The Bullet List (The Saving Bailey Trilogy, #1) (20 page)

“Me neither,” she says.

“I think you had better go now,” I say, and scoop Angel up.

“Put some clothes on
slut
,” she says as she turns for the door. She always has to say the one little thing that will send me off the edge.

“That was completely uncalled for,” I say, remaining patient. “Just because we aren’t best friends, doesn’t mean we have to be enemies.”

“Here,” she says, and throws a rectangular, black piece of plastic at me.

“I thought that if I gave you Miemah’s tape, you would feel better about the fact that she has yours. Have a good life, Bailey,” she says, and flips her hair.

I finger the tape, considering whether I should post it on YouTube or not.
Let the whole student body see Miemah’s hard shell cracked.

“What do you think Angel, should I do it?” I ask him. He licks my face in response. “You’re right; it would only give Miemah more of a reason to hate me.”

I take the tape with me to my bedroom, squeezing it like a stress ball, and open my sock drawer. The Bullet List is lonely in a spider-web ridden corner of my drawer, an odd-ball amongst a crowd of socks. I set the tape next to it so that it can have a friend, someone to share the spiders with. Next, I put on an extra-large T-shirt that reads “Fort Myers Beach,” and a pair of jean mini-shorts.

I comb my hair, and mess up the sheets on my bed before Mom comes home. By the time I have finished ruffling up the last pillow, she is coming through the door, groceries and cup of tea in her arms.

“Bailey?” she calls out.

“I’m in my room, Mother,” I call back.

“What are these?” she asks.

I walk into the kitchen to see her taking the saran wrap off of B.B.’s cookies. There is a pink little note on the plate. I can see it is addressed to her.

“Dear, Mrs. Sykes, please accept these cookies as a token of my family’s gratitude at you allowing Bailey to spend time with us. She is a real joy to be around, you should be very proud to have raised such a beautiful young lady, love, B.B.,” she reads aloud. “Who the fuck is B.B.?”

“Spencer’s mom,” I say.

“Who does she think she is, making cookies and telling me how I should be proud of you, as if I didn’t know it myself? I can bake just fine, thank you. What, does she think I don’t feed you?” she says, her temper flaring.

“Mom, it was a friendly gesture, we are practically neighbors,” I say, surprised by how poorly she is receiving the kind gift.

“We don’t need FUCKING hand-outs! We are not a couple of starving pigeons!” she yells.

“Mom, are you drunk?” I ask, too exasperated to argue with her.

“Drunk? Why no, I’m not! But that is exactly my problem! At least when I was drunk I didn’t feel so goddamn depressed!”

She takes a bite of one of the cookies, and spits it on the ground. “Trash!” she yells, and to my horror, lets the plate fall and crack on the floor, cookies falling underneath the oven and table.

“No!” I cry out in distress. I throw myself on the ground and quick as I can start gathering them into the protection of my arms. “She was just trying to be nice, Mom; she cares about me, cares about us,” I say.

“Niceee?” she taunts. “It is my job to care about you! Not some crazy Betty Crocker bitch!” She lifts her foot and I flinch, thinking she will kick me in the face. Instead she aggressively stomps the remaining cookies into the tile.

“Please, Mom,” I wail, getting my fingers stepped on as I try and save what is left of the cookies.

They are not just cookies; they are a symbol of hope, a symbol of love, and sympathy.
Mom could never comprehend that in her flipped mind, could never know how badly I needed these cookies to keep me from fading into the darkness again.

“Garbage! Filth! Throw this mess away!” she shrieks, and pulls at her hair.

I pick up the crumbs, my fingers swelling as red as chili peppers.

“You are so cruel!”

I retreat like an injured animal to the comfort of my bedroom. I let the cookie crumbs sprinkle from my hands, and lay my face against the cool wood of my floor, staring at the sad little bits of cookie. When Mom comes to my door, I kick it closed before she can apologize.

I hold my locket in my hands, press it against my forehead, my eyes closing around a swell of tears.

“Daddy,” I croak. “I don’t want to be strong anymore.”

Chapter 27

Angel’s fur is damp from my tears when I wake up on the floor, my body aching. The cookie crumbs are gone; Angel must have eaten them while I slept. The sun is up, but is masked by an ominous-looking wall of purple clouds.

Angel scratches at my door to be let out and empty his bladder. I reluctantly get up and open it for him. He races to the front door, running between Mom’s legs as she stirs a cup of coffee.

“Morning,” she says.

I open the refrigerator and take out a yogurt.

“I said, ‘Morning,’” she repeats.

“I heard you,” I say annoyed.

“I am sorry for crushing the cookies last night,” she says, as if she is doing me some big favor by apologizing. “Sweetie it breaks my heart seeing you lying on the floor like that, after crying yourself to sleep. I wanted to wake you up and hold you.”

“Then why do you keep doing it?” I say.

“I can’t help myself. I’m like a runaway train, I need someone to steer me back on the tracks,” she says and opens the yogurt for me, licking the top clean. “I don’t know how to function without my alcohol, it’s like my brain has been scrambled.”

“Don’t take it out on me, Mom,” I say simply, as if she could suddenly stop.

“I try not to, but it hasn’t worked yet.” She pulls me to her chest and showers me with kisses.

“You have to keep trying,” I say, and bury my face deep into her shoulder.

“Please don’t be so sad, Bailey. It is tearing me apart to see you like this always. What happened to my happy baby? The one who giggled at the very sound of my voice.”

She’s gone
, I think. I can’t pinpoint the time she died, but one day I just woke up, and the Earth felt stagnant. My burdens too heavy on my shoulders my feet sinking into soft mud, sucking me down like quick sand.

“That was before I knew how messed up the world is,” I say, and take my yogurt from her.

“It won’t always be like this,” she says.

“That is what everyone keeps saying, Mom, only try as I might, I can’t see the end of it all.”

Is this just the beginning, or is it finally the end? Please, let it be the end.
Sixteen and I am already fed up with life.

I eat my yogurt, pretending I can’t hear Mom speaking. I zone out, let my mind meander as the morning light brightens the small apartment and tells us both it is time to go to school and work.

“Are you read to go back?” Mom asks.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” I say and put on my boots.

My dad used to wear steel-toed boots whenever he would go out to beat somebody up. One day I asked him why, and he said, “Because then I can smash their heads like pumpkins.” As soon as he said it I was begging mom for my own pair. Soon after, Mom bought me a pink pair of cowgirl boots, hoping that would curtail my obsession for the steel-tipped ones, but it only made me yearn for them more. Now, I am allowed to wear leather boots, but under no circumstances can they be steel-toed. I wear my boots when I feel a fight in the air.

“Call me if anything happens, okay? I’ll be at work but I’ll haul ass to school if you are in trouble.”

“I should be fine,” I say, and drive my casted arm into the sleeve of my pea coat.

“I hope so,” she says.

I kiss her, then fling open the door, and beat feet to the bus before it can pull away without me. It is muggy out, warm, but I need my coat to make me feel safe – it holds me together like a straitjacket for a mental person.
Come to think of it, a straitjacket might feel really good right about now.

When the bus rolls to a stop, I lose myself in the wave of students crashing towards the door. I pull the hood of my jacket up, covering the staples that are clearly visible in the back of my head.

The whole school has watched my naked, broken body, they have heard my screams of pain, and now they look at me like I am an alien.
Who is this girl?
Their faces say.
Why should we give a damn about her?
And that’s it, they shouldn’t. No one should have had the desire to see the video, to see Miemah annihilate me, but I know that hasn’t stopped anyone. Heck, if I were them, I would want to see the video too, what is more exhilarating then watching a girl get the shit beat out of her?

Going to Latcher’s class is not even an option at this point. I make a beeline for the janitor’s closet on the second floor, but as I am pushing past patches of my peers, I spot Cecil. She is alone by her locker, I glare at her, and she averts her eyes. I have spotted my kill, and I go after it at top speed. She closes her locker and gets ready to make a break for it, but she is too slow.

“Where do you think you’re going?” I say.

“I’d like to have a word with you!” I shout, and grasp her neck in my hands, a task made difficult because of my broken arm. I push her up against the lockers until her feet no longer touch the ground. She thrashes around, her hands grabbing at the smooth metal of the lockers.

“Do you want me to snap your neck?” I ask her.

She shakes her head violently and chokes.

“Then listen very carefully to what I’m about to say.” I tighten my grip on her throat. I will not be pushed around anymore. Clad was right, they are human, their bones can break like chalk beneath my brutal fingers.

“Okay,” she chokes out.

“You are to get that tape from Miemah, you are the one who recorded me, and you are the one who is going to make things right. Is that clear?” I loosen my noose-tight grip on her neck, and she gasps. There is a large group of students encircling us.

“Yes,” she says, and I let her drop.

The crowd flees, as if they are scared I will wring their necks too.

I turn to leave but she calls after me, “Bailey, I’m sorry I recorded you. I didn’t want to, I was scared of Miemah, and everyone is scared of her.”

“I’ve heard that excuse before,” I say, and walk away.

When I come to the janitor’s closet, I try to open the door, but it is locked. I knock on it. Someone knocks back. I step backwards from the door shocked that someone has taken my refuge. The door swings open, and Clad pulls me in.

“Thank God,” I sigh. “I thought Miemah had found my hiding spot.”

“Nope, no Miemah here. But I did see her walking around the hallways; you have to keep an eye out for her.”

“No I don’t,” I say. “Because I do not plan on leaving this closet all day. Not until the last bell rings.”

“Why do you even bother coming?” he asks.

“Better than being at home with Mom,” I say.

“Has anyone mentioned the video yet?” he asks.

“Not a soul.”

“That’s a relief. Did you like our kiss?” he asks, twisting the edge of the cot with his lanky hands. His fingers are slim, and I can see the veins in them as he works at the flimsy mattress.

“I didn’t not like our kiss,” I say with a small smile.

Clad’s hands push into the mattress, deeper and deeper. I hear the soft sound of paper being crinkled, and then his hands leave the mattress altogether. I am suddenly disgusted with him for not bothering to throw away whatever he is storing. Something as small as a gum wrapper maybe, but still I abhor the deed.

“Ah, double negatives. In math two negatives make a positive, so I take it you enjoyed the kiss.”

“It was like kissing my brother,” I say. The closet suddenly feels too small for the both of us, and with the space my words are creating I have less and less room to move or breathe.
This must be what claustrophobics feel like.

“Oh great, my kiss reminded you of incest.” His hand flops over his knee like his wrist has turned to rubber. It is a slight gesture, but a defeated one nonetheless. I stare at him, breathe him in, my whole self taking in his Mexican poncho sweater, and khaki board shorts.

“I don’t know why I did it,” I confess, and sit down next to him.

“I know why. The music the dancing, it got your heart racing, made you light headed, and you weren’t thinking straight. Nobody in their right mind would kiss me,” he says sorrowfully.

I push a wavy strand of hair from his eyes. “The kiss was amazing; just wish it hadn’t come from a brother,” I say, and kiss his chin.

“Don’t tease me, Bailey.” His hand claws into the small of my back.

“I’m not,” I say and kiss him full on the lips.

“Why do you have to be so irresistible?” he asks, and bites my bottom lip.

I back off from him, just a few inches, but the impulsive move creates a vast distance between us. “I’m not trying to, it just happens.”

He picks at the sole of his checkered Vans sneakers

“The blood was gone when I came back to the school,” he says as if he is unloading a burden that has weighed heavily on his mind. “
All the evidence gone
.”

“Why are you just now telling me this?” I ask.

“I wanted to wait until you were well. Didn’t want to put too much on your mind at once.”

“Who do you think disposed of the evidence?”

“Probably Miemah herself,” he says flatly.

“She cleaned up my blood after she was through with me,” I say, my voice level. “I bet she wishes she could have had a body to bury too.”

I peel his fingers off me, and slide over to the wall.

“Bailey, she will be done now. I promise you are safe,” he says, and puts a hand on my knee. It flops the same way it did on his own knee, and I know it is because he doesn’t believe Miemah is finished.

“What if I’m not safe, Clad?” I ask, my voice crackling like I am talking through a crinkling piece of aluminum foil. “What if she won’t stop until I’m dead?”

“I won’t let her, okay? I will be watching over you always. She won’t get the chance.”

I run my fingers along my scalp, feel the staples, and stop my breathing. The scene from the locker room flashes in my mind, the memory sends shocks along my scalp, and I hear the snap of my arm, smell the blood flowing from my head. I forget to breathe. I keel over, my body making a sickening thud against the linoleum.

Clad cradles my head in his hand, pulls the itchy quilt over my shaking body.

“There, there,” he comforts me. “Don’t let her get into your head.”

“I can smell it,” I say. “All the blood, it’s filling my lungs like poison. Clad,
I can’t breathe
.”

I grab his arm the same way Ashten grabbed mine in the hospital,
terrified
.

“Feel my heart, Bailey,” he says, placing my hand over his heart. “Breathe with me.”

He exaggerates his breathing like a woman in the throes of labor. My breathing evens out, and I am left feeling extremely dizzy and disorientated.

“Just like that, you got it,” he says and lowers my head. “I have to go to class.”

He awkwardly hugs me.

“Don’t worry, I will be okay by myself,” I say, hoping I don’t make him feel guilty for leaving me.

I stay this way, alone, for hours, my mind flipping through topics like a jukebox through songs. I lift the quilt over my face, let my breathing push it up and down. This is how Jack’s spirit must have felt when the paramedics zipped his cold body up in a bag: wrapped up like a burrito, material too dark to see through.

When you die, can you still recognize where you are? Or do you lose all sense of being? Mom says your mind can’t think anymore. I believe that your mind still can think, but on a different level. The way a blind person can sometimes see gold lights, or outlines of objects. He must have known they were zipping him up; maybe it hurt when the tip of his beard got caught in the zipper.

Life is desolate. Though I am unable to grasp the idea of my mind slipping into a vortex of solitude; every fiber of my being knows that death can’t be any worse than being alive. If through the darkness I could still see bits of light, I would be at peace with myself.

I rock back and forth on the ground, under the blanket, trying to rest my mind. Allow the quilt to stay over my face, because I can see the light shining through the thin fabric.

I am guilty
. Guilty of bullying Cecil, and for what? She won’t get the tape for me. Then I will have to snap her neck, or drive a bullet into her skull.

The fear sweating off her like the release of a bad sickness taints my dreams. I see her walking down the halls, her head dramatically tilted, touching her left shoulder. Those fearful eyes wandering. I am staring at my hands, the hands of a farmer, maybe, not a dainty teen. Rough large hands creased with wrinkles, and gashed to the bone, nails as sharp as knives, dirty as rusted nails.

“I got the tape,” she says. Her eyes don’t blink, and they hold the same expression they did when I had my hands around her neck.

I wake with a start, fighting free from the quilt like it is a spider web. The bell is ringing, and students are going home for the day. I have slept through yet another day of school
. Only two more years to go
, I think forlornly.

I put my hood on as I walk out of the building to shield my eyes from the relentless sun. There is a chill in the air, but nothing is harsher than the Florida sun.

I walk past the small patch of woods, on the opposite side of the school where my Environment teacher once had the class pick up garbage. There is an old tire propped up against a tree, some of the populars, like Miemah and her crew, come to this spot after school to hang out. In fact, I once saw Trenton roosting on the tire smoking a cigarette.

I can’t blame Trenton for taking a liking to Miemah; after all she is a Spanish beauty. Dark brown hair and tight jeans that show off her curves. I do wonder how he got past the pure menace in her eyes. One would think that her ugly personality would take away her sparkly appeal, but maybe that is what he liked about her.

I toss my hoodie and bag on the couch. Mom is in the kitchen fixing an early supper. I whistle for Angel to greet me, but he doesn’t come.

“Mom, where is Angel?”

She is stirring a pot of stew, throwing in pinches of this spice and that spice, like she is Emeril Lagasse or something.

“Oh, your friends stopped by looking for you, and they offered to take him on a walk. They should be back soon.”