"Emma, what's wrong?" That was my mom with her tiny squeaky voice and her huge concern. And they were right, they were all right. Since the shooting I've been off my rocker.
"Nothing, it's nothing, okay?" I ran to the basement, my room in the dungeon. But I didn't really mind giving up my room for baby Jack. But in a way I did. I minded giving up all of my mom's attention to Snake and Jack. Now I only had a third of what was once all for me.
I didn't mean that nothing was wrong but it wasn't exactly a lie. Sometimes the words for what is wrong have too many angles to come out of your mouth. Or sometimes there just aren't any words at all.
I laid across my bed, too drained to cry. I was dry. I had nothing left. What was the good in things? In trying to save things like rain forests and endangered species when I could barely save myself? When I nearly get myself shot down in the halls of my own high school, how in the world could I help anyone or anything else?
And Jay. What was I doing with him, going to the ravine like that? But things weren't exactly as black and white as everyone thought, I wasn't this good girl being corrupted by him. Maybe I had the seed of the corruption in me all along, and maybe Jay could be better than anyone would give him credit for. It's just like you fall into these molds and then that's what people think you are, who you are. And maybe it's a part of it but it's never every part.
I sighed. I wanted to go upstairs and tell my mom what was wrong, but I wouldn't. It was like I didn't exactly know. Take Rick. He shot Jimmy and maybe Jimmy will never walk again and he tried to shoot me. But people were brutal to Rick. Was it brutal enough to deserve what Rick did? He must have thought so, or some part of him did, and who am I to say? I don't exactly know what actions deserve what response, what's justice and what's insanity. I have no idea.
If you look at it like karma, Rick was a real jerk to Terry. Then Jimmy and Spinner and Jay and Alex and me, we were real jerks to Rick. And then…where was forgiveness in it all?
The only one who makes me feel better, makes me feel like I'm really myself, is Jay. That's why I go to the ravine and seek him out. To escape. To be me, not some idealized Emma Nelson who saves the environment and does well in school and has it all together. That girl might be gone.
I got up and pushed on the window, pushed it into the blackness. Slipped out and along the streets to the ravine, and in the distance I saw his van. Sometimes all you can do is run and hope you can outrace it, the fear and negativity and the sickness. Sickness of your image and your shadow and yourself. Since Rick leveled that gun at me I just didn't know what to think.
Laughter and drunken yells, the smell of beer and whiskey in the crisp air, and I saw Jay sitting on the picnic table, baseball cap low over his eyes. Then he saw me and smiled his devil crooked smile.
No one understood what it was I saw in him, or he saw in me. Manny was so sure that he was scum and that I was some goody goody. Even my best friend didn't suspect that I was more than what I seemed.
"Emma," Jay said, and I smiled, feeling nervous and happy and something indescribable all at once.
"Jay," I went over to him, scooted up beside him.
"What's wrong?" he said, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear.
"Everything," I said, but smiled because now it didn't matter. As if it ever did.
"C'mon," he said after looking at me for a moment. He got up and took my hand and I went with him.