Going Under (11 page)

“Gretchen’s coming with me now,” I said,
wrapping my hand around Gretchen’s wrist. I wasn’t about to let go
either. He’d have to slice my arm off. “Move.”

I shoved him aside perhaps harder than I
meant to, but he got the point. He watched as I dragged Gretchen
behind me, ignoring her protests to stay in the basement.

“You’re not staying in the basement!” I
hissed. “So get over it!”

I chanced a backward glance at Parker. He
stood with his hands in his pockets, staring at me, deciding how he
would deal with me in the future. I’m quite sure he planned to
since I stole away his fuck toy for the evening.

Stephanie did what she was told. She was
still in the bathroom when Gretchen and I returned upstairs.

“I’ve got a lot of people pissed at me,” she
said, as I helped her wash her face and hands. She was successful
in making herself throw up—multiple times, I observed—but not so
much in cleaning it up. At least she was no longer slurring her
words and was slightly more coherent, or as coherent as Stephanie
could possibly be.

“There are five hundred bathrooms in this
house,” I replied. “They’ll get over it.”

Just then Gretchen decided she needed to get
sick, too, and I barely pulled her mass of brown hair away from her
face in time before she heaved into the toilet.

“I’m really mad at you, Brookey,” she said
after the first round. She didn’t look at me when she said it. She
was wise enough to keep her head in the toilet.

“Don’t talk,” I ordered. “Just keep
going.”

I was annoyed, naturally, even though I
could recall Gretchen doing the same thing for me, and on many
occasions. I can’t believe I used to party like this. I can’t
believe I ever wanted to. What was the point? I wasted all of the
following day lying in bed with an herb-infused bean bag stuck to
my forehead surrounded by bottles of Gatorade. And if the hangover
was especially monstrous, I’d cry, which made it worse. Such a
waste of time. A waste of life.

“He was cute,” Gretchen continued after the
second wave. “I wanted to kiss him.”

“I know you did,” I replied. “But he’s a
dick.”

“Who’s a dick?” Stephanie asked. She was
sitting on the sink counter, her already too-short dress hiked up
around her hips, long legs slightly spread and dangling off the
side.

I turned around and looked at her. “You
don’t sit like that in public, do you?”

She shrugged. “Who’s a dick?”

“Just this swim guy at my school,” I
replied.

“He’s not a dick!” Gretchen said, then
heaved again.

“Good grief, Gretchen. How much did you
drink?”

I patiently waited for the wave to subside.
She wiped her mouth with a bit of toilet paper and addressed me.
“How should I know?”

I rolled my eyes. “Was he feeding you drinks
all night?”

“He’s a gentleman,” she replied.

“What the hell does that mean?” I asked.

“He went to get me drinks,” she said. No
longer able to stand bent over, she fell on the bathroom floor. I
could have reached out and grabbed her arm to keep her from going
down, but I didn’t.

“Yeah, I bet he did,” I said. “Stay away
from that guy, Gretchen. I mean it.”

“You are soooo not fun right now,” Gretchen
pouted.

True. I wasn’t being any fun. The real
purpose for coming to this lame party tonight was to do a bit of
sleuthing. Well, and to keep Gretchen from being violated. I
succeeded in the second, but not in the first. I didn’t know what I
expected to overhear or see, if anything at all. But I knew in my
gut that Parker and Cal were up to something. If they were, in
fact, part of a salacious sex club, I was sure they were looking
for partners. Unsuspecting partners. I made it my mission to find
out, but I realized I’d have to investigate another night. My top
priority was keeping an eye on my friends. I would never sacrifice
their safety to discover more clues about Parker and Cal.

I walked with my tired, dehydrated friends
out of the bathroom and towards the front door. Stephanie couldn’t
remember how she got to the party, so I decided to take her home.
On our way out, I spotted Cal and Parker talking. They were huddled
in a corner of the foyer whispering. I caught Cal’s eye, and he
waved at me. I waved back, watching Parker scowl. He tried getting
Cal’s attention again, but Cal was more interested in watching me
walk away.

Even when I turned my back on him, I knew he
was still watching me. It was the same feeling I had at
registration, the hairs standing on the back of my neck. I didn’t
like it then, and I hadn’t met him yet. It was worse now because I
had met him. I knew what he wanted from me, and I knew eventually
I’d have to give it to him.

Seven

The first time I had an actual conversation
with Ryan Foster was right after our little spying game. I was
vacuuming the living room floor Saturday morning and had pulled
back the curtains that usually hung over the large window
overlooking the street because I needed sunshine. I realized that
part of my dad’s problem was that he had gone too many years
without sunshine.

He lived in a little box of a house closed
up with thick fabric that forbade the outside world to get a peek.
I didn’t care who wanted a peek so long as I could feel the
sunlight on my face when I sat on the couch reading. I lived in my
old house a total of nineteen hours before I opened everything,
tearing away the dust and heavy seclusion. I could tell it made my
dad nervous, but he gave me my sunshine because he’d give me
whatever I wanted.

I carefully maneuvered the vacuum underneath
the coffee table when I saw him in my peripheral vision. I looked
out the window and watched him ride his skateboard down the
sidewalk. He didn’t look anything like a skater except for his
hair. He wasn’t dressed in skater clothes. He wore regular
straight-legged jeans with a form-fitting blue T-shirt. He had nice
arms, but he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who lifted
weights. Nobody was just blessed with toned muscles like that,
though. He had to do something to work them. I imagined he chopped
wood. I liked that image. Even better without a shirt.

He paused in front of my house and looked
towards the front door. It startled me, and I knew his eyes would
move to the open window next, so I averted mine and continued
vacuuming, trying hard to look oblivious and pretty. But how does
someone look pretty while vacuuming?

I tried cocking my head to the side and
smiling, but felt so stupid doing it that I stopped. I put my free
hand on my hip, but that made me feel like one of those models on
The Price is Right
. I gave up altogether and turned off the
vacuum. When I braved a glance out my window, he was gone, and the
disappointment manifested itself as tightness in my chest. I didn’t
like the way it felt. I thought I shouldn’t feel that way at all
about a person I didn’t know. I grunted and put the vacuum
away.

When I returned to the living room, I
spotted him again. He was rolling along in the opposite direction.
Again he paused in front of my house, and again I averted my eyes.
I looked over at the family portrait still hanging above the couch.
I scowled, then thought twice about it. Scowls were ugly. I tried
for a smile instead. A sweet smile. But it seemed fake. I lost the
smile and tried to look pensive. What the hell?

I looked back out the window and just like
that, he had disappeared. I walked over to the window and peered
out in the direction I thought he’d gone. He was only a few houses
down, one foot poised on his skateboard as though he were about to
take off in the direction of my house. I watched him decide,
silently begging him to come my way.

What I should have done was close my
curtains. I knew it, but he glided past my house a third time, and
I decided to check the mail.

He rolled along towards me when I reached
the mailbox, and I looked over.

“Hey, Brooke. I was wondering when you’d
decide to come out and say ‘hello’,” he said, stopping short of me
and kicking his skateboard up into his hand.

Cocky bastard. I flushed and looked down at
the mail. Suddenly it was all so interesting: bills and a craft
magazine. Craft magazine?

I felt him staring at me and stopped rifling
through the mail.

“You saw me?” I asked, not looking at
him.

“I especially liked the hand-on-the-hip
look,” he replied.

I cringed. “Oh my God. I have to go.”

“Please don’t,” he said, and caught my arm.
“I’m only teasing.”

I finally mustered the courage to look at
him, and he let go of my arm.

“Why didn’t you just knock on my door?” I
asked. “I saw you pass by, like, three times.”

He shrugged and massaged the back of his
neck.

“Okay. That’s not an answer,” I said.

He grinned. “You looked busy.
Vacuuming.”

I considered him for a moment. “Do you live
in this neighborhood?”

“Just down the street.”

Well, that was inconvenient. Everything
about this guy was inconvenient, from his incredibly sexy face and
hair and eyes and body, to the fact that he went to my school, to
the fact that he lived in my neighborhood. How had I not noticed
him until today?

“But I’ve never seen you,” he said. “Did you
just move here?”

“Well, my dad’s lived here awhile. I moved
in with him when my mom moved to California,” I explained.

He looked at me as though he expected
further explanation. I don’t know why I wanted to give it to him.
It was presumptuous on his part, but for some reason it didn’t
bother me.

“My parents divorced when I was in middle
school,” I said.

“Jeez, they couldn’t pick a better time?” he
asked.

“For real. I was already a frizzy, oily,
pimple-ridden mess. You’d think they’d have the decency to wait
until high school or something when things started leveling
out.”

He grinned.

“Anyway, I went to Hanover High up until
last year,” I said. “But I didn’t want to move across country my
senior year, so here I am.”

“But it’s still a new school either way,”
Ryan pointed out.

“True, but at least the area’s familiar, and
I have a good friend from my old high school I still hang out
with,” I said.

He nodded.

“So what’s your story?” I asked. “I never
see you hanging out with anyone at school.”

He tensed immediately, clenching his jaw the
same way he did when I caught him in the stands with my camera at
the volleyball game.

“I don’t have a story,” he said.

I shuffled uneasily, unsure what to say. It
was obvious I hit a nerve, and I thought better about pressing him.
A little indignation flared up, though; after all, he clearly
expected me to share with him, but he was unwilling to do the same.
I never liked one-sided anythings, especially friendships.

“Sooo, where’s your house?” I asked, trying
for something neutral.

“It’s six down from yours,” he replied.
“Same side of the street.”

“So we’re practically neighbors,” I replied,
and he nodded, dropping his skateboard on the sidewalk.

“I better go,” he said.

I felt the disappointment instantly. We had
only begun talking, and there was so much I wanted to ask him, to
know about him. Why was he at Beth’s funeral? Why was he a loner at
school? He was hot as hell, so I knew looks had nothing to do with
it. Why did he stare at me all the time at school? Why did he look
pissed at the volleyball game? Why did Cal tell me to stay away
from him? Why did he talk to me just now, seemingly happy until I
asked him about his story? God, I couldn’t stand not knowing! And
watching him glide down the sidewalk farther away from me while my
mouth filled with questions put me in a rotten mood for the rest of
the day.

***

“Can you believe I used to be a
cheerleader?” I asked Lucy as we settled into our seats.

She didn’t know how to respond. I’m sure she
wondered why I even mentioned it at all. It was random.

“I mean, I so don’t come across as the
cheerleader type, do I?”

Lucy shrugged and gave me a noncommittal
smile.

I kept trying.

“I was a flyer,” I continued. “I could do
basket tosses all day long, but the Liberty was the hardest for
me.”

Lucy shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Do
cheerleaders have a type?”

I was surprised and felt slightly
encouraged. “Sure they do. They’re sweet and bubbly and
smiley.”

She grinned. “So stereotypical.”

I laughed. “Where do you think stereotypes
come from?”

She giggled then went quiet. “Not all of
them are sweet,” she whispered.

“Oh, you’re talking about the mean girls,” I
said.

I felt awful. I knew the conversation was
painful for her. I knew it was drudging up old memories she’d
rather keep buried, but I had to know what happened to her. After
the party, I resolved to be a martyr if I had to, for each and
every one of these girls. But I needed more information. It wasn’t
just about Cal anymore. I could most likely put myself in a
compromising situation with him any time I wanted. No, it was more
than that. There were others, and I wouldn’t be satisfied with just
destroying Cal’s life. I was taking them all under.

Lucy nodded. She looked like she was making
up her mind, debating how much to share with me. She started to
speak but promptly closed her mouth when Cal approached my
desk.

“Hey, Brooke,” he said, shooting Lucy a
sidelong glance. I saw her tremble.
Tremble
.

“Hi, Cal,” I replied.

“Wish you would have stayed longer at the
party,” he said. “I wanted to hang out with you more.”

“Well, duty called,” I replied. “I had to
get my friends home.”