Mom sat by my bed constantly for those first two days, the whole time dumping one emotion or another on me. One minute she’d
be crying softly into a palmed tissue, shaking her head sadly and calling me her baby, the next she’d be an angry-faced, puckered-mouthed
woman blaming me and saying she couldn’t believe she gave birth to such a monster.
I really didn’t have much to say to that. To her. To anyone. After Frankie told me Nick was dead, that he’d shot himself,
I sort of just curled up like a salted slug. Turned to my side and curled up around my sheets and blankets, tucked my knees
into my chest as best as I could with the bandaging and the throbbing in my thigh and the tubes and wires that kept me tethered
to the bed. Just curled into a ball and after my body stopped curling my soul kept going. Curling, curling, curling into something
tight, wound, tiny.
It wasn’t some big decision that I would stop speaking or anything. It was just that I didn’t know what to say. Mainly because
every time I opened my mouth I wanted to scream in horror. All I could see in my head was Nick, lying dead somewhere. I wanted
to go to his funeral. I wanted to go to his grave, at least. I wanted to kiss him mostly, to tell him I forgave him for shooting
me.
But I also wanted to scream in horror for Mr. Kline. For Abby Dempsey and the others who’d been shot. Even for Christy Bruter.
For my mom. For Frankie. And, yeah, for me, too. But none of those feelings seemed to really match up, like when you’re putting
together a puzzle and two pieces almost—maddeningly, just almost—fit. You could shove the pieces together and force them
to fit, but even after they’re successfully stuck together they still don’t fit exactly, don’t look quite right. That’s how
my brain felt. Like I was shoving odd puzzle pieces together.
And then on the third day my door swished open. I was staring at the ceiling, thinking about this time that Nick and I played
laser tag at Nitez. I’d won the game and it had really ticked Nick off at first, but afterward we went to a party at Mason’s
house and he told everybody what a great shot I was. He seemed really, really proud of me and I felt so good about myself.
We spent the rest of the evening holding hands and making googly eyes at each other and it was, like, the best night of my
life.
When I heard the door open, I closed my eyes quickly, because I wanted whoever it was that came in to think I was asleep and
go away so I could keep thinking about that night. I swear my hand was warm, like Nick’s was in it right at that moment.
I heard footsteps scuff over to the side of the bed and stop. But the wires didn’t move. I didn’t hear any drawers or cabinets
open like I normally would if a nurse was in the room. And I didn’t hear Mom’s telltale stuffed-up nose snorting. Didn’t smell
Frankie’s cologne. Just a still presence beside me. I opened one eye.
A guy in a brown suit stood next to the bed. He was probably in his forties, I guessed, and he was completely bald. Not the
kind of bald where all of his hair had fallen out, but the kind of bald where he’d lost enough of it to just give up and shave
the rest off. He was chewing gum. He didn’t smile.
I opened both eyes, but I didn’t sit up. I also didn’t say anything. Just looked at him, my heart pounding in my chest.
“How’s your leg, Valerie?” he said. “I can call you Valerie, right?”
I narrowed my eyes at him, but didn’t answer. My hand involuntarily moved to the bandage over my leg. I wondered if I should
be prepared to scream. Was this some freaky horror-movie kind of guy who planned to rape and kill me in my hospital bed? I
had half a thought that it would probably serve me right, that a lot of people out there would be happy to hear that something
horrible happened to me, but it couldn’t really form because he was moving and talking again.
“Better, I hope.” He stepped back and pulled a chair forward. Sat in it. “You’re young. You got that on your side at least.
I got shot in the foot two years ago by some crackhead in Center. Took forever to heal up. But I’m an old man.” He laughed
at his own joke. I blinked. Still didn’t move, my hand still on the bandages.
His laughter dried up, and he chewed his gum solemnly, staring at my face with his head cocked just slightly to one side.
He stared at me for so long I finally spoke.
“My mom’s coming right back,” I said. I don’t know why I said it because it was a total lie. I had no idea when Mom would
be coming in. It just seemed like the right thing to say—that an adult would be coming along soon, so he probably should
get rid of whatever rape plans he had.
“She’s in the lobby. I’ve already talked to her,” he said. “She’ll be up later. Maybe after lunch or so. She’s talking to
my colleague right now. Might be a while. Your dad’s down there, too. Seems like he’s not overly happy with you right now.”
I blinked.
“Well,” I said. I thought that pretty much summed it up. Well. Well, when has he ever been? Well, who cares? Well, certainly
not me. Well.
“I’m Detective Panzella,” the guy in the brown suit said.
“Okay,” I said.
“You can see my badge if you want to.”
I shook my head, no, mostly because I still hadn’t really put together why he might be there.
He eased into a chair and leaned forward, his face entirely too close to mine.
“We need to talk, Valerie.”
I guess I should’ve known it was coming. It only made sense, right? Except at that point nothing made sense. The shooting
didn’t make sense, so how could a detective in a brown suit sitting across from my hospital bed make sense?
I was scared to death. No, I was more scared than that, even. I was so scared I felt cold all over and I wasn’t sure I’d be
able to talk to him at all about anything.
“Do you remember what happened at your school?” he asked.
I shook my head no. “Not really. Some.”
“Lots of people died, Valerie. Your boyfriend Nick killed them. Do you have any idea why?”
I thought about this. In all the piecing together of what happened at the school, it had never occurred to me to even ask
myself why. The answer seemed so obvious—Nick hated those kids. And they hated him back. That’s why. Hate. Punches in the
chest. Nicknames. Laughs. Snide comments. Being shoved into the lockers when some idiot with an attitude walked by. They hated
him and he hated them and somehow it ended up this way, with everyone gone.
I remembered a night around Christmas. Nick’s mom had loaned Nick her car, told him to take me out. It was rare that we had
wheels and we were both really excited to go somewhere outside of walking distance. We decided on a movie.
Nick picked me up in the rusty, rattletrap car, the floorboard littered with lipstick-lined Styrofoam coffee cups and empty
cigarette packs stuffed into the cracks of the seats. But we didn’t care. We were too happy to be getting out. I scooted over
to the middle of the front seat so I could sit close to him while he drove, hesitantly, as if it was his first time behind
the wheel.
“So,” Nick said. “Funny or scary?”
I thought it over. “Romantic,” I answered, a mischievous smile on my face.
He made a face, glanced at me. “You serious? No way. I’m not sitting through a chick flick.”
“You would if I asked you,” I teased.
He nodded, grinning. “Yeah,” he said. “I would.”
“But I won’t ask you to,” I said. “Funny. I’m in the mood for a laugh.”
“Me too,” he said. His hand left the steering wheel and moved to my knee. He squeezed it softly, then left his hand resting
there.
I leaned into him, closing my eyes and taking a deep breath. “I’ve been looking forward to this all day. My parents were so
annoying last night, I swear I thought I was going to go crazy.”
“Yeah, this is great,” he answered, giving my knee another reassuring squeeze.
We pulled into the parking lot of the movie theater. The place was packed, people spilling out onto the sidewalk and lawn
in front of it. Mostly teenagers, mostly people from our school. Nick’s hand left my knee and reached back for the steering
wheel as he drove slowly along, scanning for a parking space.
Chris Summers was walking past our car, a giant fountain drink in his hand. He was with his buddies, and they were goofing
around like always. They cut across the parking lot right in front of us, causing Nick to step on the brakes hard.
Chris peered into the windshield and then started laughing.
“Nice car, freak!” he called and then cocked his arm and lobbed the giant drink onto the windshield. The cup split open and
soda and ice splattered everywhere, leaving foamy streaks as it slid down onto the hood of the car.
I jumped, a little squeal escaping me. “Asshole!” I screamed, even though Chris and his buddies had already moved on and were
pulling open the doors of the theater. Several of the kids on the lawn had looked up and were laughing, too. “You’re such
a jerk!” I screamed again. “You think you’re so cool, but you’re just a stupid ass!” I let a few more insults fly, directing
my gaze at people who were laughing, including Jessica Campbell, who stood with her cluster of girlfriends, their hands over
their open, laughing mouths. “God,” I said, finally, sitting back against the seat again. “I wonder if he misses his brain,
you know?”
But Nick didn’t answer me. He was sitting absolutely still, his hands at ten and two on the steering wheel, the soda blurring
the windshield. I leaned forward. His face, just a few minutes ago grinning, had totally fallen. Almost withered. His cheeks
had bright red patches on them and his jaw was trembling. I could almost feel the embarrassment and disappointment radiating
off of him, could almost see him crumple into defeat before my eyes. It scared me. Usually Nick got angry, fought back. But
this time he just looked like he wanted to cry.
“Hey,” I said, touching his elbow softly. “Forget about it. Summers is just a jerk.”
But Nick still didn’t say anything, didn’t make a move, even though the cars behind us had begun honking.
I watched him a minute more, hearing his voice in my head:
Sometimes we get to win, too, Valerie
, he’d said.
Not tonight
, I thought.
Tonight we’re still the losers.
“You know,” I said, “I’m not really in the mood for a movie at all. Let’s just go get something to eat. Take it back to your
place. We can watch TV.”
He looked over at me, his lips in a tight line, his eyes watery. He nodded slowly, then reached up and flicked on the windshield
wipers, which whisked the cup away and made the soda disappear, as if it hadn’t just completely ruined our night. “I’m sorry,”
he said in a ragged voice I could barely hear, then put the car into gear and slowly crept out of the parking lot like a whipped
dog.
But sitting in my hospital bed, it didn’t seem like this was what the detective really wanted to hear. He didn’t want to know
about Nick. He wanted to know about the perpetrator of a crime. “I don’t know,” I said.
“Wanna take a guess?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. Nick would know. But you can’t ask him because he’s dead. Maybe Jeremy would know.”
“Would that be Jeremy Watson? From, uh…” he checked some notes in a notebook that he’d produced from out of nowhere. “Lowcrest?”
he said.
“I guess,” I said. I realized I had no idea what Jeremy’s last name was or where he lived. Only that he was Nick’s friend
and the last person to talk to Nick before this happened. “I don’t really know Jeremy.”
The detective’s eyebrows raised just a little, like for some reason he expected me to be one of Jeremy’s closest friends or
something.
“I never really met him before,” I said. “I just knew Nick was hanging out with him.”
The detective pooched out his lips a little, a frown creasing his forehead. “Hm. That’s funny, because Jeremy’s parents sure
know a lot about you. Knew your first and last names. Knew where you lived. Told me to look for you if I wanted answers.”
“How would they know anything about me?” I pulled myself up onto my elbows. “I’ve never even met them.”
The detective shrugged. “Maybe Nick talked about you a lot. Was this planned, Valerie? Did you and Nick plan the shooting
together?”
“I didn’t… No, I wasn’t going to… No way!”
“We have about a dozen witnesses who all say Nick’s words to you right before he shot you were, ‘Don’t you remember our plan?’
You have no idea what plan he was talking about?”
“No.”
“I don’t think that’s true.”
“It’s the truth,” I said miserably. “I didn’t plan any of this. I didn’t even know he was planning this.”
He stood and pulled his suit coat straight. He pulled a sheaf of papers out of a folder and handed them to me. I looked down
at them and swear I stopped breathing.
From:
[email protected]
Subject: Another way to do it
I think I would prefer gas over anything. You know, like go into the garage and turn on the car and just lay down on the seat
and get high and get dead. That would be totally intense, man, if my parents walked in to the garage in the morning, ready
to go to work and found me dead with a fatty in my hand.
Oh, and you know who I want to add to the list? Ginny Baker.
N
From:
[email protected]
Subject: RE: Another way to do it
I don’t know, I’m still liking the whole overdose thing. Like o.d. on something sexy, like x or something. LOL about your
parents walking in on you in the car. That would be too funny. Bet they’d finish smoking the weed before they called the ambulance.
Wouldn’t you?
And why G.B.? I still have the list from when I was looking through it in social studies. I can put it on for you.
Val
From:
[email protected]
Subject: RE:RE: Another way to do it
Why not? She’s just another SBRB anyway. Write her down. What number is she? I’m thinking somewhere around 407. Too bad. She
deserves to be way higher on the list.