The Debt 4 (5 page)

Raven felt her blood pressure rising
dramatically.
 
“I don’t think my
family should be subjected to the spotlight.
 
They never signed on to any of this.”

“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Kurt said,
“unless, that is, one of them has something to hide.”

Jake looked at Raven for the first
time.
 
“I can tell you’re uncomfortable
with this idea,” he said, his brown eyes searching hers for answers.
 
“You can tell us what it’s about,
Raven.
 
You can trust us.”

She wanted to snort, throw up her hands,
laugh like a hyena.
 

Trust Kurt?
 
Trust that snake?
 
Didn’t Jake realize that his best friend
and most trusted confidant was a totally classless jerk?

But no, he didn’t realize that and she
wasn’t about to tell him.
 
Instead,
she just smiled.
 
“I’m only worried
about inviting the spotlight into their lives without even asking them if
they’re okay with it.
 
It’s one
thing for me to make that decision for myself, and quite another to make it for
them.”

It sounded like a good reason, but the
truth was far more complicated and darker than that.
 
If only she could have trusted Kurt, or
if she and Jake were alone—maybe she could have tried to explain it to
him.

But she couldn’t trust Kurt and they
weren’t alone.
 
She had to make
things up, make her reservations about the idea sound legitimate.

“Look,” Jake said as he came over,
grabbing Raven’s hand and staring into her eyes.
 
“I know this feels scary and
overwhelming for you.
 
But this is
exactly what you signed up for when you told me you wanted to help.
 
Well I accepted your help and now you
need to come through for me.”

There it was again—Jake’s not too
subtle hint that this entire relationship was nothing but a forgery, a copy of
the real thing.
 
The anger
immediately welled up inside Raven’s chest, as if she was being stuck with a
red-hot knife.

“So putting my family into the media
spotlight is the only way I can help you now?” she said, her voice taking on a
shrill quality.
 
From the corner of
her eye, she noticed that Kurt was smirking.

He
was loving
every minute of this, putting her on the spot and making her look bad.

“It’s not the only way,” Jake said, his
voice still calm.
 
“But it’s the
best way.”

 
“You can’t ask me to drag my family into
this.”

“I’m not going to force you to do anything,”
he said, taking his hand away, his mouth tightening into a straight line.
 
“If you don’t want to do it, we won’t do
it.”

Kurt’s smirk widened.
 
“Hey,” he said, shrugging.
 
“Not everyone’s cut out for this sort of
thing.”

Raven glared at the arrogant manager.
 
“Maybe not all of us are comfortable
pimping out friends and family just to make a publicity stunt look good.”

“I didn’t make the rules,” Kurt
said.
 
“I just play by them.”

“She doesn’t want to do it,” Jake
said.
 
“Next idea, please.”
 
But his face was a mask of
disappointment.
 

Raven was frustrated too.
 
She was scared of why her parents had
been calling in the first place.
 
It
had been years since they’d even tried to make contact.
 
Was it because they’d seen her on the
news or something else?
 
Anything
she tried to conjure up to explain their phone call only made her feel more
anxious.

When she thought about going back home,
it made her almost physically ill.
 

Kurt and Jake were throwing out new ideas
now, ideas about interviews on multimedia platforms, town hall forums, Jake
apologizing and then starting a national anti-bullying foundation where he
would donate millions to charity.

Each new idea seemed more ridiculous and
transparent than the last.

Meanwhile, Raven stood there, thinking and
thinking about what had been presented to her.
 
A chance to go home,
with Jake, and tell her story in her own way.
 
A chance to face her demons head on, to
face down the bullies, the cruel people that had lied and hurt and tormented
her.

As much as she distrusted Kurt’s motives,
he’d possibly come up with the one scenario that could give her what she’d
always been searching for—closure, vindication.

Of course, this was where it had all been
leading the whole time, Raven realized, as her heart rate accelerated.
 
A jolt of energy ran through her body.

She needed to go back home.
 
She needed to do it just as
much—no, more even—then Jake needed it for his own publicity
reasons.

“Okay,” she said softly, “I’ll do it.”

“Huh?” Jake said, glancing at her.
 
“You’ll do what?”

Kurt put his empty beer down and folded
his arms, a tiny smirk playing on his lips.
 
“Please enlighten us,” he said.
 
“What are you willing to do, exactly?”

“I’ll go home, with Jake, just like you
said.”

“What about all that stuff you were
saying about not wanting to put your family in the spotlight?” Jake asked her,
his eyes suspicious.

“Of course I need to check with them
first,” Raven said.
 
“But if they’re
okay with it then so am I.”

“Are you sure?” Jake asked, his
expression deadly serious.
 
“Because
you can’t do this halfway.
 
We need
to know that you’ll go through with it no matter what.”

“I’ll try,” she said.
 
“I’ll do the best I can, but…there are
issues between me and my family.”

“Issues?” Kurt asked innocently.
 
“Like what?”

She shot him a look.
 
“Don’t worry about it.
 
I’ll handle my own business when it
comes to them.”

Kurt put his hands up.
 
“I didn’t mean any harm.
 
Just a question.”

“You need to chill out,” Jake told her
quietly, but his voice was firm.

“I am chilled out,” she whispered.
 
“Just tell your nosy friend to lay off
me for a minute.”

Jake shook his head.
 
“Why don’t we call it a night?” he
said.
 
“You obviously need more
downtime, and you can call your folks back and let them know we’ll be visiting them.”
 
He stretched his muscular arms up in the
air.
 
“Come on, Kurt.
 
Let’s leave the lady alone for a bit.”

Kurt chuckled as he exited, brushing past
her, giving her a sly grin.
 
“Talk
soon,” he said under his breath.

Raven watched him go, practically
shooting daggers at his back as he left.
 
Jake turned once to look at her on his way out the door.
 

“You need to get a hold of yourself,” he
said, his dark eyes completely without empathy.
 
“This isn’t going to get any easier, and
you promised me I could trust you.”

And then they were gone and she was alone
again.

***

Some time passed before Raven could get
up the nerve to call her parents back.
 
She’d broken out in a cold sweat, and her heart was racing.
 
She felt like something awful was going
to happen, like she was about to die.

Just
calm down, Raven.
 
They’re you’re
parents, not executioners.

Or maybe it’s Danny calling from their
house

She couldn’t possibly imagine why her
older brother Danny would be calling her from her parents’ house, though.
 
It had to have been one of her parents.

They hadn’t left a message, but still…

As she hit redial on her cell phone,
sitting on the couch, curled up in what was nearly a fetal position, Raven
wondered if maybe they’d somehow accidentally called her.

No, that was really impossible.
 
An accidental phone
call after nearly four years without contact?

She shivered, a tremor running through
her entire body as she waited for the moment of truth.

“Hello?” her mother answered, the voice
sounded hesitant and somehow fragile.

Raven clutched the phone so hard her
fingers nearly went numb.
 
“Hi, Mom,
it’s me.”

There was a long, pregnant pause.
 
“Raven?
 
Is that you?”

“Yeah, it’s me.”
 
She wanted to puke.
 
This was too hard.
 

“I just tried to call you,” her mother
said.
 

“I saw that,” Raven told her.
 
“I wondered if maybe you saw the news…”

“Joe and Mary Barrett came over this
afternoon and were talking all about how they saw you on TV with some movie
star.
 
We were completely confused,
to be honest.”

Raven felt her cheeks flush.
 
“It’s weird, I know.
 
And kind of a long, confusing story how
everything happened.”

“I can imagine.”
 
There was another awkward pause.
 
“I wasn’t sure if you’d want to hear
from me, Raven, but I had to make sure you’re okay,” her mother said.

Raven sighed.
 
“I’m okay, Mom.”

“And you’re happy now?”

Something about how she’d phrased it made
Raven feel judged, as though her mother didn’t believe that Raven could truly
be happy.
 
But then again, maybe
that was old stuff.
 
Maybe her
mother had changed in the last few years, just as Raven had changed.
 
“I’m pretty happy,” she replied,
wondering what the truth really was.

“That’s good.
 
Because you know it’s all your father
and I ever wanted for you, was just that you be happy.”

“And you and Dad?
 
How are you both doing?”

There was another too-long silence.
 
“We’re good.
 
Pretty good.
 
You know, things happen but we’re doing
fine.”

“What things happened?” Raven said, the
cold sweat turning hotter as she felt her pulse raise that much more.

“Nothing for you to worry about,
Raven
.
 
The point
is, everyone’s doing fine.”

“Mom, if something’s wrong—“

“If you really wanted to keep up with us,
you should’ve called and enquired about how we’re doing,” her mother said, her
voice getting brittle.
 
“Besides, we
haven’t spoken to you in so long.
 
We never wanted to bother you.”

The guilt was settling in like a lead
weight on Raven’s shoulders.
 
“I
don’t want to get into the whole back-and-forth about why we fell out of
touch,” Raven said.
 
“I have my
version and you guys have yours and we’ll never agree.”

“Well, we agree about that,” her mother
said, her voice strident now.

Raven shook her head.
 
Why did it have to be like this between
them?
 
There was no good reason for
why it had all gone so bad, but she wasn’t going to take all of the blame for
it.
 
“Anyway,” she said, “I was
hoping that maybe I could come and see you both soon.”

Another long pause.

She’s
going to say no
, Raven
thought.
 
Won’t that just put a nice bow on all of the stuff that happened, if
now, after everything, Mom says she doesn’t even want to see me again
.
 
In a way, it would be a relief if she
said it.

Then Raven could tell Jake that they
couldn’t go visit, and it would be guilt free.

“We’d love to see you, Raven.”
 
Her mother’s voice had become emotional,
hoarse,
a
little raspy, like she was close to
tears.
 

“Jake and I were planning on making our
way out there very soon, the next couple of days.
 
Will you and Dad be around?”

Her mother was confused.
 
“Jake who?”