The Headmaster's List Page 8

  The porch light was on, and she could tell that someone was home, the telltale flicker of the television going on behind closed curtains. If she were a coward, she might have turned and headed home, pretending she had never come in the first place. But she was here now. No going back until she got what she came for.

  Spencer tamped down the sudden urge to puke while she rested her bike on the lawn. It was now or never. She needed to do this.

  She picked up a few newspapers on the grass that hadn’t made it to the front porch and stacked the rest in her hand. When she rang the bell, her knees shook and she nearly forgot to breathe as the door opened. Instead of seeing either Mr. or Mrs. Moore on the other side, she was relieved to see Nick, Chris’s older brother, home from college. He must be taking a break from UC Irvine.

  He looked surprised when he saw her. “Spencer! What are you doing here?”

  What was she doing here? This had been a bad idea, but she managed to say, “I’ve been assigned picture pickup.”

  “Right, the memorial.” His eyes landed on the stack of newspapers in her hand, and she gave them over. “Thanks.”

  Nick’s eyes were rimmed with red, clashing horribly with his auburn hair, but Spencer didn’t want to stare. Both Moore boys had inherited their father’s classic Irish coloring and freckles dotting their long noses. She used to have a crush on him, an innocent one-way affection, and her stomach twisted into knots seeing him this way.

  “Come on in,” he said, stepping back to let her into the darkened foyer.

  “If it’s a bad time I can…”

  “Please. No trouble at all.” He set the newspapers in a pile near the door.

  He didn’t question Ripley’s presence and led the way toward the stairs. The Moore house smelled heavily like flowers, the source of which being almost an entire flower shop’s worth of lilies erected in grand displays in the darkened dining room just to the left of the entry. The TV murmured quietly in the living room to Spencer’s right, but there was no sign of Chris or Nick’s parents anywhere. Probably for the better, she thought.

  She didn’t say a word as she followed Nick quietly up the carpeted steps. Usually she asked if she should take her shoes off when she entered someone’s house, but in this case she wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible. The longer she stayed, the higher the chance that she would run into a grieving parent. And seeing his grieving brother was hard enough.

  Up the stairs and down the hall, Nick led Spencer to Chris’s room. He flipped on the light and Spencer lingered outside the doorway, unsure if she should follow. The room felt off-limits. Nick meanwhile went right for Chris’s desk, messy, untouched probably since the accident, and riffled through a shoebox full of photos.

  Spencer couldn’t help but look around at Chris’s room, at the life he’d left behind. It was exactly how she expected a teenage boy’s room to be, full of dreams and ambition, now marked by a gaping hole with his absence. His bed made and the sheets tucked in, never to be slept in again, his closet full of clothes he’d never wear, a memorial to his life on pause forever. He had obviously been into computers; the components of several were stacked in a corner of his room and an Xbox sat beneath a TV, a thin layer of dust gathering on top of it. He wouldn’t ever again wake up and pull back the curtains at his window before he got ready for school, or tinker with his computer, or worry about what he was going to wear.

  Spencer felt unmoored, like she was seeing the room through a television screen, rather than through her own eyes. This could easily have been her own bedroom, with her own parents grieving for her, with flowers from her own funeral sitting in the dark, leaving Hope to sort through photos for a school memorial. Ripley pressed her wet nose to the back of Spencer’s hand, and it made Spencer jump, but she was grateful for the reminder to breathe.

  “My mom used most of the good photos for the funeral, but these are a few more I thought would be nice. Some from his computer camp, this one of him with his friends … oh, here’s one with me and Julie,” he said sadly. Spencer vaguely remembered Nick was dating Julianne Greene, the girl who’d had that awful accident last year.

  “How is she?” she asked.

  Nick shrugged. “The same.” She’d broken her back and fallen into a coma.

  “I’m sorry,” she told him. His girlfriend. Now his brother.

  Nick didn’t reply. Now he was holding out a small stack for her to take, and she did, with shaking fingers. The top photo was of Chris smiling wide at a tech convention, his vibrant red hair caught in the purple and red lights from a stage behind him.

  Spencer’s whole body felt cold. Guilt held her like a straitjacket. She knew she needed to say something, anything, but what could she possibly say that would make anything better?

  “Nick, again, I’m so sorry…” She felt stupid for even trying.

  He swallowed thickly and nodded. “Thanks, Spencer. If you need anything else…” An edge coated his voice, teetering on the breaking point.

  That was her cue. “This is fine. I’ll be going.”

  “Yeah.”

  Spencer turned to leave, and she distinctly heard Nick’s muffled sobs coming from Chris’s room. She pretended not to hear and left in a rush.

  SNAPS

  @tiny_neil:

  #justiceforchris Catch and burn the one that did this!

  @Resslersomemore:

  It’s crazy. Miss you man. @chmoore #justiceforchris

  @norma.likes.drawing:

  We can’t rest until we get #justiceforchris. Look at this vid I found of Ethan’s old parties. The guy was a maniac. Absolute moron.

  @chockablock.marva:

  He intended to do this! He didn’t even brake at the intersection! Why aren’t the lawyers getting on this? He’s a sociopath.

  @tiny_neil quote:

  @chockablock.marva I heard Ethan Amoroso was talking about doing something like this a week before. He planned this!!!

  @derikathedreamer002:

  I don’t want to throw around tea, but when it comes to Ethan Amoroso I have no limit to how much I can pour.

  TEN

  HOPE THREW HERSELF ONTO THE couch, which wouldn’t have been a problem if Spencer hadn’t already been stretched out, wearing her ice pack hat to quell the oncoming migraine that was threatening to ruin the rest of her night. Spencer yelled out as all of Hope’s one hundred pounds fell on her legs, laughing all the while.

  “Ouch! Hope!”

  Spencer had been feeling too sick to even want to watch some of her favorite journaling and studying YouTube channels, an admittedly nerdy hobby of hers. Her eyeballs felt like they were going to explode out of her head, the migraine digging into her brain like an icepick.

  “Move. You’re in my spot,” Hope said as she slapped her palms on Spencer’s fuzzy socked feet, tapping out an annoying rhythm only baby sisters would know the beat to.

  “No, I’m not. Your spot is on the lounger.”

  “Guess what, I want my spot to be here. I’m cold.”

  “Then go put on a hoodie.”

  “You go put on a hoodie.”

  “There’s not enough room.”

  “I don’t care.”

  It occurred to Spencer that this was a way for Hope to be closer to her. She couldn’t imagine how scared Hope had been when she was in the hospital, so she didn’t complain when Hope lifted Spencer’s legs up and crawled underneath, draping them like a blanket.

  Ripley had been dozing in her dog bed and opened one eye to see what the commotion was about, but she didn’t move when the sisters settled down again. The TV droned on, and Spencer tried to ignore that Hope was fidgeting against her, tapping her foot to an unheard beat.

  “Did you do your homework?” Spencer asked.

  “Yeah, I did, Mom. Did you?”

  “What I could.” She had tried to read some of her assigned chapters in her AP English literature homework, but pain was starting to flare up again and she couldn’t focus. Hence the ice pack hat. It was a bulky beanie, and Spencer thought she looked like Blossom, a character from a TV show her mom used to watch reruns of when she had a rare day off from taking care of sick animals. Both her parents were out of the house and weren’t expected to be back until later. Pizza money had been left on the table by the door and the girls were, as usual, on their own for food.

  Hope stole the remote from Spencer’s grasp, which she didn’t fight her for, and she flipped through channels, finally landing in the middle of a rerun of Murder, She Wrote, with Jessica Fletcher flirting with reformed jewel thief Dennis Stanton. Spencer closed her eyes and let their delightful banter lull her into a soft, cozy twilight doze. All she could do was wait for the Vicodin to make it all better.

  “Why were you at that party?” Hope asked.

  It was an unprompted question that seemingly came out of nowhere, but Spencer knew which party she was talking about. That party. Spencer squinted to look at her. Everything was too bright. “Because I thought it would be fun.”

  “You never want to have fun. You’re too much of a dork.”

  Spencer didn’t argue about that. “I went because I wanted to.” And she knew Ethan would be there. She wished she hadn’t. She wished she’d just gone home after work like she usually would have. Ethan making out with Hailey intruded on her thoughts and she huffed, “Why do you want to know?”

  Hope shrugged a noncommittal shoulder. “Did you drink a lot?”

  “I might have had one of those alcoholic seltzers, but…” She couldn’t remember if she had more than that. She’d always favored the sweeter drinks. “I’m not sure.”

  Hope snapped, her voice rising an octave. “Yeah, well, that’s really dumb of you! You shouldn’t have done that! You shouldn’t drink! You shouldn’t have even been there.”

  Both of Spencer’s eyes were open now. “Why are you so upset?”

  Hope shrank into herself and folded her arms over her chest, pouting like she used to when she was five. It took her a moment to answer. “We had a drunk driving assembly at school today. They showed pictures and stuff, and it was really scary. I think they wanted to talk to us about … They had a mom talk to us about her daughter getting in an accident a couple years ago and dying and I…”

  Hope picked at her fingernails as she spoke, unable to finish the words, not because she didn’t know what to say, maybe, but because she didn’t want to.

  “Hey, it’s okay—I’m okay,” Spencer murmured. “I’m right here.”

  “I know, but what if you weren’t?”

  Spencer’s heart dropped. Hope settled down in the space between Spencer and the couch, and even though it was uncomfortable, and her body weight pressed the air out of Spencer’s chest, Spencer let her lie there until she started dozing off.

  While the TV droned on, Spencer tried to wade through the memories, though her headache was making it particularly difficult. Things came back to her in pieces.

  Rows of cars parked in a dirt lot.

  A yellow Solo cup. Metallic tasting.

  Music. But muffled, like it was in another room. Hazy, dreamy.

  Kids sitting around the firepit, smoking.

  It was coming together.

  She was sure of one thing. She’d only had one drink that night. Why was it so hard to remember that night? Was her memory loss really from hitting her head in the crash?

  * * *

  “Please, wait. I can explain.”

  “What else is there to explain? You and Hailey deserve each other.”

  “Spencer!”

  “Go to hell.”

  A hand on her wrist.

  Then.

  Engine roaring. Speed. Out of control.

  Ethan in his green hoodie. No, wrong. Why?

  Bright light. Eyes wide, terror.

  The tree. The lines in the bark. Trapped in the headlights.

  NO!

  Pain. Darkness.

  Cold hands on her face, wet, covered in blood. So much blood. She couldn’t breathe. She was dead. Already dead. SPENCER! Crash. Float. Scream. Cold, wet hands cupping her face.

  Wet nose, not hands. A wet nose, tongue. Ripley.

  Ripley was on top of her, licking her face, waking her up, her body pressed against Spencer’s chest. Her breath was hot on Spencer’s face.

  Spencer cried, sobs racking her whole body, rolling out of her in waves, thrashing in her bed. It had been another night terror. She hated feeling this way. Ripley buried her nose under Spencer’s side, not giving up on her. Get up, wake up! Her rough paws felt like sandpaper on Spencer’s arms. She tried to push Ripley away, she didn’t want to be touched, yet Ripley refused to go. But Spencer actually did want to be touched, and she wrapped her arms around Ripley’s neck and sobbed into her fur.

  Her parents rushed into her room and flicked on the light, telling Hope to go back to bed as she lingered outside. Spencer still felt like she was trapped in that memory, even when her parents assured her she was safe.

  SPENCER! Tree. Scream. NO! Float. Crash. Darkness. Pain.

  She needed to remember everything, even if it made her feel like dying.

  WHAT I REMEMBER

  *Highwood Estates

  Cars parked

  Unfinished mansions—scaffolding, dirt, no trees

  Skateboards in an empty swimming pool

  Yellow cup

  Firepit

  Music?—live or no??

  Ethan—cheater

  Hailey—backstabber

  Green hoodie

  WHAT I DON’T REMEMBER

  Tabby

  Chris

  Between breakup and crash—totally blank

  Why did I get in the car?

  ELEVEN

  SPENCER STARED AT WHAT SHE’D written in her journal, tapping her pen on the paper as she repeated the thought: Why did I get in the car?

  Why didn’t Ethan stop at the light?

  Why were Chris and Tabby riding with us?

  Her bullet journal was a complete mess. Using her right hand made her writing look like it was done by a second grader, and she could only write for so long before her hand cramped. But when she journaled, it helped calm the thoughts swirling in her head. Last night’s night terror had shaken some things loose.

  The moment she’d gotten to school, she went to the library and wrote down everything in an attempt to organize her brain while Ripley lay patiently under her chair. Even though she’d loaded up on painkillers, she was surprised by how much she did remember. She’d had to cross out green hoodie, because it wasn’t possible that she remembered it, and her eyes skimmed over the other details. What else might she have misremembered? A part of her wished she could believe she didn’t actually see Ethan and Hailey making out that night but … that was definitely real. So why did she get into the car with him?

  She needed to talk to Ethan, but she didn’t know how. It wasn’t as simple as going to his house. Facing him again felt raw.

  She’d already purged all their pictures together off her new phone, a gift from her parents. Each photo she deleted from the cloud felt like a paper cut, and after deleting the thousandth picture of them framed in a mirror, his arms wrapped around her shoulders, his chin resting on the top of her head with his devil-may-care smile as he grinned for the selfie, the emotional pain had started to rear its ugly head again. He’d hurt her too badly and too deeply for her to want to see him for a long time. There was baggage now, and she was tired of carrying it. She wanted to move on, hence the list. She needed to document everything, for her own sanity.

  “Good morning,” Jackson sang, appearing seemingly out of thin air. She almost jumped out of her skin. “Oh! Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

  “It’s okay.” She forced her heart to settle back down. Ripley had perked up at Jackson’s arrival, her tail thumping as he took a seat across from Spencer’s side of the table. Spencer was glad to see a friendly face so early, too.

  “Getting started on solving the mystery already?” he asked as he opened his backpack and brought out his laptop.

  “Nothing major.” Spencer shook out the cramp in her right hand. “I had a nightmare last night, needed to get some thoughts out.”

  “Are you okay?”

  “I am now.” Though the reality of her situation was becoming more concrete. A person didn’t have a mental health service dog because they were going to get over their disability overnight. Ripley was in it for the long haul, and Spencer was coming to terms with the fact that she would be waking up with persistent nightmares and suffering from more panic attacks for the foreseeable future.

  She had started picturing Ripley living with her in the dorm at Caltech, curled up at the foot of her bed to wake her up for early morning lab work. It didn’t seem so scary now. More manageable. Even though it wasn’t something she’d wish on anyone.

  Jackson started to work on his laptop and pushed his glasses up his nose with his knuckle. She liked how good he looked in both his school and soccer uniforms. He kept his tie cinched neatly, compared to how Ethan always wore his loose, like he needed breathing room. With his glasses back on, Jackson reminded Spencer of Clark Kent and she caught herself staring.

  Mercifully, Jackson didn’t seem to notice and said, “So since I’m all caught up on my psych homework, I figured I’d get started on helping you remember that night. Maybe I’ll start collecting some news articles for you and we can look them over together later.”

  “That sounds perfect, thanks.” Spencer was grateful that he was taking her seriously. He didn’t make her feel crazy. Doing this alone would have been impossible. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how do you play soccer without your glasses? Like, how do you see the ball?”

  “Oh, I don’t,” he said dryly, still staring at his computer. “I fling myself in a random direction hoping to catch the ball. The secret is that I’m lucky.” His gaze slid from his laptop and he cracked a grin. He was teasing her.

  The laugh that came out of Spencer sounded like a bark, and she covered her mouth, remembering she was in the library and needed to be quiet. It felt nice to laugh like that again after so long. “That was pretty stupid of me, wasn’t it?”