Dinner at Drew’s ends up being just the five of us, like so many dinners I’ve eaten at this table before. We don’t talk about Nastya at all until dessert comes and the cake gets brought out.
“She’s a freak,” Sarah says, glad to finally have the chance to talk behind her back. She looks at me when she says it and I look away because she’s pissing me off.
“Sarah, not everyone has such an easy life. Some people have problems and you need to learn to empathize, not judge.” Mrs. Leighton is skewering her with the look that has kept all three of us in line for years, four of us if you count Mr. Leighton.
“Is that why you invite her?” Shit. I wonder if my voice sounds as pissed off as I think it does.
“No, we really like her.” She sounds surprised by the question. Her response is sincere, but it’s the sincerity that pisses me off. Before I get a chance to respond, Sarah opens her bitchy mouth and saves me from myself, if only for a moment.
“Speak for yourself.”
“Shut up, Sarah,” Drew counters with the phrase that must leave his mouth a hundred times a day.
“Drew!” Mrs. Leighton lays her fork down next to her plate and it’s obvious that it pains her not to slam it onto the table.
“What? She can be a bitch but I can’t tell her to shut up?” Drew stands up and pushes his chair back from the table.
“Sit down, Drew.” The forced calm in his mother’s voice is a warning and he sits. He’s readying for his comeuppance, but I’m not done yet.
“How can you like her? You don’t even know her.” I should drop it. I know I should, but I don’t get it. It’s like she’s a novelty or a pet. Look at the troubled, misguided mute girl we’ve taken in. Aren’t we amazingly generous and understanding? I hate it and I don’t want it coming from Drew’s mom.
“I don’t know how well you can really know a girl who can’t talk,” she says sympathetically.
Doesn’t talk, I silently correct. Can, just won’t. I know that one thing.
Mrs. Leighton’s attention is on me now. She’s trying to explain it for me as well as for herself. She wants to convince me, but she doesn’t need to. I already know. The answer is you can’t. You can’t know her at all; at least not Nastya, because she won’t give you anything, and what she gives you isn’t real. She may talk to me, but I don’t know her either.
“So how can you say you like her?” I’m not as angry now, but I want to know.
“She’s obviously a nice girl. She has manners. She never comes to dinner empty-handed.” I don’t know how manners and nice are equal, but I keep my mouth shut because being mad at Sarah is one thing, but being mad at Drew’s mom is something else. I don’t think she’s ever done anything to piss me off before. The feeling sucks. I don’t even know where it comes from. “Clearly, there’s something going on in her life and we can’t judge—”
“So what is it? You invite her because you feel sorry for her or because you’re using her to teach Sarah how to be a better person?” I had to cut her off. It was getting way too close to the point where the psychoanalysis was going to start and I didn’t want to let it happen. I didn’t want to hear it. It would feel too much like I was being psychoanalyzed, letting them tear me open and pick apart every action and choice and motivation, so they can feel superior and sane. I didn’t want them to do it to her while she wasn’t even here. Of course, I feel like I’ve just ripped myself open for them, spared them the trouble and dumped out my feelings so they can lay them across the dining room table and poke around in them with a stick.
“Josh.” She says a lot with that word. Like I’m being called out and judged and questioned and pitied. Everyone’s looking at me. I can’t blame them. I invited it by being the stupid bastard who couldn’t keep my mouth shut. It’s not even an outburst. I never even raised my voice. I don’t even think my tone changed at all, but they still aren’t used to it. It’s the Josh Bennett equivalent of tattooing her name across my chest. Regrettable, moronic, and really f**king embarrassing.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Leighton continues, and now I can tell she thinks I’m deluding myself. But I’m not the one taking in strays. I’m not trying to save anyone.
“She’s not a side show,” I cut her off again because I don’t want Mrs. Leighton’s apologies. She doesn’t owe them to me. I should quit while I’m ahead, but that would be smart, and I’m not being smart tonight.
“She dresses like one.” Obviously Sarah isn’t being smart either.
“I like the way she dresses.” I don’t know if Drew is trying to get everyone back on track by reminding us all what an idiot he is, or if he really is just an idiot.
“Less work for you,” she retorts.
“What is your problem Sarah?” I demand.
“What’s yours? My parents aren’t allowed to be nice to her and I’m not allowed to not be nice. You’re the one with the issue.” Sarah has no problem raising her voice. The worst part about it is that she’s right. I am the one with the issue and I don’t even know what the issue is.
I don’t know how this whole dinner devolved into the mess we’re in now, but I have a feeling I’m to blame for it. I could have kept my mouth shut, listened to them play a nice game of Solve Sunshine and let it go. But I didn’t.
Mrs. Leighton manages to corner me at my truck before I can leave, and I wish she’d just leave me alone like everyone else. Apparently I’ve been claimed by this woman whether I like it or not.
“Which one of you is dating that girl?”
“I don’t think either of us is.” Maybe Drew is, but I don’t think so. At least dating wouldn’t be the word for it, but I don’t want to think about that so much. “Drew, I guess.”
“I doubt that.” She looks knowingly at me.
“Then why ask?”
“Josh.” I wish she would stop saying my name like that. Soft and tentative, like she’s licking broken glass. “Look at the way she dresses, the way she covers her face with that make-up and the fact that she doesn’t speak. She might be silent, but she is screaming for help.”
I feel like I’m watching an episode of General Hospital.
“So why doesn’t someone give it to her?”
“Maybe nobody knows how. Sometimes it’s easier to pretend nothing is wrong than to face the fact that everything is wrong, but you’re powerless to do anything about it.” I wonder if she’s talking about me and she thinks she’s being subtle.
“Why are you telling me this? Shouldn’t you be talking to Drew?”
“Drew doesn’t care.”
Her accusation is clear and I answer it.
“Neither do I.”
CHAPTER 20
Nastya
I hate my left hand. I hate to look at it. I hate it when it stutters and trembles and reminds me that my identity is gone. But I look at it anyway, because it also reminds me that I’m going to find the boy who took everything from me. I’m going to kill the boy who killed me, and when I kill him, I’m going to do it with my left hand.
Clay Whitaker is chasing me on my way to first period on Thursday, hair as disheveled as his clothes, looking every bit a refugee from the Island of Misfit Boys. His sketchbook is closed up and tucked under his arm the way it always is, like it’s attached to him or something. I would still love to see what’s in it. I wonder how many of those he goes through and how fast he fills them up. It can’t be the same book all the time. Maybe he goes through as many sketchbooks as I do black and white composition books. His closet probably has a stack of them from floor to ceiling, and I bet if you flipped through them you wouldn’t find the exact same picture on every page. Not like in my notebooks. His are probably like a photo album of memories, where he can look back and know exactly what place he was at in his mind when he drew the picture. Mine aren’t like that. I can’t flip the pages and read what I wrote and tell you what was happening in my life, in my mind, at that time. I can only tell you what happened on one particular day, and it’s the one I’m not supposed to remember.
“Hey, Nastya!” He’s panting when he reaches me, smiling through heavy breaths. I stop and step off to the side so we aren’t standing in the middle of the hallway. I’m curious because Clay will say hello to me if I run into him, but he never seeks me out.
“I wanted to ask a favor, and I figured since you kind of owe me, you’d say yes.”
Really? I’m not worried about whatever favor he wants but I am trying to figure out what I owe him for. I narrow my eyes at him and his smile is still there.
“How many times have you gotten into the English wing at lunchtime because a certain book has been propping the door open? A book which, by the way, is dented to hell and I’m probably going to have to pay for, so you kind of owe me double.”
I’ll concede that. Come on. Bring it. I motion with my hand.
“I want to draw you.” Not what I was expecting but I hadn’t really stopped to think about what I was expecting. It’s not really an unusual request, considering that it’s coming from Clay Whitaker, but I don’t know why he wants me. I hope he doesn’t think I’d pose na**d for him because that’s not happening. I tap on his sketchbook and motion for him to open it. I’ve been dying to see what he does and he couldn’t have handed me a more perfect excuse. If it’s possible, his smile gets even wider, but now it’s genuine, too. He’s not trying to sell me something anymore, even though that’s exactly what his drawings are going to do.
We’ve been facing each other but he moves over to stand next to me, leaning his back against the wall so he’s shoulder to shoulder with me. He drops his backpack to the ground and opens the sketchbook. The first drawing is of a woman, older, with a lined face and thin lips. Her eyes are sunken and it’s horribly depressing. I look over to him and he’s waiting for my reaction. I don’t know what reaction to give him so I motion for him to turn the page. The next picture is of a man’s face. He looks like an older version of Clay, and it must be his father, unless it’s some sort of future self-portrait. Just like the first drawing, it’s jarringly real. I swear I can look at the eyes and tell what they were thinking. It isn’t just inspired; it’s almost frightening. The next one is a woman with eyes I can tell are bloodshot even though the drawing is black and white and my reaction is almost visceral. I can feel it. I want to touch her and find out what’s wrong. But it’s nothing compared to the feeling I get when I see the page he flips to next.
I’m staring at myself. The picture is me but not me. It’s me he’s never seen. My face looks younger and my eyes are clear. There isn’t a trace of make up on me and my hair is smoothed back in a ponytail that is pulled over my right shoulder. This one I do touch. I can’t help it. My hand just goes there. I pull it away as soon as my fingers meet the paper. I wish he hadn’t shown this to me here. I can’t look at any more. I close the book and shove it back at him.
Now I’m not so certain that the second picture wasn’t actually a future self-portrait after all. I’m sure he could easily look at a face and age, not only the skin, but the person behind it. It’s what he did to me in reverse. He regressed me. Took the age and the days and the years and everything that happened in them away and drew me the way I used to be.
When I turn to face him, I don’t know what’s in my expression. It could be any of a thousand emotions I don’t want to try to sort out right now in the hallway before first period. The bell is going to ring soon and the corridor is filling up around us.
