Heartsick (17 page)

Chapter Thirty-One

I regret spitting into the cup as soon as I get past their white picket fence.

No, I don’t.

Yes, I do.

I’m bouncing back and forth on the tips of my toes like Rain Man until I make myself move. I take a longer way, via a gravel path near the ravine, among the trees, so I can think. There’s something about the way gravel sounds, shifting between my shoes, that makes me feel alive. Some people need skydiving, I need long, windy gravel paths to get lost in. It won’t take long to get back to town. It’s only about a mile away. As I walk, making good time, I take in the sounds and the trees and the water that travels between the rocks and the hills. Despite the serenity that surrounds me, everything is so fucked up. I have purple eyes, a fucked up symptom of a fucked up disease. In fact, a lot of people have purple eyes. And some people who don’t have it want it so much they’re willing to be stuck inside a quarantine with a murderer, someone who may have a proclivity toward hunting us down. And I’m walking in the woods. Alone.

I’m an idiot.

I walk faster. I’m almost to the path that leads up to Sullivan Street, but I need a couple nature-y breaths. I look over the expanse. Brilliant greens and golds. I stop. The sound of water brushes against my ears. I close my eyes and inhale.

I am everywhere and nowhere, lost in my own reverie, until fingers jab my ribs, hard.

“What’re you doing here?”

My heart thumps as I whirl to see Natalie’s angry eyes.

“I was just headed home,” I say. I try to move past her but she sidesteps, blocking my path.

“I think we should talk,” she says.

“About what exactly?”

“You and the other purple-eyed freaks, walking around, spreading purple eyes everywhere.” She pauses and her jaw stiffens. “I saw what you did to Luke.”

My palm hits my stomach and I want to look anywhere but her accusing face. She waits, lips tight. The leaves rustle around us. I have to somehow tame the broiling acid in my stomach. Guilt and fear sloshing against each other. “I didn’t mean to, I didn’t know I had it—”

“Shut up,” she says. She grabs my shoulders, but then she clutches her hand back, as if my maroon cardigan burned her. “Just...shut up. I’m sick of hearing people say that they didn’t mean any harm. Well, harm happened.” Natalie’s fists are so hard, her knuckles look like they might pop out of her skin. She stretches them, running her pointer finger over the outline of something in her pocket. “You’re going to stay in your house from now on. And you’re going to stay away from Luke and everyone else in Allan.”

“We’re all in the quarantine together, now,” I say.

She slips her fingers into her pocket and pulls out a long, black switchblade. When it flicks up, I jump back. My thighs shake. She smiles.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” she says. “But I will protect this town.”

Shit, she is some sort of vigilante now? My heart yammers and my feet don’t want to stay on the ground. I have to get away from her. Now. I flash my gaze quickly up and to the right. She falls for it. She turns around and lowers her knife. I swipe past her, pushing her as I go. I hear the startled cry, the crush of leaves, the squish of dirt. But she gets up fast. Her steps stomp and crash along behind me.

But I don’t see any of that, of course. All I see is the path before me, strewn with jagged roots and unforgiving rocks. I run, I hop, I dart, I skip, and somehow I manage to burst out of the woods and on to Sullivan Street. I dash down it, only turning back once—coast clear—before turning onto Main Street panting and wheezing.

I lost her. I pause, my hand up against the glass of Roy’s Sports Bar, as I let my breathing slow. A gray, hazy mist has settled over the bones of the town. Droplets descend on the tips of my eyelashes. Aside from some cops dangling on a corner a block away, there’s no one around. I’m in a ghost town. I squint through the windows of Roy’s. Half-drunk pints rest next to tabletop menus that spell Yuengling wrong in the list of specials. Men and women cup their chins in palms as they stare at the news. The governor is chatting with a correspondent.

Steps pound toward me. I shift. Natalie bangs right into me sending us both to the ground. My head hits the bricks. Pain sprouts through my brain. I shift and move under her weight, but she’s too heavy. “Get off me.” Her hand crunches my shoulder, her other hand crushes my thigh. She may just be trying to get up, but she has chosen the most excruciating way to do it.

“You’re the one who blocked me. I was just trying to talk,” she says, face red, the vein in her neck punctuating as she hovers over me, still not up. Other footsteps click toward us and large hands grab at my shoulders and underarms, pulling me up. Flashes of blue and gold. Another cop pulls Natalie away from me.

“Thank y—” I start to say, but I’m pushed face first into the brick wall. The mortar scratches at my cheek. A forearm presses into my shoulder blades, squishing my rapidly beating heart. I pinch my eyes closed as cold metal licks against my wrists.

The cop clicks the handcuffs in place.

Chapter Thirty-Two

The cops walk Natalie and me to the police station. Natalie bitches the whole way about her rights and how it’s all my fault for, you know, blocking her, when she slammed right into me.

I stay quiet and do nothing. Not a great life philosophy, but a wonderful police-escorting-you-in-cuffs philosophy. My dad used to be a lawyer, after all.

On the way, there’s a commotion just off Main Street in front of the town hall. The brick building has stood for more than two hundred years, only burning down three times. (The tour guides put the
only
in there as though lesser buildings have burned down more often.) But it still stands on its original foundation.

Jared and his followers stand out front, seemingly oblivious of the news cameras, even though they’re right in front of them. There are trucks and tons of wires and coiffed hair and people talking into the cameras while gesticulating behind them.

Jared’s group has new signs. Scrawls of religious righteousness on green fluorescent poster boards. The Purps are Being Punished. The Purps Have Lost Their Way. Something rattles deep in my being. We Must Eliminate the Purps. The fact that it’s in purple puffy paint doesn’t keep me from biting too hard into my lip. Bitter blood oozes on my tongue.

I’m still bleeding a little when we bang into the police station doors. “Another altercation,” the cop holding my arm bellows. “Might just need to have them cool down.”

“I don’t need to cool down,” Natalie says, squirming in her cop’s reach and finally kicking him in the shin. He yelps and grabs his leg as she runs free for the briefest of moments.

“Where, exactly, are you planning to go?” I ask.

She glares at me and sighs. She looks at the cop holding my arms. She turns around, lifting her cuffed hands away from her back. “Get these off me, Tommy. This is bullshit, bringing me in ’cause I bumped into someone.”

Yes, just a small bump. With a switchblade in your pocket.

Tommy reddens. “Look, we’re on high alert. We’re trying to keep the town calm. People are panicky.”

People are panicky.

“I’m not panicky,” she screeches.

I remember my dad’s lawyerly advice and, despite the fervor coursing through my veins, I stay still and silent as a statue.

Until Luke comes in.

“What the fuck is going on?” he asks. He’s stern and angry and serious.

“They were fighting, sir,” Tommy says, voice like a train ramming through his vocal cords. Luke looks at Tommy’s hands, which are stiff around my upper arms. His fingers press into my skin.

Luke rolls up his sleeves, slowly, methodically, pinching the cloth. The bones in his jaw strain against his skin. As he focuses on the folding of the fabric, he asks, “Do you think it’s necessary to hold her like that?”

Tommy lets me go, steps back and scratches his head. “We just thought they might need to cool down in a cell for a while.” This time, his voice trips.

“Luke,” Natalie says, “I just bumped into her, that’s it.”

“Just bumped into me?” I say, and jut forward, forgetting my own statue rule. “Check her pocket. She has a knife. She was threatening me with it.”

The other cop feels her pocket and pulls out the switchblade. They look at Natalie. “I was just showing it to her, that’s all,” she says.

Luke tilts his head and something goes limp around his eyes. His voice drops. “Natalie...”

“What?” she yells.

Luke sighs and turns to me. My heart beats faster than it did when Natalie was holding a knife inches from my face. “Let’s just figure out what happened.” He points to me—”Room 3.” He points to Natalie—”Room 5.” Natalie slumps along, and Tommy escorts me to a cold, sterile room with a big mirror and removes my handcuffs. I curl my fingers under the chair, until I realize that I don’t want to have anything to do with whatever mystery goo my fingers have just touched. I put my forehead on the table and place my hands behind my neck. Waiting.

Fifteen minutes later, when Luke comes in, I spring up. The chair shrieks against the floor.

“You’re free to go,” he says, arms crossed, blocking the door.

“Okay,” I say, getting up and adjusting my bag and my dress before walking toward the door. He still doesn’t move.

“But I’d prefer if you stayed.” His chin touches his chest as he looks down at me. There’s something cold in his eyes. His lips open and close twice, before he finally figures out what he wants to say next. “I’m really...angry...at you. I thought we agreed you’d stay at my place.”

“I had to leave. And I can’t stay here. I’ve got Danny’s vigil.” I try to move past him again. But he puts a hand on my shoulder and guides me back. “Look, we’re letting Natalie go. They didn’t see her pull a knife on you. Sounds like they shouldn’t have brought you two in in the first place, from what they saw, but...today’s been weird. And you could still get hurt out there.” He clenches his jaw and talks through his teeth. “Please stay. I can’t have anything happen to you.”

I sigh. “Luke, I have to go.” I push against his tense chest to get away from him. I hate how good his pecs feel. I stretch out my hands and give my whole body a little shake. I need to focus, because he isn’t moving, and he’s a lot bigger than me. “Look, you can’t keep me here unless I’m being charged, so get out of my way.”

He takes a deep breath, nods and steps aside. I rush through the desks and mugs of crappy police coffee and piles of paperwork and roaming, curious cop eyes. He follows. When I get outside, I pick up the pace, but he’s right there with me. “Quinn, please slow down.” His voice is all husky and soft. Damn.

I turn around and pinch my nose and hope that the grimace on my face, to hold back the frustrated tears, isn’t too obvious.

“I still don’t understand why you left my house. I thought we decided—”

“I just couldn’t stay there, okay?” I say.

“Okay, why?” His face is loose, except for his tense brow.

Because I spit in a cup so your sister could drink it and get the disease, even though you specifically told me you didn’t want her to have it and we still have no idea if this is a good or bad thing and I’m a horribly irresponsible, careless person.

I can’t say that. So, instead, I change the subject. “You can’t just box me up and slide me away to somewhere safe. You can’t just abuse your job.”

His mouth hangs open. He steps around me, our bodies centimeters apart. He bends so his head is right up in my face. “Abuse my job?” His fingers stretch and retract. “I didn’t bring you in. I didn’t hold you. I was just trying to figure out what happened. Which
is
my job.”

I sigh. “Natalie scares the shit out of me, but I believe her. She accidentally ran into me, okay? She just needs to keep that knife to herself in the future.” I clutch the strap of my bag with both hands and force myself to stay planted. Despite his lips being about two inches from mine, I’m not the one backing up.

Luke shakes his head and rubs his face. “You’re probably right. The beat cops are just jumpy.”

I look up at him. “We’re all jumpy.”

He brings his hand to my hairline and closes his eyes. “Stay with me,” he whispers.

“I have to go to Danny’s vigil.”

“You’re still a target, Quinn. You could get hurt. Don’t do this.”

“I have to, for Danny. For everyone. If you don’t understand that,” I say, swallowing emotion down my throat, “then you don’t understand me.”

His eyes narrow. His face grows red. “No, Quinn,” he says through gritted teeth. “The problem isn’t that I don’t understand you. It’s that you don’t want me to understand you. You’re keeping things from me. I know it.”

He waits, palms out, shoulders tense. I stare at the bricks below my feet. He puts his hands behind his head and looks to the sky. He takes three breaths before walking away, mumbling, “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

I shake my head and ignore annoying tear-like things that are swimming in my upper throat. I stay on the sidewalk long after the station doors have shut behind Luke.

Chapter Thirty-Three

It’s as if the October weather gods knew we were having a vigil. There’s a misty sprinkle causing brown leaves to stick to the brick walkways as I make my way, with Mandy, to the environmental studies building for Danny’s vigil. A shrine has grown where Danny’s body was found. Flowers and pictures and even a tin of cupcakes. Despite the quarantine and the disease, a couple hundred people have come. His freshman dorm, the lacrosse team, his frat and friends from his church group. In just a few weeks on campus, he’d made a mark, even if it was his final mark.

“This must be so difficult on his parents.” Rashid throws a stone into my smooth thoughts. I nod.

“Maybe we should have waited ’til this quarantine blew over so they could be involved,” Rashid says.

“It might not blow over,” I say as we take a few steps back. It’s so misty; the dew has gently found home along my skin. There’s something refreshing about such dreary weather. Several students go up to light candles, one by one, as the priest talks. I’m surprised at how many of them have purple eyes. They must be his smoking buddies.

A few people say a few words and nod a few solemn nods. His roommate talks about how Danny beat everyone in the hall at Super Mario Kart. His big brother in the frat says Danny was one of the best men he knew because he was chivalrous and kind and thoughtful. He made sandwiches for the poor on Sundays and helped a pledge mate who was struggling with a class. He even let a guy—who had had the misfortune of falling asleep in another brother’s room—know that he had a dick scrawled on his cheek. Dim chuckles sprinkle the ground because that’s where most people are looking.

My heels dip and sink into the muddy earth as I walk toward the podium, armed with notes that I sketched out on drawing paper. I climb on top of the small platform and look over the hundreds of students ready to mourn Danny.

“Danny’s life ended before he could legally drink, or wear a cap and gown at a college graduation. Before he could worry about what to wear to his first real job, or think of creative ways to propose to the love of his life. It ended before he could rock his babies to sleep and it ended well before he could have his grandkids gather at his feet while he told them the story of why he has purple eyes. He wanted to know the story. He did research. He worked hard. He thought he was close to figuring it out.”

I pause and look at the audience. Myriad purple eyes stare back at me. They’re easy to see in the faint light of the overcast day because they shine. I put my hand over my chest.

“But his life ended before he could find out what is happening to us. I cannot graduate for him or propose for him. But maybe I can reclaim the torch and figure out who has created this condition, who has set it loose on us. And I promise you—” I look to the swirls of gray above me, a substitute for Danny, “—I will also find out who ended your life.”

I stare into the clouds, those shades of gray and white and slivers of blue, for longer than I should. But no one fidgets or nudges or whispers. The world is deadly quiet.

I bring my chin down and face them.

“We can all honor his life by looking out for one another. We can honor his life by being brave. It’s fear that causes us to judge and hurt, to act out and torment. By being brave, we can get through this together. All of us.”

I take my sheet of paper, which is now limp from the ever-present condensation and the way my nervous, shaking fingers clutched at it. I fold it and put it back in my purse before stepping off the platform. My soapbox.

No. Danny’s soapbox.

I was the last to speak.

The Catholic priest ends with a prayer and the crowds begin shuffling out. Zachary startles me. He takes my hand and purses his lips. His chin quivers just a bit. “Great speech.” His palm squeezes mine, hard.

Peachy and Dr. Brown mush over along the sodden grass. “That was beautiful, Quinn,” Dr. Brown says.

As I thank them, Mandy motions me over to her and Rashid. She gives me a hug and he compliments the speech in long, drawn out sentences. But I’m having trouble focusing on him through the whiffs of conversation sputtering from the recently formed circle of Peachy, Dr. Brown and Zachary.

“Why haven’t you come in yet?”

“I’ve meant to.”

“It’s important that everyone who shows symptoms comes forward.”

“Yes, of course, I’ll stop by tomorrow.”

“Good,” Dr. Brown says.

As Rashid wraps up his praise of my oratory skills, I focus on his eyes and nod and smile. “Thanks.”

Zachary comes back over. “Well, you ready to...” He juts his thumb toward home.

“You guys go ahead,” I say. My mind is a swarm that needs isolation. “I want to, um, say goodbye alone.” I gesture toward the shrine.

“Of course,” Rashid says.

Mandy gives me a hug, and whispers into my ear so that her curls scratch my nose. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I say. She rubs my shoulder and turns. They walk away from me.

“And Zachary,” I call, trying to keep the scratchiness out of my voice.

He not only turns around but walks back toward me. Eyes wide, arms open. “Yeah?”

I swallow and say softly, so Mandy and Rashid, who wait by the gate, can’t hear, “You know, with everything going on, I never did congratulate you.”

He tilts his head.

“Didn’t one of your papers get accepted by the
Journal of Virus Research?
” If the journal name that Danny had mentioned hadn’t been so self-explanatory, I’m not sure I would have remembered it. But I do. That night at the bar, when we celebrated that Zachary was going to be published in a prominent journal, no one mentioned the name of the journal. But now I know.

Zachary nods. “Yeah, thanks, Quinn. It doesn’t seem like as big of a deal now, of course, but...thanks.”

I can’t hold it in much longer, so I force a smile and turn around, toward the shrine. The soft crunch of his footsteps retreating on wet grass fills my ears.

The flowers in Danny’s shrine wave and flap in the wind. My daffodils flank a bouquet of roses. I kneel on the grass. I’ll get green stains and mud marks on my knees, but I don’t care.

Zachary never went in to the hospital. He never told them about the drug he took. He lied. Even after it was obvious it wasn’t about the drug. Even now that it’s obvious it’s a disease, and therefore he wouldn’t even have to mention the drug, he still hasn’t gone in.

I run my hand over the grass before the shrine, letting the blades prick against my palm. He’s a scientist. Isn’t he curious? Doesn’t he want to find out where this disease came from? Like the rest of us, he must want answers.

Unless he already has them.