Locked (28 page)

“Anna’s out sick today. I’m covering her patients.” The redheaded nurse sets the tray on my bedside table and winks at me. “Oh, look, you don’t have a TV in here. The football game’s on today. Want me to wheel you in a portable one?”

She backs out pretty quickly after I howl “YES” at her.

A few minutes later, there’s a tiny square television at the foot of my bed. I spend a little while figuring out how to use the remote. I hate remotes. I watch most of my shows on Netflix. “Hope you don’t mind if I watch some TV,” I call to the curtain.

I page through channels. A western. A reality show. A commercial for the DVD release of
Getting an A
. Maybe I’ll buy that for Sherlock as a belated birthday gift. It’ll make him laugh. His laugh is rare, but it lights up the room.

“—the shooting at Aspen High earlier this month—”

I freeze. It’s a news channel, showing a picture of my school.

“—a single student was wounded and two were killed, one of which was the shooter, who passed away due to a self-inflicted—”

Wait.

That’s not right.

Two were killed?

Only Ethan had been killed.

They’re talking about Ethan now, analyzing his life story. That’s not what I want to hear. I flip through channels faster, my hand clammy on the remote, until I land on another news station. It’s a girl being interviewed. Bree. Bree Laurel is being interviewed. She’s crying.

“So you knew the victims personally?” says the interviewer, learning forward.

“Yeah. There were three victims, really. My friend Daphne was the first. It’s…we were wrong. We all thought…” She scrubs at red-rimmed eyes. “We were wrong.”

“Right. The shooter was connected to the earlier death of a student.” The interviewer nods.

“We all thought…he did it. We treated him so badly. If I’d known what was going to happen—”

I change the channel so hard I hurt my thumb. I don’t want to watch Bree and her fake tears. And why is she talking about Sherlock, anyway? She hates him. They all hate him. I’m the only one who doesn’t.

I text him:
Turn to channel 9. Bree Laurel is sobbing about you on the news for some reason. You’ll laugh
.

His laugh that lights up the room.

Why is my chest so constricted? I probably need more painkillers.

I switch back to the other news station.

“—Irene Adler, nineteen, has been identified as the wounded student. The fatality besides the shooter has been identified as Sherlock Holmes, also nineteen—”

A shockwave runs through me from the top of my head to my knees.

I jam the
off
button. It doesn’t work. I hate remotes so much. The TV is still saying
Sherlock Holmes, Sherlock Holmes
and I can’t. I can’t. I take my lunch tray and hurl it at the television, knocking it over backward. It hits the ground and shuts up. Good.

“That’s kind of a big mistake for them to make, isn’t it?” I say shakily to the curtain. “Saying someone is…you know…when they’re not. I hope someone calls in and tells them.”

I imagine him sitting back and raising his eyebrow.
Morons can’t even tell when someone’s alive and not—

The redheaded replacement nurse sticks her head in. She sees the TV and her jaw drops.

“It was bothering me.” My voice is weak.

“I…see. Are you all right? You look pale.” She takes an uncertain step toward me. “Do you need a sedative?”

“No. I just heard something that surprised me, that’s all.” I force my tone to become easy. “But it was a mistake. On the news. They made a mistake.”

“I see,” she says warily. “Well, you know what they say. Never trust the media.”

Never trust anyone, Irene.

“I’ll just…take the TV away, then, shall I.”

I tilt my head back and close my eyes. I just have to breathe. Even knowing it’s not true, hearing them say it is like an earthquake. Anger enters me. How hard is it to get the facts straight on the fucking news?

Mom comes in just as the nurse is leaving.

“What’s that about?” she asks, staring at the broken TV.

I sit up. Thank God. Now this can be cleared up. “They brought in a TV for me and it—fell over. Hey, can you do me a favor?”

Mom is still staring faintly out the door, after the nurse and the TV.

“Can you call the local news station?” I ask. “I was watching it and they just said Sherlock di—they said he was a fatality. Someone should let them know that’s wrong, because someone could see…and…believe it…”

My mother has started to cry.

“And we wouldn’t want…anyone to believe that…since it’s not true,” I say slowly.

She’s still crying. Why is she crying? She won’t stop. Something extreme is building inside me, something hot, the nucleus of a star, but I keep forcing the words out. Each one feels like a step up the tallest mountain in the world.

“Hey, Mom…call the news station.”

“Irene,” she sobs. “Irene, I’m sorry.”

I am an iceberg. I’m alone in the sea and everything else is floating away from me.

“I couldn’t tell you. I just couldn’t.”

I can barely see land now.

“You were recovering, you needed…you needed your strength.”

“Mom,” I whisper.

She grabs my hand hard. “It’s okay. It’s okay, honey. We will get through this together.”

I stare at her.

I don’t know this person.

I don’t know anything except that my eyes are open and I have to get out.

“Irene, wait!”

I run. So fast. Like I’d run in the hallway when I was trying to find him. Stay where you are, he’d texted me. But I can’t stay here. I have to find him again. I found him before. He’d held me so tight.

My shoulder kind of hurts, somewhere in the distance, maybe. Way back on shore where everyone else is. Out here, it’s cold. I’m just floating.

It’s okay as long as I run.

Never trust anyone—

“Shut up,” I breathe. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

People are around me, telling me to stop, but they’re so far away I barely notice them. They’re galaxies away. I burst outside. People, staring at me. At my bare feet. Hospital gown. I don’t care. They can stare if they want. He’s probably going to stare, when I fly into his bedroom a day early.

He won’t be able to stare for long, though, because I’m going to hit him.

People are always doing that.

“Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

I run. I step on something sharp and don’t care. Pain lances through my shoulder and I don’t care. Is this what it’s like to be you, Sherlock? To not care?

You made me human.

Humans are so fragile. I shouldn’t have made you human. You should have stayed ice.

Ice melts.

Metal, then. Diamond.

Something as indestructible as you always said you were.

You’re sitting in the living room armchair. Fingers together, you’re thinking. Mom’s not home. We’re alone together. It’s my chance. I pounce.

“Did you know there were more deaths by scissors last year in Japan than deaths by gun violence?” you say as I attack you with my comb.

“We’re not in Japan. I’m giving you a haircut. You’re not going to be able to see and you’ll walk off a cliff or something.” I put my elbow on your shoulder, my wrist against the side of your face, the warmth of you, carefully snipping your bangs. Pieces of you fall to the carpet.

“You are really rather irrationally convinced that something’s going to happen to me.”

“Well, I’d love to just care about you without that, but after Carol—” I stop myself and trim a couple locks around your neck. You have a nice neck. Which is probably a creepy thing to think when I’m holding scissors.

“Subject change needed. Got it. What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to do that you haven’t?”

“Where the hell did you get that from?”

“That magazine,” you say, pointing to a copy of Mom’s Cosmos on the floor, which is lying open to a personality test.

“I can’t tell you. You’re going to laugh.” I finish trimming and hang my arms loosely around your neck. I’m going to have to vacuum.

“I would never laugh at you.”

“You laugh at me all the time.” I rest my chin on your head, something I can only do when I’m standing and you’re sitting. You’re too tall, Sherlock. “Fine…contra dancing.

“…Square dancing.”

“Contra dancing! It’s different. They have the dances at the church once a month. I walked by once, it looks like fun. And it’s not hard to learn.”

“You want to wear a cowboy hat and kick your legs around to fiddle music.” You don’t brush my arms away, or reach up to knock my chin off your head. I expected you to.

“The fiddle’s basically the same thing as the violin, you know.”

“I would never play it so idiotically.”

You said we’d be all right, Sherlock. I know you’re not gone, because you’re never wrong.

That’s not very rational.

“Being rational is boring, sometimes,” I whisper as I run.

You were supposed to be boring.

You’re supposed to be alive. And you are. You have to be. I’m really mad at you, Sherlock. I’m mad at you for not coming to visit me in the hospital. I’m going to open your door and get mad at you, and then I’m going to kiss you and tell you I love you.

Because I haven’t told you, yet.

My courage slipped through my fingers.

It’s a cold day and not many people are out, but one or two are, just enough to stare at the girl in the hospital gown who flies past. You’re going to laugh when I tell you about this, Sherlock. I’m going to tell you lots of things.

Like how you shouldn’t feel guilty.

And how maybe you can do experiments in the microwave, if you really want to, but only when Mom isn’t home.

And how I might even let you smoke every so often.

And how you still owe me a date.

I keep running. My house is closer now. I can see it. Right next to the burned-out husk of your old house. But it’s okay. That house was too big for you anyway. Too lonely. I hope you like living with me, Sherlock. I never asked you. I’ll ask you today, after we go on our date. I’m glad you’re okay. It would break me forever if you weren’t.

I’m still floating, out in the sea. I see you. You putting your arm over me in bed, drawing me closer to you. You whispering in my ear. You making the entire cafeteria sing me happy birthday. You standing next to Daphne’s body, still holding that goddamn lacrosse stick, because you had the sense to know it wasn’t the murder weapon but you didn’t have the sense to put it down.

You.

God, I love you. My heart swells. I’m going to tell you over and over again. Until we’re both old. You will reach retirement, Sherlock. You will.

I wrestle with the door. It’s locked. Somewhere in my iceberg brain I remember the spare key under the stairs, and then I’m inside. The house is quiet. I go straight to your door.

Which is closed.

You never close your door.

“The door was always closed.” I throw my paintbrush back in the bucket. “That was one of the things I hated about the whole thing.”

“Doors are made to close.” You paint another wide swath of blue across the wall. Your brush strokes are messy, uneven. You don’t care enough to make them neat.

“No, you don’t get it. It was like a crypt, the way we kept it. The door closed all the time just made it worse, because you knew what was behind it.” I don’t know why this is coming out so suddenly. I’ve never said any of it before. “It was like Mom thought if we kept everything exactly the same, then maybe Carol would walk back in one day and thank us for not messing anything up. Like how some parents turn their kids’ rooms into offices when they go off to college, and some don’t change their rooms for years. It’s the same when a kid dies, I guess.”

“Attachment,” you say. “Refusal to acknowledge change.”

“Yeah. I mean, I know what it was. I just hated it. Because it was a lie. Carol was never coming back and there was this mausoleum for her in the middle of the house. Sometimes I just wanted to come in here and smash everything. Just to make the outside look how I felt about the whole thing.”

“How do you feel about it now?” You have a fleck of paint on your forehead. I reach over and try to rub it off, but it’s dried.

“How do I feel about you moving in here?” I smile. “I feel really, really good about you moving in here.”

You made this room alive again.

You made me alive again.

I see you everywhere. You, stealing cars. You trying to trick me into skipping school on the photo went out. You grabbing my hand, pulling me back up onto the roof. You, moonlit, freezing, dragging yourself out of the water. You looking down at the casserole on your shirt and realizing you’d just made one more enemy in this world.

You being very, very wrong about that.

I open the door. You’re not in your bed. Your bed is made. You never make your bed. The floor is vacuumed. You never vacuumed. The shelves are tided. You never tidied. You have a horror of people touching your things.

Your room looks the same, but different.

A corpse with makeup on its face to make it look alive.

A mausoleum.

I heard you tell him just this morning, every time you asked if he was okay.

If he has a heart, I think I broke it.

You’re wrong for him, Irene.

He thinks he’s invincible. He’s not.

He’s heartbroken. Because it turns out that the only person he’s ever cared about hates him, just like everyone else.

There’s something on the bed. A present. Wrapped.

I take out my phone and call you. I’ve never called you before. I always texted you. You haven’t even bothered to create an answering machine message. The voice on the other one is a mechanical one, reading off your number instead of your name.

I text you.

IA:
you’re out buying ingredients to make me an apology dinner tonight

I take a step toward the present on the bed.

IA:
you’re out smoking a cigarette, just like last time

It’s sitting there. Innocuous. But not tossed casually, the way you would have left it. Placed there by someone who was afraid of it.