Exposed (28 page)

So I’m kind of shell-shocked.

Kind of blown up and bombed out and weird. That’s me. That’s what my life is now.

And I’m in the kitchen on the phone with, of all people, Adam-P.

“I’m glad your mom lets you talk,” he says. “On the phone. To me, I mean.”

I don’t tell him Mom’s probably just glad he’s underage, or that she probably hasn’t said one word to Dad about any of it. Instead, I say, “Yeah. Thanks for calling again,” and draw pictures on the kitchen counter in some salt I spilled.

Adam-P broke up with Ellis the day she came home with all her trophies and ribbons from Regionals, but he’s never told me why. I can’t believe he’s called once a day every day since everything happened. Maybe he feels bad. Maybe he thinks it’s partly his fault. I don’t know. And I’m not really sure why I’m talking to him, except he’s being nice and he’s not wanting anything from me.

Adam sounds sincere and concerned like he always used to. “When do you have to testify?”

I make a frowny face in the salt. “Sometime next year.”

He grunts. “Sucks.”

“Yeah.” Did I ever really give Adam-P a book of love poems? Guys like Adam-P don’t do love poems. I should have given him a football. Or maybe a new helmet and better pads, or whatever it is guys really like.

Still, brilliant and stimulating conversations aside, talking to him’s okay. Sort of. For now, at least.

When Devin shows up, it’s my excuse to say good-bye. She grabs my hand and drags me out of the kitchen.

So, four weeks, two major outbreaks, and a lot of crisis counseling sessions later, Devin and I sit in the living room at my house, staring at the blinking red, blue, green, and yellow lights on our Christmas tree. There are lots of presents underneath it.

But I bet all the money the police confiscated out of my Portal account that there aren’t any computers in those boxes.

The computer that used to be in the living room, it’s gone. There aren’t any computers in our house anywhere. My parents even took out the landlines and went to cell phones only at home, and Lauren and I don’t have one of those, either. That might have been a problem with our school assignments and extracurricular activities, except my parents pulled Lauren and me out of school and extracurricular activities, too, and Mom’s home-schooling us for now. The only “extra” thing we get to do is private twirling lessons with the Bear, who comes over every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday afternoon.

Because of all our counseling, Mom’s working on the concept of being “flexible.” We all have concepts. Lauren’s is “confident,” Dad’s is “consistent,” and mine is “accountable.”

Accountable isn’t much fun.

I’m managing it, though, just like I’m managing the headlines and all the television coverage and the fact I still miss … well, not Paul.

Definitely not Paul.

“I guess I miss what I thought Paul was,” I tell Devin when she asks. “That special romantic person in my life I can love and adore and totally trust, who loves and adores and totally trusts me.”

“Well,” she says, straight-faced, “I still don’t want to put pearls on your titties or anything, but you can totally trust me.”

I almost smile at that. “I know. I’m—”

“Don’t say you’re sorry again.” She holds up her hand. “I’m saturated with I’m-sorry.” Then she tells me that one day, when I’m ready, I’ll find a good man to give me pearls and it sure as hell won’t be Paul. “Or Adam-P, even if he’s calling you all the time. The freak.”

“He called twice yesterday,” I mention before I forget and she finds out and I have to start over with saying I’m sorry.

“Oh. My. God.” Devin gapes at me, holding her ankles with both hands. “What did he want?”

I shift my gaze back to the blinking lights and presents. “He just asked if I’m okay, if there’s anything he can do.”

After a few seconds, Devin says, “I heard he’s still broken up with Ellis.”

“I don’t want Adam-P back, Devin.”

“No way. I know you don’t.”

And I really don’t think I do. The guy I want, maybe he’d be like Dad, a little bit. Kind and gentle and sweet, but with a mean nose-crushing punch when his babies get threatened. Or like Devin, loyal and brilliant and energetic, and always there, more than anyone else in my life has ever been there. Or maybe he’ll even be a little like the Bear, tough and focused and talented—though I’d rather he do without the big white pickup truck.

“Have they grounded you yet?” Devin fiddles with the bow on the closest package, the one that just happens to have her name on it. “My dad grounded me for a
week and keeps threatening to do it again even though I didn’t
do
anything. Other than lose it on the bus and make him follow you and the Bear back to West Estoria.”

“Your dad should see our counselor. She’ll have him working on ‘flexible,’ too.”

Devin snorts. “Yeah. I wish. Life without computers sucks, and I don’t think he’ll be getting over that one any time soon. But you—your parents
really
haven’t grounded you?”

“Not yet. I kind of keep waiting, but it doesn’t happen.” I lean back against the couch, battling with that me-on-the-ceiling feeling. It’s getting a little better, but it’s still there. “Maybe all of that will come later, when they’re finished being thrilled that Lauren and I are alive and here with them. I’m not sure I even care, really. I don’t get to leave home much anyway.”

“Honey, I wouldn’t go looking gift equines in the mouth.” Devin pushes her package around a little. “At least I get to come over, and we get to talk on the phone. I’m just glad Lauren’s okay, and you’re not insane anymore.”

“I’m still insane.” I glance upstairs, to where Lauren’s sealed inside the Cave of Doom. She hasn’t talked much since that day at the church, since everything blew up, and she’s pretty furious with me, partly for leading “Paul”—his real name is actually Jim—to her, and partly for “telling on her.”

Maybe it’ll get better as time passes, as she gets treatment. Or maybe as she gets older. I wonder … but I also hope it can be that way.

As for the things Paul/Jim did to me, I still have trouble with my counseling for that. Trouble seeing myself as a victim. The counselor tells me that part of learning accountability is understanding what I am and am not responsible for, but that’s way past hard.

“Are you sure you’re not mad at me?” I ask Devin for like the millionth time.

She finally picks up the present with her name on it and shakes it. “I promise I’m not mad—if this is a good present.”

“It’s good.” I hope she’ll think so, even when she finds out it’s two books of poetry. One’s a brand-new Emily compendium she can take with her even if we don’t get to go to the same college. The other book is my own poems, twenty of them I’ve handwritten over the last month, bound together with the best cover I could make, considering I have no computer.

She hugs her present close to her, eyes fixed on the tree’s blinking lights. “I don’t know how you’ve been standing it, with your private life all splashed like—like—”

“Like we splashed the ‘Wild Dyke of Amherst’ all over American lit?”

“Oh, now, don’t start with that karma stuff again or I swear I’ll take you straight to church.”

I point toward the door. “Just go check our mailbox. We get plenty of offers to teach me religion every day, especially after those gossip shows started showing bits of the videos.”

“Uh, yeah. I saw some of that.” Devin shakes her present again. “When do you testify? I want to mark that on my schedule.”

“Thanks, but I don’t know. The trial’s next year. When somebody tells me a date, I’ll tell you.”

“I think what you’re doing is brave.”

Brave.

I don’t feel brave. I feel like a complete idiot and an even bigger ass.

I’m the girl who fed her little sister to an Internet predator.

Devin and I spend the rest of the afternoon talking, and that, at least, feels real and right and sort of normal. It does seem totally weird to have nothing else going on in my life, but also not so bad. Sometimes I get so bored I think my brain might melt, but other times, it’s nice to just write poems or read them or sit in front of the Christmas tree and run my mouth.

After Devin goes home, I check in with Mom, who’s working from home on her cell, a bunch of papers scattered in an arc around her on her bed. She waves at me. And she looks at me straight in the face, which still feels important.

Then I go to find Dad, who’s in the basement playing
a video game where he has to out-dance the characters on the screen. Like, actually dance, crazy-fast, and keep up. I like that game, too, but he always does better than me, even if he still orders way too many pizzas. He gives me a hug and a kiss, then asks me in a quiet voice, “Will you check on Lauren?”

I frown and look at my feet, but agree to do it, which gets me another hug. Dad feels a little bit smaller when I have my arms around him. I wonder if he is, or if I just want him to be—but I hope he is.

The climb up the stairs to Lauren’s cave feels long and hard, and with each step I move more slowly. This part’s messed up, dealing with her, especially without my parents. I know I need to, that I owe her that.

So I knock on her door and wait for her to tell me to go away, like she usually does.

No answer.

I knock again. “It’s just me. Let me see your face because I promised Dad I’d check on you, then I’ll take a hike if you want.”

I hear a rattle and the door opens a fraction. Lauren puts her face in the crack. She has smudges of green and purple on her cheeks and chin, and she looks at me just long enough to say “Take a hike.”

Even though it hurts, I try to smile and I hold up both hands. “Okay, okay. Like I said, just checking. Let me know if you need anything.”

Lauren closes the door.

If every single electronic anything hadn’t been taken out of our house, and if my parents hadn’t obsessively searched our rooms and monitored all incoming correspondences and packages—and if my dad hadn’t bought this weird spy thing from WireShack that told him if any wireless device was broadcasting in our house—I might worry.

These days, Lauren’s not doing anything on the Internet, or singing, or dancing. She’s drawing. Charcoals and pastels, and sometimes now, a little bit of watercolor. I guess it’s like poetry for me, something good for her, maybe a way she can talk when the words won’t come any other way.

I head toward my room, but just then, her door opens again.

The sound makes me stop, but I don’t know if I should turn around.

“Would you bring me a bottle of water?” Lauren asks. “I’m right in the middle of a lion’s face, and I don’t want to stop, but I’m thirsty.”

“Okay.” I opt not to turn around, but I go get her water and bring it back to her.

She opens the door when I knock and doesn’t say anything nasty, and she takes the water when I offer it to her.

Then she thanks me.

And she doesn’t say anything sharp or nasty before she closes her door again.

Not bad
, I think as I look at the piece of wood separating me from my little sister.
That’s actually progress, maybe?

I decide to take it as progress.

Fetching water for Lauren lifts my spirits enough that I decide to go back to the basement and challenge Dad to a dance-game tournament. I know he’ll probably whip my butt like he usually does, but I’m okay with that.

And I’m okay with hauling a
lot
of water up the stairs to my little sister, if that’s what it takes.

Maybe I’ll even try drawing, too, to go along with my poetry. Maybe one day, Lauren will let me teach her how to write a poem, and about Emily Dickinson, and about anything else I know that she might want to learn. If I’m really lucky, she’ll ask me to tell her the princess story again.

Like with everything else Lauren-related, I wonder, but I also hope it can be that way.

Dad sees me coming and resets the game for two people.

I line up beside him and get into ready position, just like I do when the Bear drills me at twirling.

And … as of this week, the steps to win this video game….

“You ready to lose again, Chan?” Dad’s pink freckled cheeks stretch as he gives me a “gonna getcha” smile and
rubs his hands together. “Because you know I’m the king of this game.”

I smile at him, because it’s impossible not to smile at my dad—even when I’m about to dance him into the carpet fibers. “Hit the button, Your Majesty. We’ll just see who rules.”

I cannot write a book without thanking my intrepid critique partners. To Debbie Federici, for going over this a thousand times, I owe you, as usual. Thanks to Christine Taylor-Butler, Tara Donn, and Sheri Gilbert and anyone I may have forgotten who read this book and gave me feedback—I bow to you all.

To my agent, Erin Murphy, who kept encouraging me, I definitely needed it. To my spectacular editor, Victoria Wells Arms, thanks for your patience and belief. Special thanks to Brittany Jepson, PA, for her help with the medical details.

Finally, much appreciation to my family, who tolerated me during this writing process. I know that wasn’t easy, guys. You rock.

Also by Susan Vaught

Stormwitch
Trigger
Big Fat Manifesto

Copyright © 2008 by Susan Vaught

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

First published in the United States of America in December 2008
by Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers
E-book edition published in April 2011
www.bloomsburykids.com

For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to
dPermissions, Bloomsbury BFYR, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Vaught, Susan.
Exposed / by Susan Vaught.—1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.

Summary: Chan Shealy, a sixteen-year-old baton-twirler and straight-A student,
becomes involved with an Internet predator, despite strict parental rules and her own belief that she
knows how to keep herself safe online.