High and Dry (6 page)

327. Locate Bridget's flash drive

She had me over a barrel, though. Until I'd confirmed that the deputies had bought my fake alibi, and until I erased all the fake sexts from Bridget's phone, I had to at least pretend to help her. We were all faking something, and faking it hard. It should've been the school motto.

Nevertheless, when the bell rang, I darted next door to Ellie's chemistry class to wait for her instead of questioning Josh.

She slipped out of the room and into the throng and I called out to her. Her back stiffened and she kept walking so I scurried to keep up.

The top half of her hair was looped back with bobby pins, almost invisible in her dark hair. I wanted to tug the tendrils loose.

“Ellie, please wait.”

“I don't have your keys,” she said, and rejoined the exodus.

“I know.” I reached out to touch her arm.

She turned to face me, and her shoulders lifted in the smallest of sighs. “I have to go.”

“We all have to go. Carry your books?” I said.

I glanced up to see a small smile on her face, like we were in this together, like last night was a battle, but we were on the same side now. We'd been in the trenches but this was us, after the war.

She stepped out of the swarm and hefted her books into my arms. We strode down the hallway together. She smelled like rain, which was impossible. I was just so thirsty.

“How are you feeling?” she said.

“Terrible.”

“Too sober?”

“Ha.” We reached her locker all too quickly.

“I'm pretty sure I have a gin-soaked rag in here you could suck on,” she said, spinning the lock.

I leaned against the lockers and glanced at hers while she opened it. She still had a picture up from Homecoming, taped below her mirror. Our tongues were sticking out. She'd worn a velvet dress, the kind you could draw patterns on in darker shades by stroking it the wrong way, but it was nothing compared to the softness of her hair, which had framed her face in spiraling curls. If I closed my eyes, I could still feel a fistful in my hands.

I envied the Charlie in the picture. He might've been a little insecure, but in the photo he looked stupidly happy, and he had no idea what was right around the corner. What interested me now was happy Ellie's expression. Was she faking it for the camera?
Was she counting the days, minutes, seconds till she could get rid of me? Was the dance a last hurrah to her?

“You want to slug me,” I said.

“I'm considering it.”

“I wouldn't blame you. In fact, I'd welcome it.”

She took her books back from me, placed them in her locker, and turned to regard me. “Crashing Maria's party and calling me out? Really?”

I looked down, embarrassed. “I know.”

“Why are you drinking so much?” she asked softly, no more sarcasm.

“You know why,” I mumbled.

“You can't blame this on me.”

“I'm not. For some, hell is other people. For me, it's endless reality.”

“Try again,” she said. “Less Sartre, more you.”

“When I'm sober, you definitely broke up with me—right? It's never going to stop being true,” I said. “But when I'm drunk, maybe it didn't happen.
Maybe
. And maybe it can be fixed.”

“Charlie …”

“I drink to forget. And I drink so I can imagine that tomorrow things will be different. If I had to accept reality as the only truth, I'd obliterate.”

She turned back to her locker, for no reason, and without doing anything. Her hands eventually lifted to her face and covered her eyes, and we stood there for a moment, not talking.

She had asked the wrong question. Instead of wondering why I'd started drinking, she should've asked, “How come you didn't drink when we were together?” because the answer was simple: I hadn't needed to. Ellie was my drink, and I'd spent the whole time we were dating fearing the moment my glass was going to run out.

Eventually, I forged ahead. “I can't believe you poured me into Bridget's car,
knowing
I was miserable,
knowing
I'd seen you with Fred,
knowing
something could happen with her.”

Her eyes flashed. “I was pretty knowledgeable for a three-second conversation, wasn't I?”

“It meant you were testing me or else you didn't care what happened, and either way I couldn't take it.”

She let out a strangled noise of frustration. “You think it means I didn't care? Saving you from crashing your car or killing yourself means I
didn't
care?”

It felt good to get a rise out of her, like we were finally at the same level of upset. “I just mean—” I started.

“She lives next door to you, it made sense for her to drive you home, it wasn't a
test
, there was no
subtext
. I just wanted you to get home okay because I still
—
” she stopped abruptly and my whole body tensed.

“Because you what?”

“Because I still worry about you,” she said angrily.

I chose to focus on the words and not the way they were
delivered. I chose to focus on the door that had swung wide open, inviting me back into her life.

“It's only been a couple weeks, Charlie. I can't just shut off my emotions. I don't want you to get in an accident. God.”

I let her outburst dissipate and settle in the air around us for a moment.

“Last night, you said I changed. So I'll change back. I'll keep changing or I'll stop, just tell me what to do, tell me what I did wrong,” I pleaded.

“I kissed Fred,” she blurted out. “It was … sloppy. Terrible.”

My smile was just as terrible. “I
knew
something was going on between you two.”

“But it wasn't. Don't you get it? When you saw us, we really were just talking.” She laughed joylessly. “About
school
. About how to get Jonathan into debate next year.”

“He's only in seventh grade.”

“His teachers think he should skip ahead a year, and he's really freaking out. I promised to make sure he had a group lined up so he doesn't get bullied. Fred said he could help: meet with him before school this week, introduce him to the right people. But then you accused me—in front of everyone! And the fact that you assumed we were together, that you actually thought I'd moved on from you that quickly, pissed me off. So during Spin the Bottle I made sure I ended up with him.”

I was angry, but then I was relieved. We'd both messed up, and
now we could move forward. Bonus: The kiss had been terrible, reminding her of what she was missing.

“You played Spin the Bottle after I left? Really? That's what songbirds do for kicks at parties?” I teased.

“Well, that and LSD, apparently,” she said tonelessly.

My hands shook. “What do you know about that?”

“Not nearly as much as you do.”

I was stunned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

She looked at the wall clock. “I'm late for choir.”

I followed her. “Talk afterwards?”

She didn't answer, and I stood alone in the hallway like a chump, watching her walk away, no better off than I'd been before our chat.

BAD REPUTATION

FIRST ON MY LIST TO ASK ABOUT THE FLASH DRIVE WAS
other-fullback Josh.

As we walked out to the soccer field for practice, he admitted he'd been at the library second period last Friday but said he left before the bell rang to use the bathroom (which meant he'd left before Bridget and couldn't have stolen her flash drive). I could confirm his story with Patrick, if I wanted. They'd seen each other at the sinks and discussed the upcoming game against Agua Dulce. Josh sounded confident and casual when he told me this, and since we saw Patrick at the same time out on the field, it would've been impossible for him to ask Patrick to lie before I reached him. I mentally crossed Josh off Bridget's list and moved on.

Practice was brutal. I'd been ever so slightly buzzed for several hours over the course of the day, and running drills nearly made me puke. I keeled over twenty minutes in and had to take a break on the bench. Mr. Mitchell, the assistant coach, brought me a bottled water and a face towel and sat down beside me.

“You okay?” he said.

“Yeah, I think I just got that bug that's going around.”

“You sure that's all it is? You look pale, like you've lost weight, too.”

The all-booze Ellie Diet. “I'll be all right in time for Friday.”

“Why don't you take it easy today, hit the showers, and see how you're doing tomorrow. I'd hate to take you out; we could really use you for that game, Charlie.” He lowered his voice. “Josh is good, but he's not you.”

Josh.

Josh had given me a top-up at lunch, kept me buzzing midway through the day. Was he trying to sabotage me so he'd get to open against Agua Dulce instead of me, maybe even play the whole game?

I'd been playing soccer long enough to know it wasn't exactly what you'd call fair. There's no objective reality to it. The ref either sees you foul someone or he doesn't, and if he doesn't, well, it's like it never happened. I've pushed guys out of the way and flat-out stolen the ball, and they've done the same to me. Everyone does it at some point. Were you offside? Doesn't matter—unless the ref saw. Did the ball bounce over the line into the box and then bounce back out? Doesn't count as a goal—unless the ref saw.

This is supposedly one of the reasons Americans don't like soccer, while the rest of the world shits themselves during the World Cup. The game's existence defies American values: our love of Fairness and the American Dream, which states that anyone who works hard and follows the rules deserves to succeed. Soccer's not like that. Your goal could be wrongly disallowed,
your opponent could trip, push, shove, or kick you out of the way without repercussion, and dumb luck could prevail at any moment. The best team might not win. Or it might. (Or it might,
but only in the long run
.) Consistency is still rewarded, though. If you have majority possession of the ball, with solid passing and good strikers, you'll probably win. But only probably.

For me, soccer's randomness was what made the victories so great. Because it didn't have to go that way. It didn't have to go
any
way. So many things in my life felt inevitable, out of my control. (Ellie. College.) This was glorious lunacy, unpredictable bliss.

Until recently I'd been psyched about the regional championship. My rival on Agua Dulce's team was this preppy, floppy-haired, cokehead-looking guy named Steve, and he was a dream to foul. It was especially entertaining to mess with the guy's head; I'd foul him as quickly and ridiculously as possible, and he'd be so enraged he wouldn't be able to concentrate the entire first half.

My team counted on me to get at least a yellow card every other game. It wasn't dirty playing—it was part of our strategy: Charlie brings the rough stuff and takes the hit. I was the drop of liquor in the team's Gatorade, the thing that dirtied us up. If that meant I got kicked out for a few matches each year, it just increased my reputation for the next game, as someone dangerous to watch out for. Some guys spent so much time avoiding me they didn't even try to gain possession.

When I'd played center forward, it was a whole different story.
Then, I was the one trying not to get fouled; I was the one trying to score. But sometimes you have to make do with what you've got.

I showered in the gym building, changed into my regular clothes, and headed back outside. The school was basically on lockdown at night, except for prescheduled club events, so I had to reenter from the front to get to the auditorium.

The school always looked damned depressing at night. It was only four thirty, but it felt much later. From this part of town, the San Gabriel Mountains cut us off from the sun half an hour earlier than at home. The school parking lot was dark and half empty. The windows and doors of the building were dark except for a few beams of light shooting out the front entrance by the auditorium. Inside, all the empty hallways and silent lockers were barely illuminated by tiny floor lights. The classrooms were hollow except for slivers of light sneaking through vertical blinds.

Ryder bumped my shoulder as I walked up the steps toward the double doors. “Hey,” he said, ubiquitous cigarette in his mouth, box of orange Tic Tacs in his hand. He quickly slipped the Tic Tacs into his pocket and took a drag off his cigarette.

I wanted to tell him those Tic Tacs weren't going to cover up his smoker's breath; if anything they'd make it worse. And who eats the orange ones, anyway? It's the flavor of antiseptic.

“How was practice?” he said, gazing out at the field.

“Okay.”

“Got out kind of early, didn't you?”

It made me feel guilty that he kept track of the practices, even four years later, of the team he should've been on.

“Yeah, Mitchell told me to take it easy tonight.”

He patted his pockets. “I don't have your cash on me yet.”

“No worries. Tomorrow's fine.”

He nodded appreciatively. “Good lookin' out. We still on for lunch tomorrow? I may have a way for you to make more money, if you're interested. A lot more.”

I said I definitely was, and then he was off again.

In my dehydrated state, I had a thought: If I saved my forty dollars per week from now until June, I could take Ellie to prom in style. It couldn't hurt to plan ahead, right? Just in case we patched things up between now and then? Maybe it was stupid, but with the extra money he'd just mentioned … yeah, maybe it could all work out.

I turned and watched Ryder go, until he merged with the darkness and all that remained of him was the orange glow of the tip of his cigarette.

Why was Ryder at school now, when he hadn't been all day? Maybe he'd finished doing whatever it was he did on Monday nights in the history room, courtesy of my unlocked window, and was making his getaway by strolling out the building in plain sight. I was happy enough making cash here and there, and I didn't want to stick my nose in it. Some things you don't ask and everyone's better off that way.