Part 15 (2/2)

”I do,” she answered, eyes downcast.

I ran my hands through my hair in frustration. ”Why?” I asked. I knew I sounded pathetic. ”Why is she doing this?”

”It's been,” Mrs. Harris paused and let out a deep breath. I noticed her hands were shaking as she wrung them together. ”It's been so difficult. She's being targeted. I cannot answer my telephone because these people say vile, terribly mean things about my daughter. Mr. Harris's tires were slashed the other night. The house has been egged twice.” Shaking her head, she went on. ”I sent Thomas away to my sister's for two weeks. She lives close to Briarwood and being in this house...it's just not healthy for him to see this.”

”She won't answer my calls or my texts.”

”Her phone was broken the day before it happened and I haven't replaced it. I won't. I can't imagine what people are texting her or saying in the voicemails.”

”I want to help her,” I pled.

”I know you care deeply for her, Jeremy. Just give her some time.”

I got back on my bike, dejected. I knew I could make it better. I knew if I just had the chance to hold her, comfort her, love her...then I could make it at least a little better.

That first day I went back to school, a full week after I was supposed to return, I'd almost gotten myself suspended. Some little p.r.i.c.k, a soph.o.m.ore who didn't know jack s.h.i.+t about this situation, was putting the finis.h.i.+ng touches on some artwork on Carolyn's locker. After asking him what the f.u.c.k he was doing, I gave him an open-handed slap across the face to humiliate him in front of his adoring onlookers and then followed that up with a punch to his gut that left him reeling, doubled over on the floor and out of breath. I looked up to see that Carolyn's locker was covered in words and sick drawings that the janitor had done a half-a.s.sed job of removing.

Two security guards dragged me into the main office and Mrs. Connolly intercepted on my behalf, once again. When the princ.i.p.al reminded me that a.s.sault resulted in expulsion, she went to bat for me, arguing that these were different circ.u.mstances and clearly my reaction was borne out of grief.

Did I grieve the loss of Drew and Will? Absolutely. That pre-dawn morning, when Frank called me and told me the news he'd heard from his father, a town cop, I fell to my knees. I'd just gotten home, just exacted my revenge against Chase, and I collapsed from a combination of shock and fatigue.

Did I grieve them? h.e.l.l yes. Did I grieve the loss of Carolyn? I did, with every aching cell in my body.

Just give her some time, I repeated Mrs. Harris's words in my head. If only I knew then how long I would wait...do nothing but wait...for Carolyn.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

My days were as uneventful as a wash cycle.

The tutor came. I struggled to keep up, even though what she was dis.h.i.+ng out was easy. Afterwards, I stayed downstairs and ate lunch with my mother. I only did it because I knew how it pleased her. She saw this as progress. And my parents had been through so much these past few weeks that I felt as if I owed it to them. I heard the sharp thwack as the metal bat connected with the mailbox. Heard the eggs crack against the side of the house. Heard the slurred insults screamed out into the night air. Lastly, I'd hear the tires peeling down our street as the cowards took off. For all that, I could manage a few minutes of empty conversation with her each afternoon.

After lunch, I'd nap for a few hours. I couldn't shake the fatigue. My body actually ached, sagging under the weight of this lingering grief and my own self-loathing.

Before dinner, I'd sit out back in the tire swing that I hadn't used in years. Back and forth I'd go, thoughts drifting through my consciousness-painful thoughts and happy memories. Just no thoughts of the future. Whenever my mind drifted there, the landscape was bleak, empty.

Mrs. Connolly, however, thought of nothing but my future. She had been back to my house once, twice and then a third time, pressing for me, in her kind and artful way, to make a decision. It was one week before schools required a commitment. Would it be Yale, Mrs. Connolly's suggestion, or UPenn, the school I was favoring simply because it was the farthest away from here?

I needed to get away from here. In all this time, I had ventured out of my home just once. By venturing out I mean that I sat in the car with the windows rolled up and the doors locked as my mother went in to get groceries. I wasn't safe from the derisive looks even under these conditions. I imagined that everyone who walked down Main Street peered through the window, eyeing me with curiosity, some with scorn.

”Absolutely not,” was my answer when my parents tentatively asked about attending graduation. They were relieved, I think, when I said no firmly and immediately. Prom? Graduation? No f.u.c.king way. I received my diploma, handed over by the mailman without pomp or circ.u.mstance. It saddened me some, but for the most part, I was numb to it all.

As the spring turned to summer, I gave into my parents' pleading invitations to leave the house on occasion. It was nearly always a disaster. I couldn't bear to face anyone. I imagined the eyes of everyone upon me. I felt pa.s.sengers turn in their seats to peer at me through the car windows. I believed that I heard their laughter, even though we were separated by the gla.s.s. When I dared to venture into the grocery store, I would hear them, aisles over, regale their friends with tales about me-lies that they portrayed as truths. I saw them and heard them...or at least I thought I did. There were lucid moments where I reasoned and suspected that I was most likely imagining it all, but I couldn't rationalize what I was experiencing...it all seemed so real. It got to the point where I believed the mailman was leering at me knowingly when he dropped off packages. He too must have seen the video, the pictures, the posted comments. I would no longer answer the door. There were entire days where I didn't leave my bedroom.

My increasingly paranoid behavior worried my parents terribly, and fueled their belief, seconded by Mrs. Connolly, that I'd made a mistake in turning down Yale. I needed them close by, they would say. I needed home as a nearby refuge, just in case. They argued their point daily, gentle in their approach. I was convinced, though, that once I was away from the judgement of this town, that I would be better off. That I would be free.

I wouldn't even consider seeing the people who came by, expressing concern. Friends, I thought sardonically. My parents informed me each and every time someone stopped by. I couldn't trust that Tori, Mike Hanson or Taylor had come in the spirit of friends.h.i.+p. How could Tori feel anything but hatred for me? I'd taken away her love, her heart. And Mike. Gone were two boys that had been as close as brothers to him since grade school. They were my friends once but that was a lifetime ago. Before they knew that I'd driven Drew to it. Before I had both boys' blood on my hands.

And Jeremy.

The first few weeks he came by every day, like clockwork. I'd hear the doorbell at five, hear my mother talk to him, hear him kick the gravel as he made his way back down the driveway, and hear his bike sound an angry roar as he peeled away. As days turned to weeks and weeks turned to months, his visits tapered off. I figured they would.

I winced in pain that day in late July as I sat on my bed, engrossed in my daily ritual of trolling various social media pages. On a whim, I looked up Vanessa. Pictures of her latest piercings and body art were posted. The girl seemed to have new ink every week and felt the need to advertise it to the world. What a narcissist. One post, dated a few weeks back, caught my eye. MOVING DAY, the post read. Underneath the caption there was a picture of Jeremy carrying a very large, seemingly heavy box. He was smiling for the camera, pausing before stepping through his doorway. There were comments below from people I didn't know. Jeremy, you better take care of our girl, one post read. Day-um, Vanessa, you are one lucky b.i.t.c.h, read another.

I guess I wasn't entirely numb because this news brought me to tears. I sank back onto my bed and cried. Jeremy and Vanessa, living together, happy-it was what I deserved.

He was better off without me.

And he knew it.

August dragged on. Thomas knocked on my bedroom door some days, other days we went the entire twenty-four hours without contact. I cringed inwardly when I noticed him looking at me that way. He now saw me as peculiar, an unknown and strange ent.i.ty. He was better off spending his time elsewhere and my parents ensured that he was now at home as little as possible. Two weeks at sleep-away camp, a week on vacation in Maine with Zack's family, random activities to fill up other days. I barely saw him that summer.

A week before I was to leave for Penn, my mother chatted happily as we made our way to the mall to get all my necessities. Her tone and her att.i.tude grated on me. She saw my willingness to accompany her to the mall as a major victory and was now trying to make this outing into some mother-daughter bonding experience. A girls' day out. Like everything was normal. Like I was a normal girl shopping for her new bedspread, her room decor and toiletries. She fussed over which mini fridge to get while I looked around nervously, petrified of being spotted. Yeah, I wasn't into it. I couldn't wait to escape back to the sanctuary of our car, our home...my room.

I cut the trip short with only half of the items on the list purchased. My mother acquiesced. She knew coming out, leaving the house for any reason at all, was a big deal for me. We should get while the going was good.

As we made our way past a cheap jewelry kiosk near the exit, I spotted her. Skinny, with hair dyed jet black, piercings that broadcasted her tough, offish demeanor, and clothes that advertised too much of her young flesh. She looked very different from the sweet, fresh-faced blonde I remembered, but it was most definitely her. Will's little sister. Another person tainted, another life derailed by yours truly.

Work, sleep, eat, repeat.

I asked my boss for as many hours as possible. I had to keep working towards something, logging hours, ticking off tasks for my licensing requirements. I had to keep moving. Keep working. Stop thinking.

Stop.

Thinking.

Vanessa started cras.h.i.+ng with me in July after mouthing off to her mother's boyfriend and then recoiling in shock when her mother backhanded her across the face. In that moment, she knew that her mother would always choose her loser boyfriends over her. Why was she living there, miserable, when her mother chose him? I was glad she finally saw the light but I knew I was s.h.i.+t for company these past few weeks. Living with me was no picnic.

I worked out like a madman, hitting the heavy bag my dad had set up in our shed. The punches helped to release some of the pain, not all. But falling onto my couch at the end of the day in a state of exhaustion was better than lying there thinking of everything I'd lost.

I heard nothing about Carolyn. No one saw her. No one spoke with her. Whenever I'd run into Tori, talk would turn to Carolyn. Tori was hurt also; she was looking for Carolyn to be her friend in the aftermath of what had happened. We both knew, though, that Carolyn wasn't callous or unfeeling. We both acknowledged sadly that there must be something very wrong there. That while we were grieving, she must have been damaged by this in a way we couldn't really comprehend.

Still, I scrounged like a starving dog for any sc.r.a.p of information I could get about her. And the lack of information, coupled with her stubborn refusal to see me, left me frustrated and angry. s.h.i.+t, did she imagine that she was the only one hurting? Did she even f.u.c.king care about me at all? I'd lost a friend in Will, a teammate in Drew. I'd lost her. It was a struggle each day to go on without her. Didn't she know she was breaking me?

”Jeremy,” Vanessa chirped happily, ”guess who I just saw?” When I didn't answer, still wrapped up in taking my aggression out on the heavy bag, she went on, teasing, ”I'll give you a clue. He smiles kind of crooked now. I think the surgeon f.u.c.ked up when he set his jaw.”

I still didn't answer. I didn't give a s.h.i.+t about Chase Sterling. Just punched the bag harder, remembering the feeling of satisfaction I'd experienced that night when my fists connected with his head, his jaw, his ribs.

I was grateful that Vanessa sent Frank out to follow me that night. He struggled to pull me off Chase when I wouldn't stop beating his limp, defenseless body. There was a chance I would have killed him if it wasn't for Frank. I owed him big. I owed Vanessa too, because without her, I would most certainly be rotting in jail right about now. She still had the spare thumb drive, in addition to having the video saved on her phone and hard drive. It was a crystal clear shot and audio of Chase purchasing a rather large quant.i.ty of c.o.ke and Special K from one of the tattoo artists in Vanessa's shop-a guy who doubled as a major supplier in the area. His face was not visible, you just saw Chase.

Before he had lost consciousness that night, I'd menaced Chase, dangling the threat over him. Letting him listen to it, because his eyes had swelled shut by then...warning him that if he breathed a word about me to his daddy or to the cops, there was a video waiting, addressed to the Westerly Police Department, the head lacrosse coach and the Dean of Students at Duke, The Westerly Tribune and his rich daddy.

Last I'd heard, Chase had fabricated and spread a story that he was attacked by some gang thugs who were trying to rob and carjack him. According to Chase, the fact that his wallet and car were, in fact, still with him when he was found, was testament to how hard he'd fought them off. His jaw was wired for the better part of the summer. I considered myself a public servant in that regard, in that no one had to listen to Chase spew any of his nasty s.h.i.+t for nearly two months.

”Chase, dummy!” Vanessa crowed. ”I saw Chase! He looked right at me and then the f.u.c.ker nodded, like he was acknowledging defeat. I'm so glad he knows that I was the one who f.u.c.ked him over!”

I stopped punching and set about unwrapping the tape from my hands. ”Stay away from him, Vanessa, all right? He's not talking now but don't laud that s.h.i.+t over him. He'll look for a way to strike back. I want you safe.”

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