“What, you’ve got big dreams then? Like he’ll take you with him?” Lucia laughed. She couldn’t help it. This fucking town.
“Why not? Maybe.” Taylor shrugged. “But not with you running your mouth all over. Nope. Not that way for sure.” Taylor grabbed Lucia’s arm then, her knuckles white, tight against her skin. Taylor got close, her breath candy sweet, her face red and shining, her mouth black, open. “Remember that night at the mill? You thought you were special. You thought he didn’t kiss everyone. That was years ago, we were practically kids. And now, you still think you’re special.”
“I don’t think I’m special. No one thinks I’m special.” Lucia tried to pry Taylor’s fingers off her arm, but they held strong, like a vise.
“All anyone ever talks about is you. Even Andrew—where’s the witch tonight?—like they want you around but they hate you, too. Even now, two years later, he’s so into you, of all people. You think you’re so smart with your philosophy and tarot cards, your artsy drawings. Your stupid druggie brother, your runaway dad. Everyone feels sorry for you. But you’re just a freak. And the only one who knows it is me.”
Lucia wrenched her arm away and backed up through the clearing. Taylor smiled a little but her eyes went dead in a way Lucia had never seen, her cheeks fevered and hot, and suddenly Lucia was there, right at the edge, the embankment looming behind her like a black shadow. Taylor was still walking toward her, her mouth moving, her words crawling into Lucia, into her mouth and down into her stomach, roiling and rolling until she felt like she was going to throw up.
Taylor stopped right in front of her, blinking, her face twitching. “Maybe everyone would just be happier if you were dead.”
Her hands were on Lucia’s chest, a single, air-sucking jab, like a punch, and Lucia felt herself flying backward, into the air, the sprinkling water cold on her face, her arms, and for a split second, she felt easy, light.
Free.
Then she started to fall.
CHAPTER 41
Alecia, Friday, May 15, 2015
“She’s awake.”
Nate stood in the waiting room doorway, a swaggering stance she’d gotten used to over the years, but still somehow seemed to startle her when she saw it: thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets, a lock of blond hair falling over his eyes. Like she’d married a boy.
“And?” Alecia stood, her book falling to the floor, her breath caught in her throat.
“Two broken legs. A few broken ribs. Miraculously, no concussion.”
“Okay. I’ll be in.”
Nate lingered a minute, some unspoken plea caught in his open mouth. Then he left her there.
It was early Friday morning, but there was already a paper at the nurses’ station. Alecia touched it with her fingertip, twirling it around to read the headline.
Student Charged in Death of Mt. Oanoke High School Senior
Friday morning, a student at Mt. Oanoke High was charged with the murder of Lucia Hamm, 18, a senior at Mt. Oanoke high who has been missing since May 4, 2015.
Nathan Winters, a teacher at Mt. Oanoke High, was previously suspected in Hamm’s disappearance. Winters has been cleared of any involvement in the missing persons case, but is still under investigation for his alleged relationship with Hamm. His job has not been reinstated at this time.
Tad Bachman, the high school principal, had no comment on the case or the status of Winters’s teaching position at this time.
“Yeah, I think he slept with that student. It’ll all be swept under the rug now,” said Rob Minnow, father to junior student Kelsey Minnow. “My daughter will be a senior next year, likely to have him as a teacher. People love him. I’ve never understood why. Baseball, I guess.”
Alecia stopped reading. The early morning light, pink and orange, streaked through the windows, lighting up the waiting room like the inside of a Christmas bulb.
What she believed about Nate seemed just as na?ve and rose colored.
Did he sleep with a student? No.
Was he attracted to his student? Maybe.
Did he kill her? No.
Anyone else would have kicked him to the curb.
The Wednesday before, the day that ended up inadvertently acting as Nate’s alibi, thanks to a well-timed Chinese food receipt that he happened to sign for, she’d felt the first prick of hope. That day at Gabe’s doctor’s appointment, they told her they were taking him off one of his meds, the one that gave him stomach pains and diarrhea, the one she’d begged them to take him off of for months. Nate had come, for the first time in as long as she could remember. She’d texted him on a whim and he showed up, hesitantly in the waiting room, his thumbs hooked in his jeans pockets.
He’d been patient.
They exchanged a smile over Gabe’s head.
It wasn’t everything. But it was something. The start of something or the end of something, it was always so hard to tell. Sometimes they looked the same.
She watched Nate with Gabe and realized, with a sudden, sinking clarity, that he did do one thing well that she did not. The thing that Linda had urged her to do: accept. Nate had always been more accepting of Gabe in his weirdness, his messiness, his Gabeness. Nate’s impatience came from Alecia more than from his son: the money and energy Alecia insisted they spend trying to fix him. He didn’t care about the therapies, the herbal medicines, the diets, and the rituals that made up “living with Gabe.” Nate was happier to simply live with Gabe.
Bridget’s room was filled with people: Nate and Tripp on one side, Petra on the other, a nurse taking her blood pressure, clicking off the beats with her acrylic nails then flashing big white teeth at them. “All good!”
Both of Bridget’s legs were in giant black-and-blue Velcro air casts up to her thighs. Her hair was matted and damp, her face scrubbed clean and shining.
Tripp, closest to the bed, had his hand resting beside Bridget’s. Alecia glanced over to Petra, feigning ignorance, and wondered if she noticed. She must. The room vibrated when they looked at each other.
Alecia wondered when it happened.
“Bridget was the hero,” Nate said. “If it wasn’t for her, well . . .” He’d left the rest unsaid, and Alecia swallowed her shame, looked away. Studied Bridget’s chart, the wall, the fire extinguisher instructions.
Bridget talked, filling in the gaps, her voice halting and croaky: Lucia framed Nate for the affair. She’d come onto him and he rejected her. On top of that, Nate questioned the validity of her rape claim (at this, Nate had the decency to look down, ashamed). Petra examined her fingernails the whole time.
She was only supposed to disappear long enough to make Nate sweat it out, get him fired, end his marriage. But she never came back. Taylor went looking for her, they argued, Taylor pushed her over the edge of the embankment. Just like Taylor pushed Bridget.
Taylor, so in love with her best friend’s rapist that she killed to protect him. Was everyone really so desperate to leave this place?