The Tension of Opposites (5 page)

I flipped my folder open and shuffled through my pictures. One of my favorites was of two girls on a wooden swing set, flying through the air, one a little higher than the other, their thin legs pumping skyward to get more lift. A few weeks ago, I'd hurried into my neighbor's side yard when I heard their giggles, and crouched behind them in the cool grass to capture the moment.

As much as I wanted to show him my pictures so I could take a look at his, my body wouldn't move. The thought made me feel like I had to run to the nearest restroom to puke up my lunch.

A few minutes later, Darcy and Max strode back to the desks that flanked mine.

“Well, the two of you don't know what you're missing.” Darcy popped a bubble of her pink gum.

“Don't tell me,” Max said. “This whole hide-the-talent game is all Tess's idea.”

“It's not my
idea
,” I said. “You say that like it's a choice.”

Max flashed me a crooked half smile. “Everything in life is a choice.”

Darcy nodded. I kind of wanted to hit her. Why was she siding with him, anyway?

“I've got a question.” Max ran a hand through his thick curls. I tried to ignore how hot he looked when he messed with his hair.

“No,” I said. “You cannot see my pictures!”

“Whoa, there.” Max reached out and placed his hand over mine. “Relax. This is a different subject entirely.”

Darcy looked at our hands and chuckled as she reached into her purse. Scooting her phone several inches out of the opening, she hid it from Mr. Hollon, who was showing someone a new setting on a digital camera. Her fingernails were
tick-tick-tick-
ing against the keypad as she texted her boyfriend, something she did from photography class at least three times a day.

“I've been hearing all kinds of stuff about some kidnapped girl,” Max said, removing his warm hand from mine.

Darcy stopped texting. From the corner of my eye, I saw her turn and face me.

“What's up with that?” Max asked.

Darcy opened her mouth. Started to speak. I cut her off.

“A girl was kidnapped from a park around here a couple of years ago.” I worked to keep my voice steady. “They found her, and now she's home.”

Max splayed his hands in the air. “That's it?” he asked. “I've gotten more information walking through the halls.”

“Ugh, I know,” Darcy said. “It's obnoxious. Did you hear the whole vampire thing?”

I shook my head. “Don't think I want to.”

“It borders on hilarity, really. Classic tale of vampire preying on girl, girl changing, and voilà, needing the source of her violation.” Darcy pointed a finger in the air. “The story, I believe, is an infantile attempt to make sense of Noelle waiting two years to escape when she seemed to have the opportunity—”

“No one knows what really happened,” I said. Which killed me, because I was supposed to be Noelle's best friend.

“Some jerk in my math class was saying that she
wanted
to be with the guy.” Max's voice quieted down to a near whisper. “I saw an interview with some people from the neighborhood where she'd been staying. She was seen out in public all the time, and everyone thought he was her father.”

“I don't understand any of that,” I said, shaking my head, trying for the millionth time to flip the information around in my mind so it would make sense. “All I know is that no matter how free she seemed, she couldn't have gotten away until now or she would have.”

“Right. I'm sure.” Darcy widened her eyes at Max and nodded toward me. “Tess and Noelle, the girl who was kidnapped, they were, like, BFFs.”

I could not think about Noelle now. Not here. I glanced at my desktop, at the words etched in the wood.
Run, baby, run
, it urged me.

“I didn't …,” Max sputtered. “I had no idea.”

“It's fine,” I said. “I mean, it's kind of like an accident, right? People want to know about it, see it up close. But only if it doesn't touch their lives.”

“Have you talked to her yet?” Darcy asked. Suddenly, the photography classroom seemed quiet. Too quiet, like everyone was waiting for my response. “It's been three weeks, hasn't it?”

“Four. And no, I haven't talked to her yet,” I said. “All I know is the same stuff you do from the news.”

“I can't imagine,” Max said, “how awful it must have been when she went missing.”

“I'm just ready for people to stop talking about it.” I stabbed my notebook with my pen.

“Um, do I need to remind you that Noelle's kidnapping practically stopped
every form of life
here in Centerville two years ago?” Darcy tapped her desk with a fingernail, punctuating her words.

“What's that mean?” Max asked. “What was so different before?”

“Oh, everything.” Darcy shrugged. “This used to be your typical little Midwestern town. People didn't feel like they had to lock their doors or watch their kids when they went out to play. The kidnapping choked our entire town with sadness. And fear.”

I crossed one leg over the other, wishing Darcy would stop talking.

“Huh,” Max said with a nod. “I understand that the people who knew her and her family would be affected. But the whole town?”

“Trust me. Her experience has touched everyone. People all over the country, really. My cousin from Oregon called the other day to see if I know her. And now there's going to be some trial that'll be covered by about a zillion reporters who'll tromp in from all over. I'm sorry to tell you, but people are going to be on this all freaking year, Tess.” Darcy gave an exaggerated shiver. “Plus, there's the whole creep factor. No one can imagine what it was like for her.”

I realized that my foot was shaking back and forth in a violent manner and tucked it behind the leg of my desk.

Max had been staring at me as Darcy spoke. “I bet you're dying to talk to her,” he said softly.

“Yeah. I can't wait.” I reached into my purse and pulled out my camera. I ran my fingers along the frayed strap, pressed the chipped bottom edge into the palm of my hand, pulled the forty-year-old camera to my chest. “But the thing is, I'm kinda freaked out. I don't know what I'm going to say. I mean, what if everything I think of is just wrong?”

“When you see her, you'll do fine,” Darcy said confidently. “Sorry it's been so rough.”

“It'll have to die down sometime, right?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Of course it will,” Max said. “Eventually.”

I flung the Nikon's strap over my head and stood, needing to get away from the conversation, away from my own brain, which was screaming this warning that when I had my chance, I was bound to screw it up. “I'm gonna go take some pictures.”

Max reached for his camera. “Want some company?”

“Nah.” I shook my head.

“You sure?” Darcy asked.

“Yeah,” I said. “But thanks.” I turned, walked to Mr. Hollon's desk, and grabbed a pass.

When I made my way into the hall, I took one last glance into the room before I closed the door behind me. The first thing I saw was the top of Max's head as he shuffled through pictures on his desk. Then there was Darcy's hand perched on Max's shoulder as she bent forward to stare at what he wouldn't share with me.

I sat at my computer, staring at the screen. I felt like throwing up and crying and screaming all at the same time. But the only thing I could do was blink at the words in front of me and hope they would somehow disappear.

I'd been excited when I'd sat down, sliding a memory chip out of the digital camera I'd borrowed from Mr. Hollon and popping it into the little slot in the tower standing next to my desk. My parents had been trying to talk me into a digital camera for over a year, and maybe they were right. A digital camera would be fun to have so I could see my pictures immediately. Like the one I'd snapped of Max yesterday in class.

But it felt like some kind of betrayal. My grandfather's Nikon was sacred, a physical link to the man I missed so much, and I would not let my parents talk me into putting it aside for some newer, better version. This week, I hadn't had a choice. Mr. Hollon's latest assignment required a digital image.

Impatient with the length of time it was taking for the photographs to download to the folder on my desktop, I'd clicked on the Internet icon and watched as the Yahoo page popped up.

I don't really know what I thought I'd see, maybe news of the latest celebrity breakup. All I can say is that I wasn't ready for what appeared.

The first thing I noticed were the eyes. Deep and black. Lifeless. Staring right at me.

Then the matted hair, the scruffy face, the thick chin.

Charlie Croft.

My computer made a plinking sound to let me know that the download was complete, and I snapped out of it long enough to catch the headline and skim the body of the article. That's what really did it, what brought on the whole freak-out feeling that kind of fuzzed the edges of my hearing and sight. Pulling me away from reality for a few minutes and threatening to sink me into one of my panics.

I looked away. Took a deep breath. Waited until my hearing came back, which felt like swimming to the surface after plunging far into the deep end of a pool, and then I looked again.

The headline hadn't changed. ONE OR MANY? it asked.

The words that followed also remained the same:

I closed my eyes and rested my forehead on the arm of my chair.

Child pornography? I pictured a twelve-year-old Noelle posing in front of the mirror in her room, reciting lines from her favorite movies as she experimented with different facial expressions. Her goal in life was to make her way to a stage, to feel the heat of a spotlight shining on her face. She didn't care if that dream led her to a fashion runway, a television studio, or a movie set. She'd even talked about auditioning for a reality show when she turned eighteen. I had always hated that her kidnapping was the way she had become famous. I looked at Charlie again, right into his dead eyes.

“No,” I said to him. “You will not be the last thing I see tonight.”

Clutching the mouse, I maneuvered the arrow across the screen and stabbed the red X in the top right corner. Charlie was gone.

With a jerky hand, I clicked on the folder holding my pictures and flipped through them until I found the one I'd taken of Max. He'd been sitting next to me, and I'd snapped the shot quickly, hoping he'd see it as some joke instead of what it really was: my need to study his face. When I came to the picture, I just stared, wondering how he could get better-looking each time I saw him. He had these super-thick eyelashes, and a few random freckles dotting the top of his cheeks.

I was unprepared to deal with the wild feelings Max was sparking to life. I had told myself for two years that if Noelle couldn't experience that giddy, falling-in-love sensation, I wouldn't, either. Yet here I was, unable to push Max from my mind. While Noelle was struggling to experience one minute of normalcy, I was totally losing control over the new guy whom every girl was gushing over, and who was this completely … What? Beautiful, nice, strange new complication in my life. In addition to that—

A light tapping pulled me back to my bedroom. I listened for the noise again, wondering if it had been real or imagined. It came quickly, sounding like a small pebble bouncing off the pane. Could it be him? He'd followed me home from school the other day to borrow a photography book I'd told him about. But how had he figured out which room was mine?

I felt like I'd been plunged underwater again. As I walked toward the window, every piece of me was thick and sluggish. I pulled at the curtain, ready to see Max standing in the dark grass.

I parted the blinds.

The moment I'd dreamed about for the past two years had finally arrived. But I couldn't jump-start my body—nothing would move.

Standing in my side yard, the moonlight silvering her skin, was Noelle.

With her head tipped toward my window, her face absolutely glowed. If I hadn't been aware of her homecoming, I'd have been sure her ghost was visiting me for a midnight chat. What got me moving was her raising her hand and waving me down. My pajama pants whispered to the dark house as I ran down the stairs, avoiding the two creaky spots in the floor, because the last thing I needed was to wake my mother, who, since Noelle's disappearance, seemed to have gained superpowered hearing abilities. I sucked in a deep breath as I tiptoed through the kitchen and turned the lock and handle to the back door.

The steps were cold against my bare feet, the grass damp and slick. The chill that enveloped me was instantaneous, but nothing bothered me as I swam through the darkness. I felt detached, like I was watching the scene from just outside my body.

When she heard my footsteps, she turned toward me. I slowed, watching as a wave of unfamiliar blue-black hair swept over her shoulder and swung to rest over the right side of her chest, hanging almost to her belly button.

“Wow,” I said. “I haven't seen your hair that long since kindergarten.” And then I felt stupid.
That
was the first thing I said after two years?

Awkwardly, I walked to Noelle and held out my arms to embrace her. Her body was stiff as she allowed me to hug her for a moment. When she pulled away, it was with force.

“I guess everyone's doing that, huh?” I asked, wanting to hear her voice. Needing to know if that had changed, too.

Noelle looked to the ground and then at me. I stared into her blue-gray eyes, the eyes that used to be more familiar than my own gazing back at me when I looked into a mirror. Those eyes were the same. Almost. They held a hint of something new, like sadness or fear, but they were hers.

“I'm being totally suffocated,” she said, her voice as rigid as her body.

“I bet.” I shifted my weight on my bare feet. “This must be the first time you've left the house.”

Noelle surprised me by shaking her head from side to side. “Huh-uh. I've been out almost every night. I can hardly breathe in that house.” She turned her face to the sky again, closed her eyes. “Out here, I don't feel like a caged animal.”

I didn't know what to say to that. How could her house feel like a cage after the past two years?

“Look,” Noelle said to the backs of her closed eyelids. “Coop tells me every time you call.” She finally opened her eyes and looked at me again. “And the picture … it was really nice. I know what you're trying to do, and I appreciate it.” She swept some hair behind her ear. “I just … don't care. Okay?”

“I wanted you to know—”

“You never forgot me. I was always there with you. Coop told me. It's sweet, really.” Noelle sighed. “This just isn't my life anymore, Tess. I'm not that girl you knew all those years ago.”

“Noelle, I'll always be—”

“That's exactly what I'm talking about.” Her hand shot out at the darkness, aiming to hit something that wasn't there. “I'm not
Noelle
anymore.” She breathed heavily through her nose and clenched her jaw.

“Of course you're Noelle. Who else would you be?”

The girl who was not Noelle looked directly into my eyes. Her stare was hard and cold. “Noelle is gone. And she's not coming back.” She blinked. “My name is Elle.”

As Noelle turned on the balls of her feet, her hair whipped around her body. I didn't move as she walked away with an even stride, her back straight and tight, her arms swinging.

In those few moments, a lifetime of friendship flashed before my eyes. Licking brownie batter from a glass bowl, sledding down Killer Hill in a foot of snow, whispering in the darkness during sleepovers, having giggle fits over prank calling the cutest boys in the high school, raiding her parents' liquor cabinet late at night.

Most of all, as she walked away from me, I pictured the excited look that sparked a person's face just from being near her. She had always pulled people in, cast some strange and immediate spell. She used to shine brighter than anything I had ever known.

But the girl who walked away from me was dark. Dull. Somehow, strangely rough. I didn't know her at all.