Rage: A Love Story (10 page)

M
y film notes jumble into hieroglyphics—useless to study for my final. The way she lives. The violence, the brutality in her life.

How long has she been taking it? Forever? Her father, her mother, this guy. How many assholes have come and gone in her life? I knew people were terrorized. Child abuse. Spousal abuse. I’ve never actually known anyone who lived it.

God, Reeve. You’re so strong
.

I push my notes away and lay my head on the table. I will it to be different for her. Please, God, if there is a God, hear me. Help her. Show me how to help her. I need to take her away from there, shelter her and care for her and show her real love.

I hardly ever cry. When my mom died, when Tessa left, I cried. That time I got lost walking home from Fallon Falls and
no one came to find me. I was scared. I’d taken a different trail through the trees and it didn’t lead me to the road. I climbed and climbed, thinking I’d come out at the top of the mountain or someone would come looking for me. No one did. I had to find my own way.

I’m not crying now. I’m … seething. Yes, I’m angry at life, at God.
Think, Johanna
. I need a strategy. Power. I can find a way.

I prowl the parking lot, the quad, the cafeteria, first floor, second floor, Arts wing, B2. The door’s locked. She doesn’t have a locker—or if she does, I’ve never seen her use it. You have to pay for a locker. You have to bring your own lock.

The halls are filling and among the surface swell, a recognizable head of hair bobs by. “Robbie!” I race to catch up with him as he veers into the media center. When I touch his back, he freezes.

“Robbie, it’s me.”

He turns slowly. His face is blank, impassive. Where is he?

“It’s Johanna.”

“I am here to cooperate,” he says like a machine.

“Whatever. Do you know where Reeve is? Is she in the pit?”

He stares at my mouth.

“Downstairs,” I say. “The pit of Acheron.”

He smirks.

“Is she?”

He stands there with that stupid smirk on his face, so I reach up and slap him. Not hard.

His eyes go dead.

“God. Oh God. Sorry. I’m sorry, Robbie.”

He looks at me. “Medic,” he says.

I slit-eye him. “Just tell me where she is,
please.”

“Here.”

I peer around him. There are computers and books and TVs in the media center, and people, but I don’t see her.

Robbie says, “Did you turn in my senior project?”

Shit
. “No. I’ll do it today.” I was thinking I wouldn’t turn it in yet. I wasn’t sure it’d be acceptable to Mrs. Goins. I was thinking I’d rewrite it.

“I have to graduate,” Robbie says. He reaches out a hand and my first impulse is to brace for an attack, but he only places it on my shoulder. Then, with his other hand, he touches my face, my cheek. It’s … creepy.

He clamps a hand around my neck.

My life flashes before me.

Robbie deadpans, “Turn it in.”

The bell rings for class and he heads into the media center.

Okay, he’s kidding. He has a morbid sense of humor. I feel my neck to make sure my trachea is intact.

A batch of curled memos and announcements, a couple of sealed business envelopes fill Mrs. Goins’ mail slot. I stuff in Robbie’s essay. I should’ve thought to put the pages in a report cover. Wait, I have one.

My Film Studies report. I remove it. I search the mailroom for a blank sheet of paper and find a stack in the trash from the Xerox. On a clean side, I make a cover page.

I wonder again why his name is different from Reeve’s. I rearrange his three sheets to put the good stuff first. The part about killing his mother is at the end. My hope is that whoever reads and evaluates the essays never gets beyond page one.

The maze of vents and pipes echoes and knocks and winds interminably through the school’s underbelly. I take a wrong turn and lose my bearings. Water gurgles through a pipe.

B2 was unlocked when I tried it again, so I’m pretty sure she’s down here. The pit looms ahead. The door’s been replaced, along with a padlock. Oh no. Someone discovered them. “Hello?” I call.

Nothing. The door’s locked. I rest my forehead on the frame and say, “Please, if you’re in there. Let me in.”
Let me in, Reeve
.

I don’t know how long I stand there; stand in silence.

When I get upstairs, people are herding into the gym for a morning assembly. I forgot about it. The cops have hauled in a wrecked car from an accident that happened earlier this year. It’s scrap metal. A mother talks about how her son finally died after being in a coma for six weeks and I think of Carrie. She should just die. Dying would free her and let her mom move on.

Would dying be better than living in a hell on Earth?

Reeve’s not at the assembly, not at lunch, not in Mrs. Goins’ room last period. It’s wishful thinking; the project’s over.

If she thinks I’m giving up, she doesn’t know me. She does not know Johanna Lynch.

Carrie’s mother rails at Jeannette, shouting so loud she’s waking the dead—but not the comatose. Carrie has a new bedsore. Jeannette strides past me into the foyer, looking harried.

I sign in and check the status chart. Oh my God. Frank has passed. Sweet old Frank. Rest in peace, Frankie-wanker.

Carrie’s mother hangs over my shoulder. “You are to make a note on my daughter’s chart to call me if
anything
changes. I mean,
anything.”

“Okay.”

She whirls on Jeannette, who’s come up behind her. “Someone used Carrie’s lip gloss. I want you to find out who and fire them.”

“Evelyn …”

She pivots and slams out the front door.

I widen my eyes at Jeannette.

Her shoulders sag. Blowing out a long breath, she says to me, “I’ve been thinking about what you asked. Your friend in the abusive situation?”

I nod.

“I was wrong. I wasn’t thinking clearly. If it was me, or one of my children, I’d want someone to care.”

I care
.

“Make the call.”

Make the call. Make the call. The mantra burrows into my brain. If I make the call, what will happen? Take 1: The cops show up. They restrain that guy, Anthony. They drag him from the house and lock him up. Take 2: As the cops are leaving, they see what a waste case the mother is. They take her too. Reeve and Robbie have to move. I never see Reeve again.

It’s selfish, I know, but there has to be a way to help without losing her.

My final in Film Studies is an essay question on Unit Five. “Name three films that serve as examples of film as institution and explain how each reinforces and/or resists cultural paradigms and values.”

Why can’t we just watch
Dumb and Dumber
?

I b.s. a brilliant answer.

My last final of high school—you’d think I’d be happier to have it over with. I feel emptied. Reeve is right. Firsts are better. Firsts are filled with mystery and expectation; firsts are beginnings.

At my locker, a body crunches into me and smothers me in a hug. “We’re graduating. Can you believe it?”

Novak clenches my arms and holds me away from her. Then she pulls me to her and kisses me on the lips.

I wrench out of her grasp so hard I hit my head on the locker door. “Why’d you do that?”

She laughs. “Chill, lesbo. I’m just happy.” She opens her arms to embrace me again, but I stiff-arm her away. “Go kiss your fabulous boyfriend,” I say.

I take off running.

“Johanna!”

The memory of Reeve’s lips on mine, my first kiss. The memory I need to sustain me until the next time. Novak. She ruined it.

“Hold up, Banana.”

I charge down the hall, desperately needing to get away from it, from her, from all of it. High school, loss, grief.

I race around the corner and plow into Mrs. Goins. She drops an armful of folders. I stoop to help her pick them up.

“I received Robbie’s project,” she says. “I assume you put it in my box?”

My breath is coming out in great gulping heaves, but I manage a nod. I’m on the verge of tears.

“Are you okay?” she asks, peering over her glasses as we stand.

I swallow hard.

She asks, “Did you read his essay?”

I shrug, hoping that’ll be enough response.

“It’s … unsettling,” she says.

“But it’s done, right?”

She shifts the load in her arms. “I suppose. We talked about it this morning at the staff meeting.”

“So he’ll graduate, right?”

She hesitates.

“You said if he wrote the essay, he’d graduate. He
has
to graduate.”

“Oh, he will.”

Thank God.

“Johanna, do you know if any of what he wrote is true?”

Make the call. Make the call. “We didn’t discuss it. I got it done for you, okay?”

My feet carry me to the staircase and down the steps. Get away, escape. B2.

The padlock is mangled. As my fingers curl around the doorknob to the pit, a nuclear reaction bubbles the blood in my veins.

She’s here.

I
open the door slowly so I don’t freak her out. A conversation halts mid-sentence.

She glances up from the loveseat, where she sits cross-legged, eating a burger. “Oh snap, it’s Johanna of Arc,” she says.

Robbie’s on the floor, a few feet away from Reeve. He sits up fast and slams his instrument case shut.

I step into the room.

Reeve says, “Who let the dogs in?” and Robbie goes, “Who who?” like a routine they’ve rehearsed.

I ease the door shut behind me.

Reeve watches Robbie remove his string from his pocket and begin threading it through his fingers. A crumpled Mickey D’s wrapper lies beside him.

“Stay out of his way,” Reeve says. “I mean it, Robbie. Don’t mess with him.”

I’ve intruded again. I always feel that way when she and Robbie are together.

She bites off a nibble of burger. “You don’t give up.” Reeve meets my eyes.

“Not on you.”

Her chewing slows and she lowers the hamburger to her lap.

I’m about to say, Reeve, talk to me, but Robbie blurts, “I’ll kill him. I’ll kill both of them.”

Reeve snarls, “Drop it, Robbie.”

He sulks.

I wish he’d go. I want to be alone with her. Robbie winds the string around his index finger so tight it balloons the tip purple. “Robbie,” I say. “You’re graduating. I talked to Mrs. Goins.”

His head whips up and he grins so wide I see all his teeth.

Reeve says, “You can hang your diploma on the wall. Oh, wait. You don’t have a wall.”

Robbie ignores her, unwinding his string.

Reeve pushes to her feet, hands the rest of the burger to Robbie, and ruffles his hair. “Go do that somewhere else, gradu-asstard.” To me she says, “What do you want?”

She knows what I want.

Robbie snarfs the burger in one bite, then scrunches the length of string in a wad and jams it into his pocket. He stands, grabbing his case.

“What time is it?” he says at the door.

I look at Reeve.

She says, “How should I know?”

My eyes fall to her bare wrist.

He exits. Reeve moves behind me and kicks the door shut.

“I—”

She reaches up and presses a finger to my lips. “You cannot fall in love with me,” she says.

Our eyes hold. I clasp her wrist gently and kiss the fleshy part of her finger. “I already am.”

She pulls her hand away. “You don’t even know me.”

“I know you kiss on the first date.”

She blows out an irritated breath and flops down on the loveseat. She doesn’t look at me. I smile.
Look at me
.

“I don’t care about knowing you,” I say. “I mean, I do, but it won’t change the way I feel about you.”
I’ve been in love with you since the day I was born, or reborn
.

She buries her head in her knees.

I approach her slowly, lowering myself onto the cushion. “You have to get out of there, Reeve. That house. Those people.”

“Anthony’s my dad’s half brother. My uncle.” She twists to face me. “He might be more.”

What does that mean? I start to ask, but she throws me this defiant look, so I drop it. “You can’t be in that house,” I say. “It isn’t safe.”

“I live there. What am I supposed to do? Run? Been there. Done that.”

“I could make a call.”

She sits up straight. “Don’t. Please.” Her eyes plead. “They’ve been called. Everyone’s been called. The cops get called regularly for yet another”—she air-quotes—”‘domestic disturbance.’“

I’m confused, or ignorant. “Then why doesn’t somebody do something?”

“Like what? Arrest us?”

“Not you. Him.”

“You think it’s about him?” Reeve shakes her head. “Johanna, Johanna, Johanna.”

Don’t mock me, I think.

She pushes to her feet and I reach out to her. “I just want to help you. Tell me what to do.”

“Nothing,” she says. “It’s too late. There’s nothing you can do. The damage is done.”

Damage can be undone. No one’s died. “There has to be a way.”

“Nope.” She perches on the edge of one of the plastic tubs, extending her legs and flexing her toes. Her feet smell a little, but so what?

I scoot over to sit directly across from her, taking both her hands away from her feet and pressing them between my hands.

She studies our hands together. Mine are so much bigger than hers.

“Come live with me,” I say.

Reeve throws back her head and laughs.

“What? I’m serious.”

“Girl, you move fast.”

Her arms retract, but I hold on.

She adds, “One kiss and you love me and want me to move in with you. Have you set a date for the wedding?”

“May twenty-third,” I say.

She smiles and shakes her head.

“What?”

“You’re something. But I’m not sure what.” She angles her head to peer sideways up at me.

A streak of fire ignites my lower belly. I want to kiss her so bad.

Gently, I pull her toward me. She rises off her butt, then I do. We stand in unison. I slide my arms around her waist and she doesn’t resist, so I nuzzle her neck and see her skin prickle. Is she cold? Excited?

I moisten my lips. I raise her chin and she closes her eyes.

Sparks fire off every nerve ending from my lips to my face, to my ears, head, neck, toes. The kiss is explosive.

I pull us onto the loveseat. I stretch out the length of it, drawing her close to me, still kissing. We lie together and kiss. Somewhere in that universe of time, I whisper, “I love you, Reeve Hartt.”

She responds by kissing me harder and longer and deeper. She loves me too. She’s just afraid.

All the way home, the feel of her mouth on mine is so visceral I almost come. When we had to break it up, Reeve looked as dreamy and lovesick as I felt.

There are four voice mails on my phone at home. Reeve, I pray. Please be Reeve.

Three calls from Novak. Three desperate messages: “Johanna, call me. Please.”

The phone rings as I’m stripping off my underwear and bra to drop into bed. I let it ring, then think, It might be Reeve.

I get up to answer.

“Hey, caught you.”

Shit
.

“Are you going to hang up on me?” she asks.

I exhale exhaustion and weariness and need.

“I know I was wrong,” she says, “to kiss you in public. I should’ve waited until we were alone. And naked. Don’t hang up!”

Please. I can’t hear this.

“Where’d you go today?” she asks. “You, like, blended into the woodwork. Not that you would. I mean, you stand out. Oh, forget it. The reason I called is this list my mother wants me to make for my graduation party. She’s still going through with it, like she’s a martyr or something. She doesn’t want to pay the caterer’s cancellation fee, that’s the only reason.”

I can’t care about her life anymore.

“So the list. You and Dante. I told her you and Dante. That’s not good enough. It’s never good enough with her.”

Novak has lots of friends. Why is she bothering me with this?

“Johanna?” She hesitates. “You are coming, aren’t you?”

Reeve’s hair is coarse and tangled. A little dandruffy. I wish she’d let me shampoo her hair. I’d massage her scalp and …

“You can bring Reeve,” Novak says, channeling my thoughts. “Hey, I’ll put her on the list. Do you know her address?”

I close my eyes and resume our make-out session in the pit.

“Johanna?”

I think I gave her a hickey.

“You are coming. Aren’t you?”

Definitely coming.

A knock sounds on the door. “There’s someone here,” I say to Novak. “I have to go.”

“Wait! I need to tell you something else.”

I set down the phone.

I fumble with the deadbolt and chain, finally unlatching the locks and yanking open the door.

“Well, I’m glad to see you’re taking precautions,” she says, shoving my shoulder. She smiles and flips her student ID at me. “This is an unscheduled inspection of the premises,” she says. She pockets the ID. “I understand you’re harboring a fugitive. Or will be.”

My heart leaps. Will I?

Reeve swerves around me and enters the apartment. She surveys the room. When her eyes catch mine, they cling. See—neither of us can let loose of the other. Is she really moving in?

“Johanna. JoHAAANNA.” Novak’s voice.

I roll my eyes at Reeve. “Just a sec.” I trip over the box Novak left and almost take a header. “I have to go,” I tell Novak.

“Who is it?” she asks.

Reeve’s watching me.

“I have to go.” I don’t wait for Novak to hang up.

“I hate her,” Reeve says.

“Who?”

“Novak. Your
friend
?” She makes it sound like it’s more than it is.

“Why do you hate her?”

“She uses you.” Reeve checks out the kitchen, the hallway. “She’s a rich bitch. They’re all the same.”

“She has her good points.” Why am I defending Novak to Reeve?

“I can’t stay.” Reeve backs toward the door.

I grab her. It happens so fast; she reacts by slamming into
the wall and extending her arms to fend me off like I’m going to hurt her.

“No, Reeve—” I hold up my hands.

She shrinks into herself.

“Stay. Just for a while.”

“I can’t. I snuck out. If Anthony sees I took the van …” Her eyes dilate like a trapped animal’s.

“Come tomorrow, then,” I say. “I’ll pick you up somewhere. I’ll make you dinner.”

She waffles her eyes. “You cook?”

“If you want to call it that. I cook, I clean, I’m the perfect housewife.”

Reeve smiles a little. “You’re the perfect everything,” she says. “That’s your problem.”

“No, I’m the perfect nothing.”

The space between us narrows. I lean in to kiss her and she doesn’t back away. She doesn’t come to me either.

I let her decide, yes or no.

She glances to the left.

In that split second before, though, I see desire. I feel want.

I say, “No pressure, okay? When you’re ready.”

Please be ready. Be ready soon
.