Fury (12 page)

“Let’s go to my car.” Chase reached for her hand and was surprised to feel it was warm.

They ran back through the streets, breathless and laughing. In the station wagon, the heat took years to sputter to life; they sat huddled close in the front seat, Chase rubbing his hands together with Ty’s, though hers felt warmer than his. Chase’s heart was thumping in his chest. He was sure that she would hear it.

“Where to?” He prayed she wouldn’t ask him to take her home. He wanted to stay with her forever.

“I want to know what it’s like to be Chase Singer. Let’s go back to your place.” She smiled and twirled a piece of damp hair around her pointer finger.

“You got it, beautiful.”

As before, having her bright, glowing presence in the tiny space made his home seem less dreary and cramped than usual.

“Want some hot chocolate? I’ll make it for you the way my
mom used to make it for me,” he said, already assembling the ingredients on the counter. She smiled, then stood behind him at the clunky little stove as he warmed the milk in a small pot, added the cocoa, then mixed in a dash of cinnamon, a dash of cayenne pepper, and a dollop of honey.

“Sweet and spicy, huh?” She leaned into her mug, taking a deep breath.

“That’s the secret,” Chase said, leaning against the flimsy linoleum counter. Ty stood in front of him, both hands wrapped around her mug (in a tacky pink font, it read:
Over the hill and picking up speed
—a gift for his mom’s fortieth birthday). Ty’s cheeks were pink and she was looking up at him happily. This was it. She wanted him to kiss her.

Chase put his mug down and cleared his throat. Then, with his hands squeezing the edge of the counter behind him, he bent his head toward her. He could practically feel her soft lips on his.

But like a tape measure snapping back into its coil, Ty whipped away. She looked at him, stricken, and put down her mug.

“I can’t—I can’t stay,” she said softly. In moments, her unfinished hot chocolate was on the table, her cloak was back on, and she was standing in the doorway nervously running her hand through her long, red hair. “I’m sorry. Good night.” Then she stepped out the door.

“Wait, Ty!” Chase stepped out after her. “I’m sorry,” he
said, shoving his bare feet into his damp, snowy boots. “I didn’t mean to ruin everything.”

But by the time he got to the trailer’s front step, she was gone. He had no idea how she had disappeared so quickly and wondered if maybe she had hitched a ride, or if her cousins had been waiting outside for her.

He looked around. He could see the lights on in the Hendersons’ trailer across the park, and the skeletons of trees in the distance. Otherwise, everything was just slushy gray-white. The whole trailer park felt cold, abandoned, like something wonderful had been snuffed out.

As Chase stood there, he felt that itch begin to work in his blood again, that drumming need. He was reminded once again of the night his father died—the silence that seemed to close in around him sometimes when he was alone. But the way he felt now—this emptiness—it was different. Worse, somehow. If he didn’t see Ty again . . . well, he didn’t know what would happen. He didn’t know what he would do.

He
couldn’t
lose her.

He stayed there, staring into the dark. He stayed there, thinking about how he hadn’t even gotten the chance to ask her about the Ascension Football Feast—he’d wanted to, so badly, but he just hadn’t found the right moment, the perfect way to say it. He stayed there, thinking about how beautiful she’d looked under the snowy streetlights, her skin translucent and
glowing, even in the yellow-tinged hue of his crappy kitchen. He stood there remembering how close she’d stayed as he’d leaned over the stove.

She dazzled him.

And that’s where he was, staring into the night, when he saw the bouncing glow of his mom’s reflector vest. That meant it had to be around one in the morning already. Time had slipped away. Chase hadn’t even realized his fingers were turning purple.

When his mom saw Chase, her expression clouded.

“Chase? What are you doing outside? Are you okay?” Her hair, graying at the temples, formed a frayed halo around her face.

Chase looked down at his feet.

“I don’t know,” he muttered, so softly the words seemed to dissolve into the cold.

“Oh, honey. Where’s your new coat?”

“Inside.” He shook his head, trying to organize his thoughts.

She patted his shoulder, squinting at him, concerned. “Let’s go in. I’ll make you something hot to eat, okay?”

He followed her numbly into the trailer. He wasn’t hungry, but he didn’t protest when his mom went to the stove and started making macaroni and cheese. Chase couldn’t help but notice how the kitchen had gone back to its normal squalor. The trash smelled, the light flickered. He wondered if that was
why Ty had run off so fast. If she’d been disgusted by him.

Restless, Chase grabbed his free weights from the floor underneath the sofa and started lifting. Like he always did when he needed to relieve a little stress, he figured he’d do a hundred reps. But after a hundred, it just wasn’t enough. He kept lifting and lifting, feeling his muscles searing but unable to stop.

His mom came over and sat down with her bowl of mac and cheese and dug around the couch cushions for the TV remote. Sweat dripped off Chase’s forehead but he kept on lifting.

“Chase, what’s going on with you?” she asked, taking a large bite of the noodles.

“Mom! I’m
fine
.”

Just then the power went out. As it did, movement at the window caught Chase’s eye.

His heart stopped. There, staring at him, was Sasha Bowlder.

She was pressed up against the glass, like she used to do when she would sneak over and make funny faces at him through the window—but now her face was distorted, leering, grotesque.

Bang.
The weights slipped from his hands, and without meaning to, he let out a cry.

The lights clicked back on.

The window was dark and empty.

Em toyed with her soggy cereal, then dropped the spoon onto the marble kitchen counter. She had slept terribly, imagining Gabby’s reaction to the news of what had happened between her and Zach. She kept seeing Chase’s expression when he’d walked in on them.

She’d gotten a couple of texts from Fiona and Lauren, saying they were planning a girl day (some post-Christmas sale shopping, pedicures, a couple of slices at Pete’s), and asking if Em wanted to come. But Em couldn’t think of anything more unbearable than spending an entire day with her friends—with
Gabby’s
friends—thinking about Zach and unable to talk the whole thing through.

Em was certain that Zach was planning to break up with Gabby. He would do it gently, kindly. It would be hard. And
they’d still have to keep their fling a secret for a while. But eventually—maybe next year—when Gabby saw how much she and Zach cared for each other, how undeniable their mutual attraction was, she would forgive Em. She’d have to. Gabby was her best friend, after all. She always understood.

Or was Em completely lying to herself? She tried to eat a bite of her now mushy Lucky Charms but could barely swallow them.

Em hated feeling like her fate was in someone else’s hands. She knew she had to wait patiently for Zach to come clean. She knew she had to trust Chase not to say anything.

She sighed, pushed the cereal away, and pulled her laptop toward her. She had to send Chase her poem “Impossible.” It had been their agreement.

She mused over the poem, rereading the first two lines:

You enter my heart like a sudden chill—
I don’t know if it’s right, but I know that it’s real.

Of course, no one knew who the poem was about. Not Fiona and Lauren, who both came to the awards ceremony last year and cheered for Em. Not even Gabby. Gabby thought Em had made the whole thing up—that she was just
that
good a writer. She had no idea which boy Em truly longed for. Which boy was “impossible.”

Just then a new email arrived in her in-box with a little
bing!

She clicked over to it. There was a new message from an anonymous sender, with the strange subject line
Please, sir, can you spare some change?

Emily clicked open the email and saw a grainy photo of Chase—snapped from an iPhone, clearly—on his knees on the Rambling Brook Bridge. The photo had been snapped from the side; Chase was shown in profile, in his jeans and peacoat. It almost looked like a picture you’d see in a catalog, of a man proposing to a woman. It could be a diamond ad. Except there was something off about it. Something desperate. Instead of kneeling on one knee, he was on both, right in the snow, clasping his hands together in a way that made it look like he was begging. There didn’t seem to be anyone in front of him.

Emily scrolled down. The caption underneath the photo was a continuation of the subject:
Please, sir, can you spare some change? Times get even tougher for the trailer trash of America.
The photo had been sent to Ascension’s entire junior class. Chase was going to freak out.

A worming feeling of discomfort began working in Em’s stomach. She wasn’t exactly in a mood to defend Chase, but still, the photo—and the fact that it had been so widely circulated—really bothered her. Weren’t people allowed to have secrets anymore? You know, personal lives?

“People can be so bad,” a low voice said suddenly, from behind her.

Em let out a scream, leaping off her stool and knocking it over as she spun around.

“Hey, hey, whoa. It’s just me.” JD caught her stool just before it clattered to the floor. “Jeez, Winters. Jumpy much?”

“You almost gave me a heart attack!” She swatted at him and took a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart.

“Sorry, M&M. I thought you’d hear me come in.” He looked soft and crinkly, like he’d just woken up. He wasn’t even wearing one of his usual ridiculous outfits—just a pair of old jeans and a dorky T-shirt with a tie drawn on it. “You got that too, huh?” JD pointed to the picture, which was open on Em’s computer. She nodded, her heart still thumping fast.

“It’s just so . . . screwed up,” JD said, plopping onto the bar stool next to Em’s. “And lame. I mean, who would do that?”

Emily could tell that JD was really worked up. He kept running his right hand through his hair, as he often did when upset. He looked very mad-professor-ish.

“I mean, I don’t even
like
Chase Singer,” JD continued. “But I still think it’s fucked.”

“You
shouldn’t
like him,” Em said, shifting on her stool to face him. “He made your life hell last year. Remember physics? When every time you answered a question, he’d cough and laugh and call you the Fountain of Nerdiness?”

JD blushed a tiny bit. “First of all,
Emerly
, I
am
kind of a Fountain of Nerdiness. And second of all, even if he’d called me
a Fountain of Ugly Fat Smelly Dumb Booger-Eating Eternal Virgins I’d
still
think it was fucked. You know?”

Guilt knifed through Emily. JD was always so damn
good
.

“I agree. It’s messed up.” Emily closed the photo and tried to change the subject. “So what are you doing here? Aren’t you supposed to be babysitting Melissa or something?”

“I’d rather babysit you,” he said, leaning forward and moving a strand of tangled hair that was stuck to her cheek. “What are
you
up to? Want to watch a movie?” He beat his palms on the kitchen counter like a drum. His eyes were sparkling too. “What are you writing?”

Now that Chase’s picture had been banished to the Internet ether, the poem “Impossible” sat open on Emily’s screen.

“A girl has her secrets,” she said, and quickly closed the laptop altogether. “So what? You just came over to harass me?” She elbowed JD. “I’ve got stuff to do.”

“Oh, so sorry to interrupt,” JD said, throwing his arms up in surrender. “I’m just here for some whole-wheat flour.” When Em raised her eyebrows, JD continued, “Your mom told my mom she’d leave it out on the counter. My mom’s involved in another classic bread-making experiment. And you
know
how much I love those yeasty, crustless creations.”

“About as much as you love eating gravel?”

“Exactly. About as much as I would love to eat that nasty mush I can only assume was once cereal,” he said, picking up
Em’s bowl and dumping it down the sink. “Next time, just tell me when you’re having a nine-one-one breakfast situation. I would have gotten
two
Egg McMuffins if I’d known things had gotten so dire over here.”

Em laughed and grabbed the flour canister. As he reached for it, his hands briefly touched hers. He stood there awkwardly for a second, his hair still splayed in every direction.

“Em . . .”

“Yeah?” Unconsciously, she backed up ever so slightly. There was something weird about the way JD was looking at her.

“I—” For a second JD just stood there, staring at her with an expression she couldn’t identify. Em’s heart caught in her throat. She’d seen this look on television shows. She’d read it described in books. It was the look of someone who was about to confess serious feelings. Then JD’s face suddenly snapped back to its normal, playful alertness, and he jerked his chin toward her bag, which she had dumped onto the kitchen table. “What’s that?” He motioned to the red orchid, the one she had received from Zach.

“Oh, that?” Em shrugged and fiddled with the hem of her ratty sweatshirt—her dad’s old Harvard Med School gear, which she’d been sleeping in since she was about twelve. And for a second, Em wanted to tell JD everything. The earring, the sign, the snowball, the kiss. Maybe he’d have some sage advice. He usually did. But then she looked up into his hazel eyes and
knew she couldn’t. Not when he was looking down at her like that—like she could never do anything wrong.

He wouldn’t get it.

“Just something my mom picked up,” she mumbled.

JD squinted at her. “You sure you’re okay?”