Freefall (26 page)

“This has been a horrible day,” she said. “I’ve been feeling so guilty.”

“It isn’t your fault, so you can quit with the guilt.”

She chewed one of her fingernails. “Rosetta was pretty upset over that stuff she thinks you said about her, huh?”

I nodded. “I called her a little while ago, after she should have been out of school. She wouldn’t pick up.”

“I am
so
sorry. I never meant for you to get mixed up in any of this. You know that, right?”

“Like I said, I’m not blaming you. Carr lied to Rosetta about me. And he lied to everyone about you. That shit is all on him.”

“I know. But Carr wouldn’t have said anything to her if it hadn’t been for me. And if he hadn’t said it, she wouldn’t have gotten upset with you, and then you wouldn’t have been trying to brawl with him. Which means that you wouldn’t have been suspended from school, and you wouldn’t be out here drowning your sorrows and looking like a freak right now!”

I couldn’t help smiling at the way Kendall was so hysterical on account of me. “You don’t think I look kind of badass?”

Kendall glanced away, not speaking or smiling back—which was fine with me, really—so we sat there with only the sound of the wind and the river filling the air.

I took a few hard swigs and held the bottle out for her.

“There’s something I have to tell you,” she said, waving it away. “It’s the reason I’m here, actually. The thing is, I don’t
want
to tell you at all, but I know you’re going to find out soon enough. I think it will be better if you hear it from me. I’m scared of how you’re going to react, though. I like being your nonenemy, and I don’t want you to start hating me.”

A knot was forming in my stomach as I studied Kendall’s profile. She was gazing at the water, looking like she might start crying at any second.

And then I got the feeling that I knew exactly what she’d come here to say.

I was having a hard time breathing, but I managed to sound only
half
-crazed as I asked, “You’re pregnant, aren’t you?”

Kendall jerked her head up. “Seth, no. This is about Rosetta.”

“Rosetta’s pregnant?”

“No! Nobody’s pregnant that I know of.”

I was relieved, but then, with Kendall still making that face and not explaining, I started getting worked up all over again. “What then? What
about
Rosetta?”

“Oh, Jeez.” Kendall shifted on the rock and tucked her legs up pretzel-style. “I don’t want to do this right now if you’re going to be all belligerent.”

“You’d
better
do it right now. You can’t start a conversation
like this and not follow through with it.”

She sighed. “Remember how I told you that I was going to call things off with my so-called secret boyfriend who you now know was Carr?”

I nodded.

“Well, we had the talk the other day. And Carr didn’t take it well. He started saying all this insulting shit to me, and then I snapped. He thinks Rosetta’s an amazing, perfect girl, so I told him that she was probably screwing you at that exact moment. And I also let him know that she’s been lying about her save-the-environment thing to cover up her car phobia.”

I stared at her. “How the hell do you even know that?”

She started chewing on her nails again. “Well, because I was in the living room while you two were drying off on your porch. I heard everything you were saying.”

I wanted to hold on to the hope that she was joking, but I knew she wasn’t. “Jesus fucking Christ!” I yelled. “I can’t believe you did that to her. And to
me
.”

“I’m sorry! I was just tired of Carr acting like I’m not good enough for him but that Rosetta is. I swear, I had no idea he was going to tell her what I said. And it never even occurred to me that he’d drag you into it and twist everything around like he did.”

I didn’t care about Carr and didn’t want to waste any
more time talking about him, but there was no way I could let what Kendall did go ignored. I turned so my back was to her and my feet were dangling a few feet over the water. “Rosetta’s had some shitty things happen to her, and you made it worse. I’m the one person she told that stuff to, and now she thinks I’m some untrustworthy jerk. On top of that, people keep telling her stuff about you and me, and it doesn’t make me sound too cool when I have to say, ‘No, I don’t have anything going on with Kendall, but, yeah, now that you mention it, we
did
hook up at the end of summer.’”

“Oh, God,” Kendall moaned from behind me. “Please tell me that you didn’t actually say that to her.”

“I had to. She wanted answers, so I gave her the whole truth. Believe me I didn’t want to tell her.”

Kendall was silent for a few seconds, but then in a small voice, she said, “The thing is, it didn’t happen.”

“What didn’t happen?”

“You and me hooking up.”

I whirled my head around. “What are you talking about?”

She was hugging her chest and watching the water again. “You were sloppy drunk that night and no one in your band wanted to deal with you. So I drove you home. And . . . that’s all.”

“What do you mean ‘that’s
all
’? We were in bed together half-naked the next morning!”

She nodded. “Yes,
but only because after you puked in my car, I dragged you inside, where you puked all over me and then on yourself. I stripped us both down and threw everything in the wash. I stayed to take care of you, but nothing happened between us like that. You were passed out cold as soon as I got you to bed.”

I couldn’t believe this. I mean, she had enough details to make it sound like the truth, but it made no
sense
. “Then what was all that ‘lover’ bullshit about? And why the hell would you have wanted to fool me into thinking something happened in the first place?”

“At first, I was teasing you,” she said, looking into my eyes. “I’d been up all night making sure you didn’t die or anything, and then you were a total prick and wouldn’t even let me explain. I was going to tell you everything after you apologized. Which never did happen. And then I was going to do it when we were in your car before the dance, but you changed the subject in a big hurry. You seemed relieved that I hadn’t known you were a virgin, so I thought maybe it would be better for your confidence if I just let it go.”

I was having an impossible time wrapping my head around this. I’d stressed about whether Kendall was knocked up, felt guilty over getting with Isaac’s girl, and hurt Rosetta by confessing it to her. It was all for nothing.

Kendall and I
never even had sex
.

“Look, I don’t blame you for being upset,” Kendall said, looking all pouty. “I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and I’m really, really sor—”

“Shut up. Shut the fuck
up
.”

“Seth—”

“No,”
I said, shaking my head. “Don’t talk to me. I can’t trust a word that comes out of your mouth. I mean, do you even get how screwed up it is that you did this to me?
Do
you?”

Her response was to start crying. I wasn’t having any of it.

For more than six weeks, she’d known the truth but hadn’t bothered clueing me in. Because she was waiting for an apology that I hadn’t even known I owed her. Because she thought keeping me in the dark would be better for my
confidence
? It sucked. Plain and simple. And no matter how I looked at it, everything that had gone wrong with Rosetta led back to Kendall in some way.

I finished the last of the Southern Comfort in one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight big gulps, threw the bottle as hard as I could, missed the tree I’d been aiming for, and watched it land in a mess of tall weeds. Not getting to hear the shatter of glass was more frustrating than I could have expected.

5:01
P.M.

Getting away from Kendall was never easy, but right now it was impossible. She’d followed me—off the boulder, up the
bank, and down the path—while I stumbled my way to the parking lot and did my best to ignore her.

At the Mustang, I pulled my keys from my pocket and gave my head a hard shake. Big mistake, that shake thing. It made me dizzier.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Kendall asked.

My plan was to get my jacket from the backseat. Then maybe I’d return to the river for a while. Or walk to Daniel’s. Or home. Either way, I didn’t need to explain myself. Not to
her
.

“I’m done with you,” I said, without looking in her direction. “So why don’t you get in your little Rich Bitch car and get the fuck out of my life.”

“Let me just drive you home.”

“No.”

I reached to give the lock a try, but then Kendall was next to me, twisting my arm and ripping the keys out of my hand.

“Ow!” I yelled. “God!”

I tried to snag them back, but her fingers wouldn’t budge. Before long, we were struggling and it was turning into a
thing
where she was slapping at me and I was grabbing at her. “Quit. Being. An idiot,” she said, banging her elbow into my side.

A strobe-light effect was happening in my brain, and everything kept switching between fast and slow and dark and bright. I had to get Kendall
off
me.

I gave her a shove. She fell backward and landed on her ass. My keys hit the cement next to her.

It was what I’d wanted. Except, it really
wasn’t
.

I stared down at her and she stared right back. Her cheeks were still streaked with tears and makeup. Her eyes were open wide. Her mouth too. That expression. She’d never looked at me like that before.
No
one
had ever looked at me like that. It was a combination of shock and anger and fear. Like I was someone to be afraid of. My stomach started feeling . . . not so great. “Shit,” I said, looking away. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“You didn’t
mean
to?” she asked, jumping to her feet and full-on slamming me against my car. “I can’t believe you! I cannot
believe
what a fucking asshole you are!” She paced in front of me while she kept on shouting. “Yeah, you had a fight with your girlfriend. You got beat up by Carr and were suspended from school. All that stuff
sucks
. But why doesn’t it ever occur to you to deal with your problems instead of getting trashed? Why can’t you let people
help
you instead of just pushing everyone away? Instead of pushing them to the
ground
, you dick!”

I flinched at that, but shot back, “Who’s going to help?
You’re
the one who screwed up the only good thing I had going.”

Kendall swiped her hand across the fresh tears sliding down her cheeks. “You have more than
one good thing
in your life, Seth McCoy. But for some reason, you’d rather keep punishing yourself instead of seeing any of it. Well, guess what? I’m not going to let you drag me down with you. I refuse
to stand here and watch you turn into Isaac.”

With that, she picked up my keys from the ground, ran to her car, and tore off.

5:20
P.M.

My walk home wasn’t long—only a couple of blocks—but with each step, I became less and less sure I could make it.

Spinning.

So much spinning.

The rocks, the grass, the blackberry bushes, the trailers, the mailboxes.

Faster and faster and faster and faster and faster.

The driveway. Finally. My shoes scraped across gravel. Slipped out from under me. I landed hard on my hands and knees. Stood up. Shuffled toward the front steps. Tripped over the garden hose and onto the lawn. Crawled to the rosebush where Isaac died. And puked.

11:27
P.M.

Six hours later, I was in bed doing that hazy in-between-awake-and-asleep thing where every time I’d open my eyes, I’d see that a whole hour had passed instead of the five minutes it had felt like.

It made no difference, though. Asleep. Awake. Everything was shit.

My body ached from the fight with Carr, and I was exhausted from puking so much. My head was a bass drum in a never-ending sound check:
Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom.

Even worse, anger, disgust, and frustration were burning through me like acid. When I thought about how Kendall had fooled me with her “nonenemy” crap and then stabbed me in the back, I hated her. When I thought about our argument and me pushing her down, I hated myself.

My bedroom door creaked open and light spilled in from the hall. Lying on my side, I squinted at Mom as she came in and stood over me.

“How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Not great.”

The words came out kind of croaky.

Mom shook her head and sat on the bed next to me. “Oh,
Seth
.”

I figured she was talking about my black eye. I pulled the covers over my face so she wouldn’t have to look at it anymore. Bonus, I spared her my puke breath at the same time.

“We need to discuss this,” she said.

I didn’t want to discuss it. Not with her. Not with anyone. Not ever.

“I’m not good at this sort of thing,” Mom said. “I had Jared almost nineteen years ago, but I still don’t know what I’m doing. I’m a
terrible
mother.”

I’d
never heard her say anything like that and it kind of freaked me out. “Mom, stop it,” I said from under the blanket.

“Well, seriously! I found out more yesterday from your guidance counselor than I ever do from you. She had a lot of good things to say too. Like that you haven’t been skipping at all this year, you’re passing math, and you’re getting an A in Speech.”

It was sort of embarrassing that Ms. Naylor had been talking me up—especially since Mom had come to school in the first place only to sign me out for my suspension. “It’s Interpersonal Communications, not Speech,” I said. “Anyway, the class is a joke. I’m sure everyone’s getting an A in there.”

She sighed. “Your brother tells me what’s happening with him, even when it’s about things I maybe wouldn’t
want
to know. But you. You’re always keeping things all bottled up. I shouldn’t let you get away with it, should I?”

I didn’t say anything, so after about thirty seconds, she slid the blanket off my head. “Baby, tell me. Why did you do this to yourself?”