Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (18 page)

It was an invitation to learn to swim the way we'd all learned—on our stomachs in the water, cradled in trustworthy arms so we wouldn't sink. York inched closer to Boston, then paused to cast a sidelong look at Andi and me.

Oh.

Of course he didn't want to be cradled in front of a couple of girls. I turned my back on the boys and moved toward the shore, dragging Andi with me by the elbow.

“But,” she protested, “I want to watch the yeti swim!”

I tugged harder on her arm and didn't let go until our feet touched grass. We sat huddled there, wrapped in some towels Boston had managed to scrounge up, and watched the boys in the distance. York was prone on the water, with Boston giving orders like “head up” and “kick your feet” and “think of your arms like a propeller.”

Apparently, swimming was a little like riding a bike, in that you never really forgot how to do it, and soon York was treading deep water on his own, laughing and splashing Boston.

“Is that normal sibling behavior?” Andi asked, leaning back on the grass.

I wouldn't know. I'd only ever been around Aunt Ellen's kids, and they were too little to compare. One spent all his time on the floor playing with Legos, while the other cuddled the stuffed animals in her crib.

I pointed at myself. “Only child.”

“Me, too,” Andi said. “Just me and my dad.”

“Just me and my mom,” I echoed.

“Where's your dad?”

“Don't know.”
Don't particularly care.

“Divorce?” Andi asked.

“They never married. I think it was a one-night stand or something. He's probably back in Nashville, where I was born.”

“Nashville? Cool. You should go visit him.”

“Ha,” I barked. “I'm pretty sure I'm not invited.”

“So you're not close,” Andi observed.

“He's just some guy who used to send me Christmas and birthday cards.”

“Used to?”

“He stopped.”

When I was six years old, and Mama went to prison for the second time.

I'd always figured he was probably scared that the courts were going to try to shove me off onto him when Mama went away. The way Grandma told it, he'd signed a bunch of legal documents waiving his custodial rights forever and ever, and I'd never heard from him again.

The boys waded up out of the water, splashing us with freezing droplets, and collapsed on the ground next to us.

“Told you I could swim,” York said breathlessly, a huge grin on his face as he pulled on his shirt. It stuck to the wet skin of his chest, leaving his lean stomach exposed. He sure was
shaped
like a swimmer.

York caught me looking and winked. “Maybe I should go out for the swim team,” he said, cocky.

Boston laughed. “Yeah, like you play any team sports anymore.”

York sat up suddenly, and there was a crackle of tension between the two boys as Boston shrank back, his face stricken. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean—”

“Oh yeah!” Andi interrupted Boston's weak apology and squinted at York. “You used to be all about soccer and football and shit, right? What happened to that?”

York ignored her and stomped to his feet, glaring down at Boston cowering on the grass. “You suck,” was all he managed to say.

Boston's voice shook, and he put his palms up in a pleading gesture. “I just meant if you're going to get back into sports, football was always—”

“Don't pretend like you want me back on the team—like you miss the days when they ignored
you
and acted like
I
was the golden child.”

I didn't have to ask who “they” were. It sounded to me like two parents might be just as complicated as one.

Boston stood, his pleading hands now rolled into fists. “You think I like them climbing up my ass about everything
all the time? Monitoring my grades, my college applications, my extracurriculars?” He propped his fists on his hips and scrunched up his face in an impression of someone. “‘Boston, drama club won't get you any points at Yale unless you major in theater.' ‘Boston, join the Mathletes. It's practically a requirement at MIT.'”

I whispered to Andi, “We have Mathletes at our school?”

She shrugged.

“Oh, how
terrible
for you!” York cupped his hands over his heart in an exaggerated gesture. “It must suck so bad to be the smart one.”

Boston let out a sound of disgust. “They didn't even notice I was smart until you started acting so stupid.”

“So I quit the team, so what? What do you—”

“You quit
everything
!” Boston yelled. “You quit on me. You quit on yourself.” He threw out his skinny arms in a challenge, and I thought for a second that he was going to invite York to hit him. “You could have had a scholarship—a free ride! You could have had everything! But what?
Bart
can't play football, so
you
can't play football?”

The words exploded from him uncontrolled, and he literally slapped his hands to his mouth as if to push them back in, but it was too late.

Bart who?

York pulled back a fist and lunged as if to strike, but at the last second, he pulled up short and dropped to the ground instead, crouching with his head in his hands.

“Wait,” Andi said quietly. “Bart Abernathy? That was you?”

Abernathy
. I rolled the name around in my head. It sounded familiar somehow, but I couldn't say where I'd heard it. Though as I pictured it spelled out in my mind, I knew exactly where I'd
seen
it. York tugged at the neck of his shirt and touched the tattoo with the tips of his fingers, and Boston turned away, shame in his face. Somehow, it looked to me like Boston had been the one to throw the punch.

“Who is Bart Abernathy?” I asked.

Without lifting his head, York muttered, “Was.”

“Sorry?”

He looked up finally, and I was stunned to see his eyes ready to spill over with tears. “Who
was
Bart Abernathy.”

I lifted a shoulder, confused.

York locked eyes with Andi for just a second, taking in her startled expression. Then he stared for a long time at the back of Boston's head, as if willing him to turn around. Finally, his eyes came back to me.

“Bart Abernathy is the guy I killed.”

 

23

FOR ONE WILD moment, I thought York meant the officer in River City Park.

“But he's not dead.”

Everyone turned to look at me like I had an extra head growing out of my neck.

“Oh.” I stood up, suddenly preoccupied with adjusting my towel around me. “Right, you mean someone else.”

“How do you not know who Bart Abernathy is?” Andi gawked at me.

Boston backed up her gaping with scorn. “He was only the number-one topic at school for, like, a year.”

Well, how nice for Bart Abernathy that he's so memorable, while all you can recall about me is that kids used to call me Worms.

I crossed my arms and stared back at them.

York uncurled from his crouched position, but even standing he looked limp, deflated.

“First home game of sophomore year,” he started. “Bart had moved over the summer and was playing varsity for Washington
High. He never would have made varsity at Jefferson—too small, too slow. But Washington had a weak team.”

I gasped, remembering. I was a freshman at the time. I hadn't been at the game—I'd never been to
any
game,
thanks anyway
—but I'd heard about it. A boy from the opposing team had taken a hard hit, but then got back up to play, no harm done. Ten minutes later, he collapsed on the field for no apparent reason. Two days after that, he was dead. I couldn't remember why.

“He was such a punk,” York said. “We all hated him on JV—where he should have stayed.” There was a hitch in his voice, and he coughed to cover it up. “He was so pumped for that game; he really wanted to show us what he could do—kept trash-talking.
 
. . .
 
We just wanted to knock him down a peg,” he finished quietly.

“It was an accident,” I offered. “A freak accident. That's what they said on the news. I remember now.”

York only shook his head, and Boston tentatively gripped his big brother's shoulder.

“Sorry I brought it up, man. I'm really, really sor—”

York shrugged out from under Boston's hand and swiped at his cheeks.

“It was an accident that Bart got hit in just the right place to make his brain bleed,” York said. “And it was a
freak
accident that the bleeding was delayed, so he didn't get help fast enough. But it was no accident that he got hit that hard in the first place.”

“York—” Boston started, but York held up a hand and kept talking. The tears were gone now.

“I hit him hard. I
meant
to hit him hard. There's nothing else to say.”

I studied York for a minute, thinking there was probably a
lot
more to say—about whether one bad move made you a bad guy, about whether accidentally taking someone's life meant you should throw yours away, too.

“I hung out with Bart at a party once,” Andi said quietly. “He was a decent guy.”

“He was an asshole,” York said. “But he didn't deserve that.”

Andi walked away up the slope, unwrapping her towel as she went. Halfway to the cabin, she spread the towel in a patch of moonlight and lay down on her back. “Let's sleep out here,” she said.

Boston scrambled after her and eagerly put down his own towel, looking grateful for the change of subject. “Is it too late for sleeping? What time do you think it is?”

With our phones off it was impossible to tell, but I guessed it was around 2:00 a.m. Boston and Andi lapsed into a conversation about cell phones versus watches and the meaning of time—the kind of philosophical stuff that only seems to come to mind when you're delirious from lack of sleep.

I moved to join them, but York caught my arm and held me back. His hand was still cold from the lake, and it sent a shiver up and down my skin.

He waited until I looked up at him, then said quietly, “I made a mistake. I own it.”

I shook my head but kept my eyes locked on his. “Kind of sounds like it owns you.”

I left him standing there and went to stretch out next to Andi and Boston, who had moved past their musings on time and were now indulging their hunger pangs with a food fantasy.

“Filet mignon with mushroom sauce and blue cheese,” Andi said, licking her lips. “And a heaping side of mashed potatoes—the chunky homemade kind. Not that stuff from a box.”

“Spicy tuna rolls from Sushi Street,” Boston countered. “And a bottomless bowl of edamame—extra salty.”

“Ugh,” I said. “Raw fish. Nasty.”

“Have you ever tried it?” Boston asked.

“I don't have to try it to know it's disgusting.”

He rolled onto his stomach and knit his eyebrows together. “Didn't you used to eat your scabs?”

Oh my God, enough already with the total recall of all things awful.

“No!” I said, my voice a touch too shrill.

“Yeah,” he plowed on. “Yeah, you did. You used to pick your scabs and eat them!”

“You
ate
your
scabs
?” Andi gagged. “Sick!”

“Okay, yeah, maybe!” I spat out. “In kindergarten or something. Who cares?”

“No,” Boston said. “It was, like, first and second grade, after—” He faltered, and his eyes lifted past mine, up to my hairline. I leaned back out of the moonlight and ran a hand over my head. My wet hair was plastered to my skull, probably showing a lot more of my scalp than usual.

“What about third grade?” Andi teased. “Fourth? Oh my God, you still eat them, don't you?”

She and Boston rolled on their towels, laughing at my expense. Part of me wanted to punch them both in the face, and part of me wished my towel would suddenly turn into a magic carpet and carry me away. All night I'd been doubting my decision to not play with my peers, but this moment—this one right now—reminded me why I'd chosen a long time ago to just hang out with myself.

York finally joined us, lured by the laughter. “What's so funny?”

“Sam used to eat her scabs,” Boston twittered.

York's face started to twist in disgust, but then his eyes landed on mine, and whatever he saw there caused his expression to morph into a smile. “Oh yeah?” he said, laying his towel down next to mine and settling in. “I can beat that.”

“Please do,” I said, eager to turn the attention to anyone else.

“I got into my dad's toolbox when I was a kid and ate a fistful of washers.”

“Washers?” Andi asked.

“You know, the flat metal discs with holes in the middle.” He held up his hand and curled his finger and thumb to make a tiny circle. “I got, like, twelve of the really little ones down before I started gagging or something.”

“I don't remember that,” Boston said.

York shrugged. “You were too young.”

“Sorry,” I said. “That is not nearly as gross as
 
. . .
 
what I did.” Though I appreciated his attempt.

“Not as gross on the way
in
,” he agreed. “But guess how I got those things
out
?”

“Surgery?” I said.

“Nope. The ER docs said they were small enough to come out the old-fashioned way.”

“Okay,
that
is gross,” Andi said.

York played it up. “They made this awesome
plink-plink
noise when they hit the water.”

“Ew,” Andi and I said in unison. We laughed, and York laughed right along, with a deliberate wink at me. He was showing me how it was done.

“That's not even the sick part,” York said. “I wanted to keep them as souvenirs, so my mom had to fish them out of—”