Dear Cassie (5 page)

“You wouldn’t.” She laughed. She was joking; she wasn’t angry with me. This was all a big joke to her. Ha, ha, ha.

I felt my hand drop and go into a fist almost by memory. This was how I got people to stop. By hitting them and hitting them and hitting them until I saw black.

I hit people because . . . well, I guess that’s another entry.

“Are you serious right now?” Nez indicated my hand.

I looked at my fist, calluses on it still shiny bumps not even hardened yet, as squishy as tapioca pearls. If I hit her, they would turn to open sores. How badly did I want to hit her? How much more did I want to hurt?

“Nez, Wick,” Rawe yelled, walking back into the circle. She kicked a rock in our direction to wake us from our trance. It fell in between us with a
thud
. “Just because I’m not here doesn’t mean you can stop.”

I kneeled again, picked up my stick, and went back to it—any excuse to spare Nez for now. She picked up her stick, too. She pretended to play it like a flute, like a snake charmer might. She seriously was beyond anything I had ever experienced.

“Nez,” Rawe yelled, her voice like a gun shot, “if you don’t start a fire in five minutes . . .”

I looked at Troyer, her note still in my pocket. She was rolling her stick and trying not to cry, but I could see the pain on her face. She wasn’t fooling anyone, either. The difference was that I’m not sure if she was trying to.

I stared at my kindling pile as I worked and wondered why I wasn’t crying. Was it because I never cried anymore? When I was a kid and still used to cry, my mother would put me in my room and close the door. She never reacted to it the way mothers on TV did, by hugging me or telling me everything would be okay. She just ignored it. After you’re ignored for so long, you start to do other things to get noticed. Not that I want to go into that again, but if you need a refresher it’s
Assessment Diary Entry #2
.

In front of each of us, Rawe threw a canteen that hit with a
clang
and a freeze-dried food pack that read M
OUNTAIN
S
TEW
. “Start you fires or eat it raw, but I can tell you raw tastes like Styrofoam ass.” She smiled, her teeth huge against her thin face.

I reached into my pocket while Rawe wasn’t looking to read Troyer’s note. It said,
Nez is a bitch
.

Maybe Nez isn’t fooling anyone, either.

26 Fucking Days to Go

N
ez shook me awake, put her hand on my mouth so I wouldn’t scream. I could taste wood smoke and dirt. Her other hand went to her lips in a shush. This was it: I was about to find out what she was capable of. I guess Troyer was right: Nez was a bitch—a sneaky-ass bitch who was going to come at me while I was sleeping.

I should have flattened her at the bonfire pit when I had the chance.

We’d spent the day hiking and hacking out brush from the trail—
the whole day
from sunrise to sunset walking in a line and carrying packs as big as sea lions on our backs. Rawe had warned us about not “touching” any animals we came across on the trail.

“Animals?” I’d asked.

She started counting off on her fingers. “Mole, raccoon, deer, skunk, weasel, fox, bear, rabbit, chipmunk, wood rat.” Luckily she stopped once both hands were full, even though it was obvious she could keep going.

We were surrounded by living, rabid things with teeth and claws. I wondered why she had to warn us. There was no way in hell I was touching anything. Of course, there was always the chance Nez might if it was male.

When we got back that night, Rawe told us to “free-write” in our Assessment Diaries. I was tired of falling for her crap, so I spent the time filling a page with:
there is nothing free about being tricked to feel.

Maybe I should have been writing my will.

“Put on your uniform; we’re getting out of here,” Nez whispered, letting go of my mouth.

“Out of here?” I asked, with my sleeping bag still up to my chin.

Did she mean like escaping? I was too tired to escape. My legs felt like cement, my feet like they were on fire. They definitely didn’t want me to move. I rolled over.

Nez pulled my sleeping bag so I faced her.

“What gives?” I asked. Maybe she
did
want to fight.

“There’s a boys’ cabin somewhere at this camp and I’m finding it,” she hissed into the darkness.

“So find it,” I said, my voice sounding like a shrug.

“Please,” Nez begged. I could see her latch her hands together and push them at the center of her chest like she was praying. “Come with me.”

“What do you need me for?” I asked.

“I don’t want to go alone,” she whined. “I’ll owe you one,” she added, which was enough to make me consider. It would be good to have a favor on reserve. Of course, getting caught would beyond suck.

“But that square-headed guy is in there with them,” I said, sitting up.

“He sleeps, doesn’t he?” she said. Her eyes shone like the surface of a lake in the moonlight.

“What about Troyer?” I asked, looking at her cot. She was still asleep, or at least pretending to be.

“What
about
Troyer?” Nez sneered.

“She should come, too,” I said. There was no way I was going out into the night alone with Nez. It was a sure way for one of us to get killed.

Probably her.

“Ugh.” Nez sighed. “Fine, wake her up.”

I got out of bed and shook Troyer awake. Her face looked like a baby’s—her lips pouted in confusion, her eyes wide with fear.

“It’s okay, it’s just me,” I said, thinking it was most definitely the first time I had ever said that. Usually if I was approaching someone in the dark, it was
not okay
.

She looked at me, at Nez, silently asking,
What?

“Come on,” I said, beckoning her in the darkness.

Troyer sat up and watched as I put on my uniform. “You, too,” I said, pointing at hers. It was folded in a tight brown package on the trunk in front of her cot.

“Hurry up,” Nez said. I could hear her boot tapping on the floor.

After Troyer and I got dressed, we each grabbed our flashlights and followed Nez out of the cabin. Troyer closed the door quietly behind her, our flashlights still off.

“What if Rawe wakes up?” I asked. I looked at Troyer. She nodded.

“We tell her we all had to use the ladies,” Nez said.

There was no way Rawe would believe that. It was bad enough going out to the bathroom on your own—you did not want to stand next to it waiting for someone else.

We walked down the path to the soccer field, huge cedar trees on either side of us, our flashlights three small spotlights on the ground.

“Do you know where we’re going?” I asked.

“I can smell boys,” Nez said, sniffing the air, “like meat cooking.”

“Any chance you can smell us up some smokes?” I asked. “They smell like tobacco cooking.” Being outside at night made me crave a cigarette. Well, to be truthful,
everything
made me crave a cigarette.

Nez ignored me and kept walking. It was definitely the middle of the night. The air had that feeling, like even it was asleep.

“What are we going to do when we find their cabin?” I asked the back of Nez’s head. We walked like we had that day when we were hiking, in a straight line, army style.

“I haven’t figured that out yet,” Nez said.

“If we get caught, I’m going to punch you so hard you’re going to need to make out through a straw,” I muttered, though I had to admit it felt pretty good being bad again. Other than my break time escapes with Aaron from Pudgie’s Pizzeria, I hadn’t been out at night doing something I wasn’t supposed to do in a
very
long time. I felt the familiar adrenaline rush, the buzz in my ears.

We stood at the edge of the soccer field, the sky above us filled with stars, like someone flung a football stadium full of glitter into the sky.

“Maybe we should skip the boys’ cabin and check out that locked building over there,” I said, pointing to the white mess hall. There had to be something inside we weren’t supposed to get to, since it was locked. I liked getting to what I wasn’t supposed to get to.

“Does that locked building have four boys inside?” Nez asked.

Troyer shook her head.

“Very good, Troyer,” Nez said, like she was a puppy.

“We can head to their cabin after,” I said.

“There’s nothing for me in there,” Nez said, waving it away.

I looked at her.

“I am not spending another night alone,” Nez said, not bothering to explain more.

I was glad.

Nez turned and started across the field. There was nothing else to do, so I followed her. I could hear Troyer running to keep up behind me. I hadn’t noticed it when we were chopping wood, but there was a flagpole standing flagless at the far side of the field. There were also bleachers and beyond that, a baseball diamond complete with dugouts.

“I guess this place really used to be a summer camp,” I said.

“Wow,” Nez said, not turning around. “You’re a fudging genius.” She was walking so fast, I was out of breath trying to keep up with her.

“Well, you’re a
fudging
bitch,” I said. Then I turned to look at Troyer. “You okay?”

She shrugged.

We kept walking, our boots swishing in the grass and our breath sighing. The night air felt sharp in my lungs.

“There it is,” Nez said, pointing.

It’s not like they were hiding it. The boys’ cabin was only a few paces past the far edge of the soccer field and looked exactly like our cabin—as small and as shitty.

“So what are you going to do now?” I asked, putting my hands in my pockets. I felt myself sneer. Now we would see what size balls Nez actually had.

“Duh,” she said with her own sneer. “Get one of them to come out, or one of them to let me in.” She walked to the side of the cabin. She was about to be totally fucked, and not in the way she wanted to be.

If it was built like ours, there were windows along both sides. That was probably where she was headed. Was she going to climb in? Lila had climbed into Brian’s house on prom night after he and his friends had stood us up. When she swiped the pot that eventually got us arrested. This probably wouldn’t end any better.

I remember sitting with Amy on Brian’s front lawn while we waited for Lila, smoking cigarettes and trying to figure out why the hell I was so pissed off about being stood up by a boy I didn’t even know. I knew why Amy was upset and that made sense to me—she had a lot of girlie notions about what prom night was supposed to mean. What didn’t make sense was how angry I felt. Maybe because I had allowed myself to be fooled. That was how I felt, like a gullible idiot in a skanky red dress.

I guess that was why I hated thinking about what had happened with Aaron, because he’d made me feel the same way . . . minus the dress.

I could hear Nez heave herself inside the cabin with a grunt. I guess I couldn’t blame her. If there were cigarettes waiting for me in there, I would surely be doing the same thing. I would probably be kicking the door down with the boots that felt like anchors on my feet. I guess Nez saw boys like I saw cigarettes.

“Come on,” I said, leading Troyer over to the bleachers. “We’ll wait over here for her to get busted.”

Troyer and I sat on the cold metal. The outdoors made its outdoorsy sounds around us: crickets and mosquitoes and whatever the hell else was out there that I didn’t want to think about.

“Nez is pretty fucked up,” I said, looking at Troyer.

She nodded.

“Like you said . . .” I put my hands on my thighs. “A bitch.”

Troyer smiled, and I wondered if she’d ever talked. If something had happened to her like what had happened to me that had made her stop talking. Was there anything that I had stopped doing because of what had happened with Aaron? Other than letting myself fall for another guy’s bullshit?

“Hello, Cassie.”

Ben.

Speak of the fucking devil.

I turned. Brace Face and Curly Blond Hair Dude were standing next to him. I guess that meant Nez was in the cabin with Arm Sleeve Tattoo Guy doing
golly knows what.

Brace Face and Curly Blond Hair Dude ran past Troyer and me onto the soccer field. They sprinted around like they had both drank a ton of coffee and were trying to work off their energy. Ben sat down next to me.

“Why don’t you go play with your friends?” I asked, sliding closer to Troyer.

“No thanks,” he said, looking at me. I could feel Troyer on the other side of me trying not to giggle.

“You look good in brown,” he said, biting his bottom lip.

Ha, ha, funny, like I don’t already know I look like shit. Fuck off, Ben.

“You don’t,” I said, staring at the guys on the field. In the dark, I could only see their skin, their heads and hands floating.

“I thought I looked pretty good,” he said, pulling the top of his uniform out so he could see it.

“Go away,” I said, turning on and off my flashlight—
click, click, click
. Maybe Troyer knew Morse code. Maybe she could teach it to me. What was Morse code for
Die, you asshole
?