Vengeance (14 page)

I didn’t say anything at all.

Chapter 8

“You didn’t pick up your phone this morning,” Kevin said as I rifled through my locker.

“Sorry,” I said. I’d been not picking up my phone for a while now. Not on purpose, but I kept the ringer way down. It made me jump.

“I needed a ride,” he said, and his eyes were wide, like I was missing something important. “My car wouldn’t start, and my parents had already left and I couldn’t find the keys to the spare.” I grinned. Kevin’s expression didn’t change. He had no idea how he sounded. A spare car. He had a
spare car
. Like the rest of us kept a spare tire in the trunk for emergencies. They kept a whole car.

“Sorry,” I said. “Looks like you got here okay.”

“Dude,” he said, leaning forward, lowering his voice. “I took. The bus.”

I laughed. I couldn’t help myself. Couldn’t remember a
time Kevin had ever taken the bus. Before he got his license, Justin’s older brothers would drive them both. Then they left for college and took the car with them, but by then Kevin had his license and a car, and, apparently, a spare.

“But that’s not the worst part,” he said. “I was supposed to pick Maya up.” He made this exaggerated
oh shit
expression. Held his palm out. “Keys to the minivan. Please. I’ll be back in twenty.”

“Uh-uh. No way. You’re not taking my car.”

“The girl is waiting at home. With her dying mother. Are you serious?”

I spun the key on my finger. “Think I’ve got any dead dad goodwill left?”

Maya was pacing the front yard when we arrived. She kept looking at her cell phone and then looking at the road. Maya was the only thing that reminded me that Justin’s lake house wasn’t just Justin’s lake house anymore. Honestly, it looked pretty much the same.

No cars in the driveway, unless they were ours. The same cheap, generic shades pulled down over the front windows. I wondered if they used the same furniture that was always there, or if they had brought their own. I wondered how sick her mother must’ve been, that the house had no touch of them to it, other than the wheelchair ramp in place of the front steps.

Kevin had told me he never went in. Not even to pick her up. He said they spent most of their time in the backseat of his car. He wasn’t complaining.

Maya saw us coming and swung her bag up onto her
shoulder. Not her backpack. Something bigger. She stared at her feet as she walked toward the van but stopped when she saw Kevin get out of the passenger seat.

“I thought you said you were borrowing a car,” she said.

“I did,” he said. “I even borrowed a driver.” He was going for levity. She didn’t bite.

She frowned at me, sitting in the driver’s seat.

“Maya, get in the car,” Kevin said. “We’re already late. Next time, take the damn bus.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and yelled to me in the car. “Isn’t my boyfriend the sweetest?” she asked.

“Seriously?” Kevin said, and he crossed his arms back. “Want to get some other guy you can try to boss around? See if someone will walk over here and give you a damn piggy-back ride?” I knew where this was going. How it always inevitably turned. Kevin wouldn’t budge. He’d get stubborn and cocky and he wouldn’t cave, and the girl would get pissed and threaten to leave, and Kevin wouldn’t do anything to stop her.

I was about to witness a breakup. I looked at my watch, shook my head.

I got out of the car. “Come on,” I said. “I need to get back to class.”

“I’m sorry to ruin everyone’s morning,” she said. “But the reason I needed a ride, Kevin, is because I need to get to the
bus station
. Which you would know if you listened to
half
of what I said.”

She swallowed back tears and dropped her oversize bag on the ground.

I picked up her bag before we could find out whether Kevin was going to leave it there. Leave her there. Before this went downhill really fast.

“Skipping school?” I asked. We were getting excused for missing a day for the Boston trip. She wasn’t, I assumed.

“I hate to be alone,” she said. She brushed Kevin as she passed him. He tilted his head back and made an exasperated face at the sky. He reached around her waist and pulled her toward him and kissed her. I didn’t mean to stand there staring; I’d just never seen Kevin cave like that before.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I got here as fast as I could. I’d take you with me if I could.”

I slammed the car door. I wondered how sick her mother was that Maya already thought she was alone.

I half expected Kevin to slide into the backseat with Maya, that’s how much they were ignoring my existence. But Kevin took the seat beside mine, and we settled into a completely awkward silence. I cleared my throat. “I don’t know where the bus station is.”

Kevin sighed. Loudly. Like this whole situation was seventeen layers of obnoxious.

“Couple miles down the highway. Behind the Burger King,” Maya said.

“That’s, like, ten miles,” I said.

“I didn’t mean to make you miss class,” she said, in this light voice. I would’ve believed it if I hadn’t heard the other side of her once.

“That’s okay,” Kevin said. “Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.
And anyway, I asked to just borrow the car. Not the driver. He doesn’t trust me with his baby.”

“Oh, I trust you just fine to
drive
it,” I said. “I just didn’t know what else you planned to do in it.”

Kevin laughed, and I cast a glance in the rearview mirror to see whether she would too, but she wasn’t paying attention. She was thumbing through her wallet as I pulled out onto the highway.

“Okay, this is embarrassing,” she said. “Any chance you could lend me some money for my ticket?”

Kevin pulled out his wallet and handed her the solitary twenty-dollar bill.

She held it between her fingers and said, “Do you have any more?”

“Sorry, I don’t.”

“Seriously? You’re filthy rich. We all know it.”

Kevin’s eyes went wide. It’s true. He was. We all knew it. He had a freaking spare car. His parents owned
buildings
. But nobody said that to him, nobody asked him for cash, nobody expected him to pay our way because of it. He was here, in the middle of nowhere, just like the rest of us.

“No,” he said. “My
parents
are filthy rich.
I
have to work if I want money.”

“Right,” she said. “I’m sure you bought that car yourself.”

“No, I didn’t. Which is why it’s in my parents’ name.”

“Okay, okay,” she said, “I don’t mean to be a bitch or anything, but I’ve got to see my brother, and I’ve got no cash, so can you please loan it to me? Please.”

“Maya, I would. I have a credit card for emergencies, but that’s pretty much it right now. Until my next paycheck. I’m not so good with the money thing.”

“Kevin. My mother is dying. This
is
a goddamn emergency.” Her eyes welled up, and I took out my own wallet. Girl tears were like freaking kryptonite. I pulled out the forty-three dollars I had to my name, passed them to the backseat.

Kevin put a hand on my arm. “No, she’s right. I got this.”

Maya didn’t talk for the remaining eight miles, but every once in a while I heard her take in a short gasp of air. Kevin leaned his head against the window. I wondered when we’d ever stop thinking about death. If that was even a possibility if I had a girlfriend who was drawn to it.

Listen
. The van shifting gears as we went up a hill; Kevin drumming his fingers along the base of the window; the blinker clicking as we got ready to turn into the bus station.

“I’m going to miss you,” she whispered as she slid out of the backseat.

“It’s three days, babe,” Kevin said.

Kevin paid for her ticket at the station. Ran his hands through her long hair. Bent down to kiss her. I looked away. Waited outside. Kicked a rock across the barren parking lot.

“Shit,” he said when we got back in the car. “Now I feel like an ass.”

“Not your fault her mom is sick.”

He shrugged. “Guess not.”

But I got what he was saying. There’s a weird sort of guilt that comes with helplessness. Because there was nothing we
could do except hand her twenty-dollar bills, like condolences, and that wasn’t going to change the fact that her mom would be dead soon.

We were almost back to school when I said, “I was pretty sure I was about to witness the epic breakup of Kevin and Maya when we picked her up.”

He grinned. Almost. “She didn’t use to be like this, you know. You remember? God, she was so …
perfect
this summer.” I didn’t exactly agree with that assessment, but I chose to keep that to myself. “What ever,” he said, “it’s not like I can break up with her
now
.” I knew why. But still.

“She’s not exactly nice.” I probably shouldn’t have said that. If somebody had said that about Delaney, I would’ve been pissed. But I also didn’t think the thing with Maya went anywhere below the surface. Or, like he said, the back of his car.

“I’m not exactly nice either,” he said. “You know what happened with Tara?”

“You dumped her.”

“Ha. That would’ve been the nice thing to do. No, I made her do it. Asked her if she minded that I was taking Maya out the next night.” He grimaced. Shook his head to himself. “She minded.”

I thought about Kevin at my dad’s funeral. Kevin at my house, with his face pressed up against the window, not letting me stay alone. Kevin pushing the chair out at lunch for Delaney. “You’re nice,” I said. “You’re just also an ass.”

We got back to school in the middle of second period. The halls were empty. “I owe you one,” he said before slipping
into his classroom and waving at his teacher. “Sorry,” I could hear him saying. “Girl problems.”

I walked down the hall to the English/History wing but stopped at the class before mine. I saw Delaney in the front of the room, her eyes following the teacher as he walked back and forth across the classroom, the bottom of her pen resting on her lower lip.

I circled back before reaching my class, turned around, and walked by again—she was looking out the window, her head resting on her hand. Thinking about something.

I walked by again, and she was writing. The light from outside hit her desk, and she had one hand cupped around the paper, shading the words as she created them.

One more time. I’d go one more time and then get to class. But as I spun around, circling back, the door flew open, and she was racing down the hall in the other direction, searching through her bag as she walked. She jumped into the alcove leading to the girls’ bathroom, put her hand over one ear, pressed her phone to the other, and whispered, “Hello?”

I was close. Closer than I should’ve been. Just outside the alcove. If she wasn’t listening so intently to the person on the other end of the phone, she’d have heard me by now. I stepped inside, into the hall leading to the stalls.

She was nodding, and she said, “Yes. Ten? Yes, I can make it.” She hung up, and I could see her mouth reciting something, trying to commit it to memory.

“Who was that?” I asked before I could stop myself.

She jumped. Put her hand over her heart. Paused a second
too long before saying, “A friend.” Maya was gone. Everyone was in class. I was standing right in front of her.

A friend.

She was lying. She was hiding. How much of herself did she keep from me?

I was staring her down, which I had no real right to do, and she said, “What are you doing here?”

I shrugged and said, “I was late for class.” Then realized she was referring to the fact that I was technically in the girls’ bathroom, and added, “You looked … like something was wrong.”

She looked down at her phone. Back at me. Pressed her lips together and nodded. But before I had a chance to figure out whether or not she was going to keep it a secret, before I had a chance to know for sure that she wouldn’t tell me, I said, “It’s okay. You don’t have to tell me. I mean, what you do now isn’t really my business anyway, right?”

She put one hand on the wall. “Do you want to know or not, Decker?” she asked. Meaning layered under meaning.

We heard footsteps coming, and I stepped closer into the space with her. So our breath was sharing the same place.

Listen
. Footsteps in the hall; her holding her breath. Hope.

Black pupils, growing wider.

The weight of my father as he slid to the floor.

Her pale face as she backed out of my house.

Her pale face as I dragged her out of Falcon Lake.

I felt my lungs try for air, felt them fight for it, felt nothing coming in. I backed out of the hall as soon as I heard the footsteps disappear, ran across the hall to the boys’ bathroom and
splashed cold water on my face, trying to wash that image away.

I opened my eyes and saw her reflection in the distorted mirror above the sink, like she was floating, drowning. I ran my fingers along the image. “You okay?” she asked. I spun around. She was right behind me. In the boys’ room.

“In my head, I see you die. All the time.” She turned pale, like she did in my vision. “In my mind, you’re still dead.”

It was a horrible thing to say, which is why I never told her before. It was a horrible thing to have her know. It was a horrible thing to think.

“Is it … is that one of the reasons for the panic?”

I kept things from her, and she kept things from me, and I wondered if there was something—something
before
—that was already broken between us. Some lack of trust that started the day I left her on the lake. If my dad was just the thing that gave it a name.

“It’s the only reason,” I said. “Every time.”

It was easier to be honest with her when we weren’t together. When I wasn’t worried about hurting her feelings—I’d already done that. Figured it couldn’t really get any worse. I was wrong. She nodded at me and backed away, very slowly. Her footsteps were silent as she walked out of the bathroom. By the time I got to the hall, she was gone.

I was packing for Boston after everyone had gone to their rooms when I heard the front door squeak closed. But I didn’t
hear any engine. I went to the window in time to see Delaney’s blond ponytail bobbing around a corner and out of sight. It looked like she was in a hurry.