Silent Alarm (13 page)

After
the assembly, we have a break before first period begins, and I wander out the front door of the school, oblivious to the buzz and chatter surrounding me. The rain has stopped its punishing assent, but the sky is streaked with charcoal-gray and violet clouds that tell me more waterworks are on the way.
If I just stay locked inside myself, I'll be all right.
I say this over and over, repeating the words in my head until they blur together and become as meaningless as the cacophony of voices surrounding me.

Out in the parking lot, I notice a red car draped in flowers, stuffed toys, balloons, cards dotting the windshield, and I float toward it, as if in a trance. A makeshift shrine. I would know that car anywhere—it's Kitty Ellison's, the license plate spelling out KITTY E in large black letters. Kitty is

(was)

a senior. Early acceptance to Princeton, long blond hair, and a body that made boys stop speaking when she swished past. But the thing about Kitty that separated her from a life of complete and total banality was that she was nice. She wasn't cliquey, didn't put others down to make herself feel better. She was just . . . sweet. Tutored kids after school not just to pad her college applications, but because she thought
it was the right thing to do.
Didn't suck up for college recs. She didn't have to. Everyone—and I mean everyone—in Plainewood practically worshipped the ground she walked on. And now she's gone.

(—will I find her under my bed tonight when I turn back the covers, her bloodless face rising out of the darkness—)

There are people milling around near the car, and I walk through them, drawn to the shiny red finish, enticing as a poison apple. I want to walk up to my pain and impale myself on it, drag a knife across my skin until it splits under a serrated blade. I imagine the relief it would bring, the blood streaming out of my body until my brain fills with whiteness.

Melissa Anderson, Kitty's best friend, is standing next to the car, tracing designs on the hood with one finger. Her black hair hangs past her shoulders, held away from her face with a thick band, and a gray peacoat swallows her thin frame, toned and athletic from afternoons spent in the pool with the rest of the swim team. Her face is set in concentration, tears falling from her eyes although her expression is still. If you didn't see the water streaking her cheeks in slow, silent rivulets, you wouldn't know she was upset at all. Watching her, I feel like I'm eavesdropping on something horribly private, and I start to move away, my feet scraping against the pavement. Melissa wipes her face with one hand and sniffs loudly, turning to face me, her green eyes oblivious at first but then widening in gradual recognition. She looks like she's seen a ghost, and maybe that's what I am now. A phantom. Something to be feared and avoided.

“You,” she breathes, her lips barely moving. “You're . . .” Her lip curls in a grimace, as if saying the next word is revolting or even painful. “His sister.” The word is like a lead weight falling from a great height. “Aren't you?”

I am caught in the headlights, unsure if I should answer at all. Is there a right answer? I don't know anymore. Panicked. I nod once, a quick jerk, shame flooding my cheeks in a rush of blood, the capillaries beneath the skin expanding.

I drop my eyes to the ground, and she looks over at the car. Once she glances away, I feel better, the air returning to my lungs.

“She was my best friend.”

Her voice is low and raspy from tears and a lack of sleep. I can feel her voice in my own mouth, the cadence of it. She stares at the car, the raindrops glinting on the finish as if it holds all the answers, an oracle. A mirage that might fade into oblivion if she tears her gaze away, even for a second. People have gathered around and are watching us closely. I hear the hiss of whispers, judgment falling over me like a fur cloak, the rows of gleaming black pelts knitted together, weighing me down.

“She died right here, you know,” Melissa says, her voice wooden. “She was trying to get to her car.”

The car stands there patiently, waiting for me to answer, the red paint pulsing under the foreboding sky.

“I know,” I say. “I'm sorry.”

Because I am. Sorry. Sorry for her, sorry for me—sorry for us all. Not that it does anyone any good.

Her head whips around. Her long dark hair blows into her eyes and she brushes it away impatiently with her fingertips. “You're
sorry
? That's all you have to
say
?”

“I don't know,” I mutter, looking away from her cold eyes. Something inside me wants to run, to turn abruptly and take off, feet sliding on the wet grass. But I stay. “What do you want me to say?”

She takes a step toward me, her expression distorted in anger, her face red and strained, the veins in her neck clearly visible beneath the skin.

“What do I
want
you to say?”

Everything is moving fast, too fast, and I take a step back, then another, my shoes hitting the curb, my arms reaching out into the air frantically before regaining my balance.

“What do I
want
you to say?” she repeats, grabbing my arm. Her touch burns like a naked flame. “I want to know why—
why
the fuck did he do it?
Why?
”

Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy?

She is shaking me, hands on my shoulders, my teeth banging together. I can't move. Her eyes stare into mine, full of hatred, her spittle hitting my cheeks. I go limp in her grasp, my limbs collapsing in on themselves.
Do it,
I think.
Tear me to pieces.

“You're gonna let her get away with that?” Luke's hot breath, a tickling like tiny ants crawling over my skin. I close my eyes, gritting my teeth to block him out, the scent of rotting flowers filling my throat.

“I don't know,” I hear myself finally whisper. “I don't know why.”

She stops, her face still close to mine, so close that I can see the tiny dots of sweat on her upper lip, the smeared black eyeliner on the left corner of her eyelid. She is breathing hard, and all at once she lets me go, releasing her hands from my shoulders and backing away. She looks down at her hands, holding them out from her body as if they don't quite belong to her, as if she's never seen them before.

“What the hell is going on?”

It's Ben, even more beautiful than I remember. His dark hair is pushed back from his face, and his sudden, forceful intensity burns through the gloom in the sky above, vanquishing it. It is everything I can do not to sink to my knees at the very sight of him. I try to open my mouth but I cannot speak, can't move. “It's okay,” I manage to say, even though what's going on at this moment is clearly pretty fucking far from anything that could even vaguely be considered okay.

“You're going to stick up for her? Is that it? After what he did? Her piece-of-shit brother?” She crosses her arms over her breasts, her bottom lip pushed out in a sullen pout. Even exhausted, even with her dark clothes and lack of sleep, she is still beautiful standing there beneath the falling sky, her eyes like green leaves coated in dew, and I wonder if Ben notices, if he sees her the way I do right now, at this very moment. Beautiful. Tragic. Defiant.

“What
he
did,” Ben yells, stepping closer to her. “Not
her
!”

“Same difference,” Melissa scoffs.

“It is
not,
and you know it. Or if you don't, you really
should.
” Ben points a finger at her chest, his jaw so tense that I can see the muscles working under the skin.

“I can't believe that after what that murderer did to your family, you're going to take her side.” Melissa shakes her head slowly, in disgust. “That's just really pathetic.”

“I'm not taking sides,” Ben says, breathing deep. The tone is the one he always uses when he's trying to get a grip on himself, rein in his emotions. “I'm just trying to move on. Just like you. Just like Alys—just like everyone else here.”

He grabs me by the hand, and at the touch of his skin, I almost cry out. The feel of his hand in mine is like climbing into a warm bed on a cold night, like diving off the end of a pier on a hot summer day and knowing for certain that the water will rise up to meet you, the cool, soft liquid cushioning your fall.

“C'mon,” he says, pulling me along with him. I follow him blindly as a child, one step behind.

We walk behind the school, Ben pulling me around the corner. No one follows us, for which I'm grateful. The back parking lot is full of cars, and for the first time I notice how cold I am, my cheeks frozen and numb from the wind that rakes across campus, the gale like millions of tiny needles hitting my skin. He leans against the brick wall, exhaling loudly, and drops my hand, our connection severed. He props one Converse sneaker up against the brick, shoving his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket. I want to touch him, but I'm unsure. I want to pull his jacket apart and push my hands beneath the soft blue shirt he wears until I reach bare skin, slide my palms over the heat of his chest, kiss him until we don't know where we are or what has happened, the world falling away.

But looking at the way he stares out over the parking lot, avoiding my face, I know that I can't. That he won't. That if I try, he will push me away, and it will hurt.

“Are you okay?” He doesn't wait for my answer before continuing. “She was totally out of line.”

I am silent. Listening to my own heart beating under my clothes, the relentless thrum of it.

He turns his head to look at me sharply.

“You know she was, Alys.”

Now it's my turn to look away. I am melting under the directness of his stare, those eyes so richly fringed with lashes that I'd often asked him jokingly if he was wearing mascara.

“I'm not so sure.” My voice wavers, and I brace myself to keep from crying, tensing the muscles in my body one by one.

“Nothing that happened was your fault.”

He says this forcefully, as if he really believes it, and I wonder how he can be so sure about me, about anything at all. Especially since Katie . . .

(Oh, Katie)

“I'm so sorry about . . .” I cannot finish. I cannot say her name aloud, in front of him. It seems obscene. “About everything.”

Ben sighs, shuffling his feet. “You don't need to apologize, Alys. You didn't
do
anything wrong. I told you.”

We watch as a car pulls into the parking lot, and the slamming of car doors echoes in the air. I watch as a flock of birds fly overhead, darting and dancing, their bodies aligned in a V.

“Then why can't we . . .” My voice falls off, and in the quiet between us I'm aware of how silly my words sound, how shallow.

“Look, I'm just trying to get through the day, the next hour, the next five minutes. Every time I think about her, the way she . . .” He looks at me again, and this time I let him, even though it feels like a sword piercing my heart.

(died)

“I can't take it. I break down all over again. It's endless, you know? There's no bottom.”

His eyes shimmer with tears, and I realize that in all the years I've known him, I've never seen Ben cry. Not even when he fell off his bike when he was eight, shattering his arm in two places, and Luke and I had to carry him home. Not even then.

I nod, my hand reaching out to touch his face, my fingers stopping inches from his skin and pulling back as if I've been burned. I cannot touch him. I know this. But the ache is there, taunting me like a phantom limb.

“We can't . . . be like we were.” He says this slowly, the words precise. Exacting.

“Why not?”

Even though I know the answer, can predict what he will say, I have to ask, to hear him say it out loud. I close my eyes for a second before opening them again, waiting for the words that will lacerate what's left of my heart.

“We just can't.” He shrugs his shoulders as if the question is too ridiculous to contemplate seriously. “I don't blame you for anything—really, I don't. But I can't go back.”

I bite my lip and look up at the sky, willing myself not to cry. My chest throbs so intensely that I wonder for a second if I'm having a heart attack.

“I don't want things to be like this,” I whisper, sniffing loudly, my lips swollen, my nose beginning to run in the cold air.

“I don't either.”

“Then let's not,” I say, my hands working without my permission as I finally reach out and pull him to me, my lips finding his. All I want is him, and for just this once, the need overpowers my fear. For a split second, his mouth opens, his tongue touching mine with a groan that seems to come all the way from the deep recesses of his body before he shoves me away, wiping his mouth roughly on the sleeve of his jacket. And with that one action, something stops dead in me and hardens, crystallizing.

Just like that, he wipes me away.

“Goddammit, Alys, what did I just
say
? We can't do this anymore.
I
can't. It has to end. My sister is dead. She's dead and she's never coming back. And Luke . . .” He breaks off, unable to go on. Tears fall from the corners of his eyes onto his jacket, and he drops his head. I want to put my arms around him and hold on tight, but I can't. His body, so familiar, is now off-limits. Contraband.

“His loss,” Luke whispers, a smug satisfaction coloring his voice. “I always thought you could do
a lot
better . . .”

I ignore him and force myself to stay in the moment, here with Ben.

“I'm sorry,” I say for what feels like the millionth time. I know, even as my mouth forms the words, that I will say them for the rest of my life. Forever. That there will never be a time when I am not, in some small way, apologizing for the damage my brother has wrought. Luke is dead too, like Katie, I know, but this makes no difference. My grief will always be less important.