Part 9 (1/2)
”He's a very nice officer, Valerie. He's not out to get you. He's just trying to find out what happened.”
I nodded again, deciding that I was suddenly too tired to fight with her. Suddenly I decided it really didn't matter what she thought. This was so big she couldn't save me even if she did think I was innocent.
We sat there for a few minutes. I flipped the channels on the TV and ended up watching Rachael Ray, who was cooking some sort of chicken or something. We were both silent, save for the shush of Mom's shoes when she s.h.i.+fted positions or the squeak of the vinyl seat of the wheelchair when I did. Probably Mom couldn't think of anything else to say, either, if I wasn't going to give her some big, dramatic soap opera confession or anything.
”Where's Dad?” I finally asked.
”He went home.”
The next question hung heavily between us and I considered not even asking it, but decided she was waiting for it and I didn't want to disappoint her.
”Does he think I'm guilty, too?”
Mom reached over and unkinked a spot in the remote control cord, keeping her fingers busy.
”He doesn't know what to think, Valerie. He went home to think. At least that's what he says.”
Now that was an answer that hung just as heavily as the question, if you asked me. At least that's what he says. At least that's what he says. What was that supposed to mean? What was that supposed to mean?
”He hates me,” I said.
Mom looked up sharply. ”You're his daughter. He loves you.”
I rolled my eyes. ”You have to say that. But I know the truth, Mom. He hates me. Do you hate me too? Does everyone in the world hate me now?”
”You're being silly now, Valerie,” she said. She got up and picked up her purse. ”I'm going to go down and grab myself a sandwich. Can I bring you anything?”
I shook my head, and as Mom left a thought flashed through my head like a strobe light: She hadn't said no no.
Mom hadn't been gone long when there was a soft knock on the door. I didn't answer. It just seemed like too much energy to open my mouth. Not like I could keep anyone out these days, anyway.
Besides, it was probably Detective Panzella, and no matter what, I was determined that this time he wouldn't get a single word out of me. Even if he begged. Even if he threatened me with a life sentence. I was sick of reliving that day and just wanted to be left alone for a minute.
The knock came again and then the door swished open softly. A head peeked around it. Stacey.
I can't tell you the relief I felt at seeing her face. Her whole face. Not just alive, but not even marked. No bullet holes. No burn marks. Nothing. I almost cried seeing her standing there.
Of course, you can't exactly see emotional scars on someone's face, can you?
”Hey,” she said. She wasn't smiling. ”Can I come in?”
Even though I was really happy to see that she was alive, I realized once she opened her mouth and the voice that came out was the voice I'd laughed with, like, a million times over the years, I had no idea what to say to her.
This may sound stupid, but I think I was embarra.s.sed. You know, like when you're a little kid and your mom or dad yells at you in front of your friends, and you feel really humiliated, like your friends had just seen something really private about you and it totally takes away from the ”got it under control” persona you're trying to project into this world. It was like that, only times a billion or something.
I wanted to say a ton of things to her, I swear. I wanted to ask her about Mason and Duce. I wanted to ask her about the school. About whether or not Christy Bruter lived and Ginny Baker, too. I wanted to ask her if she knew that Nick was planning this. I wanted her to say it blindsided her, too. I wanted her to tell me I wasn't the only one guilty of not stopping it. Of being so incredibly stupid and blind.
But it was just so weird. Once she came in and said, ”You didn't answer when I knocked so I thought you were asleep or something,” it all felt so surreal. Not just the shooting. Not just the TV images of students streaming, half-b.l.o.o.d.y, out of the cafeteria doors of my high school like a nicked vein. Not just Nick being gone and Detective Panzella chanting Law & Order Law & Order phrases at my bedside. But all of it. Every bit, going all the way back to first grade when Stacey showed me a loose front tooth that stuck straight out like a piece of gum when she poked her tongue behind it and me baring my stomach on the monkey bars on the playground. Like it all was a dream. And this-this h.e.l.l-was my reality. phrases at my bedside. But all of it. Every bit, going all the way back to first grade when Stacey showed me a loose front tooth that stuck straight out like a piece of gum when she poked her tongue behind it and me baring my stomach on the monkey bars on the playground. Like it all was a dream. And this-this h.e.l.l-was my reality.
”Hey,” I said softly.
She stood at the end of my bed, awkwardly, the way Frankie was standing on the day I woke up.
”Does it hurt?” she asked.
I shrugged. She'd asked me the same question a million times, after a million sc.r.a.pes, in that other, dream world. The one where we were normal and little girls didn't care about their stomachs showing on the playground and the teeth stood out like Chiclets. ”A little,” I lied. ”Not bad.”
”I heard you have, like, a hole there,” she said. ”Frankie told me that, though, so who knows if you can believe it.”
”It's not bad,” I repeated. ”Most of the time it's pretty numb. Pain pills.”
She started sc.r.a.ping at a sticker on the bedrail with her thumbnail. I knew Stacey well enough to know that this meant she was uneasy-maybe p.i.s.sed off or frustrated. Or both. She sighed.
”They said we can go to school next week,” she said. ”Well, some of us. A lot of kids are afraid, I think. A lot are still recovering...” She trailed off after the word ”recovering,” and her face flushed, as if she was embarra.s.sed to have mentioned it to me. I was struck with another dream image, one of the two of us sweating under a sheet draped over a picnic table in her back yard, shoveling imaginary food into baby doll mouths. Wow, it had seemed so real, feeding those plastic babies. It had all seemed so real. ”Anyway, I'm going back. So is Duce. And I think David and Mason too. My mom doesn't really want me to, but I kind of want to, you know? I think I need to. I don't know.”
She turned her face up and watched the TV. I could tell that her mind was hardly on the cream puffs being pulled out of the oven by whatever food show host was cooking at the moment.
Finally she looked at me, her eyes a little watery.
”Are you going to talk to me, Valerie?” she asked. ”Are you going to say anything?”
I opened my mouth. It felt full of nothing, like maybe full of clouds or something, which I think is only appropriate when you come out of a dream world like that and into an ugly, horrid reality, so horrid it has a taste, a shape.
”Did Christy Bruter die?” I finally blurted out.
Stacey looked at me for a second, her eyes sort of rolling around, all soft-like, in her head.
”No. She didn't. She's just down the hall. I just saw her.” When I didn't say anything, she tossed her hair back and looked at me through squinty eyes. ”Disappointed?”
And that was it. That one word. It told me that Stacey, even my oldest friend Stacey, the one who was with me when I started my first period, the one who wore my swimsuit and eyeshadow, believed I was guilty, too. Even if she wouldn't say it out loud, even if she didn't think I pulled the trigger, deep down she blamed me.
”Of course not. I don't know what to think about anything anymore,” I answered. It was the most truthful I'd been in days.
”Just so you know,” she said. ”I couldn't believe what happened. I didn't at first. When I heard everyone saying who did the shooting I didn't believe them. You and Nick... you know, you were my best friend. And Nick always seemed so cool. A little Edward Scissorhands or something, but in a cool way. I never would have thought... I just couldn't believe it. Nick. Wow.”
She started to walk toward the door, shaking her head. I sat in my wheelchair, feeling numb all over, taking in everything she had said. She couldn't believe it? Well, neither could I. Mostly I couldn't believe that my oldest and ”best” friend would just a.s.sume that everything she'd heard about me was true. That she wouldn't even bother to ask me if what they were all saying was what really happened. That moldable Stacey was being molded into someone who no longer trusted me.
”Neither could I. I still don't sometimes,” I said. ”But I swear, Stacey, I didn't shoot anybody.”
”You only told Nick to do it for you,” she said. ”I've gotta go. I just wanted to tell you I'm glad you're okay.” She put her hand on the door handle and pulled it open. ”I doubt they'd let you anywhere near her, but if you see Christy Bruter in the hallway here, maybe you should apologize to her.” She stepped out, but just before the door swished closed behind her, I heard her say, ”I did,” and I couldn't help but wonder for, like, eight hours after that, what on earth Stacey had to apologize for.
And when it dawned on me that she was probably apologizing for being my friend, that dream world just blinked out, vanished. It never existed.
10.
I thought I was going home. Mom had slipped in while I was sleeping and had laid out another outfit for me to get into, before disappearing again like smoke. I sat up, the morning light streaming through the window and across the foot of my bed, and brushed the hair out of my eyes with my fingers. The day felt different somehow, like it had possibility.