If You Wrong Us (5 page)

We had gym together, and for that I was thankful. You can find out a lot about a person in the locker room, though Travis didn’t talk crap about girls or sports like most of the guys. He kept to himself. His gym clothes were always laundered, not like most of us who would go a few days before bringing in something new. They were always neatly folded when he pulled them out of his bag. Because I’d been watching him for months, staking out his house numerous times, I knew that he was basically on his own with his little brother—the thirteen-year-old carbon copy who followed him around everywhere. Mrs. Kent didn’t live with them, and the mister worked long hours. So Travis was quite the homemaker.

In gym class, he was coordinated. I’d even go so far as to say he was talented in most sports. Yet he never went out for any team. He was scrappy and could hold his own. This was good to know. If threatened, he could put up a fight.

After class, he always took a shower. Always. When we didn’t break a sweat in class, most of us would skip it. Not Travis. He was the ultimate neat freak.

His body was lean and surprisingly muscular, especially for somebody who lived off mochas and Monster. On his chest, he had a jagged scar about six inches long. Definitely not a surgical scar. When guys asked about it, Travis simply said, “You should’ve seen the other guy.”

That gave me chills.

There were all kinds of rumors that followed Travis: he’d pummeled a teacher at his old school; he got rough with his girlfriends; he had hallucinations from all the drugs he took. Bottom line? He’s an unstable psycho.

So I guess it wasn’t strange that most people just let him be. They were afraid of him and nobody wanted to get too close.

Looking back, I wish I hadn’t.

6

B
ECCA

B
rit wasn’t afraid of him. She wasn’t afraid of anything. That was part of her problem—she never knew when to quit. She would poke and prod until she got what she wanted. He was much the same way. This meeting was destined to be an all-out battle.

We ate a late dinner that night, grilled cheese and tomato soup, without her. During the middle of it, a cold throbbing pain sliced through my head. Quick and unwavering. The ache made my eyes cross and I spilled my milk all over the table, which put Mom in a tizzy. She didn’t like anything to be out of order. We understood each other in that way.

I knew what the ache was, even if I wasn’t ready to admit it. Brit was always talking about metaphysical phenomena with twins. She was constantly showing me studies and reading me all kinds of stories and bizarre anecdotes. I’d never been interested. Never believed. But the pain I felt now? I knew, without a doubt, that it was Brit’s.

Figured. It was the first thought that came to me. Not panic or sadness or concern. Just the irritation that she was trying to control me again.

Brit always wanted to share everything. Though it was imperative that she went first. First to talk, walk, and ride her bike. First to get her period and first kiss. But she wanted me to be close behind. I still have scars on my legs from my first bike-riding lesson to prove it. The day she put me on a bike and sent me sailing down our sloped driveway.

She was bothering me all day to try out my new bike. We’d gotten them for our birthdays. Mom found them at a garage sale and Dad painted them to look like pink twins. It’d been over a month and I hadn’t so much as looked at the thing. Then the nudging and jabbing started and I knew Brit wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

I gave up and joined her outside, where she had both bikes out on display. She flicked up the kickstand and leaned the frame toward me so I could climb on. She held on to the bike to steady me, because my feet only grazed the ground. I felt so unstable and it made me sick to my stomach.

“Don’t worry,” Brit said. “I’ve got you. I won’t let go until you’re ready.”

“Not yet,” I said, trying to warm up to the idea. “Not yet.”

I put my feet on the pedals, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath. And that’s when she let go. She not only let go but
pushed
me down the driveway. My eyes snapped open and everything was a blur. The trees that canopied the sidewalk; the patchy grass of our lawn; the cars parked in the street.

“You’re doing it, Bee,” Brit screamed. “You’re really doing it.”

She seemed almost proud of me for a moment. Though when I hit the curb that removed half the skin on my legs,
I
was the one who ruined everything.

Sadly, her later ideas about how to keep me locked in her shadow were even more painful.

As much as I wanted to ignore the feeling now, I couldn’t. The pain told me that something had gone terribly wrong with the plan. And here I was, cursing Brit’s name in my head while making small talk with Mom and Dad. Still, I couldn’t say anything about it. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

After we cleared the table and did the dishes, Mom grabbed her laptop to get caught up on email while Dad and I watched the news. This wasn’t my typical M.O. I didn’t spend time hanging out with the family when I could help it, but I didn’t want to be alone.

That’s when the doorbell rang, and I immediately realized I’d been waiting for it.

Dad got up and pulled the curtain back to reveal police officers at the door.

“Oh, great,” he said. A police visit wasn’t all that uncommon in our neighborhood, so Dad wasn’t too concerned when he answered the door. Two fairly young officers—one white and one black—stood there. I watched from the couch.

“Mr. Waters?” the white one asked as the cool autumn air filled the cozy room.

“Yes,” Dad stuttered. Even if police at the door wasn’t unusual, having them address you by name was.

“I’m afraid there’s been an accident,” the cop said.

The conversation moved quickly, and I could barely tell who said what. I sifted through the officers’ condolences and my parent’s hysteria to gather the pertinent pieces of information I needed:

Brit.

Car accident.

Coma.

Bad shape.

Hospital.

We needed to leave immediately, but Mom and Dad were in shock or something. They fumbled around the house, running into each other, until I started barking orders. They were such children sometimes. I grabbed coats and keys and purses, stuffed my parents into the car, and rushed to Ford Hospital.

Turns out there was no need to hurry.

7

J
OHNNY

A
re you feeling all right?” Cassie asks, leaning over the front seat of the car on our way home from school. Her girlfriend, Ava, is driving. “You look like shit.”

Becca calls my little sis
Black Sheep.
Today, she fits the part perfectly, with the newly dyed blue streaks in her dark hair and her snakebite piercings. A complete contrast from my clean-cut baseball player image.

Cassie isn’t one for beating around the bush, and now that Mom isn’t around, she feels it necessary to mother me. But she’s right. I do look like shit. And I feel worse, probably because I haven’t seen Becca since the beginning of the day.

Becca’s become my touchstone. The one person I can count on. I feel lost without her.

She had a field trip to Dearborn after second period as part of her Accelerated Student math program. They’re always heading to some college campus for lectures and what have you.

I don’t know how she handles all the pressure. The math she takes is never ending. The teachers are incredibly intense. The other students are painfully boring. Becca loves it, though—the independence, the extra work, the quiet. It’s too bad the school insists she take half her classes with the commoners. It’s those mainstream classes that are complete torture for the girl. We’re such opposites.

“Hello, Johnny.” Cassie raises her voice, thumping her hand on the back of the seat. “Are you in there?”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” I mumble, finally answering her. “I’m feeling fine, but thanks for that lovely compliment.”

She groans but I ignore it, closing my eyes for my daily ten-minute catnap as Ava, aka
Golden Retriever
, squeals around the corner. Ava is a menace on the road, and her rundown Ford Focus smells like hardboiled eggs and oranges. But I’m thankful Cassie has her. And that she carts my ass to and from school.

I used to ride home with Paul before Cass came out. Her announcement was just a month before the accident, and it took me completely by surprise. Looking back, there were so many signs, but I’d never looked at my sister in
that
way. I had no interest in her sex life; actually, I was happy she didn’t have one. She was always just Cass and that worked for me.

She told all of us at dinner one night.

“Well, okay, angel,” Mom said. “If that’s how it is, that’s how it is. I’m just happy you told us.”

That was Mom. She took things in stride, which meant Dad did too. I fell in line as well. We were like these planets orbiting around Mom’s axis—she was the invisible force that held us together.

Who didn’t take it in stride? My friends, especially the guys on the team. They had their jokes and jabs about Cass and various girls. It wasn’t long before I started to pull away from them, even from Paul. Dad knew what was going on. He said it was admirable I was siding with Cassie. What Dad didn’t know was that the guys gave me grief about a lot of things—that’s what happens when your brain doesn’t work right and people think you’re the school idiot. I wasn’t noble; I didn’t pull away only for her.

After the fallout with the guys, I stopped riding to school with Paul. So Dad was always watching for a junker to come into the shop—one that he could get for a song and fix up real nice for me.
We’ll have you in wheels by senior year,
he said. Obviously that hasn’t happened, which is fine by me. I’m a little nervous about driving, anyway. I know I’m supposed to be all machismo about these things, but I don’t care.

When Ava isn’t playing chauffeur to us, Becca is. She’s fine with driving—especially since she’s calculated the probability of both her and her sister being involved in fatal car wrecks. Evidently it’s not an issue.

“I’m serious, Johnny.” Cassie smacks me in the arm. “What’s going on with you?”

“Are you really asking me this today?” I open one eye. “Do I have to teach
you
the rules of sensitivity too? Because, frankly, Becca’s about all I can handle.”

“This isn’t just about the anniversary.” She blows out a long breath. “It’s been going on longer than that and you know it. And Becca’s just as bad. That girl looks like the walking dead. Are you two okay?”

“You didn’t dump her, did you, Johnny?” Ava interrupts. “Because you need to tread lightly with her.”

“What?” I say. “No, I didn’t dump her. And she didn’t dump me either, not that you’d care.”

I act hurt, but really I’m happy that Cassie and Ava have taken Becca in—though I have to admit, sometimes they get a little intense about it. They watch over her when I can’t. She needs it. Before, she always had Brit to rely on. Her sister did everything for her—the talking, the social planning, even setting them up on dates together. Becca’s never really learned how to do that for herself. So now, with Brit gone, she hasn’t even thought about having a social life. And she doesn’t realize that when she’s feeling sad or anxious, she’s actually lonely and in need of human interaction.

Yes, psychology. It’s what I’m good at.

I really owe Cassie and Ava everything, but honestly, I can’t deal with this shit today.

“Man, if I knew you two were on the attack, I would’ve taken the bus home,” I snap at both of them. Then I close my eyes again.

“I’m just worried,” Cassie says. Her voice cracks a little.

“I know,” I whisper before falling asleep.

At home, Dad is already sitting at the kitchen table with a bottle of Jack. He’s aged about a decade since last year. It was exactly this time of day, exactly one year ago, when Mom left to pick up dinner and never came back.

It was a special dinner for me—we’d heard that week that three colleges were interested in me and they’d be out scouting in the spring. I heard the guys talking behind my back, saying I was a waste of a scholarship, that I could hardly make it through high school, so how could I handle college?

But Mom didn’t question it for a second. She insisted on celebrating. That was her deal.
This calls for a celebration,
she said regularly. And celebrate we did. Cassie got an A in lit. Celebrate. I got my driver’s license. Celebrate. Our furnace made it another winter. Celebrate.

“What’s going on, Dad?” I ask as I make my way to the table. I pick up the bottle of Jack and raise an eyebrow. Dad’s made it a full year without losing it, though there were times I thought he was close. If Cassie and I didn’t still need him, I have no doubt he’d be a certified drunk by now.

“Don’t start with me, Johnny,” Dad slurs. “Everyone deserves a day without judgment.”