Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (12 page)

Andi wandered off until the darkness swallowed her up, then York opened his own door.

“You, too?” Boston asked.

York slid out of the passenger seat and shook his head. “No, man. I think I have to puke.”

The events of the night had sobered him up a long time ago, but it looked like he wasn't going to escape the hangover.

Boston stretched in the driver's seat. “Okay, but don't take too long.”

“It takes as long as it takes.” York slammed the door and loped off in a different direction from Andi.

Boston rubbed his face with his hands. He looked totally spent.

“Your brother's kind of a mean drunk, huh?” I said.

He dropped his hands and stared out the window after York. “He's kind of mean in general.”

I recognized the beaten-down look on Boston's face; I knew what it was like to be someone's emotional punching bag.

“My mama's an addict,” I blurted.

“Your what?”

“My . . . mom. She's an addict.”

“Okay.” Boston didn't look at me.

“I'm just saying . . .”

What
was
I saying? I had no idea. I guess I just wanted to let him know—from one target to another—he wasn't alone.

“York's not an alcoholic,” Boston said.

“I know, I just meant—”

“Hey, no offense,” Boston said, twisting in his seat to finally look at me. “But I don't really want to have a moment right now. I've kind of got enough to deal with.”

Uh, me, too, ass.

“Sorry,” I snapped. “I guess we should focus on what's important—like your college applications, right?”

I felt bad, but like Grandma always said,
Wounded dogs will bite.

“Did you know Harvard accepts less than six percent of all students who apply?”

The way he said it, I wasn't sure whether he was talking to me or to the sky.

I answered anyway.

“No, I didn't.”

“Yale and Stanford take less than seven.”

“Uh-huh.”

“If we somehow get out of this, I'll get accepted to all three.”

Okay, so we don't have time for me to share something personal, but bragging is totally okay. All the time in the world for that.

Boston pointed after York. “He'll be lucky if he gets into community college. He's not a drunk. He's just pissed.”

“At you?”

Boston shrugged. “A little. More at my parents.”

“The assholes,” I said, remembering what York called them earlier.

“They're not assholes. They're just . . . overachievers.”

“Like you.”

“Yeah.”

“And York's not? An overachiever?”

Boston frowned at the dark outside the car. “He used to be. It was easier then, when it wasn't all on me, y'know?”

I didn't know; I waited for Boston to elaborate, but he fell quiet, and a moment later Andi and York were climbing back into the SUV.

“What'd we miss?” Andi said. “Did you guys make out in here?”

“Gross,” Boston said.

I flinched, and angry blood pumped at my temples, especially when Andi laughed at Boston's reply, like she knew he would be sickened by the idea. York was less amused, and he growled at Boston to get moving.

“This again?” Andi complained as Boston started his mirror checks.

“I'm detail oriented,” he said.

York rolled his eyes. “That's one way of putting it.”

“More like OCD,” Andi said, and in the stiff silence that followed it was obvious that she'd hit a little too close to the mark.

Boston rushed through the end of his routine, and as wheels met road once more, York gave Andi the finger on his brother's behalf.

Ten minutes later, as promised, we were turning off the highway onto a narrow, unmarked road. It was little more than a cleared dirt trail, and trees crowded in around the SUV, branches scraping the roof and windows. We might as well have been back in the woods of River City Park.

The forest opened up into a massive clearing, and the SUV's headlights illuminated a large cabin backed by a wide expanse of water glowing white in the moonlight. The cabin—if you could call it that—was two stories high, with a front wall made entirely
of glass, from foundation to roof. It was closer to a crystal palace than a woodsy retreat.

We spilled out of the car and let our eyes adjust to the shift from headlights to moonlight. Pine needles crackled under our feet, and a cool breeze rushed in off the lake, whisking away some of our summer sweat. I felt a million miles away from River City . . . and a million miles away from River City is where I'd always wanted to be. I took a mental snapshot of the cabin—a postcard to hang on the walls of my imagination.

York stepped up next to me, his shoulder brushing mine. “So, this place is—”

“Amazing,” I breathed.

He grinned. “I was going to say better than our place.”

“I thought this
was
your place.”

“Uh, yeah, I mean our regular house.” He spread his hands in the air, framing them around the building. “Both the east and west facades are glass, so you can watch the sun rise over the lake and set in the woods.”

“Not exactly a log cabin, is it?” I said.

“It's made from the same stuff—Douglas fir, cedar, spruce. And wait until you see the stonework inside. . . .”

His face lit up as he rambled on about trusses and struts and other things I didn't understand, and I found myself standing next to a very different boy than the one I'd seen tormenting kids at school.

“You know a lot about it,” I said, impressed.

York shrugged. “I'm into buildings. I might become an architect.”

“Yeah, right,” Boston scoffed. “You need to go to college to become an architect.”

York whirled on his brother. “I'll be whatever I say I'm gonna be.”

“You could be a construction worker.” The tone in Boston's voice was almost earnest, as though he thought this was actually a helpful suggestion.

Andi shook her head at him. “What did I say about poking the yeti?”

“What?” Boston said. “Construction workers can make a ton of money. . . .”

He trailed off as he noticed York's red face and clenched fists.

I stepped between the boys, leaning into York's line of sight, and smiled.

“You sound like an architect to me.”

He glowered and didn't respond.

“I mean . . .” I hesitated, not sure whether I, too, was poking the yeti. “You know about the stonework and arches and—”

“Whatever.” York turned and stomped toward the cabin. “Let's just do what we came here to do.”

I stared after him, trying not to feel wounded. He was a jerk and a stranger and possibly a drunk. What did I care what he thought?

Boston followed York, and as Andi and I fell into step behind them, she leaned in to whisper to me.

“What exactly
did
we come here to do?”

 

16

“IT'S NOT HERE.” York cursed and prowled around the cabin's front door, reaching into a mailbox and lifting up tiny stone statues of frogs and raccoons.

“It's here,” Boston said. “Just keep looking.” He joined the search, feeling along the top of the door frame and searching behind the bushes that flanked the entryway.

Finally, both boys stepped back with their hands on their hips—an identical pose that made them look, for the first time, like brothers.

“Shit,” Boston said.

“Oh my God,” I said. “Please tell me you're not looking for a key.”

“No.” Andi seethed. “They wouldn't drag us all the way up here unless they already
had
a key.” She glared at the boys. “Right?”

Boston looked sheepish, but York just pushed roughly past her and circled around to the side of the cabin. We followed,
stumbling as the ground sloped down toward the lake and the pine needles beneath our feet gave way to mud. I used the moonlight to sidestep small puddles of water, but Andi wasn't as careful. I heard a squelch as she tugged one of her boots from a mud hole.

“Hey!” she cried, holding up her mud-covered foot for the boys to see when they turned around. “Look at this! Do you know how much these cost?”

“Oh, did you actually pay for them?” I said.

Andi's head snapped in my direction, and the surprised look on her face was so satisfying.
That's right
, I silently reminded her.
You and me? Not friends.

Her face melted into a smile. “Nope. Doesn't mean they're not worth something.”

“The sooner we find the key, the less time you spend communing with nature,” Boston said, poking behind a rolled-up hose. “Not here, either.”

York checked a few windowsills. “I can't see for shit. It's too dark.”

Andi huffed and fished something out of her messenger bag. “Why didn't you just say so?”

And the world erupted with light.

Boston and York held their hands up against the glare, and I had to squint, even though I wasn't in the path of the searchlight.

At least, it was bright enough to be a searchlight. But it was actually much smaller—almost small enough to hook onto a key chain, and light enough that Andi could hold it between two
fingers. She lowered the beam to spare the boys' eyes, and the ground all around us glowed as if it were broad daylight.

“What is that?” York gaped.

“Uh . . . a flashlight. Obviously,” Andi said, but her voice had lost some of its edge, and in the glare the light was casting all over, I could almost see her cheeks turning pink.

“That's not a normal flashlight,” Boston said. He leaned in to inspect the tiny metal cylinder. “It's even brighter than an LED. What's it powered with?”

“How should I know? You said you needed light. Here's light.” She backed away a step and aimed the beam at the wall. “Now, let's go.”

She doesn't know because she probably picked it from someone's pocket.

“But where did you get it?” The way Boston was ogling the flashlight, you'd think Andi had pulled an ancient dinosaur bone out of her bag or something.

Andi gritted her teeth. “My dad got it off an infomercial, okay?”

“An infomercial?” York laughed.

“Yeah!” Andi shined the light directly in York's face. “An infomercial. As in, ‘Here's the one-eight-hundred number. Call right now for this exclusive one-time-only discount.'” Andi's voice grew shrill, and she was practically spitting. “‘Buy one, get one free, and we'll even throw in this nifty carrying case for just five dollars more!' SUCKERS!”

The last word came out as a screech and echoed through the trees, hanging in the air as the rest of us stared at Andi in gaping silence.

Guess I'm not the only one who's prone to outbursts.

Andi was breathing heavily, and the outrageously bright light shook in her hand.

York blinked stupidly in the vibrating light, his mouth hanging slightly open. Then he held up a hand, and something silver glinted between his fingers.

“Found it.”

No one said much after Andi's explosion. The boys set to work turning on the lights and the air-conditioning in the cabin, and Andi and I hauled in the bag from the back of the SUV, at Boston's request. He was paranoid about leaving a bunch of drugs just sitting around outside the cabin. Never mind that the SUV they were sitting around in was stolen.

This busywork only kept us actually busy for about ten minutes, and too soon we were all crowded around a massive island counter in the kitchen, staring at a pile of heroin. Or, more accurately, we were watching Boston measure the heroin. He had laid out all the bricks of tightly wrapped plastic in neat rows on the island, and he was checking the dimensions with a tape measure, taking notes on a little pad about the size and the quantity.

“We want to be able to give an accurate description of the evidence,” he explained when he finally pushed the pad away and settled back on his kitchen stool. “We'll include the dimensions in our statement. And I got the plate number off the car, too. The more details we give them, the more legit our claim sounds.”

Dimensions? Plate numbers?
Legit?

I looked over the stacks of drugs at the fifteen-year-old boy planning our escape route from this ridiculous night, and I suddenly wanted to laugh.

“This is stupid,” I blurted. “I'm sorry, but what the hell are you talking about? You're just a kid.”

“Oh please,” he shot back. “You were my age, like, five minutes ago.”

“I'm old enough to know I can't just explain my way out of this.” I stood up and pushed away from the counter, feeling more like screaming now than laughing. “I'm such an idiot for coming here—for not bailing the second we found this garbage.” I swept an arm over the drugs and ended with a finger pointed at Andi. “And I'm an idiot for following you.”

I expected a swift comeback, but Andi only stared at me blankly. She'd hardly said a word since her fit outside, and it looked like she had fallen into some kind of eyes-open coma.

“Hey.” York punched Andi lightly on the arm. “Snap out of it. Did you hear? Good news. You still have followers!”

His attempt at levity was lost on absolutely everyone, and we fell into a terrible, awful stillness. The quiet just screamed that no one in this room had any idea how exactly we'd ended up here or how to get out.

It was music that broke the silence.

Someone's phone was ringing. I reached instinctively for my purse where it rested on the counter, but I knew the song was not my ringtone. A second later, York had yanked his cell out of his pocket. He glanced at the screen and silenced the song.

“Mom and Dad. Curfew.”

“Shit.” Boston dropped his head into his hands. “What do we do?”