A Whisper To A Scream (20 page)

“Either come in Miss Graham or go to the
office,” Miss Miller bellows, not taking her eyes off her book.

I take a small step through the doorframe.
I’m still glancing between the two desks. I don’t know what to do.
I feel a warm gust of air on my neck. Someone is behind me. What if
it’s him? What if it’s Adam? I march ahead down the aisle and take
a seat in the back left corner of the room. The bell rings and they
remaining students file into the room. Including Adam. He stares at
my empty desk momentarily and then looks at Wren. I fold my arms on
my desk and lie my head down, avoiding them, knowing that any
second they are going to glance in my direction.

My eyes wander over to my left. I focus on
Katie’s desk. Katie’s empty desk. A wave of shock crashes into my
gut and my chest sinks. I thought the whole Katie disappearing act
was a hook-up gone wrong. Every part of me was sure of it. Yet,
here I am, sitting across from her empty desk faced with reality.
Katie Halston is a missing person and there’s good chance that
she’ll never walk the halls of Logan High ever again.

After class, I wander down the hall
aimlessly, ignoring the loud talking, slamming lockers, and bodies
brushing past me. I’m in a daze, staring straight ahead, eyes wide.
I feel a hand on my shoulder, and then I hear Wren’s voice. “Did
you see Katie wasn’t in class?”

“Terrible.” That’s the only word I can get
out.

The first half of the day goes by in a blur.
Logan High moves around me, but I can’t seem to keep it together.
The halls suffocate me. On top of Adam, thoughts loom in the back
of my mind that Katie is most likely lying in a ditch
somewhere.

I call Mom and tell her I don’t feel good and
that I want to come home early. She doesn’t make a fuss or put up a
fight, she just tells me she’ll be here to pick me up in twenty
minutes.

At my locker, I open the pewter metal door
and the soles of my tennis shoes squeak, echoing through the bright
empty hall. I gather a few folders, remove my book bag from the
tiny hook inside, and go to close the door when a piece of paper
floats out of my locker and swings back and forth until it rests on
the speckled tile floor.

I bend down to pick it up and a brown shoe
stomps down on the paper, pinning it down. I tug on the paper.
“Please move. This is mine.”

“But you don’t even know what it is.” I
bounce up quickly and slam my locker door. I’m face to face with
Adam and he’s leaning against the locker next to mine. “Going
somewhere?” he asks an intrigued look on his face.

“I’m going home,” I tell him. “Can you please
move your foot?” Adam picks his foot up and I snatch the paper. I
stuff it in my back pocket and start down the hall. His footsteps
pound behind me. He’s following me. I freeze and keep my back to
him. “Adam what do you want?” I swallow painfully.

“Thanks for giving my sweater back.”

“Oh.” I face him. “You’re welcome.”

He reaches out to touch my cheek. I flinch
and move my head. “I’ve missed you.” His deep voice is low and
tortured and empty. He’s a black abyss. A void of nothingness, but
I can’t fight the feeling of want for him.

I want him so bad the hurt crawls up my
throat and sets it on fire. “You said I didn’t mean anything to
you. How can you miss someone you don’t care about?”

He smiles whimsically and lowers his head. “I
lied. I was angry. Sometimes people say things they don’t mean when
they’re angry.”

“I never did anything to you. All I did was
care enough and love you enough to want to help you through
whatever was bothering you.”

Adam’s jaw tightens and his lips form a
straight line. “You don’t understand. I was trying to push you away
to protect you. But I can’t Ellory. I can’t push you away anymore.
I need you.”

“Protect me,” I scoff. “Protect me from
what?”

His features darken despite the bright
lighting in the hall. “From myself.”

A part of me thinks he’s joking, but from the
way he’s staring at me I know he’s not. “I don’t believe that,” I
say.

He glares at me incredulously. “What? You
think I’d lie about something like that?”

“No. I’m saying I don’t think you need to
push me away from you to protect me because I don’t believe you’d
ever hurt me.”

“Ellory, there is a side to me that I never
want you to see. I’m not who you think I am.”

His words remind me of the note I’d received
giving me the same warning.

He’s talking in circles, making excuses. He
has to know that I don’t care what he is. I was a walking corpse
before I met him. Adam fills me up with joy. He fills me up with a
love so intense that blurs the lines between fantasy and reality.
He makes me feel full. I’m complete. And he has to understand that
no flaw or personality issue will ever squash that love. Not now.
Not ever.

“I don’t care what you are.” I’ve noticed the
darkness in his eyes and how at times he seems emotionless. “I love
you, Adam.”

A hysterical glint swells in his eyes. “You
won’t. You’ll be just like everyone else. You won’t understand.
You’ll runaway screaming. You’ll the see me for the freak I truly
am.”

“How can you say that?” My eyes shift to the
back glass exit doors. Mom pulls up and honks the horn. “Adam, no
matter what, I will always love you. And you will never be a freak
to me.”

Adam smiles, his lips shaky. “We’ll see.” He
places his lips on my forehead and a tingling sense of belonging
sweeps over me. No matter what Adam says, in that moment I know I
belong with him and he belongs with me. What I feel for him isn’t a
silly teenage crush or some lustful illusion. It’s real. So real
that when I’m lying alone without him, my limbs ache for him, my
heart hammers for him, and the love surges through my nervous
system sparking like lightning bolts.

I pull away from him and I feel myself
splitting in two. As I turn and walk down the steps an overwhelming
fear develops and claws at my insides. He’s brought out the part of
me that’s been hidden for so long, and I’m proclaiming my love and
acting out in a way I never thought I would. I know that such
intense feelings are drastic, desperate, and tragic and rarely have
happy endings.

Chapter 27: Where Is She?

By Friday there is still no lead or
advancement on Katie’s disappearance. School isn’t the same. The
once crazy hallways have died down to students walking around with
haunting looks in their eyes. Yesterday day at lunch, I observed
Megan White as she sobbed into her bowl of chicken noodle soup.
Blake sat next to her and tried to comfort her, but she was
inconsolable.

The police showed up at the school and
questioned everyone, but I can tell they don’t even know what to
do. Nothing like this has ever happened in Burton. I only know of
one crime that has ever been committed here and it was a man
stealing another man’s cow. And that occurred over thirty years
ago.

The truth is I feel the same way everyone
does. Katie’s disappearance has left a tiny hole in my heart. Yes,
we are—no—were enemies, but Katie was born and bred in this town
just like me. Katie was one of our own. As I sit in English and
stare at her empty desk for the fifth day in a row, I’ve come to
the tragic and depressing conclusion that Katie Halston, my one
time BFF turned frenemy is dead.

They held a search party for Katie Thursday
evening. I didn’t go. I didn’t think it was right of me to show up
and put on a fake optimistic smile pretending we were friends when
we weren’t. Maybe it was wrong of me not to go. But there was a
part of me that couldn’t stomach it. I couldn’t go look for a
person that I know is never coming back. I know that hope is
pivotal in a situation this, but I think of all the missing that
have come home after being missing. There has only been a few that
I can remember.

Despite the devastation, Mrs. Miller keeps us
buried in homework. Every day that I walk into English my stomach
lurches when I see her sitting in Ms. Winkle’s desk. I hope the old
bag comes back soon because I have to admit that I miss her. There
is something about Mrs. Miller that seems off and it’s not just
that she gives me the creeps. It’s that no matter where I am or
what I’m doing, it always feels like she’s watching me, observing
me.

She shows up in random places where I am,
like she has my schedule memorized and I can’t help but wonder
why?

There have been times where I’ve caught her
staring at Adam. Not like lovingly, but like a territorial stare.
Seeing her like that puzzles me and in the back of my head I’m
always wondering if she knows him from somewhere. A few times she’s
caught me staring at them and her cold stare is enough to frighten
the bravest person.

I’ve been distant with Adam for the last
couple days. I’ve been feeling guilty about the way Katie and I
treated each other. And I’m curious, wondering what her reaction
would be if the tables were turned. Would she feel the same way I
do? Would she be as upset as I am if I was the one who was missing?
I guess I’ll never know and that bothers me more than anything.

Tonight is the big homecoming game. Adam
wants me to go, but I don’t feel like myself and being surrounded
by hundreds of people screaming and blaring foghorns is something I
know I can’t handle. That will just be one more thing to push me
closer to the edge of insanity.

Adam has been great about my abnormal
behavior. When I told him I wasn’t gonna go to the game, he kissed
my cheek, smiled, and told me he’d see me tomorrow. I love that
were complete opposites, yet we work so well together. I’m wild,
reckless, mouthy, and I hate authority. Adam is calm,
even-tempered, and collected.

After school he drives me home. When he pulls
in my driveway, I gather my things and he gives me one of his
beautiful smiles that I love so much. “So, I’ll see you tomorrow
then?”

I swing my door open. “Yep.” I get out of the
car and hover above the door. “Good luck tonight,” I tell him,
trying to be cheerful. Even though I’m certain my words don’t sound
cheerful.

“Thanks. I’ll need it. My good luck charm
won’t be there.”

I draw my eyebrows together. “You’re sure you
don’t care that I’m not going?”

He nods. “Don’t even worry about it.
Especially if you’re not feeling up to it. We have a big day
tomorrow. You might need to rest up.”

I manage a strained laugh. “Bye, Adam.” I
close the door and walk into my house.

Mom isn’t home. She left me a note letting me
know that she went to the grocery store, but would be back soon.
The emptiness of the house swells up inside of me. I start thinking
about Katie, my complicated relationship with Adam, and I realize
these thoughts are going to gnaw on me unless I do something to
keep myself busy. I need to keep myself occupied.

I stand in the doorway to my bedroom
examining the damage. Cleaning my room will help distract me. The
only problem is that it’s probably going to take me years to clean
it.

I start by washing the walls. Every time I
lift the sponge and glide it down the pale blue plaster walls
clumps of dust so thick fall on my bed and remind me of charred
ashes in a fireplace.

After I finish with the walls, I move onto
the dressers, wiping them down with pledge, organizing all of my
hair products, and discarding all of the paper plates with food
crusted on them.

Thirty minutes later, I focus on the tan shag
carpeted floor where the biggest portion of my mess lies. I sit
down in the middle of the heaping piles of clothes and begin
sorting them into clean and dirty piles. Once I have them
separated, I take the dirty pile to the laundry room and sort the
clean pile in half again. Some of the clothes go on hangers and
belong in the closet, while the others I’ll fold and place in the
dresser drawers.

When I come to the last article of clothing
on the floor, a pair of my favorite worn-in faded jeans. I fold
them in half and fasten them on a pants hanger. But as I move them
to my packed closet, I notice a piece of whit folded-up paper as it
slips out of the back pocket and falls onto the carpet.

Curious, I hang up the pants and sit down
Indian style, unfolding the paper. It’s a photocopied newspaper
article. There is a small picture in the upper right corner, but
the image is so dark and splotchy I can barely make out who is in
it. But as I scan the article and as his name distorts in my eyes
over and over again, I’m hit with a revelation that knocks the wind
out of my lungs. Adam Jacobs, the boy I love is a sociopath—a
cold-blooded killer.

Chapter 28: Decisions

A harrowing black abyss of darkness engulfs
my room as I lie in my bed. I can’t sleep. I don’t know if I’ll
ever be able to sleep, ever again. I’m dying inside and I feel the
agonizing pain slice through every one of my organs.

I’ve never felt so lost or tormented in my
entire life. It has been hours since I’ve read the article and it’s
all I can think about. In the article, Adam was accused of killing
his girlfriend, Regina, but he was acquitted. I’m certain a lot of
that has to do with his father because the article also says he was
one of the best defense attorney’s in Chicago.

I realize there’s a part of me that has
always known about Adam’s tendencies, but I’ve been so blinded by
my love for him that I never wanted those tendencies to be real. I
wanted to live in a dream. And in my dream he’s all the things he
pretends to be. He’s a diamond without flaws. He’s perfect.

But I have to swallow that thought and choke
on it.

There are specific qualities in Adam that
stand out among many of his other qualities. Now I’m no detective,
but right before I started ninth grade, I spent the entire summer
watching crime show marathons on television. All of the murderers
had similar vice that made them stand out.