Last Seen Leaving (21 page)

 

EIGHTEEN

NEEDLES STABBED AT
my tear ducts, my vision a whorl of light and color.
What had I been thinking?
How could I have been so stupid as to expect that Micah would just take my little announcement in stride? Of course he'd freaked out—I'd lied to him for
years
.

I hadn't left myself enough time to collect my books, so I trudged to my first class empty-handed and stared at the board for fifty-five minutes without hearing a word of Mr. Pierce's algebraic musings. Could my life get any worse? It felt like I'd finally hit an iceberg that had been in front of me forever, but which I'd been too stupid to take seriously. Every day I was finding out things about January that I'd never known, things that had been there beneath the surface all along, but which I'd managed not to see; now I'd blithely steered myself into the first real fight I'd ever had with Micah, thanks to the same reluctance to recognize what was right in front of me. What if he couldn't get over it? What would I do without my best friend?
Either
of my best friends?

Micah avoided me the rest of the day and didn't respond to the text messages I sent, apologizing some more and asking if we could talk. Even though he wasn't speaking with
me
, however, it appeared he was in communication with just about everyone else at Riverside. No fewer than three people approached me in the hall to confirm the rumors going around, and I struggled to look okay with the casual invasion of my privacy. Even Mason Collier, asshelmet extraordinaire, wanted to let me know how open-minded he could be.

“I've got a cousin who's gay,” he confided, kind of like it was a big secret he was sharing because I might understand. “He's actually pretty cool. Really funny. But you guys are always funny, I guess.”

Then he waited until I obliged his perspective with a humorous remark, while inside I groaned and died a little. I had cousins, too, and I wondered if this was the sort of thing they were going to say to
their
gay friends when they found out about me. And how funny was I going to have to be in order to fit in, anyway?

To my surprise, Tiana approached me after fifth period and gave me a hug. “I heard the news—obviously—and I'm totally proud of you, Flynn. I know you didn't tell me, personally, but still. It's a really big deal, and I know it's probably scary, so I wanted to make sure I said that I support you and that I'm happy for you.”

“I'm glad somebody is,” I mumbled.

“Yeah, well.” She didn't need me to spell the reference out for her. “He's freaking out, but you know Micah: Shoot first, ask questions later.”

“You think he'll get around to asking questions?”

“Of course he will, dumbass! You guys have been best friends since you were zygotes—he just needs a minute to get used to it.”

“He was really pissed off, though.” I could feel my throat swelling up, moisture beginning to glaze my eyes, and my face heated with embarrassment. Ti was making it sound like it was no big deal, but she hadn't been there; she hadn't seen the look on Micah's face when he told me he didn't know who I was anymore.

“He's not
pissed
, he's just…” Tiana sighed. “You have to understand that he kinda thinks of the two of you as the dynamic duo or something. It's nerdy and pathetic, in a totally adorable way, but that's my boyfriend.” She tossed up her hands, resigned to her fate. “He's confused right now, and he's not sure how to make sense of it. You being different makes
him
feel different, and he's … scared.”

“Scared of me?”

“Scared of
life
.” Tiana gave me such a serious look that I finally realized she'd also heard the news about January. “I mean, aren't we all? Just a little?”

*   *   *

By the end of the day, I'd made up my mind. My coming out might not have been the heartwarming Very Special Episode that TV shows made the experience out to be, but the fact was that it was behind me now. Micah had saved me the trouble of having to repeat it to everyone I knew at school, and my parents were sure to tell my grandparents and all other assorted relations, and that meant the hard work was effectively over. It hadn't been easy, and the shit was far from done hitting the fan, but at least the truth was out in the open.

Having accomplished that much, it still left one unresolved problem to deal with: January's mysterious pregnancy. Though I didn't want to implicate Jonathan Walker without something real to back it up, I wasn't just going to let it drop, either. If he was the father, he wasn't likely to confess, but there was one person I could think of who might already know the truth.

I prevailed upon Mason for another ride after school, and he spent most of it rather nervously telling me more about how comfortable he was around gay people—paradoxically proving the opposite. He kept sneaking glances at me when he thought I wasn't looking, and finally fell silent. When he spoke again, he cleared his throat first. “Uh, look, just to be totally clear, I'm not a homo or anything.”

“Sorry?” It came so out of left field I wasn't sure how to respond.

“I mean, I'm not giving you a ride because I'm into you, or anything. I'm just trying to be cool.” Judging from his tone, he seemed to feel the importance of this distinction could not be overstated. “Like I said, I don't have a problem with gay guys, but I'm not one, so … you know. Don't get any ideas or whatever.”

“Ideas about what?”

He rolled his eyes impatiently. “About
me
. I like girls, okay?”

“No one said you didn't,” I pointed out with growing irritation.

“Right.” He was firm. “Just so we're clear.”

“We're clear,” I assured him coldly. He was such an egotist he couldn't even entertain the possibility that I wasn't attracted to him—and although he wasn't exactly hard on the eyes, Mason Collier, with his Bieber-inspired wardrobe and douche-inspired personality, fell somewhere below a wax dummy of Jack the Ripper on my list of Guys I Might Want to Date. His car then came to a stop outside the gates of the Dumas Academy, and I disembarked with a friendly—but not
too
friendly, lest he think I was getting “ideas”—good-bye.

This time I found Reiko sitting at the back of the auditorium, quietly drawing on the top sheet of a high-quality sketchpad, her hands moving with careful, confident strokes across the heavy paper. Arranged beside her were a collection of professional-looking colored pencils and a lumpy gray eraser that resembled a wad of chewed-up food. Near the apron of the stage, Cedric Hoffman stood, offering nebulous directions to a pair of scowling actors. “Cléante, I'm not believing that you
love
Angelique. Be more
in the moment
.”

“But I don't even understand the script!” the actor playing Cléante snapped.

“That's not the point,” Cedric answered in his calm, airy way. “The audience won't understand it, either. You have to make them
feel
it.”

I rolled my eyes, and interrupted Reiko's concentration. “Hey. Um … I need to speak to you.”

She looked up. Her eyes were swollen, her face blotchy from crying. When she recognized me, she emitted a sigh and said, tiredly, “I thought I made it really clear that I can't tell you anything.”

“You did.” I crossed my arms over my chest, trying not to be moved by her obvious grief. The local media had been relentless that week, salivating over descriptions of duct tape and bloody clothes, and January's smiling picture had been making hourly appearances above block-letter captions reading
PRESUMED DEAD
. “That was before, though, when you thought she'd run away because I didn't want to go to a dance with her.”

Her mouth twisted unhappily. “Yeah, well. I guess I was wrong. If that's what you wanted to hear, there you go. You're not the reason she disappeared; you're just part of the reason she felt so
alone
all the time.”

“That's not fair,” I said, annoyed. “
She
shut
me
out—not the other way around. I told you that.”

“Fine.” Her commitment to arguing the point seemed to have drained away, and she uttered the word as if she were truly willing to concede the matter.

She returned to her sketch, pointedly tuning me out as she selected a pencil and applied it to the paper with short, deft strokes, angling the pad so I couldn't see what she was working on. A little louder, I stated, “That's not what I came all the way out here for. There's something I need to ask you.”

“Excuse me.” The interruption, peremptory and reproachful, had come from Cedric Hoffman. “I hope our little rehearsal here isn't interfering with your conversation.”

I turned around, and when the man saw my face, his expression shifted from irritation to surprise to some unfriendliness that I couldn't quite read, his lips folding together into a thin, flat line. It was clear that he recognized me, and he didn't seem particularly thrilled to renew the acquaintance. I didn't have time to puzzle about it, though, because Reiko thrust her sketchpad down and got to her feet, shoving past me and heading for the door to the lobby. Before I took off after her, I glanced down at what she'd been working on and almost gasped; it was a portrait of January, so accurately detailed that its realism startled me. It was hard to believe a person could produce something so exact by hand; Reiko's talent was humbling.

She was ready for me when I emerged into the lobby, Cedric's glare still burning holes in my back like a surgical laser, and as the door shut behind me she hissed, “I've already told you twice that I've got nothing to say to you—”

“I'm aware of that,” I cut her off disdainfully. “You said you couldn't tell me anything because ‘there are rules.' What does that mean? Rules about what?”

She blew out air, her brow knitted, like she was trying to decide if she could even tell me enough to answer the question. “I'm a peer counselor,” she said finally, her tone clipped and resentful. “I got to know January because she came to see me about … stuff she was going through, okay? Part of being involved in the counseling program means I can't just go blabbing things that people tell me in confidence. January came to me because she needed someone to listen, who wouldn't judge or spread her private business all over school. I gave my word, okay?”

“Well, she might be dead now.” The statement took me by surprise, even as it came out of my mouth. It was the first time I'd really acknowledged it aloud, and it felt like someone had just wiped their feet on my soul. “So your secrecy isn't helping her any.”

“It doesn't matter.” The pink-haired girl was resolute, and it was my own composure that was beginning to crumble. I'd been on the verge of an embarrassing meltdown since my argument with Micah that morning, and once again my chest grew tight as I tried to form my next question.

“Was she … was it rape?” I asked in a strained voice. The word came out with difficulty, disgorged painfully from my heart, and I felt my hands begin to tremble. It had been hard to picture January cheating on me, impossible to imagine her seducing her stepfather, but this …

“I can't tell you that,” Reiko whispered, but confirmation was written in the stricken rigidity of her expression.

“Oh, fuck, it's true.” The sudden distance, the lying, the distress; it made sense.

“You should go,” she said thickly, starting past me for the door to the theater. “I shouldn't have said anything. I should've told you to fuck off! What is wrong with me?”

I grabbed her arm. “Why didn't you go to the police?”

“January didn't want to. She hated the thought of everybody knowing. I told her … I told her the guy belonged behind bars, but she refused to come forward, and there was nothing I could do.”

“You could've gone to them yourself!” I practically shouted, aghast at the thought of what she was telling me, trying desperately not to picture January being …
attacked
. “Fuck your
confidentiality
! Don't you have an obligation to report a
crime
?” Reiko struggled against my grip, but I held firm, outrage building like a feedback loop. “January was raped, and you're letting the guy get away with it because you ‘gave your word'?”

“
Fuck you!
” she screamed, striking against me with more strength than I would have thought she possessed. I stumbled back as her face twisted up with tears. “You have no idea what it's like! How
dehumanizing
it is, how it feels to have everyone look at you afterward! And God help you if the guy who did it was popular, or an athlete or something.” She must have seen the comprehension dawning in my eyes, because she let out a sharp, caustic laugh. “Yeah. Me too. Why do you think my parents took me out of my old school and moved here? I made the mistake of getting raped by a lacrosse player, and when I reported it, I immediately became the town slut. The town
liar
. A psychopathic whore who just wanted attention. ‘She totally wanted it!' ‘It was probably a pity fuck, and she just said it was rape to get revenge!' ‘Boys will be boys!'” She spat the words out, pain glimmering in her eyes. “Even the friends who believed me stopped hanging out with me, because suddenly I was a liability—a social leper. How could I tell January that was worth it?”

“I'm sorry,” I said sincerely. “But, look, it's just … it's not
right
. I get that she didn't want to go through all of that, but it's crazy to stick by your promise now! This guy might have killed her, Reiko, and he can't just get away with it! He
can't
. January would never have wanted that, either.” I knew that as surely as I knew anything. January would want her rapist to pay the price—he
deserved
to pay—and someone damn well had to see that he did.