Blind Spot Page 10

  “I’ll take that as a no.” Greg stood. “Let’s go before I lose my appetite.”

  I peered over the balcony. Too many bodies, but I knew he was down there somewhere. “Jonathan!” I screamed blindly into the crowd. “Zeus!”

  “Hey, Beautiful!” came the response, and I spotted him near the stairs, shoving by Greg and Heather as they made their way to the door. His hands started groping for me before he’d even sat down.

  I shoved him away. “There are people—”

  “Out,” he said. Just like that, everyone went downstairs. He grabbed for me again.

  “Wait!” I threw his hands back to his side. “I thought we were going to talk.”

  “This is more fun.” He covered my mouth with his. His hand slid under my dress, up my thigh.

  “Stop!” I yanked his hand away.

  He smoothed his hair. “What’s your problem?”

  “You ignored me all night!”

  “Well I’m not now, am I?” He reached for me.

  I pulled away and stood up. “Only because you want to mess around. That’s all you ever want to do.”

  “Yeah.” He sat back against the chair. “That’s the point of having a girlfriend.”

  “That is not the point of having a girlfriend!” What an ignorant—“Ugh!” I stormed downstairs, almost tripping over Tricia’s cloak, which was splayed across the bottom step where she sat, head against the wall. “Damn it, Tricia! Move your shit!”

  She looked up at me, tired, pale, sickly.

  I stopped midrage. “You okay?”

  “Zeus up there?”

  “His name’s Jonathan! Why does everyone think he deserves a god’s name?”

  A weak smile crossed her face. “You finally cut the cord? ’Bout time. He didn’t deserve you.”

  “No, he didn’t.” I slid down next to her. “What was I thinking?”

  “That you were a loser. He’s a user; users look for losers. It’s what they do.” She rubbed at her face with a shaky hand and then turned her weary, kohl-rimmed eyes to me. “You’re not a loser, Roz.”

  I blinked, shocked by the compliment. “Thanks.” I wanted to say something else. Something nice. Nothing came to mind. “You’re not either,” I said finally.

  She snort-laughed and gave me a sarcastic smile. “I’m as loser as they come.” Her mood darkened. “Go away.” She leaned her head against the wall again.

  “Tricia—”

  “Go!” she screamed.

  Whatever. Sick of the nut jobs and jerks, I just wanted to go home, where there was no one but me to figure out. Crawl into bed. Hide from “civilization.” I tore through the mob to the exit. When I stepped into the frigid air, it hit me.

  I had no way of going home.

  “Damn it!” I screamed into the dark night. A group slipping up the path to the door fell on each other, erupting into giggles. I knew there’d be no answer, but I tried Mom’s cell again anyway, hanging up when her voice mail answered. My finger hovered over Greg’s speed-dial button before I shoved my phone back in my pocket. If I called, there’d be an I-told-you-so from him—not to mention the wrath of Heather—and I was in no mood for either.

  After the hell this night had been, Jonathan owed me a ride home. I fought my way back through the crowd. Ethan held a cup out as I thundered past, and I took a huge mouthful as I stomped toward the loft. The stairs, now empty of Tricia and her cloak, hit my feet too quickly. Beer sloshed out onto my dress.

  I wiped at the spill with my bare hand, but it only made it worse, spreading the wet stain across my stomach. Great. If I ruined this dress, I thought, reaching the top of the stairs—

  I heard a moan and looked up.

  Jonathan sat on the couch, a brown blanket draped across his lap.

  But no. The blanket moved, bobbed.

  Stringy blond hair fell across his jeans.

  It took a second for my brain to piece it together.

  Only a second.

  “Oh!” I gasped.

  The stringy blond hair whipped around. “Roz!” Tricia fell backwards. She tried to scramble to her feet. “It’s not—” She stumbled forward and reached for me. “I needed—”

  “Get away from me!” My vision blurred. I felt out of breath, dizzy.

  “Wait!” Tricia grabbed at me again. My shove sent her sprawling across the floor.

  Jonathan touched my shoulder. “She just climbed on me—”

  I shrugged him off. The dots blocking my central vision increased suddenly like a head rush. I couldn’t see straight. Couldn’t think straight. I tripped toward the stairs. What was wrong with me? I staggered down the steps, barely aware of the crowd that had gathered.

  “Let’s go talk. How you wanted.” Jonathan’s voice seemed far away.

  “I wanna go home,” I mumbled, holding on to the wall.

  “Sure, Beautiful. Anything you want.”

  My legs wouldn’t work right. Confusion set in. I let Jonathan hold me up. Lead me out. Something cold hit my face. And twigs. Sharp twigs.

  The rest of the night was a mere montage of quick images and fleeting snapshots, like tiny remnants of a dream that didn’t make sense. Jonathan’s body against mine . . . arms . . . and Mr. Dellian’s face.

  It’s always darkest before the dawn.

  —Proverbs

  Missing

  Day 1

  I woke up in the living room, covered with the ratty orange throw that had resided on the back of the couch since dinosaurs roamed the earth. “I must’ve been really out of it to use this thing last night.” I tossed it aside and sat up. “Why did I sleep here?”

  I tried to remember. Beyond the nasty scene in the loft and walking through the cabin with Jonathan, I had nothing. No, not nothing. There were glimpses, fragments of memories. I remembered Jonathan next to me and being cold, really cold, and there’d been arms everywhere; and—

  “Dellian?” That wasn’t right. Dellian wasn’t there. Was he?

  The more I tried to remember, the less I knew. A cement wall blocked me and wouldn’t let me pass. I had hardly had any beer. Why couldn’t I remember?

  Maybe seeing Tricia and Jonathan had just shut the rest of me down? I’d seen it happen in the movies. Something unbearable occurs, like an alien abduction, and people get amnesia because they can’t deal with the truth. It seemed as plausible as any theory, so I chalked my memory loss up to self-preservation and moved on to hiding from the world.

  I spent the day in my room, ignoring the thirty million phone calls from Heather and Greg. They’d left before the Incident, but there were plenty of people around who had seen what happened. I couldn’t bear to talk about it yet.

  Not with Heather. Definitely not with Greg.

  Day 2

  My stomach ached on the way to Life Skills on Monday. I planned to tear Tricia apart, guilt-trip her with her betrayal, and then finish her off by telling Ratner about her and Dellian, her drug habit, everything. So what if Ratner didn’t believe me? At least I’d feel better, and Tricia would feel betrayed. She’d know I stabbed her in the back the way she’d stabbed me.

  But she wasn’t twirling in her usual spot. I paused, unsure about how to proceed. The scene I’d planned ended with me bounding off to the office. I hadn’t intended to go into class, where I’d have to face Jonathan. The tardy bell rang. Mr. Villanari popped his head out. “Roz? Come on in.”

  My eyes darted to Jonathan’s chair, then Tricia’s. Both empty.

  “Mr. Dellian is out sick. I’ll be his substitute.”

  Dellian’s name triggered my bizarre recollection of Saturday night. He’d been sick at the dance. Gone home. Obviously was still sick. No way was he at Birch Hill. That meant the image I had of him was simply a mistake, some weird dream.

  Wish I could have said the same for the rest of it.

  “Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” Heather screamed at me on my way to second hour. “Can you believe it? Isn’t it awful?”

  Awful. Too awful to d
iscuss in front of everyone. “Gotta get to class, okay?” I kept walking.

  “See you at lunch!” she yelled after me.

  Right. Lunch. I couldn’t wait. I ducked into class, prepared for comments about Saturday night’s “event.” No one said anything, though. “Zeus cheating on Roz with the lunatic fringe” had been trumped by some wannabe X-Games skateboarder who’d almost died.

  I’d planned to skip lunch, skip Heather, skip Tricia, Jonathan, Missy, the whole scene. Unfortunately Greg intercepted me at my locker. The soft smile he gave me said he knew—and felt sorry for me. I fumbled for an excuse to escape him but didn’t get one out before Heather found us.

  “There you are!” She hooked her arm in mine and led me toward the lunchroom. “I’ve been dying to talk to you since I found out on Sunday. Is your phone broken? I kept calling you.”

  “I forgot to charge it,” I said lamely. I stole a glance at Greg as we sat down. His eyes tried to meet mine, and I had to look away.

  “Just a stupid rumor,” Heather was saying, “by people who don’t know him. I mean, don’t gossip unless you have the facts, you know?”

  I stared into my lunch bag. I didn’t feel like eating. Not even the extra-large brownie I’d packed as comfort food. “The rumor’s true.”

  “What?” Heather grabbed my arms to turn me toward her. “When did you hear that? I talked to Ricky in third hour. He said he’s not in a coma!” She looked around the cafeteria. “Where’s Ricky?”

  “Coma?” I stared at the back of her raven-blue hair as she frantically scoured the room. “What are you talking about?”

  “Heather, relax,” Greg said. “Mom said he’s not in a coma. He may be paralyzed, though.” He turned to me. “Fritz almost died Saturday. He’s in ICU at Memorial.”

  “What happened?” Then it clicked. “Wait, that was Fritz who took a header off the stadium bleachers on his skateboard? The X-Games guy?”

  “He’s not in the X Games,” Heather snapped. “That’s another one of those stupid rumors by people who don’t know what they’re talking about.”

  “He and Ricky were simulating X-Game jumps,” Greg explained. “Ricky thinks Fritz hit black ice—”

  Heather put her hand on her heart. “He fell almost two stories down and smacked his head on the edge of a step. If you’d answered your phone messages, you’d know this!”

  “Hey, Helen Keller!” Rona yelled from across the cafeteria. “Lose Zeus somewhere? Have you checked under the cape?” Her table erupted into giggles.

  Heather yammered on about hospital visiting hours and ICUs as if she hadn’t heard, but Greg gave me a somber look. He knew. He definitely knew.

  Which made me dread sixth hour. A substitute for Dellian meant library time or some other form of emancipation. Given the opportunity, Greg would corner me, ask how I was doing, sympathize with me—and I couldn’t handle sympathy from Greg. So after fifth hour, I detoured to my locker, gathered my things, and boarded the city bus home.

  Thirty minutes later, even though school wasn’t out yet, Greg showed up on my doorstep. I knew what it cost him to skip a class. And he’d done it for me. Still. “Sorry, Greg,” I whispered as I moved away from the window without answering the door. “I can’t talk to you, not about this.”

  I sat at the kitchen table eating a turkey sandwich while Greg rang the doorbell incessantly. After fifteen minutes, the ringing stopped. I plopped down on the couch and had just closed my eyes when the doorbell rang again.

  “Geez, he is relentless!” I flung the curtain back. Greg’s purple beast wasn’t in my driveway. A green truck was. I peered through the peephole. “Mr. Dellian?” I said as I opened the door.

  “Miss Hart, I’m trying to locate Miss Farni. Have you heard from her?”

  “Tricia?” I shook my head. “Why would I? We aren’t exactly friends.”

  “Yes, well after Saturday evening’s . . . altercation, she said she wanted to make things right with you. She didn’t contact you?”

  I was still stuck on “altercation.” She told him? How sick was that! And now he was trying to find her? Her confession must’ve caused a pretty brutal fight.

  “Miss Hart, please? Did she contact you?”

  “No, she didn’t.”

  Mr. Dellian sighed. “If she does, please let me know right away. We need to know she’s okay.”

  We? Himself and the baby? For a brief second, the image of a helpless baby crying for his mother gave me a twinge of concern. But then I remembered Tricia’s head in Jonathan’s lap, and that twinge of concern turned into disgust.

  Day 3

  Snow fell all night. By morning, there was almost two feet on the ground, and nothing was moving. Including my bus. I’d waited forty-five minutes in the freezing cold and was contemplating waking my mom, when a very old, very noisy, very rusted-out plow truck pulled up.

  Greg stepped down from the driver’s side wearing a fur hat with floppy earflaps and gigantic white bunny boots that made his scrawny legs look like pencils stuck in marshmallows. “Can I give you a ride?” He extended a gloved hand.

  I shook my head. “The bus should be here any minute.”

  Greg shook his head, his earflaps slapping his cheeks. “No, it won’t. I passed it in the ditch a few miles up the road. Come on. I promise not to talk about you-know-who, okay?” He took a step toward me, hand still extended.

  I chewed on my inner cheek, deliberating. If the bus was stuck, I’d for sure have to wake Mom. And Mom hated the first snowfalls of winter. “Too many idiots who forget how to drive in snow out on the roads,” she’d say.

  “Promise?” I said. “No lectures, no discussion?”

  “Promise.” He helped me through the snow to the passenger’s side. “Someone coming to plow your driveway?”

  “Yeah, me and my good friend Shovel. I figure I’ll wait until after it stops snowing.”

  “I’ll save you the energy.” Greg had it plowed in less than three minutes.

  “So, is your hovercraft grounded?”

  He grinned. “This tank works a bit better in freshly fallen snow.” He nodded out the window, slowing down. “And it comes in handy for scenes like this one.”

  One of my neighbors was spinning her wheels at the end of the road. Greg plowed the snow out of her way, and then pulled over, grabbed a chain from the back, and hooked it to her bumper.

  “Are you always such a good Samaritan?” I joked when we were back on our way.

  “‘What do we live for; if it is not to make life less difficult to each other?’ George Eliot.”

  I grinned. Greg could be so . . . Greg . . . sometimes. A flash of red in the snowbank up ahead caught in my peripheral vision. “Oh God,” I muttered, barely audible over Greg’s “Idiot! Who drives a Corvette in this weather?”

  Drive on by, drive on by, drive on by, I pleaded in my head.

  But, as I knew he would, Greg slowed and pulled over. He stepped out of the truck, and my bad dream turned into a nightmare. Missy popped into view.

  It was only Tuesday! Tricia on Saturday and now Missy?

  I watched the scene unfolding outside. Jonathan squatted alongside the Corvette, poking at the snow underneath with a snow brush, while Missy stood next to him, huddled under a blanket.

  Greg approached with his chain. Jonathan jumped up, shook his head, and waved his hands emphatically. Greg shrugged and then pointed at the Corvette. Jonathan’s waving hands slid down on top of his head. He walked over to where Greg had pointed, while Greg walked back to the truck.

  “He doesn’t want me to touch his precious car,” he said as he opened my door. “He’s high-centered anyway. A tow is liable to rip everything off the underside. We need to chop away as much snow as we can, then push it out. I have another shovel if you want to help.” He gave me that soft smile. “I understand if you’d rather not.”

  I glanced at Princess Missy shivering on the side of the road. “I’ll help,” I said. “Let’s just make it quick.” I cl
imbed out and took a shovel from Greg.

  Jonathan looked over in surprise. “Hey, Beautiful. What’re you doing here?”

  I stared at the ground. Watching him from behind the protection of the glass had been fine, but out here I felt exposed. I went to the other side of the car with Greg and began chopping at the clumps.

  Greg let the metal tip of his shovel “accidentally” hit the car.

  “Watch it!” Jonathan yelled.

  I let my shovel slip too.

  “Hey! Come on!” Jonathan bellowed.

  “Sorry!” we yelled, grinning at each other.

  Once the snow was cleared on the left side of the car, Greg went around to the other side to help Jonathan. I stepped back behind the car, sharing the same space with Missy without acknowledging her. Thankfully, she did the same.

  “You do realize the right front tire is completely flat?” Greg said. “You drove over that piece of plywood with the nails sticking out.”

  Jonathan stomped to the front of the car. “Screw it!” he yelled, flinging his shovel down on the ground.

  Missy and I flinched, but Greg didn’t miss a beat. “I’d rather just help you change it. You have a jack?”

  “Yes.” Jonathan seethed from the snow pile he was carefully disassembling, looking for more nail-ridden plywood. “In my trunk.”

  “I’ll get it,” I said. The jack was wedged underneath the spare tire. I had to lift the tire up to free it. It was heavy and hard to do while holding the jack in the other hand, but I managed to yank the jack free. I set it aside and tried to lift the tire out as well.

  It was too heavy. I let it fall back on the brown cloth it had been resting on. “I can’t get the tire out,” I called and picked the jack back up.

  “Don’t need it yet,” Jonathan said in my ear. He reached around me and slammed the trunk shut.

  I shoved the jack at him and stepped backwards, hating how, despite everything, he still made my heart pummel madly in my chest. I climbed back into Greg’s truck and waited for them to finish.