunk to make it around the back of her car. Her window is open, and she yells, “Punk kids!”
But I’m already across by the time she starts yelling, and all I can think about is seeing Gabie at Pete’s. Will she even show? Will she still let me use her car? What if she’s there but changes her mind about me driving the Mini? Because no matter what’s going on between us, I don’t think it would be a good idea for her—or any girl—to make deliveries now. I know Pete said no girls, but he can’t work days and nights, and Gabie is stubborn enough to do things her own way.
I think of the guy’s voice on the phone. “Is the girl in the Mini Cooper making deliveries tonight?” For a split second, some memory flashes through my brain, some time when I’ve heard that voice before. But it’s gone before I can pin it down. I’m the only one who talked to the guy who did it, but I’m no use to Kayla, wherever she is now.
I’m wa
lking toward the back door when Gabie’s car pulls into a parking space. I watch her get out. My throat feels like I’ve swallowed a big, rubbery chunk of mozzarella.
“Hey,” I say.
She looks at me, then looks away. “Listen, about what happened yesterday—”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I’m not ready for her excuses. Her pity.
She touches my wrist. It’s seventy degrees outside, but I shiver. She takes her hand away and rubs a spot in the center of her forehead. Because Gabie’s eyes are closed, I can look at her. Her nose has a little bump in it at the bridge.
“Look,” she starts again, “when I was crying and you were holding me, it felt right. But kissing you just made me confused.”
“I said I don’t want to talk about it.” I don’t want to hear about what’s wrong with me, what’s wrong with the idea of me plus her.
She opens her eyes. “Okay. Last night I went online and looked at all these stories about people who went missing and where their bodies finally turned up. And I tried to think about Kayla being in the river. You know, dead.”
I don’t want to talk about this either. But I imagine Kayla drifting downstream. Her face a pale smudge under the water. Her dark hair tangled as seaweed.
Gabie reaches for my wrist again, but this time she grabs it so hard I wince. “But she’s not dead, Drew. I know she’s not.”
“You’re the smart one,” I tell her. I don’t have to say “not me,” but I know she hears it. “You heard what Pete said about the rock with blood on it. You saw where it happened. What are the chances she’s alive?” I watch Gabie’s eyebrows pull down, her eyes narrow. “You were in the river. You felt how fast it was. How cold. Even if that guy didn’t put her in the river, even if he took her someplace else, it was probably only to bury her.” I hesitate and then say, “I liked Kayla too—we all did.” Gabie’s eyes bore into me. Today they’re definitely green, and as cold as cat’s eye marbles. “Do,” I correct myself. “Do. But you’re driving yourself crazy.”
Of course I think about Kayla too. I want to dream about her. Just to see her again. A dream where it’s ordinary, where nothing bad ever happened. Maybe we’ll be working together, and she’ll smile. That’s all. And in that dream world, I didn’t take the order, or I did take it and then threw it away because I realized it wasn’t a real address. Or someone else was working that night, and they delivered those three pizzas. Not Gabie, just some guy, and nothing bad happened to him, either. Every night I go to bed hoping I’ll see Kayla again when I close my eyes.
And every morning, I wake up disappointed.
Gabie looks frightened. “What if he comes back?”
And I think that’s the heart of it. Gabie has to think Kayla’s alive. Because she knows it could have been her blood on that rock down by the river.
We both start when a voice behind us says, “Why don’t you two lovebirds break it up and get in to work?”
It’s Miguel. I can tell he’s still pissed that the schedule got changed back to the way it was before. He has an old Datsun 280Z he spends all his money on.
We follow Miguel in without saying anything, although Gabie rolls her eyes at me. Pete’s working, and so is Danny. Danny has enough credits to graduate, so he gets out of school at twelve fifteen. It’s only four o’clock, but the dinner rush is already starting. Every few seconds, Sonya yells, “Order in!” and pins it to the sliver wheel.
The first part of the shift, Pete makes the deliveries. He looks awful.
Meanwhile, I work with Gabie. Sometimes she’s at the register. Sometimes she makes pizzas. It’s the way it’s been all year.
Except a year ago I wouldn’t have thought about the color of her eyes, or the way it felt to kiss her.
The Seventh Day
Gabie
AT PETE’S, I can be someone different than the Gabie I am at school. I can be curt or silly or flirt.
Tonight, I’m more like a machine. I just want to forget about everything. Forget about Kayla. Not think about Drew, even though he’s standing so close that if I stood hipshot I’d touch him. I’m glad it’s busy. Sonya is barely keeping up with the counter, while nearly a dozen orders wait on the metal wheel. Without asking Pete what I should do next, I yank off the first ticket, open the cooler, and pull out a battered flat metal pan holding a large pizza skin. After checking Sonya’s scrawl, I prep it with sauce and cheese. Then I grab a handful of pepperoni and give the pan a little tug to start it slowly spinning. As it does, I lay down the pepperoni in circles that don’t quite touch. Only Pete is really good at this trick, but tonight it works for me too. Pete looks over and nods with respect.
Once I’ve added mushroom and olives, I pivot and slide the pizza from the metal pan onto a wooden peel. When I pull down the oven door, the blast of heat rolls over me. I heft the long handle of the peel, and for once the weight feels like nothing. There’s a trick to getting the pizza into the oven unscathed, a quick jerk forward and back. Do it wrong, and you end up with the toppings burning in the oven and the dough still firmly attached to the peel. It’s even trickier when the oven is crowded, like now. You have to start a pizza out in the back of the oven, where it’s hottest, angling it over the nearly finished pizzas in the front. But tonight my first pizza slides in without hesitation. As does the next and the next.
Usually I would let Miguel or Drew deal with the pizzas once they were in the oven, but tonight I take just as many turns as they do checking on things, popping bubbles, shuffling pizzas from back to front as they get closer to being done. Tonight I don’t mind the weight of the peel or the scorching heat of the oven, and I don’t burn myself once on the open edge of the door. Miguel and Drew and even Pete have old burn marks lined up on their wrists like bracelets.
As the minutes tick by, work becomes a dance, and I lose myself, turning, reaching, bending, using both hands to scatter toppings when I normally only use one. Everyone else seems to feel the rhythm, too, even Miguel, and we step around each other in the small space as smoothly as if we were choreographed. Sonya rings up a bill and slams the cash register drawer closed with her hip, talking to one customer on the phone while she counts out another’s change.
But finally, it slows down. Eventually Danny and Sonya and Miguel leave. And then Pete, who’s so tired he’s staggering. The last customers have eaten and left. It’s just Drew and me. The rhythm is gone, and instead of hearing soundless music, I remember my parents’ voices, how they questioned me after I brought Drew home yesterday. After he ran out. After I told a lie about him thinking of buying a Mini and letting him test-drive mine.
“What’s Drew planning on doing after he graduates?” my mom asked as she filled a plate with spinach salad. I can tell she is worried, because she slides the plate over to me without asking how much I want, like I’m seven and not seventeen.
I take a bite before answering. “I’m not sure.” It isn’t a lie. I don’t know. I’ve never asked.
“Well, be careful. Remember, you’re moving almost a thousand miles away in the fall.”
I make a face, hoping the sudden heat in my cheeks doesn’t betray me. “It’s not like that. Drew’s a friend. A work friend. That’s all. Everyone at work is talking more because of Kayla being missing.”
My dad sighs. “You haven’t heard anything about them finding her”—he hesitates, probably avoiding the word body—“have you?”
“I just know what I see on TV.” Every night they run the same senior photo of Kayla in front of a tree, the same photo of her car parked in a police lot. Sometimes they show the divers in the river, or a German shepherd straining on a leash, or her parents crying and begging for information. But even when it’s different, it’s never really anything new.
“It must be hard, not knowing.” Dad pats my hand, a bit awkwardly. “I spoke to Sergeant Thayer about your safety.”
“You did what?”
“Of course I did, Gabie. I needed to be sure you were safe at work. He
told me they think it was someone Kayla knew.”
Mom takes a bite of her salmon, then delicately pulls a white bone as thin as a thread from between her lips. “Was Drew a special friend of Kayla’s?”
“What are you saying? That Drew is dangerous? He’s the one who called the police!”
Anger rises in me, and it feels good. It feels strong. I finally have a place to put all my emotions.
And then, just as quickly, my anger collapses. Mom looks genuinely shocked. “Of course not! I was just thinking that a tragedy like this can draw people together who wouldn’t normally,” Mom says. “Drew seems very nice, but it won’t be long until you’re gone. You don’t want to hurt him.”
Now I look at Drew out of the corner of my eye. It’s not that I’m worried about me hurting him.
It’s that I’m worried about him hurting me.
The Seventh Day
“John Robertson”
“HI!” GABIE SMILES up at me from under the brim of her baseball cap. “Let me guess. One plain slice and one Roma special?” Her pen is poised over the order pad.
Last time I was in Pete’s, I waited until Gabie turned her back. Then I took her pen off the counter and slid it into my shirt pocket, next to my X-Acto knife. Later, I sat in my car in the darkened parking lot and slid the pen along my lips. Between them. Thinking of Gabie. And of Gabie’s fingers and lips.
“You know what I like,” I say. Gabie doesn’t know the half of it.
Her eyes have dark circles, as if she hasn’t been sleeping well. With any other girl—Kayla, for instance—it would make her look less pretty. But with Gabie, the shadows make her blue-green eyes look more mysterious. I could lose myself in them.
“Well, I know you’re a vegetarian,” she says. “And that you’ll probably want a root beer.”