Leslie's Journal (14 page)

Thirty

I
don’t eat lunch. I sit with Katie, then go to math. I’m actually looking forward to it, because math puts me to sleep, and sleep is what I need. I usually leave mid-class to snooze in the can, but today I just put my head on the desk.

As always, Mr. Kogawa does his impersonation of a human being, droning away, solving problems on the board and wiping the chalk off with the sleeve of his jacket. But even though I’m dying to pass out, I’m so wired it’s like I’m on Red Bull. All I can think about is Jason. I need some privacy. I put up my hand, Mr. Kogawa waves me off, and in a couple of minutes I’m in the far cubicle of the girls’ second-floor washroom. I figure I’ll stay till school’s over.

After I’ve read the graffiti for the millionth time, I start to nod off—till out of nowhere, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s the weirdest thing. Like when I pick up the phone to call Katie and she’s already on the line. Or when I’m in a place for the first time but it’s like I’ve been there before. Or when I can feel that I’m being stared at.

Like now.

I lean over and check the floor on all sides outside the cubicle. No feet. Of course not. The can was empty when I got here, and no one’s come in since. I’m just freaking myself out. I sit back down, take a few deep breaths. Then this long, slow horror fills me. What if the stare is coming from above?

I look up, afraid of what I’ll see. Sure enough, there he is. Jason. He’s standing on the toilet lid in the cubicle next to me, staring down.

I want to run for it. But if I do, he could hop out and grab me. So I sit there, frozen, like a mouse in front of a snake.

“You’re late,” he whispers.

“What ...?” I struggle to breathe.

“You’re usually here by one-thirty.”

“You’ve been hiding there all along?”

He smirks. I feel sick.

“It’s your own fault,” he says. “How else am I supposed to talk to you? You hang up the phone. You don’t even say thanks for the cards.”

“I thought you wanted Ashley.”

“Got you jealous, didn’t I?”

I want to say, In your wet dreams, pencil dick, but I bite my tongue. “You better get out of here. Someone could catch you.”

“So what? If they do, you’ll be the one in trouble.”

“Pardon?”

“I’ll say you brought me in here for sex.”

My lip quivers.

“Come on, Leslie, don’t be like that. I only wanted to teach you a lesson. I miss you. I need you.” And now he talks like a Hallmark card, like he used to do after he’d hit me. How his life was nothing before he met me and I’m his “special someone” and he’s so sorry and blah blah blah. “I mean it, Leslie,” he pleads, “without you I’ll die.”

“Good!”

“Good?”

“Yeah. Go ahead and die.” Saying it feels great. So great I don’t even think about the consequences. I keep going, getting braver with every word. “What use are you, anyway? You just waste space. So go ahead. Jump off a building. Swallow a medicine cabinet. You think I care?”

Jason’s face contorts. For an instant, I think he’s going to cry. Then—wham wham wham—he smashes the wall of the cubicle with his fist. I squinch my eyes and raise my hands as if his fist could break right through.

He crashes out of his cubicle. He stands in front of my door. He gives it a boot. It shakes on its moorings. He boots it again. And again.

Just when I think it’s going to break off its hinges, he stops. “You’ll be sorry,” he whispers through the crack. Then he turns on his heel, like nothing’s happened, and walks out whistling.

Thirty-One

T
he e-mails and phone calls have stopped. But not the cards. Just three this past week, but that’s enough.

Katie says it’s a sign he’s getting bored; a few more weeks and he’ll leave me alone for good. I wish I believed her, but I don’t. These cards are different. Instead of being full of sucky love crap, they’re the kind you get after a death in the family—“In Memoriam,” “Deepest Sympathy,” “With the Angels.”

“Leslie, if you really think they’re death threats—tell!”

“Tell what? There’s no handwriting. Nothing to prove they’re from him. If I say anything he’ll deny it and I’ll get accused of being sick, of trying to get attention, of acting out.”

Then, last Monday, I opened my locker and there was a dead mouse on top of my books. I screamed. Some other girls screamed too; a few guys laughed.

Later, Katie tried to reassure me. “I doubt if it’s from Jason. You’re lucky you haven’t had mice before, with all those old sandwiches squashed under your gym bag. Besides, he doesn’t have your combination, does he?”

“I don’t think so.”

But I change my lock all the same.

Meanwhile my marks have been going to hell. I can’t concentrate to study, and as for doing homework, please. Apart from math, which I can do in my sleep, my only decent mark is English.

Katie’s marks are down too. Her mom says it’s my bad influence and it’s got to stop, especially now that exams are coming. That means Katie and I can’t spend time together after school; she has to study.

At least she still walks me home, right up to my apartment. And she waits till I’ve checked the closets and under the beds, too. She says if Jason comes by and starts pounding on the door before Mom gets back from work to call her right away. As if Katie could do anything over the phone.

The worst part of being home alone is having time to think. I think about horrible stuff. Like how last winter there was this teenager out west who got stabbed to death and dumped in the bushes. It took months before they found his body; and when they did, it turned out practically all the kids from the local high school knew he was there, they just hadn’t told anyone. The adults on
TV
acted shocked about how the kids could have kept this awful secret. Adults can be pretty stupid.

If I get murdered, I hope Mom won’t be mad at me. It’s not as if meeting Jason was my fault, exactly. I don’t know what it was. Bad luck? Fate? Or maybe God answers prayers after all, to teach people a lesson. I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.

Katie says it’s sick to talk about this, but if Jason kills me, I want to be cremated. I can’t stand the idea of being stuck in a box forever. It makes me claustrophobic. I’d like my ashes to be kept in the stone jar we got from Granny P. on her last visit before she died. Mom could keep it on the kitchen counter by the window, next to the African violets. Or, if seeing me there all the time would make her sad, I guess she could store them in a closet. Whatever. I just don’t want to get buried or scattered.

If you ever read this journal, Mom, I hope you can forget all the awful things I said to you. I didn’t mean them. I’m sorry I was a disappointment.

Thirty-Two

I
n slasher flicks, when a babysitter’s alone and hears a strange noise coming from the attic, she always checks it out—even when she knows there’s a psycho prowling the neighborhood who goes after babysitters in attics. If Katie and I are watching the movie together, I always elbow her as the babysitter climbs the creaky stairs and her flashlight goes out. “Here comes the chainsaw.”

“Tell me when I can look,” she squeals, peeking through her fingers.

Part of me thinks those babysitters deserve to die for being so stupid. But the other part of me knows why they do it. It’s because the door at the top of the stairs is alive with this overwhelming question: What’s on the other side? That question pulls them to their deaths like they’re zombies.

I’m in my room cramming for Friday’s geography exam when the phone rings. Nothing bad’s happened for two days, and I’m getting calm enough to memorize all about semi-arid continental climates.

Mom answers. “Hello? Oh hello, Jason. I’m sorry, but she doesn’t want to speak to you.”

I perk up. Jason? He identified himself?

“I’ll give her the message.” Mom sticks her head in. “That was Jason.”

I twirl my hair with my pencil and keep staring at my textbook like I couldn’t care less. “What did he want?”

“Not much. He called to say goodbye. He says he’s been thinking it over, and he’s taking your advice.”

“Oh,” I say absently, but chills run up my spine. My only advice to Jason was to kill himself. He’s doing it? He’s called to say goodbye?

“Is he changing schools?” Mom asks.

“I guess so,” I yawn.

“Well, that’s good. An odd time, though, right before exams.”

“An odd time for an odd guy.”

Mom laughs. “I’m glad you have your sense of humor back.” She gives me the kind of Earth Mother Look that makes me want to hurl. “The first breakup’s always tough. But I told you you’d get over it. You know, I remember when I was sixteen—”

“Yeah. Chester Martin. You loved how he hiccuped. You’ve told me. I’m studying.”

“Sorry.” And she disappears.

After a quick panic, I reassure myself. No way Jason’s going to kill himself. He just wants to wreck my studying. I won’t let him.

I try to go back to reading. But I can’t. I keep thinking, what if I wake up tomorrow and he’s dead? What if those funeral cards weren’t about me? What if they were about him? What if they were a cry for help? He’s a creep and I hate him, but if he dies, how will I live with myself?

I decide to phone. If he’s really killing himself, maybe I can talk him down or get an ambulance. But I can’t call from here. I don’t want to risk Mom listening in on the extension, like I do when she’s talking to Dad. There’s a pay phone at the end of the street.

“I need a break,” I say, grabbing my coat. “I’m going for a walk to the corner store, maybe pick up some gum.”

“Oh, could you get milk while you’re there?”

“Sure.”

She gives me some money.

“Back in a few minutes.”

All of a sudden I get this crazy thought. What if Jason can read my mind? Like, what if his call is part of a plan to get me outside now it’s dark? What if he’s waiting in the bushes? Hardly anyone’s on the street at night, and I have to pass a couple of alleyways and—this is nuts, just me flipping out. Am I a prisoner in this dump or what?

All the same, to be safe, I go back to my room and write a quick note: “If anything happens to me, it’s Jason.” I put the note on my desk under my geography book. That way Mom won’t walk in and find it by accident, but it’s there just in case.

Outside, I walk fast, crossing the street whenever I get near an alley. They’re all empty, except for one with a kid huffing airplane glue out of a paper bag. “You’re gonna get zits all around your lips,” I shout across the street. He looks up sort of glazed. “Yeah,” I go on, “and then your brains are gonna fall out!” Okay, I’ve done my bit to save his life, now time to think about saving Jason’s.

I get to the pay phone feeling like a total drama queen. I make the call. The phone rings forever. At first, my chills come back—is Jason somewhere around here watching? But the longer it rings, the more I start to wonder if maybe it’s true about him killing himself— and if he’s maybe already done it. Shot his brains out. Slit his throat. Hung himself. Should I call the cops? Call his cottage? Call a cab?

I’m about to hang up and call
somebody
, when he finally picks up. “Hello?” He doesn’t sound so good, but maybe he’s acting.

“What’s your message supposed to mean?”

“Leslie, Leslie, it’s you. I’m glad you called. I wanted to hear your voice one last time. My parents are at the cottage. Tonight’s the night.”

“For what?”

“I’ve got a quart of Jack Daniels and a bunch of my mom’s pills. Thorazine, Lorazepam, ludes. You’ll never have to see me again.”

“Come on, Jason. No way you’re killing yourself.”

“Let’s not fight.”

“Look, I don’t have time for this. I have an exam tomorrow.”

“Then go home and study.” His voice gets groggier. “I’ve left some stuff for you on the rec room pool table.”

“What stuff?”

“A letter. About how you were right. How I don’t deserve to live.”

“You left a letter blaming me?”

“It doesn’t blame you. It thanks you. You made everything clear.”

“That’s sick.”

“There’s also a copy of that memory card of you and the other girls. You never found it cuz it wasn’t in the box with the original. I kept it in my wallet so I could see you naked whenever I wanted. I’ve put it in an envelope addressed to the cops, with all your names and addresses. Maybe you can pass it on.”

“Oh god, no, Jason, no. Destroy it now.”

“Goodbye, Leslie.”

“I said, destroy it!”

But it’s like he doesn’t hear me. “Have a good life. I loved you. I’ll watch over you forever.” Click.

I hear the dial tone. For a second, I freak. Then I’m pissed. He’s playing mind games. What kind of fool does he take me for?

I go into Happy Grocery breathing fire, pay for the milk and ask for a pack of smokes. The cashier asks for my
ID
.

“I don’t have it with me.”

“Then sorry.”

“Don’t
sorry
me!” I yell. “You’re the only stupid store in the whole world that asks for
ID
, so get real.”

The woman grabs a broom and tells me to get out or she’ll call the cops.

“Happy Grocery, my ass,” I snarl, and take off.

I go back to the pay phone, ready to rumble. I call Jason again. It rings I don’t know how many times. I picture him laughing to himself as he listens. Then I picture him slipping into a coma from his mother’s pills and booze. I go from mad to scared. I think about phoning the suicide prevention line or even the cops, but I can’t take the chance. What happens if there really is a note and a memory card for the cops? There’ll be an investigation. Mom’ll find out. I’ll be called a whore and a murderer.

I pace outside the phone booth, talking to myself. It seems to help me think. I remember to whisper and not move my lips. I don’t want to attract attention, like Marge with the shopping cart outside Katie’s church.

“What’s the big deal? Just go over,” I say.

“What, are you crazy?” I answer back.

“If Jason dies and you don’t go, you’ll blame yourself as long as you live. Plus, going means you’ll get the only remaining copy of the porn plus the letter.”