“Speak for yourself.”
“Shut up, Sarah,” Drew counters with the phrase that must leave his mouth a hundred times a day.
“Drew!” Mrs. Leighton lays her fork down next to her plate and it’s obvious that it pains her not to slam it onto the table.
“What? She can be a bitch but I can’t tell her to shut up?” Drew stands up and pushes his chair back from the table.
“Sit down, Drew.” The forced calm in his mother’s voice is a warning and he sits. He’s readying for his comeuppance, but I’m not done yet.
“How can you like her? You don’t even know her.” I should drop it. I know I should, but I don’t get it. It’s like she’s a novelty or a pet. Look at the troubled, misguided mute girl we’ve taken in. Aren’t we amazingly generous and understanding? I hate it and I don’t want it coming from Drew’s mom.
“I don’t know how well you can really know a girl who can’t talk,” she says sympathetically.
Doesn’t talk, I silently correct. Can, just won’t. I know that one thing.
Mrs. Leighton’s attention is on me now. She’s trying to explain it for me as well as for herself. She wants to convince me, but she doesn’t need to. I already know. The answer is you can’t. You can’t know her at all; at least not Nastya, because she won’t give you anything, and what she gives you isn’t real. She may talk to me, but I don’t know her either.
“So how can you say you like her?” I’m not as angry now, but I want to know.
“She’s obviously a nice girl. She has manners. She never comes to dinner empty-handed.” I don’t know how manners and nice are equal, but I keep my mouth shut because being mad at Sarah is one thing, but being mad at Drew’s mom is something else. I don’t think she’s ever done anything to piss me off before. The feeling sucks. I don’t even know where it comes from. “Clearly, there’s something going on in her life and we can’t judge—”
“So what is it? You invite her because you feel sorry for her or because you’re using her to teach Sarah how to be a better person?” I had to cut her off. It was getting way too close to the point where the psychoanalysis was going to start and I didn’t want to let it happen. I didn’t want to hear it. It would feel too much like I was being psychoanalyzed, letting them tear me open and pick apart every action and choice and motivation, so they can feel superior and sane. I didn’t want them to do it to her while she wasn’t even here. Of course, I feel like I’ve just ripped myself open for them, spared them the trouble and dumped out my feelings so they can lay them across the dining room table and poke around in them with a stick.
“Josh.” She says a lot with that word. Like I’m being called out and judged and questioned and pitied. Everyone’s looking at me. I can’t blame them. I invited it by being the stupid bastard who couldn’t keep my mouth shut. It’s not even an outburst. I never even raised my voice. I don’t even think my tone changed at all, but they still aren’t used to it. It’s the Josh Bennett equivalent of tattooing her name across my chest. Regrettable, moronic, and really f**king embarrassing.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Leighton continues, and now I can tell she thinks I’m deluding myself. But I’m not the one taking in strays. I’m not trying to save anyone.
“She’s not a side show,” I cut her off again because I don’t want Mrs. Leighton’s apologies. She doesn’t owe them to me. I should quit while I’m ahead, but that would be smart, and I’m not being smart tonight.
“She dresses like one.” Obviously Sarah isn’t being smart either.
“I like the way she dresses.” I don’t know if Drew is trying to get everyone back on track by reminding us all what an idiot he is, or if he really is just an idiot.
“Less work for you,” she retorts.
“What is your problem Sarah?” I demand.
“What’s yours? My parents aren’t allowed to be nice to her and I’m not allowed to not be nice. You’re the one with the issue.” Sarah has no problem raising her voice. The worst part about it is that she’s right. I am the one with the issue and I don’t even know what the issue is.
I don’t know how this whole dinner devolved into the mess we’re in now, but I have a feeling I’m to blame for it. I could have kept my mouth shut, listened to them play a nice game of Solve Sunshine and let it go. But I didn’t.
***
Mrs. Leighton manages to corner me at my truck before I can leave, and I wish she’d just leave me alone like everyone else. Apparently I’ve been claimed by this woman whether I like it or not.
“Which one of you is dating that girl?”
“I don’t think either of us is.” Maybe Drew is, but I don’t think so. At least dating wouldn’t be the word for it, but I don’t want to think about that so much. “Drew, I guess.”
“I doubt that.” She looks knowingly at me.
“Then why ask?”
“Josh.” I wish she would stop saying my name like that. Soft and tentative, like she’s licking broken glass. “Look at the way she dresses, the way she covers her face with that make-up and the fact that she doesn’t speak. She might be silent, but she is screaming for help.”
I feel like I’m watching an episode of General Hospital.
“So why doesn’t someone give it to her?”
“Maybe nobody knows how. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you’re powerless to do anything about it.” I wonder if she’s talking about me and she thinks she’s being subtle.
“Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t you be talking to Drew?”
“Drew doesn’t care.”
Her accusation is clear and I answer it.
“Neither do I.”
CHAPTER 20
Nastya
I hate my left hand. I hate to look at it. I hate it when it stutters and trembles and reminds me that my identity is gone. But I look at it anyway, because it also reminds me that I’m going to find the boy who took everything from me. I’m going to kill the boy who killed me, and when I kill him, I’m going to do it with my left hand.
***
Clay Whitaker is chasing me on my way to first period on Thursday, hair as disheveled as his clothes, looking every bit a refugee from the Island of Misfit Boys. His sketchbook is closed up and tucked under his arm the way it always is, like it’s attached to him or something. I would still love to see what’s in it. I wonder how many of those he goes through and how fast he fills them up. It can’t be the same book all the time. Maybe he goes through as many sketchbooks as I do black and white composition books. His closet probably has a stack of them from floor to ceiling, and I bet if you flipped through them you wouldn’t find the exact same picture on every page. Not like in my notebooks. His are probably like a photo album of memories, where he can look back and know exactly what place he was at in his mind when he drew the picture. Mine aren’t like that. I can’t flip the pages and read what I wrote and tell you what was happening in my life, in my mind, at that time. I can only tell you what happened on one particular day, and it’s the one I’m not supposed to remember.