Backwards. Part 14

"You're not." Tricia sat next to Cat. "I know you. And I know what you told me. You can't let Dan get away with this."

Cat hugged her knees.

"If you don't tell someone, he'll do it again," added Tricia.

"So it will be my fault?"

"Of course not. It's not your fault at all."

Cat scoffed. "Did you read that in a pamphlet somewhere?"

"What are you getting mad at me for?"

"Because I'm sick of you playing psychologist," said Cat. "All you do is follow me around. Live through me. I don't want to be part of your freak show anymore."

Tricia's face reddened. "Cat, you need to deal with this."

"There's nothing to deal with," Cat said, standing. "I'm not going to talk about this ever again."

After the last bell rang, I watched Cat leave school. She walked home alone. I didn't see Tricia anywhere. A car slowed alongside Cat as she approached the end of the parking lot. The pa.s.senger window rolled down, then a guy yelled, "Hey, Cat-Lip! What about me? I play football."

Cat looked over, stony-faced and dazed. Someone tossed a soda at her and laughed.

Dozens of people in the parking lot saw, but no one did anything. Most people just looked away. Others sneered or smirked.

Cat wiped her face on her sleeve and continued walking, eyes locked on the concrete in front of her. She didn't slow down until she was a couple blocks away. Then she tried to wipe more of the soda off her face, but it had mostly dried, leaving a sticky brown mess.

I followed her home. Her father was in the kitchen, getting ready for another long night at the bar. "I made waffles," he said. Tattoos of children's book characters decorated his arms - the dancing monsters from Where the Wild Things Are, Eeyore and Piglet from Winnie-the-Pooh, and Alice falling in a blue dress.

Cat looked at the waffle her dad set on the counter. It had two halves of a strawberry arranged for eyes and a whipped-cream smile.

Her blank expression started to crack. She ducked into her room and locked the door.

Cat's dad asked what was wrong. She tried to tell him she wasn't hungry, but she couldn't get her voice to sound normal. He lingered in the hallway, fiddling with the cigarettes in his pocket. "I have to go to work," he said through the door. "There are eggs for dinner if you don't want the waffle."

Once he was gone, she opened her soda-splattered backpack, pulled out her notebook, and turned to a blank page. At the top, she wrote two words: The Party.

After that, she didn't write a thing. She just stared at the blank page like she wanted to remember more, but she couldn't. Then she tore the page out and lit a candle - the same candle she'd use to burn the pictures of herself, only now it was taller. She opened her window and held the corner of the page over the flame until the paper caught.

When the flames were halfway up the page, she seemed to realize she had no place to drop it. She turned her hand so the flames curled away from her. Still the fire inched toward her fingers. She winced and clenched her teeth, but she didn't let go.

Flames licked her fingers, singeing her nails and skin.

Let it go, I urged.

She didn't. Perhaps she couldn't. Not really. How do you let go of something you can't remember?

At last, she shook the page away from her hand. There was only a tiny triangle of paper left where her fingers had been. It burned in the air, leaving a gray skein of ashes that broke apart and scattered into thousands of pieces, so light they barely even fell.

As soon as I returned to Dan's house, I checked the message on the wall, but it hadn't changed. WHATEVER YOU DO WILL MAKE THINGS WORSE.

The drugs wore off, leaving me jittery and out of sorts for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, I couldn't get Dan's body to fall asleep until late, probably because of the four-hour nap he'd taken. By the time I finally managed to slip out again, it was almost two in the morning.

I found TR lying on a picnic table in the courtyard of Cat's apartment complex, staring at the stars.

"You been inside?" I asked.

He nodded, but he didn't say anything.

I pa.s.sed through Cat's walls into her room, fearing what I'd find. She lay in bed, trying to sleep, but her hand seemed to be bothering her. She had an icepack by her pillow and she kept pressing her fingers against it and cringing. I hated that I hadn't been able to help her. When I slipped free of Dan, I was powerless. And when I was in him, I was the last person Cat would ever want to see.

Whatever you do will make things worse, I muttered. Such a pointless, paradoxical message. Trying to do nothing was the same as doing something. There was no way not to make things worse. So what the h.e.l.l was I supposed to do?

TR stepped in a few minutes later. "When you didn't show up at the C Spot, I came here to look for you," he said. "She was asleep by then. I think she burned her hand." TR must have seen that I was upset, because he added, "Don't blame yourself, dude. There was nothing you could do."

"You're right," I said. "I'd only make things worse."

"I didn't say that," replied TR.

"There was nothing I could do," I repeated, suddenly getting the message.

"It's just, you know, s.h.i.+t happens," TR continued. "You can't fix everything." He rambled on, trying to make me feel better, but I was too caught up in my thoughts to respond.

If the message was right, and everything I did, or Dan did, would make things worse, then there was only one solution. Someone else had to do something for Cat.

But who?

I read the message several times. Outside, the sun was s.h.i.+ning. Birds were chirping. The world seemed full of possibilities, while I contemplated death threats from a wall. h.e.l.l of a way to start the day.

Then again, at least the message was different. The way I saw it, the messages were like keys to doors. I didn't know which key was right until the door opened. And then the message would switch. So the fact that there was a new message meant I'd changed something. I'd opened a door.

Of course, I still didn't know who the "you" referred to - Dan or me? Dan was going to die in twelve days, anyway. Was that what the message meant, or did Dan need to die sooner, before he hurt Cat? And if I got him to kill himself, would I even exist?

Some things you can't think your way out of. Not ever. I tried to a.s.sure myself that when the time was right, the message would become clear. Until then, there was no point stressing about it.

I wolfed down some breakfast, grabbed Dan's varsity jacket from his room, and headed for the garage before Teagan could ask for a ride. I didn't want to deal with her on top of everything else.

The chill morning air slapped me awake. Frost glistened on the lawn and lined the edges of leaves. Good thing Dan's jacket had been hanging in his room instead of collecting dust in his locker. The heavy cloth and padded sleeves comforted me as I drove to school and shuffled to the front doors. I expected the usual silent treatment from the students gathered there, but the moment I arrived on campus, I was the center of attention.

"Hey, stud, have fun at the party?" asked one guy in a wink-wink way that made me want to simultaneously punch him and puke on my shoes.

All morning, guys asked me similar questions, grinning stupidly like they couldn't wait to hear my answer. Was this who Dan hung out with? If so, I could understand why he killed himself. I tried to ignore the guys, but the quieter I got, the more they pressed me for details while Dan grew increasingly irritated. And of course people asked about the wound on my forehead.

"I ran into a wall," I told Dave, this guy in Dan's second-period English cla.s.s. I still had no clue what had really happened, but I figured if I came up with a boring answer, people would lose interest and stop asking. Big mistake.

"A wall?" repeated Dave. "Were you drunk?"

"Did you fly into it, Superman?" teased another guy.

"Naw. He probably crashed through it, like the Hulk," joked his friend.

"Seriously, what happened?" asked Dave.

"I already told you, I ran into a wall," I said, but none of them bought it.

The rumors spread quickly after that. For the rest of the day, people questioned me about getting my b.u.t.t kicked by a gang or smacked by a tree branch or jumped by a ninja. I was more popular now than ever, and I hated it. Unfortunately, the more I downplayed things, the more people thought I must be hiding something juicy.

At lunch, Trent and Finn and a couple other guys at their table nodded to me, as if they expected me to sit with them. A few wore varsity jackets. Fellow football thugs. I approached the table, worried that Trent might say something about the jacket I wore, but he didn't. Everyone acted friendly.

"Hey, Danny boy," said Dave, the guy who'd given me c.r.a.p about my head wound earlier. "We were just talking about you."

"You were?" Dan churned. I had to stay calm. In control.

"It's all good," said Finn. He scooted over to make room for me. "Aren't you going to sit?"

I set my tray down next to Finn's, ignoring the rising tempest of Dan's thoughts. If I walked away, it might make things worse.

"You looked like you were heading someplace else," said Finn.

"No. I was just looking for someone." The excuse wasn't a complete lie - I'd been looking for Cat all morning, although I was fairly certain she'd skipped school today.

Finn raised an eyebrow. "Who?"

"His girlfriend," interjected Dave. "Cat-Lip."

"She's not my girlfriend," I said, a little too sharply. A few other guys looked over.

"Just a one-night stand, then?" teased Dave. "You heartbreaker. Is she the one who hit you?"

"Don't be an a.s.s," said Finn.

"What?" exclaimed Dave. "I just want to know if she was rough. I hear freaky chicks are rough."

"I heard she was trashed," said this guy with hair so blond it looked white. "You see those pictures of her online?"

"What pictures?" asked another guy.

I thought of the pictures Cat would mention tomorrow. The idea that there were photos of her from the night she'd been raped being sent around sickened me. No wonder her island kept sinking.

"She'd have to be trashed to sleep with Dan," joked Dave.

"That's not what happened -" I started to say, but Dan rebelled. My face flushed and my breath caught. I focused on pus.h.i.+ng him back.

"Whatever," said Dave. "Everyone knows you two did it."

"I'd do her," boasted Trent.

"Cat-Lip?" asked Dave. "You serious?"

"She's got a nice body."

"Dude, she's not all that."

"I'm telling you, you've got to see these pictures."

Dan raged, and my hold began to weaken.

Luckily, Finn intervened. "Grow up, will you?" he said, glaring at the other guys. "You're acting like a bunch of sixth graders."

"We were just joking around," said Dave. "What's the big deal?"

"How would you like it if I made fun of your girlfriend?" asked Finn.

"I don't have a girlfriend."

"Exactly." Finn smiled, and several guys at the table nodded or chuckled. Immediately, the tension began to dissipate. Even Dave seemed to concede that Finn had a point.

"Don't call her Cat-Lip," Finn said. "She's Dan's girl. So we need to be nice to her. Right, Dan?"

Everyone's attention s.h.i.+fted to me.

I stood, not sure how much longer I could hold him off. I needed to get away. Go someplace quiet until things calmed down.

For a second, my vision blurred. I stumbled and nearly fell. Then Finn was next to me. He put his hand on my shoulder and steered me toward the edge of the cafeteria.

"Don't listen to them," he said. "They're just jealous because you got some action."

I looked at Finn, perplexed. Did he really not know what Dan had done?

"Relax, man. We're on the same team," continued Finn. "That's more important to me than some girl. Let's just forget the whole thing, okay?"

"No," I said. Cat deserved better than this. My face twitched and head jerked as I struggled with Dan.

"Look," said Finn, pitching his voice so only I could hear. "We don't need to make a bigger deal out of this than it is. What's done is done." He squeezed my shoulder. Hard. "Now, come on." He tugged me back toward the table.

"Let go," I said. Maybe I should have been grateful to Finn for helping me out, but Dan wouldn't calm down. He kept raging against me, making my head scream.

Finn's grip tightened. "I'm trying to look out for you, Danny. I throw the ball, and you catch it. That's all you got to do. That's how we win."

I was trembling now. "Let go of my arm."

"What's your problem? If anyone should be p.i.s.sed, it's me," Finn said. "I'm the one she liked."

My control slipped for an instant. That's all it took. Dan's presence flooded into the gap and forced me aside. He wrenched his arm free and shoved Finn into a lunch table. Milk cartons spilled and trays clattered to the floor.

Finn scrambled to his feet. "Settle down," he ordered.

Dan's face burned. I'd never felt anything like it. His eyes narrowed and his ears throbbed with the pulse of his own blood as he charged after Finn. He'd become completely unhinged. It was like the fight in Cat's secret house, when he'd been so clumsy with rage he kicked over the candles and started the place on fire. Both moments seemed st.i.tched together, tight as the halves of a baseball.