Anyway, I’m really glad we got the gig and all, and it’s probably only because Audrey is so obsessed with the Bickersons that it went viral through the football team that we can turn a party out.

  So I’m drumming, and everything’s going fine. It seems like people are digging Gen’s songs, and we’re playing really well together, plus we’re getting paid a ton (maybe enough for me to buy myself a phone, I was thinking). Then around midnight, the party starts to get out of hand, like an R-rated version of those John Hughes movies Audrey is always trying to get me to watch: Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful. She’s memorized practically every line. She’s an incredible individual . . . I don’t want you to worry, because my only plans are to make sure that she’s taken care of. Poor Duckie. Sad tragic bastard. So out of his depth. Like me.

  Half of the McMansion is within range of the Bickersons, and in the other half a deejay is playing electro-house and dubstep. Basically there are some serious decibels going on, the beats colliding in the vaulted living room in the center of the house. Kids from all grades, plus some older ones who’ve already graduated, are devolving into crazed baboons, making every other party I’ve ever been to look like a church picnic. There are broken lamps, paintings being ripped from the walls, crushed plastic cups and food strewn everywhere. Stains on rugs and furniture, heaps of clothing pooled in the corners, sweat, partial nudity. Caligula 2.0.

  In the middle of our set I’m thirsty and out of breath, and somehow Audrey senses this and in a minute she’s around behind my drums handing me a pulpy-orange drink—and I just gulp it down. It’s the kind of party I’d be stressed to be at even if we weren’t playing a gig, but being in front of all these people acting so unpredictably feral, I’m starting to wig out.

  In the back of my mind I know my parents would be none too pleased about me being here. And, full disclosure: I’m sure a part of me knew the drink Audrey handed me contained vodka before I downed it, but I didn’t really care at the time, not enough anyway. Besides, what was one drink going to do? I wasn’t going to be driving home—when he picked me up at home and loaded my equipment, Gen promised my dad he’d get me back safe, and he’s been sober since before he got his driver’s license. Also, that time Andy and I snuck rum and Coke from his folks’ liquor cabinet one night when they left us home alone, I had two of them and barely felt anything. We just fell asleep on the couch with the PlayStation’s home screen glowing on the other side of our closed eyelids.

  It’s twelve forty-five a.m. I’m playing hard, banging through the set list, and bam, my head grows light. I strain to focus, and there’s Audrey directly in front of me, pogoing and thrashing like she’s the only person in the room.

  I glance into the backyard and notice that Jason and a few of his teammates are trying to throw that kid Danny into the pool, but somehow he manages to shake them off and beat it out of the yard through the heavy iron gates. Jason and the guys drain another keg of beer and kick it over, fixing to toss it into the pool like a buoy. One of them mounts the keg into the water, trying to ride it, but he slides off, and the barrel shoots up out of the water and lands on his head with an enormous splash. I’m thinking dude’s got to have brain damage, but Jason and his buddies don’t seem too concerned, and seconds later they blow into the room where we’re playing and start slam-dancing and knocking random people over on the dance floor. I spot Chloe and Brit exiting the scene, not down with the whole getting-toppled-to-the-ground vibe.

  Jason dance-steps over to Audrey and hip-checks her a couple times along with the beat, which totally changes her mood, and I want to go to her, but I’m a little busy. I can tell Chase is keeping a close eye on Jason too; even from behind, I know when he’s distracted by something other than the music.

  As we wrap up the first set, I scan the sea of partiers and realize Audrey has disappeared, nowhere to be seen. Gen hollers into the mic, “We’re the Bickersons, and we’ll be back in fifteen!” A lot of kids cheer, but I’m not really thinking about that.

  “Chase!” I holler. He can’t hear me. It seems like the deejay turned up whatever he was spinning in the other room as soon as we stopped playing. “Yo, Chase!” I scream.

  He turns around, irritated. “What?”

  “I’m going to find Audrey,” I say, thumbing in the direction of a separate wing of the house. My head is pounding from the bass. And the drink.

  Chase points to his ears indicating he can’t hear, so I just wave him off and go. Maybe it’s the woozy feeling from the alcohol, or the debauchery in every room, but I’m weirdly concerned about Audrey. I grip my drumsticks in my fist and head down a hallway with a rug so long it wouldn’t fit in the Taj Mahal. There are countless professional family photos hanging on the walls. One on the ski slopes, another on a pristine sandy beach, the whole family dressed in khaki and white. Yet another on safari in Africa, a giraffe running in the background. I crack open every door, poking my head in, and call, “Aud?”

  She’s not in the first four rooms I try. No answer in the last room either. It’s a library of some sort, but all the books look fake, like a library in Disney World. There are about a dozen taxidermy trophies on the wall, antelope, bears, boars—a freaking zebra! Can you even shoot those? I never understood why people want dead animals staring at them inside of their houses. Much less why they want to kill them in the first place. What feels good about that? I look up and see a row of weapons mounted on the opposite wall—long shotguns and swords with tassels, like a royal castle collection.

  It’s dark and quiet in here, and I take a couple steps into the room, and, “Oh, gah!” I screech, jumping back, terrified, as a full-grown polar bear appears behind the door, rearing up on two legs looking like it’s about to pounce on me. I laugh at myself for being so scared of a hollow dead thing. I remember there’s supposed to be something really special about polar bears’ fur, but I can’t recall what it is, so I reach forward, gently resting my hand on the pointy bristles of his forepaw.

  “There you are.”

  I know that voice. It’s Jason, and before I can turn to face him, he wraps his beefy arms around me from behind, squeezing me in a suffocating hug. He reeks of beer and chlorine and sweat. He’s also obviously drunk, and we almost fall down as he waddles me over toward the couch.

  “What are you doing?” I ask, testing to see if I can break free without seeming like I’m trying to. I can’t.

  “You know what I’m doing,” he taunts, slobbering on my neck. I try to wiggle out of his grip in earnest, but his hands are linked together tight in front of my chest. I can barely move. I fumble my drumsticks, watching as they roll under the couch. My thoughts turn to Tracy.

  She was right.

  I squirm harder, working to get an elbow in as leverage. He clenches even more.

  “You think you’re so funny, don’t you?” he jeers.

  “Jason, seriously. You’re hurting me,” I say, my voice on the edge of panic.

  At that, he releases his grip, spins me around, and pushes me down onto the couch, hard. I break my fall with my palms, but I hear something in my right wrist snap. “Ouch!”

  “Don’t act like you haven’t been wanting this since the minute you laid eyes on me,” he says, starting to unbuckle his belt.

  “Wanting what?” I am genuinely bewildered, struggling to get up, but he pushes me down, and I fall back on the same wrist, which is throbbing now.

  “Drop the innocent act,” he spits, unzipping his jeans.

  I push-kick him with both legs, intending to nail him in the nuts, but my heels miss and graze his right hip before falling uselessly to the ground. He stumbles, off-balance, but then he’s right back on me, pressing my shoulders flat. I can’t stand up, and my mind goes blank.

  “Cut the crap, Drew,” he hisses into my neck, trying to kiss me on the lips, but I keep turning my head side to side so he can’t land his mouth anywhere near me. He reaches for my waist, starts fumbling with my jeans, and before I know it, he’s yanking them down. My ass cheek is bare, and I know my emblem is exposed as Jason climbs on me, and I am so terrified, but I can’t scream. I open my mouth and nothing comes out. My body has separated from my brain, I am a ghost watching myself from above, shrieking inside, where no one can hear.

  Jason squeezes my chest with one hand, while the other holds me down. The disembodied me yells, Do something! but my actual body freezes, like a computer shutting itself down. I’m not here. This isn’t me. This isn’t happening to me.

  Jason’s pushing and grinding himself against me, but I feel nothing. I’m not there anymore. I’m gone. I don’t know where. I can barely hear him when he barks into my face over and over, “Come on now, come on!” Like I’m a recalcitrant animal, not following the rules.

  I close my eyes. There is nothing left to see.

  And then, from what feels like miles away, I register a door flinging open, and a savage roar, and Jason’s weight is suddenly lifted off me, and I jolt back to the present, every fiber of my being instantaneously flooding with shame.

  This is my fault.

  It is my first and only thought.

  This is my fault.

  “Pull up your pants,” I hear Chase’s voice as he clutches Jason by the back of his shirt and flings him around and into a set of iron fireplace tools. They clatter to the ground, Jason’s head bumping against the brick.

  “WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Chase yells, standing over Jason, arms out to his side, pulsating with rage like the Incredible Hulk.

  “Well, if it isn’t the little band faggot,” Jason heckles, and starts to laugh.

  The next instant Chase is pounding his fists one after the other into Jason’s face. It sounds like punching brick. Chase is half his size, but Jason is so wasted he can’t defend himself. Two, three, four thwacks, and now there is blood, but Jason keeps laughing, isn’t even trying to resist, in fact is almost enjoying it.

  “Chase!” I scream, bounding off the couch.

  But Chase doesn’t stop, just keeps battering Jason’s face over and over, more and more blood spewing out.

  “How do you like it?” Slam. “Yeah, you like that, you piece of garbage?” Slam. “You like being the one with no power?” Slam.

  I pull up my pants and race into the hall, yelling at the top of my lungs, “Help!”

  Some kids hear me, then dash to get Gen and Baron and another football dude, and I just point into the room, where Chase is still rearranging Jason’s face, nearly unrecognizable now.

  It takes three guys to pull Chase off. They hold him back, his knuckles swollen and bloodied. “I am going to destroy you,” Chase hisses, then spits on Jason, who just rolls back and forth on the ground, still conscious but out of it, his eyes puffed shut.

  “Answers. Now!” Baron demands, looking to me. And then a few more people come into the room, and everybody is glaring my way.

  “He was—”

  I can’t say anything. I can’t think. It was my fault. I knew.

  “Get him out of here,” Baron orders, and a couple guys drag Chase away, and Gen comes over, puts his arm around me. More and more people file into the room, Jason’s friends ushering him into the bathroom, trying to clean his face.

  Gen and I follow Chase out.

  “Did he hurt you?” Gen asks.

  I still can’t answer. How do you answer?

  The music has been turned off. Chase is in the living room sitting back on a couch, two guys lording over him like prison guards. Nobody saying anything. He’s just panting, cradling his right hand in his left.

  “Did he—?” Chase asks when he sees me, then suddenly breaks off, because now two police officers have arrived, wading through the mess of the house.

  “He attacked my friend,” Baron says, fingering Chase. Jason emerges from the hallway behind him, looking like a zombie, holding a blood-soaked towel to his face. He can barely walk, Chloe and a teammate supporting him on either side.

  “We need a bus,” one of the cops says into his radio as soon as he spies Jason’s condition.

  “I’m fine,” Jason croaks. “I don’t need to go to the hospital.”

  “Is this the gentleman who assaulted you?” the other cop asks.

  “Yes,” Jason replies, glancing between me and Chase. “It was him. He just jumped me out of nowhere when my girlfriend and I were in the study. I think he’s jealous or something.” He smiles, the whites of his teeth flashing in his bloody mouth.

  * * *

  What then?

  The cops put Chase in handcuffs and took him away in the police car with red strobes going, lighting up the cul-de-sac. And when the EMTs wheeled Jason away and put him into the ambulance, Audrey reluctantly at his side, he told the police he wanted to press charges against Chase. And when Gen told the policeman I had something to say, I explained that Jason wasn’t my boyfriend and that he was trying to hurt me—that Chase was only protecting me.

  The policeman asked, “Well, did he hurt you?”

  I didn’t know how to answer the question.

  He was about to, I was thinking.

  And: Yes, he did.

  But I didn’t say either.

  Not until just now.

  CHANGE 1–DAY 140

  My iPod was vibrating on the table beside my bed and jolted me awake.

  Clock reads 12:38. Wow, I really slept. My head is pounding, eyes stinging. I look over at the screen.

  Are u ok?

  It’s Audrey texting. In fact, there are three texts spaced about an hour apart, all asking a version of the same thing.

  I sit up in bed, squint at the window, where some sun is twinkling through the crack between the curtains. I don’t feel like dealing with Audrey now. Or anybody. The iPod buzzes again, I look over: J isn’t pressing charges. I told parents what he did.

  Last night comes rushing back in.

  What he did.

  I turn the iPod facedown. Flip open my laptop. I look over. It’s Chase on Skype. I thought he’d still be in jail or something.

  I pad across the room, make sure my door is shut, put on my headphones, and answer. His face pops up on the screen. He looks half-alive. Or maybe half-dead.

  “Hi,” he says, his voice lower than usual. “Are you okay?”

  “Where are you?” I whisper back.

  “My parents bailed me out this morning. I don’t know why, but the cops didn’t want to hold me.”

  “I’m really sorry, I . . .” I trail off.

  “What are you sorry for?” he asks, then falls into a coughing fit like he has TB or something.

  “For everything, all of it,” I offer as soon as the coughing stops.

  “This is not your fault,” he says deliberately, gravely. “You hear me?”

  “I shouldn’t have gone into that room and—”

  “Do you hear me? You. Did. Nothing. Wrong. That son of a bitch . . .”

  Then he looks like he’s about to cry. We sit there in silence, just staring at each other on the screen. I feel like reaching out and touching his pixilated face.

  “I wish I could hug you right now,” he says, then after a few seconds: “That shouldn’t have happened. You don’t deserve to be treated like that. Nobody deserves to be treated like that.”

  And then Chase is full-on crying. I’m at a loss. I feel like I should maybe look away, give him privacy or something. But he just takes a giant breath, then lets go. “I was molested when I was in sixth grade. When I was Brooke.”

  It hits me like a punch to the gut. And now I’m crying too. I try to stop.

  “It was a soccer coach,” he adds, like he’s in a trance.

  “Chase, I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay, it was a long time ago,” he says quickly, rubbing the rims of his eyes with the back of a hand. “It felt good to beat the shit out of Jason.”

  I nod.

  “I could’ve killed him. I mean, if you didn’t get people in there when you did, I think I would’ve killed him.”

  Chase starts sobbing again. I sit with it for a while. He recomposes himself, looks up. “I’m sorry. I-I don’t mean to lay all this baggage on you.”

  “Are you kidding? I’m glad you feel like you can—”

  “Drew.” Chase sniffs hard. I can see him swallow. “Do you ever wish we’d met before?”

  My heart jumps.

  “Because if we had, I’m pretty sure I would have wanted to be with you.”

  “I feel the same way,” I hear myself confess, a fresh dizziness coming over me.

  “I’m not sure I don’t want to be with you now,” he adds, leaning closer to the screen. “I know it’s forbidden. But I think about you all the time. It hurts when we aren’t together.”

  “Oh, Chase.” I’m reeling. So much is happening.

  “I don’t think it makes us bad people, do you?” he asks. “To be in—”

  My bedroom door flies open. It’s Dad. He spies my laptop screen. “What are you doing?”

  “Dad, I—”

  He looks closer at the screen, where Chase is just beginning to realize what’s happening. “I told you not to be in contact with that kid!” Dad yells. “And what do you go and do first thing?”

  “Sir, I—” Chase starts explaining through the tinny speakers.

  My dad reaches for the mousepad, clicks Hang Up.

  “Wait!” I yell, but it’s too late. Chase is frozen trying to explain himself.

  “Are you kidding me?” Dad asks. Then Mom pops her head into the room. “She’s Skyping with him,” he reports to her.

  They both look like I’ve just told them I’m running off with a meth-dealing carnie.

  “We’ve got a call into the Council, Tracy has been notified,” Dad starts. “And in the meantime, I mean it more than I’ve ever meant anything in your life: don’t talk to that boy until you hear differently.”

  “You don’t even know everything that happened!” I shout. Mom looks like she’s about to cry again.

  “I know enough,” Dad counters. “The rules are for your protection. The commandments aren’t a joke, Drew.”

  I lower my head, too tired to deal with any of this.

 

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21