“Ryleigh,” I say quietly.
She turns. She looks happy to see me at first, and then her smile dies.
“Emmy. My mom’s in the cafeteria.” Her lips tremble. “She’s really mad at you.”
“I know.”
Gage’s eyes flutter open.
He looks like Joey looked the night of the accident: heavy-lidded, dulled down.
“Ry,” he mumbles. “Go outside. Just for a sec, okay? Keep…keep Mom busy if you see her.”
She gets up and squeezes my hand as she passes.
“You,” he says when she’s gone. His voice is thick. “I didn’t think you’d come here.”
I step closer to the bed.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It was an accident. Joey didn’t mean it, Gage.”
“You told your brother.” His lips are dry. “We had a deal.”
“I thought…You said maybe we could hang out a little at the dance. I thought maybe things were changing, just a bit.” Slowly, it comes to me, how wrong I was: Gage was only appeasing me. To keep me quiet, keep me his. He didn’t think I’d really go through with it. The truth sits inside me, a cold stone, as cold as his eyes looking at me from the hospital bed.
“I don’t think I’m going to pitch again.” He’s blinking fast. “I can’t understand what they’re telling me, but nobody’s smiling, so it isn’t good.”
“You will. You’ll have therapy, you’ll be fine. My dad says—”
“Your dad doesn’t know anything about baseball. I’m done. I’m meat. I’m nothing now.”
“Gage, no.” Tears are running down my face. “No, that’s not true. I’m sorry.”
“This must be what your brother felt like, huh? All these drugs in me. Can’t feel anything. Maybe that’s my story now. Maybe I’ll end up under the bridge, just another ghostie. This was all I had, Em. I’m not smart, like you.”
I touch his good hand. I want to tell him that I’m not as smart as he thinks, that everything I’m doing right now is downright stupid, but I can’t seem to stop myself.
“Gage, I’m sorry about what happened. But it wasn’t Joey’s fault. You slipped. The ground was slippery and cold. He didn’t push you. You need to tell people that.”
Gage stares at the ceiling. He pulls his good hand away from me.
And as I watch it slide across the blanket to rest on his lap, I know, right then, that I will never kiss Gage again, that everything we did is over. That it was over the moment I showed up at the edge of his friend circle at the dance, the moment I decided to make him see me in the light, instead of the dark.
“I just wanted you to like me,” I whisper. “Was that so bad?”
I’m ashamed of the need in my voice.
His head rolls toward me. “I did like you, Emmy. Just not the way you wanted. But forgive me if I don’t feel very sorry for you right now. Your whole life isn’t smashed to hell at the moment.”
He closes his eyes, presses the button with his good hand. To get those good waves. To wash me away.
“I want you to leave,” he says hoarsely. “I just need you to leave. You and your brother, whatever you touch, you ruin.”
* * *
—
I struggle with the car door. My hands feel flimsy and weak and I’m still crying.
Joey pushes it open from the inside. “Jesus, what happened in there? What did he say to you?”
“Why?” I snap, sliding into the seat. “Do you want to ruin his other arm?”
Joey’s face turns bone white.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Stop saying that!” I yell.
He starts the car, his face grim and hurt.
“I’m sorry, Joey,” I say, trying to catch my breath, calm myself. “I’m sorry I raised my voice.”
We’re driving out of the lot, his hands tight on the wheel.
“Joey.”
He doesn’t speak to me for the rest of the ride, and when we get home, he goes straight to his room, gets dressed for his shift at Hank’s Hoagies, and leaves without taking me with him or saying goodbye.
27
MY PHONE VIBRATES AGAINST my thigh. I’m staring at the ceiling in my room.
I pick it up.
Maddie.
What the hell happened?
Talk to me
What happened to Gage?
Was Gage Mr. No-Name?
You have to talk to me or I’ll call Mom.
I punch out the message as hard as I can, not caring if I break the screen.
Please. Just leave me alone. I just need to be ALONE.
But I scoop up Fuzzy and go downstairs to Nana’s room and lie in bed with her, watching television, and she’s quiet, just like I wanted her to be.
I fall asleep beside Nana, and when I wake up, I’m still there, and my mother is standing above me, telling me it’s time to get ready for dinner.
* * *
—
Joey’s jaw is clenched in the car as we sit in the school parking lot on Monday morning. We were quiet the whole drive here. He’s not wearing his fancy store-bought holey jeans today or the nice Gap hoodie. He’s back in his old, messy, wrinkly clothes. The ones I put in a plastic tub and shoved in the back of Maddie’s closet. He must have really wanted them to go digging for them, wanted the safety of their comfort. Something that makes him feel like himself. His old self.
“I’m sorry,” he says. “I know you didn’t mean what you said on Saturday. But we have to be a unit now. This might be bad. It looks like I broke a very popular guy’s arm, and I’m not well liked anyway.”
He pauses. “And it might be bad for you, too.”
My stomach is in knots. “Okay,” I say softly, pulling the hood of my jacket over my head. “But maybe we can just sit here for a little bit, until the lot clears out.”
“All right.”
It’s starting to rain. The last stragglers are moving quick to get inside.
Rain is slipping down the windshield, gradually erasing the world outside, and I wish, wish, wish we could stay inside this car forever.
* * *
—
I feel my phone vibrating in my back pocket as I’m walking down the hall, but I don’t take it out. Instead, I turn right, toward first period. I’m already late.
“Ms. Ward,” says Mr. Hoolihan. “Earth science waits for no one. You’re lucky I didn’t mark you absent.”
Every single kid in class is staring at me as I make my way to my seat in the back. I slide onto my chair and put my backpack on the floor.
Then I see it.
Whore.
Scrawled on my desk in black marker. The letters are big enough to be seen, but just small enough for a teacher not to notice right away.
I freeze, my blood running cold. Mr. Hoolihan starts talking at the front of the room. I rub the sleeve of my hoodie across the word, but it doesn’t budge. I lick my fingers and wipe them on the desk, but that doesn’t work, either. This wasn’t on my desk last Friday and I always sit here. It’s assigned in Hoolihan’s class.
Kids are snickering. When I look up, they quickly look away, hands over their mouths.
I pull my copy of The Portrait of a Lady out of my bag and lay it horizontally over the word so I don’t have to see it.