Still Waters (12 page)

S
ometimes you can feel yourself sinking. Black water sucking at your heels, and it gets harder to move, harder to fight.

I felt it starting when I took the money—hate sucking at my heels, self-destruction not far behind.

And underneath that, the knowledge that it didn’t matter when I finally went home. Now or tomorrow or the next day. My dad would be waiting.

At least if I got it over with now, Janie wouldn’t be there.

I went to the old gym. Lifted the window and climbed through. Stood in the dank shower room.

Felt the wad of cash coal-hard in my pocket.

The black water settled in my chest. I pulled the money out and spread it on a bench. Two hundred and eighty dollars.

Tore through my locker, and brought out a boxing glove. Wadded up the money and shoved it inside the glove before putting it back. My dad would be waiting, and I wasn’t about to hand over the cash after all the crap I’d gone through.

I turned back to the window. My reflection in the clouded mirrors, wild-eyed. I climbed out, closing the window behind me.

On the walk home, I had to stop myself from breaking into a run. Black tissue spread through my chest, tumorous fingers squeezing my heart. I took the porch steps two at a time.

The sound of the slamming door brought him out.

I felt myself smiling. The blackness buzzed in my ears, whispered, screamed. So I cursed him.

He came at me, lips curled onto his teeth. Fang-groove creases arrowing down over his mouth.

The black tide covered me, bubbled up in my chest like laughter. His fist drove at my face in a straight line, rolling as it came—perfect and true. Beautiful.

I stepped in, dodging his first punch before the second one caught me. Lightning flashed in my skull. My legs gave out and I was falling. The black water rushed over my head before I landed.

• • •

“Jason?” A little voice, mouse-gnawing on the sparking wires in my brain. A hand shook my shoulder.

“Jason, sit up.”

I realized my eyes were open, although one was nearly swollen shut.

Janie’s cheeks were wet. She helped me stand. The floor tilted like a ship.

“You provoked him. And you told Clay you weren’t coming here.” An accusation. Janie wedged herself under my arm, too tight against my ribs.

I hissed.

“Sorry,” she breathed. “But you probably deserve that. Jerk.”

“Don’t be mad.” My voice was slurry and cotton-packed. “Honest pay for honest work.” I laughed.

We stumbled up the stairs. In the room, she helped me fall onto my bed.

I felt full and light, a balloon swelling to pop.

“Okay, what’s two plus two?” Janie asked. “What did you eat for breakfast?”

“Four. Knuckles.” A giggle fizzed in my chest. Nothing hurt. “It’s fine, Janie. It’s better this way.”

“Yeah. You look better.”

“Bitch.”

“Shitbird.” She sighed and pulled her hair into a ponytail. Planted hands on narrow hips, skinny elbows daggering the air by my head. Her eyes scoured my face. My laugh bubbled out again. Endorphins and relief and low tide.

“See”—I shook a finger at her—“never forget the evil bastard is a sadist. If you seek it out, he pulls his punches.”

Her eyebrow rose. “Well, that’s abundantly clear.”

The laugh came out a cough. It was like unstopping a can of soda that’s been knocked down the stairs. I started laughing and couldn’t stop. I laughed because I wouldn’t be going to school tomorrow or the day after that, and that might screw up Michael’s plans. I laughed because Cyndra had pills that were extra strength. I laughed because she wasn’t mine, and Michael was the future prom king. Laughed because the new clothes finally felt right.

J
anie took care of me. Changed out bags of frozen peas on my eye. Propped my head on her pillow and mine. Popped migraine medicine down my throat at regular intervals. The caffeine, cold, and elevation were her attempts to reduce bruising and swelling.

I checked out. Let my brain buzz like an amp turned up but not playing any notes. Let time pass. Didn’t talk. Didn’t think.

A day passed. I stared at the wall or slept. Janie skipped school, too. She read some teen-romance novel, card-shuffling the pages over her fingertips like the book was a puppy and she was rubbing its ears. She got us food and sodas, started movies or played music on the laptop, kept me company.

The dark waters receded, but under them were jagged rocks and creatures with sharp pincers.

Another morning, and now the frozen peas were changed to a hot pad, resting across my eyes, the plastic a hot body bag zipped over my face. A plate clinked on the floor next to the bed. She took my hand and closed it around the bread.

The door clicked as she left.

I ate the sandwich carefully. Automatically. Time passed. I took off the hot pad and got up. Went to the bathroom. Avoided looking in the mirror over the sink.

I slowly made my way downstairs, got some water and some plastic-wrapped muffins. There was broken glass and spilled food on the floor. I made a halfhearted attempt at cleaning up until the headache came back.

Back in the room I fished my cell out of the pocket of my hoodie.

Where are you?
A text from Michael.

Are you okay?
From Cyndra.

I’m coming over after school.
From Clay, sent this morning. I smiled until it pulled at my face too much.

I went back downstairs and cleaned some more, taking it slowly. When it wasn’t quite a wreck, I stopped. Then I climbed the steps and went into the shower. The hot water made me feel stronger and scooped out simultaneously.

I kicked the dirty clothes under my bed and got dressed in an old T-shirt and battered jeans.

Janie came home from school. “You’re looking better.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“I’m going to go to the store, then. Need anything? I thought some sport drinks or something?”

“Okay. Clay’s coming over.”

“Good.” She leaned over, planting a gentle kiss on my forehead, like a blessing.

I went downstairs and out onto the porch. Shook out a cigarette and waited for Clay as I sat on the stoop. The cigarette made me feel sick instead of calmed. I pinched off the cherry and tucked it back into the pack.

A few minutes of waiting, watching little kids chasing each other around the duplexes. Then Clay appeared, his shuffle-lope quicker than normal as he came up the street.

I shook my hair into my face but held up a hand in greeting.

Clay waved back and crossed the scrub. I stood stiffly and shook his hand. “Hey.”

“Hey.” He studied me.

I held his gaze and took out the cigarette again to give my hands something to do. Put it back in the box. “You want to come inside?” I gestured at the door.

“Okay.”

Clay sat in the sprung recliner. I collapsed on the sofa.

“How many more days you gonna be out?” he asked.

“One more, I think. I’m sleeping a lot, is all.”

He gave me that wise-eyed once-over twice. “That’s probably because you have a concussion or something.”

I shrugged.

A short burst of air pushed past Clay’s teeth. Staccato, making a faint click, like he didn’t intend to do it, but was moved by anger or disgust.

My eyes jumped to his face.

Clay’s head was shaking slightly. His eyes, narrow and sharp. And shining. “You should have told me you were headed here. Hell, you should have told Janie. Or better yet, you shouldn’t have come home at all.”

“No point putting it off. Either way, it would have happened. Waiting would have only made it worse.”

“Maybe. But you still should have told us.”

“Right. Then you
wouldn’t
have worried.”

“Screw you.”

“Get in line.”

But there was no venom in my voice, and none in Clay’s, either. Just stress, and fatigue, and the sparks that are thrown off when you care about someone. The way a real family interacts around hurt feelings or disappointment. Like how me and Janie do. Or Clay and his mom.

Just expression and clearing the air, like brothers.

I sat up, pushing hair off my face.

“Sorry.” I met his eyes. “I guess I thought I’d call you when it was over.”

Clay smiled, a social cue of forgiveness, not humor. “Well, I know you didn’t want Janie to find you.”

“I didn’t want to be KO’d.” A real smile tugged at my face.

“See how all that violence-preparedness doesn’t work?” Clay asked.

“You’re right. Pacifism would work so much better.”

“Say what you want. Gandhi was badass.”

I flexed a hand and then squeezed it into a fist. “I could take him.”

Clay laughed and fell back in the chair. I sketched a short jab. “A quick pop on the nose.” I punched the air again. “How’s that for passive resistance, bitch?” I brought my elbow up slowly. “I call this one the No-More-Hunger Strike.” Pretended to grab a head, brought it in slow motion onto the elbow. Hissing a cheesy martial arts yell as I did.

Clay laughed so hard he started coughing. I was laughing too as I continued to pretend-beat-up Gandhi, adding more and more ridiculous moves and combinations, just to see Clay laughing like that.

After a while we were both laughing hard enough to gasp. Clay was holding his stomach, and I was holding my ribs. I had to dry my eyes.

I stood and went into the kitchen. Came back with sodas and held one out to Clay.

“Thanks. But I should probably get going.” Clay stood.

I followed him out onto the stoop. Handed him the soda again. “We’ll have it out here.”

We sat on the top step. Clay shoved me, hard. “What kind of dillweed beats up Gandhi?”

I held up my can in a mock toast to myself.

“Well, answer this burning question, Charm School,” Clay said, smiling. “Did Cyndra take you home or not? Because today she was hovering around your locker like she could make you appear by just standing there.”

My heart gave a stupid jump. “Yeah?”

“True.”

I couldn’t stop the smile that tugged at my mouth at the thought. I told Clay about it—about going to Michael’s house and being with her. How I wasn’t sure how she felt about me, but I sure as hell knew how she made
me
feel.

And I told him about Michael coming home. Confronting me, and the things he said about Cyndra. Then the parking lot and his obsession with me showing him my scar, paying me all that money. About Michael wanting to kill my dad.

And Clay, being Clay, saw something I didn’t. Put his finger on it and pressed, like a doctor diagnosing a dislocation. Or a break.

“He wanted you to go home. Michael did that to get you pissed off. To get you to that place where you would go home and face your dad.”

It fit. Like a jigsaw piece but where you can’t see the final image. The way Michael liked to pull people’s strings. LaShonda getting my file, Dwight and the bet and the fight. Cyndra . . .

“Okay,” I said, to show that I agreed with the idea. “But why?”

Clay shook his head. “Who knows? To get you to agree to kill your dad? Or something with Cesare? So Michael can tell some story about how you and Michael fought together somewhere. Or just because. To mess with you.”

“He does that, but that’s not what this is.” Calling it on instinct, not knowledge.

Down the street, Janie walked toward us. Walking with a boy. They play-shoved each other. The way he was turning toward her, carrying her bags, like he was performing for her. Wheedling. Like he was saying
Baby, please
with every move.

Janie was smiling. And she looked her age, for once. Not younger, like I usually see her. Not older, like she acted around me lately.

“Something else,” I said to Clay. “I think Michael wants everyone to think I’m dealing.” I explained about Nico and Spud and the realization of how my new clothes made me look.

“Maybe he’s trying to get this Cesare guy to come after you,” Clay said.

I shrugged. We fell quiet as Janie and her friend crossed the yard.

“This is Hunter,” Janie explained. “From school.” A little breathless and not quite looking at me.

“Hunter,” I said.

“Hey. I’m Clay, that’s Jason.” Trying to hide his smile at the way I was glaring at the kid.

“Hey.” Hunter nodded at us and had the good sense not to stare at my face or into my eyes. “Want me to take these inside for you, Jane?” He gave her that all-teeth grin.

“Okay,” Janie said, smiling and, honest to God, batting her eyelashes.

They eased past us on the steps.

“Stay downstairs,” I cautioned as the screen door creaked open.

Janie rolled her eyes at me before they disappeared inside.

Clay smiled. “Leave them alone, man. You’ve got enough to deal with.”

“My thoughts exactly. Which is why I’m not leaving them alone.”

Clay laughed and went down the steps. The fading sun was stealing its light from the sky.

I followed Clay to the edge of the scrub.

“Thanks for coming by,” I said. Threw a one-armed hug on him quick, before he could react or squeeze me back.

“One more day, then I’m expecting you on the walk to school. I was late yesterday,” he said, doing a good job of pretending nonchalance at my gesture.

“Get a clock, genius.”

“You’re my clock.”

I laughed as he walked away. Inside the unit, I interrupted Janie and Hunter saying good-bye by the back door. I pretended not to see them as I got another muffin.

Janie came back into the front room smiling a little, and she looked so happy I made myself smile back and not say anything I was thinking. Except for “Be careful.”

“I like him,” she said, shining like a spotlight.

We went upstairs. She told me about Hunter, and how he’d been flirting with her at school. And I told her a little about Cyndra, and about everything that had happened with Michael after the party. Why I had come home.

She frowned and said it was time to quit the job. I told her the same thing I told Clay, that I could ride it out a little longer.

She nodded, and I could feel it—how she knew I was trying to treat her like an adult about Hunter, so she was trying not to worry about what I said I could handle. I lay back on my bed and went to sleep as Janie messed around on the laptop.

The next morning, after Janie left, I went around the partition and turned on the light on her dresser. In the mirror, my face glared out. Janie’s treatment had worked wonders, yet the eye still looked bad. But not the worst. Not undoable.

Around noon, I heard the phone ring downstairs. Heavy feet made the stairs creak. My dad didn’t knock, just pushed the door open.

“You’re going to school tomorrow, or we’ll be reported to the truant officer or that bitch social worker.” His frozen eyes surveyed my face. “Write a note. Tell them you fell out of a pickup truck. I’ll sign it.”

I didn’t say anything. He walked into the room, kicked my bed. “Hear me?”

“Yes.” I tried to sink into the mattress.

He grunted and started tossing the room. My teeth clenched as he opened drawers, turned out the pockets of clothes, flipped pillows, and shook out books.

He found the twenty I kept stashed in the room as a decoy, and pocketed it. But he didn’t find the coffee can, and he didn’t find the laptop, either.

He left.

I started to think—to worry about the money I’d left in the old gym, and also worry that one day our luck would run out and he’d find the coffee can.

Eventually I sat up. Tore a page out of a notebook and wrote the note. “To Whom it May Concern: Jason Roberts was absent because he fell out of the back of a pickup.” I carried the note downstairs. Handed a pencil to my father.

He took it and slashed his signature at the bottom. Shoved it back at me.

I went back upstairs. Lay down and felt my stomach grumble. Started thinking again—wondering if Cyndra was still missing me or thinking about me at all. The image of her, standing against the rising sun by Michael’s pool, her hair a red-gold. Or waiting for me by my locker, like Clay had said. A dream, a fantasy.

Sitting downstairs in Michael’s house a week ago. Talking to Michael, who wanted to know about the rumors—which ones were true. What I’d really done. But he’d known. Known Trent. Known about Celia. Told LaShonda to copy my file.

His week was almost up. But now he had the gun and had met with Trent about something else. What did they have in common and what were they planning?

The use he had for me. Offering to kill my father or help me do it. Everyone thinking I was dealing drugs.

Cyndra’s stepfather. Was it what Michael said it was?

Questions knotted like tangled coils of razor wire.

Janie got home. “Cyndra was waiting for me at the bus stop after school. She sure looks like trouble.”

I sighed. “Trouble looks pretty good, then.”

Janie held out a note.

I was reaching for it before I could think, wondering if it would smell like her perfume.

It contained only one sentence:

Jason, I can explain myself.—C.

A lipstick print was underneath.

One of Cyndra’s unconsciously deep pronouncements:
I can explain myself.

Like she actually could. Like there was anything she could say that would explain sleeping with me in her boyfriend’s bed, and then pretending like it hadn’t happened after telling me he wouldn’t care.

I crumpled the note and tossed it at the trash. Janie picked it up and smoothed it out.

What had I expected? Concern? “Are you all right?” or “When are you coming back to school?” or “I miss you.” Little love heart doodles and gushy pronouncements.

I silently cursed myself for the fool I was.

Janie studied the lipstick print like it was an artist’s brushstrokes. She pursed her lips before stopping and gnawing on a finger instead.