Circle of Silence (21 page)

Authors: Carol M. Tanzman

BOOK: Circle of Silence

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Pushed off the southern edge of WiHi’s roof, I try to
grab something. Ledge, window grate, flagpole. My fingers claw madly, but I’m
moving too fast. The ground rises. Just before impact, I jerk awake.

Breathing hard, I stare at the ceiling. It’s not only terror
that overwhelms me. It’s this horrible feeling that I’ve missed something
important.

I glance at my cell.
Damn!
Almost
ten. I’d set the alarm for nine just before collapsing into bed last night. I
wanted to be at the hospital the instant visiting hours began. I don’t remember
hearing the cell ring, let alone shutting it off.

Lying in bed, Bethany stares at me. “The alarm woke me up.”

“Sorry.” I throw the quilt to the side. “I’ll be out of here in
a few minutes. You can go back to sleep when I’m gone.”

“It woke me up!” she repeats, as if I didn’t hear, or
understand, the first time.

“I said I’m sorry!”

Unbelievable! It’s like yesterday never happened. Just as I
fell into the deepest sleep ever, it occurred to me that things would be
different. That she’d change. That
we’d
change.
Become better sisters, closer, despite MP—or because of it. But there she is,
lying on her bed as if
I’m
the one who did something
wrong.

I don’t have the time, or the energy, to fight. Rising without
a word, I cross to the door. The reflection in the dresser mirror stops me. Dark
circles ring my eyes and an ugly bruise purples my cheek. I don’t remember
hitting anything when I fell into the water. One of the broken wooden planks
must have caught me on my way down. Or my face dragged against a rock as I was
being pulled to safety.

My hair’s a mess. Frizzed by icy water, I’d hooked it behind my
ears at some point. There’s something about it that reminds me of Emily Purdue
when she concentrates. It gives me a shiver. I vow to cut it as soon as I
can.

Behind me, Bethany’s started to sob in that really quiet way
she has. She
should
cry—but it ought to be loud and
clear.

It’s the damn silences that nearly got us killed.

That’s when a flash
of recognition
hits. I glance back into the mirror. Maybe I’m more like Emily Purdue than I
know. Than I want to be. The real MP story was in front of me the whole time—and
I never saw it.

“Move over?” I climb into my sister’s bed and fix the quilt so
that it covers us both. I hand her a tissue from the box on the nightstand, wait
for the crying to stop.

“It’s over, Bethany. I’m not mad.” She picks at the blanket.
“Talk to me. Please.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“Whatever you want. Tell me why you joined MP. Why you made me
run all over the Heights instead of talking to me when it got bad.”

A sly look crosses her face. “Got you, didn’t I? You had no
idea it was me.”

“
No
idea.
Campus News
was desperate to figure it out. We even gave a copy of
the emails to a computer whiz at school, but she told us a hacker wrote
them.”

“She?”

“Henry knows her. Toby—”

“You showed them to
her?
” Bethany
screeches.

“Yeah. Why…”

My sister’s voice turns hollow. “We called her Phantom.”

“Hold on!” I stare at her. “Toby’s in MP?”

“Was. She quit after the first initiation.”

Holy shit!
Wait until Henry finds
out! My mind whirls for a moment, but then I think I understand how it all fits
together. That’s how Arnold knew the footage on the school server had been
deleted. He probably threatened Toby to get her to hack into the system.

“
That’s
why you wrote those notes!”
I say. “You were afraid if you sent the initiation information by computer, she
might find out.”

Bethany refuses to look at me. “I didn’t want to take extra
chances. I’m smart, Val, smarter than you think.”

“I never said you aren’t.”

“You don’t have to say it,” she tells me, pouting.

“I know you’re smart. You get better grades than I do. Besides,
it’s not like you care what I think. What anyone thinks.”

“That’s not true!”

“Is that why you joined? Because you think I don’t care?”

“I did it because… I don’t know why, okay?” She swings her legs
over the bed.

“Wait!” I reach out to stop her. “Don’t get mad. Please! I’m
just trying to understand.”

Bethany hesitates, and then she slumps morosely into the
bed.

Some walls are invisible.

The declaration painted across the Red Hook mural finally makes
sense. Why couldn’t I see that Bethany’s darkness was her very own wall? Built
day by day, brick by brick to shield her loneliness?

Skeletor saw it.
That’s
the power
he had—and the prize he dangled.

He met them all at the Video Arcade. Loners who hate being
alone. He offered each the chance to join MP. To be a part of something. To
be
someone.

“Listen, Bethany.” Gently, I put an arm around my sister.
“There is one good thing that happened yesterday. Jagger woke up.”

Eyes red, nose runny, she turns. “He did? When?”

“Sometime in the afternoon. That’s why Raul kept trying to get
hold of me. And why I set the alarm this morning. I want to get to the hospital
as soon as I can.”

“Can I go—” She interrupts herself, not quite able to face him.
“Will you tell Jagger I’m sorry? Please! I’m so, so sorry about everything….”

“Of course. And when I get back, we need to start trying to be
better sisters. To help each other even if it’s hard. It might take a while, but
we have to find a way.”

* * *

By the time I shower, get dressed and take the two
trains to the hospital, it’s lunchtime. Luckily Jagger’s mom isn’t there. As I
slip into the room, my heart races. I’m not sure who I’ll find. Sarcastic
Voorham? Confident Jags? Or a Jagger damaged in ways that can never be
fixed?

He’s propped up on the pillows, eyes closed. Oh so gently, I
place my hand over his. Behind pale lids, his eyes flutter. He struggles, blinks
and manages to swim to the surface.

“Hey,” I say quietly. “You’re up.”

He doesn’t recognize me. The thudding in my chest threatens to
knock me over. “It’s me, Jags. Valerie.”

Another long moment and then…a smile. My heart lifts, a hot air
balloon released from its mooring. Jagger wets his lips, tries to speak. Not a
single sound comes out.

“It’s okay, Jags. I got you where I want you. No back
talk.”

He blinks. It’s not a regular blink but a long, purposeful
one.

Immediately, I’m on my feet. “Water? The nurse?”

He shakes his head. Tries to say something, but words refuse to
come. Frustrated, he lifts a hand to his cheek.

“Oh! The bruises.” I sink back into the chair. “I’m okay. We
caught them.
You
caught them. It was the camera….”

Quickly, I give him the highlights. His eyes widen when I tell
him that Bethany left the notes.

“She feels terrible. She blames herself for what happened.”

He shakes his head.

“You want me to tell her it’s okay?” I ask. “That you’re not
mad?”

A brief nod.

“Omigod, Jagger, she’ll be so happy.
I’m
so happy. You can’t imagine how worried we all were.”

My voice catches. Jagger wets his lips, glances at the
nightstand.

“Water?”

He nods. Carefully, I place the straw in his mouth. When he’s
done sipping, I resettle the glass. Jagger looks at me. Even though he can’t
speak, there’s no mistaking the message.

The kiss isn’t long. But in those few moments, every bad
thought I’ve ever had about him dissolves. Joy pulses between us. It’s real and
honest and we had to go through hell to get here.

From the look on Jagger’s face, he feels it, too.

EPILOGUE

May

The award, in all its shiny glory, arrives in a plain
white box. Mr. Carleton spends most of first period pulling everything from the
shelf above his desk. Methodically, he dusts and puts it all back, making sure
there’s space in the center. Both
Campus News
teams
admire the trophy before he sets it in the place of honor.

The plaque on the front reads Student Emmy Award, Public
Service Reporting:
Dangers
of Pass Out
. Producers: Scott Jenkins and Hailey
Manussian. T. Carleton, Adviser.

The irony doesn’t escape any of us. After all that happened,
it’s the almost-an-afterthought story A Team submitted that won. To be fair, it
was well done and delivered an important message. I keep a bright smile on my
face as we high-five all around. I mean it when I tell them, “Great job!”

The bell rings. Raul and Hailey continue their conversation as
they walk out. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up going to prom together.
From what I saw at Halloween, Hailey can certainly keep up with him on the dance
floor.

Omar practically floats out of the room. He’s been on an
incredible high since he got into Cooper Union, his life about to change in ways
he once only dreamed about. Henry’s wait-listed for Yale, with offers from half
a dozen other schools. The rest of us have at least one decent acceptance—even
if it’s not first choice.

I hang back for a moment. Jagger stands behind me, arms
circling my waist. “Tell the truth, Val.”

His larynx, bruised by the rope, has all but healed. The rasp
in his voice is just about gone. So is his arrogance. Jagger has plenty of saucy
comebacks, but they’re no longer mean. It makes everyone, including Marci, love
him so much more.

“Tell the truth about what?”

He gestures toward the trophy. “You’re not the least bit
jealous?”

It takes a moment to sort through the rush of feelings.

“Maybe a little.” He squeezes me. “Okay! A lot.”

Jagger laughs. “I might be more sympathetic if I hadn’t heard
there’s other news to cheer about.”

I whirl around. “Who told you?”

“Who do you think?”

I pull the email from my pocket. I’ve read it so many times
since printing it out this morning that the page is already crinkled. “Bethany’s
almost more excited than I am! I was planning to tell you at lunch, so we’d have
a little more time to…celebrate.”

He extends an arm, takes the paper and reads the words I prayed
so often to hear. “Congratulations! The Syracuse University Admissions committee
is pleased to offer you…”

Jagger lifts me up and swirls me around. “I am so proud of you,
Val!”

In that moment, it’s triumph, as well as understanding, that
shines through. It doesn’t matter whose names are on the trophy. It never did.
Jagger and I, along with the rest of our team, did more than break a story. We
broke through the barriers that trapped us all.

If some walls are invisible, so are some masks.

The actual masks MP wore weren’t all that different from the
ones we hid behind.
Reporter
,
Slacker, Queen of the Sloths…
We all had our roles and we played
them well. They protected us from feeling adrift in hallways and classrooms—but
they also kept us apart.

If Bethany had come to me—or I to her—she never would have had
anything to do with the ugliness of MP. Marci and I should have invited my
sister to Tony’s for pizza; we could have hung out with her at the Video
Arcade.

Instead, my sister found her own place to belong—until it all
came crashing down. After the night on the dock, everyone in MP blamed everyone
else. It wasn’t until the police confiscated Arnold’s journal that the court
understood: Bethany and the rest were pawns in Arnold’s increasingly sick game.
Months of community service are a lot better than the time he’s spending in
juvenile hall awaiting sentencing.

And then there’s Jagger. Hiding behind arrogance was his way of
protecting himself—until even he grew sick of it. If he hadn’t tried, and tried
some more, to knock down walls and make amends, we would never have gotten here.
The lessons learned, the love found.

Second period is about to begin. The students taking Mr.
Carleton’s Intro class swarm into the room. There will always be stories to
report and deadlines to meet. For now, however, I don’t want to think about
anything except the warm hand holding tight to mine.

Acknowledgments

My sincere thanks to Sally Nemeth and C. Leigh Purtill,
YA writers who have kept me out of the weeds too many times to count. Dr.
Marilyn Mehlmauer made sure my characters were properly diagnosed. Zack Blatt,
John McGorty and Robert Leventer were my skater/fireman/legal consultants. Genna
Rosenberg, along with Adam Wilson, Janis Van Tine and Stephanie Carroll, helped
in myriad ways. The Cashin-Maeby-Tanzman families provided spaces on the East
Coast for quiet writing time. At Harlequin Teen, T. S. Ferguson did the heavy
editorial lifting, for which I am extremely grateful; Natashya Wilson’s keen eye
made an impact throughout the writing process. Erin Craig and Tara Scarcello
created the sophisticated art design and are among many on the Harlequin Teen
team who helped guide the book throughout its journey. As always, fellow writers
Jack and Liana Maeby managed to provide just the right advice, as well as
laughter, when it was most needed.

* * * * *