Читать книгу Slide - Jill Hathaway - Страница 9

I wander into the middle of my room and just stand there for a minute, not knowing what to do with myself. There’s something about being alone on a Friday night— it’s more lonely than any other night, I think. It’s like my loserishness has been highlighted by the simple fact that I’m standing here by myself at nine p.m. on a Friday.

I have to put on some Weezer to make the space a little less quiet. I stare at the walls, at the Nine Inch Nails and Green Day posters hanging over my bed. They remind me of Rollins—he’d call me every time something he thought I’d like came in. “You and your old nineties music,” he’d say, grinning, shaking his head.

The way he walked out tonight, though—it makes me scared I’ve lost him for good. I’ve shut down his every attempt to find out what’s really going on with me. I know what Dr. Moran would say—I’m pushing him away before he has a chance to disappoint me.

I try to find something in my room from before we were friends, a hint at what my life used to be like, but there’s nothing. Finally, I turn to my closet. I push aside the clothes I wear every day and peek in the back. It’s like a time capsule—my old cheerleading uniform, the preppy sweaters I used to wear when I hung out with Samantha.

When my fingers hook the glittery purple gown I wore to homecoming last year, I yank my hand back as if from a cobra. The poisonous memories come rushing back.

On the first day of sophomore year, I felt this heady rush of possibility. Cheerleading tryouts were coming up, and Samantha and I pinkie-swore we’d both get on the squad. When we did, we celebrated by sneaking wine coolers from her older brother’s fridge.

My locker was right next to Scott Becker’s—before people started calling him Scotch. Samantha and I both had the hots for him. He was smaller then, with sandy-blond hair and dimples. He did this thing where he’d stare at me until I looked, and then he’d get all red and turn his gaze to the floor.

On the last Friday in September, he asked me to go to the homecoming dance with him. I thought Samantha would be excited for me. Okay, that’s bullshit. I knew she’d be pissed. But I said yes anyway.

If I could take back anything that happened in my life— well, besides my mother dying, of course—it would be saying yes to Scott Becker.

Samantha turned mean, getting the rest of the cheerleaders to turn against me. In health class, we did these PowerPoint presentations on sexually transmitted diseases. Samantha’s was about herpes, and she Photoshopped my head onto a purple dinosaur and called it the Herpasaurus Rex. Everyone laughed, including the teacher.

Samantha spread a rumor that I gave head to all the seniors on the football team. My phone number was in every stall in the boys’ bathroom. Saturday mornings, our trees were full of toilet paper.

Whenever a cheerleader cupped her hand around some-one’s ear and whispered a secret, all the while staring at me, I felt like dying. But to give in would be to let them win, and there was no way I was going to do that. I tried to make it seem like the rumors didn’t bother me. Like I didn’t care.

Only at night, when sleep was impossible, did I cry.

The weekend before homecoming, my dad took Mattie and me to the mall to look for a dress. He pressed a few bills, crisp from the ATM, into my hand and headed off for the food court. Mattie pirouetted and skipped by my side, but it wasn’t all fun and frills for me. It was war.

I wanted a dress that would stun, that would show everyone how little I thought of the rumors and pranks. It needed to bring the boys to their knees and the girls to their senses. It needed to double as armor.

At one end of the mall, next to Pretzels ’n’ More, we found a store called Tonight, Tonight. The dress jumped out at me from the window—a dark-purple, silky, sparkly thing. It reminded me of the stream in the woods behind our house, of water spilling over rocks and twinkling in the moonlight.

When I put it on, I felt strong in a way I’d never felt before. I felt like someone else, someone older and wiser, someone who knew what she wanted out of life. The front came down dangerously low, skimming the tops of my barely-there breasts, but the saleslady pulled out these chicken-cutlet things and stuffed them in my bra, and it was like I had bloomed.

When we got home, I tried my dress on and sashayed down the stairs like a princess. I could tell my dad wasn’t too crazy about the dress and the chicken-cutlet things, but he said, “I guess you’re old enough to pick your own clothes” and “You only go to your first high school dance once” and “You sort of look like your mother in that thing”—and then he stopped talking and went into his study.

A guy on the football team with a goatee drove us to the dance, but first he took us to Kapler Park and pulled out a joint. I said no to the pot, but I took a few swigs from the bottle of Cutty Sark Scott had lifted from his parents’ liquor cabinet. It made me feel the way the dress did—all warm and grown-up and free. When we all felt light and fuzzy, we headed to the dance. It occurred to me that the goatee guy probably shouldn’t be driving, but the liquor made me feel like nothing bad could really happen, and I didn’t want to seem like a baby.

“Come dance with me,” Scott whispered in my ear. I let him lead me out to the middle of the dance floor, and it seemed like the whole crowd parted to let us through, just like in a movie. A slow song played, and I leaned against him and closed my eyes. He smelled like pot and orange shampoo. It felt perfect. But then a familiar feeling crept over me—I was about to slide—and I mumbled to Scott that I needed to sit down.

“You want to go sit somewhere alone?”

I nodded and rubbed my eyes. I could barely stand up. By the time Scott maneuvered me to the edge of the gym, by the doors that led to the locker rooms, I’d already slid into someone else.

It was a strange feeling. I’d left my body, but I was still in the gym. It was just like my perspective had changed. The body I’d slid into was standing near the punch bowl, sipping sweet liquid out of a paper cup. Her beautiful pink ring flashed under the disco lights. That’s when I realized who I’d slid into. I was wearing Samantha’s silver heels, ones I’d borrowed long before our fight, ones that she’d said made her feel like Cinderella.

My ex-best friend watched Scott drag my body into the boys’ locker room.

My worst fear was coming true. When you abandon your body, you leave it vulnerable. Maybe Scott was just looking for a place to sit with me and wait until I woke up, but then why didn’t he just prop me up on one of the folding chairs set up along the perimeter of the gym? Or, better yet, why didn’t he find a chaperone and ask for help?

I was pretty sure I knew why, but I couldn’t stomach the reason. I couldn’t think about what was happening to my body without me to protect it. I desperately wished I could force Samantha to follow Scott, to punch him in the mouth, or even just to scream for help. But there was nothing I could do.

After a few moments, I saw a boy with long brown hair and a lip piercing duck into the locker room. He was in my Spanish class—a new kid named Archie Rollins. Samantha and I had laughed out loud the first day Señora Gomez read roll call. Who names their son Archie?

My panic grew. I thought of a book I’d read about a girl who got wasted at a party. Some random guy took pictures of her naked body and posted them all over the internet. Everyone saw—even her parents.

Come on, Samantha, I thought. I know we’re in a fight, but how can you stand here and not do anything? How?

That’s when I returned.

I awoke to sounds of a scuffle. My body was laid out on one of those uncomfortable wooden benches in the boys’ locker room, my dress around my waist. Two struggling figures became clearer until I figured out it was Scott and that guy, Archie.

Archie got a good punch in, and it caught Scott right under his chin. Scott’s arms pinwheeled, looking for something to grab on to, but there was nothing. He fell hard on his back, groaning and looking like he wouldn’t be getting up for a while.

Turning to me, Archie held out a hand. “Come on,” he said, his voice gruff. “Let’s get you out of here.” I let him lead me out of the locker room, up the stairs, and outside into the cool night air. He folded me into his car, and I let him because I wasn’t thinking about much of anything but how I needed a shower.

On Monday morning, I overheard a cheerleader whisper to another sophomore that I’d gone down on Scott in the boys’ locker room at the dance. “Who told you that?” the sophomore asked. “Samantha,” the cheerleader responded, “so you know it’s true. And then Scott yakked all over the dance floor.” They giggled.

“Scotch Becker,” they called him. To this day, he goes by a nickname he earned the night he tried to date-rape me. Every time I hear it, I want to vomit.

After Spanish class, I confronted Samantha. “You saw it,” I said. “You saw Scott dragging me into the locker room, but you just stood there and sipped your punch and didn’t do anything.” My voice was shaky, and I felt like I was going to cry, but I wouldn’t give her the satisfaction.

Samantha stood with her folder clutched to her chest, her lips pressed together. In her eyes, I saw a mixture of anger, regret, and fear. I could tell she was wondering how I knew she saw it all when I was unconscious at the time. She was afraid of me, of what I knew and how I knew it. She turned and scuttled away.

When I got to lunch that day, Samantha was sitting on Scotch’s lap. Everyone at their table followed me with their eyes as I grabbed a plate and filled it with some spinach leaves and croutons and ranch dressing. I sat at an empty table near the windows. That was when Archie—well, Rollins—sat down across from me. He had a bag of Doritos and a can of Mountain Dew. He looked at me easily, like there was nothing out of the ordinary, like he sat with me every day.

“What’s up?” he asked, and we’ve been best friends ever since.

I didn’t tell anyone what happened to me that night. Maybe I should have. Probably I should have. But I didn’t, and even thinking about talking about it makes my skin crawl. It seems easier to pretend it never happened. The problem is . . . it did happen. And I carry it around with me every day of my life.

I don’t even bother to undress, just lie on top of my covers, replaying my conversation with Rollins over and over again, wishing it had gone a different way. What if I’d told Rollins the truth? What if he’d believed me? Does the fact that I couldn’t be honest with Rollins mean I don’t really value his friendship?

I sigh and turn onto my left side. The Clockwork Orange poster on my wall is illuminated by the streetlight. I get into a staring contest with it, but it’s no good. The eyeball with the thick black lashes always wins. I haul myself out of bed and pad across the room, to the window. My mother’s old telescope waits for me.

She loved the stars. Even though she’d majored in English literature, my father said, she took so many classes in astronomy she was able to pick it up as a minor. Though so much about my mother seems intangible now—the way she smelled, the things she’d whisper to me before I fell asleep at night—this seems real to me. I’m able to look through her telescope and see exactly what she saw. It makes me feel close to her.

Stooping down, I look through the eyepiece. Despite the light pollution in our neighborhood, I’m able to make out Polaris, the North Star, and from that I’m able to identify Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. Mama bear and baby bear. There’s something so comforting to me about the constellations, the mother and baby, cradled in the sky for all eternity. I stare until the stars go blurry and my breath goes soft.

Something in my pocket pokes me. I pull it out and smooth it against my jeans. It’s the page from the calendar that Sophie taped to our door earlier. I start to feel woozy, like I might slide. Oh no. Not again. My vision pulses, and my knees go out, and I fall deep, deep down, into a hole.

I’m sitting at a white desk, a pad of fancy stationery angled before me. Words crawl like spiders across the page, flowing from the pen in my gloved hand.

Who am I?

And why am I wearing gloves?

The words I’m writing say: I don’t deserve this.

As I stand, I notice the pink walls and the pictures of ballerinas. Sophie’s room.

There is no sound.

I turn away from the desk, and I see the bed. It’s definitely Sophie’s bed, but it’s a different color now. Earlier, the bed was covered with a pristine white comforter. Now, the bed is dark maroon. And wet. So wet. There’s something on the bed. It is Sophie. Her inky-black hair frames her white face. Her arms lie helpless at her sides, a long slash in each wrist.

No.

No.

This isn’t happening.

That’s when I see what I’m carrying in my gloved hands. A long, silver blade.

Oh. Shit. Oh. No.

Who did this to her? Who did I slide into?

But, before I can figure it out, I am gone.

My eyes fly open, and I sit up, grabbing at my legs, my head, my face, to make sure I’m really back. The light from the streetlamp shines in my eyes, blinding me for a moment until I dodge out of the way. I pull myself to my feet and look around. Telescope, rocking chair, heap of dirty clothes. I’m back in my room.

What happened?

My eyes fall on the small piece of paper on the floor— the one I thought Sophie had taped to our door earlier. If she’d been the one to put it there, I would have slid into Sophie just now.

But I didn’t.

I slid into someone else. Someone bad. Someone with a knife.

The memory of Sophie and her open wrists spurs me into action. I have to call, make sure she’s okay. The only problem is that I don’t have her number.

Mattie and Amber do.

I dash out the door and down the dark hallway to my sister’s room. But there’s no one there. Her bed is empty, the wrinkled sheets nestled around no one. Mattie and Amber are still out.

I look at the clock. It’s nearly midnight.

They should have been home by now if they were just going to a movie. As I return to my room to find my phone, I wonder what happened to them. Most likely they just crashed at Samantha’s house for the night.

They’re fine, I reassure myself. Mattie is fine.

I dial Mattie’s number and wait. No answer. I dial again. No answer.

I make myself sit down and breathe. Just breathe.

For a moment, I think about calling my father. It’s odd that he’s not home by now. The only reason he’d still be at the hospital is if the conjoined twins are having problems, in which case I can’t really call him up and bother him.

What do I do?

If I look up Sophie’s home phone number, I can call her parents. The number on my clock says 12:03. It’s so late. They’ll be angry.

Shaking my head, I realize that of course I have to call them. If what I saw was real, someone has to help Sophie. Now.

I fire up my laptop and type in Sophie’s last name. Jacobs. There are six listings under that name in our area. I have no idea what her parents’ names are. I’m going to have to try each of them.

I call the first number. No one picks up.

On my second try, a groggy-sounding woman answers.

“Is Sophie there?”

“You must have the wrong number,” the woman says angrily, and hangs up.

Please let the third time be the charm. Please.

The phone rings.

“Hello?” a man asks cautiously.

“Is Sophie there?”

“She’s asleep, like I was just a moment ago.”

“Please, sir. Please go check on her.”

“What is this about—”

“Please, I don’t have time to explain. Please go check on her.”

I hear the man set the phone down. A second passes, stretching out into forever. Another second. Another.

And then the screaming begins.