Keaton School 01: Escape Theory (17 page)

“How else would I handle it? Smile and be perfect, isn’t that the mandate around here?”

Devon returned her stare as gently as possible. “Did someone say that to you? Because if you’re not feeling like smiling, you don’t have to. There’s no mandate like that around here, with me.”

“Well, look who’s been drinking the Keaton Kool-Aid. Are you going to report me if I say anything anti-Keaton?”

Devon cleared her throat. “I didn’t see you at his service on Sunday.”

“What was I supposed to do? Play the grieving girlfriend? Comfort his mom, sit in the front row, and cry the loudest like a good girl? When meanwhile there’s some slut in the chapel carrying his baby? No way, I’m not doing that for him.”

Devon swallowed. “What do you mean?” For the first time, it occurred to her that she had no idea how much Isla knew.
^*

“Looks like Hutch knocked someone up. Cleo Lam-bitch thought it’d be funny to leave a pregnancy test on my bed. I thought maybe she heard something about the night Hutch died, but whatever. I caught her doing it, you know. She shouldn’t have been in my room.”

“I’m sorry.” Devon took a deep breath. “Start from the beginning. What would Cleo have heard about the night Hutch died?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing. She shouldn’t have been in my room. She said she saw Hutch getting a freakin’ pregnancy stick for someone, can you believe that? She thought he was getting it for me and she wanted to help, yeah right. Crazy Francophile bitch. She knew Hutch wasn’t buying it for me; it was just her passive-aggressive way of telling me what she knew. I hate that freak.” Isla scratched at her arm, leaving red streaks along her pale white skin.

Devon kept silent. No way would she try to fill in the blanks here.

“The scary thing is, she was probably telling the truth. It was too random for her to make up. Cleo’s good at stirring up shit, but she’s not quite creative enough to invent it, ya know? Hutch was seeing someone this summer, after me. I know he was.”

“Did you see him with someone?” Devon asked.

“No, I didn’t … why do I have to prove everything to you? I just know it, okay? I talked to him before school started, you know, just to see where we stood before all the rumors started about us being broken up. And he was distant, like he had moved on to someone else after me.”

“So, you and Cleo think he moved on to someone that he got pregnant?”

“I don’t care what that bitch thinks. I got her back though, crushed up an Ambien and put it in her little Frenchie water carafe she keeps next to her bed. She passed right out in Chem that day. It was awesome.” Isla laughed a little.

“That’s … um.”
^†
Devon paused to make sure she phrased this the right way. “Isla, I’m not here to tell you what to do, but slipping anyone a prescribed drug is extremely dangerous. They could have an allergic reaction, for one thing. After what happened to Hutch—”

“What do you mean ‘what happened to Hutch?’ It was suicide. The asshole did it to himself and left us to pick up the pieces.” Isla’s dark blonde eyebrows pushed toward the center of her face.

“Okay, but do you understand what I’m saying about slipping people prescriptions?”

Isla chewed on the inside of her cheek and stared at the Rorschach poster behind Devon.

“Isla. Seriously. I have to refer to you to Mr. Robins if this could happen again. I really don’t want to narc on you.” Devon tried to keep her voice steady. She wouldn’t let this turn into one of those moments that people regret for the rest of their lives.
If only I’d intervened
.

Isla eventually brought her eyes back to Devon. “Fine. I hear you. I won’t slip pills into anyone else’s water. You’ve gotten really boring you know. Or maybe you’ve always been boring and I just never knew it.”

Devon sat back in her chair. “I’ll take boring, just as long as you hear me on the prescription thing. Speaking of, do want to tell me any more about the Oxy you asked me to hold onto last week?”

“Why, what’s wrong with it? Did you flush it or something?”

“No, I still have it. Keeping it safe like you asked. It’s just … I’d like to know where it came from.”

Isla leaned forward in the creaky leather chair. “I told you. I got it at home before coming back to school. It’s not that hard in Portland. Doctors are pretty lax about pain meds.”

“And there’s no chance you shared any pills with anyone when you came back to school?”

“I had them and then I gave them to you. That’s all there is to it. Why are you so obsessed with this?”

Devon stared back down at her notebook. She realized she hadn’t taken nearly as many notes since she’d lost her Mont Blanc pen. Of course, the cheapness of her Pentel had nothing to do with the lack of note-taking. “The thing is, before you gave them to me, Hutch overdosed on the same drug. So, you can see why I’m interested. Just trying to make sure that there wasn’t a chance Hutch got into your stash or something like that.”

“Well he didn’t, okay?” Isla picked at her split ends. “You wanna know where I was on Sunday? I went to the Cove. I couldn’t see Hutch in a coffin. I watched the surfers floating out in the waves and pretended that Hutch was one of them. When we were together, I would watch him catch a wave and he would wave back to me on the shore every now and then. Even though we weren’t next to each other, I could still feel him.” Isla absentmindedly scratched at her arm again. Her eyes brimmed with tears and she let them fall from her lids and skate down her cheeks. “There’s nothing to feel now.”

Devon nodded. She envied Isla’s memories. To feel that connected to someone, even from afar.… He’d wave to her on the beach. She’d wave back and return to her homework, smiling, feeling that warm glow spread across her body, the warmth of knowing someone loved you.…

“Whoever she is, she doesn’t get to have Hutch’s baby.” Isla’s words pulled Devon back to the session.

“Well, we don’t know what it’s like to be in this girl’s shoes. Maybe she doesn’t—”

“No!” Isla slammed her hands on the arm of the chair. “It’s not her choice. I get a say, too. It’s Hutch. There can’t be a baby.”

Devon stared at Isla. She was breathing heavily. Her cheeks turned a splotchy red. She didn’t want another panic attack on her hands.
^‡
She ripped a blank page out of her notebook, hoping to catch Isla’s attention. It worked. Devon started folding the paper into halves. Isla watched, curious.

“You know, Isla, in normal counseling we could keep talking about this, your feelings, blah, blah, blah. But normal is boring, and that’s not you. You think outside the box. Want to try something a little different?” Devon had no idea where she was going with this, but at least Isla was breathing evenly again, and her cheeks were no longer flushed.

“Yeah. Sure. Different is good, I guess,” Isla conceded.

“Okay, close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Inhale. Exhale.” What to do with the folded piece of paper? She wasn’t sure. She tucked it under her thigh.

“You feel calm throughout your body. It moves from your toes, up your legs, up the back of your spine, behind your eyes.”

Isla leaned back in her chair, eyes closed.

“Now imagine you’re a girl who’s scared, alone, not sure who you can turn to,” Devon continued. “Now imagine you’re pregnant and alone.”

Isla’s eyes popped open. “I’m not stupid, you know.”

So much for subtle manipulation or phony meditation
. “No, you’re not stupid.”

“You’re just trying to throw me off the scent.”

“Isla, there’s a girl who’s probably going through a rough enough time right now. How about if we just focus on you and how you might be feeling?”

“You seem pretty focused on protecting this girl,” Isla spat. “How do I know it’s not you?”

Devon laughed. “Are you serious?”

Isla didn’t respond. Her eyes turned to slits.

“It’s not me. Seriously, it’s not.”

“Then why do you care so much?” Isla demanded.

“It’s my job to care. No one deserves to be going through what this girl is probably going through. And we don’t know what this had to do with Hutch.”

“It’s got everything to do with him! It’s his fault. Why is everyone so busy making him out to be the perfect guy that could do no wrong? I’m so sick of it. Hutch acted like the world revolved around him, and now he’s dead, and it still revolves around him! It’s disgusting.”

“Isla, death, especially a sudden death like this, can bring up all kinds of emotions. Denial, anger, depression … let’s talk through it.”

“No, I’m not going to talk through it with you. You’re just as bad as the rest of them. You think I don’t hear you defending him every chance you get. Let me tell you, Hutch was not the angel everyone makes him out to be, okay?”

“Isla—”

“No, you know what? I’m not going to sit here and listen to you defend him. You really want to know how I feel? I’m glad he’s gone.” Isla stood and turned to go.

“No, you’re not.”

“Stop thinking you know me. You don’t.”

“You loved him, Isla. That doesn’t go away. I saw you with him last year. He loved you and you loved him.”

“Oh yeah? It’s your turn, prove it.” Isla leaned against the door, her arms folded across her chest.

Devon hesitated. She was probably crossing all sorts of counseling lines. But Isla had to see the truth. “Last year. Spring. I was in Bio and you two had a free period. I remember looking out the window and seeing you two walk across Raiter holding hands. Hutch kissed your hand on the inside of your palm and held it there against his cheek. I saw that look in his eyes. He loved you, Isla. No one else mattered to him.”

Isla was crying again, her mouth curled into a frown, pooling the tears around her chin. “You’re sick,” she whispered, then pushed the door open and let it slam shut behind her.

D
EVON WANTED TO FINISH
up her session notes before vacating her cramped office. At least in here she could count on a little silence. She debated whether or not to include Isla slipping Ambien into Cleo’s bedside water in her notes. What was the worst case scenario? Isla drugs and possibly injures or even kills someone, and if Devon’s notes were used to prove that the school was counseling Isla and
knew
of this dangerous activity, the school would be sued until the end of days for knowing about Isla’s behavior, and not reporting it. Or, was it that Devon could be sued for not reporting it? Or could Mr. Robins be sued for overseeing Devon and not knowing about Isla’s dangerous tendencies? If Isla drugged someone to the point of harming them,
someone
was getting sued, that was a guarantee.

Nope, that’s a piece of her sessions Devon could keep stored away in a forgotten storage unit in her brain. Unit 24, reserved for potentially threatening activities by counseling subjects, in the box marked
Stuff No One Else Needs To Know, Seriously
.

“Hey, sunshine,” Grant opened the door a crack and leaned his head inside. She wrapped her notebook around her chest and squinted at the sunny outline of Grant.

“Hey, you’re not supposed to be … what if I was with …?” Devon couldn’t find a polite way to say:
What the hell are you doing here?

“Don’t worry, I saw Isla leave. I’d never barge into a session like that; I know what you look like when you get angry. No thanks,” Grant laughed and Devon relaxed.

“Sorry, no one’s ever been in here with me that wasn’t a—”

“Nutjob?” Grant plunked himself down into the leather chair. “Tell me Doctor? Is it bad that I want to have sex with my mother and kill my father?”

Devon didn’t laugh. “We should go.”

“Wait, wait, I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me. Let’s talk about you, your feelings. Any lingering emotions you want to confess to me?”

Devon tried to squirm out of Grant’s way, but he held her hands and kept her in her chair. “Grant, I don’t know.…”

“Isla’s gotta be a real piece of work once you get her in here, huh?”

“You know I can’t talk about that stuff.” She pried her hands from his grasp.

“Right, right, of course. Heaven forbid Devon breaks a rule.” Grant shook his head.

“You know, since you are in the chair, I have a question for you.”

“Shoot, Doctor.”

“How are you and Eric Hutchins so tight?” Devon was more curious how Grant would respond to the question that what his answer could be. He blinked, avoiding her eyes.
Hmmm, so telling already
.

“We’re not really.”

“So, why did he ask you to be a pallbearer?” Devon asked.

“Okay, you got me. It was Colonel Mustard in the Billiard Room with the lead pipe. Happy now?” The bell rang for the start of next class. “And I’m late to French.” He stood and reached for the door.

“Grant, seriously.”

He sighed. “Eric and Hutch and I went to the same lacrosse camp once, years ago. It was before Keaton. To be honest, I don’t really know why Eric asked me. Now, can I be excused?” His voice took on a harsh edge.

“Hey, I didn’t ask you to barge in here.”

“Yeah I’ll remember that next time I try to visit you.” Grant slammed the door behind him.

Devon felt sick.
Keep this up and not only will your subjects quit, you’ll drive away all your friends, too
. She grabbed her
backpack and locked up the therapy room. How did an extracurricular start taking over everything in her life? There was nothing “extra” about it.

T
HANKFULLY
, B
AY
H
OUSE WAS
quiet. Devon was grateful to have a free period.
Clean my room, catch up on homework, be a human again
.

As she approached her room, she noticed that Sasha’s door was open at the end of the hall. Devon stopped and listened. No toilet flushing, no phone call chatter, no shower running … no Sasha. Devon poked her head inside the room. Sasha’s dad had once played for the New York Jets. Apparently he was Hall of Fame material. Sasha’s room looked like a Jets-themed sporting-goods store. But, Devon supposed it was why Sasha pursued her athletics and education with equal intensity.

On her desk Devon spied a pad of green paper. The same paper she had seen Sasha give Matt. “Sasha?” she called out to the empty room. Nothing.
A place that bases everything on an honor system leaves a lot of room for stupidity
. Devon darted toward Sasha’s desk. The green paper had the Keaton logo at the top of the page. Now she felt like an idiot. She had the exact same pad. Everyone always got a pad of Keaton paper on their desks at the top of the school year. Nothing could go more unnoticed.