Sometimes Never, Sometimes Always (30 page)

For some reason, I carefully fold the note back up into its cutesy triangle before pocketing them both. I can’t bring myself to open the second one, and, for whatever reason, I’m equally incapable of throwing them away. Unbelievable. I’ve never received a threatening note before in my life, and now I’ve gotten two. I’m out of here. I put on my coat and slam the locker door shut, a little loudly.

“Cass, hey!” I look up to see Darin waving at me from down the hall, near the drinking fountain.

“Hey.” I wait for him to get closer. “What class do you have right now?”

“French,” he says, holding up the stupid Eiffel Tower bathroom pass. “Which I’m failing.”

I try to laugh. “You say that about English too, but I’ve seen you. You do plenty of work when nobody’s looking.”

He throws up his hands, playing innocent. “Who, me? No way. Too cool for school. That’s me.”

“Next I’ll find out you have the top SAT scores in town. And I’ll be like, I don’t even know you!”

How can I be having this conversation when Drew Godfrey might be dying, when Annika’s turning the whole school against me, when I’m on the brink of my parents discovering I’m the antichrist or whatever and disowning me or sending me off to some kind of religious boot camp for reprogramming?

“You have study hall, right?”

I nod.

“So let’s skip. Let’s go see if Eric’s finished the sculpture.”

“You’re failing French.” My heart leaps at the idea, even so.

“Yeah, so?”

“You have the Eiffel Tower.”

“It’s a traumatic day. Madame LeBlanc will understand.” His eyes get serious and he reaches out a finger, touching my cheek lightly, below my eyes. “You okay?”

I brush the back of my hand quickly across the spot. It comes away black with eyeliner. “Fine. You know.”

“Did you get my note?” He ducks his head, all shy hair hanging in his face, so he doesn’t see a thing when my fist snakes out and punches him, hard.

“Oof! Cass, what the heck?
Ouch
.”

It’s only after seeing the shocked look on his face that I remember there are
two
notes. Two notes, only one of which I’ve opened.

“Oh god. It’s a long story,” I say. I dig through my coat pockets while we walk to his locker, and he busies himself with his own jacket and backpack while I unfold the
second
triangle of notebook paper and smooth it out against the lockers.

My cheeks tingle as I study the drawing, which certainly doesn’t deserve a slug in the stomach. In his familiar black ink, he’s sketched a spiky-haired girl in a kissing booth, lips puckered up and about to connect with those of a boy with shaggy hair and a pen in his hand. Behind his back is a sign that says, in Darin’s adorable block lettering, “This lane closed. Please try next window.”

“I’m so stupid,” I say, and I show him the other note. “I guess I’m new to this whole hate mail thing.”

“Oh, Cass. This is messed up.”

He flattens the hate mail against the leg of his jeans, and I can’t keep my eyes off his hand—an ordinary hand, clean fingernails, a light scattering of hair on his slender fingers. I try to recall what his hand felt like in mine. Speaking of messed up, how can I think about things like that right now? Am I completely heartless?
Stupid.

“You should probably show this to Ms. Clark, Cass. It’s evidence.”

Evidence
. A word that brings to mind other words.
Crime
.
Investigations
.

Guilt
.

“Some freak hit me in the head with a snowball yesterday.” I run a hand over the collar of my coat as though the slush is still there. “I feel like everyone hates me. Which I guess would be what I deserve.”

He holds the door for me, and for a long time the only sound is our footsteps slogging through the mess on the ground.

More snowy silence, and then Darin speaks. “Cass, nobody hates you.” He stops walking and surveys the scene ahead of us. Sterling Lake looks peaceful and pristine with its layer of fresh white snow, even though everyone in town knows the lake is a festering mess of mud and goose droppings.

“If they don’t now, they will soon.” Everyone needs a scapegoat, and as far as anyone knows, I’m doubly to blame, or triply—the girl who used Drew, the girl who started all the drama, the girl whose blog post exploded. It’s not going to change even if I turn myself in, or even if there’s proof I didn’t post those mean comments. “The whole thing is my fault. Drew wouldn’t have any reason for killing herself if it weren’t for me.”

“For
trying
to kill herself.”

“I hope so.”

“And you don’t know that, Cass. You don’t know what Drew’s life was like, what her reasons were. You can never know what’s going on inside someone’s heart, what they might need or what might push them over the edge, over their limit.”

“But you can
try
, you know?” That’s the part I hate. I never tried—even when it occurred to me that I should. “I was too big of a coward.”

“Do you think she’s going to be okay?”

I shrug inside my heavy coat. “I hope so.”

“I could have been nicer to her, too. I could be nicer to everyone.” He looks at me as we walk, and his eyes are so sweet. For the slightest second it pisses me off that he’s so nice, so caring. It pisses me off that I’m not.

“Darin, I—” I should tell him, about the blog. How I screwed up.

“We’ve all been cruel to people, Cass. You didn’t know it would lead to this when you asked her to cover for you to go that concert.” And then he does it again—he takes my hand. He squeezes my fingers a little and leads me toward the edge of the shore where the Eric’s snow pile stands.

“I … ” I twist my hand away. I can’t hold hands with someone while I’m planning my big confession.

“No,” he says, and he takes my hand again, but this time he pulls me in close to him. Very close. I feel my body tense as he reaches toward me—my breath catches and his face gets so close. But he just tugs on my hat as he leans toward me, his eyes on mine. “You didn’t mean to hurt Drew.”

I shift away from his eyes, but I let him keep my hand this time, allowing him to lead me along, my eyes shrinking away from the glitter of sun on snow, settling on the slushy trail ahead of us. We’re quiet again, approaching the sculpture area, and I’m excited to see Eric’s version of Northstar. I bet the sculpture has come a long way since Monday afternoon.

I can’t do it. I can’t tell Darin about the blog, not right now. What if he thinks I’m one of those people who gets off on the drama? What if he can’t see that my intentions were good, even if I made a huge mistake in not moderating comments, not predicting how stupid and mean people are? Eric told me someone would get hurt, and I should have realized that he’d have insight into how awful people can be.

“Oh.” Darin stops in his tracks, sucking his breath in through his teeth, and I look up, raising my free hand to shade my eyes against the bright winter sun.

Oh god
. We’re both standing here stunned, our mouths
hanging open. Eric’s sculpture is almost done—the block
of snow chiseled into the shape of the broad-shouldered comics hero, his one fist raised up, a star-shaped ice crystal connected to his glove. Eric has spent hours here carving away, perfecting his sculpture. It looks amazing.

And horrifying. Across the front of his sculpture, someone has spray-painted two words in red paint. One of them is misspelled.

The stone that has been spinning in my stomach since the assembly chooses this moment to eject itself from my body. I turn and puke into the snow.

48. One good thing …

Darin drives me home, his eyes flicking away from the road every couple of seconds to land on my face. “I’m worried about you,” he says, for the third time in eight blocks.

I send a text to Kayla, letting her know I’m not going to be on the bus. I’m worried, too, but less about myself than about Eric, about Drew. Even about my parents and how this will hurt them—I’ve tried so hard to keep from hurting them all my life, and now I’m breaking their hearts all over the place. Lying to them, sneaking away to Minneapolis, dealing in sorcery, failing English.

Killing a girl.
Almost
killing a girl, I hope.

Darin pulls the car into my driveway and puts it in park. “Thanks for the ride,” I say, but my hand rests on the door handle without pulling it open.

“You know, it might be a good thing,” he says, and he reaches for me—his thumb lightly brushing my cheek. He leans over, his fingers curling into my hair, pulling me toward him.

Whoa, wait. What’s going on? I can’t seem to stop myself from moving closer. “What might?”

My voice sounds all stupid and breathy, but really, what might be a good thing? Telling my parents I’m the source of the evil they’ve been protesting all along? Telling Eric that someone spray-painted
DIE FAGGETS
across his sculpture, but that we couldn’t tell Clark about it because then she’d call Mom and Dad? My mind races, but my eyes slide closed and my question dissolves in this kiss.
My first kiss
.

His mouth presses only briefly against mine, and then he moves up and kisses both of my eyelids, which are leaking stupid tears.

Of course I’m going to ruin the moment by crying. And,
oh god
, probably by having puke breath. My hand flies up to cover my mouth. I rinsed twice and chewed a piece of gum, but still.

“What might be a good thing?” I say again, and now I really want to tell him, about Divinia Starr—about everything. But what if he thinks I should turn myself in?

“It might be good for Eric. For your family. For everyone to be honest about who they are and who they love, and … ” He takes a deep breath and shakes the hair out of his eyes again. “And maybe even what they believe. They’re your parents, and it’s normal to follow their lead and stuff, but you’re also allowed to have thoughts they don’t have.” His fingers are still tangled in my hair; his thumb still rests on my cheek. We’re acting like this is all completely normal, like we’ve always paused mid-conversation to make out (okay, so that tiny kiss could not in any universe be mistaken for making out, but still), yet my brain feels like a pinball machine after a particularly successful round—all flashing lights and frenetic music. I try to drag my thoughts back to the moment, back to what he just said.

“I … ” I look up at the front window. One lamp is on that I can see, but I can’t tell if anyone’s home or what. “I’d better get in there,” I say. My voice is shaky and strange. I smile and lift my index finger at him, waving it back and forth even though this time there’s no smiley face drawn on it. “Bye, Darin,” I whisper, and I pull open the car door.

49. One way you
like to “be yourself” …

“They’re not home.” Eric picks at the plastic wrap on a loaf of banana bread on the table. “Emergency meeting at the church. They picked up Dicey from school.” He hands me the note, penned in Mom’s neat script, but those are the only details she gives.

I hang my backpack on the hook behind the door. The emergency meeting must be about the blog, about Drew.

“Are you okay?” he asks. His hands fidget on the legs of his jeans.

What a stupid question. As if either of us could be okay. I’m so far from okay, and it’s only going to get worse. I look at Eric, his eyes worried and maybe reproachful, and I can see those awful words in blood red against the brilliance of the snow, the sun shining on the day that Drew Godfrey tried to kill herself, and it doesn’t make sense.
It doesn’t make sense
. Maybe evil really is the only explanation—the presence of demons or sorcery or something truly wicked.

“Eric, look. I know Divinia Starr told you something else, but please don’t give Gavin a ring at the carnival. Please.”

“What are you talking about? I didn’t … ” He can’t keep from blushing, and even now, he can’t stop a smile from stealing over his face at the mention of Gavin and the ring.

“It’s escalating,” I say, pulling up the picture I took of his sculpture and handing my phone to him. “Please, Eric. I can’t … ” I can’t bundle him in bubble wrap and keep him safe.

“Nobody’s going to hurt me, sissy. I promise.” But I see the way his mouth twitches down at the sight of the graffiti.

“Darin and I scraped it off,” I say. “So nobody would see.” Once again, I’m erasing the evidence of someone’s hatred against my brother in order to keep his secret. Protecting him in one sense, but at the same time putting him in danger by not telling anyone who could help.

“Maybe people
should
see,” he says. He twists his fingers around and around the space on his ring finger. There’s a tension in him I’ve never seen before, as though a current of electricity is running through him. It’s not fear, or even nerves. His eyes dance.