What Happens Next (10 page)

He pulls back the tab on the can.

I step back as a geyser of Dr Pepper sprays all over him, all over the table, all over the chair and floor. Billy Idol looks out at me and snarls through the brown syrup that has completely coated him and his trusty guitar. Stoner Boy jumps up, arms out to his sides, hair and face dripping, looking down at himself, stunned.

“Holy shit,” he says, letting out a cough of a laugh.

Then he looks at me like he can’t believe I just did that. And truthfully, I can’t believe I just did that either. Wow. He’s really sopping wet with Dr Pepper. Maybe I’d better run?

I start to backpedal. “Uh, I… I didn’t know—”

“Stop,” he says, holding up his hands. “Don’t apologize. Because that… was brilliant.”

He takes off the Billy Idol shirt and wipes his face with it. Billy is replaced with a long-sleeved plain white T-shirt.

“Well played,” he says, smiling and pointing a finger at me. “But when you least expect it? Expect it. Because I’ve got eight weeks to plot my revenge.”

Then he slides his fingers through his hair and sits back down. He leans over and starts slurping up puddles of pop from the table like he’s four. I get a good look at his eyes for a few seconds before his bangs fall back down over them. They’re brown—big with long lashes.

I turn away so he won’t see my face and how hard I’m trying not to smile.

9

I google him
sometimes. I don’t know why.

I know his name isn’t what he said it was. Dax Windsor is not a real person, but he does exist. It’s the name of a doctor on a soap opera that was canceled back in the eighties. Can you believe that? When I read that, I wanted to take a sledgehammer to my laptop and then go turn on the oven, crawl inside, and shut the door. God, I am so dumb. His real name could be Rumpelstiltskin for all I know.

But still, I always go back for more. When I’m unable to sleep, most nights actually, I’ll fire up the laptop, hop on the Internet, and promise myself that I’m just going to do normal stuff. I promise myself that I’m just going online to check e-mail or IM with the second-string replacement friends I sit with at lunch, Bethany Morris and Emma Jackson. Cofounders of the LHS Society for Kinder Living, otherwise known as Fanatical Vegans. Usually, though, I just hide out offline on Facebook and stalk Kirsten’s and Paige’s profiles. They’ve got new pictures—ones from the ski trip that are all cropped and free of Sid Murphy. There’s this one, though, a close-up of the two of them on the ski lift, and I can see a little curl of my hair on Kirsten’s shoulder. When I see the curl and the ski lift, things go quickly downhill from there. My fingers become possessed and I start googling horrible things: date rape, drug rape, travel rape, vacation rape, Dax Windsor, Windser, Winzor.

I don’t know how it happens. It just does. I search and search for clues to tell me what happened, where he is, who else he has done this to. I find nothing but inner sickness. I get so torn up and panic-stricken that I have to slam my laptop shut and raise my window, stick my head out into the cold night, and try not to scream. I don’t know what to do with it, this lack of peace, this need to know. I want it to go away but it won’t.

Every night it comes back.

Every night I am searching.

10

It’s Friday
and last period is over, so I head out of the gym rolling an AV cart back toward the basement. I had the pleasure of running the movie projector during that oh-so-lovely freshman assembly on STDs. It was pretty awful having to sit through that movie for a second time, especially since… well… you know. I mean, I think I’m fine, everything feels normal enough—down south, if you catch my drift—but still, I couldn’t wait for that movie to end.

In front of me in the crowded hall are three freshman girls. They’re all squeezed together shoulder-to-shoulder, holding their books and gushing about some boys they met at the movie theater. It reminds me of how things used to be with Kirsten, Paige, and me when we were that age. Everything was so exciting back then. It’s been a few weeks now, and neither of them has made any attempt to talk to me. I wrote them both, saying I was sorry again. I got no replies, just crickets. I cut down an unfamiliar hallway so I won’t have to listen to these three girls being best friends anymore.

I pass by the woodshop, slowing down a bit to peek in the long windows that run horizontally down the wall. The Living Stoner is in there hooking up a stereo system, a tribe of flunkies gathered around him. A piece of paper is being passed around, and the guys are all laughing about it. Right before I reach the end of the window, I see the Living Stoner grab the paper off of a guy in a red sweatshirt. He looks at it, then gives the guy a shove before stuffing it into his back pocket.

Ten bucks says it’s his report card.

He’s not the brightest bulb in the chandelier, from what I’ve heard. Bethany and Emma told me all about him. Even though they’re a bit kooky with their meat-is-murder-enviro-nutball world views, my lunch buddies seem like reliable sources. I told Bethany I was doing AV instead of computers, and she offered to rub her head against mine, in case I needed to borrow some IQ points after losing them to Corey. She said he used to get made fun of in elementary school when he read out loud. According to her, between the inborn stupidity and the permanent marijuana cloud hovering over his house, Corey Livingston is operating with a dangerously low amount of brain cells. Three to be exact: one for growing pot, one for smoking pot, and one for dealing pot. Then Emma added a fourth: eating, so he can nom after smoking all that pot.

I drop off the cart, and right before I lock the AV door, I see Corey’s backpack sitting in a chair. We don’t have keys to this room, so I leave it unlocked for him. On my way back up the steps, I run into him.

“AV room’s still open; your backpack’s in there,” I say, hurrying past him and up the steps. My house is technically walking distance from the school, but if I hurry, I can catch the RTA and ride most of the way.

“Sid, wait!” Corey says.

I stop and look down at him from the top of the steps. He just stares up at me from below, saying nothing. I give him this gesture like
What? Spit it out. I’m in a rush, here.

“I need to talk to you. Tell you something,” he says.

“Can it wait?” I say. “Seriously, I have zero seconds to spare right now.”

He shakes his head no. And he looks worried. Which makes me worried. Did he accidentally blow up a stereo in the woodshop or something? Am I in trouble, too?

I look ahead at the crowded hallway emptying out. The clock down the hall reads two forty. Even if I run, I probably won’t make the two forty-five bus. I resign myself to hoofing it home and head back down the steps. He meets me halfway.

“I’m missing the bus for this, so I hope it’s good,” I say.

He looks around, puts his head down a bit, and mumbles to himself, “Man, this is weird.”

“Dude,” I say. “I have a half-hour walk ahead of me and it’s freezing balls outside. Spill it, already.”

He sighs and pulls out a piece of paper from his back pocket—the same piece of paper that his friends were passing around in the woodshop, I think.

“I didn’t make this, okay,” he says. “I want you to know that. But it’s being passed around and I thought you should know about it. I think it’s from that cheerleader bitch’s Facebook or something.”

I reach out and grab it from him. I start to open it.

“Wait!” he says.

I stop, look at him.

“Uh, I mean, maybe you should wait until you get home? You might not want me standing here. We don’t know each other that well and—”

“What the hell is it?” I say. “Me naked or on the toilet or something?”

“No!” he says. “Well, I mean, not
totally
naked or anything. It’s just kind of…”

I wrestle it open.

My stomach drops.

The picture is a close-up of me in my bra, pulling on my cheerleading vest. It’s a little blurry but the hair is unmistakable. It’s me, all right. And holy shit, my boobs are huge. I can’t believe how massive my boobs look on camera.

I look at Corey. His eyes look sorry. I open my mouth to say something, but then I turn and run up the steps and down the hallway.

“It’s not that bad!” he yells. “You can’t even see anything. Really!”

I blow past the vice principal, Mr. Davis, and he yells at me, too.

“You! With the red curls! Slow it down!”

I peel around a corner and head for the girls’ restroom. I hide out until I’m sure the school is mostly empty. Then I run all the way home. My brother and mom are in the kitchen; as I pass by them, I tell my mom I have homework, and then I dash to my room, slam the door shut, and lock it. I fire up my laptop and go to Starsha’s Facebook page.

On her status, she has directed everyone to her new blog, gingerbitch.com, the header of which is the picture of me in my bra with a little black edit box covering my eyes. As if that is supposed to disguise me somehow. I must have been getting changed in a locker room at an away football game. She and her minions must have taken it with a phone then laughed all winter about Ginger Bitch Murphy’s double-D rack. There is also a picture of my bent-over butt during a cheerleading pyramid. Swell.

But what really hurts, what really cuts deep, are the other pictures. There are pictures of me in elementary school when I still had all the baby fat. Me doing embarrassing kid stuff. In one, I’m wearing an ugly grass-stained polka-dot bikini that’s a few sizes too small. I’m rocketing headfirst down a Slip ’N Slide during a field day on the last day of school. Then there’s another one of me making an obnoxious face and wearing a SpongeBob shirt. It’s been cropped to cut out everyone else in the picture, but I know who is standing next to me—Kirsten. It was at her tenth birthday party, the year I decided to have a go at straightening my own hair because I hated how curly it was. I ironed it with my mom’s flat iron and burned it so badly that she had to practically shave it off. I looked like a fat, kinky-headed boy.

I slam my laptop shut, race back down the stairs, grab my coat, and head out the door. My mom chases after me, holding a spaghetti strainer.

“Where you going? Dinner’s almost ready!”

“Library! Big paper!”

“Eat first, and then I’ll drive you.”

“It’s only four blocks! McFatty’s is right there, I’ll grab a Big Mac!”

Then I run the nine blocks to Kirsten’s house and bang on her door.

I’m seriously going to strangle her.

Kirsten opens the door. She gives me this look like
Whatdoyouwant?

“You bitch! How could you do that to me?” I say. “Those were pictures we took in grade school! I thought you were my friend!”

Her brows wrinkle up in confusion. “Wha—”

“Don’t play dumb—at least have the spine to admit it! The picture of me at your birthday party after I’d scorched myself bald!”

“What are you talking about?” and her voice is getting louder now. Oh, she’s good. She looks and sounds genuinely perplexed.

“The website, dumbass, gingerbitch.com! Like you don’t know.”

Her faces blanches. “What?”

I mock her, “
What?
Please, the one Starsha put up to make fun of me!”

She takes a deep breath and steps closer to me.

“Look, I may be pissed at you,” she says, “but
that
I would never do. I’m not the only person in Lakewood with a camera, you know. My mom made me invite every girl in the class to that party. Like thirty girls or something. I don’t know where the pictures came from, but they didn’t come from me. And frankly, I resent the implication. Although I do understand it. See, you’re in deep shit with me right now, so you’re turning things around in your head to make me look like the bad guy. You were the one who tied this friendship to the tracks and walked off with some frat boy you just met. You! So when I said I don’t need any more of your bullshit drama, I meant it!”

She steps back inside and slams the door.

My throat catches and the tears start trying to push their way out. Because this is yet another thing that he has taken from me. If the ski trip hadn’t happened, I’d be hanging with my besties, hating on my enemies, and pretty much loving life. My peace, my virginity, my friends, cheerleading, and now my pride; he’s taken it all. And with everything he takes, the Fairy Tale Lie unravels a little more. And I need it. I need the Fairy Tale Lie.

I fight back the tears by taking off running. I run the streets of Lakewood and let the biting wind and gritty slush harden me from the outside in. As I run, my face and ears ignite with a cold burn. My muscles ache, like my legs are still figuring out how to run. But after a while, the strangest, most astonishing thing starts happening—the worries, the heartache, they just start falling away, just dropping out of my mind and onto the pavement. The ski trip, Dax, Kirsten, the website…
plop, plop, plop
. It’s like magic. I run and wonder about it. I wonder about how speed and fatigue, wet and cold can act like a spell, how they can affect the body and the mind, how pain can feel good sometimes. And running in January is painful, trust me. But I focus in on it, to keep everything else from getting back in. The cold burn that started in my face and hands spreads to my feet and legs. It stays in my extremities a long time but I keep up with it by running my engine at full speed.

I run until I’m colder and more solid and unyielding than I’ve ever felt in my life. And I don’t care that it hurts. I don’t care that I want to scream from the pain, because I think it might be worth it, this terrible, shredding pain. Because at some point, the numbness will come—it must come. And maybe if I do this long enough, and do this often enough, the numbness will stay and I will no longer be Sid Murphy, helpless ragdoll, sleeping toy. I will be Sid Murphy, human glacier, suit of armor forged from ice.