The Sorrowstones, page 8
“Noah,” I cried, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”
All this time, I’d never fully realized just how badly I missed him. I missed his laugh. I missed our adventures. I even missed the silent camaraderie of lying next to him in our sleeping bags. The guilt for his death felt like a cavernous wound in my guts. How I hated myself for letting him die while I feasted on pizza and candy, and for not realizing sooner what the jade tortoise was taking from him. A thought occurred to me then that poisoned my soul: I deserved to die, and to do penance, I should kill myself.
Ghastly thoughts of suicide haunted me all through the night.
Mr. Huckson didn’t really kill his family, my guilt whispered to me. You did.
The golden snake had siphoned wealth from Roger to my father, and I was blind to its effect. I was so absorbed with the new possessions it had brought me that I’d failed to see what was happening next door. Now, Kelly’s family was dead and her lovely face disfigured—all for a PlayStation and a bicycle.
Kill yourself, my guilt implored. Do it now. Tonight. If you’re truly sorry, you can prove it. Show them all.
I cried beneath my sheets until the red light of dawn crept over my bed. I got up, bleary-eyed, and lurched downstairs for breakfast when my mom called.
“Good morning, sweetie,” Mom said, tossing a few pancakes onto a plate and sliding it to me at the table. “Look, chocolate-chip pancakes! Remember when I used to make these for you and Noah? Figured you could use a treat.”
I sat down and stared at the food, unsure if I could even swallow right now. Mom placed the margarine and syrup on either side of the plate, then smiled patiently, waiting for me to take a bite.
“Honey, are you alright?” she asked, noticing my gloomy state.
“Just tired,” I mumbled, unable to summon the energy to explain what I was going through. I scooped up the fork and scanned the table for a knife.
“Oops!” Mom said, pulling open the silverware drawer.
As she whirled around with a knife in her grasp, my breath hitched in my throat. My mom’s figure blurred and morphed into Cassie’s. My sister strode toward me in a dark hallway, wearing a hospital gown and clutching a box cutter in her mutilated hand. A murderous smile wrapped itself all the way around her face, revealing her madly chattering teeth. I saw Cassie’s lidless, lunatic eyes bouncing between me and something unseen over my shoulder, and heard guttural cackles spewing from her mouth through someone else’s vocal cords. I jumped to my feet, sending the chair clattering to the floor along with the fork I’d been holding.
“Cole! What’s the matter?!”
The image of my sister and the dark hall faded away, replaced by my mother and our kitchen. I looked over my shoulder toward the bathroom where Cassie had butchered herself that horrible night. The sunlit hall was wide and welcoming, in stark contrast to the narrow, black deathtrap it had seemed on that night.
“I’m s-sorry,” I stammered, “I j-just…”
My mother looked down at the butterknife in her hand and realized what had happened.
“Oh, sweetheart,” she said, “I’m sorry.” She set the knife on the counter and pulled me into a hug. “I should have realized it still bothered you. Want me to make a new appointment with Dr. Kessler? It might be good for us to get in there and talk some more. Dad too.”
I pulled away from her embrace and shook my head. Therapy hadn’t felt necessary before, probably because the monkey statue had been shrouding my feelings about the attack. Now, it felt like too little, too late. I sat back down and tried to slow my heartbeat. I forced the pancakes down while Mom sat beside me, sketching in her art pad and glancing warmly at me every so often.
My panic attack and the conversation it had spurred with my mom caused me to miss the bus. When Mom dropped me off in the school parking lot, I saw Kevin talking to Squeeze by the flagpole. From my seat I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but I could see the back of Kevin’s head and the horrified look on Squeeze’s face.
“What’s going on?” I asked as I approached them.
My stomach dropped into my shoes when Kevin turned around. His lips were cut up, his nose was crooked, and one of his eyes was swollen shut. Someone had beaten the shit out of him. I already knew who.
“Griffin got expelled,” Kevin said, trying to hold his composure. His bloodied lips trembled as he spoke. “His bitch-ass friends found me at the bus stop. They mentioned your name while they did it.”
“Dude,” Squeeze said, grabbing Kevin by the arm, “we gotta get you to the nurse!”
“Watch your back, Cole,” Kevin implored. He spat a wad of bloody saliva on the curb. “They’ll be looking for you next.”
The two lumbered toward the front office, leaving me defenseless. My anxiety skyrocketed at the thought that Craig Toleman would make good on his threat. The world spun, and the crowd of students around me melted into a blur. If Griffin’s friends were nearby, I wouldn’t be able to tell. My heart smashed against my ribs like a rhino battering down a gate.
Kill yourself, the vicious voice in my head commanded. They can’t get you if you’re dead.
My stomach flopped and folded and writhed around inside me.
Breakfast comin’ back up.
I stumbled into the main building, fighting the fluctuations of gravity that seemed to roll beneath our school. My legs obeyed only half the commands my brain issued. The only word I could think was “bathroom,” and the only image I could conceive was of a toilet. I shouldered through the boys’ restroom door and made it halfway to the stalls before ejecting my mother’s chocolate-chip pancakes all over the ground in a syrupy bazooka blast.
“Gross!” some kid shouted from one of the stalls.
“Fuck,” I whispered, rushing to the sink to rinse out my mouth. When I raised my head, I saw three guys walk into the restroom.
“There he is,” a familiar voice rang out. It was Craig, followed by two other members of Griffin’s crew. My entire body went numb. It knew what was coming.
“Heeeey, Cole,” one of the other guys, a stalky kid in a white tanktop, said. His wolfish grin promised violence.
“Have you seen your buddy Kevin around?” the third guy asked in a tone of mock concern. “We weren’t done talking to him this morning.”
“You got Griffin expelled,” Craig said, squaring off with me. He stuck his face an inch from mine.
“Griffin got himself expelled,” I snapped. I figured if I was about to die, at least my final words should be something brave. Kevin would have done the same.
Big, hard hands slammed into my chest. My back smashed into the tile wall behind me. My head cracked against it. I slid down to the sticky floor.
Between the legs of my attackers, I saw someone emerge from the nearby stall. It was Simon Strunk, the kid my friends and I had witnessed Griffin beating up last year. He froze like a deer when the bullies turned to look at him. His eyes darted between Craig’s and mine as he processed what was about to happen to me. Simon rushed out of the restroom as fast as he could, both of us knowing he’d die if he intervened.
“Griffin’s gonna be looking for you and your friends,” said Craig, lifting my chin with his big shoe. “And now, the school can’t stop him. Kinda sucks, doesn’t it?”
One of the other guys grabbed me and lifted me to my feet, then slammed me against the wall again, knocking the breath from my lungs. I gasped for air, and only then did I realize how much the back of my head hurt.
“Let’s fuck this retard up,” Craig said, looking over his shoulder to ensure no one else was in the stalls. As he turned back to me, my hand flew out, fingers clenched together in the shape of a spear—the only technique I could remember from watching my dad’s kenpo classes long ago. My hand stabbed into Craig’s eye, stunning him and causing him to shriek in pain. A fist bashed into the side of my face, and I fell to the floor once more.
The restroom door flew open and crashed into the tile wall beside us.
“Toleman!” a teacher bellowed. “Mackey! Becker!”
The guys immediately backed away from me.
“Shit,” Craig grunted, squinting at the teacher and clutching his face.
A huge man strode into the restroom, regarding the scene with disgust. It was Mr. Evermann, head football coach and personal friend of Mr. Dansk. Behind him was Simon, looking like a boy scout who’d just earned a merit badge. He nodded at me, then disappeared before Craig and his orcs caught sight of him.
“I thought Mr. Dansk was pretty clear with you morons,” the coach growled. “Your actions reflect on the entire team, and on the school. On me.” He grabbed Craig and pulled him in, studying the injury to his face.
“You do this?” he asked, turning toward me.
“Yeah,” I replied meekly.
Mr. Evermann laughed.
“Good for you, kid,” he said. “Don’t be scared of these shrimpdicks. I’ve seen Craig here cry like a girl after a hard tackle. Sophomore half his size practically neutered this little coward.”
“We didn’t do anything, Coach,” one of the other guys whined.
Mr. Evermann examined Craig’s friends with disappointment and shook his head.
“Office,” he said with finality in his voice. “All three of you.”
The coach helped me to my feet and stopped Craig as the group shuffled out of the restroom.
“You’ve got a real shit attitude, Toleman,” he said. “Hear me now, buddy. One day, you’re gonna mess with the wrong kid. Believe me.”
They both looked at me, and I couldn’t help but return a hateful glare. Craig, Griffin, and their whole crew had made life miserable for me and my friends for way too long. Craig scoffed and looked away.
“Okay, tough guy,” the coach said. “Have it your way.” He ushered the bullies out into the corridor, leaving me by myself in the restroom.
I caught up with Kevin and Squeeze at lunch a few hours later. Kevin’s nose was broken, but as a point of pride, he refused to leave school early. He ranted about letting bullies win by showing fear and conceding territory.
I wanted to do exactly that. I wanted to call my mom and demand she homeschool me the rest of the year. I ate my feelings, stuffing my face with hot dogs and french fries against the dire warnings of my stomach. Without the jade tortoise, my guts never stopped squirming inside me.
“Chill out, Cole,” Squeeze admonished, taking my chocolate milk and chugging it. “You’re gonna get fatter than Kevin if you keep this up.”
“Not today, Scotty,” Kevin said in a flat voice. “Don’t push me today.”
When the bell rang, we parted ways, and Simon intercepted me as I headed to Mrs. Cordero’s class.
“You okay, man?” he asked, thumbing his glasses higher up on his nose. He looked at me with timid, beady eyes.
“I guess,” I said, pointing to the swollen lump on my face. “The back of my head feels even worse.”
“Those guys are such assholes,” Simon replied. “I don’t get it. I never did anything to them. Nothing.”
“Me neither,” I said. “Maybe some people are just born to be awful.”
“Sometimes I can’t sleep because I worry what they’ll do to me,” he went on. “Sometimes I fake sick so I can stay home.”
“I might have to start doing that with you,” I said with a grim laugh.
Simon wasn’t amused. He kept his eyes on his feet as we walked.
“My dad says I have to stand up to them,” he said. “But how can I? Look at me.”
He was right. Simon couldn’t have been more than a hundred pounds in the pouring rain after a steak dinner. His ghostly white skin and big, pouty lips did little to strike fear in the hearts of varsity football players. He looked like a porcelain doll that would shatter in a stiff breeze. A long silence passed.
“Listen,” I finally said, “thanks for saving me today. I really owe you one.”
Encouraged by my gratitude, Simon escorted me the rest of the way to Mrs. Cordero’s class. He scanned the crowd for danger as we walked, acting as a sort of lookout for me. It seemed to give him a bit of his pride back—though I knew he’d probably piss himself if Craig showed up again. Hell, I would have too.
In class, Mrs. Cordero regaled us with various lesser-known folktales of Europe and their influence on modern literature. I always enjoyed her animated teaching style, but today I was distracted by the throbbing pain on the side of my face, and a turgid sensation in my guts. The garbage I’d eaten at lunch churned inside me like a piranha-infested whirlpool, and I’d begun to sweat so much that the teacher noticed.
“You okay there, Cole?” she asked. “You look a bit like death warmed over.”
The other students chuckled.
“If anyone can tell me where that expression’s from,” she said, “I’ll give you an A in the class and you can listen to your headphones for the rest of the semester.”
No one answered.
“I’m alright,” I said, wiping my face with my hands. “Just having a bad day, I guess.”
Mrs. Cordero eyed the swollen lump on my face and told me to chat with her after class. She resumed her lecture, going right for the students she knew didn’t do this week’s reading.
A moment later, the room began to spin. My depth perception shrank, and the class took on the likeness of a cardboard diorama. Gruesome images of my internal organs rotting and decaying seeped into my mind. I envisioned my entire body degrading into a putrid, maggot-covered corpse.
“I just need some water,” I mumbled to myself while getting out of my chair. I made it halfway to the door when the junk food decided to attempt a launch into orbit. I spewed a volley of puke all over the floor between two rows of desks, causing the girls around me to shriek. Mayhem ensued. Boys started yelling and hooting, and people jumped out of their chairs, yanking their backpacks up from the floor before my vomit could taint them.
“Oh my God,” I said to my classmates, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry!” My face went hot with embarrassment.
“Uh… Mrs. Cordero?” I heard someone say.
I noticed the teacher standing motionless near the whiteboard. She clutched her blue dry-erase marker tightly by her side, her arm straight as a yardstick. She was so rigid she almost looked like a wax statue of herself.
My peers began to settle down, and a silence fell over the room as they noticed Mrs. Cordero’s strange behavior. She remained unmoving, unspeaking, and unblinking for so long that the students started calling out to her.
“Mrs. Cordero?” Brittany Lin said hesitantly.
“Are you okay?” Erin Schraeder asked.
“Dude, I think you broke her brain,” Jake Montalvo whispered to me.
“Maybe she’s got a puke fetish,” Squeeze joked.
Mrs. Cordero slowly raised the dry-erase marker and beheld it as if she’d found an artifact from a distant world. Then, she looked out at us with a horrified expression, scanning each of our faces and finding nothing familiar in any of them. I don’t know what she saw, but she wore an expression like a sinner peering into the gates of hell. She dropped the marker and palpated her face, checking to see if she still had skin.
“Don’t cut me up like that,” she muttered, on the verge of tears. “Don’t make me look like them!”
Brittany rose from her chair and took a cautious step toward the teacher, holding out her hands to show she meant no harm.
“Mrs. Cordero,” she said in a nurturing voice, “I think you should sit down. Did you take any medication today?”
The teacher studied Brittany, gazing deep into her eyes as if searching for something. Whatever she found, it was so frightening that Mrs. Cordero fell back against the whiteboard. She screamed so loud it caused the room to spin around me once more. Another volley of puke arced out of me onto Carly Sutton’s desk. Mrs. Cordero’s mouth remained wide open, and a burst of shrieks and choking sounds erupted from it. Blood came pouring from her nose. She caught the stream in her hands and then began clawing at her face, her fingers painting gory patterns on her cheeks and forehead. Her eyes never blinked, and they never broke contact with Brittany’s. Two students poked their heads into the room from the hallway, shocked to witness what was happening.
At last, Mrs. Cordero went silent, having wrung every last scream from her body. Her eyelids drooped and her gaze unfocused. Her face went deathly white beneath the crimson Pollock she’d painted on it. Suddenly, she jerked a bloody hand out in front of her and pointed a trembling finger at me. She held it there a few seconds, then tilted over like a falling tree. Every person in the room gasped as Mrs. Cordero’s head slammed into the corner of her desk with a resounding crack. A swamp of blood formed in the carpet beneath her, where she lay twitching.
“Go get Principal Whitmore!” Brittany screamed at the kids standing by the door. They took off, yelling for help all the way down the hall. Erin, one of the few students to own a cell phone by sophomore year, used it to call 911 while others tried to render aid to the teacher.
The room whirled around me, faster and faster, filling with teachers and hall monitors and all manner of yelling and gasping. When the world finally slowed down, I was outside, sitting on the school’s rain-soaked lawn. In the distance, the lights of emergency vehicles strobed in the gloom.
I could not contain myself in the car on the way home. My mother had picked me up early and given me a trash bag to get sick into. My nausea abated but was replaced with a swell of sorrow, and I sobbed for most of the drive. I cried not only for Mrs. Cordero, but for everyone in my life who had suffered. I worried for Kevin and Kelly. I mourned for the Huckson family—and for Noah. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I missed having my sister around. I imagined Cassie all alone each night in a cold, dark cell at the psychiatric hospital, and the wretchedness of the thought made me cry even harder.
