151 Days (44 page)

As she turned to walk away from me, I stopped her. “Wait, Kyle begged you to ask me?”

Her sigh was withering. “Yes, even after I told him you were a complete—”

“I’ll get everyone else from the drama club organized. Just let me know when he wanted us there.”

It reminded me a lot of those cartoons where the bird just stopped, and the coyote just went flying past him. That was the look on her face. “You’re going?” I nodded. “Why?” she asked, completely shocked, but then I saw the suspicion in her eyes as she began to doubt my intent.

“Kyle wants a show of solidarity. He’ll get one. Isn’t that enough?” I asked casually.

“For anyone human? Yes.”

“You have my answer. Let me know when and where.” And I slammed the door in her face. It saved me from any more of her ridiculous chatter and prevented her from seeing the grin spread across my face slowly. This was as close to perfect as life got in Foster.

Kyle begged her to invite me. Begged. This was it—everything I had dreamt of was coming to fruition, and all I had to do was wait for it to happen. Obviously he had grown tired of his muscle-bound boy toy and was looking for someone who could at least give him intellectual stimulation. And it gave me a perfect chance to out Kelly in front of everyone, a twofer that no one could have predicted.

What could possibly go wrong?

B
RAD

A
S
SOON
as I realized Kyle was out there alone, I jumped up and made a mad dash toward the door. Mr. Powers saw me out of the corner of his eye and threw himself between me and the only exit out of the room. “Brad, sit down.” He was whispering, but it was obvious it was what a yell would sound like if you had to whisper.

“Move,” I said, ignoring him completely. I reached to push him out of the way, but he slapped my hand away. I had to give him mad props for thinking he could stop me, but we both knew I was like three times stronger than him, and he was going to be moved.

“Mr. Greymark, sit down,” he hissed, bringing both hands up to force me away from the door.

I said nothing as I began to move him out of my way.

“You’re putting us in danger,” he added, the first sounds of desperation entering his voice. He stopped talking as if he felt himself begin to weaken.

“Greymark, sit down!” someone whispered at me from across the room.

I saw Mr. Powers’s left leg start to shake.

Digging in, I pushed him to the ground with a shove. My hand reached out to grab the doorknob as something stung me in the middle of my back. Before I could even react, I felt my entire body explode into pain, and I fell to the ground instantly. I lay there in a fetal position, shaking, as Jennifer moved a step closer to me, still brandishing her Taser.

Tears were falling from her eyes as she looked down at me. “I-I’m sorry, Brad. I can’t let you endanger everyone else.”

I wanted to scream at her that I needed to get to Kyle, but all I could manage was some pathetic-sounding noises as I drooled onto the floor. My eyes closed as I tried to will myself to get up and get to Kyle.

J
EREMY

S
O
THE
night of the party, I found myself standing outside of Kelly’s house wondering if this had all been one huge joke Kyle was playing on us.

Sammy had said we were early, but I wanted to make sure Kyle and I walked in at the same time so everyone could see us together. I know it sounds petty, but Foster had been just as petty to me, so some payback seemed justified. The rest of the drama people kept looking around nervously, like we were breaking into a bank or something. They were so pathetic it made me laugh.

“Something funny?” Sammy asked me as I shook my head.

She was wearing this ridiculous dress that looked like it was the dress someone got kicked off of
Project Runway
for. It was black with these slashes through it that had blue under it, obviously stolen from the set of
Wolverine vs. the Prom Queen
. How she wore such idiocy out in public was beyond me. “All of this is funny,” I said to her, looking around. “We’re sitting across the street from jock central, and the guy who wanted us to come isn’t even here. I’m sure the YouTube video of us getting our asses kicked will be all over the net by Monday.”

She had an odd look on her face. “I’m not sure what you think is the punishment in that scenario, the ass kicking or the fact it’s on YouTube.”

Before I could answer, someone said they saw a car coming.

I wasn’t sure if I understood what she had been talking about. Getting your ass kicked was a finite experience. Your dad goes out on a Friday, gets so drunk he can barely walk, comes home to find that the magical house cleaning fairies have not miraculously picked up his mess during his absence, so he wales on you until you beg him to stop or he runs out of breath. Either way, once he is done, it’s done; once on YouTube, it is forever.

For example, ever see the video of the big girl dancing on the table, and she slips back and falls on her face? One moment of pain; a lifetime of infamy. What about the girl in the horse mask who nearly knocks herself out by hitting the corner of the TV? Ten minutes of being dizzy; years and years of laughter. I had honestly been shocked that images of me being tossed into the trash can hadn’t ended up online. I suppose that was just poor planning on their part.

“It’s them,” Sammy called out as she began walking toward the now parked car.

I knew instantly that Kyle Stilleno had fucked me over again.

He was there smiling next to Brad, ignoring me completely as the rest of the nerds crowded around him. No one said a word to me as we all began to walk toward Kelly’s house. I wish I could say I was actually surprised, but I wasn’t. This was just the way fate rolled, making sure every single time I had the smallest glimmer of hope, someone came and bitch-slapped it right out of my hands.

Kelly’s house was everything mine wasn’t: clean, expensive, and decorated with a ton of money. The glares we got from the jocks, who had shown up early, just solidified my belief that this was just an initiation stunt Kyle had to pull to get into the cool-kid club. Get a bunch of losers to show up to a party thinking they were going to be welcome, and then do something horrible like spray them with Coke or throw paint at them. I nudged Sammy and whispered to her, “This doesn’t look good at all.”

From the expression on her face, she wanted to argue with me that everything was going to be all right, but as she saw the guys in the kitchen staring at all of us intently, she knew I was right.

“We should leave before it gets ugly,” I suggested.

She took a half step away from me. “Then leave. Kyle thinks this can work, so I’m staying.”

The way she said his name, the admiration and gushing pride… it just made me sick. What did that loser do to get that kind of respect? I’ve been struggling in this town for years, and I get bottles thrown at me. He decides we should go to a party, and he’s fucking Martin Luther King Jr.? Instead I stood in the corner with the rest of the drama geeks, which was as physically far away from the jocks you could be and still say you were inside Kelly’s house. The other idiots just whispered nervously to themselves, but I ignored them and watched the drama unfolding in front of my eyes.

Kelly was pissed, about what I wasn’t sure, but he was not happy to see Brad and Kyle show up. Normally I would have assumed he was mad we were there, but he honestly didn’t even look past the two of them to see us. Instead he stormed off to the kitchen and huddled there with his other friends, looking like a tribe of short-haired Neanderthals who had stumbled upon an alien species. Kelly drank almost half a beer as he glared over at Brad, Kyle, and Jennifer on the couch. I still couldn’t figure out the genesis of his anger until I saw Kyle give Brad a small peck on the cheek.

Kelly yelled “Fuck!” and threw his beer bottle across the room. Everyone froze as he charged upstairs and away from the party. Slowly everyone went back to being simply uncomfortable and not looking at each other. Kyle watched Brad follow Kelly out of the room and then asked Jennifer something. That was when it started to dawn on me.

Kelly had the hots for Brad.

I laughed to myself as the simplicity of the entire problem became apparent instantly. I liked Kyle, Kyle liked Brad, Kelly liked Brad, and God knows what Brad liked besides being scratched behind the ears. My entire focus was drawn to the stairs and what conversation was taking place up there.

The music stopped, and the sound of one of the library nerds shouting “—but no way Hulk could take Loki if he was ready” practically echoed through the house. They couldn’t even come to a party and not discuss the uselessness that was comics. This was why people hated nerds and geeks. It was why I hated us.

Kyle jumped up off the couch and asked, “Anyone have anything good on their iPod?” No one answered, of course, because no one acknowledged Kyle as anything more than a guy who was here because his boyfriend could hit a ball. “Seriously? No one has anything?”

Sammy looked over at me and mouthed, “Your mashups.”

I scowled at her and shook my head, but she nodded and practically threw my hand up. Kyle looked over at me, and I stammered a weak, “I have some mashups on mine.”

“Sweet,” he said, grabbed my phone, and began pulling wires out of the CD player. I wish the skill with which he handled the equipment wasn’t impressive, but within thirty seconds he had my music coming out of the speakers.

He nodded and smiled at me as he walked toward the library nerds.

I could feel a tingle somewhere inside me from even that brief moment of acknowledgment, and in that second my anger was gone. “Did you make this?” one of the drama people asked me. “This is incredible,” another chimed in.

Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe this night wasn’t going to be as bad as I thought it would.

T
YLER

I
ALMOST
hit two other cars running red lights to get to the high school.

A lot of thoughts were racing through my mind, but the first and foremost was that I was never fucking having kids. If this panic and absolute terror could be brought on by two teenage boys I had barely known a year, I could not imagine the day-to-day ordeal it would be to wonder if they were okay. Sheriff Rogers had two patrol cars in front of the school as we pulled up. One of the deputies was already putting up barricades to prevent people from getting any closer.

Robbie said something to me as I jumped out of the car. My heart felt like it was going to explode, and I hadn’t sweated like this since the first day of practice in Orlando. My ears were doing that weird ringing thing that meant my blood pressure must be like a thousand points too high, and the edges of my vision were blurry. All were indications I was too old for my own good.

“
Stop
!” Robbie yelled, getting in front of me. I paused, wondering how long he had been yelling at me. “What do you think you’re doing?”

I cocked my head in confusion. “I’m going to go help.”

“Help?” he asked. “Help who? Kyle and Brad?” I nodded and began to move around him, but he stopped me. “Did you gain superpowers at some point and didn’t tell me? Because last time I checked, there isn’t a thing you can do in there except get shot.”

“They’re in danger!” I screamed, not sure why he wasn’t getting this.

“And you are incapable of changing that right now,” he screamed back. Neither of us blinked as we tried to drill holes into each other with our eyes. “If you go in there, whoever has a gun will just shoot you. Is that what you want?”

“Of course it isn’t, but I can’t just stand here and do nothing.”

“No, that is in fact all we can do right now. See the big men in the dark shirts with guns? This is their job. If the whackjob in there who has a gun wants sporting goods, then it becomes your job, but right now all you can do is get hurt or die.”

“So?” I asked him, fed up with the whole conversation.

“So maybe this isn’t the time to go charging in to be a hero.”

Something inside my brain just snapped. “
I can’t watch someone die again
!”

I hadn’t known I was going to say it—fuck, I didn’t even know I had been thinking it. But there it was, big as life and twice as ugly.

“Well, maybe I don’t want to lose anyone else,” he said back quietly.

There were a few seconds before I said anything. “I thought you’d jump at the chance to see me die.” He gave me such a look that I knew instantly it had been the wrong thing to say.

After a second he just sat down on the sidewalk; his entire demeanor was one of surrender. I sat down next to him. “What do you want me to say, Tyler? I can never forgive you for what you did, but as much as I hate to admit it, you are the last thing of Riley’s that is still here, and I can’t imagine losing you too.”

Hesitantly I asked, “So you don’t hate me?”

He quickly looked over at me. “No, I hate you with the fiery heat of a thousand suns, but I don’t want to see this town kill anyone else. I just can’t do that again.” Looking out across the street, he said, “I hate this town. I hate it more than anything in the world. What is it about Foster that just preys on people? It’s like a big, fucked-up shark, just slowly swimming in circles until it can find someone to pull under. I fucking hate it.” Angry tears fell from his eyes as he talked.

I sighed and looked down at my shoes. “I miss him.”

“Tell me about it.”

Another squad car pulled up in front of the school, and I saw one of the deputies get out and pull a large box from the backseat. As soon as I saw it, I knew this was serious.

“This is bad,” I told Robbie, nudging him and nodding toward the box, which was now being set up on the trunk of the sheriff’s car.

He shrugged. “Not to sound all Brad Pitt, but what’s in the box?”

Before I could answer, the sheriff pulled out a nasty-looking sniper rifle and began to attach a scope to it.