Hushed (4 page)

Friday, September 26
^th

Archer stared at the ceiling for the better part of the night, wavering on the restless sea between sleeping and awake. He thought of Evan, swimming back and forth, back and forth, diving again and again. He thought of Vivian, stretched out across
his
bed, wearing nothing but
his shirt,
with her eyes begging him to make everything better.

And he would. Just…not in that way. He had things to accomplish first and when that was done, if Vivian wanted him…
truly
wanted him…then he’d give her anything. Before that, he still had Hector and Bobby to take care of.

How strange when he reflected back on how many he’d already taken care of.

The first hadn’t even been planned. Not really.

Archer had been at Vivian’s house only a year after
it
happened. Brody had been kicked out months before, but he still occasionally came by, trying to swipe pills from the medicine cabinet. Marissa, Viv’s mother, was out, which meant…it was just Archer and Vivian.

Brody didn’t come by that day, but Jay Lee had. He used Brody’s key to get in and Vivian immediately took off to her bedroom, shutting and locking the door while Archer braced himself in the hall and waited.

Jay gave him a grin, ruffled his hair as he passed, and sauntered into Marissa’s room to raid her medicine cabinet.

Like nothing had happened.

Archer had felt so sick to his stomach, paralyzed to the spot. Struggling to say something, to do something, to get revenge for what happened to Viv.

He couldn’t do anything. And Jay came out with plastic baggies full of pills, cramming them into his pockets and heading for the stairs to leave without a word. There was something about his retreating back that had set Archer off. An old image in the back of his brain of Vivian pinned to a mattress, Jay’s pants around his ankles. The sound of his wasted laugh. The grin on his face.

And now there Jay was—at the top of the stairs—and Archer’s hands slammed into the small of his back. The next thing he remembered, he was staring at Jay’s body at the bottom of the steps, neck twisted at an odd angle.

Archer hadn’t meant to kill him, but the look on Vivian’s face when he told her Jay had fallen… The exhilarating rush at finally doing something to get back at the people who had hurt her… After that, the murders were planned. Carefully so. Never too alike, never too close together to make anyone suspect him.

But there were still many nights when the image of Jay’s dead face still kept him awake.

Sleep or no sleep, he got up for school. Vivian was gone again. Archer remade the bed
his
way, got dressed, and headed out to his first class.

His professor, Mrs. Gonera, was an old hag of a woman, the worst of them all. She insisted on making every paper, every project, a long and grueling process for him. Never in high school did he have issues with English. His writing was articulate, well laid out, precise, controlled. Never a problem—not until he took her creative writing course.

Gonera passed out their most recent papers. Some exercise in stretching the mind for creativity, reaching for voice and style or…whatever. Everyone got their papers back except for him. That didn’t bode well. Neither did her singling him out as everyone else got up to leave.

“Mr. Pond, you can stay.” She shuffled through folders on her desk and didn’t even look up. Everyone else stared, though. He waited for the room to clear out, shoving book and binder into his backpack. Only when he and Gonera were alone did he bother getting up and approaching her.

“Yeah?”

She looked up at him, Coke-bottle glasses giving her an owl-eyed appearance. “Your paper.”

“My paper,” Archer repeated. One eyebrow lifted. “What about it?”

The witch held out his story. He took it reluctantly, noting the complete absence of a grade at the top. “It was complete,” he said. “I followed the guidelines.” To the T, in fact. He always did.

“My problem, Mr. Pond, is not the completedness of your story.” She sniffed wetly and sat down. “It is the tone of your story. Very dark. Very dreary. Depressing. All those D-words. Is that the kind of writer you want to be?”

The papers crinkled in Archer’s tightening grip. He counted backward from ten. “I’m not sure I get it. I followed the rules, and there were no rules about the ‘tone’ of the story.”

“Your focus is a twelve-year-old boy brutally slaughtering demons. In graphic detail. It’s obvious to me much of the story is a metaphor for something else.” She gave him a pointed look. “Rewrite it. Something that can be shared with the rest of the class without disturbing some of your more sensitive peers. You may have a week to turn it in. That’s my attempt at generosity.”

Archer contemplated shoving the paper down her throat. What was wrong with something darker? With metaphorical writing? His hands trembled.

“It’s not a word,” he ground out.

Gonera blinked up at him. “Pardon?”

“
Completedness.
It’s not a word. You’re looking for
completeness.
” He shoved the papers into his backpack and stomped out of the room.

Vivian texted him half an hour after his last class
—I have news
.

He was still stewing over Gonera’s comments on his work, but there wasn’t much to be done for it. Teachers were in a position of power. Either he did what he was told, or he flunked. It wasn’t so bad in most classes, but Gonera was an exception. She hated him on some sort of personal level he couldn’t begin to understand.

When Viv met him at the coffee shop down the street from The Grove, she smiled as she leaned across the small table and ran a finger between his brows to smooth out his frown.

“Hello, grumpy. What’s wrong?”

He grunted, but forced his expression to relax. “That story I finished up the other week.”

“Yeah? What about it?”

“The harpy says it’s
too dark.
Need to rewrite it.”

Vivian wrinkled up her nose. “Lame. Can I read it?”

He hesitated. If Gonera had been right about one thing, it was the metaphorical aspect of his paper. She couldn’t piece it together, but Vivian might. “I threw it away,” he lied.

“Stupid, why’d you do that?” She leaned back in her chair, crossing her long legs and folding her hands on the table. “Your stuff is really good, Archer. Don’t let
Mrs. Gonorrhea
make you think otherwise.”

A smile tugged at his mouth at the nickname. “I’m not. It isn’t a big deal. I’ll rewrite it and get her off my back.” Before she could needle him further, he asked, “What was it you wanted to tell me, anyway?”

Vivian’s expression sobered right up. “I had a talk with Mick last night.”

Archer’s heart sank.
“And?”

“And…he’s agreed to get in to see a therapist. Start some anger management classes.” She worried at the inside of her lower lip. “He really wants me back, apologized over and over…”

“Viv.”

“…and I’d like to give it a try.”

Why? Why why
why?
After everything Mickey put her through, after hitting her—
repeatedly
—after breaking her spirit a little more with every fight, why did she want to go back?

His muscles trembled like tightly wound springs and it was all he could do to keep from knocking their table aside, grabbing Vivian, and shaking her.

“Is staying with me really that bad?” He meant it as a joke. Sort of. Not really. Vivian didn’t take it as one. Her expression softened.

“You know it’s not that. You’ve been great to me. I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
You’re my best friend, you make everything better…
He could recite everything she would say by heart.

He felt sick.

Vivian sighed, looking down at her hands. “I just…really like Mick, you know? And I feel like I owe it to him…” Her voice trailed off.

“You don’t owe him a fucking thing.” He stood abruptly, sending his chair toppling backward and then clattering on the floor. Everyone in the café stilled. Archer didn’t care. Let them watch. “You owe him
nothing,
Vivian.
Nothing.
Don’t ever let him make you think that! You don’t owe anyone in this world a damned thing.” Heat coursed from his chest to the tips of every nerve in his body.

Vivian sat there, eyes wide. She didn’t move when Archer slammed his way out the front doors and headed down the street.

Betrayed
. That was how he felt. Why would she do this? After everything he tried to do for her, after he opened his home to her, gave her anything she needed. Was she too stupid to see the only guy in her life who ever
really
cared about her was him?

“Archer? Archer
wait.
”

Her heeled boots clicked on the boardwalk behind him. Archer had no interest in stopping, but—damn her—he did. He stopped, but he didn’t turn around.

Vivian halted behind him, breathless. “I’m really sorry, okay? I knew you wouldn’t be happy…”

Archer whirled to face her. “Happy? Why in the world would I be
happy
?”

She wet her lips, grasping for words. “Because it’s something really important to me. I love Mick, so if I can make it work then I’m damned well going to try.”

He snorted and didn’t bothering trying to hide how far back his eyes rolled. “
You’re
going to try. He beats the shit out of you, and
you’re
the one that has to make it better. Fantastic.”

Her face flushed. “You’re being a jerk. Aren’t you supposed to be my best friend?”

Only when it was convenient for her. The comment grated on him in all the wrong ways. He shoved his face a few inches from hers.

“I always remember that,” he said. “Do
you
?”

Vivian’s eyes widened, looking stricken.

He didn’t care to wait for an answer. This argument wouldn’t end like the others always did, with Vivian in tears and him apologizing profusely for upsetting her. It wasn’t his fault. It was never his fault. All he wanted was her happiness, and she was so determined to be miserable.

He stormed down the boardwalk and this time, Viv didn’t follow.

Her stuff was already gone by the time he got home. She left a note on the counter, written in her small, delicate writing:

Thank you for letting me stay. I miss you already. I’m sorry.

Love you,

Viv

Love you.

Miss you.

Archer doubted that. He balled up the paper and sent it sailing into the trashcan. How was he supposed to save her when she did shit like that?

§

This time of night, the complex was quiet save for faint music drifting from the occasional apartment. The pool’s glow drew him in like it was the last light in all the world. He didn’t stop at the gazebo this time. His fingers curled around the chilly metal bars of the enclosure, face rested against it while he watched Evan in the process of his nightly laps.

Back and forth, back and forth.

A lot like his life, it seemed. The ebb and flow of the tide. Nothing was ever stagnant. Not his family life, not his schooling, not even his friendships or feelings for Vivian. Sometimes he hated her. Sometimes he loved her so much he couldn’t stand it.

Evan didn’t notice him until he’d finally surfaced and headed for the steps. His eyes locked on Archer and—no shock, no nervousness, surprisingly—he grinned before swimming to the edge closest to where Archer stood.

“What’re you doing out this late?”

Good question. Archer couldn’t tell him he was lonely, that he didn’t want to be in his empty apartment. The burnt cupcakes in the fridge reminding him of Vivian. The pants she had forgotten on his bedroom floor and the spare toothbrush in the bathroom.

He took a breath and forced all thoughts of her out of his head with his exhale. The residue still made his heart hurt. “Watching you, apparently. Why don’t you use the school facilities? They’re heated.”

Evan folded his arms on the concrete ledge. “I do during practices, but it’s hard to concentrate. Everyone screwing around and stuff. No one has ever bothered me here.”

“I’m the first, then.” Archer wasn’t sure why he felt guilty for that. Of all the things in his life to feel guilty about… “I can go.”

“No, no.” Evan released the edge and made for the steps, out of the pool and over to the fence. “Company is different from being bothered. I never mind your company.”

I’m terrible company,
he almost said. Not out of self-pity, no, but simply repeating what most everyone had told him at some point or another. “Does that mean you’re done swimming?”

The answer was ‘no.’ He always swam later than this. Always. But Evan said, “Yeah,” and offered him another of those grins. It morphed into something a little shyer. “Do you have plans tonight, or does ‘walking’ about sum it up? Is Vivian waiting for you?”