Interim (35 page)

“She our perp?” he heard a S.W.A.T. team member ask, pointing to Hannah. She was strapped with bullets—the dead giveaway.

He nodded.

“You hurt?”

He nodded.

“Where?”

“My heart,” Jeremy cried softly.

The officer frowned, confused, pulling Jeremy to his feet, feeling about his chest for a wound, blood, something.

“You’re okay,” he said to Jeremy. “Stay close.”

He led Jeremy and Casey to the safety of the football field where students amassed in droves. Jeremy tried to look away from the bodies dotting the hallways as they went, but he lost it upon seeing Mr. Armstrong, who lay slumped against a desk in the front office. He spotted him through the window, still clutching the intercom microphone.

“He didn’t expel her!” Jeremy cried, thinking of Regan’s meltdown—her threat to kill him. “He didn’t expel her!”

Casey didn’t understand. “It’s okay,” she said, taking Jeremy’s hand and pulling him away from the office window.

“He was a nice person,” Jeremy said. “He was good.”

Casey nodded and pulled him along, keeping close on the heels of the S.W.A.T. team.

“Regan,” Jeremy whispered. “Where’s Regan?”

“She’s okay. They took her to the hospital,” Casey said, but the instant sweat on her hand betrayed her lie. Jeremy felt it.

“You don’t know,” he accused her. “You don’t know!”

Casey pulled him to a stop just short of a group of students clutching one another and crying hysterically.

“I do know it,” she said firmly. “Look at me.”

He lifted his face to hers, staring into her eyes.

“I do know it,” she said, unblinking.

He nodded, and then she pulled him close.

He cried on her shoulder. “Please, be right.”

~

Remember that journal entry from a while back about how tough it is to maintain a definitive goal about killing people after you’ve had such a fantastic day? It’s somewhere in my pages and pages of verbal vomit. I’d look for it, but I’m too lazy.

Whatever. Doesn’t matter. The point is that I think the hardest part about being a vigilante is all the seriousness that goes along with it. Sometimes I don’t wanna be serious. Sometimes I wanna have fun, just like everyone else. I mean, don’t get me wrong. I DO NOT wanna have fun with those people. But the ones I guess I could tentatively call friends . . . well, yeah. I wanna have fun with them. Joke around. Share moments that don’t mean anything.

Like eating a burger. That doesn’t mean anything. It’s not rife with purpose. You’re just stuffing your body, so it won’t starve and die. I just wanna eat a fucking burger and not think about it—think about my next move. Think about my enemies. Think about how and why they must die. Think about the aftermath and the broken hearts (yeah, even assholes have at least one person whose heart would break over their deaths). I’m just saying I’d like to not think about it all the time.

No wonder Batman got old. Soooo serious. Like, what the fuck, dude? Crack a joke. Crack a smile, at least. Life isn’t that gloomy, is it? You don’t have to be that “justified” all the time, do you? Normal, everyday life isn’t some constant epic battle between good and evil, is it? It can’t be that morose. (Oh, good fucking word.) There are glimpses of really good shit—people’s faces who enjoy my company. The way they smile. The way they respond to my sarcasm. I would almost say I love them if the vigilante hadn’t trained that emotion out of me. I would almost say I could give it all up for them if I knew they’d stick around forever. But high schoolers don’t stick around forever. We all go our separate ways. I guess I’m cool with that. I mean, the thought of starting over is definitely tempting. But my vigilante won’t let me. She’s forcing me to be the hero . . . well, heroine (if you wanna get technical). She’s forcing me to take action now. So, I guess I’ve gotta heed the call. Who else will?

It’s kinda funny, actually. Even she bosses me around. I can’t fucking win.

Anyway, laters . . . (haha, just kidding! I’d never fucking say that.)

I’m out.

Hannah

~

“So, it wasn’t you after all,” Hannah said casually.

“Nope,” Jeremy replied.

“What made you change your mind?” she asked.

“Love.”

“You’re such a sappy loser, Jer,” she said, chuckling. “I mean, seriously? What has that girl done to you?”

He shook his head and smiled. “I don’t know, but something right.”

“I thought what I did was right,” Hannah said.

“No, what you did was fucking scary,” he replied.

She chomped a Dorito and thought. “Really?”

He nodded.

“But they deserved it,” she argued.

“You don’t get to make that judgment call,” he replied, remembering Regan’s words all those many months ago.

Hannah bristled. “I don’t? I’m the victim here.”

“That’s just it, Hannah. You’re not anymore. The moment you charged into that building shooting people left and right, you were no longer the victim. You transformed into one of them—one of the bad guys.”

She froze, mid-chew.

“It took me a long time to figure that out. I know it seems like it’s justified—hurting someone who hurt you—but it’s not that simple. I think we were trying to simplify a really complicated situation.”

“So, what were we supposed to do, then? Huh?”

He paused.

“Exactly,” she said, satisfied.

“Now, hold on. Just wait. Give me a second to think,” Jeremy said.

It was hard to think of a solution. He was never successful in finding it anywhere. The Old Testament god didn’t offer it. He was positive karma was bullshit. The justice system was a joke. The tattoo on his back no longer meant anything—just a wistful prayer for a world that could never be truly just.

“Sooo, what are we supposed to do about the bullying?” Hannah pressed.

And then it hit him—something he read a long time ago. He couldn’t remember from where, but the sentence stuck with him. At first he hated it. He didn’t like the “turn the other cheek” message it implied. But now he interpreted it completely differently. And he saw the goodness as strength, not weakness.

“
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good
,” he quoted.

She stared at him, perplexed, then repeated the words.

He smiled and shoved his hand in her chip bag.

“So what? You’re a sage now?” she asked.

He chuckled. “Not even close. Just trying to make sense of my world.”

“Maybe you can do a better job than I did,” Hannah said.

“I’ll try to make you proud,” he replied.

She nodded.

He looked her over. “I’ve never seen you wear a dress. Why today of all days?”

“Because I held a gun in my hands,” she replied softly, “so I knew they’d let me.”

He was quiet.

“It felt really good to wear what I wanted for the first time in years,” she went on. “I felt really pretty.”

He didn’t know what to say.

“Am I crazy?” she whispered.

“We’re all crazy.”

“Will you miss me, Jer?”

“Yes, Hannah, I’ll miss you . . .”

His eyes flew open to the beeping sounds of the monitors. He didn’t mean to doze off, but he’d been at the hospital for a week and a half straight, running on little sleep and too many cups of black coffee. He glanced at Regan, watching the soft rise and fall of her chest.

Hers was no superficial shoulder wound. The bullet nicked her heart, and she almost died. Twice. After the second emergency surgery, he screamed in her face.

“You have things to do, Regan!” he cried angrily. “You have a lot of soccer games to play! A lot of cakes to bake for me! You’ve got a big future waiting, so don’t fuck it up!”

Naturally, he was dragged from the room. Mr. Walters tore into him with the filthiest verbal assault he’d ever launched. The words threatened fisticuffs, and Roy had to come between them. The men wouldn’t speak for two days until Jeremy asked for forgiveness with a Snickers bar from the vending machine.

“I’m not sharing,” Mr. Walters said, snatching the candy bar and ripping it open.

He was starving. Jeremy was starving. Everyone was starving and tired and cranky and angry. They were confused and worried, too, but they hid those emotions. After all, anxiety was weakness, and they wanted Regan to sense only strength, even if that strength came in the form of an argument.

When Regan was once more stabilized, Mr. Walters asked the doctor to please keep her alive this time. That launched another fight—more of a spat—and Regan’s dad was relegated to the main lobby for a few hours.

No one wanted to discuss the tragedy—thirty-two minutes of terror. No one wanted to discuss the victims, both dead and wounded. Twenty-two. Twenty-two victims—eleven dead, eleven wounded. Split right down the middle like she’d planned it, like she was a killer with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Among the dead, four teachers: Mr. Armstrong, Ms. Stacy, Mr. Howard, and Ms. Griffin. She died shortly before the medics reached her. Seven students—all of them connected to Hannah’s pain in some way. All considered bullies, even the unlucky one who caught the bullet through the lab door. But they were victims now—given no opportunity to right their wrongs, to grow and be better, to mature and learn how to love.

Jeremy thought of Brandon—his last ditch effort to dig deep and find the goodness within. He hated Jeremy’s guts—the sentiment pounded all over Jeremy’s body—but he wouldn’t allow Jeremy to die for him. Maybe it was pride, but Jeremy didn’t think so. Or at least he chose to believe that Brandon made the conscientious decision to do something right—to save his life—and Jeremy would forever be indebted to him.

The massacre was the only news—both local and national—for two weeks straight. Along with it, came all the mistakes of up-to-the-minute reporting. The numbers changed daily. The killer had a multitude of motives until everyone agreed on one. The gun debate flared up right on schedule—that moment directly after the first report. Everyone cried and screamed and fought with one another and proclaimed their moral superiority.

“I know what’s best!” they bellowed during discussion panels on cable news networks.

White noise to Jeremy. It was all white noise. He was the only one who truly knew Hannah. He was the only one who could understand her pain and her plan. That understanding didn’t excuse what she did, but it allowed him to release the day—her horrifying actions and death—from his heart forever. There was no reason to dwell on what she did or how she went. His only reason lay clinging to life in a hospital bed on the fourth floor of Mountainview Regional Medical Center.

“Regan?” he said tentatively. “You know it’s really unfair if you leave me.”

Silence.

“I can say with certainty that I’ve had one of the shittiest lives ever,” he went on. “And I deserve to be happy.”

Pause.

“With you.”

He watched her closely.

“I feel like you need me to remind you,” he said. “There’s this—” He pointed to his scar. “—and my angry dad. Who I killed, by the way. Yep. Killed my dad because he tried to kill me over the gu—” He stopped himself and cleared his throat. “Well, he tried to kill me, anyway. Then there’s Brandon and his gang. Brandon’s weird hero thing that’s totally fucked with my head. Hannah and all the stuff that happened with her. Oh, our school massacre. There’s that. Remember my journal? Remember how I wrote about doing exactly what Hannah did? Are you hearing this, Regan? My life is fucked.” He paused. “No wait. My life
was
fucked until we started talking. And then dating. You changed everything. You made it better. But you’re not done making it better, so you have to wake up eventually.”

She remained still.

He sighed. “I can yell at you again, but that might get me banned from the hospital.”

He thought he saw her mouth twitch. He froze, watching her carefully. No movement. He imagined it.

“Regan, wake up,” he ordered.

Slight movement. Now
that
he didn’t imagine! He sprang from his chair and grabbed her hand.

“You awake?” he asked.

He tried to be cautious about it. She hadn’t moved since she’d been admitted. What made 2 P.M. on a Saturday afternoon so different?

He eased his grip on her hand. “Move your fingers.”

Her index finger jerked.

His face lit up. “You heard me yell at you, didn’t you? And your dad was so pissed. Soooo pissed! But I was right to yell at you, wasn’t I? Wasn’t I, Regan?”

Her finger jerked again.

“Ha! That’s what I thought!” he said.

He leaned over and smothered her with kisses, inadvertently pushing her breathing tube side to side with his nose as he worked to make contact with every inch of her face—yes, even the creases of her nostrils.

He knew he should call for her parents, but he was greedy. He wanted her all to himself for a few moments more, aware that she may drift back to sleep before her parents could witness her movement.

“Move your finger,” he demanded.

All five moved.

“HA!”

And then the door opened. He leaned over once more and kissed her everywhere.

“I love you, Regan!” he cried, inches from her face.

“What’s happening?” Mrs. Walters demanded, words laced with fear.

“She’s waking up!” Jeremy yelled. “She’s waking up!”

Caroline squealed. Her parents raced to the bed, hovering and touching and asking a million questions, and where’s the doctor already?!

“Regan, if you can hear this, move your finger,” Jeremy said. His words brimmed with confidence.

Nothing.

His heart plummeted. Her parents looked at him accusingly. He thought Caroline would attack him.

“She just did it . . .”

Mr. Walters shook his head.

“Regan, move your finger!” Jeremy commanded.

Nothing.

“Don’t talk to her like that,” Mr. Walters snapped.

Jeremy ignored him. “Regan, I don’t know what you’re playing at, but so help me . . .”

Her fingers moved. Her parents gasped. Caroline jumped around. Jeremy saw the tiniest grin play at the corners of Regan’s lips—a grin that said, “Just messin’.”

“You little . . .” But he stopped there, and pressed his lips to hers. Gentle. No more demands. There was no need for them. He knew she would be all right.

And so would he.

Because they had things to do. She had games to play. Cakes to bake. A life to live. And so did he. He had a life to live with his girl, in another, better world.