BONE DEEP Read online

  “Seriously, though,” Ditty continues. “Do you get off on making a scene? You could’ve been—”

  “Ryan,” Jess cautions Ditty. Their gazes meet, a “not here, not now” warning passing from her to him. In my pocket, my fist clenches.

  “What?” I ask Ditty. “Arrested?” Around me the rest of Chanton Community College moves as if nothing’s changed; typical Monday morning haze. As if something less final, less of a massacre ever happened. A year since the deaths and they continue on fluidly, with ease. How can they get over it so quickly?

  Weights like lead sink to my feet, bury into my heels. Ditty shakes his head, his eyes growing just the slightest bit wider. In reaction, Jess starts to reach for me, but then thinks better of it. Still, she’s close enough to feel. Her warmth. Her breath. The soft brush of her elbow on my arm.

  “Sorry,” she says in a rush. The thought of touching her, combing my fingers through her short, blond hair floats through my brain for a half second. It could be easy. Should be easy.

  Instead I turn and make my way to class, the brisk, morning air filling the widening space between them and me. A few corners, a musty classroom, and then my fingers loosen, knuckles aching. I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath, mentally flipping the bird to my father for this fucked-up life he threw at me.

  Seconds later, Ditty collapses into the chair beside me. Breathless, he says, “Dude, I’m sorry.”

  Focus on my desk. English book out. Pencil. Breathe. “Don’t apologize just because Jess put you up to it.”

  “She didn’t pu—”

  I glare hard, daring him to finish this lie.

  “Okay,” he says, hands up. “She did, but that’s not… It’s just…”

  “Just what?” I snap. Heat floods my face, the last tenuous threads of self-control quickly slipping away.

  “It’s been a year, you know? And—”

  “I should be used to this by now?”

  He swallows, staring at the ground. “Yeah, maybe.”

  “Fuck you, Ditty.”

  Ms. Huckins enters the room donning a yellow sweater and a laptop bag over her shoulder. “Language, Krister,” she says without looking at me.

  “It was an accident,” Ditty says softly, ignoring Ms. H because she’s on autopilot at the moment—setting down her Starbucks, shuffling papers to the side of her desk. “You can’t hate your dad forever.”

  “He crashed a fucking train! And if it was an accident, he wouldn’t be sitting in a cell under vehicular homicide charges right now!” My words flourish throughout the half-empty room. Curious ears tune in, and right on cue, Ms. H points to the door with a look of disappointment twisting her face.

  “Settle this outside,” she says to me.

  “Jesus,” I mutter, shoving away from my desk. Back in high school, an outburst like this would’ve been dismissed with a sympathetic eye roll. Poor Ledoux. Did you hear about his father? Now, it’s all I need to do to get out of class. I collect my books and, rather than breathing deeply for a few minutes and returning to class, I head to my car.

  ~*~

  “Six thirty-eight,” the cashier says, bagging the Butterfinger and pretzels.

  That word: eight—if I close my eyes, it sounds a lot like…hate. Invisible hands position around my throat. Tighten. Squeeze until my head feels like it’s going to explode.

  The woman is staring at me. Her Palm Liquor shirt with a lizard on the front is staring at me, too. Inhale. Exhale. Fingers close around a ten. Hand it to her. Wait for my change. Even still, an image of the article flashes before me: Metro-transit train collides with freight train. The worst U.S. train crash in fifteen years.

  135 injured.

  8 dead.

  24 texts sent.

  21 received.

  And one boy’s life ruined.

  I snatch the bag off the counter and push through the glass door, welcoming the blast of warm air. Inhale. Exhale. Across the street, up the grated steps, I slink through the crowd, my unsteady footsteps drowning in the click clacks and scuffs and soft pads of all the other footsteps on the wooden platform.

  Sometimes I come here when I don’t have to.

  Today the crowd is angry; Monday morning, just-get-this-day-over-with angry. I find a bench far enough away from the tracks so I can’t see the rust that looks the color of blood, smell the seared-metal stench when the trains come to a halt, hear the slight gasp of the passenger who’s never ridden Metro-transit before. And sit.

  All these people. In line. On benches. Waiting, waiting, with no idea what they’re really waiting for. No inkling their lives could end with one ticket, one step over the yellow line, one fucking red light “accidentally” unseen.

  All these people who don’t realize how easy it’d be to die.

  The brriinnggg of the bell signals the approach of the train. White, with its faded ribbons of red flowing down the sides. I remember when they went from blue paint to red. The comment my dad made back then about his pay raise going to the cars’ attraction. That I had to go another year with the same beat-up shoes—my toe peeking out of the top like a gopher checking for its fucking shadow—not to mention the clothes I so inconveniently outgrew as soon as the words “no money” came out of his mouth.

  Doors slide open, spitting out bodies that made it this time, but may not be so lucky the next. They don’t even look relieved. They just put their lives into the hands of some stranger and are oblivious to the fact that they’re walking away safe and sound.

  The crowd stirs on the platform, itching for their chance at Metro-transit roulette. Will I make it to my next stop? Will the conductor follow policy and stay off his phone today? There’s no hesitance in the movements of this next batch, stepping onto the train car. A year passing and it’s like the gruesome images from the news with mangled train cars and zombie-faced, bloody people never existed.

  A girl, about my age, is standing, toes just behind the yellow line, waiting for the train to arrive. She’s swimming in a Mexican poncho much too big for her, a putrid shade of orange which totally clashes with her long, reddish-brown hair. From what I can see beneath the mess of waves, she’s got a pretty face. The porcelain-doll kind that looks like it’d shatter if something touched it. A crumpled ticket dangles from her fingers, its edges trembling against the poncho each time she shivers from the morning breeze. Others are waiting for the train, too, gazing up at today’s unusually blue sky, impatiently tapping their feet, but my attention keeps drifting back to the girl in the poncho. I’ve seen her here before—a few days ago when she was left standing behind the yellow line, an unused ticket in her hand, looking as if she was a fragile piece of glass ready to splinter at any moment.

  Another bell rings, signaling the closing of the doors. A dried leaf skips across the platform with the rush of air as the train pulls away, and then there is this silence. This stillness. Where everyone is gone. Where the medley of shuffling feet, murmuring, and change jingling disappear, and suddenly my own breath is echoing in my ears. The platform is deserted.

  Except her, the girl in the poncho. Again.

  The train disappears behind the hill in the distance, and she shuffles over and sits on a bench. Her head falls into her hands, and it’s just too interesting not to watch. She curls up on the bench beside the ticket validator—legs tucked under her, arms wrapped around her body like she’s giving herself a hug.

  Except, after a while, it’s not all that interesting. I mean, she’s obviously upset about leaving Chanton. Or maybe she was planning to meet someone—a boyfriend perchance—but he stood her up, called and said, “You may as well not come because I’ve moved on.” Whatever the reason for not getting on the train, it’s enough to wilt her.

  Slowly, I walk up to her. Say quietly so I don’t scare her, “Are you okay? You don’t look…” Okay? Normal? How do I put this politely?

  “Go away.” If possible, she manages to curl in on herself even more. I know the feeling, craving to be alone, t
urning away from anyone who wants to talk, so I can’t explain why my mouth opens again.

  Or why my hand cradles her arm.

  “Um…do you need help? Are you lost? I’ve seen you here twice, and both times you didn’t get on the train and—”

  She snaps her head to my hand, as if my touch burns her, then glares at me. “Well, aren’t you observant.”

  If I could put how I feel when I’m lying awake at night into an expression, this is how it’d look. Eyes empty, foraged into hollow pits by something heavy and greedy and unwilling to relent. Colorless lips, their life sucked out from them slowly. Painfully.

  Any of my friends would take her words, mutter sorry to bug you and leave, but my feet have grown roots to the wooden platform, my fascinated stare has locked onto her and won’t let go.

  “So, you are lost?” I say, removing my hand and running it over the prickly feeling on my arm.

  Her face pinches like she’s going to start crying, but instead she squints at me and says, “Leave me alone, creep.” Her voice cracks on the last word, like it’s the first time she’s ever called somebody that, and then she gets up. Her footsteps barely make a sound as she hurries down the stairs.

  I follow her out of the station. She’s fast, even with the weight of the gigantic poncho draped over her tiny frame. Once at the bottom of the stairs, she sprints across Fair Drive, grabs a bike from the wall, and rides off.

  Creep, creep, creep. The name might’ve been worse if she actually knew me.

  Chapter Three

  I’m walking to statistics, the word creep still lingering under my skin. Even after a ten-minute pit stop at the library’s computers, I can’t get that word—and even more so the girl’s pained look—out of my mind.

  The red, blinking crosswalk hand freezes solid as I approach the street toward North Campus. My toes inch toward the curb. A few cars zoom by at the same time flip-flops tap behind me.

  “Remember a few years ago,” Ditty says over my shoulder, “when we rode our boards down here and freaked out because this campus is on two sides of the street?” Ditty’s so close I can smell the corndog he ate for lunch. “When we sat on this curb, pointing to where we thought our classes would be?”

  “Such aspirations we had…looking forward to becoming Chanton’s finest.”

  Ditty chuckles just as an ancient Volvo sputters past, wheezing exhaust fumes into our faces. The blowout from this morning feels, in fact, forgotten, and it occurs to me how un-bothered Ditty seems to be, which at the same time causes me to feel peculiarly irritated.

  I’m about to tell him to scram, but then he says, “You’re right, you know. If it was just an accident, he wouldn’t be in jail.”

  I look over at him. He’s grinning like a fool. Goddamn Ditty.

  “You’re supposed to be on my side,” I say, watching as the light above us changes from green to yellow to red.

  WALK.

  We step off the curb. “Dude, I am on your side. Always. It just seems that you’re…I don’t know, getting worse. Not better.”

  “It’s called giving a shit. Kinda what happens when everything around me is a reminder of what happened.”

  He looks at me, his face sobering and that stupid mallard’s head he whittled out of balsa bouncing against his belt. “But you should stop giving a shit.”

  We veer to the left, and I pull open Agudelo’s door. “Give me one good reason why, and I’ll consider it.” Ditty thinks about this for a minute, blocking the door with his gigantically stuffed backpack turned askew. Shelby Moore, with her phone attached to her ear, sighs loudly from a few feet away. Ditty holds up his finger, signaling her to wait. She rolls her eyes.

  He looks back to me, still pondering the Question of the Day. “Because your best friend wants you to,” he says finally.

  “Not good enough.” I release the door and find my seat. Ditty sits sideways on my desk, scowls down at me.

  “Have you tried counseling?”

  Yes, but over my nonexistent mother will I tell him about that. I grit my teeth and say, “I’m fine.”

  “It might help, yeah?”

  I snort. “Talking to some Dr. Phil type isn’t going to fix this, Dit. I can’t change what my dad did.”

  He chuckles and pulls his statistics book from his backpack. “I was thinking a hot blonde with tits like grapefruits that insists you lie on her couch while she talks in her soft, sexy voice to you.”

  Ha. Pathetic, virgin Ryan Ditty would be so disappointed at what they really look like—a hideous brunette with a front butt who hassles you in her raspy, I’ve-smoked-too-many-cigarettes voice saying you won’t get over what happened to your father unless you talk about it.

  “Can we just drop it?” I say to him. Surprisingly, he nods and lowers into his chair then reaches across the aisle and snatches the paper from my hands. It isn’t until the thin, white sheet—ink still fresh from the printer—leaves my fingers do I silently curse myself that I didn’t stash it before I left the library.

  “Evan Bencich?” Ditty holds up the newspaper article, scowling. “Not showing up to lunch is acceptable when you’re having a sesh with Jess…but not for this.” The paper rattles. The picture from Evan Bencich’s obituary crinkles. “Why would you need this?”

  I ignore him, focus on how Mr. Agudelo’s thick lenses magnify his eyes. The comical enormity of them delays this thought: You know Jess has physical therapy Monday afternoons for a few seconds. This one, too: And we don’t have lunch seshes anymore, prick.

  “Not sure it’s healthy to keep dwelling on this,” he says. More students shuffle in. Agudelo turns on the Smart Board and dims the lights. “It’s like you’re obsessed.”

  “Thanks for the advice.” I squint at the corner of my folder where Jess once scribbled her name inside of a little heart. We weren’t even together when she did it; we’d broken up weeks before because according to her she was getting in the way of my healing.

  Not sure how one heals from a dad in jail, but whatever.

  “Why?” Ditty moves to the seat in front of me. A groan rumbles in my chest as I reclaim my printout and shove it into my folder.

  “Would you drop it already?”

  “Tell me why you printed that out and I will.” He raises his eyebrow, daring me to. Damn, he knows me too well. Too bad I’m not in the mood to play.

  “There’s a concert tonight in Woodbridge. Care to join me?”

  ~*~

  THE UNDERGROUND the sign says, flickering back and forth between blue and red. If I pinch my eyes, it looks just like the police unit parked in front of my house—lights on to embarrass the shit out of me in front of my neighbors.

  “Who are these dudes?”

  I open my eyes. Best to keep them open. Ditty’s leaning against the grimy brick building, arms crossed loosely over his creased polo. What happened today at school hasn’t come up again, and now that I think about it—it may not have been smart inviting him here. He doesn’t know about the letters. No one does except Wrenn.

  Not sure I want to tell him he’s friends with someone popular enough to attract hate mail.

  I clear my throat. “You look ridiculous in that shirt.”

  “Whatever, Ledoux. It’s your fault.” He gestures to the dark alley we’re standing in, to the constellation of trash and cigarettes scattered over the asphalt. “You could’ve said ‘concert in the ghetto of Woodbridge’.”

  “All of Woodbridge is ghetto. It’s implied.” I laugh again. “By the way you’re dressed you’d think we were going to a country club.”

  He lifts his brow. “Wouldn’t be the strangest thing you’ve done, yeah?”

  Let it go. The words, ugly and pitiable, throb in my head like I’m back to that Saturday night six months ago, the slippery film of greasy chicken still on my fingertips.

  “What’d you say?”

  The dark-haired guy steps back, away from my table. He lifts a smug grin, all to impress the girl to my left with. I almost
tell him “go ahead”—that I’m not with her anymore, but his chapped lips and ripped-up shirt don’t really fit Jess’s type. Besides, now my blood is pumping.

  Chapped Lips tilts his chin. “I said, ‘That’s a funny last name.’ Ledoux? What are you, some French maid ready to suck my dick?”

  His friends—a dude with red streaks in his blond hair and another with a cigarette tucked behind his ear—laugh. I start to stand, but two hands clamp down on my arms. One on each side. Ditty and Jess. “Let it go,” Ditty says under his breath. “They’re piss-drunk losers trying to show off.” His breath smells like barbecue sauce. I don’t look and push him away.

  Standing, I’m at least six inches taller than the guy though he’s got some serious girth. Dark eyes swim on his acne-scabbed face, skin pale under the yellow, glowing Krispy’s sign in the window. His jaw, set hard and challenging, is about to be the same shade of red as his shirt. My fists ball at my sides. “Say it to my face, cocksucker.”

  He doesn’t blink and spits the words, “Ledoux is a pussy’s name.”

  And then he goes flying. Concave in the chest, arms flailing, and the tantalizing mask of surprise on his face that sends a fizz of pleasure through my veins. I don’t even remember deciding to do that, shove him with such force. Disappointingly, his friends step in to catch him before he can crash into the coffee-stained tables, send shredded-vinyl seats clattering to the floor.

  Ditty’s got my arm again, digging his fingernails into my skin. From the table, Jess lets out a screech. Blood roars in my ears just as the cluster of chickenshits scramble for the door. Noises from all around conglomerate into a single, moaning sound, and I can’t understand any of it. The manager, a twenty-something with a Krispy’s logo on his shirt, emerges from behind the counter.

  I blink and, suddenly, I’m outside, pressed up against the stucco wall, secured by Ditty’s hand. His face draws close to mine. “What the fuck was that?”

  My jaw clamped so tight, I growl out the words, “You saw what it was! That fucking prick was picking a fight with me because of my dad!”