I hadn’t been close enough to the other girls to see their deathdates. There could be more than one casualty next Wednesday. I balled my hands into fists, so frustrated because I didn’t know what to do.
“We have to warn her,” Stubby repeated more gently this time as he laid a hand on my shoulder. “I mean, we didn’t try hard enough with Tevon, and look what happened to him.”
I winced as if he’d struck me. “Ouch.”
Stubby immediately lifted both hands in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, sorry.”
I sighed. “No. You’re right. We can’t sit back and do nothing. We’ll warn her, but not here and not now.”
Stubs frowned. He didn’t like my answer. “Then when and how?”
“We have a couple of days. I’m pretty sure we can figure out how to get an anonymous message to her.”
“She’ll think it’s a joke,” he countered, looking again to the field.
“And what do you think she’ll decide if you go marching up to her right now and say, ‘Gee, not to upset you or anything, but you’re going to die on your birthday. Just thought you should know!’”
Behind us the roar of the crowd erupted again, but this time it was from the Poplar Hollow side.
Stubby stood there looking at the field for a long time, and I could tell he was wavering about what to do. “I promise you,” I told him, “we’ll figure out a way to warn her, Stubs. On my life I promise you, but please, not here and not now, okay? Let’s think of another place and time when there aren’t so many people around and in a way that doesn’t lead back to us.”
Stubby stared hard at me and sighed, then he looked down and kicked at the ground. “She can’t die, Maddie. We have to save her.”
I didn’t immediately reply because I had no idea what to say. If mere words could prevent someone from dying, then my dad would still be alive and so would Tevon Tibbolt. Still, after a long stretch of silence, what I said was, “I know, buddy, I know. But you have to trust me on this. We can’t say anything to her tonight.”
“Whatever,” he grumbled, turning away from me. “Let’s get outta here.”
I tried not to feel the sting of that cold shoulder, but it was hard. It got harder still when Stubby dropped me off in front of my house and without another word sped away. I knew he wasn’t angry with me per se, but it felt like he was, and I wished very much that I’d waited to tell him until after the game. I didn’t know how we were going to warn Payton without it coming back to me. I vowed to call Stubs in the morning and talk about it, but when I walked inside I found Ma on the floor, passed out cold. I cried out as I dropped to her side, momentarily panicked by finding her on the floor facedown. Grabbing her wrist, I felt for a pulse, and glimpsed an empty liter of vodka lying under the coffee table.
I closed my eyes in relief as I felt her pulse, which was slow but steady. When I strained, I could hear her breathing rhythmically, too.
With a tired sigh I got to work cleaning up, and then moved Ma to the couch. It took me a while because she was completely limp, but at last I got her situated and covered with the afghan. And then I stood in the doorway of the kitchen looking at her lying there on our beat-up old leather couch in a room that smelled like cigarettes, with dingy blue walls, and taupe carpeting littered with stains. I shut my eyes to block out the sight and thought about Aiden and how he’d smiled at me and mouthed the word Hi.
In an instant what’d filled me with such sunny happiness clouded over with a threatening storm. I opened my eyes and looked again at Ma and our house, and I knew that no boy would ever want to get close to a girl like me. A girl who lived in a house with threadbare carpeting and dingy walls that smelled like an ashtray. A girl who saw death in every face. Who was labeled a witch at school. Who had a drunk for a mother, and a father who’d died in a gunfight with drug dealers. A girl who was being investigated for murder by the FBI.
I was like a whirlpool of tragedy, and anybody who dared to get too close to me could get sucked in and drown. Like I was drowning right now.
And I knew that it would never be better. Our house would continue to slowly fall down around us. I would always see death. People at school would always think I was a witch. Ma would always be drunk. Tevon Tibbolt would always be dead, and so would my dad.
For years Aiden had been like the sun to me, shining brightly from the Jupiter sidelines. Tonight, for a brief moment, his star had nearly banished all of the misery right out of my world. But I finally realized that I should probably let go of living in the fantasy that a boy as beautiful as him could meet a girl like me and feel anything other than pity. I needed to accept that this was my reality, and nothing was ever going to change it.
With a heavy heart, I climbed the stairs to bed.
THAT WEEKEND WAS TERRIBLE. Stubby remained distant and didn’t call or even send a text all day Saturday. Not that I really noticed, because my hands were full with Ma. She had a really bad day looking online, trying to find a job, when there didn’t seem to be anything good available.
Then I caught her on the phone with Donny, asking him if I could just do a few readings a month, and he’d blown a gasket. I could hear him yell at her all the way across the room. After a few minutes, she slammed the phone down and headed straight for her stash. “Ma!” I snapped, once I saw her filling the big plastic cup. I couldn’t take it anymore. “If you’re going to get a job, don’t you think you should try and cut back a little?”
She glared hard at me, and before I knew it we were yelling at each other. Getting angry had never gotten Ma off the bottle, but I couldn’t help it. I yelled and yelled at her, and then I threw my hands up and headed upstairs. When I came back down a few hours later I realized she’d left.