Blood on My Hands

CHAPTER 8

Sunday 1:13 A.M.

MY PHONE VIBRATES. It’s Slade. I leave the playhouse and sprint across the yard and to the street. A pair of headlights is rolling slowly toward me. I grab the passenger-side door and get in. Slade starts to drive. I’m too overwhelmed to speak. Overwhelmed by what’s happened, overwhelmed by suddenly being close to him, by again sitting in this seat where I spent so much time when we used to drive to parties and keggers and secret hiding places.
“Thank you so much,” I manage to croak.
“It’s okay.” He’s got alcohol on his breath. It’s not surprising for a Saturday night, but should he be driving? I’m in no position to ask. The memory of Katherine’s body keeps coming back. Knowing her, I’d suspect that it was a ruse, a nasty trick. But it wasn’t. I felt for her pulse; I saw those wounds and all that blood. Unless it’s some kind of crazy dream I’ll wake up from at any moment, it’s real. I take a deep breath and force myself back to Slade.
“I … I meant everything I said on the phone.”
He doesn’t respond. Doesn’t look at me. Just drives.
So I tell him what happened tonight. How I found Katherine.
“You picked up the knife?” he asks, surprised.
“It was dark and I wasn’t sure what it was, and the next thing I knew, they were taking pictures.…”
“Of you holding the knife?”
“Uh-huh.” And I tell him how I thought of Sebastian and what everyone was bound to think and how Dakota said to call the police and I got scared and ran away. “That’s when I called you. I didn’t know what else to do. What do you think I should do?”
He’s quiet for a moment, then says, “Go to the police, Cal. Tell them what happened.”
“They’ll never believe me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“After what happened with my brother? And with my fingerprints on the knife? Are you serious?” I feel myself getting worked up.
“Calm down,” Slade says.
I take a deep breath. We ride along in the dark, and thank God he’s driving straight and at a steady speed. I don’t know where we’re going, but I know why he wants me to turn myself in. Because he’s honest and forthright and does the things you’re supposed to do.
“I won’t stand a chance. It’ll kill my mom. I can’t do that to her.”
Ahead, a police car with flashing lights screeches around a corner and races toward us. Panic seizes me and I duck below the dashboard and watch the red and blue lights illuminate the inside of the pickup’s cab. The police car zooms past. Back in the seat, my pulse still racing, I tell Slade, “We can’t drive around like this. People know about us. It won’t be long before the police start looking for you.”
He drums his fingers against the steering wheel. We go over a bump and the pickup rattles. I flinch, impatient and jumpy. This is a small suburban town and I feel like we’re a moving target. “Talk to me, Slade. Tell me what you’re thinking.”
Keeping his eyes straight ahead, he says, “You said you wanted to explain why you broke up with me.”
“I do, but not driving around like this. Make a left, okay?”
“The old EMS building?”
“Uh-huh.”
Just before the bridge over the train tracks, Slade turns into a driveway. The ride gets bumpy. The asphalt has broken up and there are ruts and potholes. Ahead is the old EMS building, empty now that emergency services has been transferred to the new town center.
Slade drives to a far corner of the parking lot, where trees block the moonlight and it’s almost as dark as it was in the playhouse. I lower the window and hear the distant hum of traffic from the thruway. Across the lot the old EMS building is dark and empty. Sometimes Slade and I hung out there with the EMS crew, playing pool or just talking and passing the time.
Cool night air drifts in through the open window. Slade is waiting for my story.
“What about Alex Craft?” Katherine asked one day at lunch. It seemed like the more I resisted her suggestion that I could find a better boyfriend, the more intent she became on proving it.
I rolled my eyes at her. A hush rippled through the other girls at the table. No one else dared roll her eyes at Katherine the Great. But while she might have beheaded another girl for it, Katherine tolerated it from me. Almost as if she knew that the more I needed her approval, the more I had to demonstrate my independence.
“Brianna, go ask Alex if he’d like to go out with Callie,” Katherine said to one of the far-end-of-the-table girls.
“Don’t,” I said, but Brianna was already rising. She was new at school that year, wore her long black hair in a ponytail, and was tall and athletic and played on the girls’ basketball team. But despite her size, she was quiet and unassuming, and sometimes you almost forgot she was there.
As Brianna started across the cafeteria to the table where Alex sat with some friends, I pretended to be embarrassed. But to be honest, I was a little curious. Alex was a major cutie. Not that I would ever go out with him. Everyone knew my heart belonged to Slade. But just the same, all of us watched. All of us, that is, except Katherine. I glanced in her direction and discovered that she was watching me, and that she’d no doubt seen the curious, almost excited, anticipation on my face as I waited to see how Alex would respond. Now instead of faking embarrassment, I truly did feel my cheeks grow hot as I realized that the whole thing had nothing to do with how Alex might answer, and everything to do with how I felt about his being asked.