The Boy Who Killed Grant Parker (26 page)

 

42

“It
was
you,” I said. “I saw you. Inside. What are you doing here?” I asked, possibly the least coherent or useful of all possible questions. I staggered a little to one side, off balance from both the alcohol and the unexpected sight of Grant.

“You didn't think it would be this hard, did you?” Grant said as he studied the nails on his right hand.

“How…? What…? I don't…” There were so many questions it was impossible to form just the right one with mere words.

Grant watched passively as I stabilized myself and regained control of my feet. Beads of sweat popped, fully formed, from every pore on my body, but I was shaking with cold and fright. One corner of his mouth was lifted in a bemused smirk as I labored to find composure.

“You thought it would be easy. Because you thought you were smart and I was dumb,” Grant said. “Isn't that right?”

“I-I … I don't know what you mean,” I said. And really I didn't. I was still so overcome trying to process the presence of Grant, my mind couldn't process much else. “You're okay,” I said. “I mean, you look okay. Did you just get out of the hospital?”

Grant's gaze shifted away from my face, and I waited for his answer with nervous anticipation.

“Are you disappointed?” Grant asked. “Would you prefer that I was dead or a vegetable or something?”

“Of course not!”

Even if I had never really done anything to hurt him, if Grant had died I would still be a murderer in the eyes of most people. Only a few people knew the real truth, and their protests would not be enough to quell the tide of public opinion. Besides, I wasn't even sure people like Delilah and Roger would stand up as my allies at this point.

There was still the video that proved my innocence, but if everyone saw the video, then the real truth was almost as harmful as the myth. It was my cowardice that had almost killed Grant Parker.

“Are you…?” I asked. “Are you okay?”

He considered the question for another few seconds as I held my breath.

“What I am,” he said, “is necessary. You see it now. They've done the same thing to you that they did to me.”

“Did what?” I asked.

“They put you on a pedestal. They made you homecoming king,” he said, this with a meaningful glance at the plastic crown still perched on my hair. “It doesn't really suit you, you know?”

“Of course I know. I didn't ask for any of this. All this … this … bullshit,” I said, holding my hand out in an expansive gesture to indicate the Elks Lodge. I took the crown from my head and threw it to the ground. It didn't shatter, just hit the gravel and bounced harmlessly away. “I don't even know how I got here.”

“The same thing happened to Jesus,” Grant said, ignoring my outburst. “They elevated him to a position that made him feared and hated by the people who didn't follow him. And they crucified him for it.”

“Are you comparing yourself to Jesus Christ?” I asked. “Because I'm pretty sure Jesus didn't play high school football or date a cheerleader.”

Grant shook his head, as if my ignorance disappointed him. “Am I comparing myself to the son of God? No. I'm just using him as an example. Any person with power is victim to the same thing. Like you. Once I was gone they needed someone to take my place. They elevated you to the status of a superstar, and what did you do with that power?”

“I … there … I don't have any power,” I said, feeling as if I was talking in circles. “There is no power. All I did was step out of the way to avoid getting my ass kicked.”

Grant ignored my protest and held up one hand to tick off his points on his fingers. “You took the prettiest girl in school as your girlfriend, even though you don't really like her.…”

“She listens to Taylor Swift,” I said, my voice rising in protest.

“You bullied the people who showed you friendship when you were new in town.” Another accusing finger tick.

“I didn't touch any of them. It was Tony and Skip and Chet who did that.”

Grant ignored me and kept on rattling down his list.

“You threw away Delilah's friendship.”

“She always makes fun of my shirts,” I said. My protests were becoming weaker and my head was starting to ache. I didn't want to talk about any of this. Grant had to know my actions had hardly been dictated by choice. They were dictated by a lack of choice.

“That's what you did once you were handed the power. And now they'll destroy you for it. The same way you destroyed me.”

“I didn't do anything!” I shouted, my voice now a high whine. “I never asked for any of this. I wanted to fade into the background, do my time in this hellhole, and then leave for college. And now—what college is going to accept me once they do a Google search on my name? I'll tell you what college—none. I never asked for any of this.”

“Really?” he asked, one eyebrow arched skeptically. “You wanted to hang out with Don and his buddies? Acting out the latest episode of
Game of Thrones
or whatever the hell it is they do? No. You wanted to be popular, you wanted the prettiest girl in school. You wanted all of it.”

“I don't want it,” I said, my voice shaky now. “Everyone thinks I'm an attempted murderer. That's your fault.” I pointed an accusing finger at him as I said this last part.

I felt bile rising in my throat and I tried to fight it. The alcohol was a poison now, no longer my friend that would protect me from feeling or thinking shitty thoughts about my situation. It was eating away at my insides, fighting to get out.

“You believe what you want,” Grant said indifferently. “Believe what you want about me. About yourself. What truth do you want people to know?”

“I want … I want … I want to throw up,” I said miserably. Then I bent over, and that's what I did.

It was mostly liquid. There wasn't room in my head to think about much besides the burning in my throat, the pain in my stomach, as I bent double and puked onto the gravel. The vomit splashed on my pants and shoes, but I was too sick to care.

I spat a few times, trying to remove the offending taste from my mouth, a violent reminder of the thirty dollars Mr. Olson spent on the steak and fries for dinner. When I finally felt well enough to stand again, Grant was gone, almost as if he had never been. I looked this way and that, trying to find him. I hadn't heard a car engine, so I assumed he must have gone back into the Elks Lodge. Maybe he had stepped in to assume the throne as homecoming king. The heir apparent wasn't qualified to hold the title.

Comforted by the idea that with Grant's return everyone would be too busy to care what had happened to me, their fallen leader, I got into the Camaro and started the engine. The smell of vomit lingered on my shoes and my breath, and I wished for a bottle of water.

I decided there was no way I could safely operate a vehicle, and perhaps for the first time since this entire ordeal had started, I made a sound decision and got out of the Camaro. The car was still running, and I thought about getting back in to shut off the ignition. But I was beyond caring at that point and just slammed the car door. The effort of shutting the car door upset my balance again, and I stumbled against the car next to mine, banging my shoulder painfully.

I took a minute to gather myself, then started the long walk home.

 

43

My hand was slimy against my face. I didn't want to wake up, but now that I had moved, the cold wetness of drool on my hand and pillow forced me to take action.

I rolled onto my back, my eyes squeezed shut against the pain in my head, as the night's events slowly came back to me in bits and pieces. It played out like a movie reel in my head, with essential scenes cut out. I scrounged in the back of my brain as I tried to think of what I had said when I was onstage, tried to think if there was any way to salvage my reputation. I could say that I had become ill suddenly. True enough. My mouth still held a dim memory of the vomit I had spewed in the parking lot. I scraped my tongue against my front teeth, trying to remove and swallow what was left of the taste.

Then I remembered Grant, who had appeared out of nowhere—like a ghost—and disappeared the same way. If I had seen him in the Elks Lodge, why didn't anyone else notice him? The return of Grant Parker would have been a major event, and everyone would have recognized him immediately. Why hadn't anyone else noticed?

Had I imagined him?

But he had spoken to me. At my car. I even remembered most of the conversation.

Mostly.

If Grant Parker had really been at homecoming, someone had to have seen him. I couldn't be the only one.

And if I
was
the only one who saw him, that could mean one of two things. Either I was crazy …

Totally believable.

 … or Grant Parker had been a ghost.

And if Grant Parker was a ghost, that meant he was …

Go on, you can think it. Definitely dead.

*   *   *

I was already dressed and standing in the driveway when I remembered that I had left the Camaro idling in the parking lot of the Elks Lodge the previous night. Yet somehow it had found its way home, the driver door unlocked, the key in the ignition. It occurred to me to wonder who had delivered the Camaro, but I was too desperate to resolve the issue of Grant and his ghost status to give it much thought.

I reached the hospital in record time, skidding the Camaro into a space reserved for doctors. In the stillness of the parking lot there was sudden quiet when I cut the ignition. The inner voice, my constant companion over the past few weeks, was quiet. My breathing was loud in the privacy of the Camaro.

The lobby of the hospital was virtually empty. There was just one old guy, hands clasped behind his back as he surveyed the window display of the gift shop, and a lone woman in pastel hospital scrubs who sat behind the reception desk. Neither of them gave me more than passing notice.

I poked my head around corners in the lobby, as if looking for a bathroom or a person who might be waiting there, but the receptionist took no notice of me. When she turned her back to place a file in a cabinet behind her, I headed for the double doors marked with a sign advertising the cafeteria and the main hospital.

I wandered the labyrinth of hallways, unsure where I was going. With each step my feet almost reached the ever-shifting puddles of light cast by fluorescent bulbs on the buffed linoleum floor. The ache behind my eyes started up again from the fluorescent glare, but I couldn't tear my eyes away from the floor. I followed the glowing mirages, my step falling short each time I tried to land my foot in one of the puddles of light. It put me in a trance as I thought about what I was hoping to find.

With sanity restored, at least for the moment, I decided what had brought me here. I needed to know if Grant was alive or dead. If I had been visited by the real Grant Parker, then that would mean shit was about to get real. If I had been visited by a ghost, then that meant Grant Parker was dead … and shit was about to get real. If the vision had been just that, only a vision, then that would mean I really was crazy … and shit was about to get unreal.

But a crazy person can't know he is crazy. Right?

No answer from the voice, still eerily silent.

Crazy or sane, I followed the same quandary in circles, like a dog chasing its tail. If Grant was dead, I didn't know who or what I would become in the eyes of everyone. If he lived … well, the same question applied.

I couldn't remember now why it had seemed so necessary for everyone to think that I had bested Grant in an act of self-defense, rather than just telling everyone the truth. What had been so critical to me that I would lie by omission? Had it been just to gain the acceptance of people like Tony and Penny and Skip and Chet? I didn't even know who was Skip and who was Chet. So why did I care so much what they thought of me?

The only real friends I had in Ashland were Roger and Don and, possibly, Delilah. They all hated me now. Hated me because of the lie. Not because of the truth.

I entered a waiting area on the second floor and knew immediately I was in the right place. A tattered banner wishing Grant a speedy recovery hung by duct tape from the drop-ceiling tile. The banner had been neglected since the first days after Grant's accident, when everyone still gave a crap about his fate.

There was no one at the nurse's station and there was only one path to follow. Double wooden doors led from the waiting area, small panes of glass in each door revealing the deserted corridor beyond. I pushed through the double doors and walked the length of the hallway, glancing into each room as I passed. Most of the rooms were empty. Only a few housed patients, all of them watching television, the noise from each room mixing in a swirl of directionless echoes in the hallway.

After I had exhausted my search without finding Grant, I stood in the middle of the hallway contemplating my game plan. Maybe Grant had been moved to an intensive care unit or I hadn't recognize him. Or maybe he really was dead and his room was now vacant.

The thought of Grant being actually dead brought on a violent physical reaction. Beads of sweat formed on my brow, and the puddles of light on the linoleum started to waver in a rhythmic way. It was as if I were dosing on some horrible drug, desperately wishing I was sober when there were still hours left on my trip.

A panic attack was rising when a nurse arrived, seemingly out of nowhere. Her soft-soled shoes had masked her approach, and I yelped in fright at her question of “Can I help you?”

Her eyes were wide with shock at my reaction, and I struggled to regain my composure.

“Grant Parker,” were the only words I could muster.

“What about him?” she asked.

“Where is he?” I asked. “Is he … did he…?” I couldn't bring myself to say the words.