Complicit (11 page)

Rage crackled in my mind and flames danced in my line of vision. I shoved my chair back and got to my feet. “Don't you
ever
talk about my sister that way.”

Something in my expression made Hector take a step back. “Why? What're you going to do about it?”

“How 'bout this.” I shoved him in the chest with both hands. Hard.

“Yo, Jamie, don't do that! No, really. Don't.” Scooter leaped from nowhere to come between us. He dragged me back. “C'mon, he's not worth it.”

“He's talking about
Cate.
He called her a tramp!”

“That's his problem.”

“He called my mom trash, too. My
mom
!” My voice sort of cracked, but Scooter kept pulling me away, toward the nearest exit. He talked to me the whole time, his voice low and rational and soothing.

“Don't worry about it, Jamie. Cate can take care of herself. Hell, she'll probably take care of him, too. You know her. That girl's got balls of steel, man. She wouldn't want you to do this.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Just calm down. Jeez, you're like, shaking.”

We stepped outside. I wrenched free from Scooter and leaned against the metal railing of the wheelchair ramp. The sky was hazy, like my mind, and it was hard for me to breathe. I didn't understand what had happened. I wasn't a fighter. Far from it. I had the heart of a pacifist. The mind of a coward.

My hands tingled from where I'd put them on Hector's chest, and I couldn't get his biting words out of my mind. I closed my eyes. I hated feeling this upset and I hated that Cate had put me in a position where I felt I had to defend her honor. I especially hated that her honor was something she didn't even bother to value in the first place.

That was what really upset me.

More than anything.

TWENTY-SIX

I leave Dr. No parked in a tight spot, wedged off-road, between trees, and head over to the party. Too Short's blasting from a set of speakers mounted in the bed of an F-150, and there's a long line of white kids snaking around a pony keg. This is pretty much the definition of irony, if I've ever seen it, but seeing as I'd take Monk over Macklemore any day, who the hell am I to talk? I'm as full of shit as the next guy. I just keep my head down and avoid the whole scene. Everywhere, all around me, the night air smells sharp, raw, like eucalyptus and mud.

I end up hiking around for a while, trudging past picnic tables and campfires, but I find Jenny at last. She's sitting on a stone ledge with a group of her girlfriends from school. I recognize them, her friends. They're quiet girls, not the pretty or popular ones, but the ones you can tell read a lot and think deeply about things. Too deeply, maybe. The girl equivalent of me, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Jenny looks up as I get closer. She grins when she sees me, and the moment this happens, everything else slips away. I'm drawn in like a moth to the world's most benevolent flame.

“Hey,” I say, coming to a stop so that I'm standing directly in front of her. I let the toe of my shoe touch hers.

“Hey,” Jenny says right back, tucking a piece of hair behind one ear. The girls she's with giggle at the sight of me and hustle off into darkness as if on cue. Nearby, a bunch of senior guys are already crawling past a large sign that reads
DANGER: DO NOT CLIMB. THERE IS GREAT RISK OF DEATH OR BODILY HARM
and lowering themselves into the caves.

I sit beside Jenny on the ledge, inching as close as I can.

“You look nice,” I say, which is lame, but at least it's something. That's an observation I've made over the years: When you're quiet, saying something is almost always better than saying nothing. There's less chance of being misunderstood that way.

“Thanks, Jamie. You look nice, too.”

“I do?”

She nods, but then points to my eyebrows. “What happened here?”

“Oh. Nothing. Just a bad habit.”

“You pull them?”

“Yeah. I've even been known to get the lashes when I'm really stressed.”

“So you're anxious
and
stressed?”

“Sort of,” I say, and well, crap. Now I'm wishing I'd kept my dumb mouth shut. I grit my teeth and brace myself for the inevitable next question.

Why?

But it doesn't come. Instead Jenny sways backward, almost tipping off the wall before catching herself and laughing. I pull her upright. She laughs even harder. That's when I realize she's drunk. She slides a thin clear bottle from her jacket pocket and shoves it at me. I read the label. Peppermint schnapps.

“Where'd you get it?” I ask.

“Greta's brother. He's home from Santa Cruz this weekend. She stole it from his room. Have some. It tastes like Christmas.”

I take the bottle but don't drink any. “I have to drive.”

“Oh, just have a little. Otherwise I'll feel stupid. Like you'll think I'm just some dumb drunk girl.”

“No I won't,” I say quickly, but the worst thing is that that
is
a little bit how I feel. So I listen to Jenny and swallow a few sips of the schnapps. It's sweet and spicy and burns all at once, but soon I'm warmer, looser, and the awkwardness between us fades. Jenny curls against my chest and it feels natural to put my arm around her. To hold her. She's a small girl and her bones have this avian lightness to them, like grace. Like truth.

Like everything good.

“Jenny bird,” I say, without meaning to, and Jenny crawls closer in response. All the way into my lap.

I hold my breath at the weight of her, at how damn good it feels to have her on top of me. Both my arms are wrapped around her now. I don't want this moment to end. I won't let it.

She turns her head and looks up at me. Her lips part.

I lean close to hear her words.

Jenny says, “Tell me why your sister set that fire.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

I exhale.

“My sister has issues,” I say.

“It sounds like it.”

“Who told you about her?”

“No one told me anything. But when that guy in the hall brought her up the other day, I went online and read about what happened. It's
awful.
Did she really burn that barn down and kill all those horses?”

“Yeah. She did.”

“But
why
?”

“I don't know,” I say. The warm buzz in my head is fading. I need water. I feel parched. Wrung out. “Supposedly she was pissed at her boyfriend for hanging out with some other girl. An ex. I don't know if that's true or not, but he's always stood by Cate, so maybe it is. And she's never said anything more about it. I don't think she ever will.”

“Well, what happened to that girl? The one who was in there?”

I shake my head. “Her family moved to Texas. She was being treated at a burn center there, last I heard. It was pretty bad. Not just the burns, but a head injury. The trauma.”

“But your sister, she was messed up before that, right? I read she used to manipulate other girls. Get them to do, you know,
things.
And that she trashed some guy's sports car.”

“Mmm,” I say. “There was never any proof about the car. And those girls did what they did with Cate willingly. It's not like she put a gun to their heads or something.”

Her nose wrinkles. “But still. People called her a
witch.
”

“It's just gossip, Jenny. I'm not saying she's a saint, far from it. But don't believe everything you hear about Cate.”

“Well, I had no idea. I mean, it must have been terrible for you. A terrible time.”

I shrug. Of course it was terrible. It's not like something like that can have an upside.

Jenny presses her cheek against my shoulder. “I wanted to ask you about it last night, when we were in Berkeley. But you were already sort of upset. And—”

I bristle. And what? And now she's drunk and doesn't care about upsetting me?

But Jenny runs her fingers along the line of my chin, very gently, thawing me a little. “And I wanted you to have a good time. I didn't want you to be sad.”

“I
was
having a good time. It's just…” Right then it's on the tip of my tongue to tell her. About how almost maybe running into Cate is what set off my panic attack last night. About the weird phone calls and messages. About those emails I read.

But I can't get the words to form.

“It's hard to talk about,” I say, at last.

“Are you going to see her now that she's out of jail?”

“I don't know.”

“Do you want to see her?”

I shake my head. “I don't know what I want. That's the truth. I don't know.”

“Well, it's okay not to know, right?”

“Is it? That's something else I don't know. I don't know if it's okay not to know!”

“Hey!” Jenny says sharply. “Stop that.”

I blink. “Stop what?”

“This.” Jenny reaches up and pulls my hand from my brow. I'm stunned. I'm pulling hairs again.

Without even realizing it.

I writhe away from Jenny, sliding her onto the ledge beside me. Then I sit facing forward. I hang my head in my hands and stare at my shoes in the dirt. My feet are huge compared to Jenny's. Monstrous even.

“You're stressed about your sister,” Jenny offers.

I nod.

Jenny rubs my neck. My heart thumps in its dramatic-erratic kind of way, and I can feel myself getting worked up. That's not a bad thing, but the thought that's rattling around inside me, twisting my gut and stirring up dread, is that I don't want my hands to go.

Please don't let my hands go.

“I know I can't exactly understand,” she says. “But I do know what it's like to have someone you love get locked up. I've got a brother, Tobin, he's twenty, and he's had issues since he was a kid—acting out, having rages, unable to control himself. He saw all kinds of doctors, got all sorts of diagnoses, but we had to put him in a residential home when he was seventeen, on account of my parents couldn't control him anymore when he got mad. He even hit my mom once, gave her a black eye and a concussion. He felt bad about it later, but still. We didn't know what else to do.”

“Shit, I'm sorry, Jenny. I didn't know that. That's really sad.”

“Yeah, it is. It's really fucking sad. At least your sister got out. My Tobin'll be in there forever.”

Cate wouldn't be out yet if it weren't for me,
is what I want to say.
She shouldn't be out. She's dangerous in all her witchy ways,
and maybe confession is what my soul needs. Maybe then I'd feel less weighed down by sorrow and shame. But I don't say those things. I don't say anything because Jenny keeps rubbing my neck and her hand's creeping down my shirt, toward my chest, and even lower. I sit very still while she does this, but then she's laughing again and her breath reeks of booze so I turn around.

“I should get you home.”

Jenny makes dreamy eyes at me. Either she's half asleep or she wants me to kiss her. I should probably know the difference, but the sad truth is, I don't.

“You okay?” I ask.

She nods. Then shakes her head.

“I don't feel so good.”

“You want to go?”

“Yeah,” she says. Then: “I can't walk.”

“I'll help you.”

 

 

Jenny huddles in the passenger seat. She's shivering something awful so I put the heat on high. Then I put my jacket over hers. I don't have a blanket or anything.

“Tell me if you're going to get sick, all right?”

She smiles at me. “I'm just cold. And tired.”

I nod, putting the Jeep in reverse and backing up. “Good thing we're getting out of here anyway. These things never end well. Look at that.”

Jenny's gaze follows where I'm pointing. In the icy night air, juniors Nicky Johnson and Matt Calvin are squaring off in a drainage ditch, throwing punches at each other. Both have their shirts off and it's like they think making a spectacle out of beating up someone else will give them power. I guess they don't know it's the crowd cheering them on that has the power, not them. A bunch of varsity athletes, including that asshole Dane Parker, who must be back visiting his girlfriend, are all standing around with their phones held up, recording the whole thing.

“Remind me not to drink again, okay?” she says.

“I sure will.”

“I feel embarrassed.”

“Don't.”

“You're so nice, Jamie. Greta says you've always been shy on account of your sister, but you don't seem shy to me.”

“What do I seem like?”

She snuggles close, leaching my warmth. I put an arm around her as we start to drive down the mountain.

“You seem good, Jamie. Real good. You make me feel safe.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

Of course Jenny does get sick on the ride back to Danville, somewhere near the base of the mountain before we get back to town. I pull over and help her. I hold her hair. She cries a little bit, which makes me sad, but I can't make her feel better. She has to learn her limits the hard way. I don't hold it against her. It's how I learned, after all.

The first time I drank, I was fourteen and Scooter stole a bottle of Jose Cuervo from one of his dad's pool parties. We mixed it up with red Gatorade and took turns doing shots in his bedroom while watching
Iron Man.
At some point during the night we decided it would be a good idea to wrap Scooter in aluminum foil and crash a Sayrebrook party down the street. The only thing I remember is walking into a house packed wall to wall with people I didn't know, and getting separated from Scooter. Next thing I knew, I was lying in my own bed with the morning light trying to burn holes through whatever brain cells I had left and Cate was standing over me with a funny smirk on her lips.