Blood on My Hands

CHAPTER 13

Sunday 7:36 A.M.

IN MY DREAM they are chasing me through the beer-kegger woods. Dakota, Mia, and the other kids, the police, the EMS squad, even Ms. Bernard, my French teacher from the fourth grade, who used to get angry when I chewed on the ends of my pens …
The sound of knocking wakes me. My heart banging like a drum circle, I sit up straight and look around. It takes me a second to remember where I am. My eyes go to the window and meet Slade’s. He’s peeking in.
Now it comes back—why I am sleeping on this cold floor instead of in my cozy, warm bed. It’s weird when you wake up from a bad dream and everything is still bad.
Tired and stiff, I get up and unlock the door. Cool, fresh air pours in as Slade enters with a brown paper bag and stares at my jeans. I look down and see why: there are ugly brownish stains on the thighs, stains we couldn’t see last night in the dark.
Katherine’s dried blood.
Our eyes meet. He frowns. “What happened to your face?”
I touch my face. In some places it stings. In others I feel the tiny ridges of scabs. “From running through the woods last night. I got scratched.”
His forehead bunches. Is he wondering if I’m lying? “You don’t think I got them from fighting with Katherine, do you?”
He shakes his head, slides into an old chair, puts down the bag, and grimaces as he massages his knee. “Chief Jenkins was on TV this morning. They want to talk to you. They’re calling you a person of interest.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugs, as if he doesn’t know. But I have to wonder. “You think it’s a trap? Like they’re hoping that if I hear I’m a person of interest and not a suspect, I’ll just stroll through the front door of the police station and save them the trouble of looking for me?”
Slade scowls. “You really believe they think that way?”
“Yes.” I feel my heart twist. I remember the first time I tried to tell him that I wanted to break up with him. All I could do was stare at the computer screen with tears welling up in my eyes. And Slade, sitting on his bunk bed in Georgia with his laptop, asked what was wrong and I said that nothing was wrong and I’d merely gotten something in my eyes and it was making them tear. Of course he believed me, because I’d never lied to him before.
“And if they are telling the truth and I really am just a person of interest, then it’s not going to hurt if I stay away a little longer, right?”
He looks away and his mouth twists. I know him well enough to know there’s something else on his mind. So I ask, “What is it?”
“Nothing.” He hunches over, elbows resting on knees, his hands together, fingers knitted.
“Come on, I know you. Tell me.”
Our eyes meet. He heaves a sigh. “That picture of you with the knife, kneeling next to Katherine’s body? It’s all over the Internet—Facebook, Twitter, everywhere. And this morning, when Chief Jenkins was on TV, they showed a photo of you from the yearbook. There’s not a single person in this town who doesn’t know who you are and what you look like.”
It’s obvious that I’m their number one suspect. That “person of interest” stuff is pure bunk.
Each May, just before Memorial Day, the PACE program put on its spring performance. Last year it was scheduled for the Friday night after Slade had left for National Guard training, and as a result, I was feeling pretty down. When Jodie, who was probably the sweetest and most thoughtful of Katherine’s group, texted to ask if I needed a ride to school, I texted back that I didn’t think I was going.
A few minutes later the phone rang. It was Katherine—the first time she’d ever called me. Usually she just sent texts.
“You should come,” she said. “It’s always fun and the cast party is a blast.”
I felt my mood lift and instantly changed my mind. The mere fact that Katherine had made the effort to call and ask me to come was huge. She and Dakota were in the midst of the longest and biggest fight anyone had ever seen. Did it mean she intended to replace Dakota with me as her closest friend?
The performance was a revue, with skits and dances. Katherine and Zelda had choreographed a modern dance. Jodie did a funny monologue about a family in which everyone stole batteries from each other’s TV remotes and toys.
Afterward I went backstage for the cast party. It was the first time in weeks I’d seen Katherine and Dakota in the same room, but neither spoke or even looked at the other.
It turned out that the backstage gathering wasn’t the party Katherine had been talking about. The real cast party was where we all went next—at Alex Craft’s house, where the punch was replaced by beer, wine coolers, and hard liquor.
Usually at parties I didn’t drink more than a beer or two, but that night, because Slade had just left and I wanted to stop stressing, I let go and had a screwdriver. But the boy who mixed it made it too strong, so I went into the kitchen to add more orange juice.
I was looking in the refrigerator when I felt someone behind me. It was Dakota, holding what looked like a screwdriver in her hand. Smiling, she said, “Looking for the orange juice?”
I nodded. “Can’t find any.”
Dakota pressed in beside me and peered into the fridge. She pulled out a bottle of cranberry juice. “This will work.”
She poured some into our glasses and we raised them. “To summer, and no more school,” she toasted.
I didn’t think she’d meant it maliciously, but I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. I was dreading the end of school and the summer without Slade. Not wanting to think about that right then, I took a big gulp of my drink, even though it still tasted way too strong.
Dakota took a sip and asked, “Heard from Slade?”
I started to explain about the no-phone-calls rule and suddenly burst into tears. I’m sure it must have caught her by surprise, because I’m the last person anyone would accuse of being a drama queen. Dakota put her arms around me, and the next thing I knew, I was bawling on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry.” I sniffed, embarrassed.
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” she said. “It was a stupid thing to ask. I wasn’t thinking.”
When I calmed down, I went looking for a bathroom to wash my face. The downstairs bathroom was being used, so I went upstairs; only the vodka made me dizzy and I wasn’t sure which door led to the bathroom. The first one I tried was a bedroom and Jodie and Zelda were inside. They were sitting on the bed with their faces close, and when I walked in, they jumped apart and both turned red, making me wonder if they’d been talking about something they didn’t want me to hear.
I apologized for barging in, then found the bathroom and washed up. When I walked back out, the door to the bedroom was open and Jodie and Zelda were gone. Still feeling dizzy, I went downstairs and outside to get some fresh air. Alex’s parents had white wicker furniture on the porch and I sat in a wicker love seat. The air was cool and springlike, and pretty soon things stopped spinning and I began feel better. Then the front door opened and Katherine came out. “Want some company?” she asked, sounding sweet and concerned.
“Sure.”
She sat down beside me in the love seat. “How are you feeling?”
“A little better, thanks,” I said.
Katherine moved close and put her arm around my shoulders. She’d never done anything like that before. “You really love him.”
“I think so.”
“You just think so?” she asked.
“No, no, I mean yes, I really do.”
“It’s amazing, you know?” Katherine said.
“What is?”
“Just that you can be so sure. I mean, like, at our age. And you are sure, aren’t you?”
It was strange how she always seemed to know what was on my mind. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I mean, yes, I’m sure I love him, but I’m not sure what I’ll do if he gets sent overseas for a long time. I won’t be seventeen until almost July. It feels too young to have to wait so long.”
“I can imagine.”
I turned and looked at her. “You can? Really?”
Katherine nodded sympathetically and hooked her light brown hair behind her ear. She was wearing ear knots with little green whales. “Sure. Like you said, we’re sixteen. How can we really know what we want?”
I looked into her eyes, which that night were unexpectedly kind and caring. “Can I tell you a secret?”
She nodded.
“Sometimes I feel like I need Slade more than I want him. Like we’ve been together for so long that I’m afraid of what life would be like without him.”
Katherine squeezed my shoulder. “I think you’d be fine.”
The front door opened and Dakota came out. When she saw Katherine and me, she stopped and stared, then spun around and went back inside, slamming the door so hard behind her I thought the glass might break. Beside me, Katherine sighed loudly, then said, “Sorry, I have to go.”