Modern Monsters (Entangled Teen) (13 page)

Chapter Seventeen

No one tries to follow me. Mom and Aunt Sue talk quietly among themselves for the next few hours while I hide in my room, not wanting to leave even to use the bathroom. I’d rather suffer in silence than risk running into either of them in the hall.

It isn’t until I’ve started getting ready for bed—and texted Brett to let him know not to bother picking me up tonight; I’m not in the mood for company—that someone knocks on my door. I’m expecting it to be Aunt Sue, trying to smooth things over with Mom and me, and while I’m not really in the mood to hear it, I feel like it would be cruel to ignore her. She didn’t have to come here to help us with our issues. She wanted to, because she cares.

But it isn’t Aunt Sue who opens my door when I say, “Come in.” It’s Mom. She steps inside with the shoe box of Dad memorabilia and I stare at her from over the top of my phone, wary. I might feel like I should be nice to Aunt Sue, but I’m still not in the mood to talk to my mother.

She stops at the foot of my bed and gingerly places the box down. “You were right.”

Those are words I don’t think I have ever heard come out of my mother’s mouth. They do the trick of getting me to slowly lower my cell to give her my attention, but I still don’t say anything. I’m just giving her a chance to elaborate on that thought.

Mom folds her arms, taking a deep breath. “When I found out I was pregnant, everyone told me not to keep it. Not to keep you. They didn’t think I could handle it emotionally, and maybe they were right. Sue was the one person who coaxed me into making my own decision, and…I chose to have you and to raise you, even without a father.”

I draw my legs up a little and sit straighter, giving Mom room to slowly sit down on the bed at my feet. This is the first time in years she’s come into my room to sit and talk with me, and the scenario feels both surreal and achingly familiar. “Is that why you d-don’t talk to anyone else in the family?”

“More or less. It drove a wedge between us that never really healed itself.” She stares at her hands resting on the tops of her thighs. “Part of it was my fault, I suppose. I distanced myself from everyone. I refused to talk about what was really happening. It was hard enough to talk about being raped, but to discuss that I was carrying that rapist’s child inside me…I couldn’t do it. The words wouldn’t come out.”

Abnegation
: the act of renouncing or rejecting something; self-denial.

Funny, I learned that one from my dictionary the night before Aaron’s party.

Mom continues. “I threw myself completely into raising you and shoved everything else aside. But the older you got, the more and more I saw him…” She lifts her head to stare at my face, a haunted expression drifting across her eyes. “You look just like him.”

I avert my gaze, wanting to curl into myself as small as I can, or to hide under the bed until she goes away.

“When the police showed up here, I just…I panicked. I don’t know.” She takes a deep breath and presses the heels of her hands against her eyes. This is taking a lot out of her, I can tell. But I won’t give her a free pass by saying
it’s okay, Mom.
These are things she needs to say, and these are things I need to hear.

“I’m not him.” I tuck my chin to my chest.

“You’re right,” Mom agrees. Two times in one night; guess we’re going for the gold. “You’re not him. You’ve always been a sweet, thoughtful boy and I…I want to try to make things better between us.”

I force my gaze to lift. Are these sincere words coming out of her mouth or the result of Aunt Sue’s coaching? I want to believe them. Oh God, I want to. But we don’t have the best track record for working things out, especially lately, so I’m reluctant to hold on to much hope for it. If I’m honest, though… “I’d l-like that.”

Mom actually manages a ghost of a smile. She pushes the box in my direction. “You don’t have to look at any of it if you don’t want to, but it’s yours now. Keep it, get rid of it, whatever you want.”

Then she gets up and leaves me alone to stare at the shoe box. It’s a totally nondescript box. I may have seen it a hundred times and never once stopped to realize what was really inside it. All I’ve been asking for is the truth about my dad, and now that I have it sitting right in front of me…do I really want it?

Can I handle it?

Slowly I draw the box closer and pull off the lid. The picture of my parents is staring straight up at me and I pluck it out to examine it again. It’s a captured memory of happier times, and I wonder how it makes Mom feel when she looks at it. If it makes her reflect back and wonder what changed in him to make him do what he did. Not just with her, but with the other two women who stepped forward, too.

I set the picture on my nightstand. If I don’t keep anything else in this collection, I will keep that. Maybe I’ll tuck it away in a box of my own where I won’t see it again for years, but I can’t bring myself to throw it away.

The rest of the box is a collection of things: a few newspaper articles, a police report, some court papers of the various trial dates and details. Toward the bottom, I find some short letters that I’m almost embarrassed to read, but…I can’t help it. If it’s the only glimpse of who my father was I ever get, then I should take it.

Interstate 80 going over the mountains toward Reno is always an experience, especially in winter. If I weren’t on such a tight schedule, I would’ve brought you with me so we could have gone through Tahoe. Maybe we’ll take a trip when I get back? Yosemite, then Tahoe, then Vegas. You’d like Vegas.

I’m sleeping in the truck tonight to spare myself the cockroach-infested hotels in this stretch of the state. This is the reason I’d never want to bring you on a long haul; it’s no place for a girl like you. I’d hate to see you so uncomfortable. But I promise, someday I’ll take you all over this country and we’ll see everything there is to see, in style.

The next letter goes on to talk about the dealings with one of the trucking companies, some of the men he met along the way at various stops, the number of times kids in passing cars made the motion for him to honk the truck’s horn (eighteen times) and, again, how much he missed her and couldn’t wait to get back home to see her again.

It’s the common theme of these letters, and they aren’t what I was expecting. Don Whitmore is fairly articulate, with good grammar and spelling, and seems genuinely concerned with Mom’s happiness. He talks about the gifts he’s bringing home for her and the places he’d like to take her someday, after they’re married.

They’re harder to read than the news articles are. These love notes are too personal, too much of an insight into a real person as opposed to simply
a suspect.
It’s easier to feel indifferent, to hate someone you know nothing about except what they’ve done wrong.

Of course it crosses my mind to wonder where my dad is now. Has he been released into the world? Was he arrested again on another charge? Of course he never would have contacted Mom again; I’m sure that he didn’t have a way to, or that the court told him he couldn’t. But if I were to contact him…

I reach for my phone, wondering if I should call Brett or Autumn to talk to them about this. My thumb lingers over the screen. Except I know what they’ll probably say: they’ll say I should leave it alone, because who wants to associate with someone like Don Whitmore? Ultimately, don’t I need to figure out something this important for myself?

Or do I already know the answer, and I’m just too afraid to admit it?

Chapter Eighteen

The next morning, I get to school early and sit on the steps outside, waiting for Brett or Autumn, whoever arrives first. I see Autumn’s car pull into the parking lot, and when she approaches and spots me, her face lighting up immediately takes a little bit of the weight off my chest.

“Morning,” she greets, ignoring the other students walking past and taking a seat on the step beside me. “What’re you doing out here?”

“W-waiting for you.” I hold out the photo of my parents, wordless.

Autumn takes it and peers at the faces, squinting, until her features smooth out in realization. “Is this…?”

“My mom and dad,” I agree.

“Wow.” She twitches her mouth into a smile and holds the picture up beside my face. “Yeah, I see it. Smoosh their faces together and there’s you.”

I pluck the photo from her hand with a sigh. “N-not so sure that’s a good thing.”

Briefly, I tell her about the conversation I had with Mom and Aunt Sue the night before. She listens intently, leaning into my side and keeping her gaze on my face. I like the way she listens, as though nothing else is as important as what I’m saying. It makes her a good friend.

When I’ve caught her up she says, “Have you decided what you’re going to do?”

“I th-think…I think I want to meet him, if I c-can figure out how.”

“He went to jail for fifteen years for a sex crime. I would think he’d be registered in the sex offender database. We could start there?”

I hadn’t thought about that. Or rather, I’m not entirely familiar with how all that works, and I’m guessing Autumn’s learned a lot about it in all this happening with Callie. “Yeah, we c-could— Wait, where is Callie, anyway?”

Her smile is faint this time. “Yesterday kind of took a lot out of her, so she decided to stay home today. Baby steps, right?”

“Baby steps,” I agree. Maybe that’s true for both of us.

I fill Brett in on everything with Mom and my dad at lunch, when my resolve for finding him has solidified enough that Brett’s opinion won’t sway me. To my surprise, he stares at me long and hard and finally says, “Maybe it would be good for you.” It deflates any arguments I was prepared to make, but it’s a good thing. I’d rather have Brett’s support than be forced to argue with him on something. “Get an address,” he says. “We can go this weekend if you want.”

My shoulders slump in relief. Not that I’ve quite come to terms with the idea of seeing my rapist father face-to-face, but knowing I’ll have two people with me who care brings me comfort.

Brett is silent for a few minutes as he eats before asking, “Whatever happened to you coming up with some plan to check Aaron’s phone?”

“Oh.” I shift in my seat, poking at my sandwich. Since I didn’t stay at Brett’s last night, I didn’t have Mrs. Mason to slip me money for food in the morning. Should I tell Brett what we found? I wanted to keep him out of things until we knew for sure, but lying isn’t my strong suit. The fewer people who know, the better. After what happened that day in Aaron’s truck, I don’t want to risk Brett losing his temper and causing problems for himself. “I don’t know yet. We’re still working on it.”

“We? You and Autumn?” He frowns.

Why does he sound almost offended by that? “Y-yeah. Is that bad?”

“No, no. Just…” He’s quiet a moment before smiling and shaking his head. “It’s nothing. Maybe I’m a little jealous.”

I can’t help but return his smile. “You’re still my best friend, man.”

He kicks me playfully underneath the table with a chuckle. “Yeah, yeah, I know. So if you and your mom made up, does that mean you’ll be staying at home again?”

Ah. I’ve wondered that, too. Honestly… “I think so. J-just for now.” There’s no point in intruding on the Masons any longer. I’ve missed my room and my bed, and I’ve missed my solitude and time out to think, which is time I don’t get when I’m at Brett’s. Something is always happening at his house, between his dad’s cases, Brett’s studying and long conversations about his future…

“I’ll drop you off at home after school then.” Brett finishes the rest of his food, and he’s done by the time Autumn slides into the seat beside me. She starts to say something, but pauses and glances at Brett, who raises his eyebrows at her.

“He k-knows,” I assure, and Autumn relaxes.

“Oh, cool. So I looked your dad up on the sex offender registry, right?” She places her phone on the table between Brett and me so we can both see the profile she has pulled up. The mug shot isn’t flattering, but it’s definitely my father. “He’s in Oakland. Or at least, that’s the last address he reported.”

My stomach flip-flops. Oakland is about two hours southwest of here. For some reason, that feels a lot closer than I thought it would. If I told Mom, she’d probably have an emotional breakdown.

Brett nudges aside his empty lunch tray. “Should we go? We could do it Friday night. I’ll skip tennis.”

“Friday would work,” Autumn agrees.

When I don’t say anything for a while, I look up to find both of their eyes on me, waiting for an answer. Yeah, this is my adventure, right? Which means I need to make the call. Friday is sooner than I thought it would be. I figured maybe it would take weeks, months to find him. Hell, that was if we ever found him at all. I had hoped all this stuff with Callie would be done and over with so I could tackle one big issue at a time.

But there isn’t a reason to say no. I’ve waited all my life to know my father, and the fact that he isn’t my favorite person right now doesn’t change that.

I take a deep breath. “Let’s do it.”

Chapter Nineteen

Wednesday, Amjad asks me to come in to cover for him again. I was supposed to hang out with Autumn tonight, but I texted to let her know and she understood. Amjad’s taking off two times in a matter of a few weeks is bizarre, but I’ll do it without question.

This time when I enter Rick’s Convenience Store, Amjad doesn’t look or sound sick, but rather greets me with a wide smile.

“Short notice, I know. Thank you so much, Victor.”

“Everything okay?” I ask, setting my backpack behind the counter. Might as well get some studying done while I’m here.

“Actually…” He smooths his dark hair back with a sheepish grin. “I have a date.”

I blink at that, surprised. “A date? R-really? With who?”

“Beautiful woman. Very smart.” He nods solemnly and adjusts the collar of his button-down shirt. I’ve never seen him dress like this, now that I notice it. He cleans up well. “I met her through the internet.”

I guess that would make sense for someone who never goes out anywhere to meet girls. I’ve heard Amjad speak about his wife and her death from cancer only a few times, but he keeps his wallet full of photos of her, and I’ve caught him on several occasions just staring at them. Trying to move on must be difficult for him, but he looks happy.

“Go on your date,” I say warmly, sliding onto the stool behind the counter. “Have fun.”

Amjad starts to say something when the door chimes—and in walks Autumn. My spine straightens immediately in surprise.

“Welcome,” Amjad greets her, and she gives a crooked smile and points at me.

“Uh—thanks. I’m just here for him.”

Well, that certainly gets me a look from my boss. Raised eyebrows and all. “Victor, is this the girl…?”

“The girl?” Autumn blinks at Amjad and then at me. “I don’t know. Am I?”

My face burns. “Uh…”

Amjad offers his hand to Autumn, which she accepts, and he shakes it firmly and leans in to tell her, “Victor is a very good boy. Big heart. Hard worker.” Then he gives her hand a pat and releases it. “Wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Autumn and I say in unison, even though she has no idea what she’s wishing him luck for.

She turns to me once the door closes, an amused sparkle to her eyes. “I’m the girl, huh? Should I be worried?”

I rub the back of my neck. “N-no. It’s not like that. W-what are you doing here?”

“I thought you might like some company if you were stuck here alone all night.” Her shoulders lift and fall in a shrug. “If you want company, that is.”

“I like company,” I agree, sliding off the stool to pull over a foldable chair. “Do you want a slushie?”

“Only if you have cherry.”

I gesture to the slushie machine and Autumn helps herself to filling up one of the cups. She sits in the chair beside my stool, legs crossed and sipping her drink through the obnoxiously shaped slushie straws that I always manage to cut my mouth on. I’ve since pulled out one of my school books, but I doubt I’ll get much studying done with her here.

She says, “You have Aaron’s address, right?”

I nod.

“Then…Saturday?” She taps her nails against the side of the cup. “The longer we put this off, the more time we’re giving him to find excuses.”

“I know.” I rest my elbow on the counter, chin in my palm. “Are you s-sure we shouldn’t go to the police?”

Autumn shrugs. “Dunno. Guess I don’t have a lot of faith in the police right now; they haven’t exactly been on top of things. What do
you
want to do?”

What do I want to do? I sort of want to pretend none of this ever happened. If we go to the police, would we have to explain how we got hold of that photo in the first place? We technically broke into his personal things. What if that makes the evidence inadmissible in court or something?

“We’ll talk to him” is my choice. Final answer. No take-backs.

She places her slushie next to the register. “Any idea what we’re going to say?”

“Don’t know. The t-truth?”

“‘Hey, sorry we broke into your locker but we think you raped your ex-girlfriend.’ Mm. This is going to play out awesomely.”

I give her a flat look. “D-do you have a better idea?”

Autumn casts me a weak smile, stretching back in her chair. “Absolutely not. At this point, we don’t have much to lose, I guess.”

She’s right. It’s been more than a month since the party already. The longer we wait, the harder it might be to talk Aaron into coming forward with any information he might have. The longer we have to keep it a secret from Brett and Callie and everyone else. For that matter, I’m not truly in the clear until the real perpetrator is caught, right?

For the next few hours, Autumn busies herself playing crossword puzzles on her phone while I stock the shelves, clean the bathroom, and ring out customers. It’s been a quiet night, and even if we’re mostly just enjoying each other’s company without saying much, I like her nearness. I also like not being stuck here alone.

I don’t think anything of it when people I recognize from school come in to buy sodas and energy drinks, until I recognize Marco’s and Patrick’s faces among the four of them. Marco, who hit me in the hall, and Patrick, Aaron’s friend who helped corner me in the bathroom. Beside me, Autumn shifts restlessly in her chair, a sign that she’s seeing what I’m seeing.

Marco, Patrick, and their two friends approach the counter, talking about plans for the evening, and none of them really looks at me twice. I ring them up, they throw a twenty on the counter and take their change and leave…all without incident. When the door chimes with their exit, I let out a heavy breath.

“That was lucky. It would be stupid for them to say anything here.” Autumn tips her head back and points to the security camera above our heads.

“It d-doesn’t actually work,” I admit. “Just there to h-hopefully deter people.”

“Well, maybe it deterred them.”

I try to push the thought aside. There’s nothing to think of it, up until I’ve locked the store and Autumn and I have stepped outside, and I see the guys still in the parking lot by the gas pumps, lounging around their truck and turning to look right at me the moment the door is shut.

My spine goes rigid. Autumn has hold of my hand, half-empty slushie cup in the other, and she murmurs to me, “My car’s right there. Come on.”

Ignore them, right? Right. They’re probably just loitering. I’ll get into the car and that’ll be that.

We’ve made it only halfway to Autumn’s car when I hear their footsteps approaching and every fall of shoes against the asphalt kicks my heart up into my throat.

“Hey!” Patrick calls.

Autumn tightens her hold on my hand. “Go, go, go,” she hisses, and maybe it’s my fault for turning back, for acknowledging them, like they’re shadows in the dark that can’t hurt me until I look at them and give them the power to do so. My fingers brush the passenger’s side door handle when someone grabs my shoulder and spins me around and slams me against the hood of the car hard enough that it nearly knocks the wind out of me.

“Let him go!” Autumn shrieks. My vision clears enough to see her slamming her cherry slushie into the side of Marco’s face, smearing red globs of sticky ice all over him. He uses his free hand to shove her aside, where Patrick and one of the nameless boys grab and hold her despite her thrashing. I only briefly spot the fourth guy off in the distance, standing in the truck bed and keeping an eye out. They had this planned.

“I d-d-didn’t do anything,” I rasp, still trying to get a proper breath in while prying at Marco’s fingers fisted in my shirt.

“Shut the fuck up,” he snaps. “You think what you did was okay? I should tie you to the back of my truck and drag you through town. Not a single person would blame me.”

Callie would. “Get off me,” I growl, trying to wriggle free from his iron grip. His legs are keeping mine from being able to do much good, otherwise I’d kick him square in the groin and make a run for it.

“Your face is all over the paper, Victor. Just ’cause the cops don’t have the evidence to throw your ass in jail doesn’t mean anyone else is going to let you get off free.” He releases my shirt and grabs a fistful of my hair instead. The hood creaks and bends a little beneath the weight he’s bearing down on me.

I don’t see how she gets away, exactly, but I hear Patrick shouting as Autumn lunges herself at Marco, latching her arm around his neck in a chokehold. It startles him into jerking back from me and I roll away, nearly stumbling. The moment I’m free, Autumn releases him and we circle to the other side of the car, placing it between them and us.

“What paper?” she pants.

Patrick sneers. “
The Waverly Bee
. My dad reads it and showed it to me this morning when he saw there was mention of a kid from my school. And there you were.”

The Waverly Bee
. Craig Roberts knew where I worked, and I caught him taking pictures outside school that one day. It shouldn’t surprise me if he got a snapshot or two the day he came here. We only stock the Sunday papers here. I didn’t see it.

From the truck by the gas pumps, the fourth member of their group calls, “Someone’s pulling in!”

Marco, Patrick, and their unnamed friend turn to look. I yank the driver’s side door open and crawl across the center console to get into the passenger’s side while Autumn follows, pulls the door closed, and turns the car on to quickly peel out of the parking lot. Not that I think they would have tried anything with a stranger nearby, but I don’t want to risk it.

Neither of us speaks a word as we drive up the road a few blocks. Autumn pulls over to another liquor store and leaves the car running while she hops out to jog inside. When she returns, it’s to drop a copy of today’s
Waverly Bee
into my lap and turn on the overhead dash light so we can see.

We begin scouring the pages. Not that we need to look far. Our town is fairly small and the crime rate is low, meaning the occurrence of a local rape is enough to be plastered on the front page. So there I am, with a grainy photograph on the front, bottom right of page one, locking up at Rick’s Convenience Store the night Craig Roberts came to see me.

Autumn reads the first few lines of the article out loud: “
A local high school boy is being investigated for the rape of a young classmate. Despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against him and testimony from the victim herself, many are wondering what has the police holding back from taking him into custody.
” She looks at me. “What overwhelming amount of evidence? Where is he getting his information? Can they talk about kids like this?”

“Th-they probably can as long as they d-don’t say our names or something,” I point out glumly. Our city has one high school. It wouldn’t be difficult for someone to figure it out, considering one of the photos is of Rick’s and almost everyone has driven by it at some point or another.

“Should you call the cops? Or Mr. Mason?”

“I d-don’t know. Should I? W-will they do anything?”

Autumn sighs. “Maybe not. I have no idea. I mean, Marco didn’t really get a chance to hurt us, so it’d be our word against his, and even then I’m not sure what punishment they could give.”

Yeah, figured as much. I push the paper aside and run my hands over my face. Craig warned me about this. About making an enemy out of him. Because I wouldn’t talk to him, he’ll drag me through the mud instead. “I’m g-going to call him.”

“What? Who?”

“Craig Roberts. He came to see me that day and I kicked him out.”

Her expression falls a little. “So…you think he did this because you wouldn’t give him an interview?”

“Maybe.”

“I’m the one who told you not to talk to him.”

I reach for her hand and squeeze it. “D-don’t do that. Everyone told me not to talk to him.” Besides, how do I know anything I told Craig wouldn’t have been misconstrued and warped to fit his wants anyway?

Autumn takes a deep breath. She swipes briefly at her eyes and flicks off the overhead light. “I should probably get you home.”

I don’t wait until the next day to call Craig. His business card is still in the pocket of one of my pairs of jeans in my dirty laundry basket. I fish it out before even getting settled into bed and dial the number. It’s a business number that goes straight to voicemail, and I find myself hanging up without leaving a message.

What would I say to him, in all honesty? That I think he’s an asshole? That he almost got me beaten up with his lovely little article and photo? I could threaten to take it to my lawyer—being Mr. Mason—but I can’t guarantee that would get me any satisfaction, either.

I toss the card on my dresser and step into the hall. Faintly, I hear the TV in the living room, and occasional commentary from Aunt Sue and Mom. As far as I’m aware, Aunt Sue will be leaving in the morning to head home. She had originally planned on staying longer, but I think she realized there was only so much she could repair between Mom and me. Not to mention, sleeping on our couch has got to be uncomfortable. I’ve thought about taking this situation to them, and again I decide against it. Aunt Sue wouldn’t know what to do, and Mom would only get stressed out further. I don’t want to bother her.

Before going to bed, I text Brett to relay what happened.

Go read today’s Waverly Bee. 1st page. Bottom right. Show to your dad please.

I don’t go into details about what happened at work. Brett is another person I don’t want to stress out. The more of this I can handle on my own, the better.

I get showered, dressed, teeth brushed, and flop into bed with a sigh and an arm draped over my eyes. My phone beeps; it’s Brett writing back to say:

Dad says not to talk to any reporters. He’ll make calls tomorrow. You ok???

Great. Advice I was already following, and a response I don’t think will do me any good in the long run.

Before I reply, there comes a knock at my door and I say, “Come in,” without thinking about it. The door creaks open and Mom pokes her head in, glancing around like she expects I won’t be alone. I blink over at her and for a moment, we just stare at each other, waiting for the other to speak first.