Gravestone (39 page)

94. Save a Prayer

Uncle Robert is deejaying the prom!

That’s what I think as I enter the gymnasium. There’s nobody else to have a conversation with, so I’m talking to myself. The music sounds like something out of Uncle Robert’s record collection. It takes me a few minutes, but gradually I notice signs of the eighties everywhere, along with the way some of the students are dressed. I get it. A themed prom.

Guess it shows how much I’ve been paying attention to the whole prom thing.

I’m here by myself because of the last-minute call I received from my date. Thankfully Poe didn’t call and say it was all a big fat joke. No, the message was short and tense.

“I have to meet you at the school and I can explain,” she told me.

“Is everything okay?”

“No.”

It’s always a bad sign when someone says no to that question, because even if
things are bad, people usually say yes. Yes, everything’s okay even though my house just burned down and my dog died. But yes.

Getting the no means things must be really,
really
bad.

I start to ask Poe for details, but she cuts me off and says she’ll see me at the prom.

So here I am, feeling like an idiot because I’m by myself and because I had no clue about this eighties theme, feeling uncomfortable in the tux that I rented that seems a bit too big, feeling just overall stupid.

Meanwhile, the gym is packed.

Our school prom back in Libertyville was held on a boat in Lake Michigan.

Harrington High goes all out … in the gym.

I scan the room, but don’t see Poe. I do, however, see Kelsey. And pretty much most of me wishes I hadn’t.

She looks …

Wow.

She’s playing up the theme with her poofy hairstyle that seems like it’s holding a bottle of hairspray. She’s dressed in a wild black skirt and heels and looks about ten years older. Like Madonna when she first came out.

Older. And hotter.

And of course Sam has his arms around her.

I recall the dance I came to with Jocelyn and how she ended up slow dancing with some other guy.

This seems to be my place in life. To look from the sidelines at the pretty girl that I could and should be with.

So where is Poe?

The music begins to play Tears for Fears, and the kids seem okay with it.

I should be dancing and having a fun time, but Poe is nowhere to be found.

For a while I wait near the doorway. I even head outside to see if Poe might be waiting there.

I manage to kill time by wandering around as if I have somewhere to go or something to do. I’ve had good training doing that in the hallways at school. But after an hour of this, I’m done.

I’m five seconds away from walking out when the girl who kidnapped Kelsey’s body comes out of nowhere with a smile and a stare.

“Are you on your own?”

I chuckle and try to act all cool. “Yeah. I was just about to leave.”

“Even your best buddy has a date tonight.”

“Who’s that?” I ask.

“Gus.”

“Wonderful.”

As if on cue, that song that they played at the end of
Pretty in Pink
starts to play. If there’s a God above, He has a sense of humor.

“What happened?”

“Not quite sure,” I say. “I didn’t know it was an eighties theme.”

“I can tell.”

“You look—great.”

“Georgia had to force me into this.”

“No, really. You look great.”

She glances back into the mass of people. Corny lights are set up to try and make it look like a dance floor, but the whole thing is still pretty ridiculous. The sound of saxophones blasts through the speakers.

“So, big party afterward?” I ask Kelsey.

She nods and then looks away. She’s wearing more makeup and no glasses, but still—it’s Kelsey. She can’t hide who she is. Or what she’s thinking.

“Good seeing you,” I tell her.

This is my way of saying
I probably should have asked you to prom.

I don’t want her feeling like she has to come and babysit me.

The DJ announces that it’s the last song of the evening. As he does, Kelsey looks at me.

I suddenly get the feeling that she didn’t just happen to come over here at this particular time.

Somewhere, her date is surely looking for her.

The song begins to play.

“I better go,” I tell her.

“Do you want to dance?”

I shouldn’t dance with her. It’s not right. Poe’s not here, but she still might show up. And then there’s Kelsey’s date. Some guy I don’t know and don’t really care to know, but still. He had the guts and the smarts to ask her. I know better and shouldn’t be messing with Kelsey anyway.

“Sure,” I say.

She walks out to the dance floor, and I realize that this is my fate. I know better, but I do things anyway.

I want to dance with her.

And yes, I really do. But sometimes you shouldn’t do things you want to do.

It’s amazing that a girl as shy and reserved as Kelsey seems to have no problem locking her arms around me and looking up at me as we dance.

For a moment, as the old eighties song I’ve heard a bunch of times begins to play, I find myself dancing alone with Kelsey.

I’m no longer in this town and this state. I’m no longer a student in school and a teenager in life. I’m dancing alone with a beautiful lady. One who holds me close.

I can’t help but get lost in the synthesizers and the strobe lights and the softness of Kelsey’s touch.

You shouldn’t be encouraging this, Chris.

And as it does so many times in life, in my life, the song seems to know what’s happening and it speaks to me. It speaks
for
me.

“And you wanted to dance so I asked you to dance, but fear is in your soul,” the singer sings.

Fear is in my soul, and this girl has no idea.

No idea.

But for a moment, I don’t care.

For a moment, I want to be here.

I want to be close.

And I want to be wanted.

When the song ends, Kelsey smiles as the lights get brighter.

“Thanks,” I tell her.

She doesn’t say anything back, but again, I can see it on her pretty and innocent face. It thanks me back. It thanks me back and also tells me not to let her go.

As I leave Kelsey and leave the gym, the words of the last song follow me. I want to say them to Kelsey as I leave to look for Poe.

I have a bad feeling about what I’m going to find.

95. Rage

Hope and happiness are beginning to look a lot like big bubbles blown by some kid. They drift by and then pop and disappear, leaving only sticky drops on the ground behind.

I can still hear the song that played to my dance with Kelsey when I get out of my mom’s car and walk up to Poe’s door.

It seems like every light in the house is on. I’ve never been here before, but it’s pretty much what I expected. A nice, traditional two-story home in a nice little subdivision about twenty minutes away from Solitary.

I’m still in my tux and feel weird that I’m knocking on this door
after
the prom.

Poe answers, and I instantly know things aren’t good. She looks behind her and then walks out, almost into me, as she shuts the door behind her.

Then she grabs me and hugs me and starts to cry into my chest.

“What’s wrong? What happened? Poe?”

She sounds like she’s talking with a sock in her mouth. When she looks back at me, I can hear her say sorry.

“What? What’s wrong?”

“I’m sorry I wasn’t there, that I couldn’t go. I was going to, I really was. I was going to force them to have to send me home.”

“What?”

“I was going to do it, but then my parents—my dad—Chris, it’s awful.”

“What?”

“They got to him. I know that’s what happened.”

“What are you talking about? Poe?”

She clears her throat and looks up at me with sad eyes. “I got expelled from school.”

I try to make sense of what she just said.

“They found drugs in my locker. And this isn’t the first time. They’d found pot on me before.”

“What?”

“The first time was legit—it was my sophomore year and—yeah, long story. But this—they’re saying they found heroin in my locker. Heroin. I mean—really? Look at me. Come on. It’s such a joke.”

“Who—when’d you find out?”

“They told me Friday afternoon. That’s why you didn’t see me at the end of the day.”

“I usually don’t anyway.”

“They got my stuff and I was escorted out by Sheriff Wells.”

“What?”

“Yeah. So much for that, huh? So much for alliances.”

“Did you tell them that it wasn’t—”

“Of course. But no. Then today my father got fired from his job. Works as a marketing something-or-other for a company that—well, basically it’s Mr. Staunch. That’s what happened.”

“Do your parents know?”

“Know what? They don’t know anything.”

Save a prayer, Kelsey. Save a prayer for the morning after. Or maybe don’t wait that long.

“Poe …”

She curses. “This is what they do, Chris. They make people disappear. They did it to Jocelyn
and
to Rachel. I was afraid this would happen.”

“But why?”

“I don’t know. I don’t. But I know too much.”

“We have to tell your parents everything.”

“No.” She looks around, since her voice echoed off the walls. “No, we can’t,” she says in a softer voice. “They don’t believe the drugs. They know that I didn’t do that.”

“Then you can tell them what’s going on.”

“No. Because I don’t want anything happening to them.”

“And your expulsion? I mean—what does that mean?”

“It means that they’ll be willing to go easy on me if I go to another school and am placed on probation.”

“Another school?”

She nods.

“I’m—I don’t know what to say.”

“We should never have come up to you in the first place,” Poe says. “Even if you were the new cute guy. Your life would’ve been a lot easier.”

“Sometimes I think it’s the other way around. That this is all because of—that it’s all my fault.”

“It’s not anybody’s fault except the monsters doing this.” Poe looks out to the street as a car passes. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Why?”

“Just—it’s not good for you to be here. I don’t want—you need to give me some space, Chris. For now.”

“I’ve been giving you space.”

She finally notices the tuxedo I’m in. “You look handsome.”

“I’m sorry you couldn’t come.”

“How was it?”

“Surreal.” I’m not lying to her. It was surreal. In a good and a bad way.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen.”

“Don’t disappear on me,” I tell her. “Don’t move in the middle of the night or anything like that.”

“We just have to get through tonight. My parents are pretty shaken up.”

I give her a hug and then watch her as she goes back inside.

I feel something that’s been growing and mutating inside of me for some time.

It’s rage.

Rage that I’m stuck inside some invisible cell. Rage that I’m being constantly watched. Rage that every good person who comes across my path gets taken away or hurt or worse.

A rage that needs revenge.

I turn up the music as loud as it can go as I drive home.

I tell myself that I’m going to find the people who did this.

I’m going to find the reason they’re doing this and then show it to the world.