Exposed (26 page)

Did I do this to her, somehow?

Is what happened to her my fault?

My hands shake the whole time I’m getting dressed and packing up my leotard and tights and makeup and batons.

I can’t do this. I’m too sick. I’m too upset.

But it’s Regionals. Devin’s counting on me. The
Bear’s counting on me. I’ve been counting on me, too, to beat Ellis in a major way and finally shut her up. And Lauren’s counting on her dress rehearsal. The play’s a big deal. Mom’s getting Lauren an out-of-school pass for it and everything, since it’s a major community event.

Lauren….

Tonight, I’ll do what I have to do, and everything will change, probably for the worse, and probably for the both of us. For today, Lauren and I still have life as we know it, and big things to do—moments we’ve been working really hard to achieve.

That thought carries me through the rest of my packing, and lugging my bags downstairs, including last year’s backpack with all the illegal electronics inside. No way am I leaving any of this stuff for somebody to find. Not that Lauren would dare look for it with Mom stuck right up her nose.

About the time I get my stuff to the front door, Lauren comes out of her bedroom in her robe with her hair wet and sticking to her pale face. The sight of her makes me stand still and stop breathing. I can’t stop staring at her as she walks down the stairs, but once she makes it to the living room, I can’t look at her at all. I just turn around and open the door and start searching for Devin and Mr. Macy.

I have zero idea what to say to Lauren, or how to say it. Just the thought of trying to talk to her, ask the questions I need to ask, say anything at all—chokes me up completely.

I’m Mom. I’m everybody who hasn’t been able to talk straight to me since they found out about Adam-P and the herpes thing. I’m … awful.

Lauren tugs at my warm-up jacket.

Oh, God.

I turn around, expecting—anything. For her to freak out. Demand her computer. Start yelling or crying and blow it all up, right here, right now. My stomach drops hard, and orange juice burns up my throat.

She looks so
little
.

“Can I go in your room and get your extra mascara?” She pushes a strand of brown hair out of her face and gazes at me with clear, wide eyes, exactly the same color as her hair.

“What?” My own voice sounds so alien it makes me jump.

“Mom said I had to ask.” Lauren’s acting nervous. Her hand shakes as she points upstairs. “About the makeup. Can I use it, or not?”

I tighten my grip on the straps of the pack with her computer in it. “Oh. Yeah. Sure. Use whatever you want.”

Off she goes, back up the stairs again.

Something about the way she sounded and looked makes me wonder if the real Lauren’s somewhere up on the ceiling with the real me, watching everything going on below.

The blare of a horn jerks me back to reality for a few seconds at least.

Devin and Mr. Macy have arrived. They’re in the big black sedan today, and they both have on sunglasses for the perfect too-cool-for-our ride look.

I drag my bags out the door and Devin meets me halfway across the yard.

“You look like excrement,” she says with all her usual tact.

“Thanks.” I squint into the sunlight as we put the bags into the sedan’s trunk. Look like excrement, feel like a total vampire. It’s gonna be a great day.

She slams the trunk, then opens the back door for me. As I slide onto the seat and grab for the belt, she asks, “Can you do this?”

“I can do this,” I say. But I don’t talk much more on the way to the bus.

We get to the school a little early, but the Bear and the rest of the majorettes show up pretty fast, including Ellis, who, thankfully, ignores me. The jazz band arrives, too. They have a competition at the same place, so we’re all riding together. A bunch of parents, including Mr. Macy, are lining up cars to drive behind the bus as I settle into the very back bench, which has a bit of extra room so I can lie down if I need to. Devin flops on the other end of the seat, and the Bear takes the seat directly in front of her. The rest of the majorettes and the jazz band mix up and sit down, chattering and clanging instruments and jawing about how much ass they’re going to kick.

All the noise makes me want to scream, but I don’t have the energy to waste. I need to rest as much as possible if I want a prayer of making it through my routine.

Don’t think like that. You’ll make it through. You’re going to beat Ellis.

I lean back and close my eyes.

I have to get through the day, do my best, then face tonight.

The bus pulls out, leading the line of parent-cars, and the lurch makes my stomach flip. I chew my bottom lip to hold it together.

“Quit thinking about bad things,” Devin says under all the noise and clanging and trumpet blasts.

I turn my head in her direction. “I’m not.”

“Don’t prevaricate, honey.” She shakes her finger at me. “I can see negativity all over your face.”

Don’t lie
. I smile at her.
So easy to say. And don’t think about Paul. Yeah, okay. Right. I can do that.

My head rolls back to center and I close my eyes. My legs hurt. My private parts itch a little and burn. It’s a tiny bit better than yesterday, but not much. Without the Theraflu, which I probably shouldn’t be taking, I’d fall right on my face and just stay down for the count.

As it is, I’m awake, but I wish I weren’t. The bus seems first too hot, and then too cold, and definitely too, too noisy. The chatter won’t stop. And the chatter in my head won’t shut up, either.

When I do start talking about all this stuff, what
exactly am I going to say—to Mom, Dad, Lauren, Devin, the cops—to everyone?

I’ve been talking to this guy and I made some videos for money on the Internet….

My fingers trace across the rough fabric of the old backpack.

Hey, I just happened to find this computer after beating open an old suitcase under a karaoke machine—no special reason
—
and hacked into my sister’s computer files, and …

Images of Lauren’s e-mails flicker through my mind and I try to shut them out.

“Chan, you look like you’re sucking on a sour, rotten pickle,” Devin says. “Give it a rest.”

This time, the Bear turns around in her seat and gives me an endless, hard stare. I can’t tell if she’s mad or worried. Probably mad. Maybe everybody should be mad at me.

I rub my palm across the old backpack.

So, Lauren downloaded a screen concealer from the site Paul directed me to. And her perv’s e-mails sound way too much like Paul talking. And the timing matches.

What else?

What else is it that’s banging around in my brain, trying to be remembered?

I do my best to keep the pickle look off my face as Devin gives me a speech about motivation and positive thinking, and the majorettes chatter, and the Bear
hollers at a trumpet player for emptying his trumpet’s spit-valves on a drummer’s head.

It’s all too normal. I don’t want normal. I don’t feel normal.

I feel like I should be remembering something.

The nightmares and the Cave of Doom, for one thing.

Hadn’t Lauren’s nightmares and her goth phase gotten worse around the same time I started talking to Paul?

I shut my eyes and play back everything Paul and I discussed those first few times we talked, even though it’s been weeks.

We talked about ourselves. About school (him lying at first, of course). And our families.

Did I mention Lauren by name?

My eyes come open.

I did mention her name. And I gave Paul my name and the name of my school. How hard would it have been for him to look up Lauren’s school? To find her profile or her e-mail address?

I’ve even given Paul Lauren’s BlahFest profile name—lots of times.

He could have gotten her e-mail address from that, if she included it.

Of course she did.

Paul might have even hacked it right off my computer. Mom said my laptop had some worms and a
Trojan. One of those programs could have fed Paul my entire address book.

He might not be a perv.

I might be adding up a whole bunch of things that don’t add up.

I’ve never done a search for Lauren’s name on the Net, either. Maybe her profile and e-mail come up. I’ll have to check that.

My fault. It’s probably all my fault.

But I could be making a whole bunch of mess out of absolutely nothing
.

Those e-mails on Lauren’s laptop aren’t
nothing
. They’re—they’re everything. Everything awful in the whole world.

Somebody’s trying to take advantage of my little sister.

I think about the envelope she got the same day I got my B-3k from Paul. The one with her friend’s name on it, and the little hearts and stuff.

If Paul faked out people by using my school’s address, could he have faked us all out by using the name and address of one of Lauren’s friends?

No.

Yes….

She said she had a boyfriend. That poor kid. Wanting her voice lessons, and the boyfriend—

Like Paul with me, and the training program. The money. The escape from Mom’s rules. The whole I’m-okay-with-your-herpes thing.

“I’m not eight,” I mutter out loud, then catch myself.

Devin gazes at me. “Are you getting delirious?”

“No.” I glance at her handbag. “Can I borrow your cell a minute?”

She leans back on her seat and holds up one hand. “Not if your mom will kill me or have me arrested or anything.”

“It’s Mom I want to call,” I say.

Devin gives me a you’re-way-past-nuts look, but she also gives me the phone.

I try Mom’s number, but get her voice mail immediately. The phone’s off. They’re probably already at the dress rehearsal. I leave a message, try Dad next, but can’t get him, either. After trying them both one more time and leaving messages on both voice mails, I hand the phone back to Devin.

What time is that rehearsal?

Would Mom stay with Lauren the whole time?

And after it was over, since it would be after school hours, would Mom leave Lauren with the babysitter and go to work?

Just for good measure, I take back Devin’s phone and leave a message for Mom on her voice mail at work, too.

Miles roll by. And minutes. Nearly an hour.

I try to get my mind off things. Talk to Devin about the competition. About Haggerty and the paper. About how we would win our categories. About anything at all.

But my thoughts keep coming straight back to Lauren.

Devin names her biggest competition in the dance section and says, “I think my high kick can take hers any day.”

Please
don’t tell Mom
, Lauren had said when she told me about David.
She wouldn’t let me talk to him or see him or anything
.

Did she actually use the phrase
see him
?

I sit up straighter.

She did. I’m sure of it.

I look at Devin. “So not good.”

“What?” Devin’s eyebrows come together. “My kick is totally better and you know it!”

Wait until tonight, Chan
. The thought pops into my head and almost sounds convincing.
Today is too important for Lauren. And way too important for you
.

My heart starts a fast, steady,
pound-pound-pound,
and my gaze moves to the back of Ellis’s head. She’s got her hair up today, looking perfect, completely calm and ready to compete. She’s blabbering to her friends, stopping only to dig me with a witchy frown a few times.

I … don’t care.

I really don’t think I do.

All of a sudden, Ellis and
skank
and Adam-P and herpes and tons of other things just don’t seem that important.

Am I
really
willing to take a risk like Lauren not
having a grown-up right beside her just because I might not be able to compete and beat the witch-monster and get what I want?

Or just because I might get in trouble, too?

Please
don’t tell Mom. She wouldn’t let me talk to him or
see
him …

God, what kind of person am I?

“Chan, baby, you’re startin’ to scare me.” Devin’s voice drifts through the craziness on the bus and in my head.

“I’m scaring myself,” I say out loud, to her and the craziness. “I hate myself. You should hate me, too.”

Devin’s way-high eyebrows say,
You’re completely delirious and I’m about to call an ambulance
.

When I had talked to Lauren about her “boyfriend,” I had asked if he made her happy, and she said something like,
He’ll get me free lessons when we see each other at the dress rehearsal
.

In a big hurry, I grab Devin’s phone off the seat beside her and dial.

Mom’s voice mail picks straight up again.

I swear.

Dad still doesn’t answer, either.

Should I call the police?

Or maybe the place where Lauren’s having the dress rehearsal?

Where
is
the dress rehearsal? I don’t know!

It’s probably at the theater, but I don’t know for sure. The theater’s pretty small, and it’s a college auditorium
during the day. The college might have classes there or something.

Lauren….

What am I doing on this bus? Am I out of my mind?

What have I done?

When we see each other at the dress rehearsal….

Responsibility
makes sense in a way it’s never made sense before. The pounding in my chest becomes absolute thunder. I start to shake all over and slam the phone shut.

Devin jumps and snatches it back from me. “Easy on the phoneware,” she says. “What’s wrong with you, Chan?”

I hit myself in the head, hard, twice, with both fists.

“Everything!” I yell.

Then I start to cry. Really cry.

Tears stream down my face.

Devin freezes in place and the bus goes funeral-quiet.

The Bear wheels in her seat, but I don’t wait for her to speak. “I need to go home, Coach.” I stand, step forward, and grab the sleeve of her black competition-day warm-up suit. “I’ve got to go home
right now
.”