Put Me Back Together (39 page)

“You’re right. I guess I’ll have to leave a note explaining things,” Brandon said. He lunged forward all of a sudden and I shrieked as he grabbed my arm. “Should I carve it into your arm? Or maybe your stomach—bigger canvas.”

Suddenly the sky opened up and the rain came down in a sheet, drenching us both in seconds. At the same moment Brandon leaped toward me and I found myself on my back on the slick grass as thunder rolled. My glasses were thrown off and though I felt around on the ground, I couldn’t find them. It was almost better this way. Now he was nothing but a dark figure looming over me, the figure from my painting, the villain of my story brandishing his knife.

This is how Tommy died
, I thought.

“Are you looking forward to being cut open?” Brandon taunted. He pressed a knee into my sternum, securing me in place as he trailed the tip of his knife down my neck. His other hand pressed me into the ground at the shoulder, heavy as a brick. “It seems fitting, doesn’t it? Since it was your idea.”

I tried to scratch his face, but it was just inches out of reach. Reaching helplessly, I began to realize that this was it. This was the moment. This was my last chance. I was going to die here in the mud. Unless…unless…unless…

A wave of unbelievable sorrow threatened to pull me down as I thought of Lucas finding me here, just as I’d found Tommy. I thought of my mother getting another horrifying phone call. I thought of my sister lost without her twin. I thought of all the paintings I would never paint, the things I would never do, the life I would never lead with Lucas.

Be strong. Be clever. Make him pay. Think of something. Think!

Brandon cut open my jacket, the knife blade slashing easily through the material. I felt the rain pattering against my bare upper chest.

“Now, where to start…” he muttered.

“I loved you once,” I blurted out, gripping the hand that held the knife with both of my own, trying to stop its progress. “The little girl you met in the woods is still inside me, just like that boy is still inside you. I loved you and you killed Tommy and it ruined everything!”

“I killed him for you!” Brandon yelled, his mouth inches from my face. “I killed him to make you happy. I killed him to make you love me!”

He jammed the knife into the grass right beside my head.

“You’re the one who changed your mind,” Brandon went on, gripping my face with both hands. “You’re the one who ruined it. I did my part!”

There was a terrible
crack
as a tree branch buckled in the gale and slammed to the ground to my right. When I swung my eyes back to Brandon he had the knife in his hand again, and though I couldn’t see his expression I knew it was filled with hate.

Last chance.

“But you killed the wrong boy!” I screamed. I watched the hand that held the knife falter, his grip on my shoulder shifting. “It was Ricky I hated, Ricky I complained about. But you went and killed Tommy. I loved Tommy. He was sweet and he was only five years old and he didn’t deserve to die. I told you. I told you it was the wrong boy but you went ahead and killed him anyway!”

He didn’t know. For all these years he hadn’t had any idea. Even though I’d told him that day that Tommy wasn’t Ricky, my words hadn’t gotten through to him, or he’d really believed I was lying, or maybe he’d blocked them out. Whatever the reason, I’d shocked him. I heard him breathing hard above me as he tried to work it out and I turned my heard slightly, eyeing that fallen branch.

If he would only move his knee…

He said, “But you—”

“You want to know why I turned on you, Brandon?” I interrupted. “You want to know why I told the court all those lies?”

He seemed to have forgotten what he’d been about to do. The knife dangled in his fingers as he stared down at me. I couldn’t exactly see, but I thought his mouth was hanging open.

“I said what I did because when you killed Tommy Wesley you broke my heart,” I cried.

I would never know if Brandon Tomko had ever really loved me, or if he’d just thought he did. But I knew in that moment that the idea of killing for me, like some deranged chivalrous knight, was the thing he cherished most of all. I knew this because it was the reason Tommy Wesley died. And it was also the thing that saved me.

As Brandon’s body sagged under the weight of my confession, he fell back, lifting his weight off of me. I saw my chance. Scrambling out from underneath him, I sprang forward and dug my thumbs into his eye sockets, making him scream. I was screaming, too. He tried to swipe at me with his arms, but I darted out of his reach and ran for the broken tree branch.

“You’re lying,” Brandon cried, slashing the air with his knife. His eyes were running with blood, but he rose up onto his knees, getting ready to come after me. “You stupid, lying bitch! I don’t believe a word of it. You’re a liar!”

“No, I’m not,” I said, and I swung the tree branch, just like a bat, right into his head.

There weren’t many people left in the hallway, but they all parted to let me pass. Their gasps swept around me as I spotted Lucas standing with a group of other students from his class. I watched him turn, his curious expression changing to shock as he took in the sight of me, soaking wet, dripping blood.

“K-Katie,” Lucas choked out as I reached him. His hands moved automatically to the bloody mess of my face, but he hesitated, seemingly unsure of how to touch me without hurting me.

I gazed up into those beautiful, honey-coloured eyes I’d thought I would never see again.

Lucas.

“It’s over,” I said, and I could see all the questions crowding his mind.

There would be time for them later. Right now there was only one thing I wanted. “Kiss me,” I said, raising my face to his.

I knew he really loved me when, even though I was covered in blood, he didn’t hesitate to press his lips to mine.

23

After the sirens and the ambulance and the police with all their questions, after the paramedics checking me over and dodging the reporters and telling the whole story to Lucas, after showering away the blood and crying in Lucas’s arms and sitting for an hour numbly staring at nothing, I picked up the phone to call my parents. It was a short conversation. I told them I was fine, that Brandon was back in custody and would likely be facing time in prison. And I told them we needed to talk.

“What is it, Kaitlyn?” my dad said, his voice taking on a particular timbre that implied this was a moment he’d been expecting. That was a surprise.

My mother, on the other hand, seemed only to inflate with accusatory alarm. “Talk about what? What else could there possibly be to talk about? What did you do?” she demanded. Mom could always be counted upon to be consistent.

“I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” I said, my eyes lifting to Lucas’s face. He was sitting right next to me, holding my hand. Without him there I might not have been able to get out the rest. “I’ll explain everything.”

I ended the call and stared down at the phone in my hand. Why was it that even though I’d faced Brandon, even though I’d fought for my life and won, I still felt like the worst was yet to come?

“After you do this, it’ll be finished,” Lucas said. “You’ll be able to put it all behind you.” He ran a finger across my jaw, careful to avoid the bandage covering my cheek, and tipped up my chin. “You can do this, Katie.”

“I know I can,” I answered, “because you’re coming with me.”

We left Kingston at ten a.m. and, due to the time change, even though we’d flown seven hours total with a connection in Toronto, it was still early afternoon when we walked up the winding driveway to my parents’ house. I pretended not to notice Lucas’s gaping stare as we walked up the front steps—it was a big house. Not mansion big, but pretty grand nonetheless. It was one detail that hadn’t come up in any of our conversations about my past. Being a little rich girl wasn’t something I liked to gush about.

As we stood in front of the enormous wooden double doors I noticed that Lucas looked a little green and stopped myself from ringing the bell.

“Are you going to puke?” I asked him. I sort of wanted him to say yes because I was feeling pretty pukey myself. Misery loves company.

Lucas swallowed, steadying himself against the wall of the house. “No,” he said. Then, with less confidence: “Maybe.”

He leaned over with his hands on his knees and I ran my hand over his hair, happy to be comforting someone else for a change. I had the feeling I would be getting a whole lot of sympathy in the coming weeks. Just the idea of it upped my pukey quotient by half.

“Is this a ‘first time flying in a plane’ thing, or a ‘meeting the parents’ thing?” I asked as Lucas stood up again. His face seemed to be returning to its natural colour, but even green he was still startlingly gorgeous. I tried not to hold it against him.

“Flying,” he answered. “Although, now that you mention it, I’m not feeling too good about the other thing, either.” He stared at the doors with a worried look on his face, which was pretty adorable.

“They’re going to love you,” I told him. “Or they’ll be so busy screaming at me they’ll barely notice you. Either way, I think you’re good.”

“If I can sit drinking a Diet Coke while travelling at eight hundred kilometers per hour, ten thousand meters above the ground—which I’d just like to point out again is against nature—you can do this.”

“I told you not to read the airline magazine.”

“I thought it was a good alternative to crying like a baby,” Lucas replied.

I sighed. Now I was the one staring at the doors. “I keep trying to think of the right way to tell them, like if I pick the right words everything will turn out okay. But there are no right words to explain this. Then I start trying to think of the best route back to the airport.” I gave him a sheepish look then averted my gaze. I knew I sounded like a coward.

“You’re scared,” Lucas said, looping his arms around my waist, “and flying makes me want to pee my pants. So let’s not try to pretend otherwise. Let’s just be scared together.”

I pressed my face into his chest and closed my eyes. “So if I burst into tears you’re saying you’ll cry along with me?”

“Uh, sure,” Lucas said uncertainly. Then he whispered in my ear, “But could we try to avoid that? I’m trying to make a good impression here.”

I grinned up at him and gave him a chaste kiss on the lips. I wanted more—when it came to Lucas I always wanted more—but getting caught making out on my parents’ front porch wasn’t the way I wanted to start this particular visit.

“Are my bandages okay?” I said, touching my cheeks with both hands. I hadn’t warned my family about the injuries to my face, and I knew they’d be getting a lot of attention. We’d tried to cut the gauze as small as possible that morning, but there was no hiding the fact that I would have scars. I also had some bruising around my nose and mouth in the places where Brandon had held my face. Basically, I looked like someone had tried to kill me, and given the conversation I was about to have I figured there was no point in trying to cover it up with makeup. Today was a day for the brutal truth.

Lucas fingered the medical tape on my cheek gingerly. “You look beautiful,” he said, but there was sadness in his voice.

It was going to take some time before Lucas stopped blaming himself for leaving me alone while he took his exam. We were all going to need some time to heal.

“Well, it’s now or never, I guess,” I said. He gave my hand a quick squeeze and I was about to ring the doorbell when I realized I had my keys and unlocked the door myself instead. “Remember,” I whispered quickly to Lucas, “my dad doesn’t know anything about sports and if my mother terrifies you, that’s normal.”

“Got it,” Lucas whispered back a second before the door separating the front hall from the house burst open and Emily threw herself into my arms.

“Oh my God!” she cried when she saw the bandages on my face. Then she burst into tears. Lucas and I exchanged a look. “I can’t believe this happened! Did he really try to kill you, like actually kill you? Anita said there were cops all over campus. Did he really try to chop off your head with an
axe
?” She screeched the last word.

As we walked toward the kitchen, my sister recounted several other stories she’d read about my run-in with Brandon. The journalists were already getting everything wrong, as usual. I was surprised they weren’t camped out on the front lawn, though Em did mention they’d been calling the house non-stop since the break of dawn. My father had unplugged the phones by breakfast time.