“I’m. Going. To. Catch. Him,” Robert said. “Want. To. Join. My. Team?”

  Robert kept talking, but I couldn’t hear with the helicopter directly overhead. The woods were only a few blocks away. Part of me wanted to say fuck it. Take off out the cave. Sharon, Demarius, and Dad could eat a big bag of shit.

  I hadn’t meant to think it so close to Robert, but his eyes widened, knew what was rattling around my head.

  I started walking. The helicopter kept circling, scouring the town for Wayne. I kept thinking about taking off now, but knew I wouldn’t make it fifty feet before they caught me. I also couldn’t leave Rachel behind. Not like this. She deserved better. All she did was believe in me. Love me. Wanted to take care of me. And I repaid her by ripping out her broken heart.

  I turned left, The Cabin up on the hill, its windows open, all warm and inviting.

  Come on in, have a seat. Let your problems disintegrate.

  Rachel’s building was up ahead. Sharon said to let her be, said I needed to get some rest. Sharon loved to talk. Just like Dad. The two of them plotting and scheming to stick me up on this goddamn mountain.

  I knocked on Rachel’s door, kept knocking until her neighbor, Frances, came out and told me to shut the hell up or she’d call the Boots. Frances looked like a man with her chiseled jaw and thick, bushy eyebrows. I almost told her to go ahead, they’d never show. But I just walked out and headed for the diner, then Oscar’s, then the park. I asked if anyone had seen her. No one had, except Nathan, the guy who proudly came to Brightside a virgin. Then he met Krystal.

  “She wasn’t looking so hot,” he said about Rachel. “That was a couple hours ago, though.”

  I thanked him and continued my search. I needed to find Rachel, apologize, beg her to take me back. We could escape tonight, leave Sharon, everyone in this fucking town.

  I kept moving, never stopping long enough to think about anything but Rachel. She was going to be pissed, but I’d tell her all the things she needed to hear. I’d mean it, too. At least for the moment. That’d be enough.

  Sharon had given me a special cell phone, one that couldn’t be traced. She told me to only use it if there was an emergency. I wanted to call Rachel, but she didn’t have a phone. No one did but me.

  I wandered through the Square, even went back to Rachel’s place, but she still wasn’t there. I started thinking maybe she’d found some guy and they were busy getting sweaty paying me back.

  I didn’t even notice the storm rushing in, but soon the sleet felt like needles. Thunder boomed.

  It was midnight and I could barely stand. Freezing, wet, and weak, I headed back to my place. The hallway light fixture was filled with so many bugs I could hardly see, but my nose was working fine. There was a new smell. A little ripe, like sweat and something else. It grew stronger as I got to my door.

  That smell.

  The door did its usual creak, just a lot louder. The kitchen was dark, blinds keeping out most of the moonlight. I emptied my pockets onto the table, then locked the door.

  A sliver of light lit the first bit of hallway that led to the bedroom where the blinds were always closed.

  Everything looked normal, as normal as it can in the dark. It sounded like it should, too. Quiet. Everything was fine.

  Except for the smell.

  And that sliver. The tiny slice of light that made it hard to move.

  Someone was here. My first thought, Wayne, but the door had been locked.

  I went for the light switch, but it just flicked up and down.

  I said Rachel’s name but it came out soft and pathetic. I said it again, louder this time. Rachel was the only one with a key.

  No one answered. Just more nothing. Then the tiniest plop.

  It took forever to move away from the door and get into the hallway. I stopped after two steps because the smell was all wrong.

  The next step was the hardest. The next one after that even harder, the wall still blocking most of the bedroom.

  The wall ended with my next step. My hand fumbled around for the switch. This one worked, threw light all over the room. I wish it hadn’t. Oh God, I wish it hadn’t.

  A body on the bed. But lying the wrong way, legs hanging off the window side. The plaid skirt bunched up around her underwear. Rachel’s favorite Love-A-Lot Care Bear ones she liked to dance around in. Her matching t-shirt that used to be white, the bear and its big heart drowning in blood.

  The outfit told me it was Rachel. Rachel without a face.

  The top of her head was gone, her hair clumped beneath the ragged, hollowed out bowl, a stream sliding down the comforter, onto the carpet.

  I asked the stupidest question. “What the hell did you do?” I asked it again and again but the answer was right there.

  I turned. The whole room was red, it started to spin. Slow then fast. I held onto the wall and it helped a little, but it was wet with something I wiped off without looking.

  “Goddamn it, Rachel! What the hell did you do?”

  Rachel didn’t respond, didn’t have a mouth.

  But on the floor I received my answer.

  The shotgun beneath her dangling feet, the stock lying in the puddle of piss.

  The lightest rain fell from the ceiling. It drip, drip, dripped onto the bed, her body, what was left of her head. I wondered if the roof was leaking.

  But it wasn’t rain. Up on the ceiling, Rachel left me a gift. She’d painted me the perfect Pollock.

  I fell onto her body, my face smashed against that bloody Care Bear. Thunder boomed outside the window. I wondered if that’s what covered the blast. If someone had heard it, they’d be here.

  The bracelet her daddy bought her was half submerged in a puddle by the pillow, the diamonds splattered crimson. They matched her ring, the only thing better than her diploma because the school couldn’t take it away.

  Rachel didn’t have a pulse. I was stupid to check. Her wrist still warm, still soft. Her hand so small, not squeezing back to say everything would be okay, that we could still leave together, sprawl out on that beach.

  Something creaked in the hallway outside. Bootsteps.

  I pressed my cheek into the bedspread as if I was actually hiding. Like a child who doesn’t understand the physics of hide-and-seek.

  More bootsteps. Muffled voices.

  Rachel’s hand went back into the puddle. I pulled the rest of her closer. Saw her jaw. The lower half on Love-A-Lot’s smiling face. The top half shards on the ceiling.

  I waited for the knock, waited to see their expressions when they saw me cradling Rachel without a face.

  The light switch. I needed to turn it off, make them think I was sleeping, but I couldn’t move. Every neuron dead, just like Rachel.

  The chair had a chunk of hair draped across the armrest.

  The Boots getting closer.

  I closed my eyes, squeezed Rachel’s chest, squeezing so hard I thought I might sink into her ribs, disappear forever.

  Why did I ever come here? The Cabin was so close. All I had to do was walk in, and the nurses would take care of the rest. I’d never know about Rachel. Never…

  Suddenly, the Boots were running, but not towards me. Each step softer, further down the hall until there was nothing.

  It was hard to stand without one hand on the wall. I looked around, needing a way to explain this in case they came back. There was nothing on the nightstand, the TV, the bathroom counter. No paper, something that said no one was to blame.

  But Rachel would never leave a note. That’s what she’d told me one night at Oscar’s. She said people only wrote them to make other people feel better, which was bullshit. If she ever did it, she wanted everyone to know it was their fucking fault.

  Why did they ever let you out of The Cabin, Rachel?

  Sharon had to know she was unstable, that this was a possibility. She didn’t make the call on Rachel’s release, but she gave her recommendation. Was this part of the plan? What the hell did Rachel have to do with our escape?

  I fell back against the wall, slid down until my ass was on the floor. Something was digging into my leg. The cell phone. I pulled it out, started to dial Sharon, but stopped. What if this was all a setup? She could just be waiting for me to call, so she could send Palmer and the rest of the fucking Boots.

  But why tell me about the plan then? Why tell me about my father if it was just to set me up for Rachel’s death? She could’ve sent me to The Cabin. I even offered.

  My father, the man who turned me in, was the only person I could trust. Laughter sprayed from my lips. I looked over at Rachel’s body, the blood and chunks of brain and just lost it, doubling over, cracking up because there was nothing left. I didn’t need The Cabin. I was already fucking gone.

  But it finally lost its amusement. The awfulness settling back in. I started dialing.

  “Hello?” Mom said.

  I couldn’t speak, so tired, shattered.

  “Joey? Is that you?”

  I took a deep breath, wiped back my hair wet with blood. “Hi, Mom!”

  “Joey, what’s going on?”

  My whole body shook. “I fucked up.”

  “Joey, come on, you’re scaring me.”

  “Yeah, I’m scaring me too.”

  “Tell me what’s going on. Are you okay?”

  “No, I’m not.” I sucked air through clenched teeth.

  Mom sat there, breathing, waiting. We both did until she finally asked what I’d done.

  “Oh…I don’t have enough minutes for that. Can I just talk to Dad? Please. I really just need for him to get on the fucking phone.”

  “I’m going to call the doctor, okay. Is that what I should—”

  “NO, MOM,” I said, my voice not my own. Wild and crazed like a man covered in his girlfriend’s blood. I took a deep breath. “I just need you to get Dad. Can you just move and fucking grant me this one simple—”

  She sounded scared out of her mind when she said, “He’s not here.”

  Big inhale through the nose. “Okay…when do you expect him? Soon?”

  “He went…”

  “Where? He went where?”

  In the smallest voice, she said, “Fishing.”

  I felt like the top of my head was going to eject like some fighter jet, like Rachel’s.

  “He went…fishing?”

  “Joey, he needed a break. Since you – since he…did this, it’s been eating him alive. He’s not well. It’s killing him.”

  My father’s not well. I’m sitting on the floor covered in Rachel’s flesh, and my father needs a vacation.

  “Joey, whatever you’ve done, can you make it okay?”

  “No, Mom.” I laughed. “No, I don’t think I can.”

  “Joey! Listen to me. Are you listening to me?” That voice from my childhood, the one that said if I didn’t shut my mouth she was going to smack me.

  * * *

  I was five years old, sitting in the back of the Buick, my face burned and peeling. We were parked out in front of the school, all the kids filing in, but I wouldn’t budge.

  “I don’t wanna. I feel sick. My stomach.”

  “You’re fine,” she said. “You just don’t want to go with your face all messed up.”

  But that was only part of it. I couldn’t go back to all the voices, the thoughts, everything so loud I’d piss my pants. I didn’t say any of that to Mom, she wouldn’t have understood or she’d think I was even crazier than she already did. That’s why I just sat and scratched at my cheeks.

  She snapped, “What did I say about that?”

  I shoved both mittens back in my jacket. “I forgot.”

  “Do you want to look retarded? You think they aren’t going to make fun of the kid tearing off his face?”

  The slushy gray playground was right outside my window. All the kids were out there, but I wasn’t moving. I blew on my window, fogged it up with a white cloud, slunk down so low I couldn’t see out. I knew what was waiting, all the laughter, the vicious taunts. I’d start crying and they’d call me a little baby and that would be even worse.

  Mom was back to smiling at herself in the rearview, her eyes not quite making it. She was back to sounding nice, too. “Come on, Joey. You know the drill.”

  The drill was Mom pulled over, I got out. There was no holding hands, walking together to the gate. No kiss goodbye. But the drill was different this morning. I wasn’t moving.

  Mom got something from her purse, brushed red on her cheeks until they matched her hair. “You need to get going. Go learn your ABC’s. We’re not doing this anymore.”

  My safe spot was warm. It wasn’t totally safe, but far enough away so Mom would have to climb over the seat to swat. She wouldn’t do that in front of the school. Not for a few more years.

  “That’s enough,” she said. Mom flicked her eyes, played with the lashes, never once looking my way. “I’m wasting time. And gas.”

  I tried not to sound like a baby when I said, “I hate school. I don’t want to go.”

  Mom turned the mirror, gave her you-little-shit five-second stare. “You think I want to drive you here? You think I want to dress you in the morning or make your Lucky Charms?”

  I knew a lot about Mom, way more than I wanted. I thought I knew her buttons, how far I could press them. That’s why I said, “Don’t then.”

  Mom spun around, gripped the back of her seat. “Goddamn it, young man. If you make me get out of this car…”

  I said, “They’re mean to me.”

  Mom moved quicker than I’d ever seen, getting out and slamming her door, jerking on mine to see it was locked. She stood there in her purple leotard, banged the window with her fist. “Open this right now.”

  Mom was about to break through the glass. I slid across the seat, pulled the knob up, went right back to my spot.

  Mom opened the door, lowered her voice so other parents couldn’t hear. “It’s freezing. Get out now.”

  I looked away from Mom’s chest, put my boots on the seat. “I’m not going.”

  Mom started talking way too sweet, like her goddamn perfume, didn’t care how much they both bothered me. “Sometimes there are things you don’t want to do, but you gotta do them anyway.”

  Tameka’s dad walked by which explained Mom being nice.

  Mom turned toward him and waved.

  When Tameka’s dad was far enough away, Mom snatched my ankle like it was some kind of snake, squeezed my boot like she was trying to choke it.

  “You’re hurting me,” I said.

  Mom kept her grip and yanked me across the seat. “Stop being such a sissy. Is that what you want all the other kids to think?”

  I stomped my foot as hard as I could, splashed yucky gray snow all over Mom’s leg.

  Mom took a deep breath and blew it out, put those eyes on me. Made me stare back.

  “What do you want, Joey?” She stood there, hands on her hips, nipples pushing out that purple silk for everyone to see. “You want me to lie to you?”

  What I wanted didn’t matter because Mom was holding up her don’t-you-dare finger.

  “I’ll lie to you, if that’s what you want,” she said. “Say you look fine. That no one’s going to make fun of you. That the world is the most wonderful place.”

  Her one-woman pep rally wasn’t making me feel any better, but that didn’t slow her down. “You looking like this is nothing,” Mom said. “You’re gonna get teased. You’re gonna get picked on. You’re gonna get beat up.”

  I tried to say enough, I was ready for school, but Mom kept talking.

  “You’re gonna fall in love. You’re gonna have your heart broken. Your dreams are gonna be squashed. That’s life,” Mom said. “That’s the truth. So it’s your choice, Joey. You want the truth or not?”

  If I knew what was coming maybe I could prepare for it. I said, “The truth.”

  Mom bent over at the waist and put her face close. Gave guys driving by something nice to stare at.

  Her eyes weren’t trying any more. The fight was over. But Mom still smiled when she took hold of my jaw and turned my face side to side. She ran her ice-cold fingers over my cheeks, brushed flakes of me into the slush. “When life sucks and gives you things you don’t want, you’ve got to keep your chin up,” Mom said. She kissed the top of my head. “And keep it up no matter what, you hear? Because people are depending on you.”

  * * *

  That’s what Mom was saying on the phone, me on the floor, Rachel’s faceless head on the pillow.

  “You can never quit,” she said. “Never.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  It’s lunchtime and Sara still hasn’t come back. I’m at my desk with the door closed, lights off, acting like nobody’s home.

  I’m on no sleep and little food. I know I can’t keep this up, but how can I eat? Not when all I can think of is Rachel and what’s left of her, the saddest secret I’ve ever held.

  Cleaning up Rachel’s body was my form of grief. I was crying, holding her in my arms, remembering the good times. I kept stroking her neck, because her cheek was gone, just cradled her in my arms, rocking back and forth, apologizing for all the things I’d done, for the things I wouldn’t say. I told her she was beautiful, especially her nose, the one she hated, the one somewhere in pieces behind the nightstand. For some reason, I sang Dad’s stupid song about fish heads. I told Rachel, Dad would have liked her, even though he probably wouldn’t have. It was okay to fib. The part of her that knew if I was lying was splattered all over the ceiling, the wall, the bed. It was the part she just wanted gone.

  I wondered what was going through her head when her thumb pushed down on the trigger. Besides the buckshot. I hoped it wasn’t about me, prayed she didn’t go out on such a sour note. I wanted to believe she was picturing that tropical beach, just her and the surf. No one around for miles. Not a single soul with all their fucked up, twisted thoughts. Just her, the sand, a giant piña colada.

  I kept rocking, picturing her turning the shotgun around, getting her fingers curled under the handle between her knees. Her thumb fits perfect.