Brutal Precious (Lovely Vicious #3) (2 page)

I’m more worried about Mom than anything, but she and I planned weekend visits, and I’m going to drive up every Wednesday. Even her therapist says she’s doing better, especially since Leo’s imprisonment. In the Columbus airport when she saw me off, the color in her cheeks was back, and she’d smiled more in a week than I’d seen in my whole life.

Or maybe she was just trying extra hard for me.

I pick up a flat, smooth rock and try to skip it. It drowns instead.

East Summit High sort of wilted after Sophia died.

Nobody would come out and say that, of course, except me. Avery came to school less and less, and finally stopped coming altogether. We learned the day before graduation she’d been in a mental hospital, undergoing intensive therapy. Prom was out of the question. The social order of East Summit was thrown in the blender and turned on high – girls scrabbled to fill the void and take the Prom queen crown. Avery showed up to graduation though, and she walked up to the podium when her name was called and got her diploma. She looked pale and haggard, and her parents were in the crowd giving thin-lipped smiles of dry encouragement. I got the feeling they’d thrown her in the loony bin for show, to get her ‘better’ quickly and without really caring about her well-being. Before any of us could blink, she was whisked away to a private college in Connecticut, instead of UCLA like she’d planned for. Even if she was a bitch, I keep hoping she’ll end up alright. Or at least happier. But Sophia was her redemption, her idol, her friend. If I lost all three of those, I’d be broken, too.

Wren was the first to cry at the funeral, and the last to stop crying. Kayla helped him through the worst of it, visiting his house every day and staying with him in the nurses’ office during school when he crumbled. It broke her heart and my heart to see Wren so horribly, twistedly sad. I reminded him to eat – brought him burritos and pot pies - and when he couldn’t eat, I texted to remind him to sleep. I probably didn’t help much. I probably could have done more. Prom came and went, but none of us attended. We spent it at Sophia’s grave, instead.

By graduation, Wren was learning to smile again. MIT was still a very real thing for him, and he’d left early in the summer to earn a few extra credits, or to escape Sophia’s death. Both, probably. Kayla was torn up by it, but since she’s going to school in Boston in September anyway, she’s hurting a little less. They’d been growing closer after Sophia’s death. Dunno if they’d done anything serious – Kayla mostly just hugged him. No kissing that I could see, and Kayla refused to dish on what they do, more out of respect than embarrassment. She’s grown so much by helping him. She only talks about Vogue once a week, now.

I skip another rock. It flies over the waves and jumps twice before sinking.

I’ll miss Kayla. I already do.

The summer was mostly me and her, having last sleepovers and last quiet bottles of wine in cow pastures while looking at stars. We didn’t go to parties. I didn’t feel like it. She hadn’t been friends with Sophia, but it was still a death that affected her closest friends. We’d promised to text every day. And instagram. And tweet. And facebook. Basically, we’d made a promise to talk. A lot. We might not see each other so much, but a warm blanket of comfort settles over my heart when I think about her. She has my back. I have her flawless backside.

Jack Hunter didn’t cry at the funeral.

He should have, but he didn’t. He stood in the corner by his mother, who cried enough for the both of them, her black dress and his black suit mingling as she leaned on him to keep standing. His hair had been gelled in perfect place, his face an opaque mask of the darkest ice I’d seen yet. The skin below his eyes was bruised with exhaustion, and his cheekbones seemed somehow sharper. I shivered looking at him. He wasn’t putting on the lifeless, emotionless act anymore. He just was lifeless. He was empty. The spark had been sucked out of his eyes, leaving pale shells behind. His entire body, his entire physical presence seemed like a shell – an illusion made of mirrors and brittle frost that would shatter at the slightest touch. He was chilling to look at; like something that shouldn’t still be living, or still moving. A mannequin. A zombie puppet.
 

I tried once. To bring him back. At the wake, in the musty-smelling funeral home laden with sorrow-cookies and sad-cakes, I said something about Sophia, how the priest who said she was a selfless and beautiful girl didn’t really know her at all. Jack had been holding a cup of water, staring into it as he stood in a corner away from the noise and crying people. He looked up at me, took in my face - red from my own crying - and closed his eyes.

“It’s over,” he said, too calmly.

“What is?” I asked, my stomach roiling. He pushed off the wall and walked away with one last word.
 

“Everything.”
  

He stopped coming to school, after that. I talked to Principal Evans about it, and he said Jack had dropped out. Harvard hadn’t revoked its early acceptance, and Jack could still theoretically go even with straight F’s for his last two quarters. But both of us knew he wasn’t going. He didn’t care, anymore.

When April came, at the almost-two-month mark of his absence, I went looking for him. I wanted to. Fuck, I really wanted to. I fought not to. I thought he needed space, thought it would help. The last thing that’d help would be seeing me. Having the crazy girl who was once your nemesis track you down would be stressful for even the most practiced Vulcan. Besides, I wouldn’t know how to help. I would just mess things up more. Say the wrong thing. Do the wrong thing.

But when Ms. Hunter came to my door one late afternoon, crying and begging for me to find him, I knew I had to start looking.

I waited until spring break. And then I started chasing a ghost.

Ms. Hunter gave me the note Jack left – it was simple and on plain white paper. He said he was leaving, not to call the cops, and that he loved her. Ms. Hunter had, in her desperation, gotten the bank to hand over his account information. The money for Sophia’s surgery had been refunded to him, and he’d then gifted most of it to someone, taking a mere four thousand for himself. Four thousand was enough to live on for a bit, sure. But almost-three months was pushing it.

He’d left all his stuff in his room, too. The only thing he took was his father’s cigar box with Sophia’s letters inside. I looked for any sign of him at Tallie’s grave. Nothing. A rose was left on Sophia’s grave, wilted. It had to be weeks old. If he’d come back after that, he would’ve put a fresh flower.

I checked the hospital. Mira and James said Jack came to see them on March 2nd – the day after Sophia’s funeral. He told them he was going away for a long time, and gave them each a brand new, massive teddy bear as a farewell gift. They’d been Sophia’s friends, but it was more than that. Sophia loved them. They were like Tallie to her - the child-Tallie she could and would never have, and Jack knew that. Jack treated them like that.
 

I called the Rose Club as a last ditch attempt. The operator insisted Jaden left months ago.

And that was it. All my leads, suddenly dead. Jack was slipping from my hands like midnight sand.

And then someone named Lily called. She’d overheard the Rose Club operator’s conversation with me. She was a friend of ‘Jaden’, which I insanely doubted because the only friend Jack allows himself to have is his reflection and/or his own massive dumb brain. I let her chat my ear off and agreed to meet her at a café in Columbus.

Lily was blonde and beautiful and almost six feet. From her expensive purse and perfume, I called her out instantly as an escort. She didn’t deny it, which made me like her more. She wasn’t wasting my precious time as I tried to save Jack.

Save?

I shake my head and watch the salt spray of the ocean douse a rock. Save is the wrong word. I can’t think like that. I can’t save myself, let alone another person. But for a while, I wanted to. I really wanted to. Jack of all people, deserved help. I thought I could help a little. I thought I could at least that much for him.

I laugh and chuck a rock, not bothering to skip it.

I was an idiot.

The old Isis wouldn’t have given up when Lily told me Jack came to visit her before he left town. He wouldn’t say where he was going, but he gave her a manila folder and told her if a girl named Isis ever started snooping around at the Club, to give it to her. So she did.

“He must really like you,” Lily said, inspecting her nails as I put the folder in my purse.

“Yes, well. Cobras also like mongeese. From afar. On separate sides of electric fences.”

“No, listen,” Lily leans in, one cool hand over mine. “I’ve seen a lot of men, okay? I’ve seen all types of people, too. Jack – Jack is something special. He’ll deny it, but he either cares with his whole heart about someone, or not at all. He doesn’t half-ass things. The people he bothered to leave goodbye-stuff for – those are the people he cares about in his life. You’re one of them.”

My heart felt like it was flattened by a sumo wrestler. I tried to inhale to say something, but every breath stung. I didn’t want to believe her. How could I believe her after he just took off like that?

Lily left soon after, leaving me to stare at the envelope.

The old Isis wouldn’t have given up after seeing what was inside.

He didn’t leave me a note, or a giant teddy bear. He’d given me a ticket to Paris, with the words ‘I’m sorry’ scribbled on it in his neat, large handwriting.

My eyes burned. He was trying to get rid of me.

No, c’mon Isis, don’t be dramatic. Nothing good happens when people get dramatic. Example; Amanda Bynes, those rabbits that die when their heart beats too fast, every episode of LOST ever. Jack may have been heartless, but he was also…? Also what. Also definitely not caring about me. He didn’t even say goodbye in person, and now he was sending me this ticket. He obviously wasn’t in Paris himself, asking me to join him. That was almost stupidly romantic. Jack’s a lot of things, but stupid and romantic is on the rock bottom of his attribute list, along with ‘nice’ and ‘generally tolerable’.

I told Kayla I wanted to backpack Europe multiple times, mostly jokingly. He was nearby to hear it, though, when they were dating. He must’ve seen through the joke, and realized I really wanted to. Figures.

I pull the ticket out of my pocket. It’s worn and crumpled and the plane left six days ago, but I couldn’t throw it away, or use it. He used Sophia’s surgery money to buy it for me, after all. No way in hell could I ever accept (or reject) something like that. So I just kept it. A braver Isis would’ve used it. A not-guilty Isis would’ve used it.

If I close my eyes now, I can remember when I went into Jack’s room to look for clues as to where he went. The beach fades, and I’m lying on his bed, looking at the ceiling and wondering where he is on this hellacious butthole we call Earth. And if he’s safe. Happy is too much to ask for. But as long as he’s safe, and keeps being safe, one day he can be happy again. Or so I think. I don’t actually know for sure. I’m real arrogant, saying these things like I’m sure. I never had anyone I love die. Jack’s had three.

He might never be happy again.

He might be broken forever.

His room fades, and the ocean comes back. The knot in my throat returns with a vengeance.
 
      
 

“I hope you’re safe, you idiot,” I whisper to the waves.

All I can do is hope, and move on. I can’t wait around. I have my own life to live. I just wish things had turned out differently, is all. Not like, us dating. Because that would be horribly, stupidly selfish slash impossible in the face of Sophia’s death. I just care about him. As a nemesis. As a rival. As the only person in the world someone who can challenge me, I want him to be acceptably healthy and functioning so we can meet up and fight again one da6. Because the fighting was fun, and I learned a lot and grew a lot from it. Just the fighting. That’s all I miss. That’s all.

My heart gives a little shuddering squeeze. I start crying. To remedy this, I take my shirt off and wipe the seagull poop on the hood of Kelly’s BMW. I start laughing.

And it’s great, except for the part where I start crying harder.

It was the boy’s crooked grin that gave it away.

He grinned in that special way young boys do when they’re about to conduct mischief. Possibly violent, and painful. Also possibly illegal, and definitely probably fun for them. Not so fun for the people it was conducted on.

That’s why I follow him. Because I know that grin. I know it like I know parts of my own soul. I’d made that grin once or twice in my life, when I was a stupider, angrier boy who’d lost his father and had to take it out on the world. I made that grin before I raised the bat on Leo. I made that grin once while escorting a woman because she found rape scenarios terribly, horribly sexy.

I vomited for an hour after that session, and tried to scrub her off, tried to scrub the evil out of me, out of humanity.

It never worked.

I follow the boy, and he leads me to two more boys. Freshmen in high school, probably. Skinny, with tight jeans and earbuds hanging out of their pockets. No muscle. No experience. No courage. That’s why they corner the homeless man between a dumpster and a wall scrawled with candy-colored graffiti gone brown on the edges. Rotten. They laugh and push him. He wears a flannel shirt and filthy pants, shaking hands clutching a half-eaten banana he fished out of the trash. His gray beard is down to his chest and knotted, his face sunburned. The man babbles under his breath, so low and fast it sounds like a chant, or a curse. He doesn’t want to die. He spends every day trying not to die.