Note: Sorry for the wait school has been busy and finding a place for this summer. The chapter was originally meant to have another few scenes but after writing the last one I felt pretty satisfied with where it had left off and how it'll lead into the next few chapters. If later I realize that it needs those scenes then I'll write them in and let you know if and when that happens. Enjoy!
"Nervous?" I tease, tucking loose strands of Claire's hair back into her ponytail but somehow making it worse and frizzy at the back.
"A little. But in retrospect … no," she took a deep breath between the "retrospect" and "no." Considering the two options and picking the more honest of the two. Though when a radioactive psychopath has held you hostage, you've been on the run for your life then hiding for your life cheerleading was a close fourth on the list of things to be traumatized by.
"There. Done!" I punctuated my enthusiasm by giving her hair a twirl, which backfired on me by even more of it falling out. She reached a hand out to touch it and hold it to her neck, turning to smile at me with something dangerously close to excitement in her eyes. My heart clenched in my chest and I smiled back at her, suddenly short of breath and remembering the first time she showed me her uniform. When I told her that I had joined up and she had hugged me so hard that I thought she'd crack a rib. When Jackie had told me to run and blood had dripped down her eyes …
"How do I look?" She asked, dropping a pose and giggling at the ridiculousness of it. One hand on her hip and the other in her hair. The clenching became an ache and I smiled around it, remembering those two girls and when cheerleading was the first of the things they had to fear and not the last of a very long list.
"Perfect," I told her honestly and she spun around to look at herself in the mirror, one hand behind her and holding her ponytail like she knew I hadn't done a good job and wanted to hold it together so I wouldn't be embarrassed. A smile quirked at the corner of my lips and I dug my fingers into my palm to try and hold onto the feeling of something uncomfortable moving under my skin. A hurt or a longing that I couldn't put a name to but was sudden and red and metallic on my tongue.
"Come on," she said, startling me as she turned back with that one hand still in her hair. "Don't want to be late." Course not, we could not, would not want to wait … She held out her other hand for mine and I dodged it to grab her ass before skipping past her and out the change room.
"1-2-3-4," Claire and the others rhythmically clapped, tongue between their teeth to make sure they didn't mess up. Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration but it was a potent image. "R-E-C-Y-C-L-E." And now we're spelling. Claire glanced at me mid clap and I gave her thumbs up, my other arm raised and trying to mimic the grand gestures they were making. She bit her lip to keep from giggling and turned her eyes forward again so she wouldn't lose formation.
"Let's plant a tree!" And they lost me. Subliminal messages must rhyme. Amateur move. Claire leaned back onto her hands to flip and my stomach clenched for those few seconds she was in the air before landing on her feet.
"Stop, please!" The head cheerleader held out a hand in front of her to block her eyes and pointedly looking anywhere else. "I can't take it anymore." The three of them lined up anxiously, Claire's hands folded politely behind her back.
"Do you realize how agonizing it is to watch you people?" She demanded, looking accusatory from one to the other. Well, Claire was nice to watch and the one on the far left was kind of pretty … "No on all three. Next!"
"Are you crazy?" One of the brunette cheerleaders demanded. "Claire was awesome." She swallowed hard, looking uncertain. "I vote yes." I turned to smile at Claire but she wasn't looking at me, staring at the head cheerleader and her eyes hard.
"Okay, that's one vote for Claire," the cheerleader acknowledged, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Anyone else care to climb out on a limb with May?" I raised my hand; leaning forward and hoping for once that someone would see and recognize me but the girl wasn't looking and no one else seemed to notice.
"Like I said," she said, smug as she turned back to the three of them and calling over the quad dim. "Next!" I stepped off the bench table and over to Claire was standing, head bowed and hands on her hips as she took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
"You did great," I assured her, holding out her sweater which was under my arm. She nodded as she took it, barely managing a smile as she pulled it over her shoulders and put her arms through the sleeves.
"Hey! You were awesome," the girl – May – called as she came over, both hands on her hips as she stepped past me and nearly elbowing me in the gut. I glanced down, patting myself to make sure I was still visible and only Claire got the joke.
"Sorry. Look I don't know what Debbie was thinking," she said, turning from me to Claire with an earnestness to her expression that was somewhat disconcerting when it came with a cheerleader uniform.
"What I'm thinking!" The head cheerleader – Debbie, I guess – said as she sauntered over to us with her arms crossed over her chest. "Is that Costa Verde High deserves cheerleaders that are extra-ordinary." She stopped inches from Claire, barely taller then her but glaring down like the two inch difference could have been in feet and held the same threat. "And you, Claire, are simply not extra-ordinary." She slowly turned so her hair swung violently over her shoulder and almost getting me square in the mouth. Well … not square. More of a generous rectangle. May smiled apologetically at us before jogging after her and I took her place standing at Claire's side.
"Do you think Sandra will let us get take out?" I wondered aloud, stirring the cold macaroni with a marked disinterest and more then a little disgust. "I mean if you ask …" I trailed off, glancing up at Claire who was staring across the cafeteria and pressing her fingers to her lips. I followed her gaze to the cheerleader table, the dozen or so of them all gathered in a semi circle and laughing loudly over something I couldn't see. Nail polish, pom poms, the inevitable cheating husband and longing for days long past? The list was endless.
"I mean since your dad isn't home," I pressed on the distinctive "your" in a way I knew only I would notice. Your dad. Not mine. Etc. Etc.
"Mmm," she grunted, as much as an involuntary reaction then a response to what I'd said.
"And then maybe we can have sex out on the quad," I continued, tossing my fork into the tubberware and leaving it to its fate.
"Whoa. What did I miss?" I looked up to see West expectantly standing at my shoulder with his lunch tray clutched to his chest. He waited for a moment before taking the hint sitting on the other side of me and across from Claire instead of next to her like he'd intended.
"What? Claire asked, finally looking up and picking up her fork like no time had passed and she had only been temporarily lost in thought. Wishing she was thinking of nail polish, pom poms and cheating husbands …
"Something wrong?" West asked, leading with the vacancy of her expression over my off colour over my off colour comment. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned on them on the table, concerned in a heartbeat and making me uncomfortable.
"I lied to my dad," she sighed, stirring up her own helping of macaroni and just as dissatisfied as I was but less crass in showing it. I looked down at my own, what I had managed to eat suddenly feeling heavy and hot in my stomach. I cleared my throat, picking up my fork again and hiding how unwanted I felt suddenly sitting between the two of them while they had a conversation. Back off, West. I was here first.
"Cheerleading? That is bad?" He scoffed, picking up from where I had missed and nodding over to the point of reference. I followed the look, the girls parted enough so I could see Debbie in the middle trying to coax a chocolate cupcake into another girl who was pursing her lips and turning her head. Debbie was laughing as she clutched her arm and pulled her closer, the others egging her on with high pitched giggles.
"You met this awesome guy and you need some free time to make out," West suggested cheerfully, looking past me at Claire and his head tilted like boys usually do when they want girls to think that they have their full attention. I shoved aside my tubberware and pulled his tray in front of me instead and started to pick at the fries not feeling hungry but needing to do something with my hands. Stay under the radar, Mr. Bennet had stay. Stay invisible. A knock at me where he hadn't intended it but I felt anyway. Stay invisible, Jess. You're good at that.
"We have to listen to our parents," Claire tentatively touched my shoulder and I jumped, not expecting her to acknowledge me now that West was here or to so casually infer that Mr. Bennet was my dad too. Not my dad. Not even hers to be biological.
"Claire, I can fly," West said calmly, not like we were sitting in a cafeteria where anyone could hear or steal his lunch from under his nose. "And that makes the whole parental guidance thing a non-issue." Claire scoffed, the idea foreign to her and the ease with which he brushed it off. I watched the turn of her head, the line of shadow that run down her cheek and tucked itself under her chin. I tightened my fingers into a fist, tempted to reach out and touch her but West would notice and I suddenly didn't want him to be able to see why I'd been there first. (!)
"But if it's that important to you then we'll figure out a way to get you on the team," he said, defeated at the shallowness of it but smiling encouragingly all the same A smile quirked at her own lips and I felt that heat in my stomach again - a thickness at the back of my throat that seized upwards and made me feel like I was going to be sick. Be invisible. I stumbled to my feet, knocking my knees against the table and making the trays rattle and my legs cramp.
"I have to go to the bathroom," I lied, grabbing my bag from my feet and bolting from the table.
I exhaled slowly, head ducked between my legs and the floor tiles no better looking upside then they did right side up. Another breath. Another pause. Breathe. I lifted my head and splayed my hands out in front of my, turning to make sure they didn't shudder and disappear. I wasn't going invisible. They could still see me. They just chose not to. I ducked my head again, blowing out the strands of my hair that had fallen over my face. It doesn't mean anything. He's just a boy. Boys come and go but we were forever. But a boy who had an ability too? Who could encourage that rebellion in her in a way that I couldn't? The thought seized up my throat and I clutched at my head, gasping and dizzy at the idea of being so easily replaced. Claire was all I had left. No parents, no Zach, no Peter … I blinked, staring at that tile again and the speckled pink and grey pattern of it. It's okay, he had said. It'll be okay. He'd lied. It wasn't. It wouldn't be. The bathroom door slammed open and I jerked, arms splayed and head back against the wall in unprepared panic. A girl with matching braids and an arm across her mouth burst in caught sight of me and bolted into the first stall with a quiet sob. I blinked, the door closing slowly in the awkward silence that followed and filling it with an eerie creak. I pushed my hands off the floor and tentatively stood, walking over to the stall and stopping uncertainly in front of it. Do I knock? Or just wait? She had to know I was there by now but she made no indication that she had noticed.
"Ma'am?" I asked, knocking my knuckle against the door and the formal address coming out awkwardly on my tongue. Miss? Civilian? Dude? Ma'am would have to do. "Are you okay?"
"Go away." She mumbled her voice muffled like she hadn't yet lowered her arm and was speaking into her sleeve. I glanced around the empty bathroom, a light at the far left buzzing and the only thing that was remotely helpful and not very helpful at that. I walked over to it and the paper towel dispenser under it. I ripped a sheet loose, remembering something like a trigger that went metallic on my tongue and thrust up my throat like a rusted blade. I gagged, fingers seizing and tearing the sheet into shreds that shook between my fingers. I grabbed another, half running back to the stall and shaking despite the short distance.
"Here," I bent so I could reach under the door and hold it out to her with all the patheticness it offered. It was quiet for a moment and I started to wonder if I had gotten the wrong stall before she reached out and took it from me.
"Thank you," she said and there was the sound of her blowing her nose and then silence again.
"Listen…" I started but stopped on the word. The encouragement to go quiet and listen to what I had to say because it was going to be worth listening to. Be invisible. I could leave. I had done more then was expected and Mr. Bennet would berate me if he knew for endangering the family. Be invisible. But he'd told me he would take care of me that I could trust him and he was sorry for when I couldn't. He had lied.
"I know it doesn't seem like it but it's going to be okay," I said, the words coming out slowly either because I didn't believe them or because I remembered them being said by someone who so dearly thought it was true. It'll be okay. He'd been about to die. To sacrifice himself and he still thought that everything would turn up okay. That even if he wasn't there to see if that I would be okay for him. I'm sorry, Peter. I tried. No, I didn't. I didn't know how to try. When I tried I failed and I could do that well enough on default.
"Life after high school … it gets better." I dug my fingers into my palm, imagining that he was sitting next to me and saying it with me. Saying it better.
"Do you really think so?" She asked after a moment, going over what I'd said and considering whether or not it made sense. I thought about my mom and the blank look in her eyes when I said goodbye to her, my dad and the blood on his lips and soaking his chest. I thought about Claire who still thought there was hope for me, and Peter who'd promised that it would all be okay.
"Yes." No.
"What happened to you?" Claire asked, lowering the phone from her ear with one hand and gathering her hair from her face with the other. I fixated my stare on the crowd below the railing, picking out one teenager in particular with a pink baseball cap and skateboard with a yellow lightning bolt.
"I had to go to the bathroom," I said, sticking with the partial truth and my attention on that teenager. How old was he? What was his name? Did he coordinate his cap and skateboard or was that happenstance?
"In a rush?" She asked, her question quiet like she didn't want me to know that she doubted it. Didn't want to encourage me into a lie that neither of us would believe.
"Explosive diarrhoea," I turned to look at her at that, making eye contact with a straight face and the line she knew along the lines that I would make. Her shoulders sagged and she held her phone to her breast, running her thumb over the back of it like she could gain comfort from it.
"Where's East?" I asked, glancing over my shoulder like I was looking for him but actually wondering where pink cap went. How many other caps did he have? Were they all pink?
"He had to grab something," she said, either ignoring the jib or immune to it and the follow up that would inevitably occur of her having to correct me on my manners. Jess, decency and politeness: relive their greatest hits now! Shipping and handling priced separately. (!)
"Did I hear my name?" – speaking of the Devil asked, coming up behind me and an eagerness in his voice that his absence had in fact been noted and he had been missed.
"I was actually looking for the other three directions," I said, turning around to face him and tilting my head upwards to look past his hairline and brows. This Claire did hear – or at least didn't ignore – and she nervously laughed, apologizing on behalf of me with the sound of it.
"I haven't seen them. Kind of lost touch after the boy band broke up and South went solo," he grinned, squinting down at me and Claire laughing in response to his answer. A hot sickness twisted up into my stomach and I gritted my teeth to keep from keeling over and retching at the taste of it.
"You're not funny," I said coldly, speaking through my teeth if only because I couldn't unlock my jaw without being sick. The contrast of Claire's laugh from apology to humour made my vision tunnel and I hated him with an irrationality that some reasonable part of myself was ashamed of. Claire cleared her throat uncomfortably, filling the silence where West looked at me with cocked eyebrows as if trying to guess whether I was being funny or rude.
"What's with the mask?" I asked, nodding to the mass of black in his hand and trying to deter his attempts to understand me no matter to what degree.
"Integral part of our plan to take down Debbie Marshall!" He declared proudly, holding it up like a trophy and slipping his fingers through the two eyeholes and waggling them cheerfully at me. I swallowed a hard lump in my throat, embarrassed that I had called attention to something I had obviously missed and they had decided without me. We made our decisions together and now I'd been replaced in the time it took too blink and I hadn't even noticed that my eyes had been closed.
"Cool," I cleared my throat, trying to choke down that hurt enough to pretend it wasn't there. "Lets do this."
I bunched my arms inside my sleeves and dragged them up and down my legs in an attempt to generate heat. I still hadn't gotten used to the miniscule changes in Texas to California temperature. Dry heat to slightly less dry heat. Same price in packaging but 90 cent difference on the store shelf.
"Hey!" I gritted my teeth audibly together as West enthusiastically dropped down to sit next to me, rubbing his hands together excitedly or maybe I wasn't the only one bothered by the cold. "Everything is almost ready." Hardly a master plan. 1. Get Debbie away from others. 2. Drop Claire from impressive height to simulate death. 3. Chase Debbie until she gets scared. 4. Reap benefits. Everyone had a part to plan and I was the backup who watched from the sidelines in case anything went wrong and I had to step in and be invisible. You're good at that. Always was.
"You ready?" He leaned forward to look over his knees at me and trying to see past the obvious disinterest I'd expressed in him to see if I was suffering performance anxiety.
"No, one sec," I shook my hands out of my sleeves before letting them slide back down again and leaning forward over my knees again. "Now I am." He laughed awkwardly before taking the hint that it wasn't meant for him and went quiet. I could hear the cheerleaders talking just beneath us and over the gym wall. The faint smell of alcohol and the uncomfortable laugh of Debbie that sounded vaguely familiar and I refused to consider why.
"Did I do something to upset you?" He asked, interrupting the bearable silence with the unbearable sound of his voice. He leaned forward again so I could see half of his face and I tried and failed to prevent looking at him. I turned, the mask already half pulled over his face so his eyes stood out in contrast to that and the paleness of his face.
"No. You're perfectly lovely," I told him, turning away again and digging my fingers into my sleeve and renting the thin fabric that poorly protected against the cold.
"Look, I don't know if you're just a bitch or just really insecure or something but I like Claire and I wouldn't hurt her or take her away from you if that's what you're worried about," he spoke in a rush, afraid he'd lose his nerve and run out of steam midsentence and leave me guessing what he had meant to say instead of surmising that it was some kind of apology. Apology for existing or being here now and before and so easy for Claire to fall for him. Of course she would. He was everything she needed right now and I had failed her like I had failed everyone else. Look how easy it was to replace me? To find someone better if she turned her head. I had been standing behind her – invisible. And now I was no longer necessary.
"I'm just a bitch," I told him, staring straight ahead and not letting him seeing the tears I felt at the back of my eyes. Of course he liked Claire. Everyone liked her. She was so easy to love and I ran into contrast with that by being so hard to even feign affection. Always the little voice at the back of the room saying that I loved her the most that I was here first and those words said in answer that I still thought about at night: bitch, whore, murderer. She was none of those things. And I was all of them.
"Okay," he sighed, not believing me but not invested enough to press further and find out if I was lying or not. He pulled his mask down over his face and took a deep breath.
"Wait here." He walked over to the edge of the school and lifted off of it as easily if someone had hooked him around his neck and jerked. Okay, I thought. Be invisible.
I could hear Debbie screaming, the short bursts as she tried to breathe between them as West chased her just enough to get a good scare out of her. Simple. Scare her and reap the benefits. It was a foolproof plan and still I felt that scream in my stomach and I heard it gurgled with blood. Run. There had been blood in Jackie's eyes, drenching into her pressed and washed cheerleader uniform and dripping onto the shoes that she had double tied so they wouldn't come undone. Run, Jess. And I ran. Leaving her there. Leaving her to die on her own while I ran to safety though I didn't deserve it and she had died choking on her own blood and begging me to run. Debbie's screams sputtered off as West took the hint and I felt those screams savage in my chest and I tasted blood on my tongue. I fell onto my knees, gasping and choking on the taste of it though my bile came out clear. Run, Jess. She didn't deserve to die. He had wanted me and she had died in my place and I had run like she had asked me too but I should have stayed. I clawed at the gravel top, gasping and panting as my vision flashed red and I could almost taste the blood on her lips, the blood in my dad's chest as I screamed and screamed and he had said I won't let you take her. He had died for me too. He and Jackie were dead – choking on their blood and protecting me in that last moment and I was still here. Why was I still here? I sank my fingers into my hair, clawing at my scalp as my breathing returned to normal and I finally lifted my head to see the cold night still out on either side of me and no dying father or friend to justify the voices in my head. I could see past the edge of the gym wall, the lights down under it casting shadows up the gravel and metal. I slowly stood, a sudden clarity in my thoughts that echoed down to a very small and comforting thought. How close being invisible was to just – disappear. My shoes kicked aside the gravel as I slowly walked over to the edge, the picnic benches cutting sharp shadows over the quad and the mural that someone had painted in trying to inspire school spirit. My toes just went over, pointing out into the air and I heard Peter's voice again: the quiet sincerity in his voice as he promised that it would be okay. That I would be okay. He lied.
"Jess?" I startled, the sound of Claire's voice as I turned, still precariously close to the edge as West lifted her down onto the rooftop and her eyes were open wide as she saw where I was standing. "What are you doing?" I turned to look back down at the benches, estimating how far I would have to jump if I depending on if I wanted to miss them or land on them in the fall.
"Nothing."
