Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (15 page)

York dropped the end of the sofa he'd picked up and held out his hands. “What'd I do?”

“I don't think she likes her nickname,” Andi said. She nudged me aside and helped York move the sofa back a few feet.

“It's not my nickname,” I said. “It's not my any name.”

York shrugged. “Well, I didn't mean anything by it. Nicknames are cool . . . 
Hat Girl
.” He grinned and dropped a few pillows on top of the sleeping bags. Our communal bed was complete.

“What's your nickname?” Andi asked him.

He hunched forward with his arms out and flexed his muscles. “Danger.”

In that ridiculous pose, he looked about as dangerous as a dung beetle. I said so out loud, expecting him to be offended, but he just laughed, full of confidence.

“So what's it mean, then?” he asked. “Worms?”

“It's your scars, right?” Andi stepped up close and squinted at my hairline.

Instinctively, I reached up to tug on my cap, but Andi caught my arm. “That hat doesn't hide as much as you think it does.”

“BOOM! Done!” Boston roared into the room, holding up his notepad in triumph, but the celebration was short-lived. His socks slipped on the wood floor, and he slammed into the back of the couch, somersaulting over it, bouncing off the cushions, and landing spread-eagled on the sleeping bags.

There was the smallest moment of shocked silence until Boston, eyes wide open in surprise and fixed on the ceiling, uttered quietly, “Ow.”

Andi and York exploded in laughter, and I pressed a hand to my mouth to keep from joining them. I started to ask Boston if he was okay, but when he sat up dazed and shook his head like a wet dog, I was undone. All that came out was the snicker I'd been trying to swallow.

He spun on his butt and goggled at the couch. “Was that always right there?”

That sparked fresh hysterics, and after one more head shake, even Boston joined in.

York begged his brother to go back into the kitchen and do it again, and Boston obliged, reenacting his fall in dramatic slow motion, complete with cartoonish facial expressions. York fell to his knees, applauding, while Andi and I leaned on each other to keep from collapsing in a fit of giggles. God, it felt so good to laugh—so
normal
—as if this night was about fun instead of fear. And, for just an instant, I pretended coming here was a choice, not a chase.

It was a moment before I noticed the wet on my cheeks. Through my howling I reached up to swipe at my face, and was startled to see my fingers come back damp.

Huh. Maybe I can cry after all.

 

19

WHEN THE LAUGHTER finally died down, Boston tore off the top page of the notepad and waved it with a flourish.

“Kind of genius, if I do say so myself.”

“And you always do,” York said.

Boston gave the paper to York to read. “It would make an awesome college admissions essay prompt: ‘Try to convince the cops you're innocent of a crime.' Way better than ‘What's your favorite word?' or ‘Who is your political hero?' Those kinds of questions are so pointless. But this—this is real.”

“Doesn't get any realer,” Andi agreed.

Actually, I thought it was all a little
un
real. I kind of wished Boston hadn't finished the statement so quickly. It shattered my happy illusion that none of this was really happening.

“Maybe I could go rogue with my essay,” Boston mused to himself. “Ooh, ‘rogue.' That's a good favorite word. I could draw a line from the X-Men to the outlaws of the Old West to my own predicament.”

York finished reading and passed the statement to Andi. “Dude, the only thing you have in common with outlaws and X-Men is that nobody likes you.”

“
Everyone
likes the X-Men,” Boston scoffed.

I leaned in to read over Andi's shoulder. The statement was straightforward enough, with only a few embellishments like “gross misunderstanding” and “disturbing discovery.” His explanation that we took the SUV because we thought it belonged to someone else was a little weak—stealing is stealing—but he did his best to make hitting the officer sound like exactly the accident it was. Then he described in detail how we were shot at by police and later discovered drugs in the car. He finished by offering our full cooperation in tracking down the real criminals.

Points for calling them criminals instead of cops
, I thought. But otherwise, I wasn't sure what Boston was so proud of. The statement was well written, but all the proper grammar and spelling in the world wasn't going to get us completely out of trouble. Accident or not, we still mowed down a police officer. There would be consequences.

Boston took the page back from Andi for a final review. “I should change ‘wrongly persecuted' to ‘wrongly pursued.' What do you think?”

York picked at the laces on his tennis shoes. “Is it okay that you left out the fact that I was drinking?”

Boston lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I think it would have gone down the same either way, and it doesn't help our case to add a DUI to the mix.”

York finally lifted his eyes and offered a tentative smile. “Then I think it's good—a nice copulation of info.”

Boston laughed. “Compilation, not copulation.”

“Oh, screw your SAT words,” York said. “I was trying to give you a compliment.”

“I wish that was an SAT word. ‘Copulation.' Right next to ‘coitus' and ‘cunnilingus.'”

York clapped his brother on the back. “Now you're speaking my language!”

I made a gagging motion with my finger and mouth. “Yuck. I hate the word ‘coitus.' It sounds like something wet and squishy.”

“Well, it
is
kind of wet and squishy,” Andi pointed out.

“You would know,” York said.

“And you wouldn't,” she countered.

I wouldn't know, either, but if it
was
wet and squishy, I was willing to wait a while longer to find out.

Boston slid our statement onto the coffee table and stretched.

“You think Mom and Dad will buy it?”

“I think Mom and Dad will buy anything as long as you're the one selling it,” York said.

Andi cleared her throat. “If you guys are done congratulating yourselves, I have a question. That bit about our full cooperation—does it have to be
our
cooperation? Can it just be yours?”

“What do you mean?” Boston asked.

“I mean,” Andi said carefully, “maybe—just maybe—Sam and I aren't here right now. Maybe we were just a couple of girls you picked up at the party before all of this went down.”

I tilted my head at her.
Where are you going with this, Andi?

Boston scrunched up his face and scratched his head. “But you are here.”

“But what if we weren't?”

“Your hair.” Boston pointed to her dreadlocks. “That witness saw you.”

“Maybe you let us out of the car as soon as we left the park, and we went home,” Andi pressed. “Maybe you don't even remember our names.”

Oh! I like this idea.

“Besides,” Andi said. “Look at me. I'm not exactly helping your case.” She held out her tattooed arms as evidence. “Maybe it will be better for you if I'm not involved.”

Boston frowned. “Maybe.”

“Maybe
not
,” York snapped. “But nice try.”

Andi dropped her arms and shook her head. “Look, I just don't want my name attached to any of this.”

“Who does?” York argued.

He was right. As appealing as Andi's idea was, it wasn't fair.

“We're all in this together, remember?” I echoed Andi's words from the parking lot of that broken-down taco shop. It seemed like ages ago.

She leaned away from me, unmoved by my camaraderie, but I was rewarded with a small smile from York. I wondered if he really did know about sex and whether it was wet and squishy. Then I spoke, if for no other reason than to shut up my wandering thoughts.

“So what's next? How do we get this thing to the police?” I pointed to the paper on the coffee table.

“Well,” Boston said, glancing sideways at York, “we could have Mom and Dad give it to them.”

York opened his mouth to protest, but Boston charged ahead.

“We're going to have to tell them everything anyway. Why not go to them first and have them take our statement to the police? It will look better that way. People respect them.”

York raised an eyebrow.

“Okay, people who aren't
you
respect them,” Boston amended.

“I know we have to tell them,” York said, sounding defeated. “But they won't go for this. They'll tell us to shut our mouths, and then they'll call in an army of attorneys.”

“They're not wrong about that,” I said.

Mama probably would still be in prison, round one, if she hadn't had the best lawyer all her country-music money could buy.

“Are your fancy parents going to get fancy attorneys for all of us?” Andi asked, sounding bitter.

Boston's blush gave away the answer. Maybe we weren't all in this together after all.

“I thought not,” Andi said.

“We'll find another way,” York said. “We need the Internet to figure out who to—”

“Don't turn your phone on,” Andi interrupted. “I don't trust you not to call your parents.”

She pulled her own phone from a back pocket, and Boston snagged it from her hand the second it was out.

“Hey!” Andi scrambled after it, but Boston was already on his feet, clicking it on.

The glow of the screen waking up illuminated his face, and in the faint blue light I could see his expression shift from a question mark to fear to fury. Whatever he saw on Andi's screen, he didn't like it. There was a beat of silence as Andi froze halfway to reaching for her phone, and Boston turned it slowly so York and I could see it.

I took one look and rounded on Andi. “You said nobody tried to call you!”

A stack of missed-call alerts on Andi's cell phone screen told a different story.

Andi stood and brushed some invisible lint off her tank top. “No, I said you didn't hear my phone ringing. And you didn't.”

She swiped at the cell, but Boston held it out of her reach.

We were all on our feet now, and I stretched my arms wide in front of Andi, half to hold her back and half to protect her from York, who looked ready to level her.

“Just because we didn't hear it doesn't mean it wasn't ringing,” Boston said.

Andi shrugged. “That's the magic of the mute button.”

“It's not a mute button,” Boston said. “It's a silencer.”

“No.” York shook his head. “A silencer is something on a gun.”

I couldn't stop the annoyed groan that escaped my lips. “Am I the only person in this room not suffering from extreme ADD?”

“You're suffering from extreme stupidity,” Andi spat.

It startled me enough that I dropped my arms. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“We can't trust them.” Andi waved a hand at the boys.

“What's this ‘we'?” I pointed back and forth between us. “You and me? We're not a ‘we.'”

Even if it felt for a second like we were.

“You're the one we can't trust,” York said. He took the phone from Boston and scrolled down the screen. “Who's blowing up your phone, Andi? All these numbers are the same.”

Andi smiled, but her voice dripped poison. “It's my boyfriend. Jealous?”

“There are texts, too,” Boston said.

York read the messages out loud. “‘Andi, where are you?' ‘Andi, call me now.' ‘Call me, or I will end you.'” He glanced up. “Nice boyfriend.”

“It's complicated,” Andi deadpanned.

I gave her a sidelong look. This time I hoped she
was
lying.

“That's messed up,” York said.

“That's none of your business,” Andi snapped back. “But since you're completely violating my privacy, you'll notice I didn't respond to any of those texts or calls. Isn't that what matters?”

The boys shared a look, then turned to me. I shrugged in response. They'd probably jumped to the same conclusion I had—that Andi was trying to work a way out of this for herself on the side—but my suspicions had expired with the text messages. If I had an asshole boyfriend like that, I wouldn't tell anyone about him, either.

“Fine,” Boston said. “But you might want to text your psycho lover boy back to let him know you're okay.”

“Hey, tell him you're spending the night with two dudes,” York said, his mood suddenly lighter. “He sounds like the kind of guy who'd totally have no problem with that.”

“Actually,” Andi said, plucking her phone out of  York's hand, “I'll tell him I spent the night with Sam.
That
he
will
like.”

She moved to sling an arm across my shoulders, but I dodged her. “Don't make me part of some sick sex fantasy with your creeper boyfriend.”

Something like hurt flitted across her features, but it was gone a second later as she buried her face in her phone.

“What am I even searching for?” she asked.

“The River City Police Department,” Boston said.

“No kidding. I mean specifically. There's not exactly a link for criminals to submit a confession.”

“It's not a confession,” Boston corrected. “It's a statement.”

Tomato, tomahto.

“Look for the tip line,” York suggested. “The one they give out on TV. It's, like, one-eight-hundred-NARC or something.”

I would have laughed, but it seemed like we had left funny behind about ten minutes ago.

“Oh shit,” Andi breathed.

“What?” the rest of us asked in unison.

We crowded in behind her to see the screen, but she lowered her phone and tipped her head back, her eyes closed.