Change of Heart (3 page)

“Hey, Billy,” I said. “Are you okay? How's your nose? Is it broken?”

No answer.

“I called you,” I said. “Didn't you get my message?”

Nothing.

“Come on, Billy. Talk to me.”

Instead, all I got was stony silence. He reminded me of Nick—which was weird because Billy is nothing like Nick. I crossed the room and shut off the TV. Billy clicked it back on. I stood in front of the screen to block his view.

“Leave me alone, Robyn,” he said.

“No way. You're my friend.”

“He stole her from me.”

I turned off the TV again, pried the remote from his hand, and sat down beside him.

“She likes him, Billy. I know it hurts, and I'm really sorry. ” I had told him that dozens of times already. “But you're making yourself crazy. You have to try to get over it.”

“But I love her.”

I knew how that felt. There's nothing worse than wanting to be with someone who doesn't want to be with you.

“Billy, the more you harass her, the worse you make it.”

“Harass her?” He looked hurt and confused.

“Morgan called me—”

“She said I was harassing her?”

“She says you've been phoning her nonstop. She says you follow her around. Billy, you attacked Sean.”

He hung his head.

“I know it was wrong,” he said. “I knew it even while I was doing it. But he gave me this look. And he said—” He broke off abruptly.

“He said what?”

“It doesn't matter.” His eyes glistened when he looked back up at me. “I couldn't help it, Robyn. I lost my temper.” I tried to remember the last time that had happened. Billy was good-natured, laid-back. I didn't think he
had
a temper. “I don't know what to do. I can't stop thinking about her. I just want to talk to her. But she won't take my calls. She won't even speak to me.”

“She wants you to leave her alone.”

“What am I going to do?”

I touched his arm. “Come on, Billy. You know Morgan. You know how she is once she makes up her mind about something. There's nothing you can do.”

I stayed for another hour and listened while Billy told me—again—about finding Morgan and Sean together that first time (“He was kissing her, Robyn, and he saw me. He looked right at me and he kept right on kissing her”) and about confronting Morgan (“She said, ‘I should have told you.' You know what that means, right, Robyn? It means she was seeing him while we were still together.”). He told me that all he wanted, all he had ever wanted, was to talk to her.

“If I could just explain to her how I feel—”

“Billy, it doesn't make any difference how you feel. Not about this.” I'd told him that over and over again, but he didn't listen. Not that I blamed him. I understood his pain and confusion a whole lot better than I understood why Morgan had dumped him.

“But I love her,” he said—again.

I sighed.

“You got suspended for three days, Billy. That's big trouble. The next step is getting expelled. You don't want that to happen, do you?”

He looked at me with liquid eyes. Finally he shook his head.

When I got up to leave, he said, “Is Dennis okay?”

“What?”

“Dennis. Sean didn't hassle him after I left, did he?”

“I don't think so.”

“Well, he'd better not,” Billy said fiercely. “Dennis is different, but he's not stupid. He's a good guy. He's out every single morning during migration season, picking up birds. He's smart, too. Way smarter than Sean. Even the professors are impressed by how much Dennis knows about birds.” He meant the two university professors who supported DARC, the Downtown Avian Rescue Club that Billy had founded. The club helped save injured migratory birds. According to Billy, Dennis was one of its most enthusiastic members.

“I don't think Sean would ever do anything to Dennis,” I said. “He was just in pain.”

Billy looked doubtful. “Sean Sloane isn't what Morgan thinks, Robyn,” he said. “He may be a good hockey player, but that doesn't make him a good guy. You should tell Morgan—”

I was tired of being in the middle. Morgan and Billy were my oldest and closest friends, but we never hung around together anymore, and I was always worrying what one of them would think if I was spotted with the other one.

“It's Morgan's life,” I said. “I'm not telling her anything.” I glanced at the essay on the couch beside him. “You want me to hand that in for you?”

He just shrugged. I reached across him, picked up the essay, and read the first paragraph.

“I'll put it in Ms. Carver's box for you.” No response. “And I'll bring you your homework assignments tomorrow, okay?” Nothing. “Billy?”

“Okay,” he said finally.

Morgan was waiting for me outside school the next morning.

“Did you talk to him?” she said.

I nodded.

“And? Is he going to leave me alone?”

“I don't know.”

“Why is everyone making this so hard for us?”

“Everyone?”

“Billy is harassing me. Tamara is harassing Sean.”

“She is?”

“She thinks she's a big deal because she hosts that lame teen show on TV,” Morgan said. “Now she's after him to do some stupid documentary. If you ask me, she's just trying to get him back. But it's not going to work.” She looked defiantly at me. Then she said, “You really should get to know him, Robyn. You'd like him.”

Like everyone else in my school, I knew
of
Sean. But I didn't actually know him. He was a senior, so he wasn't in any of my classes, and, to be honest, after Morgan started going out with him I had no interest in getting acquainted. Billy would have been so hurt if he'd seen me hanging out with Morgan and Sean. But Billy wasn't going to be at school for the next couple of days, and I was kind of curious to find out more about the guy who had stolen Morgan's heart.

“Come on,” Morgan said, looping her arm through mine. “I'll introduce you. You'll see what I mean.”

We trooped into school and up the stairs to the second floor, where Sean's locker was. It was hard to miss. Someone—not Sean, according to Morgan—had pasted a big gold star decorated with a hockey stick and a puck to the front of it. So far no one—not the janitorial staff, not the school administration, not even surly Mr. Dormer—had removed it, even though decorating the outside of locker doors was strictly against the rules.

Morgan came to an abrupt stop as soon as we rounded the corner. A crowd had gathered around the locker. Morgan stared at it for a moment before rushing to Sean's side.

“What happened?” she said.

My first guess, as I elbowed my way through the crowd, was that both a tornado and a paper shredder had slammed into his locker. The locker door was open, and the floor in front of it was covered with ripped and crumpled paper.

“Someone tore up all my notes,” Sean said. “And a major assignment that I was supposed to hand in today. And look.” He bent down and picked up a flash drive—well, what had been a flash drive. It looked as if someone had stomped on it with construction boots. “Every assignment I've ever done was on there.”

“What's going on here?” said a stern voice. Mr. Dormer. He had a knack for showing up where the action was.

Sean said that he had arrived at school to find that the lock had been cut off his locker—he showed it to Mr. Dormer—and that everything inside, except his textbooks, had been torn to shreds.

“Even the picture of my girlfriend,” he said, slipping an arm around Morgan, who went from looking indignant on his behalf to looking as if she were about to melt.

“But you have everything backed up on your computer at home, right, Sean?” she said.

Sean shook his head.

“My brothers and I share the computer.” Sean had two older brothers—Colin, who was still in school, and Kevin, who had graduated two years ago. “They're always fooling with my stuff, so I don't keep anything important on the hard drive.” He turned and sought out someone in the crowd—Colin. “Isn't that right?”

Colin looked down at the floor for a moment. “Yeah,” he said. “That's right.”

“All my assignments were on here.” Sean held out the mangled flash drive. “And now they're gone.”

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?” Mr. Dormer said.

Morgan avoided my eyes as she said, “I do.”

She and Sean followed Mr. Dormer to the office.

I caught up with Morgan in the library at lunchtime. There was a stack of books on the table in front of her. It looked like she was researching a biology assignment, but that didn't make sense. She wasn't taking biology this year.

“Why did you do that?” I said.

“Why did I do what?”

“Why did you tell Mr. Dormer that Billy vandalized Sean's locker? You don't know it was him. Besides, he's suspended. He's not even at school today.”

“Then how come the head janitor saw him here at seven thirty this morning?” Morgan said.

“He did?”

“Mr. Dormer checked with all the staff to see if anyone had seen anything. The head janitor saw Billy going down the stairs to one of the back exits.”

“He's sure it was Billy?”

Morgan nodded grimly.

“Did he see Billy vandalize Sean's locker?”

“No. But who else could it have been, Robyn? You saw the fight yesterday. And look at this.” She produced a crumpled envelope from her purse and handed it to me. “Go ahead. Open it.”

I pulled a sheet of paper from the envelope. It was a letter from Billy.

“When did he send this?”

“He didn't send it. He left it in my locker this morning, probably right before he trashed Sean's locker.”

“Are you sure?”

“It wasn't there yesterday when I left school,” Morgan said. “Sean has been getting phone calls, too. Someone has been calling him night and day. When he answers, all he hears is breathing. When he doesn't answer, the caller leaves a message telling him he's going to be sorry.”

“The caller? Are you saying it's Billy?”

“Of course it's Billy,” Morgan said.

“You've heard his voice? You know for a fact it's him?”

“The person always calls from a number that's listed as private. Sean tried calling back, but he couldn't get through. And the voice sounds weird, like, scrambled. But I know it's Billy. Who else would it be? And now he's trashed Sean's locker and wrecked all of Sean's notes. He destroyed a bio project that Sean was supposed to hand in today.” I glanced at the stack of books in front of Morgan. “His teacher is giving him an extension. I'm helping him get it done.”

Sean was a lucky guy. Morgan is a straight-A student.

“Billy better stop acting like a psycho,” Morgan said. “If he doesn't, he's going to end up in serious trouble.”

I was on my way out of school when I remembered Billy's history essay. I dashed back to the office. The place was deserted except for Ms. Arthurs, who was on the phone. She glanced at me. I told her I wanted to hand something in to Ms. Carver.