Tucker stopped again.
“You didn’t . . . you didn’t help him, did you?”
Maybe it took me a second too long to answer. Maybe I looked in the wrong direction, or pulled a little too hard on my hair. But understanding washed over Tucker’s face before I could start blurting out denials. He turned his whole body away from me.
Why had I hesitated? Why hadn’t I done what I’d planned to do and told him everything?
Chapter Twenty-seven
By lunch, the story of what happened in Mr. Gunthrie’s class had spread to the entire school. Claude’s nose was swollen and bruised, and he winced every time he tried to talk. Stacey hadn’t returned from the nurse, but Britney walked around complaining about Celia’s bitchiness to anyone who would listen. I was 90 percent sure Celia herself had gotten suspended. Again.
I didn’t see Tucker for the rest of the day, and it made me hate myself. I mean, forget that there wouldn’t be another library trip to look up anything about McCoy, or any more conspiring at Finnegan’s. I should’ve asked Miles whose house it was. And I knew Miles had been at least a little right when he’d called me a hypocrite for saying it was wrong just because it was Tucker. It should’ve been wrong no matter who it was. But I’d done it anyway.
By seventh period chemistry, the last thing I wanted to do was stand at a lab table for fifty minutes with Miles. I’d avoided talking to him all day, but the lab forced me to relay data about chemical reactions with certain types of metals so he could write it down. I don’t know why he didn’t just do it himself—the samples were easy enough to examine—but after every reaction he stood there looking at me, waiting for the result.
Apparently, this made him think I’d forgiven him. After class he followed me all the way to the lockers and then to the gym, quiet, until we saw Celia being led from the main office by her father and the school security guard.
“Celia was never like this before,” Miles said. “She liked to bother me, but she never did anything to other people. I think something strange is going on, but I don’t know what.”
I turned and looked at the glass display case outside the gym, as if I couldn’t care less about him or Celia. “You seem to be under the impression that I’m talking to you.”
“You were in chemistry,” said Miles.
“So we could do our lab.”
I heard his molars grinding together. “Fine. I’m sorry.” He said the word through gritted teeth. “Are you happy now?”
“Sorry for what?” I looked at Scarlet’s picture again. The thing was entirely scribbled over in red now. I wished I had Finnegan’s Magic 8 Ball.
Miles rolled his eyes. “For . . . I don’t know, for not telling you it was Beaumont?”
“And?”
“And for making you put IcyHot in his underwear.”
“It was cruel.”
“So that makes you think it was my idea? I don’t come up with this stuff; I just do it for people.”
At the look I gave him next, his hands shot up in surrender. “Sorry, sorry, really—all right, if you’re not going to talk to me, will you at least listen?”
“Depends on what you have to say.”
Miles looked around to see if we were alone, then took a deep breath.
“I have some stuff I need to tell you, because I feel like . . . like I owe it to you. I don’t know why I feel like that, and I don’t like feeling like that, but there you go.”
I was surprised, but didn’t say anything. Miles took another deep breath.
“First of all—and if I don’t tell anyone about you, you can’t tell anyone about this—my mom is in a psychiatric hospital.”
Was I supposed to be surprised? Confused? I didn’t think he’d actually tell me. But now I didn’t have to feel bad about the imbalance of secrets between us. “What? No. You’re lying.”
“I’m not. She’s in a hospital up north in Goshen. I visit her once a month. Twice if I can manage it.”
“You’re serious?”
“Yes. Again, you never believe me. I don’t understand why someone would lie about that. I’m trying to make things better, but if you aren’t going to listen then I’ll stop talking—”
“No, no, sorry, keep going,” I said quickly.
Miles gave me a shrewd look. “You’re going to shut up and listen?”
“Yes. Promise.”
“Well, since I know you want to know what she’s in for—it’s nothing. She’s always been a little . . . off-kilter . . . but never bad enough to be committed. Never bad enough to stay in there. But denying that you’re crazy tends to make people think you’re more crazy—”
I made an understanding noise.
“—and that was how my dad convinced them at first. Said she denied it all the time. First he told them her bruises and the black eyes and the busted lips were all her fault. That she caused them in fits of depression and rage, that she was bipolar and he didn’t trust her anymore. And of course as soon as she heard that, she was furious, which made it worse.” He made a disgusted sort of noise in the back of his throat. “And then . . . the lake.”
“The lake?”
“He threw her in a lake, ‘rescued’ her, and told them she tried to commit suicide. She was hysterical. No one bothered to look for evidence against him. That’s when I started running jobs for people, and now I take all the late shifts I can at work, and forget the underage work laws, because I don’t care. I’m getting her out of that place when I turn eighteen in May, and I need the money for her, so . . . so she has something, you know? Because my father’s not gonna give her anything, and I can’t let her go back to that house.”
Miles stopped suddenly, eyes focused on a spot to the left of my head. Unease filled my stomach, the kind you get from suddenly knowing a whole lot more about a person than you thought you ever would.
“So. So are you—”
“Not done yet,” he snapped. “Sometimes I have trouble understanding things. Emotional things. I don’t understand why people get upset about certain stuff, I don’t understand why Tucker doesn’t try to be more than he is, and I still haven’t figured out why you kissed me.”
Okay. I could’ve died then. Just crawled on the floor and died.
“Have you heard the term alexithymia before?” he asked.