Flash Burnout (25 page)

I would rather sleep on a bed of nails for the next month. I would rather shave my entire body and bathe in orange juice. I would rather drink muddy water. Like the song says.

But I cannot show up at school tomorrow without trying to see Shannon.

I shut off the car and walk up to the front door. Before I can change my mind, I knock.

Mrs. DeWinter opens the door. She doesn't even make an effort to disguise her look of revulsion. "What."

"Can I talk to Shannon, Mrs. DeWinter?"
Be nice,
I remind myself.
Someday Shannon might forgive you; then you'll have to see this woman again.

"No."

I feel feral. My fists clench. "Please."

"
No,
" she says. Her voice is not calm now. "What did you do to her? She came home crying yesterday and says she never wants to see you again. What did you do?"

What did you do what did you do what did you do?

So Shannon didn't tell her mom. Maybe that means she won't tell anyone. Maybe it's too embarrassing.

"I don't ... I don't want to say," I stutter. "It's between Shannon and me."

Mrs. DeWinter comes out of the house and gets in my personal space, shutting the door behind her. "You listen to me," she hisses. "
Nothing
is between you and Shannon, do you understand me?"

I inch back.

"If you did something to hurt her, so help me I will—"

"I didn't!" I protest. "Not like that! I would
never
hurt her. I mean, I did hurt her. Her feelings. But I didn't do anything to hurt her physically."

Mrs. DeWinter gives me a long, crazy-woman stare to see whether or not I'm telling the truth. After a minute she appears satisfied, because she backs up and opens the door. "Good. Because I will not hesitate to contact the authorities, Blake, if I hear differently." She steps inside and gets ready to close the door.

"Wait!" I move toward her, holding the envelope out. "At least give her this. Please!"

She regards the envelope as she might regard a handful of dog shit.

"Please," I say one last time.

Her lip curling, Mrs. DeWinter grabs the letter out of my hand and slams the door.

I drive down to the end of the block and pull over to the curb. I don't get out of the car and pound on the hood or scream obscenities. I just sit there with my whole body twitching like a broken toy.

I am so glad my parents didn't have to see that. The look of disgust on her face! I feel like a worm.

My mom has been saying these three words to me my whole life, but I think today is the first day I really feel their meaning in my bones:

Actions have consequences.

When I get home, an e-mail from Shannon is waiting in my in-box:
Please don't call or write to me anymore.

Don't forget negative space in your composition—
use it to convey loneliness or isolation.
—Spike McLernon's Laws of Photography

We're on our way to school. It's the worst Monday in the history of my entire life.

Garrett keeps the radio off. Out of respect for my catatonic state, I guess. I do feel like I'm made of very thin glass, like one of those easily breakable Christmas ornaments. One clumsy step and I'll shatter into a million pieces.

Garrett parks and leaves the car running for a minute. He seems as worried about my day as I am. "You ready, man?" he says.

I want to say,
No. Please drive me back home.
But I nod my crystal head and ease my fragile arms and legs out of the car.

Garrett even walks next to me!

Shannon is nowhere in sight. She is always there ahead of me, hanging out on the quad with her peeps. I see Kaylee and Jasmine, but no Shannon. The two of them see me and scowl.

"Uhhnnnn," I moan.

"Easy, big fella," says Garrett.

"Don't," I say.

"Don't what?"

"Don't call me big fella.
She
used to call me that sometimes."

"Dog. Dog, I'm so sorry. I didn't know." Garrett raises his hand as if to pat my shoulder, then drops it, remembering that we're at school and he's got a reputation to protect. "I've got to go to class now, okay?"

Ohgod, this is just excruciating. I can't bear his concern.

"Go. I'm fine," I say through my brittle lips. "See you later."

I manage to stiff-leg my way to biology and survive the hour, even though every time I think about walking into English class, my heart starts slamming around in my chest.

Finally the bell rings. The bell of doom.

I stop at the drinking fountain to quench my thirst. I've got serious dry mouth.

It's time.

I walk into class.

"Hi, Blake," Mr. Hamilton says, then cocks his head at me. I must look as bad as I feel.

Shannon is not there.

Oh. Thank. God.

I feel really bad, of course. And it's only prolonging my agony, but I am just so glad I don't have to face her yet.

Marissa is at her desk, writing in her journal. As I ease my body gingerly into my chair, she glances over at me. I give her a
fractional nod, and we look away from each other. I know she's got to be glad Shannon is absent, too.

***

I must have been high to think that just because Shannon isn't here today, word wouldn't get around.

By lunchtime the girl network has effectively spread the Top Story of the Day. I fully expect to hear Cappie talking about it on the radio any minute: "In other news: Blake slept with Marissa even though he said he loved Shannon and now Shannon has broken up with him and we all hate Blake and Marissa because Shannon is really nice and they are horrible. This is 88.1, KWST."

But the news must not have reached Cappie yet, because the airwaves remain free of our sad scandal.

Riley sidles up to me, his eyes round. "Flake, is it true? What Kaylee said? Did you and Marissa...?"

I just slump, and he whispers, "No way!"

"It's not like that," I say.

"Kaylee is so mad, man. I shouldn't even be talking to you, know what I'm sayin'?"

"Yeah."

"Later."

He leaves, and I decide I can't face the lunch crowd alone. For the first time, I walk off campus without permission. I head over to Ottomans, checking out the customers while I stand in line. I don't
see anyone I know; maybe I'll be safe here. I buy a meatball sub and eat it at a kid-size plastic picnic table. The meatballs don't seem to have any flavor.

No one is sitting in the soccer beanbag. I keep glancing over at it, even though I don't want to. After I finish eating, I snap a photo of my crumpled-up sandwich wrapper in the middle of the beanbag.

***

"The deadline for the photo contest is coming up," says Mr. Malloy. "And remember, everyone who enters the contest will have his or her photos on display at school for a month. At the end of the month I will announce the winner, and that person's photos will be hung in the Third Thursday Gallery."

Mr. Malloy looks less distracted today than he has lately. His beret is back in place and his glasses are glinting. "I hope everyone will enter," he adds with a smile. "Now! Who's ready to talk about portraiture with me?"

I glance over at Marissa, who is scribbling something that looks like a list: "blue jay and bushtits, pink roses, Japanese garden shots, Grandma's cobbler."

Must be her contest entries. All pretty. I should enter some
gritty
to keep the judges from going into a diabetic coma.

The door swings open, and we all turn to look.

Marissa's mother stands jittering in the doorway.

"Um?" she says.

My eyes almost pop out of my head and roll across the desk. I whip around to look at Marissa. Her face is a mask of shock.

I didn't actually see the corpse in the cold room that day, but I can't imagine that she looked worse than Marissa's mother looks right now.

"Can I help you?" Mr. Malloy frowns.

Marissa jumps up and rushes to the door, mumbling, "Sorry." She steps into the hall. "Mom!" she says, closing the door behind her.

We all stare at the door, and I
know
we're still seeing in our minds that skin-and-bones, stringy-haired waif that Marissa just called Mom.

"Okay," says Mr. Malloy. "Where were we? Portraiture. Nate. Talk to me about the use of flash in shooting a portrait."

"Um, well, you would want to bounce the flash off the ceiling, if you can. It—"

"—told you it's just for food! It's not like I'm asking for a hundred bucks!" comes the raised voice from behind the door.

We hear Marissa's murmur, then the other voice even louder. "Come
on,
Marissa! Don't be such a bitch!"

Mr. Malloy moves toward the door.

"Fine!" comes a shriek.

I feel myself boil with hatred for that horror show of a human being; I wish she
had
been the corpse in the cold room.

I should get up. I should see if Marissa needs help.

But I do not move. It took everything I had to bring my body to school today and propel it from class to class. I got nothin'.

The door opens and Marissa steps back inside the classroom, her face red and contorted with pain. She stumbles to her desk and grabs her backpack.

"Sorry," she says again to Mr. Malloy, and she leaves.

Disbelief jolts my whole body.

And something inside of me slams shut.

***

If possible, Tuesday is worse.

Shannon is back at school, and her face, her sweet face, is so
crushed
that I want to throw myself at her feet and beg her forgiveness. I would do it in front of everyone—schoolwide assembly!—if I thought it would help.

But somehow, besides being crushed, the look on her face is
finished.
As if I'm no one special. Just some guy she used to work with at the community center.

I see her stony expression, and I remember her saying, "The Gold women are tough. So don't mess with me!"

Marissa doesn't show up in English. That's one more day without the three of us being in the same room together. Thank you, God.

People are still talking about us. A few guys make crude comments to me about Marissa. Some people look away when they see me coming down the hall; others shoot me looks full of loathing.

Cappie spares me further public humiliation by not mentioning Shannon and me during her Love Gone Wrong broadcast.

When I get to photo, I don't expect to see Marissa.

To my surprise, though, she's there. "Hi," she says.

"Hey." I take my stuff out of my backpack.

I know I should ask what happened with her mom, but I really don't care. I don't want to waste a single breath talking about her. I'm glad to see Mariss, I just don't feel like rehashing another drama. I'm still hip-deep in my own drama; I have no energy for anyone else's.

Marissa doesn't bring it up, either. After a minute she leans over and says, "Anything new with Shannon? Is she talking to you yet?"

I make a bitter sound. "No. That ship is sunk."

She makes a sympathetic face.

"I'm sure I'd feel much worse if I weren't so heavily sedated," I add.

A small smile lifts the corners of her mouth. "
Spinal Tap?
"

I feel a similar lifting at the corners of my mouth. I nod.

"I got called a slut today," she announces.

Ow! My smile slides off.

Marissa shrugs and says, "It's worse for girls. No one is calling you a slut, are they?"

No.

The next day is bitterly the same.

A crushed-looking Shannon. Twittery girls and scowly faces. Riley banished from my presence. Marissa gray and silent, sagging under the weight of gossip. By the end of the day, she's in tears. Apparently her friend Bree got into some kind of shoving match with another girl who called Marissa a word much worse than "slut."

I see her rushing away from school as I leave to catch the bus. I feel a tired kind of sadness. But I'm all out of wanting to help.

If memory card is accidentally swallowed, contact a doctor immediately
—Mitsu ProShot I.S. 5.3 camera guide, 2007

"Look, it's time to stop this," says Cappie.

My heart smacks against my rib cage. Holy crap! When did she get here? Why is she always suddenly appearing out of nowhere like some special ops agent?

"Time to stop what?" I say, pressing a hand to my chest to keep my heart attack from going systemwide. I sit up from where I've been lying on the couch watching
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy.

She narrows her eyes, pacing back and forth in front of me. "Time to get over yourself. Let the healing begin, my brutha!"

I don't speak crazy, so I don't answer.

"I made you a playlist," she says. "Actually, two."

She hands me her iPod. "You can borrow it for a couple of days. Go to the playlists called 'Blake's Broken Heart 1 and 2.' I didn't know if you were mad-sad or sad-sad, so I prescribed music for both conditions."

"Mad-sad? What are you—"

Do you feel like crying or breaking stuff?"

"I—"

"Never mind, just listen to both," she says. You think you invented heartbreak? Check out my man Hank Williams, brother Sam Cooke, Roy Orbison. And you want tragedy? Remind me to tell you about Patsy Cline."

I've never—" I say.

"Exactly!" She stops and points at me. "You've never heard of those people. But they've already said it all, and they said it decades ago. I mixed in some modern stuff, too, because I was afraid you might choke on the classics. But you listen as long as it takes until you realize that you're not feeling anything new. Okay? I'm tired of your pitiful face. Now where's Caveman? We're going bun-gee jumping."

I almost crack a smile. "Heh. Good one."

We are." She heads out of the room. "Don't worry, you're not invited. No one expects
you
to do anything risky."

***

Since it appears that I will not be allowed to drop out of school, no matter how heinous my social crimes, I should probably do some homework.