Blest (3 page)

Claire leaned against the school sign as Jim put on his beaten-up running shoes. “You know,” she said, “if you like running, you should join the cross-country team. My brother just did.”

“I do like running,” Jim said, grinding his feet into the heels of his shoes. “But I don’t really like teams. At least, not here.”

There was a brief silence, filled by the wind rustling the clump of pine trees beside them. Claire wondered if she’d scared Jim away. She remembered that Shane was the captain of the football team, and after all, Jim had seen her hanging out with Shane and Maria today. Jim’s face kept changing, shuffling through emotions like cards. Finally, he smiled at her.

“So where are you going?” she asked.

Jim looked down at his feet and shifted his weight from side to side. “I’m heading to the only place where no one can find me.” He ran a hand through his hair, leaving parts of it sticking up, gleaming gold in the fading sunshine. “Anyway, nice meeting you.”

“What—”

Jim yanked his backpack from the top of the sign, whipping around like he was late for an appointment, but he didn’t zip the bag all the way. As he turned, a black notebook toppled out of the backpack, clapping facedown onto the sidewalk, pages spread. Claire reached for it—and gasped.

It was open to a picture of her. An ink sketch that had been drawn in detail, right down to the way she had bound her hair in a low ponytail. The Claire on paper was standing on top of a weird structure, a tall building with a big, round center that had
PEARLTON
written across it. She blinked. Jim must have drawn this today, after he saw her on the bus.

“Sorry,” Jim said quietly. They were so close that she could see herself reflected in his eyes. Again, she was mesmerized by how blue they were.

“Sometimes, I, uh . . . I draw,” he explained. “You were the victim this time.” He stepped aside and pointed to something poking out over the top of the forest on the other side of the street, shining a pale green with the sun behind it. The Pearlton water tower, the building in his sketch. “I was headed there now, actually.”

Claire’s heart raced. She shakily handed the notebook back to him and tried to play it cool. “Can you take me there?”

“You . . . you want to come?”

“Yes,” she said.

That slow smile spread across his face again. “Okay then,” Jim said. “Follow me.”

• • •

Claire quickly learned why the Pearlton water tower was Jim’s secret getaway. While it was the most visible landmark in town, it was surprisingly difficult to find. As the late afternoon sun painted the clouds and treetops copper, she found herself kicking her way through brambles and overgrown bushes. Jim seemed to slip between the trees, magically dodging every fallen log and ducking under every branch. It was obvious he had taken this path countless time. And even more obvious that he had never taken someone else. In about five minutes, she could barely see him through the mossy, gnarled branches blocking her way.

“Jim!” she finally hissed. “Come on, wait up. Is this how you treat every girl you take here?”

He appeared in front of her almost instantly, blushing. “Um . . . I don’t really treat girls like anything. And I’ve never taken anyone here.” He cleared his throat and pushed aside a branch for her.

She mock-curtsied to him in her jeans. “Thank you, kind sir.”

He laughed, finally. It was a warm sound that she could tell he didn’t make very often, bubbling from deep within his chest, as if he laughed with every atom in his body. For the rest of their walk, he held more branches for her, and kicked aside logs. At the bottom of a small hill, he even took her hand and helped her hop across a puddle of mud. She could feel his hand in hers even after he quickly took it away and marched up the hill.

The water tower stood at the top, a rusted green thing with
PEARLTON
printed on the side. Claire looked up at it as she approached. A jagged ladder led up to a curved platform that ran in a circle around the mid-point of the tower. She turned to look over the trees as the sun sank behind them, watching the orange light flood across the pines, lighting the leaves from behind as if they glowed.

Suddenly, she thought back to Boston Prep, where she had started school last fall. She and Gunner had quickly connected with the popular kids there and ended up at some guy’s house the first weekend, where they built a bonfire and drank warm beer out of plastic red cups. A few juniors had flirted with her all night, teasing her and complimenting her around the fire. She had loved the attention. Now, she was in the middle of the woods next to a rusting water tower with a guy who may not even like her.

“I can see why you come here,” she said, gazing over the trees. “It’s beautiful.”

“We’re not there yet,” Jim said.

“What?” She turned around. Jim threw his yellow backpack to the ground and grabbed the rusty ladder, then started to climb up with practiced hands. The tower was at least a hundred feet high. “Where are you going?” she asked, even though the answer was obvious.

Jim smiled down at her. “Up,” he said simply, and kept climbing.

Claire blew out a breath, casting a glance over her shoulder at Pearlton High School, which looked like a stubby brick mushroom from this distance. She walked back and forth at the bottom of the ladder for a few seconds before jumping up to grab the first rungs, which were prickly with rust.

As she climbed, she wondered when she had last done something so unpredictable and irresponsible. Usually that was Gunner’s job. At every new school, he quickly established himself as a likeable troublemaker; someone the girls loved, the guys admired, and the teachers secretly liked. She was happy to go along with Gunner’s ideas, but she had never done anything impulsive on her own.
Now this
, she thought, looking down at the ground below and swallowing.
This is living
.

“You’re almost there!” Jim called from above her.

She held her breath as she scaled the final rungs. Jim’s hand waited for her at the top of the ladder, where there was an opening to a platform. He smiled—a private smile, meant only for her—and pulled her up.

Claire turned around, and caught her breath at the beauty of the sight before her. The early evening sun blurred into purples and blues, igniting clouds and pouring waterfalls of color over the winding streets, neat lawns, and open prairies of Pearlton. Farther away, she could see the skyline of St. Louis, the buildings rising against the horizon in the distance like a crooked mountain range.

“Wow,” she managed, sitting down next to Jim. He had his arms hanging over the middle bar of the railing and his legs dangling over the edge the platform, kicking in the breeze swirling around them.

She put her hand on the cold metal platform and scooted a little closer, so Jim blocked the wind. “I can’t believe you’re afraid of the dark but you can climb this thing without even thinking about it.”

Jim laughed. “Trust me, I’ve wondered about that too. But when it gets dark, I feel kind of . . . claustrophobic. I can’t control it.”

“When did you start coming up here?”

He didn’t answer for a second. Claire stole a glance at his blond hair, the way it seemed to absorb the colors of the sunset. “I don’t know, I guess a few summers ago.” Jim lurched to his feet, grappling the railing. “Let me show you something else.”

Before Claire could ask, he disappeared on the other side of the water tower. Where had he gone now? She rose to her feet unsteadily, clutching the railing in both hands. The wind rushed over her, howling in her ears. Claire gritted her teeth and eased her way along the railing. Beneath her, the grated platform creaked and bent. She wondered how old this thing was. Was it really even supposed to hold two people?

“Jim?” she called out, taking tiny, cautious steps. The wind almost cushioned her as she walked forward, as if it was gently pushing her toward him.

“Welcome to the far side of the water tower,” Jim said when she finally reached him. “Where the sun never shines.”

Claire’s eyes widened. The flaking green curve of the water tower was barely visible, thanks to the graffiti sprayed across it, a massive mural spanning at least fifteen feet across. Countless cans of spray paint nestled on the platform, most of them in milk crates that looked like they had been stolen from Pearlton High School’s cafeteria. Claire held her breath as her eyes swam across the dizzying rainbow of colors, trying to make sense of it all.

At the edge was the face of a sleeping woman, her skin a burnished white. She had the same flowing, straw-colored hair as Jim. On her eyelids were purple stars against the black canopy of night. The night sky opened up behind her, as if it was swallowing her, and her hair swam through it, forming a sunrise that traveled further down the tower. It was so deeply rendered that she felt like she could fall straight into it, so bright she could hardly look at it.

“Wow,” she murmured, reaching out to touch the cold metal of the tower. Below the night sky was a train on its tracks, a train that traveled toward the bright orange backdrop of the sunrise, where the long and endless sprawl of Pearlton was rendered in violent shades of emeralds, scarlets, and navy blues. Everywhere, there seemed to be miniscule details that were just slightly off. Where Pearlton High School should have been, there was only a swirl of colors. Some parts of town glimmered in a blood-red hue.

“What does it mean?” she asked, finally turning to look at Jim.

Jim frowned. “I try to paint my memories sometimes, and other times I try to paint . . . I don’t know. The things I’m feeling that don’t even have names.” His eyes skittered to the picture of the woman, but quickly dropped back to his feet. Claire desperately wanted to ask him about her, but she bit on her tongue, willing herself not to pry.

“This is basically what I did all summer, and I’m still trying to figure it out myself.” He laughed a little. “Sometimes I feel like there’s a part of me missing, and the more I draw, the more I have a map to find it.”

Claire thought about her own experience in schools, being ripped from place to place by her mom. Running from something that only her mom knew about—if it was even real. More than once, Claire had wondered if her mom wasn’t a little bit . . . unwell. Sometimes she was so strong, and sometimes it felt like the slightest word would break her.

“I know what you mean,” she said, moving closer to him. “Gunner and I have been to at least two schools a year since elementary school.” She ran her hand along the swirl of the night sky, and shivered. “Pearlton is the first one this year, but it won’t be the last. Every time, it’s a new house, new neighborhood, new school. New ‘friends.’ And every time we move, I feel like I’m leaving a little bit of myself behind. It’s . . .” She looked at Jim, who was gazing at her intently, hanging onto her every word. “Now I’m just going through the motions.”

Jim stayed quiet for a while. Without thinking, Claire reached out and gripped his hand. For one long moment, she felt the electricity of his touch running through her body, but then they both startled at the same time. Claire wrenched her hand away from him. “Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“That’s okay,” Jim said, blushing.

“Um . . .” Claire stammered, her heart pounding. “Anyway, I should get home. But thanks for bringing me up here, and showing me all this. It’s amazing.”

“Yeah.” Jim looked at her with his piercing blue eyes. “It is.”

The next morning, Jim spent the entire ride to school tapping his foot anxiously against the floor, waiting for Claire and Gunner to get on the bus. They never did. All sorts of questions began to fire anxiously through his brain. Was it because of what had happened yesterday at the water tower? Was Claire creeped out by him? He shook his head. Thinking about Claire was a waste of time. She probably wanted nothing more to do with him. He should never have shown her his crazy mural. It was just that, for some strange reason, he had wanted her to know him.

He got off the bus and walked into the school lobby with the reusable grocery bag that he was using instead of his broken backpack. He gritted his teeth and started to dig through the papers for his class schedule. He couldn’t remember what class he had first. Finally, he located the blue sheet with his schedule on it. Bio Lab, with Mr. Webb.

He shuddered. He had seen Mr. Webb wandering around the halls before. The guy looked like a hermit crab that lost its shell. He walked like one, too, always scuttling between the two labs in the basement with all sorts of vials and tools. Jim hauled his grocery bag of books onto his shoulder and started down the staircase to the basement.

He tried not to freak out as he walked down the long, windowless cement corridor to the labs. He didn’t like it down here, where there weren’t any windows. The basement was kind of a no man’s land, a place where the people who skipped class went to smoke or draw body parts on the wall. The hallway was dim, lit by a single bulb clicking on and off. He turned around, looking longingly back up the stairs.

Nothing good happened in the basement. Last year, Shane had given him a swirly down in the forgotten basement bathroom. For about five minutes. Jim had thought he was going to drown.

“Only the strong survive here, Jim Blest,” Shane had told him. “You’re not one of them.”

The bell rang and Jim started to run toward the classroom. He could hear Mr. Webb’s nasally voice as he ushered the last few people through the door. Jim picked up speed. Just as he dashed around the corner, he caught a flash of dark hair coming from the hallway to his right. And then, suddenly, there was a blinding pain in his head and he reeled backward, dropping his grocery bag. All of his books and papers exploded across the tiled floor.

“Ow!”

“Sorry, sorry! I was just trying to—Jim? Here, let me help.”

Jim opened his watering eyes. Claire crouched next to him, gathering up his books and papers and shuffling everything into order before sliding them back into the flimsy grocery bag. Jim blinked against the throbbing in his temple.

Claire looked up at him and blushed. “I kind of stick my elbows out when I run. I think I got you pretty good. Sorry.”

“It’s fine.” He tried to smile. “We just keep running into each other, don’t we?”

She laughed as she handed him the bag. He took it sheepishly, embarrassed that she had seen him with it.

“Excuuuuse me!” someone said in a sing-song voice behind them. “Are you two lovebirds ready to come inside so that we can all learn something?”

Claire and Jim exchanged quick glances and bit back smiles, murmuring apologies to Mr. Webb, who stood behind them with his hands on his hips. His brown mustache wriggled as he stepped aside to let them into the lab, where everyone else already stood at blocky lab benches. The only empty table was front and center, across from Mr. Webb’s desk and the whiteboard behind it.
Typical
, Jim thought. No one wanted to be at the front of a classroom, especially in a lab.

“You two punctual ponies can be partners, since everyone else is paired up already,” Mr. Webb said, pushing his glasses against his nose. “Let me just get your frog.”

“Punctual ponies?” Jim whispered to Claire as they walked over to the table.

“Frog?” she asked him.

“I’ve heard this guy is a little . . .” Jim looked over his shoulder. All of the other students were hovering over their tables. Most were on their smartphones, flicking their thumbs on the screens like robots. No one had touched any of the tools.

“Crazy?”

He smiled. “Exactly.”

“Maria told me that he believes in Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster and stuff.” She jerked her head to the supply closet where Mr. Webb had disappeared. “Supposedly he keeps a bunch of paranormal detectors or something back there.”

“Maybe we’ll get to dissect a yeti.”

Claire laughed and he felt prouder than he should, like he had just hit a home run in little league.

Mr. Webb came back holding a tray with a shriveled little frog in the center. “You guys are lucky,” he said as he put the tray down. “You get one of the good ones.”

“I’d hate to see one of the bad ones,” Claire muttered.

Mr. Webb explained that the first assignment was to find the frog’s brain. He pinched his fingers together so there was about half a centimeter of space between them. “It’s about that big, so you might have to do a little digging.”

For the first five minutes, Claire and Jim poked and prodded at the frog with the scalpels—in complete silence. Jim studied the frog carefully, shooting covert glances at Claire, trying to think of something to say. Suddenly, he felt like he had to be entertaining with everything he said or he might as well not say anything. What if she found out that he was boring? Last night on the water tower already felt like a dream. He could picture the moment like a painting, the two of them sitting there watching the sunset and looking at his mural.
The One and Only Time Jim Blest Talked to a Girl Successfully
, by the artist known as Fate. Or maybe he would draw it himself.

He made a face and poked cautiously at the frog. There was a juicy sucking noise as its belly burst open. Purple guts spilled out.

Claire wrinkled her nose. “This is exactly the way I want to spend my last day of being fifteen. Digging into frogs.”

Jim looked up at her, his scalpel halfway in the frog’s stomach. “It’s your birthday tomorrow?”

“Yeah, Gunner and I are turning sixteen. We’ll finally be able to drive, not that Gunner has been stopped by that little legal hurdle before. My mom gave him a Range Rover and he drove it this morning already. That’s why we weren’t on the bus.”

“Oh.” Jim took a breath. Gunner had gotten a Range Rover for his birthday? Jim would be lucky if his dad even remembered. “It’s actually my birthday tomorrow, too.” He always tried to forget about his birthday because it was always a disappointment. He couldn’t decide which was worse, when his dad forgot completely, like two years ago, or when he remembered and got too drunk, then cried about Jim’s mom, the memory of her death rising fresh in his mind. Jim’s throat tightened.

“What are you doing for it?” Claire asked eagerly. “Aren’t you excited?”

“Uh . . . well . . .”

She seemed to see something in his face. “If you want, we can combine our parties. Gunner and I are doing ours today, since our mom will be out of the house.”

The whole crowd of Shane’s friends shuffled through Jim’s head. Ben, Shane’s even more muscular bodyguard. Julia, who could insult people faster than anyone else in school. Maria, Shane’s girlfriend, with her sharp eyes that never missed an opportunity to make someone feel shitty. Erik, who thought he was slick and everyone else was beneath him. But then Jim looked at Claire, and heard himself saying, “That sounds fun.”

“Great, just meet me out in the parking lot after school and we’ll head to my place.” Claire seemed genuinely excited, but part of Jim still wondered if this was some elaborate trap.

She turned back to the frog, jabbing at the mess of organs with her scalpel. “You know,” she said, her voice strained as she twisted the scalpel deeper. “You gotta wonder what this means. You’ve got all the fairy tales talking about how kissing frogs turns them into princes.” Claire’s scalpel tore through something else and a little tiny black organ popped out. “What happens when you dissect one?”

“Frog zombies?” Jim asked. He wondered if there was anything less romantic you could do with a person than cut open a frog.

“I think we did it!” Claire proclaimed triumphantly, giving the organ an experimental prod. She raised her hand. “Mr. Webb! We found the brain!”

Mr. Webb, who had been patrolling the room with his hands clasped behind his back, hurried over to their table. His mustache twitched again as he looked down at the black thing Claire had unearthed. Alone and removed from the frog, it almost looked like a dust ball or a pebble. Something small and insignificant. Had this dot really powered the frog for its whole life? Jim wondered. How had this black ball told it to eat and drink and hibernate?

Mr. Webb clucked his tongue. “Not his brain, his heart. But good job finding something in there and isolating the organ from the rest of the body.”

“This is its heart?” Claire asked. The rest of the class turned to look at them. “How can you even tell the difference?”

Mr. Webb grinned. “Huh, well, that’s a question better left for the philosophers and pop singers of our generation, isn’t it?”

Jim and Claire looked at each other.

“Keep digging,” Mr. Webb said, waving his hand at the hapless frog lying in their tray. “You’ll find the difference.”

• • •

As the last bell rang and Jim escaped from Geometry with Ms. Regis—and, more importantly, Shane—his phone rumbled. A text from his dad.
Come right home after school today, it’s important
. He studied it for a second, shocked. His dad almost never texted him, much less called him. Had he remembered what day it was? Could he actually have a birthday party planned for Jim after all?

He started to text back when a shadow fell across the screen. Startled, he looked up and saw Gunner staring at him. Claire’s brother had her same sharp, intense features, but while her brown eyes were soft and compassionate and wild all at once, Gunner’s had a glassy sheen that made him totally unreadable.

“You picking up some milk and eggs before the party, man?” Gunner asked, looking at Jim’s grocery bag.

Jim blushed, fumbling with the bag before realizing he had nowhere to put it. “No, it’s because of—”

Gunner held up his hand. “Sorry, I was just teasing you. I know it was Shane. Pranks are so middle school. That kind of prank, at least.” He stretched his back, his broad chest flexing against his tight Polo shirt. “I talked to him. I don’t think he’ll do that kind of thing again.” He cracked a smile. “Your groceries are safe.”

Jim smiled uneasily and ran a hand through his hair. There was an intensity to Gunner that made him nervous, like Gunner was analyzing him continuously, picking him apart. “Good. Um . . . are you guys still having your party?”

“Yeah, it’s going to be sweet. Claire wanted me to come get you. She’s waiting out in the parking lot.” Gunner jerked his head and strode down the hall. Jim looked after him, curious, before running to catch up. He watched the students clear a way for Gunner as he cut down the center of the corridor, high-fiving some guys and nodding at others. How did Gunner make more friends in a day than Jim had in a year? In ten years? Gunner turned and backed his way through the exit door, winking at Jim. The afternoon sun sparkled on his dark hair. “Wait until you see our ride.”

“Our ride? What, like, a car?” The moment the words left his mouth, Jim remembered Claire talking about Gunner’s birthday present.

Gunner laughed. “Yeah, a car. My mom got me a Range Rover for my birthday, and I sweet-talked her into letting me drive it today. We’d better not get into an accident or I’m screwed, since it’s not actually legal for me to drive today. But I mean, why do I need a
license
to sit in a chair and move a wheel around?”

The back parking lot of Pearlton High School stretched across a downhill slope, crammed with dented cars and hand-me-down trucks that roared to life as kids filtered through the spaces and tried to get away from school as fast as possible. At the back of the lot, Jim could see the Range Rover in question, gleaming like a black pearl amid everyone else’s lesser vehicles.

“What, uh . . . what does your mom do, exactly?” Jim asked softly.

“You mean, why did I get a Range Rover for my sixteenth birthday?” Gunner smiled. “She’s actually a nurse. But I think our dad, before he left, you know . . .” He cleared his throat. “I don’t really want to talk about it, if that’s okay.”

“Of course, sorry,” Jim said quickly, hearing the grinding gears in Gunner’s voice, as if he had seen some emotional topic on the horizon and veered away before he had to face it. “So . . . how do you like Pearlton so far? You’re hanging out with, like . . . Shane . . . that’s cool, right?”

Gunner nodded. “Yeah, Shane’s cool.” He noticed Jim’s expression and chuckled, shaking his head. “Just be confident around him, man, and you’ll be fine.”

“But I’m
not
confident,” Jim mumbled as they got to the car. He saw Claire leaning against the Range Rover, tapping into her phone.

Gunner stopped, looking him up and down. Jim saw a flicker of something in his eyes. “No one is. That’s the secret to being confident—if you act confident, everyone thinks you are. And that’s the same thing.” Gunner strode up to Claire and pulled the key to the Range Rover from his pocket. “Yo, twin, let Jim get the front. He needs some wind in his face.”

Jim looked at Claire and she smiled at him. He smiled back, a little uncertain how to act around her, especially with Gunner right there. It didn’t turn out to be a problem. As soon as Jim slipped into the passenger seat of the Range Rover, he couldn’t think of anything except how this could be the last car ride of his life.

Gunner peeled out of the driveway and roared out onto the streets, doing about fifty miles an hour through the suburbs. He illegally passed a school bus, two trucks, and a car before they had even gone under the tunnel. They passed through the tunnel so fast that Jim didn’t even have time to react.

“See?” Gunner asked, his voice raised over the wind roaring from his open window. “You do everything fast enough and you can’t be scared of anything, right?”

“Don’t pay attention to him,” Claire said from the backseat, gripping the side of Jim’s headrest as Gunner’s sharp turns hurtled them left and right. Jim could see her face from the corner of his eye, her dark brown hair flying.