“Sounds like you were close,” I said.
“Not at first. In the beginning, he was using me for sex. I knew that. But I just liked him so much … I thought if we spent time together, he might feel the same way.”
“Did he?” Even if her side of the story was only one she was telling herself, it might help if I listened.
“Yeah. Back in June, we’d come out here, have our fun, and he couldn’t wait to bail. But by the end of August? He wanted to stay for hours. We talked and he’d hold me. Sometimes, this summer, we came out here and didn’t hook up at all.”
“Sounds like he cared about you, Davina.”
“Not enough to tell me what was wrong. I didn’t even notice he was sad.”
“It’s not your fault.”
But I had something else on my mind. Come to think it, when Russ paid attention to me, I never noticed that he had any particular interest in more than a captive audience for his lacrosse lectures. It definitely wasn’t like he was hitting on me.
“Actually, when I hung out with Russ, he did act like he was taken.”
She flashed me a sad smile. “Yeah.”
Strange driving down this dark highway, thinking about the Russ I never knew, who played the piano and spent long hours on the lakeshore, cuddled up with Davina. Now I never would meet him, which was too damned bad. An ache rose in my chest, pinioned by dual weights of fear and dread. What if this is my fault? I couldn’t escape that specter, no matter which way I turned. You wanted revenge. Wedderburn offered. You declined. But what if he doesn’t take no for an answer? I’d thought it before, but with two casualties in this secret war, the connection grew harder to ignore.
I’m the common denominator.
I refused to believe it was Kian. Then I remembered saying Russ is such a total waste of oxygen. To the boyfriend who wore death and despair like a pair of black wings, shadows that prowled in his wake. You promised to trust him. But it seemed illogical to ignore the evidence; he and I were the only ones who knew what I said about Russ. Spies, someone listening in? But he said that gel guaranteed privacy. I pondered for a few seconds. Then he must’ve been wrong. Kian wouldn’t kill Russ just because he pissed me off. If my hatred was lethal, Cameron Dean would’ve been the first body on the ground. Still, it was hard not to wonder if Kian was lying … about so many things.
Putting those thoughts aside, I asked, “How much trouble will you be in”
She shrugged. “When I tell my mom he was my boyfriend, she’ll intervene with my dad. They’ll scream at me, hug me, ground me, send me to counseling. Then she’ll spend a week cooking my favorite foods and trying to keep me out of bed.”
“Will it work?”
“Probably not.”
“You’re holding together pretty well right now.”
My arm felt better at least, now that we were headed in the right direction.
“Getting us to back to Boston is my job. After that, I can fall apart.”
“I wish I could drive, but—”
“It’s okay. This was my idea.”
“Still, I’m sorry.”
There was nothing more to say, so Davina drove in pained silence. Every now and then, her breath hitched, but her eyes were dry as she took us from New Hampshire to Massachusetts and back into the city. She dropped me off first and I hugged her, not knowing what to say. It was almost like we were sisters in sorrow by this point, but it wouldn’t surprise me if she switched schools and chose never to see me again.
“Thanks for coming with me.”
“I wish it hadn’t ended like this.”
She ignored that. “I’ll see you next week.”
Taking that as my cue, I hopped out of the car, in no hurry to climb the stairs to our apartment. If my dad’s response was anything to judge by, parental doomsday awaited.
It was the first time in my life I could remember getting in trouble. First Brittany, now Russ. How do I stop it? Oh God, how do I live with it? A whimper slid out of me as I went up the stairs. After I let myself in, I found both my parents waiting on the lumpy sofa.
“Edith,” my mother said.
Then something happened that I could never have expected. I would’ve been less shocked by another ice age. Both my mom and dad got off the couch and hugged me.
A DEMON, DREAMING
True to her word, Davina didn’t show up at school the rest of the week. The following Monday, Blackbriar issued an official statement that another student, Russell Thomas, had died, but they didn’t release any additional information or disclose that it had been suicide. I didn’t tell and I doubted Davina did either, but the rumor mill got word anyway. The most popular version was that Brittany had been cheating on Cameron with Russ, and when she died, he killed himself in grief.
If Cameron looked bad before, he was a wreck this morning. It looked like he had slept in his uniform and he’d given up eating and bathing. I noticed people circling around him in the hall, as if his funk might be contagious. This is exactly what you asked for, that tiny, insidious voice whispered. I squeezed my eyes shut and rested my head against the cool metal of my locker. My stomach hurt while my pulse pounded out a damning rhythm.
Guilty. Guilty.
The telltale heart refrain stretched my nerves to the breaking point. As the day wore on, the shadow over the school darkened. Mr. Love seemed inappropriately cheerful, whistling in the hallways and beaming broad smiles as if he could lift people’s spirits just by existing. He paused as he spotted me and watched me walk away, the smile fading to a whitened compression of lips. There was something horrible in his eyes, none of the studied and careful concern, more of a dreadful anticipation, like when a storm chaser straps into his van, knowing destruction is imminent.
Or you might be imagining things.
As promised, Nicole Johnson had failed a couple of quizzes, so she was always in his classroom: reading, studying enrichment materials, or doing extra credit. There was nothing overtly wrong with it since he left the door open and she sat at her desk, but Nicole didn’t look right anymore. Her face was pale, eyes blank and circled with rings. It bothered me most that she’d stopped tending her once-shining blond hair, so now it hung in lank strings and she no longer wore her uniform with sexy flair. That’s just not like her. But if I tried to warn anyone, they’d think she was just depressed and nursing a hopeless crush.
“Talk about giving up.” Allison spoke at my shoulder, studying Nicole with disdain. “It’s pathetic and embarrassing to watch.”