“Why sea slug? Why not, like, a sea dragon?”
“Because a sea slug doesn’t have eyes. Or a nose. Or any discernible intelligence beyond eating and shitting. You’d make the perfect match.”
I snort. The sun and clear blue sky are a sign Febuary landed on its head when it got out of bed this morning. I pick a strawberry cone and Jack gets mint chocolate chip. There’s a bench, but I sit on the grass under the tree instead. Jack sits with me.
“You don’t have to,” I say.
“It’s shady here,” He counters.
“Some butts are better off miles apart.”
“No.”
With that clarifying sentence, we enjoy our ice creams in the relative peace shared only between two people who are complete opposites. Jack looks ridiculous in the sunlight. Ridiculous and handsome and puke-worthy.
“Can you go back to Abercrombie?”
“What?” Jack looks at me.
“Just, you know. Crawl back into the magazine you came from. So I can hide it under my bed between two National Geographic issues on recycling elephant waste and never read it again.”
“You’re insane.”
“You know how people talk about being beautiful on the inside and stuff,” I start.
“Yes. And?”
“I just realized people don’t have x-ray vision,” I whisper in awe. “They can’t see your insides.”
He rubs his forehead tiredly.
“My zodiac sign is Cancer,” I insist.
Jack licks his ice cream.
“One time, when I was seven, I cried so hard I rehydrated a raisin.”
My babbling doesn’t scare him off like the other 99% of the population with dangly bits between their legs. He just grunts.
“Do you know the alphabet backwards?” I ask.
“Yes.”
“Fast?”
“ZYXWVUTSRQPONML –”
“Can you make cinnamon sugar doughnuts?”
“I can make cinnamon rolls.”
“Can you jump rope?”
“Yes.”
“A million times?”
“If you gave me cybernetic knees, there’s a slight possibility.”
I stare into his face. “You don’t have bright green eyes.”
“No.”
“And you’re not left-handed.”
“No.”
“And you probably can’t play an ocarina.”
“Unfortunately, no.”
I lean back and elegantly smash my ice cream into my mouth hole. “Good.”
“Those were awfully specific,” he says. He bites his cone down to the last and lies on the grass, hands behind his head.
“Requirements of my dream man. Sea slug. Whatever. Are you even supposed to leave the courtroom if you’re a witness?”
“I already gave my testimony don’t change the subject you have a dream man?” He says it all in one breath and has to gulp air. I laugh.
“Didn’t think Ice Princes ran out of breath.”
“Your dream man is impossible.”
“Bingo.” I point at him. He narrows his eyes.
“So that’s what you do when you get hurt? You construct a dream man who can’t possibly exist so no one will ever live up to your standards and you won’t have to look their way twice?”
“Yup.”
“You don’t face the pain? You put up a wall between it and you and pretend it doesn’t exist?”
The sun filters through the leaves. A dull ache forms above my stomach.
“Yeah.”
“You’re torturing yourself.”
I know. “I’m fine, bro.”
He snorts. “You’re the farthest thing from fine, and you keep it that way.”
“What about you?” I snap. “What about Sophia?”
“What about her?”
“She’s dying, Jackass. She’s dying and you’re here with me, buying me ice cream and asking me about my dream man! She’s dying and you kissed me, more than once apparently! How fucking selfish are you? Are you just setting me up so you have someone to pity-fuck you when she dies?”
His eyes flash with an Arctic chill. “Shut up.”
“All we do is argue. Sure, respect or whatever, but respect isn’t enough. What’s enough is tenderness, and love, and you have that with Sophia,” I feel something hot prickling in the corners of my eyes. “So fuck you, actually. Fuck you. Don’t try to get close to me. Don’t try to fucking fix me. I’m not the princess, I’m the goddamn dragon, and you can’t seem to see that. So stop! Stop being nice to me! Stop being not-nice to me! Just stay out of my fucking life!”
***
She comes like a storm, and she leaves like one, heavy steps and hands clenched and hair whipping behind her in the bare spring breeze, amber eyes molten with fire and resentment.
Something in me grows heavy, and wilts.
I don’t go back into the courtroom. I wait in the park and listen to the chatter from across the street as people leave. Leo gets three years jail time for assault and battery and breaking and entering. Mrs. Blake waves to me. Isis ignores me and walks to her comically misshapen VW Beatle.
She ignores me. Completely. No sneers, no wicked little smiles, no flipping birds. Nothing. Just complete emptiness.
-7-
3 Years
26 Weeks
6 Days
Principal Evans is a nice guy. By Disney villain standards. By every other standard, he’s a more or less a horrible jerk. And I know this, but I’ve spent so much time with him now I barely see it anymore. It just is, like the stupid watercolor of the school’s main building on his wall, or the fluorescent light above his desk that flickers sometimes because, hello, public school funding. Summer is hot and I am hot and the sky is blue and Evans is just a straight-up jerk with a continual mid-life crisis he likes to take out on me.
I put my feet up on his desk anyway.
“What’s up, man?” I ask. I know exactly what’s up. But I’m gonna make him beg for it. Evans runs his hand over his balding head.
“I was concerned about my favorite student.”
“Oh, you’ve gotten so much better at lying!” I clap my hands. “You could just say you wanna know what was in Stanford’s envelope. You know, be a little more honest with your feelings. I’m sure it’d save you from buying that inevitable red convertible or a couple years of therapy in the long run.”
Evans frowns. “I have been trying to make up for my mistakes. How much longer are you going to treat me like the bad guy?”
“As long as you’re alive,” I say cheerily. “You just want me to tell you I got in early, so you can brag to your other bald principal friends.”
“You did? Congratulations.”
“Ah ah,” I wag my finger. “Don’t assume, and don’t try to get me to say it. I know how you work.”
“And how do I work, Isis? Please tell me.”
“Underhanded tactics and simpering lead-ons. You’d have done well in 1800’s France. Except everybody there got beheaded for that stuff.” I pause and stroke my chin thoughtfully, then smile. “Yup! You would’ve done well.”
Evans is quiet. His eyes are set and hard, for once, instead of soft and evasive.
“Let me guess,” I lean forward. “You want me to tell you I got in, so that you can feel better, feel redeemed, that you entered me in their applications process, like getting me into an Ivy will make up for the pictures and the bullshit.”
He doesn’t move, or blink. I lean back.
“Newsflash, Evans – it’s called bullshit because it’s shit. Because it’s already been pooped out, and nothing can be done about it. It can’t be cleaned up. It’ll always be there. The stink will linger. It’ll always be something you’ve done. So no, I’m not going to tell you.”
Evans smiles. “You already have.”
I scoff. “Yeah?”
“You wouldn’t be nearly as arrogant if you didn’t hold the knowledge that you got in. If you didn
’t get in, you’d have nothing to lord over me. You wouldn’t be dragging it out like this.”
I inhale sharply. He’s right. He’s fucking right. I learned how he works, but he’s been learning how I work all along. Clever little rat.
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad.” He smiles a softer smile. “I am glad you have the opportunity. I can rest easy knowing one of my brightest students has the opportunity to become brighter.”
I’m quiet. He gets up and stands at the window, watching the people at recess below.
“Because you are, you know. Bright. When you first came, I looked at your records and dismissed you as a troublemaker. But you’ve taught me otherwise. You’ve taught me a student’s potential is not solely in their test scores. I’d forgotten that. Years of being principal, instead of a teacher, distanced me from that truth. I became wrapped up in the statistics, and keeping up appearances.”
He turns back to me, and smiles.
“Thank you, Isis. And I’m sorry for everything. You may go, if you wish.”
I stand and put my backpack on. At the door, I turn.
“I got in.”
Evans nods, faint smile still in place. Just nods, doesn’t say anything preachy or high-handed, and turns back to the window.
I leave, feeling a little stranger. A little sadder.
A little better.
***
There are approximately nine trillion cells in my body and every single one of them hates hiking. And walking. Just moving for extended periods of time in general, really. All nine trillion of us would rather be in bed. In the shade. With a parfait.
“I can’t believe I ran myself skinny,” I pant and lean on a tree. Kayla is yards ahead of me, pushing over the hill of the hiking trail leading to Avery’s cabin.
“We’ve all done things we regret!” Kayla calls back.
“Like living.”
“Or not keeping up with a healthy exercise regimen!” She singsongs.
I stare at an oak’s trunk, and it seems to share my incredulousness. Regimen? I mouth. The tree shifts in the sunlight – a planty shrug.
“Have you actually been…studying?” I call.
“We’re adults now. Adults have to know words.”
“And here I thought the only words they knew were ‘booze’ and ‘meaningless sex’.”
Kayla laughs, and waits for me at the top of the hill.
“Don’t forget ‘bills’,” she adds when I catch up.
“H-How could I?” I pant.
“I think that’s what I’m most afraid of.”
“Bills?”
She nods. “Bills are scary. College doesn’t scare me. It’s just like high school, probably, except you live there.”
“People drink a lot in college.”
“We drink a lot now.”
“There’s lots of STDs.”
“What do you think Marina keeps itching her crotch in gym for?”
“And your dreams of being a rockstar get crushed.”
“I’m thinking more of a rock-et-star.” She points up into the sky.
I sputter a laugh. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” she grabs her boobs. “These guys would appreciate the zero G. Also there’s like, neat-o space rocks and stuff. And aliens.”
“There’s no Cosmo in space,” I warn.
“Yeah but there’s the cosmos!”
I smirk. I’m rubbing off on her.
We walk for a bit. Or, Kayla walks, and I wheeze. But even through my burning lungs and running nose the woods are beautiful – dappled with light and fresh air – and the sound of the lake lapping close by is a lullaby only the birds get to hear every night. Kayla stops on another hill, and points to the cottage. It’s huge, with French windows and marble terracing, but at least there are no cars in the driveway. We’re free to snoop around, and as long as we don’t get too close to the house itself, we won’t trip any alarms.
“Welcome to Chateau Avery.”
“Thanks, ass-tronaut.” I tap her butt. She squeals and chucks a pinecone at my head. It sticks to my hair and I don’t bother taking it out because she gave it to me. She’s given me loads of stuff – cake pops and lattes and smiles – but somehow this pinecone means more to me than any of those things. It’s a little scratchy; a little uncomfortable sometimes. But it’s still with me, and it looks fabulous. Just like Kayla.
“So where do we start looking?” She asks.
“Wren said it happened in the woods.” I look around wildly. “Avery asked them to come outside, so it couldn’t have been too far from the cottage. It couldn’t have been too close to the road though, otherwise she’d run the risk of being seen. We gotta think like Avery.”
Kayla makes a disgusted face. I thump her on the back.
“Sacrifices have to be made. The brain cells will regenerate in ten hours. No one will ever have to know.” I whirl around and point south. “That patch of woods looks perfect. Far from the road, but not too far from the cottage.”
“Okay I know you’re like, really smart or whatever, but I knew Avery way before you even got here. I know how she thinks and she would not go that way.”
“Pray tell why not?”
“Because there’s tons of mud. Ew.”
“Newsflash – mud dries up! There might not have been mud ten years ago!”
“Newsflash - there’s always mud over there.” She looks around. “If I was Avery, and I wanted to lure people to do something bad to them, I’d do it that way. That’s where she and her brother went to let off fireworks when they were kids. You can’t see it from the cottage, so they never got busted by their parents.”
“I would kiss you right now, but currently it is six months too early to become a college lesbian.”
Kayla smirks, and we start towards the patch of forest. The trees get thicker as we go in, the trunks so huge they block out the view of the cottage and the lake. It’s a perfect, insulated border around a half-mile of dastardly evil-has-been-done-here ground.
“So what are we looking for?” Kayla asks. “Bullet shells? Blood? Human bones? Or - ” She shudders and whispers; “- Ruined clothes?”
“Anything that doesn’t look right. Anything that doesn’t look like it belongs in the forest.”
She nods, and we split up. My hands shake. I’m breathing shallow. This is it. This is the place it happened. I’m standing where it took place. Jack became a cold, unfeeling husk on the outside here. Sophia got hurt here. Wren’s guilt was born here, and Avery’s started burning here.
Now’s my chance.
I kneel on the forest floor, the layers of pine needles squishy. I dig. I turn over rocks. I look between roots and mushroom clumps and massive, rotting stumps. Kayla huffs and daintily inspects tree trunks and moves pine needles with her foot, but I can’t blame her. We’re not exactly CSI. She’s right. What the hell are we looking for?
After a half-hour of silent concentration, my hands are smeared in dirt and blood around my nails where I dug too hard. Oops. It doesn’t hurt, but it will later. It’s then I feel something cold and wet on my ankle, and summarily expire. Loudly.
“Get it off get it off GETITOFF! KAYLA! KAYLA! KAYLAGETITOFF!”
“What are you screaming –”
“GET IT OFF!”
“It’s a piece of moss, Isis!”
I stop flailing and look down. The slimy green offender peeks out of my jeans innocently. I pull it off and Kayla rolls her eyes and goes back to searching.
“Y-Yeah?” I adjust my jeans as I stand. “Well, next time a flesh-eating zombie crawls out to eat you, I will just sit back and watch. From a safe distance. Which slightly impairs my ability to hear you screaming for mercy.”
“It was moss.”
“Well it felt like a zombie, and who do we have to blame for that, hm? Mother nature?” I look up and shout at the trees. “Thanks, M-dawg! Next round can you maybe tone down the moss-that-feels-like-a-zombie-hand thing? Thanks, love ya, big fan otherwise!” r />
“Aren’t we supposed to be sneaky?” She hisses.
“Yeah, but it doesn’t matter! There’s nothing here. I fucked up, okay? My big plan that was supposed to answer all the questions backfired and here we are, scrabbling around in the dirt like Cro-Magnons who haven’t learned about fire! Or gloves!”
Kayla’s eyes are glazed, and she’s staring off into the distance. I wave a hand frantically in front of her face.
“Hello? Don’t go to space yet, dumbo, you’ve got work to do and degrees to earn and boys to break the hearts of.”
She grabs my wrist and looks at me slowly.
“I remember.”
“Remember what?”
Kayla looks over my shoulder. “One summer, tenth grade I’m pretty sure, because I had my orange tankini and that was, like, SO cute and in-style –”
“Kayla!”
“Right, um. So that summer, we went way far down on the lake, like, took a walk in this direction, which was weird because it’s really rocky this way and we usually went the other way, but that day we decided to go this way, and we got about this far, maybe a little farther, and Avery told us –”
Kayla inhales.
“Avery told us to stop. She got really freaked out. Weirdly freaked. She was almost panicking, and she told us we had to go back, and we all asked her why but she just kept saying, ‘because I said so’ and ‘it’s my cottage you morons, so we go back when I say’.”
My heart soars. Maybe this wasn’t useless after all.
“And that was this way?” I ask. Kayla nods and points over my shoulder.
“If we keep going, I can look over the edge of the cliff and down to the lake and tell you where she told us to go back.”
I follow her. She’s faster than ever, but adrenaline pumps my legs just as fast, and I can keep up easy. The sun’s still high, and glints off the massive Lake Galonagah. Kayla peers over the edge of the forest, where the woods and dirt crumble into rocks and shoreline. She shakes her head each time and keeps going, until finally, finally, she stops.
“Right here. This is where she freaked out.”
I look around. There’s nothing here that stands out – just more woods. But if Avery got scared as they walked this way, that meant she was afraid they’d see something they weren’t supposed to. Something she’d hid way out here. Something that could definitely be seen from the lake shore.