All We Have Left (7 page)

Some girls hate gym, but I love running and I’m pretty coordinated, so I didn’t want to skip it, and I didn’t want to get into trouble either for not dressing out.

“Maybe you can call your mom from school and have her bring your gym clothes during her lunch break,” Kaitlin says.

“Sure, okay,
not
going to happen.” I pull away from them. “I’m going to go back and get my stuff.”

Tanjia frowns. “You’ll be late.” She is always on time, wherever she goes, and she doesn’t get why I’m always five minutes late to everything in my life.

“Not if I hurry,” I say. “I can’t afford to get in trouble today, not with the whole joint thing hanging over my head.”

We say our good-byes, and Tanjia calls, “Good luck!” as I head back down the wide sidewalk toward my building.

Nick and I walk in silence to his car, snow crunching under our feet, and I’m wishing I had the nerve to grab his hand, wanting to feel his warm fingers on my cold ones.

Nick nods at an old beater, and I get in, hugging my arms to me in the icy interior.

“Your brother’s dead, huh?” he says after he pulls out onto the road.

People ask about Travis sometimes, usually around 9/11 when the yearly article about him in the local paper comes out, but it’s always with a note of awe, as if somehow having a brother who died on 9/11 makes me special.

I think about my mother and the wax-covered birthday cake, and shiver.

“Yes, he’s dead,” I answer.

“I wish mine was,” he says, and I look at him in surprise, because this is not the way these conversations usually go, but he doesn’t say anything else.

A few minutes later, Nick pulls the car off the road under some trees, and we walk toward the baseball fields. Two figures step out of the darkness.

“What’s up, brother?” a guy says, coming up to Nick and giving him a fist bump.

“Dave, Jesse. Jesse, Dave,” Nick introduces us briefly, the cold vapor of his breath fogging the space between us.

Dave is shorter than me, muscular and scrappy like a wrestler. He looks familiar, and as he turns to flick out a cigarette, I see in the dim light that he’s wearing an oversized camouflage coat, the name “Tucker” sewed onto the front of it.

Tucker. Craig Tucker. Three or four years ago Craig Tucker came home from Afghanistan with only one leg. I remember now that Dave’s his brother. He and I share something then, a brother who makes us memorable for all the wrong reasons.

We nod at each other without speaking.

“You know Hailey?” I realize with a small shock that the other shadowy person is Hailey Brinson. Hook-Up-Hailey, who reportedly has a thing for Nick.

What the …?

Hailey comes slowly over to us. She is all wavy blue-black hair and dark eyeliner and breasts. They are roughly the size of the Grand Tetons and are on display in a low-cut tank top barely covered by a flannel shirt, despite the cold.

“Hey,” she says, and her voice is unenthused.

“Hey.” My voice is equally unenthused.

“She’s coming with us?” Dave nods at me. He doesn’t seem unfriendly, just sort of surprised.

Nick seems completely unaware of any awkwardness. “Yeah, she’s coming with us.”

Hailey gives me a measured stare, shakes her head, and looks away.

“Let’s start at the bathroom. They’ve already buffed us out from last time,” Nick says. “Jesse, be our lookout, okay?”

I go where I’m told, though I have no idea what I’m supposed to be looking out for. Shooting stars? Clowns doing magic tricks? An exploding bathroom?

The park is empty, and I stand under a tree. Nick, Dave, and Hailey are in the shadows near the restroom, and I hear bags unzipping, and then the unmistakable
shk-shk-shk
of a can being shaken rapidly. A few moments later I smell paint.

I get it now, and my palms go sweaty. I look across the baseball field, blanketed in snow, but I don’t see anyone. Cars are moving on a nearby street, and I watch them, hoping one doesn’t turn into the park, police lights flashing.

I’ve never done anything illegal in my life. I’ve always been the good kid, the take-up-as-small-a-space-as-possible kid. What have I got myself into?

It’s over in a couple of minutes. The smell of paint fades, and I can hear bags being zipped back up.

“Wanna see?” Nick calls softly, and I go toward the back of the restroom.

A word in big, black bubble letters covers the side of the building. It’s dark, so it takes me a minute to get it.

NOTHING

Just like Nick’s tattoo.

“What does it mean?” I ask.

“Mean? It’s our tag. It’s our name. Haven’t you seen it before?”

I shake my head. I’d noticed some graffiti here and there, but I’d never paid much attention to it. The scrawled words were usually cleaned up by the store owner by the next day, something ephemeral and loud, but quickly silenced.

Nick seems disappointed. “That’s why we’re bombing tonight,” he says. “The goal is to do as many tags as we can. Eventually they’ll
have
to notice.”

Nick has it down to a science, so it takes him only a few minutes to do each tag. Hailey and Dave carry the paint, I act as lookout, and Nick does the tag, writing “Nothing” over and over again, on the side of a bank, a bus, on the sides of closed shops. Behind a Mobil gas station, I watch him. He’s so intense, his teeth indenting his lower lip as he concentrates on the long, sure strokes. I am imagining him focused on me like that when a car pulls into the parking lot.

“Go, go, go!” Dave yells, and he and Hailey grab the bags and take off. Nick stays a moment longer to finish the tag, and then grabs my hand. He pulls me down an alley toward a fence at the far end, and we both duck to avoid a window AC hanging precariously out a first-story window.

“Hey! Hey!” someone yells, and I can hear the sound of heavy footsteps.

Nick and I hit the fence together with a clatter of squealing metal. Dave has already made it to the top and leaps down. Hailey is having more trouble, making mewling sounds as she climbs. I swarm up the fence, Nick right behind me. I stop and look down at Hailey. Her face is panicky and pale as she stares up at me, and I reach my hand toward her. She hesitates a moment.

“I’m so tired of you kids!” someone yells from behind us. “I’m calling the cops and you’re going to PAY!”

Hailey grabs my hand and I pull her to the top of the fence and we jump together. I land lightly, feeling a thrill of something unexplainable and addictive. We head down the road, and I hear the guy chasing us hit the fence and a dog barking frantically. I put on another burst of speed.

Nick is laughing as he runs.

We duck down another back street and eventually emerge onto Main Street. Music blasts out of a coffeehouse hosting open-mic night, and a group of college kids tumble out like big colorful turtles in their heavy coats.

“Hell
yeah
.” Nick grabs my hand and pulls me close as we climb the steep hill. I can’t tell whether he’s doing it because
he wants to seem like a couple of kids just looking for a bar or because he wants to be that close to me.

A black-and-white cop car cruises by, and slows near us. I hold my breath, and Nick runs his hand up my back and into my hair. He pulls my head over and gives me a casual kiss, but it’s enough to make sparks shudder through me.

He doesn’t seem to notice.

“Still watching?” he says out of the corner of his mouth to Dave.

“Nah, he’s gone,” Dave says, glancing over his shoulder.

Nick doesn’t let me go though, and I snuggle close to his side as we walk up the steep sidewalk. I see Hailey’s face, and for a moment I feel sorry for her. Then Nick pulls me in for another kiss, and this one is longer. My head is swimming when he lets me go and keeps walking.

“Where are we going to hit next?” he says.

Emi and Teeny are in A lunch block with me. I slide into the seat across from them with my tray of chicken bites, even though it’s barely 11 a.m., and I’m not even remotely hungry. I’m still jittery from last night, but I force myself to open my milk with steady hands. Then I realize they are both staring at me.

“What?” I say, feeling guilty and buzzy at the same time.

“You look … weird,” Teeny says. She flips her hair behind her shoulders and leans in. “So, spill. I texted you
like fifteen times last night during Bible study, and you never said peep back.”

“I did too,” Emi says sourly. “I wanted to know if you got the answer to number fifteen on our Statistics homework.”

“I wanted to know if you made out with Nick Roberts,” Teeny says, and grins at me. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say yes.”

“Maybe,” I say, but my smile gives it away.

“What did you do? Did you go anywhere?” Teeny asks.

“Did you get the answer to number fifteen?” Emi says.

Teeny and I stare at her and burst into laughter.

“What?” she asks defensively. “Statistics is next block.”

“We just … hung out,” I say, because it feels disloyal to talk about the bombing run that put the word “Nothing” on sixteen different buildings last night. And while Teeny is pretty open-minded, she is really only a good girl who pretends to be bad. I know she would be shocked. And Emi … Emi would never understand.

I should be shocked too, but for some reason I’m not. The thrum of illicit excitement still courses through me.

“Hung all over each other is more like it,” Teeny says with a smirk. “Is he a good kisser?”

“Um …
yes
.”

Teeny starts to laugh, then glances up over my shoulder, her eyes widening.

I feel a hand on my shoulder and turn to see Nick standing behind me.

“Do you want to eat with us?” he asks, looking adorably uncomfortable.

I throw a glance at Teeny and Emi. “You guys want to come?” Something like pleading creeps into my voice, because I know what they’re going to say. It feels like a moment when you think,
I bet I can beat that train
or
That dog looks friendly
, but Nick is looking at me with those eyes that seem to see the small, scared part of me that doesn’t want to feel that way anymore.

“No, you go on, girl,” Teeny says, eyeing Nick narrowly.

I get up and take my tray. “I’ll see you in Statistics,” I say to Emi.

“Okay,” she says, and mouths
be careful
, but it’s too late.

Nick and I don’t talk as we walk to the other side of the cafeteria to where Dave is sitting. I don’t know whether Hailey is in this lunch block or not, but she’s nowhere to be seen. In the fluorescent lights of the cafeteria, Dave has obvious zits and his gray “Two Time World War Champs” T-shirt is stained and straining across his broad chest.

Nick, on the other hand, looks just as good as the laughing boy I remember from last night, the silver ring in his eyebrow flashing, the smell of paint still on his hands.

“Okay, so what I want to know,” Dave says as I sit down, “is where did you learn to climb like that? You went up that fence like it was nothing.”

“I climb,” I say. “You know, the Gunks and stuff? My dad
has owned the climbing shop for like thirty years, and I’ve been climbing since I was a kid.”