Feral (15 page)

“What'd you talk about?” Claire asked, because she couldn't stand the tense atmosphere that filled the room when Becca stopped chattering.

“Our—dreams,” Becca said. “All of them were sort of variations on the same dream, really: to get out of Peculiar. Life starts on the other side of the city limits sign, after all.”

Owen leaned forward, holding the edge of his newspaper to a log, clenching his jaw. Becca cocked her head to the side, watching Owen. When he replaced the fireplace screen and plopped down on the hearth, she reached out to touch his knee.

“I just want her back,” Becca murmured.

Owen's face turned as gray as it had during lunch the day before. He shook his head, pulled out of her grasp, and stood. In two smooth strides, he was on the opposite side of the living room, reaching for his black wool coat.

“Don't, Owen,” Becca pleaded. “Not now, not with all this going on. I can't help feeling bad. Just give me a few more days. Until the funeral. Please.”

“You don't know what you're talking about, Beck. For the eight hundredth time, it's not what you think.”

“It is,” Becca argued. “I just need a few more days. Sit here with me. With us.”

But Owen slipped into his black wool coat and hurried out the door.

Becca's face twisted with pure agony as she stared into the fire.

“What was that all about?” Claire finally asked softly.

“He's different,” Becca confided. “You don't know—you didn't know him before. But he's different.”

“How's that?”

“He used to be—well, first,” she said, as tears collected in her eyes, “he used to be a slob.” She chuckled. “Everything about him was sloppy. He was cute, of course—I mean, he's gorgeous, right? He's always been that. But a slob, too. Now, suddenly, his hair's combed and his shirts are tucked in, like he's going to a job interview or something.

“He started acting different with me, too,” Becca added, her voice thickening, lowering. She straightened up, wiped her face. With her eyes still centered on the fire Owen had lit, she divulged, “When we started dating, he was after me all the time. Like you expect a guy to be, really. We'd make out for hours on the couch in my basement. But it wasn't just that—he'd tickle me in the hallways at school. Or play with my hair at the movies. He just—always had to
touch
me. He doesn't do that anymore.

“He started acting like somehow, he was sort of—better than me. And Chas, too,” Becca blurted. “It's so funny, because, you know, Chas is the one with a chance at a football scholarship. Owen's mostly on the varsity team because it's such a small school that
anybody
can play for whatever team they try out for.” She snorted. “They call him the half-assed halfback.”

Claire stared at Becca as Becca continued talking, almost to herself now.

“I mean, I've got grades, you know, and extracurriculars with cheerleading. I can get a scholarship. Serena—she was always going to get some money, too, I figured, for being a reporter on the paper. Some nice respectable state school. But
Owen . . .
” She shook her head. “He's pretty. And not much else. He's got crappy grades and he's a half-assed halfback, and I always figured he'd be the one who would stay, wind up married, living on his dad's farm—maybe driving to Kansas City for some dumb car sales job, showing off his glistening white teeth as he flirted with the customers.

“But the last time we were all here—just a couple of weeks ago—there was something faraway in his voice,” Becca confessed. “Like he had somehow taken a step away from all of us. Like
he
was the one who was the closest to the city limits sign.”

The fire snapped, spit as Becca shook her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I think he's cheating on me.”

“Why would he do that?” Claire asked. “You're the prettiest girl at Peculiar High.”

“Please,” Becca chortled. “I bet it's one of those cheerleaders from Kansas City. The ones we see during away games. It's not like I can be with him the
whole
time—sometimes, he's off with the team afterward, and—” She shook her head. “Well. I just bet it's one of those cheerleaders. I bet he feels like he's really pulled one over on me. That's why he's acting like he's so much better than me.”

“That can't be right. You must just be misunderstanding him,” Claire tried.

But Becca wasn't listening. “When it came out that Chas had screwed around on Serena with that
Ruthie girl
, Owen started giving Chas high fives and sharing these inside jokes about me,” she said. “I could tell. The two of them were kind of . . . thick as thieves, for a while, after the rumor exploded. And I was just a nag. Now, with this thing with Serena, he's not
there.
Not for me. Serena's gone, and now he's going to break up with me. Can you believe it? In the middle of
this
, Owen's going to dump me.” She gritted her teeth and raked her fingers through her hair.

“She was a good friend to you,” Claire observed.

Becca flinched. “What? Why'd you say that?”

“I can just tell—the way you talk about her,” Claire replied.

Becca fell silent a moment. She hugged her legs to her chest as the fire snapped before them. “Girls are so much different from boys,” she said. “Ever notice that? Girls get to places inside each other that even a boyfriend can't. Girls remember, they pay attention—not because it's going to help them avoid a fight later on, but because they
want
to know everything about each other. Serena and I were so close—there were times that it was like we were trying on each other's personalities, like skirts from each other's closets. Over the past few weeks, looking back, I think that being with a boyfriend is like a one-way friendship. Because I did all the searching, all the learning, and instead of trying to get to know me, too, Owen just—he's found someone else. I know it.”

Claire's pulse swam in her ears, revving against Becca's description of friendship. All she could think of was Rachelle, and their last celebration at the movies, and jabbing each other in the ribs.
God,
she missed that.

“I was a terrible friend to her,” Becca wailed, putting her head on her arms.

“That can't be true,” Claire told her. “The way you looked for her—the way you—”

“It
is
true,” Becca insisted, raising her head. Her face was instantly puffy from her tears. “I loved her, but—she had a couple of scars,” Becca said, her mouth racing forward, like an out-of-control train. “Both of them were because of a hobo spider bite. She got it at summer camp a few years back. And it made her have this awful asthma attack. They wound up having to intubate her. You know—a trach?” she asked, touching the base of her throat. “It left a scar. She used to cover it up with a necklace.

“The
other
scar, though,” Becca went on, “the one on her leg? Where the bite actually was? By the time she got to the hospital, the skin around the bite on her leg was already dying. Turning black. Took almost a year for the wound to heal. That scar was so ugly. Looked almost like a bullet hole. She wore body makeup, in the summer, to try to cover it. But she never could, not completely.”

Her face twisted in pain. “I loved that scar,” she admitted, her shoulders heaving.

“You couldn't have loved a scar,” Claire assured her. “That's not something you ever love about a friend.”

“No,” Becca said. “I did. I loved it. Because it was one more thing,” she went on, swiping her runny nose with the back of her hand. “One more thing that made me better.”

Claire cocked her head and stared at Becca. “What do you mean?”

“Rich was right about me,” Becca consented. “What he said about how I treated Serena. I
did
like being better than her. Smarter. A cheerleader. Prettier, even—I actually used to think that. I used to like that I was prettier . . . I'm not really a very good person.” She dropped her head again, cascading into a new round of tears.

Claire tried to comfort Becca, awkwardly placing a hand on her back.

Becca wiped her eyes, pressed her cheek against Claire's shoulder. “I'm sorry about laying all that on you. It's just that I want to do it all over again,” she blubbered. “I want to be the friend I should have been. I know you're not going to be here very long, but with you being in her house, it just seems like—it's like it was meant to be. A second chance to do it right. Besides,” she added. “You were there, too. You know what I saw. We're in that together. You understand.”

Claire didn't disagree, but all she could think of was Rachelle. The way Becca had talked of her friendship with Serena made Claire feel gutted and sorry and achingly lonely all at the same time.

Once Becca's tears wound down, she said sheepishly, “Anyway, I'd better go. Sorry I'm such a wreck,” she added as she put on her coat and shoved her hat down over her forehead.

“Totally understandable,” Claire said, smiling at her. “See you in school Monday.”

Becca nodded; the door had barely shut when Dr. Cain's feet thundered down the stairs.

“Think we're up and running,” he told her. When she stared blankly at him, he added, “The Wi-Fi? Why don't you go see if your laptop connects, just to be sure?”

“Oh, right. Sure.” Claire raced up the stairs, her head still swarming with everything Becca had confessed, in her grief. Everything she had said about having a best friend.

When she flipped her laptop open on her bed, Claire immediately clicked into her email account, chose Rachelle's address, and started typing. She described it in brutal detail, the entire scene in the woods behind the school—the smells, the sounds. The way Serena had looked.
Just like me
, she wrote.
She must have looked just like me, that night, out in the parking lot
.

When she finished, the cursor hovered over the “Send” button. She ached to click it—she craved the kind of closeness that Becca had just described. Claire missed Rachelle with a new intensity.

But so much had happened. So much still stood between Rachelle and Claire. With a deep breath and a quick blink to clear away the tears, she clicked “Save Draft.”

She scrolled through the list of emails in her “Draft” folder. She picked one closer toward the bottom of the list—one of the older ones—pulling it up on her screen.

“Rachelle,” it started,

do you really think I'm stupid? You must, because you are outside my window. Right NOW, Rachelle. You are outside my window, and here I am, still laid up in bed. Didn't you happen to notice the way Dad pushed my bed up to the window, you dumb, selfish bitch? So I could get some sunlight? Because it's been weeks—no, months, now, since the beating. Did you forget how bad it was? I'd be happy to remind you: three broken ribs, a shoulder fracture, a wrist fracture, a broken arm, broken thigh bone, splintered ankle, smashed feet, shattered fingers, two surgeries for internal injuries, hundreds of stitches, and nerve blocks to manage the pain of multiple lacerations. Yeah. That's what I've been doing. Healing up from all of that. And you just came to visit—all smiles and happy. God, your stupid visits. You and your damned hospital voice. That's what you use when you talk—not even TO me, but AT me: a hospital voice. And you don't even rattle on about anything I care about.

And you look at me like I'm not the same. Don't you think I KNOW I'm not the same? Don't you think I'm reminded of it every single time I look in the mirror? You're still every bit as pretty as you ever were, and I'm here in a body that looks like a wrecked car.

Now you're on the sidewalk, outside my window, talking to some guy. Some damned new guy. Because guys still look at you. Guys won't ever look at me the same way again, not me in this ugly body that I'm going to have to cover up the rest of my life.

You're with a brand-new guy, because you decided your senior wasn't worth your precious time. Isn't that what you said? And you're talking to him like YOU. Like the old Rachelle. And you're going on with your life and here I am you selfish bitch and I can hear you and YOU DON'T EVEN HAVE THE DECENCY TO PRETEND TO CARE. I HEAR YOU, YOU BITCH. I HEAR YOU.

Claire flinched, closed the email. She didn't remember her old emails being so nasty. So angry.

Really, Claire
, she told herself.
You should be glad you never sent them.

But another feeling had found her, the moment she'd reread that email.
Yes!
that feeling cried out.
Yes! Yes! That's right! It's all true! She was never sorry—not really. She only pretended to be sorry when she was around you.

“Claire!” her dad called. “I'm assuming that long pause of yours means you're already online.”

“Yes—everything's fine!” she called as she flipped her laptop shut.

But in reality, her own words, glowing right there on the screen, made her feel tiny and afraid.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE

HarperCollins Publishers

..................................................................

“U
nfortunately,” Ms. Mavis boomed on Monday morning, shouting so that her Journalism II class could hear her over the incessant growl of chain saws and the rumble of chipper-shredders. Tree-trimming crews continued their task of chopping up the limbs that had fallen during the ice storm and turning them into mulch—and judging by the noises filling the air, had decided to spend the bulk of the morning right there beneath the journalism room window. “Unfortunately,” she repeated, “we have lost one of our own.”

She paused for a moment to stick a finger into her enormous bouffant hairdo, scratch her scalp.