Life After Theft (26 page)

“It could have happened that way, too.” I think my voice cracked.

“Jeff, be serious. Are you and Sera having sex?” That question sounded so dire coming from my dad.

“
Having
might be a bit of an overstatement,” I said to my plate.

“Just today?”

This was so bad. “Um, yeah.”

“Jeff.” Disappointment dripped from my mom’s voice.

That was too much. “What? You say that like
you
waited.”

“Jeff.” A clear warning from Dad.

“Well, it’s true.” I worked hard to keep my voice sincere, not sarcastic. “I’m not trying to be a smart-ass. You guys did it, too; does it really surprise you?”

“I had hoped you would learn from our mistakes,” my dad said.

“I did. We . . . we were careful.”

“Define
careful
.”

“We used protection, Dad. Okay?”

“At least that’s something.”

I took a few breaths to calm down. I didn’t want this to be a fight; I wanted them to understand. And if anyone could understand, it would be my parents. “I love her, Dad. I do.” My dad started to speak, but I cut him off. “Maybe I don’t love her the way you loved Mom; maybe it’s just, uh, a crush or whatever you’re going to say. But I love her and you can’t tell me I don’t.”

My dad’s mouth closed.

“I thought about you. I did. Just before . . . well, just before. I didn’t have anything with me, and I was ready to stop. I told her we had to stop, and
I would have
,” I said, looking up and meeting his eyes again.

“Why didn’t you?”

“She . . . was prepared.”

“Ah, a good Girl Scout.” Mom hid her smile behind her coffee cup and coughed when Dad glared at her.

“That’s not the point, son—”

“It is the point, Dad. You taught me to wait for the right time and the right person, and then to use protection and not leave my life up to chance. That’s what I did. I’m still kind of young, I know. But I’m six months older than you were when you met Mom. And you married her! You’ve been married for over fifteen years. Were
you
wrong?” I asked.

My dad stared at me for a long time before sliding his gaze over to Mom. “No, Jeff, I wasn’t wrong.” He turned back to me with his mouth set in a hard line. “But condoms are not a hundred percent. If you’re not ready to stand by her and do what it takes, don’t do it again. Promise?”

I worked to suppress a grin. “I promise.”

I DIDN’T SEE KIMBERLEE AT
all the next day. I saw a lot of Sera, but not Kimberlee. Sera still seemed stressed and wouldn’t say why, but after yesterday, I stopped worrying. Whatever was going on, she would make the
right choice
. I’d learned that trust isn’t always something someone earns; it’s a choice you make. Kimberlee taught me that in her caustic, demented way.

It was weird. This whole time I had been assuming that Kimberlee was supposed to learn something from me, but maybe I was supposed to learn something from her.

But where did that leave Kimberlee?

On Thursday morning I walked into school and Kimberlee was lying on the floor in the middle of the hallway again. I was gripped by a twisting sense of déjà vu and had to stop myself from yelling out when a girl in platform heels walked straight toward her. Kimberlee didn’t move an inch, but I cringed as that black shoe sank through her face.

“Bitch,” Kimberlee said quietly.

The girl looked quizzically down at her foot for a moment, then tossed her hair over her shoulder and kept walking.

I was trying to decide if I should go say something when I felt Sera’s warm hand slip into mine.

“Hey.” She smiled at me with those green eyes that made me want to find an empty classroom . . . now.

Decision made—I walked past Kimberlee without even looking down. I didn’t feel eyes on my back; apparently she was ignoring me, too. Waiting for a new destiny, maybe—though who knows what someone else would help her with. There was nothing left in the cave; no unfinished business left to get her out of limbo.

Still, it was weird not to talk to her, or even acknowledge her. We were two people whose lives had revolved around each other, now drifting apart. I think maybe I even missed her. When she wasn’t being crude, mean, sarcastic, or cruel, she was kind of fun to have around.

Friday morning I made up my mind to talk to her. I had everything—I had Sera, my parents, even some friends back home that I still texted sometimes. Kimberlee had no one but me. And like it or not, I still felt obliged to try to help her. If nothing else, to get her finally and completely out of my life.

I parked Halle in her usual spot and tried not to drag my feet as I approached the school. I’d made the decision; I couldn’t wimp out now. I even called Sera the night before and told her I’d probably be late and to just meet me at lunch. No turning back now.

I walked into the main foyer and my eyes immediately went to Kimberlee’s portrait on the wall. She looked innocent in that picture—happy. I knew better. I wondered if Kimberlee had ever been innocent, and I knew it had been years since she’d been happy.

I steeled myself and walked past the portrait and into the south hall.

But she wasn’t there.

I stared at the space on the floor she had occupied yesterday—the place she’d lain when I first saw her. I blinked a few times and wondered if fate had changed its mind. Had I screwed up so badly I wasn’t allowed to help anymore? Maybe it was Kimberlee who had screwed up. Okay, fine.
Probably
it was Kimberlee who screwed up.

For a moment I dared to hope she’d been allowed to move on after all, but the idea fled almost as soon as I thought of it. If anything, Kimberlee was
more
conflicted than when we’d first met.

Maybe I just couldn’t see her anymore. I walked over to her spot and tried to stand there casually. “Kimberlee,” I whispered. “Are you there?”

A backpack bumped my shoulder. “Sorry, man,” a sophomore said. “My fault.” He hurried on when he saw the look on my face. But my eyes weren’t on him; they were fixed on the line his feet had just followed. Straight across where Kimberlee should have been lying. He didn’t stop and look down the way everyone did when they made contact with Kimberlee—staring around as the chills went through them. He didn’t look at his feet at all.

She wasn’t there.

Where was she? She had nowhere else to go.

Did she?

Maybe she’d found someone else who could see her. Maybe there
was
another new kid. The thought made me strangely, irrationally jealous.

I went home alone after school. Sera’s parents were having company for afternoon tea—whatever the hell that was—and dinner that night, and Sera’s parents had decided that
her presence was required
. So I was left out in the cold. I came home to an empty garage, and a note on the kitchen door told me Mom and Dad had taken off for one of their spontaneous romantic weekends.

They think it improves their marriage—I try to think about it as little as possible.

I was vaguely hungry, but I didn’t even stop for a Coke as I headed up to my room. Everything seemed wrong. I should be happy Kimberlee was gone—whether by choice or not. But even though I’d all but given up on her, I hated that she’d given up on me.

I reached for the TV, intending to play something mindless, but after looking through my games for a full five minutes and finding nothing that appealed to me, I turned to my bookshelf instead. When I was little and we lived in Phoenix we didn’t have cable or video games or anything like that. Hell, we were so poor we rarely had anything beyond necessities. So I got into comics. I could go to the comic-book store and, as long as I bought one comic when I left, the owner would let me read the rest of them for hours. Spider-Man, Superman, Sandman—guess I was all about the S-Men—and then when I was done, I would choose my favorite and take it home. I didn’t have any complete series, just random issues. But it made for good comfort reading.

I pulled out one of my favorite issues of
Spider-Man
and had gotten about ten pages in when my cell phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket, and was about to hit
Talk
before I realized I was answering the wrong phone.

The ringing was coming from my bedside table drawer. The phone Khail had given me. The one that had only rung maybe three times in the whole time I’d owned it. It rang twice more while I tried to figure out what to do.

I should probably answer it
.

Shouldn’t I?

Finally, after about eight rings, I brought the phone to my ear. “Yeah,” I said in a voice a few tones lower than normal.

A couple of seconds passed in silence. “Is this the guy who’s been returning all the stolen stuff?”

I’d have known her voice anywhere. Sera. I didn’t say anything.
Couldn’t
say anything.

“Don’t hang up,” she said, and that tiny inflection, the touch of desperation in her voice, made me obey.

“I know this is you and . . . I’m calling to ask for your help on Khail’s behalf.”

Khail’s behalf?

“He got caught.”

I felt my throat convulse, making it hard to breathe.

“He doesn’t know it, but he did. Hennigan pulled me into his office last Monday and told me that when you guys broke into the school, Khail apparently was trying to turn off the alarm and he lifted his mask and got caught on camera.”

“There’s not a camera in Hennigan’s office,” I said, hoping Hennigan had just been bluffing.

“Not an official one. After the theft ring last year Hennigan decided he needed his own security and put in his own camera. Trust me,” she said before I could argue, “I’ve seen the video. It’s obviously Khail.”

Dammit!
“So why didn’t he just nab Khail?” I asked, still in the weird, low voice.

“Hennigan knew it wasn’t just one person. He wanted to catch the whole ring. Thought he’d put pressure on him later. But then he figured out Khail couldn’t be the ringleader.”

“Why not?”

“He went back and checked the schedule. Khail was gone for a three-day wrestling meet the week stuff first started showing up. So Hennigan knew he couldn’t have gotten involved until later.”

I tried to play it cool. “So what? Khail’s not going to squeal. Why do you need my help?”

“You’re right. Khail will take his punishment for you and never say a word. I know it. Hennigan knows it. So he leaned on me instead.”

“What’s he got on you?” I bluffed.

“It’s not about me. Hennigan just . . . knows that I won’t let anything happen to my brother. The damage from the chemicals and sprinklers in the lab will cost the school almost ten thousand dollars. Hennigan is talking about pressing criminal charges for breaking and entering.”

Ten thousand dollars? Criminal charges?
I knew there was some damage but I hadn’t imagined it was so substantial.

“At first Hennigan said if I could give him the ringleader he’d just give Khail two days’ suspension. But he called me into his office again this week.” She paused and I could hear her sniffing in the background. “He’s so pissed. He’s given up on the idea of catching the whole ring. He just wants
someone
. A scapegoat. And if he doesn’t have one by Monday morning—” Her voice caught and her muffled sobs made my chest ache. “He’s going to expel Khail. He won’t graduate, he’ll lose his scholarships . . . I
can’t let that happen
.”

And everything came crashing down around me.

I had failed.

Failed so completely and so miserably that there was no way to pick up the pieces.

For a few weeks there, I really thought I was a hero. I was like Robin Hood, or Edmund Dantès, or Percy Blakeney. A daring vigilante.

And now I was just a punk kid who was about to get his friend expelled.

“What can I do?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper.

“Turn yourself in.”

Three simple words that struck a fear into my heart so deep I wasn’t sure I trusted myself to speak.

“I know it’s not fair. None of it is,” Sera continued. “But it’s even more unfair to let Khail take the fall for this. I don’t know why he’s involved at all, but I guarantee he’s not doing it for himself. He . . .” She stopped and had to get control of her emotions again. “He’s the most unselfish person I know. Whatever the hell he was doing with
you
, I promise it was to help someone else. Do
not
let him take the fall.” A few seconds passed in silence before she added, “Please?” in a voice so fragile and frail I knew there was no way I could refuse. “He’s not just my brother; he’s my best friend. I would take his expulsion for him, but I can’t. I tried.”

“You tried?” In my surprise I almost spoke in my regular voice.

“I owe my brother everything. Of course I tried. But Hennigan knew I was lying. I had no proof, no nothing, and it was a crap story. I’m a terrible liar. You’re the only one who can help him now.”

It took two tries to get the words to come out of my mouth, but finally I managed to say, “Okay.”

“Thank you,” she said in that same vulnerable voice. It was almost a question, as if she wasn’t completely sure I’d actually said it—or, more likely, that I’d actually meant it.

“But I want you to turn me in,” I blurted, before thinking through the consequences of that statement. “I want to make sure you’re off the hook.”

She sniffled again. “Please don’t make me do that,” she said.

I almost couldn’t believe my ears. “I thought you wanted the Red Rose Returner to get caught.”

“I just wanted you to
go away
. You reminded me of a horrible time in my life, and I hated being slapped with it day after day.”

Guilt welled up in my chest. I knew now what she was talking about, and honestly, if it had been me, I wouldn’t have wanted reminders, either. “I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be. You made a lot of people happy. Khail included. You . . . you have no idea what the stuff you gave back meant to him.”

Actually, I kind of did.

“Still,
you
have to turn me in. That way Hennigan can never hold this against you.” She didn’t say anything for a few seconds, so I continued. “I’m going in either way. It may as well do someone some good.”