4. Appearances

FOUR

Appearances

Sunday was torture, plain and simple. The sunlight was too bright; it stung my eyes and burned against my shoulders. It drove me inside and inside drove me halfway to insane. I wasn't an inside person. I didn't like to be in close quarters with myself—it was cruel, and it felt dangerous. Satan demanded to be let inside by threatening to tear my screen door to shreds, but as soon as I opened it for him, he darted for the dark space beneath my bed, missing it by a few inches and smacking into the short wooden bed support. He reared back with a hiss, dove again, and reappeared only to glower at me with his wonky stare.

I set out some food for him, and he began to meow at me in short, demanding little bursts.

I set out a bowl of water instead, and he stalked out from beneath the bed and slapped the bowl with his paw, sending water everywhere.

"That's it." I shoved open the door and pointed outside. "You're banned. Get. Out."

He dove back beneath my bed with another hiss.

Duke knocked on the door of my RV a few times as I was cleaning up Satan's mess, but I pretended I wasn't home. I couldn't get Nicholai's words out of my head.

Did you want to be kissed?

It wasn't like Duke had assaulted me. It wasn't like he had preyed upon me. Maybe it was exactly the way it appeared, and there was no deeper analysis to be made of it. Duke hadn't kissed me for me . What person ever kissed another person without themselves in mind? He was doing it for him, and I didn't care at all. So … it was okay.

Right?

But there was the girl—the girl who was supposed to be a girlfriend.

That didn't seem right.

So I hid, and pretended, and eventually I convinced even myself. There was nobody home, nobody inside. Only a shell of a body. The echo of a sound. The vibration in the air that follows a scream in the night.

I wasn't sure how I ended up there, but I woke up on the couch at some point in the middle of the night, my phone in my hand. Satan was on the other end of the couch, curled into a tight, shabby ball of fur, purring softly. I tapped on my phone screen, bringing it back to life. It was open to one of Shel's social media accounts.

I had clicked through every single photo, liking each one.

The latest had been a few hours ago. A picture of her on a hike, looking back and grinning at the camera, Evie strapped to her back. Fred must have taken the photo.

The caption read: Sundays are for family.

I pushed from the couch and wobbled to the bathroom, my stomach heaving.

But there was nothing to throw up, so instead, I just sat there, back against the thin wall, my vision turning blurry again.

I woke up on the floor the next morning, my neck cramped, my body stiff with cold. Satan had torn a hole through my screen door and was nowhere to be seen.

I wasn't sure if I was angry that he had damaged the door, or that he had left me alone. I walked the two hours to school several hours early to escape the trailer park and was forced to wait another hour for my study hall teacher to arrive .

Mr. McKinnon had known me for years, but he didn't seem to know me anymore. He stared at me as though I was a stranger. I knew about his divorce; I knew that his ex-wife was a lawyer and that she had cheated on him with her boss at work. I knew he didn't take it well because he had gained several pounds and had come to school hungover most days. I knew he had started wearing black, as though she had died: black vests, black socks, black glasses. I had turned up to the funeral of his relationship every day, marking off my attendance with sympathy.

He should have known about me, too, but he didn't. Not anymore.

"I'm ready to come back to class," I announced before he could turn me away once again. Before he could illustrate just how little he knew me anymore, by denying me purpose.

He blinked, and I watched his adam's apple move up and down.

"Okay." His voice was hoarse. He was forced to clear his throat before he spoke again. "Okay then … Miss Grey."

He used to call me Mika.

He ignored me after that, but the tension never left him. Even the tapping of his fingers against his laptop keys seemed to gain an edge of agitation. Twenty minutes later, the classroom filled, the students seeming to carry in even more tension. It rode in on their shoulders, jumping into the air and multiplying until the strain was so thick that it was almost impossible to breathe through.

"I heard she killed them," someone whispered. A girl, the voice somewhat familiar. Probably someone that I used to know, the way Mr. McKinnon used to know me.

Mr. McKinnon couldn't seem to force the students to pay attention. They separated themselves from me, sitting in a ring around my desk so that I had an empty desk to turn to in any given direction.

"I hear she stabbed them to death."

"I hear she was locked up?—"

"Quit making shit up, Hansen, I've seen her round, she just hasn't been coming to classes."

"I've seen her waiting outside the counsellor's office."

"We have a counsellor?"

"I hear her aunt kicked her out because she's a?—"

"I swear I wasn't with Hannah, babe. I was with my parents."

" Liar! You promised you wouldn't see her again!"

"I didn't, babe, but?—"

"Willie, can't you just apologise? Ever hear of this little thing called accountability ? — "

"Oh, it's my fault again, sure why the fuck not?— "

"Why don't they just lock her up?"

"Right? She might be dangerous."

"My mom said I shouldn't come to school if she's here. She might hurt me?—

"She never liked me?—"

"You didn't know we had a counsellor?"

"Do I look like I need counselling, dickhead?"

"Quit making excuses, Des, you're a lying piece of shit. I saw you at Hannah's house!"

"What the hell were you doing at Hannah's house?"

"You kind of look like you need head-shrinking. You've got a big-ass head, man."

"I hear she did it with a fork."

"Shut up."

"Shut up!"

" Shut up!"

It took me a moment to realise that my own voice had joined the fray of disjointed conversation. Everyone was staring at me, startled. Mr. McKinnon had dropped his marker.

"That's enough!" He seemed to be talking to me, but he quickly turned his glare on the others, including them in his censure. "Everyone pick a club to join. It's going to be a long year; believe me, there's no harm in making a few friends to help you out along the way, and you'll need extracurriculars to show on your college applications."

I started laughing but quickly swallowed the evidence as everyone turned to stare at me again. Mr. McKinnon seemed to grow red in the cheeks.

See? Even he knew he was lying.

Friends. What were friends ? I used to think that Lacey was my friend. She borrowed my denim skirt—swapping clothes was supposed to be a binding contract. But no. Lacey wasn't my friend. I thought that Jedd, who now sat three seats away from me, used to be my friend. He would come over to my house to study, and sometimes we got ice cream. Weren't those things that you did with your friends? No. Jedd wasn't my friend. Every person who had set foot inside my house with the hand of friendship extended firmly before them had disappeared the very same month my parents died. They had disappeared, and they had taken their friendship with them. It was portable, it seemed. A kind of currency. One of those pliable plastic cards: easily snapped under pressure or cut up when declined. And the helplines? Outsourced. If your friendship broke down, there was a single number to call, directing you to a sweaty office in a third-world country full of people who would sell your very soul for the right price. If you failed the security questions, you were locked out for good .

What's your mother's maiden name?

What's the name of your first pet?

Have you ever partaken in obscene shouting?

Were you institutionalised for a year following the suspicious circumstances of your parents' deaths?

I had a bad friendship credit rating, and none of these people were going to invest in me. I wasn't sure what that reduced friendship to, but it wasn't much.

It certainly wasn't anything to lean on.

My notoriety seemed to spread ahead of me—through World History, Spanish, Geology, Math, English, and Chemistry. And then it went further, into the next day and the next week.

Very quickly, it became a part of my routine. I would sit down in my forced bubble and listen to the disjointed whispers around me. Sometimes, they knew things that I didn't. Things about my family, my parents, the incident … but then again, maybe those things weren't true at all. It was impossible to extract truth from whispers.

At lunchtime, I would go to see Nicholai. The first time I showed up, he seemed surprised. He was halfway through his lunch and not expecting visitors. Still, he invited me inside and allowed me to ignore his questions for twenty minutes until he adjusted his approach and decided to leave me to sit there in silence .

On my third visit that week, he had a sandwich from the cafeteria sitting on my chair.

Waiting for … me?

"I've got money," I said, staring at the sandwich.

Roast beef, arugula, Dijon mustard, and aged cheddar on a toasted ciabatta roll.

He got one of the fancy ones.

He just shook his head.

I picked up the sandwich and sat down, playing with the paper wrapping. I supposed he was right. It wasn't money I needed.

Maybe it wasn't a sandwich either, but … I was hungry.

Slowly, I unwrapped it. He watched me, waiting for me to take the first nervous bite, and then he narrowed his eyes for a fraction of a second before returning to his own lunch. He ate a salad out of a little red container. We ate in silence, with him catching up on his work and me staring absently out the window. The next week, the rumours continued, but so did the sandwiches, and I found myself fixating on them.

I considered not going to school, but the sandwiches brought me back. Knowing they would be there waiting for me. Knowing I had a routine with someone. Knowing that for an hour, at least, I could do something mundane in the presence of another person without them evaluating me, judging me, or whispering about me.

I began to pick out a complimentary flavour of canned cat food for Satan every afternoon on my way home, though he refused to eat when he was being watched. I had to set out the can and wait outside for him to finish it, which he signalled by swiping the can violently into one of the kitchen cabinets.

My world narrowed to focus on those sandwiches, but after two more weeks, Nicholai decided to shake my foundation again. I entered his office and stared at the empty chair for almost a full minute before sitting in it, panic tripping through my body. Nicholai breezed past like he hadn't just metaphorically punched me in the face, dropping a container onto my lap.

I stared at it.

It was a little red container.

I pulled off the lid and stared some more. A salad. I swallowed, suddenly nervous, eyeing the spiky edge of a kale leaf and the matted orange of a carrot stick. It was just like his. A twin to the container he pulled out of his bag and set on his desk.

"You made me this?" I asked. I couldn't tear my eyes from it to look at him. I wasn't sure why it meant so much to me. It wasn't so different to buying a sandwich … except it wa s.

I imagined him in his kitchen at home, cutting up carrot sticks. Putting some into his container and some into mine. The picture gave me chills—not because he had done something for me, but because I couldn't picture the kitchen. It was impossible to imagine him in a domestic space. He didn't belong anywhere so ordinary, anywhere so human. I couldn't see him tending a garden, reading by a fire, or vacuuming.

I couldn't picture him anywhere but this office, with the sun slanting over his arresting features, with his "pick a problem" bookshelf and his obsessively clean desk.

"Let's talk today," he rumbled out calmly.

And just like that, my appetite disappeared. Let's not , I wanted to reply, but he was already speaking again.

"Some of your teachers have come to speak to me. Do you know what they're concerned about?"

"They think I'm detached."

"Are you detached?"

"I suppose." I glanced up.

He was smiling just a tiny bit. It was … beautiful … in a terrifying sort of way. It was a small, dark smile. Firm and unbending. Knowing. "In what way are you detached?"

"I don't care about their classes. I don't care about the gossip, I don't care about college?— "

"What do you care about?"

I stopped to think through his question, as I usually did. I cared about his questions, but he didn't need to know that. I cared about his opinions. I cared about the plant he had given me. I cared that he still hadn't replied to my email. I cared that he hurt to look at, right now, with the half smile hovering and two small, dimple-like indentations hinting at either side of his mouth. I cared that there was still no humour in the barest twist of his lips.

"I care about my routine."

His smile disappeared as though it had never existed in the first place. The professional was back. He even pushed his salad away. He eyed the container in my lap, watching my hands curl protectively around it.

"Eat. Tell me about your routine."

I obeyed reflexively, using my fork to spear one of the little tomatoes. I was sitting right before his desk, close enough to lean forward and rest my elbows on it … but I couldn't because he had already done that. He dipped forward, his hands loose against the polished wood, his eyes fixed on the tomato. It was at my lips now, but the office was suddenly full of tension. I didn't understand why. I started to lower the fork, but his head shifted. First to one side and then to the other. The barest of movements. My mouth was dry, my lips tr embling as I parted them and hastily stuffed the tomato inside.

"Now," his voice had developed a gritty quality, "tell me about your routine."

"I walk," I croaked out. "Walking … helps."

"Do you live far from here?"

"It takes a couple of hours."

He closed his eyes, releasing me from whatever hypnosis he had woven over me. The room suddenly seemed darker. Colder.

Open your eyes, open your eyes, open your ? —

"Do you see anyone? Friends? A boyfriend?" He opened his eyes again, and the breath I had been holding slipped out.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I make people uncomfortable."

"What about the boy who kissed you? It wasn't that long ago."

"He wasn't really a boy." At my statement, Nicholai's expression fell blank, and I was spurred to keep talking, to somehow smother what I had just said, to not give it any oxygen. "I suppose I don't make him uncomfortable. Or his younger brothers. They're nice. I don't think it's very easy for them to make friends."

"Why do you think that is?"

"They look mean. "

"Looks can be deceiving." He leaned back, the mask falling away from his face as he folded his arms behind his head.

The material of his dark emerald shirt pulled tight around his arms, one of the cuffs slipping down his wrist to reveal a hint of black, edging its way into view. He had a tattoo. Mister Nicholai Fell, the Doctor of Deviance , had a tattoo.

"Something funny, Mika?" He eyed me with that same infuriating calm.

"You have a … um …" It didn't seem appropriate to point it out, so I shook my head. "Never mind."

But he knew. Of course he did. That hard, secret smile was hovering again, and he shook out his sleeve a little bit to hide the edge of his tattoo, his eyelids lowering almost lazily.

"You stopped eating," he pointed out.

It wasn't so much of a command, but it still felt like one. I finished the rest of the salad without tasting any of it, and he watched me the entire time.

It was unnerving.

When the bell rang to signify the end of lunch, I hastily jumped out of my seat.

"Thanks," I muttered on my way out the door.