Vengeance (15 page)

What the hell.

In my pursuit to avoid her for the past few weeks, I had no idea what she’d been up to. What she’d been doing. Who she’d been with. Who had called her on the phone. Who she planned to meet at ten.

I went outside and sat on her porch swing. The night was crisp, almost October now, which meant almost winter for us. I checked my watch—9:32. There are really only so many things you can be doing after nine p.m. on a Thursday night. She was meeting someone at ten.

What the hell?

I watched the far corner, willing her to come back. I had to know. I didn’t want to know, but the not knowing was driving me mad. I broke up with her and she moved on, which is what most people did. It’s what was supposed to happen. No.
I
broke up with her.
I
was supposed to move on. I couldn’t even move the goddamn swing I was sitting on, scared I’d miss the sound of her coming. Or the sound of her whispering to someone in the distance. In my mind, I didn’t see her dying. I saw her in someone else’s room, in someone else’s bed, with the smile she always saved for me.

But less than a half hour later, I heard footsteps coming from the other direction. Delaney was coming up the street. Correction: she was
running
up the street. I stood and checked behind her, seeing if someone was following her, but it looked
like she was alone. Her head was down, so she didn’t notice me until she was at the front steps. Where I was waiting.

She looked at my shoes first. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was practically gasping for air. She stumbled onto the steps and sat down, close to where I was standing. I leaned onto the porch railing, going for calm indifference.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. So much for calm indifference.

She leaned back on her elbows, tilted her head up. I watched the cloud form as she exhaled, still catching her breath. “Running,” she said. Guess her plans to meet someone weren’t for to night.

And then I looked closer: gray sweatpants, long sleeved T-shirt, sneakers. I felt her watching me take her in. I looked out at the night. “You hate running.”

“Yeah,” she said. She stood up and brushed off her pants. “But the only thing I think about when I’m running is how much I hate running.”

And I thought,
You’re perfect
.

“It’s supposed to rain,” she said. “In Boston.”

“Huh?”

“Umbrella,” she said. “Pack one. There’s a stash in the coat closet.”

And then she was back in the house, presumably in her room, and I was left wondering how she could be talking about umbrellas when I was trying to figure out how not to want to smile at her even though I was furious with her.

Chapter 9

We rode in one of those planes where there are actual propellers. Which made it loud. Even louder because I was sitting over the wing. Even louder because I was sitting between Kevin and the wing. Justin stuck his face over the back of our seats. “When do you think this plane was built? World War One?”

“Sir, please take your seat.” The flight attendant tapped him on the shoulder, pushing him down gently. She smiled, but you could tell she was not looking forward to this flight with twenty unparented seniors. None of the other passengers looked amused, either.

Justin turned to ask her a question instead. “What if a bird gets sucked into one of those propeller things? I saw that on the news once. …”

“The bird dies,” she said, stone-faced. Kevin got this look on his face that meant he was totally into the flight attendant now. I put on my headphones. She leaned across Kevin and
pulled one ear bud from my ear. “The door is closed. Until we reach ten thousand feet, all electronics must be stowed and in the off position.”

Kevin mumbled, loud enough for her to hear, “I am totally turned on right now.”

Loud enough for Janna to hear, next to Justin. “Seriously, how does Maya put up with you? How does anyone put up with you?”

“Janna,” I heard Justin say, “explain it to me again. How does the airplane stay up?”

“Oh my God, someone, please switch seats with Justin before my brain explodes.”

“Gladly,” I said, stepping across Kevin.

“Seats!” the flight attendant shouted from the back of the plane.

I sent her my most apologetic smile, but it wasn’t really working. Instead, I saw Delaney. She was sitting near the back, and she had this death grip on her armrest already, and the plane hadn’t even started taxiing. I couldn’t tell who was beside her. Didn’t look long enough to find out. When her mom dropped us off, we walked in opposite directions. Me, toward Kevin. Her, toward a bunch of kids in her classes. Classes that I definitely wasn’t in.

I slid into the aisle seat next to Janna as Justin took mine. “He’s going to crash the plane with his thoughts alone,” she said as I tightened my seat belt.

Once we’d reached ten thousand feet, music was blaring in my ears, and Janna was sleeping with her head against the
window. The plane shook, loudly, and Janna jerked her head up. She smiled at me, like she was making fun of her nerves.

It jerked again, and all the luggage shifted in the compartment above us. Then we dropped. Suddenly and quickly. And briefly, thankfully. Must’ve hit an air pocket.

“What was that?” Justin asked. And when Kevin didn’t respond, his face filled the gap between the seats. I pulled off my headphones. “What the hell was that?” he asked.

“Turbulence,” Janna said. “Can you stop freaking out
please
?” she asked.

“I’ve never been on a plane before,” he said. “I’m just curious. I’m curious whether a plane is
supposed
to fall like that.” And just as he said it, we hit another air pocket, and Janna instinctively grabbed onto my hand on the armrest.

“Yeah, well, I would appreciate
not
picturing the plane crashing,” she said, and he turned back around. But then the plane started shaking again, like we were driving over boulders at sixty miles an hour.

“It’s just physics, right?” I said.

She nodded and leaned forward and spoke in Justin’s ear. “Just physics,” she said. “You’re fine.”

I looked at her hand in mine and wondered if maybe this was how things happened. You cling to the person closest to you. And Delaney was always the person closest to me. I was the person closest to her. Proximity.

I cast a quick glance down the aisle. Her head was back, and her eyes were closed, and I could tell even from here that her knuckles were white on the armrests. I was thinking of
all the ways I could take her mind off it. I let go of Janna and unbuckled my seat belt.

She gripped my arm. “What the hell are you doing?”

“Have to pee,” I said.

Janna arched around the seat to look. “Right.”

“Sir,” the flight attendant called from her seat in the back. “Sit down. Now.”

Delaney opened her eyes, saw me standing. Sat up straight. We hit another patch of turbulence, and I fell sideways, back into my seat.

“God, boys are dumb.” Then she twisted in her seat so she was facing me. “What do you think, Decker?” Janna asked as the plane kept shaking. “Are we far enough away?” And a chill ran up my spine. “Or can it reach us, even here?”

“Stop,” I said, and I put the headphones back on and turned the music up louder.

She pulled an earbud out and said, “It’s not a joke,” and I nodded. It wasn’t. I understood. And then she balled up her jacket and used it as a pillow as she rested her head on my shoulder. I may have been dumb, but I was the closest thing to her.

As soon as we landed, safe and sound, someone shoved Justin in the shoulder. “Thanks, man.”

“What?”

“Way to almost get us killed.” Like his words, his fear, had created the turbulence.

Kevin smacked the back of Justin’s head halfheartedly. He shook out his arms, like he was clearing himself of the last
few hours. “Keep your thoughts to yourself next time,” he said. Then shook one last time.

We all understood. It felt much better to blame the things we can’t control on something real.

They’d been doing it for months. They were experts at it now.

Kevin stood up and reached for his luggage, and suddenly, I wanted to say something. I wanted to stand up for Justin. But I thought of what Janna had said, what she had been thinking. And as long as everyone was focused on Justin, nobody would remember Delaney, sitting on the back of the plane. The trade. The curse. So in the end, I let him take it. Turns out I was a coward after all.

We rode the T at rush hour in Boston. The subway car was crammed with people—college students and people on their way home from work—and we were all scattered throughout the car, gripping any free gap on the overhead bar or the standing poles.

Delaney’s hair was in a long braid right in front of me. Between me and the pole. The subway car lurched, metal screaming against metal underneath us, and I grabbed for the pole in front of her, brushing her hair in the process. I felt her tense beside my arm. Guess she knew it was me. I heard Kevin laughing from the other end of the car. Janna, too. Delaney’s hair was practically in my face. “Rough flight,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said, not turning around.

Wow. Profound, the both of us. I stared at the back of her head. Each part of her braid was a different shade of blond—one strand was almost white, the part the sun hit—and I wondered if she had done that on purpose. It didn’t seem like something she would do, but it also seemed impossible for it to happen randomly. It was too perfect. And there was a chain around her neck. The clasp was off-center. I wanted to straighten it. I wanted to see what hung from the other end. Wanted to trace the chain around her neck, under the collar of her shirt.

“I …” I felt her whole body tense. Felt her holding her breath. The subway screeched, and we lurched forward together, and suddenly I was pressed against her back, and my free arm was around her waist. I wanted to be able to talk to her. The problem with having your girlfriend be your best friend is that you could lose both in an instant. I wondered if I could get one back. Problem was, I couldn’t separate the parts of her, never could.

The doors separated, a gust of stale, cold air billowed in, and Mrs. Adams’s loud voice carried over the crowd. “Anderville High, this is us!”

Not embarrassing at all.

“It’s alphabetical,” Janna said as we crammed into the elevator together. Which is why Justin was rooming with Parker Banyon.

“Come on,” Justin said. “Fifty bucks to whoever trades with me.”

“No can do,” Kevin said. “Decker is my favorite.”

“Ass,” Justin said.

“I’ll trade,” Janna said, looking down at the key in her hand. “Room 521.”

Justin raised an eyebrow at her. “Something about Parker I don’t know? Who do I get to room with?”

“Delaney,” she said. And the elevator went suddenly silent.

The doors opened on the fifth floor, and Janna stepped out. She saluted us. “Gentlemen,” she said as the door slid across her face, sealing us in.

“Sometimes,” Kevin said, “she reminds me so much of him.”

Which is why it was both comforting and painful to have her around.

After we had dropped our bags and had dinner, and after we’d gone back to our room—with Justin, because he said his room smelled like ass—there was a knock on the door. Janna made this face at me as I opened the door. It was a face I recognized, just not from her. A glimpse of Carson as she raised one corner of her mouth, and then it was gone. She put a finger on my chest. “Let me in,” she said.

“Room checks are in an hour. Come back after,” Justin said.

“You’re here,” she said, sticking her hip out.

“Male genitalia, my friend,” he said.

“Ugh.” She covered her ears and sent me a pleading look.

“Okay, hey,” I said. “I’ll be back.”

Nobody asked where I was going. Probably because I was
so freaking obvious it was pathetic. If Janna was here, then Delaney was alone. And there was something about being away from Falcon Lake that made this easier. Like maybe I could look at her. Talk to her.

I took the stairwell down two flights and saw the elevator doors shutting. Half her mouth, a hazel eye, looking down through the sliding door. Disappearing. Always.

Shit.

I raced down the stairwell, taking the steps two or three at a time, and exited at the main lobby. I saw her back, leaving through the revolving door. I thought maybe she was going running again, but she was in jeans, and her hair was loose.

Sometimes I felt like I was following a ghost, the way she lived on the outskirts of my vision. Like I was aware of her existence but tried to ignore it, but then some days ended up following it into the basement, where nothing good could ever happen.

Like now.

I followed her through the crowd of people—she walked with single-minded focus, like she knew exactly where she was headed, which was weird because she didn’t know the area. And then I panicked that she was drawn to someone and was following them, and I started walking faster to keep up.

She stopped abruptly a few blocks later, at the edge of Boston. She stood in the grass, staring out at the river, like it had called to her. Or like it was drawing her in—maybe she could never escape the pull of the water, wanting her back.

She sat cross-legged on the edge, as if she was imagining her future here. But this time, I couldn’t picture it.

My legs carried me forward, boldly, because of the crowd. The way I could disappear in it, become invisible. Until I was standing a few feet behind her, watching the wind kick up the water.

“What are you doing?” she asked, and I felt exposed.

“What are
you
doing?” I replied.

Her back stiffened, and I realized she hadn’t been talking to me. She looked flustered as she stood up—about as flustered as I felt. She wasn’t a ghost. She was a drug I couldn’t stop taking. A habit I couldn’t quite kick. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t stay away. Even now.

“Are you following me?”

Of course I was following her. “I was out for a walk.”

Everything was different away from the lake. Like we were people with no history. Maybe this was our future—maybe we’d come here and we’d meet up, a year from now, two maybe, and we’d just … talk. Like the past didn’t matter. Like I hadn’t left her on the ice. Like she hadn’t completely betrayed me. Delaney wanted me to pretend. I pretended. I sat down in the grass, and she sat down beside me, a few body lengths away. “What schools are you touring tomorrow?”