We Know It Was You (6 page)

“I KNOW IT WAS YOU!” Gerard continued to scream. But his voice was getting hoarse and weak. He was pointing at two immense upperclassmen, Trevor Cheek and another one whose name Virginia didn't know. The boys were looking sort of baffled but also pissed. Suddenly Gerard launched himself at Trevor, beating his fists against Trevor's broad chest.

“Get the FUCK off me!” Trevor shouted, giving Gerard a swat that sent him flying to the ground. Trevor's face had turned completely purple, engorged with rage. “I will FUCKING kill you.”

Gerard immediately picked himself up and flung himself at Trevor again. The crowd formed a tight circle around them, everyone yelling, candles being dropped or snuffed out by all the jostling. Trevor blocked Gerard with an effortless wave of his arm, and Gerard was back on the ground. His head was bleeding now.

“Eeeeh . . . ,” Gerard moaned, trying to sit up. He pointed up at Trevor. Tears streamed down his face. “I know it was you.”

“You are a FUCKING psycho,” Trevor sneered at him. Virginia had never heard a more menacing voice in real life. “If you touch me again, you DIE.” Then he turned and stomped away, knocking down several people in his path.

“Nobody move!” boomed an adult voice from across the fountain. It was Principal Baron. “Nobody move” was what he always shouted when he was on the warpath.

Virginia quickly shoved her way to the center of the circle and knelt next to Gerard. “Gerard, come on. Quickly, come on.”

“No one believes me!” Gerard wept to himself.

“I believe you!” Virginia whispered. She had no idea what Gerard was talking about, but it seemed like what he wanted to hear. All around them, people were staring, and the principal was elbowing his way toward them. She had to get him out of there and find Benny.

“You do?” Gerard asked, and his eyes contained such sad, innocent hope that he looked like a child.

“Yes,” Virginia said. “Now come on.” Gerard got up, and Virginia ducked between two groups of upset cheerleaders. She looked over her shoulder to make sure Gerard was following. The small circle of space where he and Trevor had fought was gone; bodies had immediately pressed in and filled it. Like they'd never even been there.

The Boarders, 9:00 p.m.

“I'm invisible to them. They don't even see me.” He sounded alert, but dulled.

“Well, they're cheerleaders, Gerard, what do you expect?” Virginia was trying to be patient, but she hadn't brought him here for a pep talk, she'd brought him here to
find out why he'd moronically attacked Trevor Cheek.

Gerard slumped on the common-room sofa with a vacant look in his eyes. Virginia was sitting next to him, but as far away as she could get without insulting him. She didn't want someone to walk in and think they were
together
. It's not that Gerard was even that bad. He was a dope though, very low-hanging fruit, and people would think she had low self-esteem if it seemed like she liked him.

“Not the cheerleaders,” Gerard moaned softly. “They're
nice
. It's the football players.”

“Oh,” Virginia said.

“They say things in front of me. They don't even notice I'm there.”

“Things like . . . what?” Virginia asked.

“I heard them . . . I heard them talking about Brittany. They're disgusting.”

“Omigod, what were they saying?” Virginia asked, and was immediately embarrassed by the overeagerness in her voice. She wasn't a gossip queen anymore, she reminded herself; she was an investigator. She needed to be cool. But if Gerard was put off by her obvious salivating, he didn't show it. He was probably so starved for attention he would have told anyone.

“They talked about her and the mascot suit. They wanted to hear her growl like a wildcat while they . . . banged her.”

“In the
suit
?!” Virginia yelled. She burst out laughing.

“Don't laugh! It's not funny! I think they banged her before the game. R-r-raped her.” His voice stuttered over the word. “Raped her in the wildcat suit.”

Virginia stopped laughing.

“And that's why she killed herself!” Gerard sobbed. “Because she was ruined! She was the best mascot in the world! The mascot of beauty and innocence and joy!”

Virginia's lip curled. She really didn't want to believe this. It was the most disgusting and perverted thing she'd ever heard. It wasn't mysterious; it was gross and sad.

“Okay, just . . . calm down,” she said to Gerard. “Come here.” She went over to the computer and sat down. Gerard continued to weep on the sofa.

“Come
here
,” Virginia repeated, slapping the chair next to her. “I want you to look at this.”

Gerard sniffed and looked at the ceiling. “What's that sound?” he said, his face wet with tears.

Virginia listened and heard a familiar whistle, breathy and low and emanating from inside the walls. “It's just the ghost,” she said. “Don't pay attention to it. Now come here.”

“Y'all have a ghost?” Gerard asked, wiping his nose on his sleeve. Virginia didn't answer. She pulled out a silver flash drive and plugged it into the computer. Then she clicked open the video from Friday night, pointedly fast-forwarding past the locker room footage so she didn't have to endure Gerard weepily ogling the cheerleaders in their
underwear. It had been awkward enough watching that with Benny.

“Okay, watch this,” she said, pointing to the screen. It was the bridge, all muddled gray hues with a touch of blue. “See that guy? He's making her jump. He's intimidating her.”

Gerard wiped his eyes. “Hang on, whaaa . . .”

“And look at his shape. He doesn't have football gear on. His shoulders are narrow. It's definitely not Trevor.”

“Well . . . he could have run ahead of her! He could have ditched the gear in the woods!”

Virginia shook her head. “I was there. The cheerleaders were behind me, and the football players were behind them. There wasn't time for anyone to cross the bridge before Brittany got there. Whoever it was, they were already there. Waiting.”

“Can you zoom? Enhance it?” Gerard said, his voice eager and little high-pitched. “Can you tell who it is?”

“That's just TV,” Virginia said. Those scenes always annoyed her, the ones where cops zoomed in on a piece of grainy footage and suddenly a million pixels magically appeared, providing a crisp, clear image. “In real life what you see is what you get.”

Gerard didn't say anything. He seemed confused, staring at the grainy image and blinking dumbly.

“I mean, I guess it doesn't really change much. Brittany's still . . . gone. But, I mean . . .” Virginia didn't know what
she meant. “I mean we still don't have the answers.”

Gerard inhaled slowly, then started crying again.

“Christ, Gerard,” Virginia sighed. Why had she even showed him the video? Because she felt sorry for him, she guessed, but now he was just annoying her again.

She closed the file and yanked out the flash drive.

“I'm going to bed. Can you get yourself home? You can sleep here on the sofa if you want, I guess, but if Mrs. Morehouse checks in, you'll be dead meat.”

Gerard sniffed and wiped his eyes. “I'll go.” He began shuffling to the door. Then he turned back and looked right at Virginia.

“Do you think Brittany's a virgin in heaven?” he said. His voice cracked.

“Uh . . .”

“Or when we die, do we bring all the bad shit that happened to us?”

Virginia gaped at him for a second. Was she actually supposed to answer that?

“The first one,” she managed. But actually, that one seemed depressing too. What was the point of all this shit happening if when you died it just got erased, like it hadn't meant anything at all?

The fountain, 9:30 p.m.

Benny dialed the number again, but she didn't pick up.
She must not be in her room
.
Where is she?
It was weird and
inconvenient that Virginia didn't have a cell phone, but he didn't want to embarrass her by bringing it up. Which was ironic, because Virginia never hesitated to embarrass anyone, pointing out all the little ways they were lacking in her opinion.

Benny bent down to pick up another burned-out candle rolling on the ground. Why was he picking up everyone's litter? It's not like anyone would thank him for it. There was no one around; after the loud kerfuffle by the fountain, everyone had quickly dispersed and gone home, dropping their candles like they were trash, even though most were only barely used.

Benny sat down on the ledge of the fountain, depressed. It was quiet. They'd turned the water off, so now instead of a gushing, sparkling spray, it was just a pointless cement pool of stagnant water.

A baby cried.
A baby?
Benny turned around. He'd been sure he was alone. Then something low and slinky caught his eye. It wasn't a baby; it was a cat.

“Wildcat,” Benny said. “What're you doing out here, little guy?”

The cat meowed again and hopped up beside him. He was a brown, fluffy part-Manx, slightly mangy looking, with big expressive yellow eyes. He was the school cat and had the run of the campus, but usually avoided the students.

Benny hesitantly ran the tips of his fingers over Wildcat's
long fur, matted in places and in need of a good brushing. Wildcat wasn't generally very friendly. He was one of those moody cats who test people—rubbing up against you, then attacking out of nowhere, just to see if you'll still like them.

“Did you see what happened, Wildcat?”

Wildcat nuzzled Benny's arm. Benny reminded himself that this was the same cat who had literally scratched Connor Tate's eye out and sent him to the hospital. The Tates wanted to have Wildcat put down after that, but everyone agreed it was Connor's fault. He was an asshole and an idiot and was trying to put a sock on Wildcat's head.

Benny called Virginia's room again. No answer. He left a message. “Hi. It's me. . . . Umm . . . could you bring the camera to school tomorrow? We should take it to the AV lab, find out if Brittany checked out equipment like that a lot. Maybe videotaping the locker room was, like, a habit of hers. . . . Okay, anyway . . . bye.” He snapped his phone shut. Next to him, Wildcat stretched, gave Benny a random, offended-seeming hiss, and then hopped to the ground. “Bye,” he said to Wildcat.

Benny put his head in his hands and moaned quietly. He was furious with himself for missing the action with the fight or whatever it was. He'd been at the edge of the crowd, watching Angie Montague shuffle toward the parking garage. He must have been staring for a full minute, just spacing out. Then he'd heard shouting and immediately turned around.
Virginia was gone, and the crowd had compressed, forming a wall of bodies that blocked Benny from whatever was going on at the center. Benny had circled the crowd desperately, like a dog circling a tree. But there was no way in—they were packed too tight. Maybe Virginia could have shoved her way to the center, but Benny couldn't. He was stuck there, missing everything. Which proved the entire point of the philosophy of Being There. You could
never
get inside from the outside. Your only hope was to Be There.

The Boarders, 2:11 a.m.

Virginia realized she was awake. She wasn't sure how long her eyes had been open, or why she'd woken up. She was lying on her side, staring blankly into the darkness. In the corner her coat hung from a metal hook, creating a bulky shadow. She kept staring at it, like her eyes were magnetized. The room had a faint bluish tint from the streetlamp filtering in through the thin curtains. As Virginia's vision slowly adjusted to the dimness, the coat's outline started morphing, taking on eerie details. A pale sheen of gold on top. Shadows almost seeming to form a face. And it was moving slightly.

It's October,
Virginia thought suddenly.
My coat's in storage.

Instantly she was wide awake. Her arm shot out to reach for the desk lamp. But she knocked it over, and there was a loud thump and a clatter as the power cord dragged everything on her desk down with it.

“GET OUT!” she screamed. She fell out of her bed in a tangle of sheets, landing hard on her hip. She picked herself up in the darkness, then tripped on the sheets and fell down again. She scrambled to her feet and lunged for the light switch. Bright yellow light flooded the room. Virginia blinked, looking around frantically. Her heart was pounding and her breath was ragged. Her lamp was on the floor, her sheets in a messy knot.

There was no one there.

Virginia poked her head out into the hall. It was dark and silent.

Chrissie White's door opened and light spilled into the hall. “What's going on?” she said groggily, squinting at Virginia across the hall.

“Nothing,” Virginia said, rubbing her eyes. “I don't know. I was dreaming. Did you hear someone in the hall just now?”

“Be quiet!” someone shouted from inside their room.

“I just heard you screaming,” Chrissie said. “Go back to sleep.” She closed her door, and her light disappeared.

Virginia stood there for a second, feeling foggy and confused. It wasn't the first time someone had woken up screaming in the Boarders. Yancey Kemper had nightmares all the time, and no one paid attention. The boarders tended to have little sympathy for one another. They were all stuck in the same shitty situation; no one had it particularly worse than anyone else.

Virginia went back into her room and looked at the corner. There was no coat. There was no person, either. It was just her normal room. She gathered her sheets and threw them back on the bed. Then she flicked off the light and went to sleep.

Monday

The girls' locker room, 11:00 a.m.

I love you and you're my best friend. You have the biggest heart!