Brandon. He said all the right things. He halfway convinced her he’d changed. He showed her all during that school year until she fully believed him. She was unaware of the abuse he doled out in secret. She had no idea what he did or said when she wasn’t around him. He tricked her. He promised he was a good person, but he wasn’t. At least, there wasn’t much goodness there.
So what about Jeremy? She realized she could have read him all wrong. Yeah, she knew what those pages said, but her righteous side almost justified it. And anyway, she’d gotten it wrong before. What made her think she wasn’t wrong this time?
“I’m not good at reading people,” she said. “I think.”
Pam raised her eyebrow. “Okay. Well, are you able to read my facial expression right now?”
Regan stared blandly. “You want me out of here because you have a lot of work to do?”
“See? You’re not as bad as you think,” Pam said.
Regan hesitated, pulling the notebook away from her chest and looking down at it.
“So, Regan, tell me what you need so that I can get back to these phones.”
“Umm . . .”
A parent walked in, and Pam greeted her. Regan stood to the side, weighing her heavy options. Neither seemed fair. Neither seemed right. It was the first time she saw the world in hues of gray. Before, everything was black and white. Right and wrong. Easy.
“When you figure it out, you come see me,” Pam said quietly.
Regan jumped, unaware that the secretary had left her post to come stand beside her. Pam placed her hand on Regan’s back and steered her gently out of the office.
Regan stood in the doorway, clutching the notebook, staring right at Jeremy. His eyes went wide as they fastened onto his journal cradled protectively against her chest. They moved from the notebook to her face, narrowing slightly, like he was already devising the plan for her ruin.
A wave of students blocked her view, and his eyes disappeared. When the hall cleared, she saw him again. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t stopped staring. But this time his eyes changed. He glared at her with suppressed anger.
He made no move toward her. She was convinced he could see her heart thumping madly inside her chest. Another string of students. Out of sight. Back again. Still staring her down. He was thinking of all the ways he planned to dismember her. She was convinced of it. She wanted to run back into the office, but her feet were stuck in the mud of indecisiveness.
“It’s the worst quality ever!” she screamed at Casey one day. “Make a decision! Smart people are decision-makers!”
Make the decision, Regan. Pick up your feet and run.
They wouldn’t listen.
Pick up your feet and run! she screamed inside. Do you wanna die today?
The thought was absurd. Or was it? She knew everything: the guns, the targets, the plan in every small detail. It wasn’t crazy to think she’d become a part of that plan now. And she injected herself! He didn’t tell her. He didn’t force her to read his words. She made the terrible decision on her own—the decision to know. “Knowledge is power”—the line kept mocking her. She had no power. She held his notebook in her hands—all the knowledge of his murderous plot—but held no power over him. She was terrified of him instead.
Another large crowd obstructed her view. When it cleared, he was gone. She panicked, whipping her head in every direction. He would pop up out of nowhere like the villain does in a horror movie and slice her head off. He wouldn’t even give her a chance to run. Not make it a game. Some of them like the chase, but he wouldn’t be one of them. Just swoosh! No head.
“I want my head, I want my head, I want my head, I want my head,” she whispered frantically, tears stinging her eyes.
She bolted to her locker. Brandon was there.
“Hey,” he said, a note of concern in his voice. “You okay?” He leaned down and kissed the top of her head.
She nodded.
“You don’t look okay,” he said, tilting her chin up. He frowned. “You’re crying. What’s wrong?”
“I, uh . . . just a really bad headache,” she said.
He grew more concerned. He believed her. She suffered every now and again from migraines.
“Regan, you need to go to the nurse now,” Brandon replied. “What if it gets worse?”
He sat with her for hours several months back when she developed a migraine. She was laid out on the living room floor after a few bouts of vomiting, and he was crazy with worry. Her parents were gone, and he didn’t know how to help her. The medicine proved ineffective, so he convinced himself it wasn’t a migraine at all but rather an aneurysm.
He called an ambulance. He remembered the E.M.T.’s careless remark as he checked Regan’s vitals—“This’ll cost you”—and wanted to beat his face in.
“I’m totally fine,” Regan said. “I promise. I already took something for it.”
Brandon scowled.
“Don’t call an ambulance,” she said, trying for a joke.
“Not funny.”
She forced a smile and kissed his cheek. “Walk me to first period?”
He smiled. “Okay.”
She stayed glued to his side all the way down the hall. He said goodbye at the door.
“Walk me to second period?” she asked before he left.
“And third and fourth and all the rest?” he teased.
She nodded, wiping a stray tear.
“Someone bothering you?” he asked.
“No.”
He studied her for a moment. “You sure?”
“Yep.” She kissed his cheek again. “I just want your company.”
“Cool,” Brandon replied.
Once she was in Room 27A, she breathed relief. For fifty minutes, anyway, she was safe.
***
He watched her all day. Every now and then she glanced his way, in between classes at their lockers. Sometimes in class. He never once felt the need to confront her. He was safe for now. She still had his journal, after all. He saw the glimpses of red throughout the day. It never left her side. He was never called to the office. The secrets remained guarded.
His heart plummeted when their eyes met that morning. And then the anger bubbled up in his chest almost immediately. The things she must know! He knew she read it. A girl would have read it. Fucking girls. It was written all over her guilty face, her deer-in-headlights eyes. Her body language. He saw the imperceptible tightening of his words against her chest—her biceps flexing as she secured his notebook to her body. Like she owned it. Like she owned him.