Interim (14 page)

He knew he had a problem. He lay in bed that night fantasizing about his next encounter with Regan. Tomorrow! It would happen tomorrow in that greasy space downstairs: an English paper, a beautiful girl, and . . .
joy
.

“Joy,” he said aloud, staring into the blackness of his ceiling.

He didn’t think he’d ever uttered the word, let alone experienced it. Perfect and complete happiness. The word felt strange in his mouth as he said it again—like he was learning it for the first time—sounding out a foreign feeling on his tongue. Swallowing it whole and hoping it filled his heart to the brim. He thought he’d glow—streams of light shooting out of his fingertips and toes, eyes and ears. He imagined that’s how joy felt inside one’s body—bright heat. Impossible-to-contain heat. A sort of radiant ecstasy. Possibly manic.

And that’s where the problem lay.

He shouldn’t be thinking about a girl or a happy feeling. He should be plotting his next move. He should be practicing at the gun range. He should be cultivating the feelings of hatred and revenge—the ones he feared were receding into that landfill place of the heart. The place that collects all the memories and emotions that don’t matter anymore.

“Get a grip,” he growled, fisting his sheets.

But his brain disobeyed, and with every forced image of Brandon, came Regan shoving her way in front of him. Blocking his view. Making Brandon unimportant. Making retribution unimportant. The anger ebbed slowly, further and further away until he succumbed to his temporary fate.

Only for tonight
, he told himself.

He closed his eyes and dipped into the dream. Regan tossed him the soccer ball.

“I don’t know how to play.” He wasn’t sure if he said it aloud or in his sleep.

“I’ll show you,” she replied.

“You’ll annihilate me.”

She grinned. “Most likely, but isn’t that what you want?”

***

I should tell an adult.

Regan stole down the school hallway to the office. Familiar mission. Brand new fear. He lied to her! He made her believe he wrote a bunch of crazy shit in a red notebook to help him manage his pain. Lies. His back betrayed him. His back told the truth: Strategic words to match an equally strategic plan. She thought back to that plan and all its fine-tuned details listed one by one. Careful. Calculated. Incontrovertible proof of his true nature. She ignored it because she wanted to. She wanted to believe his innocence instead.

Her eyes darted all around, praying for his absence. If she saw his face, she might back down. Not out of fear. Out of love, and that’s what frightened her the most—that she loved a monster.

“You promised a quick review before our quiz today,” Regan heard behind her. She turned around.

Casey stood with her arms crossed tightly over her chest.

“I’ve been here for half an hour looking for you.” Not an accusation. There was a wobble to her voice instead, and Regan noticed the slight quivering of her bottom lip.

“I’m sorry,” Regan offered.

“I . . . I waited for Ethan yesterday for an hour. He was supposed to pick me up,” Casey went on. “He forgot.”

“Casey . . .”

“I feel unimportant to the people in my life who are supposed to feel like I’m important to them,” she cried softly.

It was so unlike Casey to show that kind of emotion. She didn’t cry often. All that stopped after her parents divorced.

“You
are
important to me,” Regan replied. “I just completely spaced about the review. We have time, though. Come on. Let’s go to a study room in the media center.”

“No.”

“But we have time,” Regan argued.

“No.”

Regan sighed and glimpsed the office doors. The image of large question marks appeared as if by magic, written in red, one on each door. She squeezed her eyes tightly then opened them again. The marks disappeared. The question remained:
Are you sure?

Waffling. So unattractive. The sure sign of a weak individual. No absolutes. No moral code. No direction. Nothing to live by, to live for. She disgusted herself.

“What do you want me to do, Casey?” she snapped. Total accident.

“CARE ABOUT ME!”

Regan jumped. Several students stopped and stared. A knock-down drag-out fight wouldn’t be a bad way to spice up a dull Wednesday morning. They hung around just in case the argument escalated. After all, a girl fight? Who passes on that?

“I do care about you,” Regan whispered. She shot nasty looks at the frozen students, but they didn’t budge.

“You don’t act like it,” Casey replied. “Not lately. You act like I’m some afterthought.”

“You’ve never been an afterthought to me.”

“Really?”

“Honestly. I just forgot about studying. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings.”

“My grades are important to me!” Casey screamed.

“I know.”

“You don’t have to care about that, but you should care about wasting my time!”

“Casey, I didn’t mean to waste your time.”

“It’s so offensive and rude and unacceptable!”

“I realize that . . .”

“I would never waste your time! I would never disregard you!”

“Casey . . .”

“You’re a bullshit friend right now, Regan!”

Regan bristled. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.”

“I made a mistake,” Regan said slowly.

“No. We’re not just talking about one mistake here,” Casey replied. “You avoid my calls. You act like it’s a big fucking inconvenience to talk to me. We NEVER hang out anymore! Where have you been? Where do you go? You got some other best friend I don’t know about?”

“I don’t have any other best friend,” Regan said.
One’s enough.

“Then where are you? What’s going on with you? Why do I feel like you don’t wanna be my friend anymore?” Casey demanded.

Regan swept the hallway with her eyes. “Can we talk about this privately?”

“I don’t care who hears.”

“I do. It’s none of their business,” Regan replied.

“You should have thought about that when you left me high and dry this morning. Maybe they need to know what to expect from you.”

“I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know these people.” Regan glanced at the eavesdroppers. “Go away! We’re not, like, gonna claw each other. Sorry to disappoint.”

A few grumbles, but the students broke up once they discovered there’d be no full-on cat fight.

Regan exhaled slowly and turned to Casey. “I love you. You’re my best friend. I know I’ve been spacey and weird lately, and I’m sorry. I’m not trying to avoid you. I’m just going through some stuff right now that I can’t talk about.”

Casey reared back, hurt. “We share everything,” she whispered.

“I know,” Regan replied. She wished she hadn’t added that last part.

Silence.

Regan glimpsed the office doors once more, trying to muster her earlier determination. She couldn’t.

“Once you start keeping things from me, everything changes,” Casey said.

Regan searched for a lie to appease her friend.

“I’m having some issues with my body. I’ve never talked to anyone about it.” The words shocked her because they were true.

“Huh?”

“I’m self-conscious about my boobs.”

“Are you serious right now?” Casey asked. “
That’s
why you’ve been acting all weird?
That’s
why you’ve been avoiding me?”

Regan never told a soul that she wrapped her breasts for soccer, and she really hated having to reveal it to Casey just to placate her. Why couldn’t she think of a lie? She was supposed to tell her friend a lie!

“I tape them down,” she whispered. “For soccer. I have to. They get in the way. I hate them. Always have. I’m self-conscious about them all the time. You think that’s stupid, don’t you? That I should be happy to have these things.”

Casey shook her head. “I don’t think it sounds stupid. I am a little confused, though. How does one tape down boobs?”

Regan sighed. “I wrap them really tightly with a body bandage. Like a compression bandage.”

“Oh my God,” Casey whispered. “Regan, that can’t be good for your boobs.”

“What do you mean?”

“Smashing them down like that.”

“Well, what else am I supposed to do?” Regan huffed.

The entire conversation was absurd. She should be in the office right now talking to the principal! Why was Jeremy suddenly unimportant? Because she knew everyone was safe until April? That bought her time to have a ludicrous discussion with her friend about breasts?
Get your priorities in order, Regan, for fuck’s sake.

“I don’t know,” Casey replied.

“I don’t talk about it with anyone because it’s embarrassing. It’s enough I have to hear it from my mom all the time: ‘Where’d you get those tatas, Regan?’”

Casey’s mouth dropped open.

“Yeah,” Regan said in answer to her friend’s unspoken question. “She seriously says tatas.”

“OMG.”

Regan nodded.

“It’s obviously upsetting to you, and I get it,” Casey began, “but I’d kill for your boobs, Regan.”

“Not if they got in the way of something you really loved, you wouldn’t,” Regan replied.

“Hmmm. But you do all that running around,” Casey thought out loud. “Like, we’re talking tons of burned calories.”

Regan chuckled. “I know, right? I shouldn’t have anything going on up here.”

Casey crinkled her brows, and then her face lit up. “I read an article in
Seventeen
or somewhere that girls who have big boobs produce more progesterone than estrogen in their bodies.”

Regan blinked. “And what am I supposed to do with that?”

Casey shrugged. “I don’t know. Can you take something to even everything out?”

Regan laughed. “I don’t know. But thanks for letting me know my hormones are all out of wack.”

Casey chewed her lip in thought. “I don’t think that’s what the article was saying.”

Regan grunted.

“You’ll grow into them. It’ll be amazing. Just give yourself, like, five more years.”

Casey’s hopeful look triggered the button, and Regan couldn’t contain her reaction. She burst into a fit of giggles.

“Where are you getting five years?” she cackled. “So random.”

Casey giggled, too. “I don’t know. It sounded good.”

The girls laughed as they walked together to their lockers.

“I really am sorry,” Regan said finally, watching Casey empty her book bag.

“I know you are.”

“Forgive me?”

“Regan, I can’t stay mad at you if I tried,” Casey replied. “But you can’t be all wrapped up in your problems.” She paused with a grin, waiting for Regan’s reaction.

Regan smirked. “You always were the clever one.”

Casey laughed. “Come on, you know that was good.”

“I’m not denying it. Now stop making fun of me,” Regan said.

Casey draped her arm over Regan’s shoulder. “Oh, Regan, you know I love you and your big boobs. We’ll work it out. Somehow.”

They walked, arms wrapped around each other, to first period. She was almost in the clear, having avoided Jeremy all morning. She would go to the office during lunch. That’s what she decided. Plus, the morning hours would allow her time to think of the right words to say—maybe even fashion some in his defense. Though she knew his plan was wrong, she still felt sorry for him. She still understood on some level why he believed it was the right thing to do.

His face flashed into view, and the memory of his naked back along with it. There they were: The words. The motto. Something to live by. To live for.
Let them be like chaff before the wind.

She cursed her ill luck. She was almost safely inside the classroom! But she couldn’t escape the words now. Or him. Their eyes met. Hers were the size of saucers. Dead giveaway. His eyes narrowed. He knew she flip-flopped.