7 Souls (5 page)

The crowd was still staring—some at Scott, some at Mary—and for once, she didn’t want their eyes on her at all.

“Mary,
please listen, you’ve got to get out of—
”

The smacking sound of Pete’s open hand slapping Scott’s face echoed like a gunshot and the crowd of students gasped. The other linebackers had flanked Scott—this was what they
did
, after all; they could intercept downfield rollouts without even thinking—and he was so hopelessly overmatched it was hard to even look. Scott’s pudgy, waving hand was visible for one second, silhouetted against the distant sky, before the linebackers converged and he was invisible. “Chill
out
, you goddamned freak,” Billy Nelson snapped—and then everyone was talking at once, the crowd converging on the fight, racing across the wide sidewalk.

“Mary,
run!”
Scott screamed.
“Please listen! You’ve got to—Ow!”

Mary barely saw Scott go down, through the forest of arms and legs and bodies that blocked her view. She could hear the sliding thump as Scott dropped to the sidewalk, his book bag slipping from his shoulder and tumbling to the ground. She was hyperventilating. She could feel her pulse in her throat, clicking like a metronome. The fear was so intense that she weakened and nearly lost her balance; she might have fallen, but someone banged against her in a rush toward Scott and the linebackers, knocking her back upright.

“Come on.” A hand grabbed her shoulder, making her flinch again. It was Trick, pulling her away. “Let’s talk.”

“But—” Mary turned her head to stare at him, strands of hair flicking against her cheek. Patrick didn’t seem concerned about what was happening to Scott, ten feet away. It was like Mary
always
got insane screaming warnings from geeks on the sidewalk—like it was so routine it didn’t even bear mentioning. “Patrick, Jesus, look what they’re doing to Scott! Why did he—”

“Come on,” Patrick repeated gravely. His hand was still on her shoulder; his face was set in a tight, impenetrable mask. “We’ve got to have a conversation.”

“Let
go
of me,” Mary said, squirming and pulling out of his grip. Her headache was coming back and the queasy feeling in her stomach was making her tremble. So much adrenaline had flowed into her bloodstream so quickly that she felt like she was drunk. “Patrick, Jesus, what the hell is your problem?”

“Mary, run!”
Scott called out one last time.

Trick didn’t seem to care, or even notice. He was already walking east, smoothly extracting a Dunhill from his scratched gold cigarette case, drawing it out with his sexy lips while he whipped out his engraved silver lighter with his other hand—a practiced movement that she had probably see him do a thousand times. A cloud of exotic smoke billowed from his nose as he exhaled, still walking away from the school’s gates, as if expecting her to follow.

Mary had
never
seen Trick act like this. Usually, he was pleasantly chatty in the morning, in his low-key, medium-cool way, telling stories about some pathetic coked-up lawyer he’d met at an after-hours bar or some cheesy peach-fuzzed entrepreneur who wanted him to invest in an oxygen nightclub for teens. Now it was like he’d joined the Secret Service.

“Trick?” Mary asked, struggling to keep up with his long-legged strides. “Trick? What the hell—why are you being so weird?”

He looked at her. “Weird how?”

Mary, run!
Scott’s shriek was still ringing in her ears.

“Weird, like—like
this
,” Mary said helplessly. “Come on, Patrick, seriously—what’s the joke?”

“No joke.”

It’s a conspiracy
, she thought suddenly.
Sure—it’s a birthday thing
.

That had to be it. Everyone had conspiracy theories on their birthdays. It was natural; it was routine—you spent the whole day waiting for somebody to surprise you.

But she didn’t believe it. Not really; not for one second. The way Scott had
screamed …
it wasn’t a game; it couldn’t have been.

“All right,” Trick muttered, slowing as they got past the last stragglers, away from the Chadwick crowd and toward a flock of baby strollers steered by sinewy yoga moms or Jamaican nannies. “Here’s as good a place as any.”

“As good a place—” Mary didn’t know what he was talking about, but she didn’t like it one bit. She still felt dizzy. A cloud of Dunhill smoke blew across her face, straight from Trick’s nostrils. Usually, Trick was very careful to blow smoke away from her, but now he was letting the wind decide. “Trick, seriously, you’re freaking me out. What the hell is
wrong
with you? Are you high? Are you high
right now?
Because that would be—”

“Not high.” Patrick smiled humorlessly down at her. “In fact, I think I’m seeing things more clearly than I ever did before in my life.”

“What—”

“That’s why I want to talk to you.”

This wasn’t just a hangover. It was different, somehow. She had been trying to ignore how she felt, but there was no getting around it anymore. Something was wrong.

I’ve got the flu
, she thought dismally.
I’ve got some kind of
bug—something you get from sleeping naked in a climate-controlled furniture store
.

(Mary, you’ve got to listen—you’re in serious danger—
)

Whatever it was, Mary was beginning to realize it wasn’t getting better. It was getting
worse
, more noticeable. The noises and scents of her surroundings seemed unusually strong, unusually acute. Her heart was still racing, she realized—and a soft, quiet dread was beginning to grow inside her.

This is the moment
, Mary told herself.
He’s going to suddenly smile and then pull out some plane tickets—he’s going to laugh at my reaction and hug me and kiss me, and then, later, when we’re all jammed in around a club table sharing bottle service, he’ll keep telling Joon and Amy how scared I looked
.

But Patrick didn’t do anything like that.

“It’s time to wake up,” Trick told her. “It’s time to face facts.”

“What—?” Mary gazed into his brown eyes. That cold feeling in her stomach wouldn’t go away. “What the hell—Okay,
what’s
wrong? Just tell me now so we can have a normal day.”

“A normal day?” Patrick smiled again, slightly, with one side of his mouth. “You think this is a ‘normal day’? Is that really what you think?”

I think it’s my birthday
, Mary thought angrily.
What the hell do you think it is?

“I think you’re on
another fucking planet
and you’d better return to earth this instant, or—”

“Or what?” Trick’s face wasn’t registering any emotion. His eyes were blank. “Or you’ll do what? What are you going to do to me, exactly?”

“Excuse
me?” Mary’s eyes widened. “Patrick, anytime you want to snap out of this … this
thing
you’re doing and tell me why I should—”

“You’re boring.” Patrick looked deep into her eyes. “You’re so fucking boring, it’s starting to hurt my head. Don’t talk unless you have something interesting to say, okay?”

She couldn’t believe it.
How dare he talk to me this way? On my birthday?
She still couldn’t believe this was actually happening—that this avalanche had landed on her so quickly. And there was something else—she was suddenly
picturing
something. A dark image, murky and unrecognizable, floated into her head right at that moment.

“Don’t act offended,” Patrick went on, still maddeningly calm. “Seriously, I’ve seen that show before.”

“You are such an
asshole!”
she snapped uncontrollably. She could feel tears welling. “You’re such a fucked-up asshole! What is the
matter
with you?”

“Oh,
hell
, yes!” Trick pumped his fists as he raised his voice. The effect was not funny in the least. “Thank you! Thank you for calling me by my
actual
name! ‘Asshole’! Hey, here’s a question for you. If I’m such an asshole, then
why
are you going out with me?”

“Wh-what?”

Mary couldn’t believe her ears. The owner of the corner candy store had come outside to watch the pretty teenagers’ drama unfold—he was probably one of those forty-something pervos who liked to watch
Gossip Girl
. All he needed was a remote control and some microwave popcorn for the show.

The image in her head wasn’t going away. Mary could see a darkening evening sky, with bands of fading light streaked across the horizon. A vast nighttime sky and the sharp edges of a shape in front of her, across a pale white clearing—a shape like a building, a barn, maybe—tall and wide, looming over her.

“You heard me just fine,” Patrick said, looking away as he dropped his half-smoked Dunhill and stamped it out. “Why would you want to go out with me?”

He wanted to talk
, she remembered. The dread in her stomach had spread to her throat.
He led me down here because he wanted to have a conversation in private
.

Are you really doing what I think you’re doing, Patrick?

She stared into Patrick’s eyes and suddenly wanted him to grab her and kiss her like he’d always done, cupping her slim face in one hand and sliding the other hand up the small of her back, beneath her T-shirt, fingers probing her bare skin, then grabbing the elastic of her panties just below the waistband of her jeans.

Are you breaking up with me?

It was insane, unthinkable.

“Can’t think of any reasons, can you?” Patrick said quietly. “Because I really can’t either.”

Mary felt her hot eyes itching, her vision blurring as she stared back at Patrick.
Is this the same boy?
she wondered.
Is this the boy I fell for?
She remembered how they’d started, like it was yesterday: that December night at Rockefeller Center, where the gang always had their traditional pre-Christmas skate, going back years. Everyone was there, even Patrick, although he and Joon were all but broken up by then. Mary remembered the terrible cold she’d had, her determination to push through the evening for old times’ sake. She’d kept mounds of snotty Kleenex buried in the pockets of her white parka, hoping no one would notice her slow, unsightly death by phlegm. But Patrick noticed—he’d seen her sneezing like an actor in an antihistamine commercial, and after another huge fight with Joon, he’d appeared as Mary was leaving the rink, rising from the sunroof of a stretch limo and whisking her to Katz’s Deli for emergency chicken soup and noodle pudding. They spent the whole night there, trying to figure out how to patch up his relationship with Joonie.

And now here we are
, she thought dismally,
just three months later
. She’d been no fool, of course: she’d known exactly what she was getting into, beforehand. She’d known he was arrogant (everyone did); she’d known he could be a spoiled elitist baby (everyone did). But dating him was different. By the third month, she’d realized that Trick’s shortcomings were deeper, more profound than the mere ego problems everyone could see: something basic was missing. Under that golden blond, rock-hard shell was a soft, weak center—a basic indifference that made her want to shake him violently and force him to give a shit about
something
. It was right around then that she’d discovered the delightful trait that tied all his other delightful traits together: the unavoidable fact that he was a drug addict.

“You’re going to do it like this?” Mary said quietly. She tried to sound hard, tried to sound tough as nails—but she could hear the dread in her own voice as the full force of what was happening sank in. “Right here, right now?”

Patrick squinted disdainfully. “Not dramatic enough? You want to wait until later? You want to make a show of it, back at school? Big opera scene in the lunchroom?”

“No,” she said weakly. She could feel herself slumping; the wide white sky was blinding her and the tears were close. “Here and now. Fine, done.”

“Beautiful! Can I go to class now?”

Mary searched his eyes for even an ounce of the old sweetness, a glimmer of that adorable boy who’d watched her sneezing at the Rockefeller Center ice rink, but there was no sign of him.

“I can’t
believe
you did this,” she whispered. Patrick was already reaching for another Dunhill. “I can’t believe you did this
today
.”

“Believe it.”

In her mind she saw the dark sky and the black shape. It wasn’t a barn, she realized—it was a house. And she could sense something else—something bad. Some reason to leave, to get away.

(
Mary, run!)

“Why
, Patrick? Why?”

There was no expression on Patrick’s face at all—until he smiled, a gentle, calm smile that didn’t spread to his beautiful brown eyes.

“You know why.”

Then he turned away and walked toward Chadwick while she stood there shivering, watching him go.

*   *   *

T
HE ROOF OF THE
C
HADWICK
School was officially off-limits to students, for all kinds of good reasons having to do with insurance and panicky parents’ groups and the perennial danger of an accident.

But the rules didn’t really stop determined kids from going up there. There were dozens of crazy stories Mary had heard over the years about Chadwickites who’d done various illegal or immoral things outside the easy-to-jimmy steel door at the very top of the school’s ten-story stairwell.

Mary didn’t really know where she was going; she was just climbing the stairs, around and around each linoleum-covered landing, her legs burning like a cyclist’s, her eyes blinded by tears. Chadwickites were passing her in both directions, thundering between floors, between classes, and Mary kept climbing, just wanting to get away from everyone.
If I have a heart attack, so be it
, she thought—and then realized that she was following an old impulse that occurred every time she wanted to be alone at school: she was headed for the roof.