Bang

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  To awesome green-eyed boys everywhere

  One

  It’s been over a week since Sawyer kissed me and told me he was seeing a vision now, and it’s all I can think about. I can’t wait to get out of this apartment, which I am tethered to until Monday—that’s when the doc said my internal injuries will be healed enough so I can go to school again. My older brother and best friend, Trey, has been great, of course, slipping notes to Sawyer for me and delivering replies back to me. But for some reason Sawyer won’t explain his vision on paper. “It’s too . . . frightening. Too gruesome. Too . . . everything,” he wrote.

  And me? I’m sick about it.

  Absolutely sick.

  Because it’s my fault. I was so relieved when my vision ended—no more snowplow crashing and exploding into Angotti’s restaurant, no more body bags in the snow, no more Sawyer’s dead face. After weeks of that stupid vision taunting me, and after nearly getting killed because of it, I was naive enough to think it was all over and I’d get to live a happy life. Relatively, anyway. Under the current parental circumstances, that is.

  But then, once I got home from the hospital, Sawyer sent me that note. He had to see me, he said. That night, 2:00 a.m. And I wanted to see him, too. I eased my broken body down the stairs and we stood in the snowdrift surrounded by breathy clouds and he kissed me, and I kissed him back, and it was the most weirdly amazing feeling. . . .

  And then the amazingness of my first kiss was over. He pulled away and looked at me, his gorgeous green eyes filled with fear, and his voice shook. You know that billboard?

  Those words haunt me.

  Obviously I was not only psychotic enough to have a vision, but I managed to give the stupid vision disease to the one person I was trying to save.

  It’s beyond horrifying, sitting here knowing he must be experiencing the worst kind of frustration and pressure to act on the vision and—Did he say “gruesome”?

  Let me say it one more time. Sick. That is what I am.

  And so very sorry.

  I rack my brain trying to figure out how this could have happened. Was it because he hugged me on the street the night before? Because he held my hand afterward in the hospital? Maybe there’s some kind of physical transference going on. I have no idea.

  I have done something horrible to the boy I love, and I don’t know how to stop it.

  All I know is that I need to get out of this hoardhole before I lose my mind.

  Oh, wait.

  Two

  Finally. School.

  I get up a little earlier than Trey and my younger sister, Rowan, partly because my eyes fly open at five thirty in anticipation of seeing Sawyer, and partly because it takes me a little longer to get my makeup on with the half-arm cast wrapping around the base of my thumb.

  I sneak out of the bedroom I share with Rowan, plastic-wrap my cast, and grab a shower, then try to do something with my hair—the bedhead look was fun for a while but, well, you know.

  At six, like clockwork, I hear two doors open almost simultaneously, and then the precarious race to the bathroom as Trey and Rowan dodge my father’s hoards of junk that line the hallway. I open the door a crack and Trey bursts in.

  “Dang it,” Rowan mutters from somewhere behind him.

  “Look at you, hot girl,” Trey says, keeping his frame in the doorway so Rowan can’t sneak past.

  “Yeah?” I say, biting my lip. I freaking love my brother. Love him to death.

  “You know you’re going to get mobbed, you big hero.”

  Rowan pokes Trey in the back. “Come on,” she whispers, not wanting to wake our parents. “Either let me in or get your own butt in there.”

  “Whatever happened to sweet morning Rowan?” I ask Trey like she’s not there.

  He shrugs.

  “Sweet morning Rowan died looking at your face,” Rowan mutters. She gives up and goes to the kitchen.

  I snicker and do a final inspection. My black eye has healed, my various stitches have been removed, and my hair actually does look kind of awesome. My arm doesn’t hurt anymore. My insides are feeling pretty good too, though I’m not allowed to drive quite yet after the surgery. Only my stubborn left thigh remains a beastly mottled yellow-green, having abandoned black, blue, and purple as the weeks passed. It still hurts to press on it, but at least no one can see the bruise under my clothes. And hopefully I’ll have this arm cast off in a few weeks.

  As I slip out of Trey’s way, I stop. “Any chance we can leave a few minutes early?”

  “If you get out of here already,” Trey says.

  “I’m gone.” I step into the hallway with a grin and he closes the door in my face.

  In the kitchen, Rowan has her head in the sink and the faucet extended. She’s washing her hair like it’s frisée lettuce.

  “Gross,” I say. “Getting your hair germs all over Mom’s nice clean sink.”

  “Listen, you wanna know what goes in here?” comes her muffled reply as she turns the water off and replaces the faucet. “The juice of meat. I’m telling you right now this sink is freaking overjoyed to see my awesome hair in it.”

  Did I mention I adore my sister, too?

  I grab breakfast while she wraps her head in a towel and starts doing her makeup in the reflection of the kitchen window. “We’re leaving a little early today,” I tell her.

  “I figured,” she says, the cap of her eyeliner pencil in her mouth. Her head towel falls to the floor and her long auburn hair unfurls.

  “You going to talk to Charlie today?” I bite a hunk off some cardboard-tasting health bar rip-off and wrinkle my nose. Chew it anyway. I’m too nervous to eat but I know I need something.

  “Yep.” She starts working a wide-toothed comb through her hair, and when it sticks, she looks around the kitchen with a scowl until her eyes land on the carafe of olive oil. “Aha,” she says, and puts a few drops into the palm of her hand and works it into the knot.

  “Resourceful,” I say.

  Charlie is Rowan’s boyfriend. He lives in New York. They met at soccer camp, and now they video chat every day from school during Rowan’s study hall. “So everything is good with you two?” I look around, unsettled. Anxious. I got up way too early.

  “Yep,” she says again, and then gets a hair dryer, plugs it in, and turns it on.

  I drum my fingers on a stack of crap on the table and glance at the clock. “Okay, then.”

  My stomach flips as I think about school. I don’t want to be a hero. I don’t want to be noticed by anybody. It’s embarrassing. And I’m so beyond what happened when Trey and I barreled into that snowplow to keep it from hitting Angotti’s Trattoria. Ever since Sawyer told me he’s been having a vision now too, I haven’t been able to stop worrying about him, and about what horrible thing he’s going to be forced to go through.

  My chest aches thinking about it. It was the worst time of my life. I felt so alone. “Poor Sawyer,” I murmur.

  “Yeah, poor guy. He’s really dreading seeing you,” Trey says sarcastically from behind me.

  Rowan catches sight of her bathroom opportunity, yanks the hair dryer cord from the outlet, and runs for it.

  I smirk at Trey. He is so awesome that he actually believed me when I told him what was happening to me—after a while, anyway. Like, thirty very important seconds before the crash happened.

  But he doesn’t know about Sawye
r.

  Three

  We all climb into the pizza delivery car since there’s no longer a giant truck o’ balls—I totaled the sucker.

  Luckily, har har, the insurance money is going to provide us with a new one. Dad’s having the old balls fixed and mounted. Apparently they snapped off pretty cleanly in the crash and didn’t get banged too hard (dot-com), thanks to the snow.

  Trey drives, Rowan’s in the back, and I’m riding shotgun, peering out the windshield as a flurry of snow buzzes around the car. I can’t concentrate on anything, but I stare at a vocab worksheet for a test I’ve been told we’re having today.

  I glance up as we pass the infamous billboard, and there’s Jose Cuervo, thank the dogs. I wonder for the millionth time what Sawyer sees.

  As we near school, my right leg starts jiggling and I put my vocab paper away. It’s useless to do anything. Out of habit, I reach for my phone, but of course it’s not there—it was pulverized in the crash and so far my parents haven’t been too keen on replacing it. Trey glances at me as we pull into the parking lot. “You okay?” he asks.

  I let out a little huff of breath. “I think so. It’s weird.”

  “Nervous?”

  “I—I guess. I’ve been gone a long time.” The truth is, I’m nervous because Sawyer and I never talked about what would happen at school. Like, are we a couple? Or are we being secretive so nobody tells our parents? Or . . . am I not cool enough for his friends?

  I hate that I just had that last thought. What the crap happened to turn me into an insecure loser? I was doing so well there for a while, back when I accepted the fact that I was a total psycho. Amazing how freeing that was. I take a few deep breaths and find that old crazy confidence as Trey parks and turns off the car, and then I ease out, making sure I move carefully. I don’t want to overdo it or anything, or I’ll get stuck back home again.

  “Don’t worry, Jules,” Rowan says, surprising me because I thought she was listening to her music all this time. “We got your back.”

  Trey takes my backpack since I’m not allowed to lift more than, like, twenty pounds for another week or so, and the backpack, with a few weeks’ worth of work in it, officially weighs forty-seven tons. And then we walk into school. The three of us together in a line, like we’re the friggin’ Avengers, gonna take somebody down.

  I stare straight ahead, Trey on my left, Rowan on my right, feeling totally badass despite my nerves. We get a few glances, a few people shrugging in our direction or outright pointing at us. At me. We even get a smattering of applause from some of Rowan’s ninth-grade friends at their lockers, and everybody’s saying hi to Trey and me like it’s opposite day here in Chicagoland. I ease my way up the half-dozen steps to the sophomore hallway, not able to take stairs at full stride quite yet, using the handrail to help. And then we’re nearing my locker and I have to work hard not to strain to look for Sawyer. I want him to look for me. That’s how this is going to go. I just decided.

  “That’s good, you guys,” I say, and I hate that I’m a little winded. I think that’s the longest distance I’ve gone in one stretch in a while. “I got this.”

  Trey sets my overladen backpack inside my locker and gives me a quick grin as he leaves. “See you at lunch.”

  Rowan hangs around for a second like she doesn’t want to leave. “You sure you’re good?”

  I nod. “Sure. Say hey to Charlie for me and I’ll see you after at the balls. Dot-com.” I pause, realizing what I just said, and then we both make faces. “At the car, I mean.”

  “Okay. See ya.” She heads back toward her hallway.

  I turn to my locker to pull out a few books as the guy whose locker is next to mine says, “Hey, Jules. Welcome back.”

  We’ve barely spoken before. This is weird.

  “Thanks,” I say, suddenly shy. I take my coat off and go to hang it up, when I hear the voice that makes my thighs quake.

  “Catch you later, guys. Hey, Jules.”

  Before I can turn around, he’s turning me around, and then his gentle arms are hugging me, lifting my feet off the ground. Holding me. Right here in public. I let my coat fall from my fingers and I wrap my arms—cast and all—around his neck like it’s the most natural thing for me to do in the middle of a crowded high school hallway.

  “I missed you so much,” he whispers into my hair, and the world goes quiet around us. My body pulses with energy and I can feel his warmth seeping into me.

  I close my eyes and breathe, wishing everybody would just disappear.

  He sets me back down and I look at his face for the first time in what seems like forever. He smooths my static hair and keeps a hand on my shoulder. The corner of his mouth turns up on one side, just the way I like it. But his eyes are tired.

  “I missed you too,” I say in a quiet voice, suddenly hyperaware of people staring at us, my former friend Roxie and her BFF Sarah among them. Which makes me feel really awkward, so I try to pretend they’re not there.

  He observes the cast on my arm and smooths a thumb under the eye that used to be black. “Nice,” he says. He glances over one shoulder, then the other, gets a goofy smile on his face, and moistens his lips. “I really want to kiss you,” he says quietly near my ear. But I think we’re being cautious, or else he spotted a teacher, because instead of kissing me he just runs his thumb across my lips and looks at me so longingly it hurts.

  “Dang,” I say, a little breathless. “Where’s a stupid playground when you need one? This, uh, environment feels . . . awkward.”

  “I wanna be your playground,” he says in my ear, and I feel the heat rushing to my face. I can see he’s just messing around, flirting, but he stays close, like he can’t stand to have much space between us, and I like him there.

  “Rowr.” I grin, but I’m preoccupied, searching his eyes, and the grin falls away. As he watches me watch him, his face changes, like he can read the question in my mind.

  “About that,” he says, as if we started the conversation already. “I desperately, desperately need to see you alone.” And even though his eyes are hungry, this is different.

  “I know.” I’ve been thinking about this already. “Mr. Polselli is on parking-lot duty during lunch on Mondays. He’ll let me eat in his room. I’ll claim I need your help because of the cast.”

  “You’re brilliant,” he says with a breath that trickles down my neck. “I’m sorry I haven’t told you—I’ll explain everything, it’s just—”

  I press a finger to his lips and watch his eyelids droop halfway in response. “I get it,” I tell him, and reluctantly pull my finger away when the bell rings.

  His gaze lingers and burns. “See you at lunch,” he says. “I’ll bring two trays and meet you there.”

  When he disappears in the crowd, I turn back toward my open locker and stare into it, dazed. Holy big sizzle, Demarco. Is it hot in here or is it just my gorgeous boyfriend? At this rate, we’ll have, like, nine babies by the end of our senior year.

  Four

  Before lunch I dodge strangers and classmates trying to talk to me, which is absolutely the weirdest experience of my school life, and find Trey to let him know I’m going to have a private lunch with Sawyer, so I’ll see him in art class.

  He smirks. “Tell the two-timing lunch whore I said hey.”

  “I will kiss him for you,” I say, and then I add, “I hope, anyway.” But Trey has moved on with the hallway traffic.

  I slip into Mr. Polselli’s empty room, sit at a desk, and wait, forcing myself to work on a math assignment. When the door opens, I look up and my smile freezes on my face. Not only is it Sawyer with two lunch trays, but Roxie and BFF Sarah are with him, apparently there to open the door.

  Sawyer and Roxie are laughing at BFF Sarah, who rants about something, and all I can think about is how I want them gone.

  “Oh. Hi, Julia,” Roxie says to me, like she didn’t expect to see me. “Thanks for saving our favorite restaurant.”

  I stare at her, wondering
if she’s really that rude that she values the restaurant over the human lives—Sawyer’s life—or if she’s just stupid. But new Jules isn’t going to smile and walk away. “Wow. Did you really just say that?” I say. I glance at Sawyer, who looks almost as offended as I feel.

  Roxie looks confused. “Yeah, did you not just hear me?”

  BFF Sarah’s lack of greeting brings frostiness to the air. She’s probably still peeved about the V-Day decorations I knocked out of her hands.

  “Okay, well, thanks for the help,” Sawyer says pointedly to them. He sets a tray on my desk and then sits down at the one next to me. “Can you close the door on the way out?”

  Roxie’s hands go to her hips, and her lips part as if to protest, but Sawyer ignores them both. He reaches out and strokes my shoulder. “How’s it going so far? You taking it easy?”

  BFF Sarah rolls her eyes, mutters, “Whatever,” and walks out the door, then stands in the hallway waiting for Roxie.

  “It’s good,” I say. My mouth has gone completely dry from the tension.

  Finally Roxie turns and leaves, letting the door close hard behind her.

  I press my lips together and form a smile. “That went well.”

  “I don’t want to talk about them,” Sawyer says. He leans toward me and slides a warm hand along my cheek, sinking his fingers into my hair and pulling me close. I close my eyes and our mouths meet. Blood pounds through his fingers and lips, echoing in my ears. My head spins with all kinds of surprising thoughts as my fingers explore his shoulders through his shirt. Thoughts like how I saw his bare, bony torso once when the boys played shirts and skins in fifth grade, and now, even though he’s still lean, his sinewy arms and back are roped with muscle, and I really want to see that chest once more.

  When I come to my senses and realize the trouble we’ll be in if Mr. Polselli walks in right now, I reluctantly pull back, a little breathless.

  Sawyer opens his eyes. “I’ve been waiting a long time for that.” He pulls his fingers from my hair and smooths it back into place.