Made You Up (22 page)

D
ad took me to school the next day. In the hallways, everyone stared at me like I’d imagined them doing all year. My hair had become a blight, just like at Hillpark; people saw me coming and jumped from my path.

I tried to perform my perimeter checks like usual, but by the time I’d left my locker, there were so many eyes watching me it became difficult to keep my panic down. The only good place was English, where Mr. Gunthrie seemed to have reined in the class so well they ignored me completely.

Miles ignored me, too. He sat with his head bowed, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

The lines he made were thick and dark, and covered whole pages.

In true Miles the Jerk fashion, he didn’t talk to me until I forced him to, when we were walking together toward the gym. It was the day of the one baseball game I’d been dreading all year—East Shoal vs. Hillpark—and part of the reason I’d decided to come back to school. The other part was a joint threat between my mother and the Gravedigger to burn me in the fires of hell if I stayed home. (I told Dad that; he said I might be exaggerating.)

I had to face this. But before I could even think about it, I had to make sure Miles was okay.

I checked to make sure no one was around, then asked Miles, “What’s going on?”

He ran a shaky hand through his hair, his eyes flicking back and forth over the empty rotunda. “I—sorry—I couldn’t think at all today. Everyone knows. They’ve been talking about it all day, and I can’t figure out
how
they know. . . .”

They knew about his mom. I grabbed his hand and pulled it away from his hair, holding it between both of mine. “What’s the worst they can do with it, right? We only have a couple months left.”

“It’s that they
know
,” he said. “I don’t like them knowing things about my mom, because they’re going to start making judgments. And will anyone even take me seriously anymore? What are they going to ask me to do
now? Even if it’s ridiculous, I’ll have to do it—I can’t say no, because then I go from die-hard genius back to punching-bag nerd, and no one will be safe anymore.
I
won’t be safe anymore.”

I looked around again—just him saying he didn’t feel safe made me think McCoy was hiding around a corner with a lighter and a can of hairspray.

Finally he said, “My mom called me. Last night, at Finnegan’s.”

“How come?”

“My dad. He went up to see her. She told me not to visit anymore.”

“Miles . . .” I wasn’t good at comforting people. So I did what I’d done before, and dragged him into my plans.

“I think Celia told everyone,” I said. “Like she told them about me. And I think McCoy was the one who told
her
.”

Miles’s expression flattened out the way it always did when he was dealing with information rather than emotions. To anyone else, he probably looked bored or annoyed. To me, he looked relaxed. The content cat. “That makes sense. He would have access to records. It would’ve been harder for him to find out about my mother, but . . .”

I rubbed my head. “I honestly didn’t think Celia would hurt you. I thought . . . I thought she still liked you too much.”

“I guess she’s had enough.”

“Tucker and I think we can figure out what McCoy’s master plan is, but we need your help.”

“With what?”

“We’re going to break into his house.”

Miles brought out the Magnificent Quirked Eyebrow, which made me feel better. That expression meant that things were at least kind of okay.

“Are you sure that’s what you want to do?”

“Tucker said if we’re going to find anything incriminating, it won’t be at school, and he’s right. It’ll be at McCoy’s. While I’m sure I could just John McClane my way into his house by shooting down the front door, I figured you might be able to do the job a little more discreetly.”

“So basically you’re saying if I don’t agree, you’re going to go anyway, but you’re pretty sure you’ll get caught.”

“Basically.”

“But you know I don’t want you to get caught.”

“Yes.”

“So you’re blackmailing me.”

“Yep.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I can get behind that,” he said. “When?”

“I don’t know. Are you sure you won’t mind it if Tucker’s there? Can you two play nice?”

“Maybe.”

“Would it help if I told you this was Tucker’s idea?”

Now both eyebrows were up. “Well, fuck me.”

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

He leaned over and kissed my temple. The times
he
kissed
me
were so few and far between, I couldn’t help but smile.

“I’ll meet you by the track,” he said, walking away without further explanation.

W
hen I arrived at the baseball field minutes later, the visitor stands were already packed full of red-clad Hillpark fans, many of whom I recognized even from a distance. They formed one undulating mass of red, the head of a dragon rising from their midst. Its scales glimmered in the sun and flames licked from its mouth. The Hillpark side was separated from the East Shoal side by the concession stand and press box planted behind home plate.

I kept my eyes peeled for any sign of Miles.

What I saw instead were Cliff and Ria, on their way to the bleachers from the concession stand. I froze like a deer in headlights when they neared—this was what I got for not doing a good perimeter check. If I’d done the perimeter check, I wouldn’t have run into them, I
wouldn’t look like an idiot, I wouldn’t . . .

“Watch out, babe, she’s dangerous,” Cliff said to Ria, holding out an arm like he was going to protect her from something.
Protect her from you, idiot
. I gritted my teeth and tried not to look at them.

“I’m not dangerous,” I said, keeping my voice level.

“Yeah, and your boyfriend isn’t a Nazi,” Ria scoffed.

For a second I wondered what Miles ever saw in her. She must’ve been horrible to him, because nothing else would make him hate her so much.

Now I understood why the nicknames made Miles so upset, and I couldn’t listen to it anymore. “Don’t call him that.”

“Really?” Ria blinked, eyes wide and innocent. “Because he’s kind of asking for it today.”

Anger balled up in my chest. “And you’re kind of asking to be called a bitch.”

I hardly realized I was saying the words until they were out of my mouth.

Ria almost dropped her soda. Her voice turned flat and sharp and deadly. “What did you just call me?”

I couldn’t back down now. “You’re a bitch. Sleeping with other guys just to make him jealous”—I jabbed a finger at Cliff—”is pretty far into the definition of
bitch
, I think.”

Ria’s knuckles turned white around the soda bottle. I
really really hoped she didn’t charge at me—my legs weren’t going to move very fast, even if I asked them.

“Take that back,” she said, voice tight. “Fucking take it back, or I swear to God—”

I didn’t listen to the rest of her threat—I lowered my head and walked past them, toward the concession stand, to wherever Miles was. Coming to this game didn’t seem like such an awesome idea anymore. I took deep gulps of air, thinking about the trouble I could get into for saying things like that to people like Ria. I could already imagine them formulating a plan. Fuck. Oh, fuck.

I needed to find Miles.

I didn’t have to look far. I spotted him walking toward the visitors’ bleachers. My heart jumped into my throat and my stomach dropped, leaving a gaping void in my chest where vital things belonged.

He was a Nazi.

Or he was dressed like one. The brown suit. The black boots and gloves. The hat. The glaring armband. A saber hung at his side and the German flag from East Shoal’s Flags-of-the-World entryway rested against one shoulder. He pulled his hat off and wiped his forehead. He’d gelled his hair back, finally putting it in some kind of order.

It wasn’t until his eyes met mine that the realization this was really happening hit me. When he saw me, his
gaze didn’t turn glassy and hard and cold. It softened into something deeper than recognition. The eyes were his. The rest was not.

I hurried over to him, stopped ten feet away, and hugged my chest so he wouldn’t see me shaking.

“You’re going to get arrested!” I hissed, barely daring to raise my voice above a whisper. “What are you doing?”

“They can’t arrest me for wearing an outfit,” Miles said, his eyebrows creasing. “Besides, I’m the mascot, see?” He nudged the saber sheathed at his hip.

“Hey, it’s Schizo Ridgemont!”

Some kids I knew from Hillpark walked by, looking shocked to see me alive. Miles whipped around, yelling at them in rapid German. The Hillpark kids shut up in surprise.

“I realize that you think you have to keep doing this, but . . .” I yanked on my hair. “But you’re dressed up like a
Nazi
. What about everything you said to Cliff? About not wanting people to call you that?” I hesitated. “How much . . . how much did they pay you to do this?”

Miles didn’t reply.

Someone passing by laughed loudly, and I caught the words, “The Nazi and the Communist.”

“Shut up!”
I yelled. “You’re all so fucking inconsiderate! I’m trying to talk!” I turned back to Miles, lowering my voice again. “You don’t need to degrade yourself like this.”

That was a terrible cover-up, and he knew it, and I could tell that he knew it. The truth was that I was terrified of Nazis, and here one stood. “Please take the uniform off,” I whispered. “Please.”

He stared at me with a strange expression on his face and took a few steps forward, reaching out for me; I took a few steps back in response. He pulled his hat off and blinked at the sun in his eyes.

“Okay. Just give me a few minutes. My other clothes are in the pool locker room.”

He headed toward the school. I escaped up to the press box where Evan and Ian worked the baseball scoreboard controls and explained to them where Miles was and how I planned on hiding with them for the entire game.

“Isn’t this your old school?” Evan asked.

I nodded. “Unfortunately.”

“What happened? What got you thrown out?” “I, uh, spray-painted the word
Communists
on the gym floor. Things got out of hand; I was having a few problems at the time. Everything’s fine now.”

“It’s okay,” Ian laughed. “We really don’t care about your—problem? I guess, is what we’re calling it.”

“Well, that’s good.” Relief washed through me. I looked over at the Hillpark stands, then back at Evan and Ian, and remembered how much it had sucked the first time: how
people hadn’t trusted me, how they made fun of the way I spun around every time I entered a room, my incessant picture taking, and how I hadn’t been that lonely since I was seven years old and my only friend had left me for Germany.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone climbing the stairs to the press box. A brown uniform flew up and landed on the scoreboard controls. “Your Nazi boyfriend won’t need that anymore!”

I spun, catching a flash of Ria’s blond hair. I looked down at Miles’s uniform, then over at Evan and Ian, and all three of us understood at the same time.

“Theo!” Evan called to the concession stand below us. “Come up here and run this thing for a second!”

The three of us sprinted to the school, each holding a different piece of Miles’s uniform. We barreled into the hallways behind the gym, through the locker rooms, and into the connected natatorium.

It had finally happened. McCoy had used Cliff and Ria as a distraction and Miles was laying on the tiled floor in a puddle of his own blood.

The natatorium was dark when we arrived. A lone figure sat on the bench next to the pool, soaking wet and clad in nothing but a pair of boxer shorts.

“Go get towels,” I said to Evan and Ian. They vanished into the locker rooms.

I sat down next to Miles. His glasses were missing and his eyes were unfocused. “I hate water,” he mumbled.

“I know.”

He looked like a waterlogged cat. His hair was plastered to his head. Goose bumps covered his skin, layered over fading bruises that dotted his torso and ran down along his ribs. A horrible green-yellow-blue one ran diagonally across his back. They were all old, not inflicted here.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I went into the locker room to change,” he said. “They ambushed me. Took my glasses. Threw me in the pool. They were gone by the time I got out, but it was slippery and I fell back in. Now you’re here. The end.”

He scratched at his legs, his arms, picked at his skin like there was something there. I remembered all the bandages. The smell of pond scum and algae.
Animalia Annelida Hirudinea.

Leeches.

“You can’t let them do things like this to you,” I said.

“It won’t be much longer.”

He said it softly, his voice like every part of him I’d ever met—the jerk, the seven-year-old, the genius—and none of them, all at the same time. This was something new, something unknown. Something that scared me. Maybe he meant it wouldn’t be much longer until the end of the school
year, that when we were out of high school he’d have more freedom to do what he needed to do.

Are you sure, idiot?

You’re so stupid.

He never talks about college, or anything after this.

Are you really so naïve?

All he wanted—all he knew to do—was to get his mother out of that hospital. But he had to get rid of Cleveland first. He had a plan. I knew that.

I hadn’t realized how far he was willing to go.

Some deep instinct made me reach out and grab his arm, hold it tightly as if I could keep him right where he was, alive and sound.

I could not lose him again.

No—I could not let him get lost.

I was suddenly more afraid than I had ever been my entire life, more afraid than when Bloody Miles had shown up at Celia’s bonfire, more afraid than when my mother said she would send me away. This was worse than the idea of McCoy trying to hurt Miles. I could stop McCoy. I could yell and scream and even if they didn’t believe me, they would stop and look.

I had no sway over Miles himself. Not when it came to this.

Evan and Ian returned laden with towels and Miles’s
school clothes, and Miles dried himself off. Neither of them said anything about the bruises as Miles pulled his pants and shirt on.

We followed him out of the natatorium. As we passed the main gym, I heard voices and glanced inside, but only McCoy was there. He paced below the scoreboard, talking aloud like he was gearing up for a big speech. No Celia, no Celia’s mother. Fear spiked through me that he was so close, that the only thing separating him from Miles was a closed door.

Then the fear was gone again, and McCoy was just a lonely man in a lonely room, talking to himself.

“What’s wrong?” Miles asked.

Even if I told him, I wasn’t sure he’d understand.

“Nothing,” I said.