Rebel, Bully, Geek, Pariah (25 page)

“Your eyes,” he said, recovering but still not watching where he was going. His gaze was focused on me instead of on the field ahead. “I noticed them before, but in the sunlight, they're . . . wow.”

I bit my lip. “Good wow?”

“I've never seen—I don't even know how to describe the color.”

“Alien green?” I suggested, thinking of the little boy Mama had said complimented me by way of insult back in third grade.

He laughed. “No, but they are kind of . . . radioactive.”

The cocky smile on his face said he thought this was high praise, so I decided to take it that way. But seriously? Boys don't get much better at compliments past the third grade.

“Hey, Romeo,” Andi interrupted from behind us. “You got any cigarettes in those pockets?”

“You should quit that shit before it fries your face,” York called back. “You'll end up looking like a little old raisin.”

“I don't care how I look,” Andi said. “The world has enough Georgias.”

“That's for sure,” I agreed. I smiled back at Andi. “For what it's worth, you can do better than her.”

“And better than your douche boyfriend, too,” York said.

“Thanks?” Andi sounded unsure whether she was being flattered or insulted.

“I'm just saying I like you better now,” York said.

“I like me better now, too.” Andi said it softly, but her voice carried over the quiet field.

“Wish we could say the same for you,” Boston chirped at his brother's back.

York clutched his chest with both hands and dropped to one knee. “Oh, I'm so wounded! Whatever will I do without your approval?”

I laughed and dragged him up by the elbow as Boston and Andi caught up to us.

“He's not wrong, though,” Andi said. “You used to be a nice guy—kind of a meathead and always a little full of yourself, but, y'know, nicer.”

“Was that supposed to be a compliment?” York retorted, unfazed.

His muscles tensed under my fingers, and I realized my hand had been lingering on his arm since I'd helped him up. I pulled it back now, embarrassed.

“I think she means,” Boston interpreted, “better a jock than a jackass.”

If Andi wasn't walking between the two of them, I was pretty sure York would have answered in the form of a fist, but instead he just muttered, “
Who's
the jackass?”

“You're always trying to impress those guys now,” Andi said. “Like it's your job to entertain them or something. You stopped being their teammate and started being their mascot.”

Ouch.
The Jefferson High mascot was an otter—not exactly a flattering comparison.

“I'm nobody's mascot,” York bit back. “I make people laugh. Since when is that a bad thing?”

Since making some people laugh makes other people cry
, I thought.

Except I didn't just think it. I said it right out loud, the words tumbling out before I could stop them.

“See, even Sam agrees,” Andi said.

All three heads swiveled in my direction, and I turned away, staring stubbornly at the endless wash of brown field in front of us. The walk back to the road seemed a lot longer than the hike in.

“Do you?” York asked quietly, and the vulnerability in his voice made me melt a little.

“Well, I— It's just—” Images flashed through my mind: York punching a locker, York crouched by the lake with tears in his eyes, York humiliating the boy in spandex, York touching my face as he pushed back my hat to admire my scars. It was like a mash-up of two wildly different songs, but somehow they found a common beat.

“I think maybe you're nicer than you let people see,” I finally said. I looked down the line at my partners in crime. Their faces were all the same as they were less than twenty-four hours ago, but they were somehow changed, too. “But maybe we're all something a little different than we let people see.”

There was a moment of awkward silence that made me want to throw myself in front of a tractor, but Boston rescued me.

“Deep, that is,” he squeaked in his best Yoda voice.

York followed up with a high-pitched yawning roar—a pathetic Chewbacca impression designed less to impress and more to crack us up. It worked. Boston called out another
Star Wars
character and York immediately obliged, saying some seriously filthy things in the voice of Darth Vader. It was obviously a game they played a lot, and by the end, York had mimicked everyone from R2-D2 to Princess Leia, each impression worse—and more hysterical—than the last.

When the laughter settled, the field wasn't as silent as it had been before. I could hear the infrequent
whoosh
of a car speeding down the highway, even though I couldn't see the road yet.

“It's spooky out here,” I said to no one in particular. “It reminds me of
Children of the Corn
.”

“What's that?” Andi asked.

“It's a scary movie. An old one, with a bunch of demonic kids living in a cornfield.”

Boston shivered. “No, thanks.”

York stepped closer to me and fiddled with the straps of his backpack. “You like scary movies?”

“They're okay.” I shrugged. “It's just sort of a thing I do with my mom. . . .” But I didn't want to think about that—about her—right now.

York noticed and quickly shifted gears. “What about, uh, mini-golf? You ever been to the mini-golf complex over in Williams? It's got bumper cars and an arcade.”

I grinned. I hadn't been to that complex since I was a kid, with Grandma and Aunt Ellen, before my cousins were born. It seemed like it might be fun to go again with someone my own age.

“You hate video games,” Boston piped up, looking at York as if he were an alien.

I wish he'd fall back a few paces.

“If you're trying to ask her out, you're doing it wrong,” Andi said.

Her, too.

“I was just asking what kind of stuff you like,” York said to me, ignoring the others. “Besides travel.”

His lips tipped up in a smile. He was proud of himself for remembering.

Cocky
, I thought.
And cute
.

He almost made me forget the ache in my calves, the nagging pang of my empty stomach, and everything that had come before.

“I like music,” I said. “But I can't play it or anything. Guess that skill skips a generation. And . . .” I thought of downtown River City—seedy but alive, thanks to the bar hoppers, the street vendors, the creep in the suit, and even the guy who owned the Chinese place who was always arguing with the woman in the upstairs apartment. “And I kind of like watching people.”

“You mean people-watching,” Boston said.

“Same thing.” I could see why York got annoyed with Boston's constant corrections.

“No,” Boston said. “People-watching is normal. Watching people is creepy.”

“Trust him,” York said. “Boston knows all about being creepy.”

“You're not creepy,” Andi assured me. “But you're definitely not normal.”

Pot, kettle.

“Thanks a lot.”

“No, I mean—God, who wants to be normal? Bleh.” She turned to walk backward in front of us. “You're crazy, but I like crazy. There's a quote—I can't remember who said it— ‘The only people for me are the mad ones.'”

“Kerouac,” Boston said, beating me to it.

Andi snapped her fingers. “Right. Jack Kerouac. I had to read him for lit last year. I agree with him. The only people for me are the mad ones.”

“From
On the Road
,” I said. I had read it for lit last year, too, and it had crawled under my skin with its wild desires—to see, to experience, to just
go
.

“
On the Road
,” Andi repeated with a smile. “Like us. We're the mad ones.”

“He doesn't mean it in the same way you do,” Boston said. “He doesn't mean crazy.”

“How do you know?” Andi asked, falling back into line with us. “You ever met the guy?”

“The ‘guy' is dead.”

York rolled his eyes at his brother. “Well, what does he mean, then, smartass?”

“He means they're free,” I said. I wasn't sure if that answer would get me an A on an essay or anything, but it
felt
right. I felt it in the warm wind at our backs and in the open stretch of road waiting somewhere ahead of us. We were mad to be doing any of this, but at least in this small moment, we were also free.

“Kind of,” Boston said. “He was talking about the beatniks. He meant that they were passionate about life and art and, yeah, freedom, I guess. They made him feel—”

“Alive,” York finished.

Yes.

“I stand by what I said.” Andi gave my shoulder a light punch. “You're still one of the mad ones. And that's why I'm sticking with you.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Because I make you feel alive?”

She grinned. “No, because you make me feel sane.”

“And because you don't have any other option,” York pointed out.

A few steps later, we were even with the hay bales where we'd hidden earlier that morning, and in the distance the highway rose up like a great gray snake crossing our path.

There, waiting for us like a mirage in the hazy afternoon heat waves, was the other option.

 

33

THE BACK WINDOWS were smashed and streams of dried mud splattered the sides, but otherwise, the SUV looked just as it had when we'd stolen it from River City Park.

We confirmed all this through Andi's Super Zooms, from the safety of the hay-bale wall.

“The backpack is gone,” York said, passing the glasses back to Andi. “Do you think they're hiding inside the SUV?”

Boston crouched low behind the hay. “It's a trap!”

“It's not a trap,” Andi said. “It's a gift. A way home!”

“Yeah, I'm sure they brought it here as a present,” I said with mock cheer. “It practically has a big red bow on it.”

“I'm going to check it out.” She stood up too fast for any of us to stop her and tiptoed around the hay bales.

“Hey, Andi,” York said. “Did you take candy from strangers when you were a kid?”

She answered him with her middle finger, but she didn't take any more steps into the field. “They got what they wanted,” she said. “Now they're letting us go.”

“Not everything they wanted.” I pointed to the packs on York's and Boston's backs.

“So it could be a trade,” Andi insisted. “We left them the bag, they left us a ride.”

I was skeptical. “And what exactly do we get for the other two bags?”

“Only one way to find out,” she said.

I stood up next to her. “Fine, but we go together.”

York was on his feet as fast as I was.

“I've got your back,” he promised.

“It's not my back I'm worried about,” I said. “It's all of our asses.”

“Or none of our asses,” Boston mumbled.

Andi laughed down at him. “Hey, genius, did you just make a joke?”

But Boston wasn't laughing. The coward wasn't standing, either. He remained in his crouched position behind the hay.

Or maybe he's not a coward so much as just smarter than the rest of us.

“I'll go alone,” Andi said, as if reading my mind. She held up a hand when I tried to protest. “I'm faster than you, shortie—no offense.”

I was secretly too relieved to be offended. I guess I was a coward, too.

“I'll just zip up there to check it out,” she said. “If the car's clear, I'll wave you in.”

She tossed the Super Zooms to York, then lifted her messenger bag from her shoulder and handed it to me. It was heavy with the weight of her army jacket stuffed inside.

I took it reluctantly. “Are you sure—”

But she was already gone, racing off across the field.

York watched her through the glasses while my eyes flicked back and forth between the infinite ends of the highway. I didn't breathe until she reached the road and dropped low behind the SUV.

“What's happening?” I asked York, not taking my eyes off the Andi-shaped blur in the distance.

“She's looking in the back window.”

“And?” Boston whimpered.

“And . . . she's going around the side. Shit.”

“What is it?” I nearly snatched the lenses off York's face.

“I can't see her. She's on the other side of the car. Wait—”

“What?” I said, my heart racing.

“Oh my God.”

“What?!”

“Oh holy shit!”

I leaned into the hay bales, willing my vision into something even better than 20/20 so I could see what York was seeing. Andi was back behind the SUV, and it looked like she was doing jumping jacks.

Finally, York pushed the Super Zooms back onto his head and turned to me and Boston with a whoop. “She's got the keys!”

I took a peek through the glasses to see for myself, and sure enough, Andi's jumping jacks were actually some kind of strange victory dance. She held the keys high in one hand and waved at us with the other.

“They left us the keys?” I said.

Maybe Andi was right. Maybe it was a trade after all.

We waved back and practically climbed over the hay bales in our hurry to join her. It was possible the crooked cops were trying to buy our silence with this peace offering, but at the moment I didn't care. All I could see were four wheels and all the places they would take us—to food, to water, to comfortable beds, and, yes, even to the police station. Anywhere was better than this middle of nowhere. Luck was finally on our side.

Or so it seemed for thirty glorious seconds.

Because that's all the time we had before the heavy roar of an engine drowned out our celebration. It came from the end of the highway that disappeared into the woods, and I barely had time to blink before a pickup truck shot into view, blasting down the road, heading straight for Andi.