I awoke hours later to an empty bed. Music and voices bled through the paper thin walls that separated Mason's bedroom and bathroom from the rest of the space. I pulled on my clothes, wiggling into the jeans that I despised but continually donned day after day. I was starving and hoped Mason and whoever else was out there had ordered some pizza I could steal. My hair was an impossible tangle, my eyes a black-rimmed mess, and I spent twenty minutes in the bathroom making sure Mason's company couldn't make nasty insinuations about the evening's activities.
I finished in the bathroom and, out of habit, switched off the light as I headed across the room. I picked my way carefully around the bed, stepping around the strewn clothing and shoes. The light switch for the bedroom was by the opposite door, but the bathroom was all the way across the room, making negotiating the messy space treacherous in my high-heeled boots. I made it to the door that separated me from something hot and cheesy and was feeling around for the knob when I heard the outside door open and Mason greet his brother with a “What's up, Bro?”
I hadn't seen or talked to Brandon Bates since before the shooting. And I didn't want to. He hadn't even been at the school that afternoon, yet I blamed him entirely for the events that had transpired. I huddled by the bedroom door, hungry and indecisive, listening as someone else offered a greeting as well.
“Hey, Brandon? Anybody try to take you out lately?” It was Colby, my least favorite of all of Mason's friends. He was ugly, mean, and stupid. A triple threat. And he sounded drunk, which didn't bode well for the evening. I avoided him whenever possible. It seemed tonight it would not be possible.
“Not yet, Colb, but the night is young,” Brandon joked, always the friendly charmer.
“Mason says you got some pictures of that little senorita on your phone,” Colby slurred. “They didn't confiscate 'em, did they?”
Even though Graciela had admittedly sent Brandon the naked pictures of herself, Colby was being charged with solicitation and distribution of those pictures, and the rumor was that his parents were fighting tooth and nail for his exoneration. But everyone knew what he had done.
“Shut up, Colby, you dumbass,” Mason barked, but his bark lacked a certain bite, and I sighed, seeing the writing on the wall. I would be walking back to my truck, still parked at the school. He and Colby had obviously settled in for the night. Lots of alcohol and endless episodes of Ultimate Fighter.
“What? I saw that picture you have of Blue! Now that girl has a body that don't quit, know what I'm sayin' – not like some little ninth grader!” Colby chortled.
My heart skidded to a screeching halt.
Mason cursed and threw something, his words lost in an obvious tussle as something crashed and obscenities flew with several hard objects.
“She's in the other room, Colby, you freakin' idiot!” Mason spat, and Colby and Brandon started to laugh, obviously not worried whatsoever about the fact that I might hear them discussing my body or the fact that Mason had taken a picture of said body without my knowledge or consent.
“Man, I saw it, too!” Brandon howled. “The whole school saw it. In fact, I think that little Mexican chic saw it on my phone. Made it real easy to convince her that all the hottest girls send me pictures.”
“Shut up!” Mason hissed, his whisper as audible as Brandon and Colby's laughter. “What the hell were you two doin' lookin' at my phone?! Blue doesn't even know I took it!”
I stumbled back to the bathroom, unwilling to hear anymore. My stomach twisted, and the hunger that had growled at me moments before turned into a sour sledgehammer, and I wondered if I was going to be sick. Graciela had seen a picture of me naked on Brandon's phone. Manny had told me as much. But I had convinced myself it was just emotion, just a crazy rant, just him lashing out at me for standing between him and what he perceived as justice. I had said nothing to the police about what Manny had claimed. As far as I knew, nobody else had either.
I thought back to the evening when Graciela had been so angry with me. The night Manny and I had rolled our eyes and joked about hormonal girls and their crushes. And it suddenly all made sense. Graciela had looked up to me, had idolized me. And I had betrayed her. She thought I had sent that picture to Brandon, a boy I knew she liked. A boy everyone seemed to gravitate to, and who, for a moment, had let her bask in the light of his attentions. And so she had done it too.
My eyes were dry, but my chest heaved in an effort to hold back a sharp, dry cry that rattled around my heart and clogged my throat with guilt.
“I didn't know!” I begged my conscience for acquittal. Mason had snapped that picture of me without my knowledge, and his brother had gotten hold of it.
“I didn't know!” I said desperately, and this time my voice echoed in the filthy bathroom where I cowered. I looked around at the soiled clothes, the drooping shower curtain, the rancid toilet and the crud-lined sink. What was I doing here? What had I done? I chose to be here! And I had chosen to be in that situation with Mason. I hadn't known about the picture. But I wasn't innocent, either.
My actions had set off a chain of events. A mixed up girl, hungry for affection, makes a terrible choice. Was I talking about Graciela or myself? I faced myself in the mirror and immediately looked away. My actions, as inadvertent as they may have been, had triggered Graciela's choice and. in turn, Manny's response. Manny, who had seemed to love the whole world and, even more impressive, to like himself. I'm nobody. Who are you?
“I'm Manny,” he had said, as if that should have been enough. And why wasn't it? Because despite all the good intentioned urging to just be yourself, how was being yourself even possible if you didn't know who the hell YOU were? Manny seemed to have known, but he was as susceptible as we all are to the influences of a world where people act without thought, live without consciousness, and judge without understanding.
I grabbed my purse and headed back through the bedroom. Should I demand Mason's phone and delete the picture, threatening to go to the police? Should I throw things and cry and tell him he was a sick bastard and I never wanted to see him again? Would it do any good? The cat was already out of the bag, so to speak. The picture was in the wind. And maybe that was justice.
I strode through the living room and shrugged into my jacket. Colby belched out a happy hello and Brandon seemed uncomfortable. Mason was silent as I headed for the door. He had to have known what I had heard.
“Don't go, Blue,” he said as I walked out. But he didn't come after me.
Chapter Nine
My truck was alone in the sea of striped black top. The lights in the parking lot made little pools of orange on the ground, and I walked to my truck, grateful that the night was almost over. My feet hurt. The high-heeled boots that made my legs look so long pinched my toes and had me hobbling the last few steps. I dug my keys out of my purse and unlocked the door. It screeched loudly as I swung it open, making me jump a little, although I'd heard it squeak a thousand times before. I slid inside the cab, pulled the door shut, and shoved the keys into the ignition.
Click, click, click, click.
“Oh no! Not now, please not now!” I wailed. I tried again. Just the series of fast little clicks. The lights wouldn't even turn on. The battery was dead. I said a very unladylike word and beat on the steering wheel, making the horn bleep for mercy. I considered sleeping in the front seat. Home was miles away, and I was wearing impossibly high, ridiculous shoes. It would take me hours to walk home. Cheryl was at work, so she couldn't come get me. But if I stayed put I would be faced with the same dilemma in the morning, and I could be stuck walking home with raccoon makeup and bedhead in broad daylight.
Mason would come and get me. He would probably answer on the first ring. I shoved the thought from my head. I wasn't calling Mason Bates ever again. That left me with only one option. I climbed out of my truck and began walking, my anger fueling my steps. I cut across the parking lot and rounded the school in the direction of home – opposite the direction I had come. A car I hadn't noticed
when I'd arrived was parked in the teacher's lot, closer to the school and the entrance doors. It was the silver Subaru I had seen Mr. Wilson driving around town. If it was his, and he was in the school, he would give me a ride – or even better, jump start my truck. I had cables. Maybe he had left his keys in it, and I could just quickly “borrow” his car, drive it over to my truck, give it a jump, and bring his car back without him ever knowing it.
I tested the driver's side door hopefully. No luck. I tested all the doors, just to be sure. I could pound on the door to the school, the one closest to where he was parked. But his room was up the stairs and down the hall on the second floor. The likelihood of him hearing me knocking was pretty slim. But I knew a way into the school. My dremel had broken last summer and for about a month I hadn't had the money to replace it. But the wood-shop room in the school had a nice one that I'd made good use of many times. I'd taken a metal file to the lock on the shop exit door, filing it down just enough that any key would open the door. If no one had discovered it in the seven months since then, I would be able to get in. I might get in trouble, but I could just say the door was unlocked. I doubted Wilson would tattle anyway.
My streak of bad luck took a small vacation because my car keys easily turned the lock on the shop room door. I was in. I crept through the familiar passageways. The smell of the school – disinfectant, school lunch, and cheap cologne – was oddly comforting. I wondered how I would approach Wilson without scaring the crap out of him. As I neared the stairs leading to the second floor I heard something that made me stop abruptly. I listened, and my heart thudded like a drum, making it hard to determine what the sound was. I held my breath and strained to hear. Violins? Weird. Hitchcock's Psycho flashed through my mind. “REE! REE! REE! REE!” I shivered. Violins were creepy.
The sound had me sneaking up the stairs, following the thready notes. When I reached the second floor, the hallway was dark and the light from Wilson's classroom beckoned me forward. It was the only light on in the whole school, creating a spotlight on the man within. Wilson was outlined by the frame of his door, a bright rectangle at the end of the shadowy corridor. I walked toward him, keeping close to the wall in case he looked up. But the light that illuminated him would also blind him. I doubted he would see me even if he looked directly at me.
He was wrapped around an instrument. I didn't know the name of it. It was a lot bigger than a violin – so big it sat on the floor and he was seated behind it . And the music he was making wasn't frightening. It was achingly lovely. It was piercing, yet sweet. Powerful, yet simple. His eyes were closed and his head was bent, as if he prayed as he played. His shirt sleeves were rolled up, and his body moved with his bow, like a weary swordsman. I thought of Manny then. How Manny had remarked on Wilson's forearms, and I watched the play of muscle under his smooth skin, pulling and pushing, coaxing the mellow music from the moody strings.
I wanted to reveal my presence, to startle him. I wanted to laugh, to mock him, to say something cutting and sarcastic like I usually did. I wanted to hate him because he was beautiful in a way I would never be.
But I didn't move. And I didn't speak. I just listened. For how long, I don't know. And as I continued to listen, my heart began to ache with a feeling I had no name for. My heart felt swollen in my chest. I lifted my hand to my chest as if I could make it stop.
But with each note Wilson played, the feeling grew. It wasn't grief and it wasn't pain. It wasn't despair or even remorse. It felt more like . . . gratitude. It felt like love. I immediately rejected the words that had sprung to my mind. Gratitude for what?! For a life that had never been kind? For happiness I had rarely known? For pleasure that had been fleeting and left a desperate aftertaste of guilt and loathing?
I closed my eyes, trying to resist the sensation, but my heart was hungry for it, insatiable. The feeling spread down my arms and legs, warm and liquid, healing. And the guilt and the loathing slipped away, pushed out by the overwhelming gratitude that I was alive, that I could feel, that I could hear the music. I was filled with an indescribable sweetness unlike anything I had ever felt before.
I slid down against the wall until I was sitting on the cool linoleum floor. I leaned my heavy head against my knees, letting the strings Wilson played untie the knots in my soul and release me, even for a moment, from the burdens I dragged along like clanking cans and filthy chains.
What if there was a way to let them go forever? What if I could be different? What if life could be different? What if I could be somebody? I had little hope. But there was something in the music that whispered of possibility and breathed life into a very private dream. Wilson played on, unaware of the spark that had been lit inside of me.
The melody suddenly shifted, and the song Wilson played was one that stirred a memory. I didn't know the words. But it was something about grace. And then the words came to my mind, like they'd been whispered in my ear. 'Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me . . . '
I didn't know what grace was, but maybe it sounded like the music. Maybe that was what I was feeling. How sweet the sound. And it was sweet, impossibly so. How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. Was a wretch the same thing as a bitch? Or a slut? My life was not a testament to being saved from anything. It was not a testament to love – not anybody's love.
My head firmly rejected the idea. Grace wouldn't save me. But in the tiny, neglected corner of my heart, freshly awakened by the music, I suddenly believed it might. I believed it could.
“God?” I whispered, saying the name I'd never spoken except in profanity, not even once. But I'd sung his name once, long ago. The name felt sweet on my tongue, and I tasted it again. “God?”
I waited. The music prodded me forward.
“God? I'm ugly inside. And it's not my fault. You know it's not. I'll take responsibility for some of it, but you've gotta own up to your part, too. Nobody saved me. Nobody gave a shit. Nobody came to my rescue.” I gulped, feeling the sorrow in my throat, making it hurt to swallow, but it was pain I'd been swallowing for a long time, and I forced it down. “So I'm asking you now. Can you take it away? Can you take away the ugliness?”
Something broke inside of me, and I groaned, unable to bite it back. Hot wet shame flooded out of me in waves of crushing grief. I tried to speak, but the torrent was almost too much. And so I gasped the final plea.
“God? If you love me . . . take it away. Please. I'm asking you to take it away. I don't want to feel this way anymore.” I wrapped my head in my arms, and let the torrent consume me. I had never let myself cry like this. I had feared that if I opened the floodgates I would drown. But as the waves crashed over me, I was not consumed, I was swept up, washed, my soul blanketed with blessed relief. Hope rose within me like a buoy. And with the hope, came peace. And the peace calmed the waters and quieted the storm, until I sat, spent, bled out, done.
Light bloomed overhead, illuminating the passageway where I huddled. I scrambled to my feet, grabbing my purse and turning my back to the man walking toward me.
“Blue?” Wilson's voice was hesitant, almost disbelieving. At least he didn't call me Miss Echohawk anymore.
“What are you doing here?”
I kept my back to him as I tried to remove the evidence that I had come undone. I scrubbed frantically at my face, hoping I didn't look as wrecked as I felt. I kept my face averted as he approached.
“The battery in my truck is dead. I'm parked out in the parking lot. I saw your car here and wondered if you would be able to help me,” I said softly, still not making eye-contact. I kept my eyes fixed on the floor.
“Are you all right?” he asked gently.
“Yes,” I said. And I was. Miraculously, I was.
A small white square of fabric appeared under my nose.
“A handkerchief! What are you, eighty-five?”
“Humph! I'm twenty-two, as you well know. I just happened to be raised by a very proper, slightly old-fashioned, Englishwoman who taught me t
o carry a handkerchief. I'll bet you're glad she did.”
I was. But I didn't admit it. The cloth felt satiny against my swollen eyes and tear-stung cheeks. It smelled heavenly . . . like pine and lavender and soap, and, suddenly, using his handkerchief felt incredibly intimate. I searched for something to say. “Is this the same woman who named you Darcy?”
Wilson's laugh was a brief bark. “The very same.”
“Can I keep this? I'll wash it and give it back. I'll even iron it, like your mom does.” The devil in me had to have her say.
“Ah, Blue. There you are. I thought for a moment you'd been body snatched by an actual human girl – one who doesn't take great pleasure in taunting her history teacher.” He smiled down at me, and I looked away self-consciously. “Let me get my things. I'm done here.”
“What? You're going to knock off this early? School only ended eight hours ago,” I teased, trying again for normalcy. He didn't respond, but was back moments later, his instrument in a case slung across his back. He flipped the light switch at the end of the hallway and we descended the stairs in silence.
“How did you get in?” he asked and then immediately shook his head and waved the question away. “Never mind. I really don't want to know. However, if on Monday I find that the walls have been spray painted, I'll know who to point the finger at.”
“Paint is not my medium,” I sniffed, offended.
“Oh really? What exactly is your medium?” He locked the door behind us as we stepped out into the night.
“Wood,” I clipped, wondering why I was telling him. Let him think I was a graffitti artist. Who the hell cared. “You do,” a little voice taunted mildly. And I did.
“And what exactly do you do with wood?”
“I carve it.”
“People, bears, totem poles, what?”
“Totem poles?!” I was incredulous. “Is that supposed to be some kind of slam to my ethnicity?”