Ask Me (7 page)

I quickly hid a grin behind my hand. Delilah was right. On the other hand, half the student body wanted to sleep with Will, including one of the football players … including Delilah herself, for that matter.

“Girls!” said Mrs. Pratt finally. She shouldered her way into the center of the crowd. “That’s enough of that. This is no way to act, especially today. Let’s get to our seats. Maybe some cookies are what we need.” She made shooing motions.

Shelley’s face was purplish-red. I wasn’t sure if it was in anger or embarrassment or both. She pointed a finger at Delilah but then backed away to sit down in a seat across the room.

“Mrs. Pratt, I need to be excused,” said Delilah. She left the room without waiting for permission.

Mrs. Pratt just kept on waving students to their seats and told us to take out our measuring cups. She wasn’t paying any attention to me at all. I took a deep breath and snuck out the door after Delilah.

I HAD A MOMENT
of déjà vu as I followed her into the same bathroom I’d found her with Jade. She was staring at
herself in one of the broken mirrors, her face fragmented into pieces, the cracks lacing her image like a spiderweb.

“What do you want, Aria?” she asked, not turning around.

“Peace,” I answered. I cleared my throat and rushed on to my question before she could say anything else. “I wanted to know if you told the police what I told you.”

“Yeah,” she said, sounding drained. “Yesterday afternoon.” She turned around and leaned back against the sink.

I slumped against the wall. That probably meant I was next for questioning. In that case, I was doomed. The police wouldn’t make the weird teenage girl spouting random bits of poetry and nonsense answers into an honorary detective. They would lock me away in a loony bin.

“I didn’t tell them who told me,” she continued. “I just told them I’d heard she might have gone out into the woods over that direction. She went running with Alex out there sometimes anyway, and I told them that, too.” She turned around and looked at me. “Why?”

“I’m scared,” I said. True enough, though I hadn’t really wanted to share that. I cleared my throat again. “I don’t really want to talk to the police. If you could—” I looked down at the floor and then forced myself to look her in the eye again—“I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t tell them it was me that told you. I just … I don’t want to be involved.” My eyes slipped back down to the dirty, beige tile floor.

“Okay,” she said after a moment’s silence. “But if you do know something else, tell me.” She stepped towards me,
her strappy sandals looking unaccountably cheerful and out of place. I involuntarily took a step back.

“I don’t,” I said. “That was it. I promise.” I made myself look up again and resisted the urge to let my hair fall forward over my face. I had to look like I was telling the truth. Inside, I cringed at the partial lie, but I really didn’t know anything more than I had told her. And I didn’t want to know anything about it at all.

“Thank you,” I said, meaning it. I reached behind my back to open the door. “See you in class.” I turned and left, walking quickly and stuffing my earphones in my ears in case she called a question after me.

The day crept by. Even with my headphones on and the sound turned up loud, questions were flying in the hallways so fast and so often that I found myself muttering constantly, during every break between songs or lulls in the music. It was a mixture of nonsense and gruesome details. Whatever subconscious part of me provided the answers was apparently faster than my conscious brain. I couldn’t keep track of which answer went to which question, and it all became a meaningless stream of noise passing through me like a river. The only concrete answer I could hold on to was when I stopped to catch my breath before lunch, letting the other students move on without me.

I had reached the end of my playlist and hadn’t yet started the next one when a couple passed by me. “Do you think it hurt a lot when she died?” asked the girl, hanging on her boyfriend’s arm as they trailed the crowd into the
cafeteria. I didn’t hear his answer, but I felt mine as it gushed out of me.

“Blood,” I mumbled, “and pain. White-hot as the knife leaves the body. Again and again and again.” A stabbing ache settled in my gut so suddenly I ran for a nearby water fountain and retched into it. For a moment, all I could think was how glad I was I hadn’t eaten much breakfast. One of my earphones came out as I pulled my hair back so it wouldn’t get wet. Jade’s death wasn’t an accident. It had been a murder, and a painfully bloody one at that, unless she had somehow managed to stab herself with a knife. Repeatedly.

I let my long hair fall forward again to cover me from any curious eyes, then I put my errant earphone back in with shaking fingers, using the back of my free hand to wipe at my mouth. I took a drink of the lukewarm water. I hit play. The long whistling introduction to a quirky, melancholy tune by Alexander began playing. The truth, indeed. My stomach clenched and gurgled, almost in time with the music.

I debated whether or not I should take advantage of the lack of roll call to skip out on school but decided I might as well stay since I had made it through half the day already. I also wasn’t sure I could drive. My legs felt rubbery, like they might give out at any minute.

I went into the cafeteria and grabbed some crackers from the salad bar. Ms. Mabel, stationed at the register, looked at them and hitched her head to the right when I tried to pay. “No charge, sweetie,” she said, her chocolate eyes kind. “You look a little pale. Were you a good friend of that girl?”

“No,” I choked out. “I knew her not at all.”

I took the plate of crackers with both hands, leaving behind the tray and Mabel’s questioning look, and went outside. She was generally a good person, though I had learned to avoid the chili on Thursdays when she made it. She wasn’t above using expired meat.

It was sweltering now, and all of the other students were inside in the air-conditioning. The heat didn’t bother me. I was used to it since neither my car nor our house had air-conditioning. Granddad had salvaged an old window unit for the living room, but it wheezed out more noise than air. I welcomed the warmth, actually. It kept everyone else away. I walked slowly and carefully over to the one scraggly oak tree on the school’s small inner courtyard. It was a deformed specimen covered in scars where kids had carved their initials and undying proclamations of love. All the lower branches had been broken off under the weight of backpacks, and the upper branches left didn’t provide much shade. But it was the only option, other than a group of scrub palms, so I sat down at the base and leaned back against the scratchy bark.

I crossed my legs under my dress and put the plate on my lap. The crackers were going down okay, but that might have been because there were no questions to answer out here in the Florida sun. I had questions of my own now. Who had killed Jade? And why? But even if I asked them, I wouldn’t get an answer. I was only a conduit for other people’s desires.

“Can I join you?”

I dropped my saltine, and it broke into pieces on the
plate as my reply came, “You will.” I hastily added, “If you want,” to cover up the awkwardness of the answer. I looked up as someone came around from behind the tree, momentarily blocking the sun. A halo of light around blond hair blinded me for a moment, resolving in Will’s face, looking down at me.

“Thanks,” he said with a wry grin. “No one seems to want my company today.”

He slumped down with his back against the tree, too. Our shoulders touched. I could only see his face if I turned my head so I settled for staring at him out of the corner of my eye instead. I had never been this close to him before. It was seldom I was this close to anyone, other than Gran and Granddad or Tank’s elbow. Why was he here, sitting next to me?

He didn’t say anything for a few minutes. I studied his profile as I picked up a sliver of broken cracker and continued nibbling. His eyelashes were long and darker than his hair. He had a strong chin and smooth cheeks with no trace of stubble. I was used to seeing him smiling, but today, not surprisingly, he wore a frown. He picked up a twig and drew a lazy spiral in the sand.

“I guess you’re not a big eater,” he said finally.

I looked down at my plate of crackers. “Not today,” I said. “You either, I guess.” He didn’t have a plate with him at all.

“No, not today.”

I itched to ask him what he was doing out here with me. To ask him about Jade. Instead, I picked up a new cracker and considered it for a moment before taking a bite. He
leaned forward, his shoulder rubbing heat against mine as he did, and craned his neck so he could see my face.

“Ariel, isn’t it?”

“Aria,” I said. “A melody sung solo.” I gave silent thanks that the answer hadn’t come out any stranger than that.

“Oh,” he said. “Sorry. I must have heard it wrong.”

“That’s okay. Everyone does that.” I should have stopped after the first sentence. Now I sounded like I was asking for sympathy. “I mean it’s a strange name. Not very common.”

“Pretty,” he said, still staring at me. “I like it.”

I dropped my head forward so my hair formed a curtain between us. He wasn’t having any of that. He reached out and tucked it behind my ear. I tried not to flinch, as if boys touched me in such a personal way all the time. I swallowed and resisted the sudden urge to lick my dry lips. Only girls in movies did that.

“I guess we’ve never really met before. My name is—”

“William Raffles,” I said. Did he really think anyone in this school didn’t know his name?

“You sound like my mom. Just call me Will unless you want me to think I’m in trouble.” He laughed. “Or William Thomas Raffles if I’ve
really
done it.”

“Will,” I said, trying it out. It felt strange on my tongue.

“So,” he said, and he leaned even closer, his grey eyes on mine, “do you think I did it, too?”

“
No
,” I breathed, surprised at the rush of relief that swamped me as my answer registered.

“Good.” He leaned back against the tree again. Our shoulders didn’t meet this time.

We sat in silence, my crackers forgotten until the bell
rang. Will stood up and brushed himself off, then put out his hand to help me up. I took it, and he hauled me to my feet like I weighed nothing, even though I was nearly as tall as he was.

“I’ll see you around,” he said and walked off. Then he turned and gave me that same wry smile he’d had before he sat down. “Aria of the beautiful but lonely melody.”

I spent sixth period gym on the bleachers watching the other girls jump hurdles. It hadn’t taken much to convince Coach Townsend that I wasn’t fit for physical activity. Someone had asked another question about Jade’s death as I got to the locker room, and I had just made it to the toilet in time to lose the crackers I’d had for lunch. Coach Townsend had wanted me to see the school nurse, but I convinced her I would be fine if I could sit quietly for a while. She hadn’t even made me change out of my dress, which might have been a tactical error on my part. Shorts and a T-shirt would have been better in the midday heat.

I snuck my earphones out of my backpack, hiding the cord in my hair. I flicked forward until Evanescence came up, and I turned the sound up until the plaintive voice of Amy Lee filled me from the inside out. The hurdlers shimmered in the heat, their flailing elbows and white gym
T-shirts making them look like ungainly egrets wanting to take flight.

Across the field, a group of boys were running sprints. Alex was among them but not. He was waiting his turn like everyone else, but there was a distance between him and the other boys. No one was talking to him or looking at him. He stood ramrod straight and still, except for his right hand, which flexed and unflexed in a fist. He was so big, taller and obviously stronger than nearly everyone else, much more like a man than a boy. A man apart.

Tank and one other boy broke from the loose line and went over to stand in front of Alex. I had no idea what they were saying, but it was clear that Alex didn’t appreciate it. He shook his head, a frown on his face. Tank moved closer, his height a match for Alex’s. He outweighed Alex by a good bit as well, but in such close proximity, he didn’t compare well. Tank seemed like a pig fattened for slaughter while Alex was like a racehorse, muscles taut and ready.