? ? ?
I spent my lunch sitting outside the library, trying to comprehend how my life had gotten so fucked up. First my father left, then Jesse. Neither Charlie nor Marcus told me anything I hadn’t already considered.
It has been 268 days since I got the phone call from Mrs. Franklin telling me Jesse committed suicide. He left no note, gave no explanation, but I still know it was my fault. He killed himself because of me. Because I loved him too much or not enough. I don’t know why; all I know is that it was my fault.
Charlie’s and Marcus’s words festered in me, and by the time I got to PE, I wanted to hurt someone, anyone. To make them feel how I felt. Narrow rows of lockers separated by benches, fellow students changing into their gym clothes, and the pungent odor of sweat and body spray made my skin itch. I wanted to get dressed for class and get out as quickly as possible.
I shouldered past a couple of kids, and opened my gym locker. Nickels poured out. There had to be hundreds of dollars worth of them spilling to the floor, and I just stared as they fell.
Adrian Morse stood a few feet away by the water fountain with Gary Neuman, Chris Weller, and Dean Gold, laughing his ass off. It must have taken them at least an hour to get all those nickels into my locker, all for a moment’s cheap laugh.
The sound in my ears narrowed until all I could hear was that psychotic cackle. I felt something inside me break in that moment. It wasn’t just what had happened that day; it was as if all the preceding days, all the hate I’d been hoarding and the guilt I’d buried, erupted, breaking my ability to contain them any longer. I ran toward Adrian and launched myself at him, not caring if he beat the crap out of me. I swung wildly, a berserker bloodlust overriding my rational mind. I screamed at him, but can’t remember what I said.
Adrian tried to protect his face, but my fist connected with something solid, and that only made me fight harder. It seemed like hours but was probably only seconds before he kneed me in the crotch, knocking the breath out of me. I fell to the ground, and he kicked me, but I roared back and tackled him, slamming his back against the lockers, pounding him with my fists. I was beyond pain, beyond all reason. I didn’t care about anything. Not me, not Jesse, not Marcus. The world was ending, and there were no more consequences. I think I was going to kill him.
Coach Raskin wedged himself between us, yelling at us to break it up, and wrestled me away from Adrian. I struggled to free myself from his powerful grip, but Coach was too strong for me. I shook myself loose and glared at Adrian, sprawled on the locker room floor. Blood ran from his nose, and I smiled. I spit at his feet and left.
? ? ?
Mom didn’t talk to me until we were in the car. She’d come straight from work, still in her uniform, her apron stained with ketchup and potato soup. After I buckled my seat belt, I examined my bloody, bruised knuckles. My hand hurt when I flexed it, but it was a good hurt. An anchor.
Because Adrian had started it with the nickels, Principal DeShields opted for a month of Saturday detentions rather than suspension. I would have preferred the suspension.
“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten into you, Henry Jerome Denton?”
“That asshole had it coming.”
Mom slapped me across the face. My cheek stung, and I touched my jaw while she glowered at me. “You sound like your father.” She cranked up the radio and peeled out of the parking lot, headed for home. My mom had never hit me before, but I think I deserved it.
“It’s true, you know.”
“What is?”
I turned down the music. “That Adrian deserved it.”
“That doesn’t excuse fighting.”
“I know.”
Mom sighed, shook her head. “It’s been rough for you, Henry, I know, but you can’t do this. You’re flunking three classes, getting into fights. I hardly see you because you’re always locked in your room.”
I wanted to tell her she’d know what was going on with me if she ever bothered to ask, but she was so concerned with Charlie and Nana, or too tired from working to bother with me. Aliens abduct me, and she pretends I’m sleepwalking. My boyfriend killed himself, and we don’t even talk about it. Like my father, Jesse’s name just disappeared from her vocabulary. I would have told her anything, everything, if she had asked, but I knew she wouldn’t.
“If the world were going to end, but you could stop it, would you?”
Mom drove for a while without answering. I thought she hadn’t heard me, and I leaned my head against the window. Finally she said, “Some days I think I would. Other days, probably not.”
“What about today?”
Mom’s shoulders bowed downward. “What do you think, Henry?”
Nanobots