Thinking Straight (16 page)

“Oh, sister, I'm sorry. I wasn't clear. I didn't mean remorse for watching those two brothers for days until they finally exposed their true intentions to you. Though, of course, they didn't know you were following them. No, I meant remorse in a more general way, for the pain Leland must be feeling. Perhaps sympathy would have been a better word. Were you feeling that?”

I'm not sure whether it would have been more fun to watch Nate's face or Marie's. I'm glad I opted for Marie's, because over the course of Nate's last reply her expression changed about five times, from indignation to self-righteousness to anger to fear to something like faked dignity. And maybe a few more in there that I can't quite name.

“Don't be absurd, brother. Of course I felt sympathetic for his pain. But you can't say he shouldn't be feeling it. After all, if he hadn't tempted Ray, Ray would be alive today.”

“Now, that's an interesting connection you're drawing there. In essence, you're saying that something one person does or does not do can have a direct influence over another person committing a sin, breaking a rule—that sort of thing. Yes?”

“Well, couldn't it?”

“I suppose it could. Just like the way you were addressing Taylor a few minutes ago could have influenced him to break SafeZone. I know exactly what you're talking about. Begetting one sin with another. And I would have felt sympathy for Taylor in that case.”

He bites a huge hunk out of his sandwich and watches her as he chews. He's describing something not very unlike what he'd done to me yesterday. Though I doubt he'd meant to tempt me, as Marie certainly had. Is he aware? If so, he gives me no indication. He just keeps looking at Marie, who finally seems at a loss for words.

Eventually she sputters something like, “I do hope you're not accusing me of deliberately tempting Taylor to break SafeZone.”

Nate swallows, smiles broadly, and says, “I hope not, too.” And he takes another bite.

I haven't been paying any attention to Jessica through all of this, but now that Nate is done dissecting Marie's motives—or, at least, it appears she's going to do her best to avoid giving him any more opportunities—it occurs to me that Jessica's been entirely silent. And she's barely moved, looking mostly down at her plate. Why hasn't she been more interested in what was happening to her friend? Maybe because she couldn't help her? God knows I wouldn't want to take Nate on as a verbal adversary. But—not even to react? She must sense me looking at her, 'cause she raises her eyes, sees mine, and lowers hers again very quickly.

I'm not getting any writing done, or even any thinking about what I'm going to write, but I think this is the most fun I've had since I got here. And I owe it to the guy whose fault it is that I have to stand up tonight and read a Public Apology.

Wild. This place is wild. And Nate came back voluntarily?
Twice?

 

I hide in a corner again at afternoon break, trying to think. It isn't drizzling as much as this morning, but the grass is damp, and I've come down from that little high Nate had given me at lunch. I still have to do this thing tonight, and I still don't know how I'm going to carry it off.

Break is almost over when I notice Nate. I haven't been paying much attention to who was out on the grass, but he must have been working his way around the edge of the courtyard very slowly or I think I would have noticed him before he got to the fence. He's moving in a casual kind of way, plucking at something in one hand—grass blades, maybe—with his fingers. When he gets to the place where the chain-link fence meets the concrete wall of the building, he stands there staring out for a minute, for all I can tell at nothing in particular. But then he drops the grass bits, puts his hand on the fence, fingers curled around the wires, and then—how could this be?—there's something in his hand. There must be somebody around the wall, someone I can't see from where I'm sitting.

Well, well. I don't have a clue how I might use this, and I know the chances are good that if I try to use it against Nate, he'll still manage to best me somehow. But I file it away for the future, in case of need. He may have come to my rescue at lunch, and maybe I'll stop referring to him in my mind as Shorty, but he's hardly on the short list for Ty's Best Friend in this place. And John McAndrews doesn't seem to like him very much, for whatever that's worth.

Back inside, thinking of the task before me that I'll have to do once I'm in my room, I'm anxious for Contemplation time to arrive and yet wishing I could delay it indefinitely. Of course, this means time passes quickly and seems to take forever. But when Sean calls to the SafeZone kids that it's time to leave, I want to hold on to something and not let them drag me away. I'm the last to leave, and Sean seems like he's not sure whether he's allowed to look at me or not. I look at him, though. And I actually feel sorry for him.

So, no MI today. Just this other thing. This thing that doesn't have to be long. But—Christ. Where to start?

“Well, Ty,” I can almost hear Will say, “start by sitting at your desk.” So I do. The only things on it are a box of tissues, a lamp, a pad of paper, a couple of pens, and my Bible. I turn on the lamp. I don't need to blow my nose, and I'm not planning to think of Will in a way that'll cause me to need tissues, not at this moment. I'm not ready to pick up the pen or write on the paper. So I pick up the Bible.

At first I play drop the finger, which is just opening the Book at random, closing your eyes, and reading from wherever your finger lands. I do one or two of these, knowing I'm wasting time. But I do one more anyway. I land on the word
forgive,
in the middle of a verse that seems to have no relevance to me at the moment. But then, on impulse—or maybe just to waste more time—I look the word up in the concordance, along with other forms of it, like
forgiveness.
One reference reads, “For if indeed I have
f—
anything.” After recovering from what else
f
—might have stood for (the concordance uses only the first letter of the word you're looking up, for some reason), I open up to the reference in Paul's second letter to the Corinthians and read.

Ha! Jackpot. It's perfect.

I can do this. I'll use the concordance to help me find verses that fit my need. People do this all the time. As long as I don't try to twist the meaning of the scripture, there's nothing wrong with it.

By the time I'm done, I have quite the little speech ready. I almost can't wait to read it.

Almost.

It's time for dinner already, and I haven't spent my half hour thinking of Will. But he's been with me the whole time, and I promise him I'll think of him tonight, in bed. Okay, that might be a little dangerous, but I'll risk it.

Charles shows up just as I'm tucking my speech into the front of my Bible. He looks like shit, and I wish I could ask him what's wrong. He grabs his own Bible, and we go in to dinner together. I'm dying to ask where he's been, to tell him how Marie had been so concerned about him, but—maybe tomorrow, when I'm out of SafeZone.

Yes!

My mood is so good, relatively speaking anyway—and for the first time since I got here—that on the way to the dining hall I have to keep stopping myself from turning to Charles to talk to him, to tell him something funny, to get him to laugh or at least chuckle. To get him to respond to me, really. It's frustrating. But probably since it's the first time I've
wanted
to talk to him, it's the first time it hits me how quiet he is. How little he says. Now, I suppose this could be a kind of consideration; I can't reply, so he won't tempt me. But today I think there's more to it than that. It's like he's holding his breath. Holding something vital in. Maybe something he's afraid of, or ashamed of, or can't control. Or all of the above. And if he says something real, something that's got too much of himself in it, the dam will break.

All of a sudden I feel sorry for Charles.

It gets more intense during dinner. He sits with me, and I'm not sure why, because he doesn't eat anything. Okay, he has a glass of water. But that's it. It makes me feel weird, eating while he sips at his water, looking like death warmed over. I keep hoping someone will sit with us, someone like Dawn, who might make him account for himself. I mean, I can't very well ask him what he thinks he's doing.

But it's Hank who sits with us, with Sheldon in tow again. After a couple of ritualized greetings, Hank seems to take in that Charles isn't eating, but all he says is, “No dinner, Charles?”

“No.”

“Stomach upset?”

“Just don't feel like it, that's all.”

And that ends it. The talk from there goes into what job assignment Charles has this week, which is Library. Hank's doing Yard and Garden Detail, which he likes 'cause it's outside, but he's wondering if he might like Library. I'm trying to take in things that might be useful for my own future assignments, and Sheldon looks like he's not taking in anything but food. That, and whatever he sees with the furtive looks he keeps shooting around the room. Ye gods; how would the guy survive if he had to do what I have to do tonight? But I guess Leland survived it. At least, I haven't heard anything about him following Ray.

During Fellowship I decide to make Leland my mission. I want to see how he is in this environment. I leave Charles listening patiently to someone yammering on about some difference between one Gospel and another, and wander around the room a little. I see Monica—she's hard to miss—looking her usual surly self over in one corner. The other corners also hold kids looking like they want to avoid discussion, though only one other is wearing a yellow sticker. But no Leland.

I'd have expected him to seek the shelter of a corner, but since he isn't in one, I follow the walls instead; next best thing. Working my way around one clump of Fellowshippers I see a three-quarter shot of Marie from the back, and I nearly duck in my effort to avoid having her see me. I have to go further into the crowd to get around her and whoever she's talking to, and once I've done that I steal a glance back.

Christ. It's Leland. She's got him trapped. And he looks awful. And why not? She's the one who spied on him and Ray, who ratted on them.
She,
not Leland, is the one who killed Ray. Almost instinctively I look around for Nate; where is he when Leland needs him? Barring that, is there anyone else who could swoop in there and rescue him? Anyone who would even know to do that? Dawn! Whether she knows what's going on or not, she'd be a perfect buffer. Where is she?

I stand on tiptoes and scour the crowd, but to no avail. Turning back toward Leland I see he's turned his face away from Marie, and he's pressed against the wall. Walk away, man! I want to shout at him. And he sort of tries. He moves a few feet along the wall, hanging on to it for support, but she follows with him. He's out of SafeZone, so he could reply to her, but if he feels as bad as he looks, he probably doesn't have the emotional strength to keep up with her passive-aggressive banter. Or leave her in the dust, which is what I would do.

What I would do…. And what I
have
done, in fact, on one or two occasions.

Well, I guess it's up to me, then. I'll rescue him.

I ease my way through the crowd until I'm right behind her. Leland sees me, and it's like he's seen a life raft from his precarious hold on a piece of rough timber. Marie, seeing his attention focus elsewhere, turns. I smile at her. So sweetly. So charmingly. So falsely.

She blinks a few times before she says, “If it isn't brother Taylor. Where's your friend Nate? I thought you two traveled together.”

Now, this is the sort of thing I can imagine hearing from someone like her in a typical high school setting. Maybe middle school. But my point is, it isn't exactly Program dialogue. Everything we say to each other in here is supposed to be supportive, or constructive. Spiritually uplifting or spiritually coaching. But the sarcasm is still dripping from her comment. And she knows it.

I'm standing so close to her that I can see her eyes cloud with the realization that she's let one of her true colors show. And I see the nanosecond of panic as she does a mental grasp at something—anything—to recover from it.

“You seem like such good friends.” It's lame, and she knows it, but it's probably the best she can do. She's just lucky I can't speak.

I move over next to Leland and put my hand on his shoulder. We're allowed to do that, as long as others are around; it says so in the Booklet. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Marie is looking at me like she expects me to say something, but I just smile.

Finally Leland says, “Taylor, is it? I'm sorry, I've been a little out of it. Wait—you're Charles's roommate, aren't you?”

Unfortunately, Marie's found her voice again. “Yes. Now that poor Ray is gone. Taylor's the one who forgave Charles for interrupting his first Contemplation.”

Now, that's not exactly what I was forgiving him for. It went much deeper than that. She may or may not understand that, but if she does, then she's tempting me to retort. If not, her comment was shallow. And in either case, she's just twisted the knife she'd already planted in Leland's heart. So I throw her this look that I hope registers as “You are so pathetic.” I turn back to Leland, squeeze his shoulder once, and jerk my head in the direction of the exit door.