Bethany Caleb (9 page)

Chapter Seventeen

Up ahead, Bethany could see Shannon and her disciples. Her hand groped for the front pocket of her bag, slid inside. The metal was cool against her fingertips.

She sped up as much as she could in the crowded hallways.
Shannon was about five feet in front of her. She was going to do it. Still Bethany held back. She hadn’t done very well in the archery unit in gym class. Could she possibly miss with Shannon this close?

Then one of the on-duty police officers rounded the corner up ahead.

Bethany jerked her hand out of her backpack and ducked into the nearest bathroom. She closed herself into one of the stalls and sat on the toilet. Her heartbeat drummed in her ears.

Bethany leaned back and wiped the tears from her eyes.
The panels of the bathroom stall loomed over her, like walls of a cathedral inscribed with the sacred teachings of high school in graffiti. A piece of paper was taped to the back of the stall door. It read,

ABANDON ALL HOPE: Your life is meaningless anyway, why not end it?
All your dreams and hopes will never come true and like everything else you will be nothing, forgotten by the selfish people you call friends.

–a publi
c service announcement by Paul

Bethany almost smiled at the trueness of it.

She was a coward.

She had been a coward since the second she woke up this morning.
She was a coward for letting the boys in the back of the bus throw things at her. She was a coward for not standing up to Mrs. Greenbaum. She was a coward for ignoring Raina Sunderman. She was a coward for not talking to Mr. Peterson, who was only trying to help her. She was a coward for not talking to James about what was really on her mind. She was a coward for letting Shannon walk all over her and humiliate her. She was coward for not telling her parents anything.

Bethany sat in the bathroom for a long time, staring blankly at the graffiti on the walls.
She heard girls come in; some voices she recognized, some she did not, but all conversations were shallow and irrelevant.

Could any of those girls be depressed underneath their veil of perkiness?
Instead of placing herself inside of those girls, knowing she would be depressed if those were her only thoughts, Bethany saw the girls from outside. She was always outside. She never knew how it felt to gossip, to be carefree, to flirt openly with boys and go on dates and belong. She never belonged. The closest she came to belonging was with the group everyone called freaks. Even the freaks couldn’t accept her.

Even James.
Especially James. He couldn’t choose between hate and love, between her and Genn. He couldn’t deal with her depression, he couldn’t identify with her alienation from the perfect high school dream outsiders saw as they entered the cafeteria. The two long tables of happy, beautiful people who were worlds away from where she was.

The gun was warm in her hand.
She hadn’t realized she had taken it out, had been holding it on her lap as she stared at the ceiling. Now she looked at it, clicked off the safety. In the tiled bathroom, the click sounded much louder than it had when she’d tried it at home.

Two girls had been sitting in the corner for about fifteen minutes, smoking.
One of them heard. “What was that?” she asked.

Her friend spoke to the bathroom in general.
“Is there someone else in here?”

It took Bethany a few moments to find her voice.
“Yeah.”

“Have you been in here the whole time listening?” the second girl said.
Bethany heard her footsteps approach her stall.

“I—I haven’t been listening,” Bethany said, her voice very quiet.

“Yeah, right.
Who is that? Jody, you little rat, is that you?” The girl peered through the crack between the door and the stall panels. Bethany could see teased brown bangs and an eyeful of bright blue shadow. The girl’s eyes widened when she saw the gun, and she immediately began backing away.

“I haven’t been listening, I swear,” Bethany said.
 

“Let’s go,” the girl said to her friend, flicking her cigarette into the trash.
The other girl stubbed hers out in the sink and followed without question.

Bethany looked into the barrel of the gun, that black hole where her mind was.
Now the bathroom was completely empty. She was crying, terrible sobs that echoed against the tiles. She had to do it now, before those two girls told on her. She closed her eyes and saw police breaking into the stall, dragging her out. The students’ eyes as they took her away, fearful for themselves. They would never know that Bethany only wanted herself erased from the high school scenery.

When her eyes reopened, the black hole still stared her down.
If she didn’t do it now, she would never have a chance to do it. Her life would be hell after this. But the unblinking eye of the gun’s barrel continued to hold her gaze. Would she be able to see the bullet coming out? Would it hurt? What if she only brain-damaged herself?

She stared for longer than she knew.
Then the shaking of her hands broke the staring match, and Bethany put the gun in her mouth. The metal tasted sour in her mouth, and after a few minutes her jaw started to ache. Every other body part was shaking except for her trigger finger. That finger felt like stone, an enormous boulder she couldn’t move, an alien part of her body.

The bell rang for the end of class.
The sound was muffled by the bathroom walls. Bethany had been sitting here for about half an hour. She couldn’t hold the gun up anymore. More people started to come in, to peer under the stall doors to see if anyone was in there. She looked at the gun in her hand again, the barrel pointed away. She felt so tired.

Chapter
Eighteen

Bethany left the bathroom. The crowd of students enveloped her. The same on-duty police officer was roaming the hall again, but Bethany could only see the back of his head, walking away from her and the bathrooms. If that girl hadn’t been breaking a school rule herself, Bethany would be caught and suspended by now. Another example of being too lucky. Bethany wondered how many other students could get away with carrying a gun around school all day. James probably couldn’t.

Slowly Bethany began to notice how the other students weren’t hurrying to class.
Some of them were getting their coats out of their lockers. The school day was over. Bethany’s pace slowed to a trudge. By the time she got to her locker, the halls were mostly empty. She didn’t feel like riding the school bus now, anyway.

“Hey, Bethany!”

Her shoulders slumped, and she pressed her face against the inside of the locker door. James.

His boots slapped against the floor.
Why was he running? Did she look like she was going anywhere fast? He stopped a couple feet away.

“I’m glad I found you,” he said.

She said nothing, stared into the depths of her locker.

“I want to talk to you.” His eyes bored holes in the side of her face waiting for her answer.

“Then talk,” she said.
Her voice felt raw.

“Um...”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw James look around at the few remaining students. “Let’s go somewhere. Let’s go to McDonald’s.”

“Let’s not.”

He looked back at her. She was still staring into her locker. “Do you need to get anything else out of there?”

“My coat.”

James reached in and pulled her coat out, then reached over her head and tried to shut the locker door. Her head was in the way.

“You really want to talk here?”

“No.”

“Then... what do you want to do?”

She shut her locker door. She put her backpack on the ground. She accepted her coat from him and put it on. She picked up her bag and pulled the straps over her shoulders.

“Beth, I don’t get this–”

“Let’s walk,” she said, and turned toward the side entrance, started walking.

He followed.

“I guess what I wanted to say was,” James started, “I mean, are you mad about the art show thing?”

Bethany looked at the tiled floor as she walked.
Through the door, the floor turned to pavement, which turned to grass as they crossed the lawn. “Yes,” she said.

“I said I was sorry, I don’t know what else to tell you.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m just an angry, bitter person.”

“Are you gonna be mad at me forever?”

“Maybe,” Bethany said. They walked up to the crosswalk and waited for the crossing guard to let them cross. Bethany played with the silver ring on her finger.

“I mean, you know how it’s been.
Things sucked between us. I was afraid to talk to you. I didn’t think you’d even care, the way you were acting.”

“It’s fine,” Bethany said.
She almost stopped there, but forced herself to continue. “I guess I’m more mad because I thought Mr. Beck would have told me about it. I don’t want to feel like he’s lying when he compliments my work. I don’t want him to be fake to me. If I suck as an artist, I want him to tell me.”

“He doesn’t think you suck,” James said.
“And you don’t need him to tell you you’re a good artist.”

“I know I don’t need him to lie to me.”

“He’s not lying. You are a good artist.”

“No, I’m not.”

“You are! I mean, look at that still life you did. It looks almost like a photograph.”

The crossing guard waved them across.
“But that’s empty. Anyone can look at real things and paint them. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does mean something.
It means you’re a good artist.”

“A good technical artist.
I can’t paint how I feel, like you can.”

James was quiet.
They walked past the McDonald’s where Bethany had walked out on all her friends. She didn’t know what she could have done differently there. She was going to hate Genn no matter what.

Finally James said, “Don’t let yourself get all depressed over this.
It doesn’t mean anything.”

“It does mean something.
And I’m already depressed.”

“Well, I mean, don’t do that thing again.”

Bethany knew exactly what he was talking about. “What thing?” she said. She had to stop her lips from smiling.

“You know, that thing where you cut yourself.”

“Why not?” she said, pulling up her sleeves and looking at the scars there. “They’re beautiful.” The whiter than white skin was etched faintly along her inner arms. They weren’t meant to kill. She had cut lightly, more as an experiment in pain.

“Bethany, please.”

She rolled down her sleeves, then replied, “I won’t.”

“Good.”

She waited for a silence to settle in before she said, “I have a gun.”

James stopped walking.
“What?”

It pleased her that he was shocked.
Her lips spread into a smile. “You heard me.” She kept walking.

James ran up and grabbed her arm.
“Bethany, you’re not going to–”

“Let go,” she said.
She gave him her scariest look, which he ignored.

“Do you honestly have a gun?”

“Get your hand off me.”

“No,” he said.

“I have a gun,” she said.
Her voice no longer held any power. “Let me go.”

His hand remained on her arm.
“Where?”

“In my bag,” she said.

“Are you serious?”

“Yes.”

“You brought a gun to school?”

“Yes.
Now can you fucking let go of my arm?”

He took his hand away, ran it through his hair.
They were still on Main Street. A long line of yellow school buses passed.

“Bethany, what are you thinking?” he asked.
“I mean, I just don’t know what’s up with you.”

Bethany stared at the buses.
“I’m thinking I have no friends, and no one to talk to, and my life sucks.”

“You know that’s not true.
You have me.”

A w
isp of laughter escaped Bethany’s lips. “Yeah. I have you.”

“What’s funny about that?”

“I don’t know, maybe the fact that you’re dating Genn.”

“That doesn’t mean we’re not still friends.”

“Right.”

“Why do you think we’re not friends anymore?”

“I don’t know, because you don’t call me? We don’t hang out anymore?”

“And whose choice was that?
I seem to remember you walking out that time at McDonald’s. I never said anything.”

“Yeah, it’s all my fault.
Let me remember why I want to kill myself again?”

“Bethany...”

Finally she had the power back. He didn’t know what to say.

“Don’t say anything else, okay?
I don’t want to talk about it. Just walk me home.”

“Okay.”