Project Paper Doll (6 page)

I stared at her. Grandma and Grandpa Bradshaw lived a few blocks away in a small, neat house, where the furniture was still in late-nineties mint condition beneath the plastic protective covers. At least they did now. But that explained why some of the things they did—like letting their lawn grow too long because they didn’t want to pay someone to mow it, or fishing pop cans out of the neighbors’ recycling bins to turn them in for money—drove Dad vein-popping insane.

“He’s not a bad person,” my mom said in that same calm, even voice. “He just doesn’t know how to be okay with who he is, where he’s from. And sometimes we remind him of everything he’s trying to forget.” Her mouth tightened in a hard line before her entire expression collapsed and she started to cry.

She stopped herself quickly, wiping her eyes and returning to bandaging my wounds like nothing had happened. “But we’ve got each other. So we’re okay, right?” she’d asked me in a determinedly cheerful voice.

I’d nodded quickly and repeatedly, catching a glimpse of my scared face in the bathroom mirror. There’s nothing worse than seeing your mom fall apart. Particularly someone like my mom, who had always seemed impervious to everything my dad threw in her direction.

Seemed
being the key word there, as appearances apparently turned out to have no bearing on reality.

You’re just like your mother.
Standing there in the back door, just a foot away from escape, I pictured my dad’s words as arrows, striking a target on my back. Bull’s-eye, every one of them. I shrugged involuntarily against the imagined sensation of them lodging right below my shoulder blades. “Not enough like her,” I mumbled. Because, after all,
I
was still here.

I let the door slam shut after me.

Trey lifted his head up from the steering wheel and squinted at me when I got in on the passenger side. “Dude, you look like hammered shit.”

Juggling my so-called toast, I chucked my backpack into the backseat and pulled my seat belt on. “I always forget—is hammered shit better or worse than non-hammered shit?”

“Funny,” he said through a yawn.

“And you’re one to talk.” I frowned. Trey looked bleary-eyed and half awake, and he hadn’t even been drinking last night.

His jaw dropped in another bone-cracking yawn. “Didn’t get much sleep.”

I wondered if that was my fault. But he’d come to pick me up anyway, which I appreciated, especially after the scene with my dad. Nothing like being able to storm out and go somewhere instead of having to crawl back inside in humiliation.

Trey straightened up and shook his head rapidly, as though the vigorous motion would help him wake up. “Your dad giving you a hard time again?” He nodded toward my house, and I looked up in time to see my dad glaring at me from the doorway before he slammed the door with such force it rattled the car windows.

That was one of the benefits of having the same friends for eleven years. They knew all your crap and you didn’t have to explain it.

“Yeah.” I took a tentative bite of the toast. It was gross, stale-on-the-verge-of-moldy,
and
charred. But better than nothing.

“Sucks.” Trey put the car in reverse and looked over his shoulder to back out of the driveway. “Dude needs to get over it.”

“Yeah. Right.” Not in my lifetime.

I waited until Trey reached the street to speak again. We didn’t usually talk much in the car—neither of us are morning people—but it was eating at me and I had to know.

“I wasn’t sure you’d show this morning. Thought you might still be pissed.” I’d tried to explain to him last night that the kiss hadn’t meant anything. Rachel was messing with us, her way of entertaining herself.

But he’d waved me off and remained sulking in the shallow end of the pool. I’d had to get a ride home with Cami and Cassi, which was its own form of torture. I’d never been alone with the two of them before, and though they were, theoretically, genetically identical, you’ve never seen two people argue so much. Whether this song sucks or not, if it’s too hot or cold, whose perfume smells better, pink versus red. I didn’t even understand that last one. And they wanted my opinion to settle every single debate. (For the record, I think I came down on the side of pink.) I’d always thought Rachel hung out with them because they told her what she wanted to hear. Now I wondered if they needed her—in a referee capacity—far more than she needed them.

Trey shrugged. “It’s cool.”

I looked at him, surprised and relieved. I relaxed in my seat—as best as I could with the dash digging into my knees—feeling some of the weight on my shoulders roll away. One less thing to worry about.

“Rachel explained it,” he added.

I stiffened. Yeah, I bet she did.

As if confirming my suspicion, he hesitated and then said, “She was happy to see you having fun again. But you know you don’t have anything to prove to us or anybody else.”

Damn it, Rachel.
“It isn’t about that,” I said tightly.
Poor Zane misses his mommy. Boo-hoo.
It was about so much more than that. But people only cared about the surface.

“Whatever, man,” he said. “I just mean I’m here if you want to talk about it.”

What was there to talk about? If my life sucked, what was the point of hashing it out with everyone, asking them to feel sorry for me? It wouldn’t change anything.

“No one knows what’s going on with you,” he added. “And you’re different since your mom—”

“Don’t.” I glared at him, and he clamped his mouth shut, which was wise. I couldn’t believe he was going there. Or rather, that Rachel had more or less pushed him to it. I could picture it, her eyes all faux-sincere, talking about poor Zane.
You know, his mom abandoned him. She stuck around for Quinn, but not for him
.…

Son of a bitch.
I could feel the burning mix of humiliation and rage rising up inside me. People talking about me behind my back in the guise of pretending to care or wanting to help—was that ever going to go away?

“Just trying to look out for you, man,” he muttered.

Yeah, but he was one of the few. Everyone else was just in it for the entertainment value, something to add a little interest to an otherwise boring day. And I didn’t want to talk about it, even with Trey.

Rachel was waiting in the parking lot next to her car when we pulled in. She was all smiles, waving at Trey as though she hadn’t demolished him only last night. He sprang out of the car, barely taking the time to put it in park first.

“Baby,” she cooed, throwing her arms around him.

Dude. He should rip his heart out of his chest and toss it on the ground. Save her the time and effort.

I grabbed my backpack, got out, and slammed the door.

Rachel pulled away from Trey. “Zane,” she said in greeting. She patted Trey’s shoulder. “I hope Trey explained everything from last night.” She was smiling, but I could see the calculating going on beneath the surface and maybe more than a little anger. She wasn’t happy she’d had to work so hard to win Trey back to her side.
Good.

I nodded, not trusting myself to say anything.

“So you’re still on board with our little plan?” she asked.

“Asking Ariane Tucker to Bonfire Week and then what? Pouring pig’s blood in her locker?” There had to be a catch here somewhere, I knew it.

Rachel gave me a disgusted look, probably at the idea that she’d repeat a trick so close to the one she’d pulled yesterday with Jenna. “No. It’s like we talked about. Take her to Bonfire Week.”

“Except for the party at your house,” I said. There was no way Ariane rated highly enough on the social scale to receive that invite.

Rachel’s eyes sparkled. “No,
especially
the party at my house.”

Uh-oh.
“And then what?” I demanded.

She lifted her shoulders and gave me a wicked smile. “Nothing. Not our fault if she falls for your charms and you suddenly and publicly change your mind and dump her…loudly.”

I sighed. Rachel couldn’t guarantee a good party without a show, and humiliation was her specialty. I’d been into it once. Feeling better by making other people feel worse. But after living with my dad constantly on my back for the last year or so, I’d lost my taste for it.

But if I refused now, she’d probably send Jonas, who wouldn’t hesitate to follow through. And then it would become all about me, poor messed-up Zane. What happened to him after last year? He’s no fun anymore. Blah, blah, blah. All the whispers and looks of fake concern that I hated.

Saying yes, though, would mean Rachel had me under her thumb, like Trey. My dad was already attempting to run my life; I didn’t need someone else telling me what to do.

A fierce wave of white-hot fury flooded up through my chest. I was trapped. Son of a bitch. I would
not
be backed into this corner.

“Hello? Zane? You in there?” Rachel waved a hand in front of my face and then exchanged a faux-concerned look with Trey, playing her role to perfection.

Unless…
In a quick flash, the all-too-familiar pieces of the scheme—Rachel, a plan, a victim, Ariane Tucker, humiliation—fell together in a slightly different order; one I was willing to bet Rachel had never considered.

Maybe Rachel should get a taste of her scheming world from a slightly different angle. Nothing too dramatic—I wasn’t an idiot. Just something to make her think twice. I might not be able to get my dad off my back, but Rachel was a different story.

I smiled grimly. “Sure,” I said. “I’m in.”

Trey nodded in happy approval. Rachel squealed and threw herself into Trey’s arms and then promptly winked at me—long, slow, and seductive—over his shoulder.

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Yeah, fine. If Rachel wanted a game, she’d get one. All I had to do was convince Ariane Tucker to play.

I
N THE LAB
, someone was always watching. I was never alone. One wall of my room was glass—it could go from opaque to translucent with the press of a button. And it did, often. Sometimes in the middle of the night when I was sleeping (with the lights on to see how I’d handle sleep deprivation). Or when I was eating (my initial response to ice cream was to spit it out—it was too cold for my teeth) or watching the screen embedded in the opposite wall, which played military training videos and a carefully selected mix of modern American programming to teach me the cultural shorthand humans use in daily interactions.

I grew to expect the disappearance of that “wall” at any second. The area on the other side of the glass—filled with monitors and computers—always had people tracking my movements, measuring every change in my pulse or respiration or brain waves. They also had cameras that recorded what I did when I thought no one was watching. That worked only until I was old enough to figure out that they shouldn’t have been able to interrogate me about something I’d done when the “wall” was up unless they had some other way of watching. (For prize-winning scientists, foremost in their field, they weren’t very smart. Once I knew that any illusion of privacy I had was just that—an illusion—I took to hiding under my cot, with the sheet hanging over the edge to block their view, when I needed a moment alone.)

In short, I was used to the feeling of people watching me—that was my normal. In fact, the first night I spent in my father’s house I made him leave my door open. The idea of privacy, as thrilling as it was, was terrifying in its newness. I’d never been alone before.

And it took me weeks to get used to the idea. I became the most paranoid grade-schooler in existence. I could never quite shake the feeling that I was being watched, that GTX was seconds away from swooping in and taking me away. The world seemed huge (and so very loud), and every person in it was staring at me.

If it hadn’t been for my father and his Rules, I might have cracked, suffered a complete mental break, and ended up living under the bed in my new room with a hat constructed from aluminum foil (which, I can tell you, doesn’t work. I could still hear you all thinking, even with a double layer).

But he taught me that humans noticed what was different, what stood out. And screaming every time a stranger tried to talk to me…well, that was definitely different. (My father would explain my unusual behavior to concerned strangers as trauma from spending so many years in and out of hospitals and then losing “my” mother and moving to a new place.)

My objective became to blend in, to become invisible. It was a game to me, fooling everyone and protecting myself. I made mistakes occasionally (hey, when your education about the real world consists mainly of what you see on television, you’d probably think a whole lot of crazy things are possible, too. Including that, it would appear, the vast majority of children in the United States don’t know who their biological father is, based on daytime talk shows). But I caught on fairly quickly—desperation is a powerful motivator.

I still suffer occasional spikes in paranoia when someone holds eye contact with me for a split second too long, or when the same car passes our house twice within a few minutes. Lost pizza delivery guys are the bane of my existence.

Or when I walk into school and everyone is staring at me.…

It took me a few seconds to notice, as focused as I was on tuning out the massive wave of thoughts and emotions. The main hall was jammed with people, everyone flooding in from the gym to their lockers before first period. I’d avoided the morning cattle call by leaving my house eight minutes later than usual.

Jenna had received special permission to go to her locker early to continue the clean-up efforts that the janitorial staff had started yesterday. Apparently, hemorrhoid cream doesn’t come off so easily.

She’d called me last night in tears, pleading with me to meet her at her locker, for moral support. How could I say no? It didn’t seem inherently risky, and I had to go that way to get to my own locker anyway. No big deal.

But I hadn’t gotten more than fifteen feet inside the main doors before I heard my name being whispered several times in quick succession, and then a surprising lull in conversation, which was usually only prompted by the arrival of the principal or the start of an argument that everyone wanted to hear.

I looked up and found dozens of faces—all blurring together in an unrecognizable mass—turned toward me in a way I hadn’t seen outside of my nightmares.

I might have panicked, thinking they were finally on to me, except no one was running away. No one was screaming.

If anything, they were edging slightly closer, as if they wanted to get a closer look at some kind of spectacle or celebrity.

I dropped my guard and listened, trying to pull relevant thoughts from the muddle of excitement and noise.

…what her locker is going to look like?

That’s her.

…told Rachel Jacobs off.

I would NOT want to be her.

She is so dead
.…

Great. Word had spread about my little confrontation with Rachel yesterday, and now everyone wanted to stare at the girl who’d dared to go up against her. Even though I hadn’t been the one doing the provoking at all.

Whatever.

I fought my way through to the stairs and up to Jenna’s locker, ignoring the stares and whispers on the way.

The area by Jenna’s locker had a crowd around it again, thinner than yesterday but more than enough. And they were all here for the same reason—to gawk at Jenna and the misfortune they were grateful had landed on her head instead of theirs.

Vultures.
She didn’t deserve it. She hadn’t done anything wrong. A flicker of fury at Rachel rose up in me. One day she’d get what she deserved even if I couldn’t be the one to bring it down on her.

Through a gap in the crowd I could see Jenna standing at her locker, her shoulders slumped, radiating misery. She had her back to the people watching, and her movements were wooden and awkward as she bent down to pick up another industrial brown paper towel from the stack at her feet and wipe it in hopeless circles on the inside of her locker door. Even from where I was I could see she was only smearing the hemorrhoid cream around, making it worse.

Where are you, Ariane? Hurry up!
Jenna’s pleading thoughts pierced through the noise as if she’d shouted.

I started toward her, determined to shove my way through the gawkers (and maybe crunch a few toes and knock a few ribs in the process), but then the memory of my father’s voice rang out in my head.

We can’t afford any more mistakes.

I stopped. If I pushed my way in to pull Jenna out, that would only set off another round of speculation and attention. It might even draw Rachel back to me. I couldn’t do that, couldn’t take the chance.

I’d broken Rule #3 by getting involved, but I could avoid the possibility of making things worse, by following Rule #4 and keeping my head down.

Except for Jenna… It would definitely be worse for Jenna. Her mental chanting of my name, like some kind of prayer, continued, a low-level buzz in my consciousness.

I hesitated, shifting my feet, as people flowed around my middle-of-the-hall position with irritated sighs and muttered swear words.

Jenna would be so hurt if I left her here to fend for herself. And she would cry. I hated it when she cried. It made me feel all panicky and unsure of what to do. Sometimes it even made my nose and eyes sting in sympathetic response. And I don’t cry. Or at least I haven’t in years.

But my father was right. As much as I cared about Jenna, there were larger issues at stake. I couldn’t place protecting her emotions above my father’s safety, and mine as well.

A fresh surge of hatred for the Rules and their necessity rose up inside me.
God damn GTX.
And I meant it in the literal sense, the way so rarely used by full-blooded humans these days. I wanted an all-powerful, supernatural force to come along and sweep away any hint that GTX had ever existed, leaving behind nothing but a burning hole in the ground. (Yes, the Bible—along with the Koran and the Torah—had been among my cultural studies. And no, I wasn’t sure what I believed, but that didn’t stop me from wanting what I wanted.)

With a sick feeling in my stomach, despising myself almost as much as I did GTX, I turned away from Jenna’s locker and hurried across the hall, down to my own. I’d text her during first period, make sure she was okay, and then create some kind of reasonable lie for my absence.

That was, in fact, my life. A whole series of reasonable lies. What was one freaking more? Staying invisible, under the protective cloak of half-truths and out-and-out fantasy was the best thing—the only thing—I could do for myself and my father, even though it made me want to scream.

“Hey! Wait!”

I ignored the shouting behind me; it couldn’t be for me. The only person who might shout for me was Jenna, and this was a guy’s voice.

“Ariane!”

I froze, then looked over my shoulder to see Zane Bradshaw barreling toward me, everyone scattering out of his way, frightened villagers running from a fairy-tale giant.

I turned away quickly, my face burning. Having one of the most popular guys in school shouting your name in a crowded hallway was only slightly less noticeable than, say, taking out a billboard next to the interstate with your picture on it. And the words “LOOK AT ME.”

God, I hoped Jenna hadn’t heard him. I winced at the thought. What did Zane Bradshaw want with me anyway? It couldn’t be anything good.

I resisted the urge to squeeze myself into an open locker and, instead, resumed walking, moving as quickly as I could without encouraging more stares. Maybe if I got far enough away he’d give up and forget about me. Today was not the day for this. In fact,
never
would be the day for this, as far as I was concerned.

But oh no, I couldn’t get that lucky.

Within a few seconds he’d caught up with me, looming over me like a tall annoying tree. His legs were so much longer than mine, he’d covered the same distance in half the time.

Stupid tree legs.

“I need to talk to you,” he said, breathless at my side, as if he’d run up the stairs and down the hall to find me. His handsome face was flushed, he hadn’t shaved, and there were big dark circles under his eyes. I could smell soap on him, as if he’d just stepped out of the shower, and his dark hair was damp.

Something was definitely up. He was almost vibrating with a sense of urgency, and I got the feeling of impending doom hanging in the air. Then again, generally speaking, I wouldn’t ever have a
good
feeling about Zane Bradshaw tracking me down to “talk.” That was so far from the norm, the world might as well have turned upside down.

“What do you want?” I asked, my voice tight, barely above a whisper. I could feel people watching him, and therefore me.

He held his hands up as if declaring he was weapon-free. “Just to talk, that’s all,” he said in what felt like an excruciatingly loud voice. Then he seemed to realize how many people were watching. “In private,” he added.

I stared at him. What he could possibly want to talk about? We had no classes together this year, and obviously we didn’t run in the same social circles. Because I was allergic to bitch. Not that Rachel Jacobs would have had me as a friend even if I’d wanted her to, but I liked to remember that it was my choice, too.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught more people turning in our direction, curious about who Zane Bradshaw wanted to talk (loudly) to.

Great. So much for staying invisible. Still, there was a simple solution.

“No,” I said flatly, and turned away.

My father always said never offer a choice if there’s only one right answer.