Rage (11 page)

He actually managed to look apologetic. Missy wanted to tell him not to bother; they'd all had years to perfect this particular routine. By now she knew the gestures along with the words, the choreography that worked with the script. First the "I Wish," then the "Difficult and Counting," followed with a plastic "Next." For her part, she kept her face carefully neutral, like Switzerland—not her dead face, never that for her father or mother, but a delicately painted mask of understanding.

"I wish I could, Missy." Between her nickname and his hand clapping her shoulder in parental affection, her father was showing her how sincere he was. "But work's been difficult, and the CEO's counting on me to have the next round of specs nailed down for her on Monday, so I have to go in today. Next game, okay?" This last said with a smile pulled out of commercials and magazines. It was a good smile, full of teeth and empty promise.

Missy's turn. She kept her own smile small and guarded—not an "aw, shucks" and definitely not a "screw you" but somewhere in the middle. It was a smile that said she knew how the world worked and she didn't like it, but she accepted it. "Next game," she said, knowing that would never happen.

He clapped her shoulder again, then grabbed her duffle bag to load it into the car—his version of a mea culpa. The door to the garage banged closed, and Missy loosened her mask enough for her smile to slip free. By now she knew better than to expect her dad, or her mom, to attend any of her games; there was always something else going on, usually work-related, that her folks had to tackle. But part of her had quietly hoped that for this game, her first ever as starting goalkeeper, one of them would make an exception.

A buzzing laughter, like hornets.
T
HEY'RE SHEEP.

Missy's knuckles whitened around her mug handle. Her parents weren't sheep.

O
F COURSE THEY ARE.
T
HEY DO WHAT THEY'RE TOLD AND NOTHING MORE.
W
ORK HARD.
M
AKE MONEY.
D
ON'T THINK
.
More laughter as the hornets swarmed.
S
HEEP, THE BOTH OF THEM, MEANT TO BE LED AND SHORN, AND SOMETIMES BLED.

Missy bit down on her lip, hard. The momentary sting was enough to quell the voice, to give War a taste of blood. Her lip throbbing, she poured herself a cup of coffee. She was stirring in the sugar when Sue walked into the kitchen, yawning. She saw Missy and froze, mid-yawn, caught in surprise.

Sue looked so
stupid.
The thought made Missy grin.

For a long moment, Sue looked at Missy, taking in everything from her soccer uniform to her hair to the mug in her hand. Sue's gaze crept over Missy's face, latched on to Missy's eyes. Something passed behind Sue's face—liquid emotion, all bittersweet chocolate and flat soda. The moment passed, and Sue shut down until her face was as plastic as their father's smile. Her mouth pressed into a thin white line, she glided past Missy to get a glass from the cabinet, her slippers whispering against the linoleum floor.

Well, someone was in a
mood.

Missy chuckled, then took a sip of coffee. The hot liquid stung as it glided over her sore lip and sensitive gums, but she relished the pain. With one sip, she proved herself alive and grounded. The pain was better than the jolt of caffeine.

Sue glared at her, and Missy was amused by the cold fury in that gaze. When Sue didn't say anything, Missy asked, "Something wrong?"

"You selfish bitch." Sue's words were the hiss of teakettle steam, boiling hot. "You never think about anyone but yourself, do you?"

"I'm thinking about you right now, sis. Want to know what I'm thinking? First word rhymes with
duck.
"

Sue slammed her glass on the counter and walked up to Missy, got right in her face. She snarled, "You think that your life's so damn hard that you have to throw it away? Do you have any idea what that would do to Mom and Dad? Do you even care?"

Missy tried to make sense of Sue's words and failed. In lieu of comprehension, she went with irritation. "The hell are you talking about?"

"This." Sue grabbed Missy's arm and yanked back the sleeve. Scars, white and pink and scabbed and ugly and fine and intricate and so very red, crisscrossed Missy's exposed flesh.

Caught. Missy was caught. Again.

She slapped her dead face on, its edges askew, and though her heartbeat careened crazily in her chest, her face was marble perfection—impassive, cold, unconcerned.

"This," Sue repeated, softer. "For God's sake, Missy. What are you
doing?
"

That couldn't be sympathy in Sue's voice. Sue didn't give a damn about Missy—she'd said as much ever since the school year started and Sue discovered that Missy was at the wrong end of the Socially Acceptable spectrum. Missy pulled away, slopping coffee onto the floor.

"I'm not suicidal," Missy said, "if that's what you're afraid of."

"Then what's that all over your arm? A messed-up tattoo?"

Irritation bled into anger. Missy shoved her sleeve back into place. "How'd you find out? You spying on me? Reading my diary?" Not that she had a diary, but still.

"The hundreds of texts and emails I got were a big clue." Sue narrowed her eyes. "Some party last night, huh?"

Missy felt the blood drain from her face. Trusting Adam had reduced her to nothing more than fodder for teen paparazzi greed and gossip. She'd known it would happen; one didn't emerge from the flash of cell phone cameras unscathed. But knowing and
knowing
were two different things. Sickened, she took a sip of coffee, trying for normal and failing. Even with all the sugar and cream, it was bitter.

"You look me in the eye," Sue said, "and you tell me you're not trying to kill yourself."

Missy closed her eyes. Sue didn't understand.

No one understood.

This was the moment. She could tell her sister about the pressure in her chest, about the way everything expanded into Too Much and threatened to drag her under. She could tell her that she turned to the blade because she wanted to live and sometimes pain was the only thing that kept her alive. She could tell her that she was terrified of things she couldn't even begin to name, that friends could be fickle and lovers could be false. She could try to explain all of that and more, and maybe her sister would understand.

But trust was as fragile and cutting as a crystal sword. Missy had bled too much already ... a nd she had one Sword too many.

So she carefully rebuilt the glass jar of her heart, fusing the shards into place until the bottle was perfect. She shoved in the feelings before they suffocated her: the embarrassment of being caught; the gratitude for Sue actually caring, even a little; the fear of what happened next; and the rage, above all else—rage over not being in control of her own life, over being manipulated for other people's amusement, over the sheer unfairness of it all. She pushed it all into the glass jar and sealed it tight, and then she opened her eyes and gently put down her mug. She was flat; she was empty. She had her dead face and her glass jar. Nothing could affect her anymore. She wouldn't let anything, anyone in. The world could rot and she wouldn't care.

She wouldn't care.

Looking her sister in the eye, she said, "I'm not trying to kill myself."

Silence, thick and cloying, finally broken by the sound of Sue's teeth grinding, grinding. "You think you're making a
statement,
maybe?" Sue hissed. "Well, your statement brands me too. Because this morning, all I am is the sister of a suicidal wannabe emo
freak.
"

Those words carved Missy's flesh as surely as her razor had ever done.

Sue blew out a ragged breath. "You know, I didn't believe them when I heard you were a cutter. I thought it was just Adam being a loser ex-boyfriend, being vicious just because. People exaggerate, I thought. Makes a better story. People lie for points. But it was
all true.
You take a knife to your skin." She sneered, her lip curling in derision. "You're a sick excuse of a sister. I'm embarrassed to know you."

Of course, that was when their father walked in. Missy stiffened, uncertain how much he had heard—and unsure whether Sue would keep their conversation private. Their father frowned at the two girls. "Enough with the fighting," he said. "You're sisters. Hug and make up. Then let's go, Missy. You're running late."

Sue grinned, bright enough to blind. She opened her arms wide, ever the good daughter.

Missy smiled, tight as piano wire. She hugged her sister, and Sue wrapped her arms around her.

"Say anything," Missy whispered in Sue's ear, "and you're dead."

Sue's breath on her neck. "Like I'd even bother."

They pulled apart as if on cue. Missy saw the brittleness behind Sue's fake grin, how it looked like she was trying to keep herself from screaming. Her sister was genuinely upset—but whether it was for Missy or because of Missy, Missy couldn't say.

Troubled, Missy adjusted her dead face, tightened the stopper on the glass jar, then followed her father out the door.

***

Breathing hard, Missy palmed her hair out of her eyes. She cursed herself yet again for forgetting a headband. She cursed herself for letting the ball get through that one time. Most of all, she cursed herself for being tired. She was sixteen. She was immortal. She wasn't supposed to be tired, not after only seventy-five minutes of game time.

Okay, so maybe she was supposed to be tired. Still. The last thing she wanted was for the coach to decide she wasn't a starter. So she mentally slapped herself, focused on the game, and bobbed back and forth in a ready position as the opposing team passed the ball closer and closer.
Here it comes, midfield to right forward, back to midfield and a fakeout to left before passing back to right forward, and then the attack on the goal.
Missy danced on the line, running side to side and biting back the urge to shout at her teammate Trudy to get her thumb out of her ass and block the kick. If this were war, Trudy would be the wide-eyed soldier who didn't duck to avoid the shrapnel.

Forget Trudy,
Missy told herself.
Watch the legs, watch the hips, watch the eyes.

A blur of footwork, and the forward left Trudy behind as she drove the ball to the net.

Don't let it through.

The striker was looking hard at Missy's left, even as she moved toward her right. Missy launched herself out of the box to her left just as the other girl cannoned the shot. Missy mistimed it, but she saved the goal with a parrying kick that blasted the soccer ball down the field. She landed hard on her shoulder, grunting from the impact.

Get up get up get up.

Missy pulled herself to her feet and saw Jenna working the ball center left. The opposing striker was making Jenna sweat, and Missy read the girl's body language easily. "She's going to come your way," she shouted to Trudy.

Trudy blatantly ignored her, as she had the entire game. As most of her teammates had the entire game.

T
HEIR BLOOD IS AS RED AS ANYONE ELSE'S.

That thought hadn't come from Missy.

She gritted her teeth and shimmied left and right as the ball escaped Jenna. Down came the striker, with Trudy nipping at her heels. The forward cut right, and Missy pounced, stealing the ball. She threw it away, wiped sweat from her eyes, and glanced at Trudy as she got back inside the box.

Nothing. It was like Missy didn't exist.

Missy told herself it didn't matter. She told herself it didn't bother her. She told herself other things, too, every single one of them a lie.

The ball stayed downfield as Missy's team attacked. Successfully, rah. Now all they had to do was prevent the other team from scoring in the last two minutes of game time.

No pressure.

Missy shuffled side to side, her eyes on the field as she moved. She watched Jenna dribble the ball away from the opposing striker, watched as the striker wove her way from behind Jenna and snagged her leg in front of the girl, kicking the ball away and tripping Jenna beautifully. Watched Jenna hit the ground and glare at the striker, who was already moving away.

W
EAK,
War thought. And Missy agreed. Glaring at the enemy didn't stop them. Jenna should have at least fallen on the other girl, or flailed out with her arms to accidentally clip the girl's face. If you go down in battle, you take your opponent with you.

The ball rocketed down the field, and Missy lunged out of the box. She scooped up the ball just as the striker slammed into her, knocking the ball free. Missy made a desperate grab and missed—but Trudy was there, kicking the ball well away from the goal.

And the whistle blew. Game over.

Missy pumped her fist in the air, euphoric from the victory. She lined up with the others to do the traditional "good game" hand slapping, which was all nonsense, of course—i t wasn't about playing well, win or lose. The only good game was a game you won, period. But Missy could afford to be magnanimous—after all, they'd won.

A minute later, it was over. The other team left to lick their wounds, and the coach gave Missy and the girls a post-game talk that Missy barely heard. Bella, benched for the whole game, high-fived Missy and ran down all of the various plays she'd done right as well as those she needed to do better for the next game. "For your first time," Bella said, grinning, "not bad at all."

High praise from Bella. Missy soaked it up and asked for seconds.

War, who appreciated victory above all else, basked.

All that was left was changing out of their game clothes, then would come the victory sundaes at the ice cream shop. Bella went ahead to book enough tables for sixteen. The team broke away from Missy as the girls grouped their way to the locker room. She trailed after them, still giddy, the Sword humming pleasantly in her head.

But in the locker room, everything changed.

"Wonder how that happened," Jenna said, giggling at Missy's duffle bag on the floor, stinking of urine.

"Guess the toilet was backed up," said Trudy.