We Won't Feel a Thing (19 page)

“Look how many he has in the basket.”

“It’s working already.” Rachel stepped away from Riley. “I can feel it. Can’t you?”

“Totally. I hardly want to kiss you at all.”

“It’s going to be so amazing,” said Rachel, “when we’re just best friends again.”

“We can have a picnic in our room.”

“And watch scary movies in the dark, without wanting to make out.”

“And celebrate your birthday three months early. ‘Cause you’ll be in NEW YORK.”

“Right!” Rachel rocked on her heels, grinning. “And you’ll be—”

A sound came into focus, a stuttering
tick tick tick
like a clickwheel on an ancient MP3 player. David was suddenly close, his eyebrows bunched in mild reproof. He lifted a finger to his lips. Instead of
“Shhhhhhhh,”
he made the clickwheel sound again. Rachel and Riley glanced at each other uneasily.

Then an arrow sang through the space between them and struck David dead in the heart.

Rachel and Riley cried out. David staggered and collapsed. They skidded to their knees beside him.

“David!”
Rachel’s hands wavered around the arrow. She seized the end and yanked it out. His mouth twisted in agony; the clickwheel sound sputtered out of him.

“David, you’re okay,” said Rachel. “You’re fine. Can you hear me?”

Riley stripped off his shirt and pressed it to David’s chest; blood bloomed right through the white.

“Come on, Mr. Kerning,” he murmured. “It’s just a dream. Stand up.”

“You have to finish the step!” said Rachel.

David gasped for breath. His white music boxes were shattered around him, spattered with blood.

Far behind them, in the shadows, someone was laughing.

Rachel and Riley turned around. At the end of the aisle stood Gary Gannon: three heads taller than actual size and several times more terrifying. He wore pelt pants that seemed to pulsate, as if they were made from living animals. His hair, loosed from the ponytail, writhed around his head like poisonous snakes. He was shirtless, the DERT logo glowing in the center of his chest. Even in the half-dark, even twenty feet away, they could see the mad green glint of his eyes.

David gripped their wrists. His last words rattled in his throat.

Please,
he said.
Please try…not…to…

David’s eyes fluttered shut. Gary Gannon plucked another arrow from his quiver.

“RUN!”

The word punched out of them both. Rachel and Riley jumped to their feet. They tore down the aisle, Gannon pounding after them, his gladiator sandals smacking the floor. The orderly aisles changed as they ran, throwing zigzags and forks in their path. They ducked through breaks in the shelves, skidded around corners. Arrows whizzed past their ears. Music boxes smashed off the shelves. The clickwheel sound rattled like a clock in fast-forward and fragments of random songs flew by:
you’re my home, no one else will do
,
never ever getting over you.

They darted into an aisle marked CHRISTMAS SOUNDS. It was dark. Quiet. They held each other’s arms, breathing in frantic puffs.

“We’re okay,” said Rachel. “We’re—”

She stopped. Riley was looking past her, his eyes widening. She turned and saw Gary Gannon at the end of the aisle, already pulling back his bowstring.

Rachel went down first. Gannon’s arrow smashed into her chest. She staggered backwards, knocking a mall-Santa music box to the floor. Riley cried out; he reached for her but his fingers closed on air. He grabbed a figurine of Mr. Woodlawn’s musical Christmas tree and barreled down the aisle, shouting like a warlord as Gannon reloaded his bow.

Then the arrow hit, and he stopped.

The clickwheel sound rattled faster and faster. Rachel and Riley were on their backs, counting ceiling beams as Gannon dragged them by their ankles down an aisle marked POP SONGS. It was a very, very long aisle. They marked the floor with twin trails of blood.

Halfway down the aisle, Gannon stopped short and released them. Their legs hit the floor with a
thunk
. Gannon examined a high shelf, shoving gaudy music boxes aside until he found the one he wanted: shiny and red and heart-shaped, like a box of chocolates. A purple sticker was on its side, right next to the windup key.

Gannon stuffed the music box in the pocket of his pelt pants and grabbed his victims’ legs again. He dragged them to a yellowed pull-down movie screen and dumped them on two plastic chairs. Rachel and Riley turned to look at each other. Their breaths came slow and shuddery. The arrows still jutted from their chests.

Standing dead center between the two chairs, Gary Gannon pried open the lid of the heart-shaped music box. It threw a beam of light at the pull-down screen, like a film projector. In the dim glow, Rachel and Riley could just make out the words etched on the lid in fancy gold script:

Five months before, around the time of the Valentine’s Day dance at Puckatoe High, “Bleed My Love” was the #1 song on the pop charts. It was everywhere, piercing hearts in the grocery store, in minivans and beat-up first cars, in the sorrowful bedrooms of Puckatoe’s Romeos and Juliets. The song didn’t seem written; it seemed engineered in a factory devoted solely to the production of tears and nostalgia. When you heard it, two versions of you were listening at once: your current raw hurting self, who was using the song as a direct intervention, and your future settled self, who was pulling onto the side of the road in a light snowfall and turning the radio up, surrendering to pleasant pain as the song popped the stitches on an old wound.

Both Rachel and Riley had a story in their heads set to “Bleed My Love,” a memory they had never shared with each other.

Gary Gannon twisted the gold key. The song began to play. On the pull-down screen, a picture flickered into focus, and two stories started weaving themselves into one.

Chapter Eleven

Verse 1

The song starts with long mournful church-organ chords. It crackles from the radio by the only cash register in Jonah’s Junque. It’s turned up loud; Riley can hear it from the housewares wall, where he’s looking for plates to smash for a mosaic.

I was minding my business,
a woman sings.
I knew just what to do.

He gathers plates: plink, clink. Blue china, red glass.

I was locked in a tower where the thorns always grew.

He’s got a twelve-plate tower in his arms when he rounds the corner and sees what’s hanging outside the Boutique Room, the nook where everything’s a real antique.

Oh ohhh…
breathes the singer.
Then I saw you…
The hi-hat shimmers and the woman’s voice makes a feathery flourish when he spots the dress. Not a regular dress. It’s a wicked-queen coatdress in apple-red velvet, exactly the kind of thing Rachel click-saves to her “Future Wardrobe” photoboard. Red-on-red embroidery swirls up the sleeves. The wide raven-feather collar gleams like a breastplate. The big black buttons down the front have a sparkly design—Riley steps closer, his shoes snick-snacking on the sticky floor. His mouth falls open. Two interlocked comma shapes on each button.
Crystal-studded commas
.

The price tag says $150.00 FIRM. REAL CRYSTAL BUTTONS.

Prechorus

Percussion kicks in; a nervous heartbeat thrums in a programmed loop. A goldtone hanger clacks on the counter. Riley appeals to Jonah, dour in a cracked leather vest and filthy trucker hat.

What do I have to do?
sings the woman.

What do I have to do?
says Riley.

Rachel had to have that dress for the dance. She’d feel fierce and beautiful all night, and he wants that for her, even if he can’t stand her date. He surrenders the plates, slides off his watch, digs three crumpled twenties from his pocket.
I’ll give you everything I have,
he says. Jonah strokes his tattered gray beard.
Sorry,
he says.
Can’t give away the farm for free.

On the radio, synthesized strings swoon.
What am I gonna do now with the rest of my life?
the woman wails.
My love’s an artery, and you’ve got the knife.

Jonah gazes at the radio. His face twitches. He opens the cash register—
ding!—
and pulls out an old photo of a woman in a white bathrobe, sitting on a bed with her legs crossed. His eyes say
long-lost love
.

You draw. Huh?
he says.

Riley nods.

Make me a picture of her. A nice big beautiful one.

Aw,
says Riley.

Except…no clothes on. And standing like this.
He strikes a vampy pose: chest out, arms akimbo, one shoulder cocked high.

Riley turns apple-red.

You can do that…right?
Jonah dangles the coatdress.

Riley nods.

I’ll do it.

Jonah yoinks Riley’s twenties and folds the dress into a paper bag. Riley takes it, but there’s panic in his eyes. If he gave her the dress, she’d know. He’d blush and lock eyes with her, and his deepest secret would flutter free.

Can you—send it somewhere instead?
he says.
Like anonymously?

Send it?

In a plain white box.

No card?

Maybe.
Riley thinks it over.
A card that says “You and…this dress belong together.”

Jonah rolls his eyes.

Riley pleads.
I’ll pay for postage. And throw in a second drawing of her.
He taps the photo.

In a Viking helmet,
says Jonah.
And make it good.

Chorus

No one can forget the chorus: thunderous and dreamy, deliciously sad. The singer grieves with her overdubbed self.
Bleed my love, you make me bleed my love.

Rachel hears it while she’s dressing for the dance; Mr. Woodlawn has the radio up loud in his workshop while he finishes a Siamese cat. She spins on her side of the mirror door and the red velvet coatdress whirls like Queen Vesuvia’s cape. She rereads the white card that says YOU + THIS DRESS BELONG TOGETHER, in an unfamiliar scribble she presumes is her date’s.

She can’t wait. Not for Chad, she realizes. She can’t wait for Riley to see her.

Because he’s my best friend,
she tells herself.
It’s completely normal to show your best friend when you’re in the best dress ever.

She slides the door open. Riley’s at his art desk, his charcoal pencil making quick soft scritches.

She smiles shyly.
How do I look?
Bob and Athena give an approving
tick tick
from Riley’s desk
.

He glances up, then looks away fast.

Great. You look great.

She waits for him to put down his pencil, twirl her under his arm the way they did when they made up a dumb dance to that old flamenco record. But he doesn’t. He just keeps sketching like it’s the most important thing he’s ever done. Like he doesn’t even notice her.

I’m gonna close my eyes if you don’t close the vein,
the woman sings. The drums drop out and the organ strikes a perilous chord.
Someone call the doctor, give me something for the pain.

Rachel closes the door with a
plack plack click
and dials Chad Armstrong.

Thanks again for the dress,
she says.
Yeah, it looks amazing!

Behind the door, Riley puts his head down on the desk.

Verse 2

The gym doors
skreek
open, and Rachel sweeps into the Valentine dance on Chad’s arm. He’s wearing a vintage corduroy jacket and Buddy Holly glasses, and his bleached hair looks like the crest of an angry rooster. That stupid bleed-my-love song is playing here too.
I can’t go anywhere without you on my mind,
Rachel hums in her head, resentful that she knows the words. Under archways of red balloons, boys in suits sway with girls in strapless sheaths and updos.

She holds her head high in her coatdress, but her face says
I don’t belong here.

Want to dance, milady?
says Chad. He does a cute awkward shimmy.

Maybe a little later.

Yeah. This song. Giant can of squeeze-cheese, right?

It’s the worst,
she says, but she’s thinking
I can’t dance. I don’t know how. I’ve only ever danced with Riley.

They sit on the bleachers. He brings her poison-red punch and they sip, sip, sip. Chad eyes up the dress he didn’t send but was happy to take credit for. He natters about the bands he respects her for liking, and it makes her like them less. She asks questions about his favorite films, but it sounds like she’s reading off a teleprompter.
How do people do this?
She aches for Riley and their pillow nest, the smell of bacon-butterscotch cookies wafting from her Girlybake Oven, the way their silences feel like a cozy blanket instead of blank lines on a baffling exam.

Stop it.
Rachel crosses her legs, thinking of her Martinet College application.
You’ll be out in the world soon. Meeting other guys. You have to start being normal.

Starting now.

She takes a deep breath and lays an experimental hand on Chad’s arm. He is attractively offbeat and snarky—not perfect, but at least he’s not Riley.
Maybe we should go somewhere private,
she says.

Awesome.
Chad smiles.
I’d love to be alone with you.

Chorus

Riley sits alone at his art desk, sketching Jonah’s lost love. One of his two little wooden artist models is twisted in the requested pose. He slips on his headphones. “Bleed My Love” is first in his Latest Purchased archive. He blasts the monster chorus over and over.
Get used to it.
His pencil curves the lady’s lower lip.
Get used to her boyfriends. Taking her to dances and weddings, holding her hand at the dinner table.

In the back seat of Chad’s father’s minivan, Rachel’s date serves up cold disappointment. Eight kisses have occurred and she’s hated every one. Were they supposed to feel like this? An alien worm invading your mouth? Chad sticks a rough hand inside her coatdress and lets out a soft groan that makes her flinch. One of the comma buttons pops off and rolls under the seat, and that’s it: it’s wrong,
he’s
wrong, and it has to—