The Lovely Reckless Page 9

  “Frankie, can I ask you something?” Kumiko shifts in her seat.

  “Sure.” Please don’t let it be about birth control.

  “We heard some stuff at school and want to know if it’s true.”

  “What kind of stuff?” I ask, dreading the answer.

  Kumiko squirms a little more. “The guy from the Heights who got killed last June … he was your boyfriend, right?”

  I’m never prepared when people ask about Noah’s death. Usually, I see the question coming, which gives me time to deflect it. But Kumiko caught me off guard. Worse, there’s nowhere to run. And what does it say about me if I dodge their questions?

  Sofia watches me from across the table. If she’s brave enough to let the world see her scars, I can answer their questions about Noah.

  “Yeah. He was.” I fight to keep my voice steady.

  The kids exchange glances, and Daniel clears his throat. I guess he’s up next. “Is it true you were there but you can’t remember what happened?”

  “I remember some things, but not others.” Like the face of the guy who killed my boyfriend.

  “At least you don’t have amnesia.” Kumiko tosses her glossy black hair over her shoulder and turns her attention back to her homework.

  “That’s true.” I force a weak smile.

  In the days that followed Noah’s death, I would have given anything to forget. Now all I want to do is remember. I owe it to Noah.

  We grew up together, and our friendship always mattered more to me than dating him. It’s hard to admit now that he’s gone. People expect me to pretend Noah and I were soul mates, destined to walk down the aisle five minutes after college graduation. But we didn’t have a forever, I-can’t-live-without-you kind of love. It was more like the I’ll-never-forget-you kind.

  The kind of love you have for a boy who said you were beautiful before it was actually true. A boy who knew you couldn’t ride a bike until seventh grade but never told anyone. It’s a love born from knowing someone for so long that most of your memories include him.

  Admitting that Noah was anything less than my dream guy makes me feel like an awful person. But I’m determined to do something more than idealize our relationship.

  I’m going to figure out who killed him—one memory at a time.

  * * *

  Sofia and I are the only ones in the room again when Marco shows up to get her.

  “Hey.” He smiles at me, and my stomach flips a little.

  “Hi.” I dig through my backpack to avoid looking at him. Why does he have to be so gorgeous?

  Sofia gathers her stuff. “Marco? Do you have any money for the vending machine?”

  He takes a worn leather wallet out of his back pocket and hands her a five. “Don’t buy too much junk.”

  “Deal.” Sofia ducks under his arm and bounds down the hall. “Bye, Frankie.”

  “Bye.” I wave, but she’s already gone.

  Marco lingers by the door for a moment. “I’ll see you around, Angel.”

  “Why do you keep calling me that?”

  “Does it bother you?” He cracks a half smile, and a dimple presses into his cheek. My eyes drift to his lips—full and wide.

  Look somewhere else.

  “That’s not the point.” I stuff the chemistry textbook in my backpack. Anything to keep from staring at his mouth. “I have a name.”

  “I know.” Marco holds my gaze a second too long, and my cheeks warm.

  Does he ever blink?

  When he closes the door and disappears down the hall, I switch off the lights and finally let myself exhale. Pretending Marco doesn’t affect me is harder than I expected.

  A minute later Marco passes the window. He’s carrying a plastic milk bottle from the vending machine, and he leaves through the emergency exit. Where is he going? There’s nothing behind the building except a bunch of run-down playground equipment that Miss Lorraine won’t let the kids near.

  It’s a borderline stalker move, but I follow him.

  I crack the door and peek outside. Streetlights illuminate a rotted play structure and the sidewalk at the end of the parking lot, leaving the back of the building, where I’m standing, in darkness.

  A flash of brown and white darts through a pale circle of light. Cyclops, the one-eyed cat, slinks toward a yellow slide attached to the play structure.

  “Hey, Cyclops. Brought you dinner.” Marco stands near the perimeter of the playground and sets a red plastic ashtray on the ground.

  The cat runs toward him. It arches its back and circles Marco. Is he crazy? Any second it will hiss and foam at the mouth.

  Marco pours the milk in the ashtray. Cyclops circles again, closer this time, and the cat’s back relaxes. The animal that won’t let anyone come near it sits at Marco’s feet, lapping up the milk.

  My cell vibrates. Lex is here. Before I go inside, I take one last look at the broken animal and the guy feeding it.

  Cyclops trusts Marco.

  I can’t help but wonder if that cat knows something I don’t.

  * * *

  I hardly sleep at night—another delightful side effect of PTSD. Filling those extra hours isn’t easy. I’ve already reorganized the contents of my drawers and Dad’s cereal cupboard, watched hours of mind-numbing reality shows, and I’m still wide awake. Insomnia isn’t the even worst part.

  It’s the not remembering and then remembering—that’s the only way to describe it. I can’t recall certain details from the night Noah died, but when the flashbacks hit out of nowhere, I’m back there again watching him die. I can’t stop the flashbacks or turn them off. I relive the worst ten minutes of my life over and over and over, except for the one part I want to remember.

  I reach for a magazine on the nightstand, and my fingers brush a metal coil.

  Crap.

  My English journal—the one I’m supposed to turn in on Friday. Does Mrs. Hellstrom honestly expect us to tell her about our true selves? What if we don’t know who that person is—or we don’t want to find out?

  One of the psychiatrists who treated me suggested I keep a journal. She said writing about a tragic experience helps the mind process it and heal. I don’t believe for a second that writing in a stupid notebook will take away the pain. But something else she said seems possible: A journal might help you remember.

  If that’s true, I owe it to Noah to try.

  I lean against the wall behind my bed and search through my backpack for a pen. I settle for a pencil with bite marks along the side, turn to the first page, and start writing.

  I met Noah when I was eleven and he was twelve.

  He had dirty-blond hair the color of buttered toast and eyes the color of a September blue sky. We played truth or dare a hundred times that summer, and I only picked dare once. Noah dared me to ride a bike down the biggest hill in the Heights. When I admitted that I never learned how, Noah let me ride down on his bike with him.

  When Noah turned thirteen, he nicknamed me Chicken Legs for a whole year. But at fourteen, he beat up Bobby McIntyre for calling me the same thing.

  At fifteen, Noah told me I shouldn’t trust a boy if he said he loved me (because high school boys only wanted one thing).

  But the night of his sixteenth birthday, he was the boy who said it.

  Noah was beautiful, athletic, funny, and smart.

  Everyone said it would never last.

  They were right.

  Noah died at seventeen, a week before his eighteenth birthday.

  My eyes skim the words. They don’t capture the boy I remember, but they bring him closer. They remind me of the Noah I knew, not the one I lost. But nothing I wrote relates to the night he died.

  How do I get from what’s on the page to there?

  Across from my bed, six silver frames are lined up on top of the flowered dresser. Images of Lex, Abel, and me stare back from behind the glass, along with my favorite photo of Lex and me from the eighth-grade dance. Our braces and overly glossed lips, glittery
dresses, and kitten heels we couldn’t walk in make us look like refugees from an outdated music video. Other frames lay scattered around them, facedown. I walk over and touch one.

  Even with the frame flipped over, I know exactly which photo is on the other side.

  First row, third frame from the left—Noah and me standing next to his Mongoose after our epic ride down the big hill. We jumped the curb at the bottom and crashed in the grass. We are a little banged up in the photo Noah took with his phone, but we’re both smiling.

  The memory creates a familiar hollow ache in my chest, and I force the pain deeper, where it belongs. I’m not ready to turn the frame over … not yet.

  Maybe never.

  I cram the journal in my backpack, even though I’d rather stab myself in the eye with a fork than show it to Mrs. Hellstrom. I’ve become an expert at avoiding things that could hurt me—which means I will figure out how to stay away from Marco Leone.

  CHAPTER 14

  BITE POINT

  Lex is too quiet when she picks me up on Friday morning. Her smudged eye liner looks darker today because of the shadows under her eyes. Maybe she’s still fighting with Abel.

  Or he’s buying a hundred scratch-off lottery tickets.

  It’s hard to put any distance between us when Lex drives me around every day. All this time together makes me realize how much I’ve missed her. But hanging out with Lex and Abel also reminds me of the girl I want to leave behind and the boy who is already gone. The four of us did so many things together, even before I started dating Noah. Separating all those memories—searching for the ones that don’t include Noah or pretending he wasn’t part of them—feels impossible.

  Maintaining that distance is what keeps me from asking her what’s wrong right away. I could check my e-mail and delete some from Mom, or bitch about Dad until we get to school. But it’s hard to ignore Lex when I know she’s hurting. She is still my best friend.

  Lex stops at an intersection and glances to the right. Her beautiful blue eyes will always remind me of Noah’s.

  “Want to tell me what’s wrong?” I finally ask.

  She props her elbow on the lip above the door panel and rests her head in her hand. “It would take less time to tell you what’s right.”

  “Does it have anything to do with Abel? You never finished telling me what happened over the summer or how you ended up sleeping at his house.” Lex and Abel have been crazy about each other since eighth grade. But she was the one who didn’t want to cross the line.

  “I crashed over there a lot. You weren’t around, and his mom is always out of town sharing her insights about Tommy Ryder and his Golden Fingers, so it was just Abel and me.” She makes it sound like I was on a trip instead of avoiding them. “We got closer.”

  I turn toward her. “How much closer?”

  Lex turns into the parking lot, and I fight the urge to look for Marco in Lot B. She shrugs.

  “Did you two get together?” Aside from the occasional drunken kiss, nothing has ever happened between them. Lex says it’s not worth risking their friendship. Abel says she’s just scared. Did things go a little further this time?

  As we cross over into Lot A, I take a quick look in the side mirror.

  No sign of Marco.

  I focus on Lex again. “Well?”

  “Yes. And it was obviously a mistake.” The moment she says it, I spot Abel’s Land Cruiser.

  Lex pulls into a parking space and practically jumps out of the car. “I don’t want to talk to him.”

  I do.

  Abel jogs toward the Fiat as I get out. He cuts her off before she makes it very far. “Come on, Lex. How long are you going to stay mad?”

  She glares at him. “I don’t know. How long are you going to keep lying and gambling?”

  He facepalms his forehead. “It was one night. I haven’t been back to V Street since…”

  “The other night when you dragged me and Frankie down there to get manhandled?” She tries to circle around Abel, and he reaches for her arm. She jerks away. “Don’t!”

  Lex makes a beeline for the quad, leaving me with Abel.

  “You’d better tell me what you’ve been doing.” I jab his chest. “Because I’ve never seen her like this.”

  Abel crosses and uncrosses his arms. “I made a few bets over the summer. Horse races and a couple of boxing matches—nothing big. But it freaked Lex out, and I promised to stop.”

  “And you didn’t.”

  He nods.

  “Horse racing and boxing? Nothing else?” It’s the kind of question Dad asks me when he already knows the answer—a test to see if I’ll tell him the truth.

  “That’s all, except for the race I bet on the other night.” He scratches the back of his neck, a textbook sign of lying. “Will you talk to her for me?”

  “No.” I push past him and speed-walk toward the admin building.

  Abel keeps up. “Frankie—”

  I stop at the edge of the sidewalk. “Did you forget about the sixty scratch-offs, or whatever ridiculous number it was?”

  “I thought you meant placing bets.”

  “Come talk to me when you’re done lying.” I leave him standing there.

  As I walk up the steps, I see Marco on the quad. He’s leaning against a tree not far from where Abel and I were talking. He sees me watching him, and our eyes meet for a second before I get caught in the current of students pouring into the building.

  * * *

  Cruz isn’t in English, so it’s more boring than usual, and I don’t have a pen until halfway through the period. When the bell rings, Mrs. Hellstrom collects our journals. I’m one of the first people out the door after I mumble something about leaving mine at home.

  In the hall, I turn the corner and spot Cruz standing against the wall.

  She falls in step next to me. “How was class?”

  “Boring. Did you ditch?” It doesn’t seem like the kind of question that will offend her.

  “No, I had to take my little sister Teresa to urgent care before school. She has asthma.”

  “Is she okay?”

  “She just needed a new inhaler. So are you ready for Shop?”

  I shrug. “There are too many different screwdrivers or whatever you call them.”

  She laughs. “Socket wrenches. And you’re gonna need to learn the names of the tools and how to use them if you want to pass. Chief takes cars seriously.” Like Cruz does—a girl who can hold her own, both in Shop and behind the wheel.

  How would it feel to be that confident?

  “Why does everyone call him Chief?”

  “He was a crew chief on the NASCAR circuit for twenty years. One day, he just left. Walked away and came back here.”

  “What happened? Did he get hurt?”

  “No. Someone else did,” Cruz stares straight ahead, distracted. She notices me watching her and snaps out of it. “I mean, nobody knows. Just rumors.”

  The conversation about Chief is clearly over. Not that I blame her. I hate the thought of people talking about him.

  Cruz stops at a locker near the stairs and grabs her books.

  Two girls across the hall are looking at us.

  “Next to Cruz,” a pasty redhead across the hall whispers. She’s wearing the kind of glittery eye shadow that most girls only wear at night. “Her boyfriend was that guy who got killed in the parking lot of the Sugar Factory in the Heights.”

  “The chick who got booted from the rich-bitch private school?” her friend asks.

  The redhead nods. “I heard she’s mental and takes a ton of meds.”

  “That’s bullshit,” I say softly, my fingers digging into the strap of my backpack.

  Cruz watches the girls, tapping her foot like a sprinter itching to run. “Screw this.” She drops her books and they smack against the floor. The sound echoes through the hallway, and people turn around to see what’s happening.

  “You talk too much, Christine.” Cruz walks up to the redhead, who
is wearing foundation that makes her skin look orange.

  Christine shrinks back against the lockers. “I was just repeating what I heard. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “You should be more careful what you say in the future.” Cruz smiles, and it carries an unspoken threat. “You never know who’s listening.”

  Cruz picks up her books. Within seconds, the sounds of locker doors slamming and people talking resume as if nothing happened. People give me curious looks, like they’re wondering why Cruz defended me. I’d love to know, too.

  Am I supposed to thank her? That won’t be embarrassing or anything.

  We turn the corner and Cruz stops me by the stairs. “Don’t let people talk shit about you, Frankie. Ignoring it is the same as giving them permission. Never give anyone permission to disrespect you.”

  I almost say, It doesn’t matter.

  But the words catch in my throat.

  I follow Cruz down the steps to the basement.

  Inside, we walk past the green Camaro and take our seats. Chief stands at the whiteboard, drawing a stick-figure diagram of a car halfway up a steep hill. He’s the only teacher I’ve ever had who wears jeans and a baseball cap in class. Then again, he also wears short-sleeve button-downs and tucks them into his jeans.

  I like him. He reminds me of my dad’s father—if Granddad worked on cars instead of motorcycles and wore hats with motor oil logos on them.

  I also like Shop. It’s a class I never would’ve taken at Woodley, not that the school offered it. Kids in the Heights pay other people to fix their cars, and when the new-leather smell wears off or they crash them—whichever comes first—their parents buy them the newer model.

  Nobody at Woodley would waste time restoring an old muscle car. Why bother if you can buy a brand-new one?

  Chief finishes the diagram and turns to the class. “You’re driving a car with manual transmission and you get stuck on a hill in traffic. What happens if you let up on the clutch too fast when everyone starts moving again?”

  “Easy,” a guy calls out from the back. “The car stalls.”

  “Good to know I wasn’t talking to myself last year.” Chief pushes his Valvoline cap farther back on his head. “Anybody know why?”