The Escape. Part 17

Tell her about the whispers.

Tell her...

Fletcher pressed his lips together in a thin line. "Have you ever...have you ever felt like your brain was full?"

Avery rolled her eyes. "Every time I'm in calculus. I swear if Mrs. Stevens gives us one more set of equations, my head is going to explode." She puffed up her cheeks and pantomimed her head exploding, then grinned at him-one of those wide, carefree grins of hers that he loved.

"Not like that. Not exactly. Do you ever feel like, maybe, something's taking over your mind?"

The look on Avery's face cut him like a knife. Her eyes clouded and the smile dropped from her lips. She paled, and he knew she was thinking about her mother.

"I'm sorry," he said quickly.

"No, no." Avery shook her head, pus.h.i.+ng a clump of hair behind her ear. "That's all right." She smiled, but this time it didn't look authentic. "Have I ever had my thoughts hijacked? Yeah. Haven't you?"

Shock waves, like tiny pinp.r.i.c.ks, burned all over him. She understood.

Then she continued, "Like when I'm supposed to be studying and all I can think about is a cheeseburger? Or when I'm super tired, but my mind is wide-awake thinking about stuff?"

Fletcher's twinge of joy faded. He swallowed. "Have they ever been hijacked by something darker?"

Avery blinked. "By a bad memory?"

He nodded.

"Yeah. Sometimes I want to think of my mom in a good way, but I keep picturing her in the accident instead. But that's normal, right?"

Fletcher realized she was waiting for his approval, so he pumped his head. "Sure. Yeah."

"Do you think about Adam that way sometimes?"

He looked away, worrying his bottom lip. The errant thoughts of Adam weren't what scared him. It was more than that. The whispers started small-a psst, a huff-and swelled to a chorus of voices that he couldn't ignore.

"Sometimes I hear things."

Avery didn't laugh or call him crazy. "Things like what?"

Voices. "I don't know. Just..."

"Well, I know when my dad got whacked in the head this one time, he complained of ringing in his ears for months." She licked her lips, started to smile again. "He kept telling me to 'Turn down whatever is making that stupid noise!'" She started to laugh. "I had no idea what he was talking about, and he wouldn't admit that he was hearing things." Fletcher forced himself to join her laughter.

"Yeah," he lied. "That's it. I guess it's normal."

"Normal is a setting on a dryer," Avery said, suddenly more serious. "I saw it on a magnet once. But I like what it means-there is no normal. We are all a little off, and that's okay." She looked so sure that Fletcher wanted to believe her. Maybe he was just a different kind of normal.

Though the voices in his head didn't quite agree.

That night, Fletcher tried to stay awake. Every time he nodded off, he fell into the same weird dream. In it, he was in the bathroom at his old house. There was nothing quirky or dreamlike about the setting-it was the same old bathroom with the same old white subway tiles and Susan's same collection of shampoo bottles and hair-care products taking up every inch of s.p.a.ce.

In Fletcher's dream, he watched himself push the door closed so that he was alone. His reflection appeared in the mirror on the medicine cabinet. It was him, his face a little more filled out and his hair longer and curlier.

It was not just one reflection though. Like a fun-house mirror, it was him and him again, a collection of Fletchers.

The first Fletcher turned on the tap, leaned forward, and splashed water on his face. When he straightened to look at his reflections, none of the other Fletchers moved. They all just looked curiously at the original Fletcher. They were staring because the water from the tap wasn't water at all. It was blood. And it was smeared across his cheeks, little droplets hanging from his eyelashes and dripping toward his chin.

This was the point at which Fletcher always woke with a start, the smell of blood clogging his nostrils.

He was in the middle of the dream yet again when, this time, the mirror crashed. It sounded like a sonic boom, so loud that it rattled his teeth and made him sit bolt upright in his bed.

"Did you hear that?" his mother asked. She was in his doorway, in her bathrobe, one hand pulling the collar tight against her throat. When she clicked on his bedside lamp, Fletcher could see the hollows in her cheeks and the bags underneath her eyes. She wasn't sleeping well either.

Fletcher raked a hand through his damp hair. "I thought I was dreaming."

"No, I heard something crash."

He kicked off the covers and pressed his bare feet onto the floor. "I'll go check it out."

"Fletcher, no." It was a halfhearted attempt to stop him. Fletcher could barely feel his mother's fingertips brush against the fabric of his T-s.h.i.+rt. "It sounded like it came from downstairs."

There was another unmistakable crash and then the squeal of tires.

A dog barked.

A light flicked on at the neighbor's house.

Fletcher ran down the stairs and yanked open the front door, peering down the walk. His mother turned on the porch light.

The driveway and gra.s.s looked like a battlefield of oozing yolks and little broken sh.e.l.ls. But it wasn't the egging that had woken Fletcher and his mother.

Fletcher walked down the driveway, careful not to slip on the egg slime, and stopped beside his car. He gently fingered what remained of the splintered back window of his Toyota Celica.

"Oh, son, I'm so sorry. I heard all the commotion." It was Mr. Henderson from across the street. The old man was in his slippers and robe. "Kids can be such jacka.s.ses. I can help you call the insurance company in the morning. We should file a police report too."

Fletcher nodded. On the edge of his vision, he watched his mother gingerly step down the walk, take one look at the debris on the ground and the damage to Fletcher's car, and turn back to the house-probably hoping that Fletcher wouldn't see her shoulders shaking as she cried.

Fletcher glanced into the car. He put his hand through the open s.p.a.ce on the back window and fished through the glittering gla.s.s. A rock, about the size of a tennis ball but slightly more compact. He picked it up, feeling the heft of it in his palm and swallowing hard at the words scrawled across it: ADAM DIDN'T DESERVE 2DIE. U DO.

He looked out to the street and launched the rock as far as he could.

By the time Avery got to homeroom, everyone was already seated. The murmur in the halls was better than any announcement, so the whole school already knew that someone had vandalized Fletcher's house the night before.

Avery was upset. She had called Fletcher three times that morning, but he hadn't answered either his cell or the home phone, and he hadn't called her back. She texted, Are you okay? just before she'd walked onto the school grounds that morning, but still nothing.

"I heard it was all over the house, all over everything-eggs, shaving cream, the works." Kaylee looked almost pleased with her replay of the events at Fletcher's house.

Avery shook her head. "That's awful. Fletcher has gone through enough."

"Fletcher?" Kaylee stood up, nearly nose to nose with Avery. "He seems pretty fine to me. I mean, he's alive."

"G.o.d, Kaylee! He's totally traumatized. He watched his best friend die! And now people..."-Avery looked around, eyes narrowed and accusatory-"you people are accusing him of murder. He's our friend! We've known him since he was kid!"

"No," Tim said, standing up. "We've only known Fletch for a few years. We knew Adam since he was a kid. And Fletcher has never wanted to be anyone's friend. He barely even talks to anyone."

"You know an awful lot about Fletch, Avery. Maybe you're so defensive of him because you like him." Kaylee flicked her glossy hair. "Maybe you're defending him because you know that Fletcher didn't do this alone."

Avery gasped. "What are you talking about?"

The kids around them exchanged looks, and a surprised murmur rippled through the room.

Tim shot Kaylee a look. "Come on, that's not fair. Don't drag Avery into this."

Kaylee c.o.c.ked a hip, clearly not ready to back down. "I didn't drag Avery anywhere-she did this to herself. Think about it. She was the one who found Fletcher."

"I was on a search team."

Kaylee shrugged. "So was I, but I didn't find him. You told us not to leave the group for any reason, Avery, but who left the group? You. And when you did, you went straight to Fletcher. Coincidence?" Her blond eyebrows rose.

Avery wanted to defend herself, but her voice was trapped in her chest. She looked around for someone to defend her, for a teacher to step in, but she was surrounded by suspicious stares. "That's not true."

"And then the only person Fletcher wanted to talk to in the hospital? Avery again." Kaylee was gathering steam now, patrolling the cla.s.sroom like a prosecutor in front of an adoring court. "Everyone knows Fletcher was jealous of Adam. Fletcher's a freak. Adam was perfect. He practically had a full-ride college scholars.h.i.+p already, a brand-new car...he had everything. Fletcher had nothing, and he couldn't take it anymore."

"That's not-"Avery tried to interrupt.

"Kaylee," Tim said again.

"And everyone knows you had a major crush on Adam. You probably just got mad because you knew it would never happen for you and him. One of those scorned-lover things. 'If I can't have him, no one can.'"

Avery's head started to spin. The only thing she could register was Kaylee's sharp, snotty voice.

"He thought you were a freak too." Kaylee pointed her index finger, jabbing at the air in front of Avery's chest.

"He didn't-" Avery heard herself say. "Adam and I were friends."

"No you weren't. When was the last time he even talked to you? When was the last time he said anything more than 'Excuse me' or 'Can I borrow a pencil?' He felt sorry for you because your mom died. Just like Fletcher: You. Are. A. Freak." She punctuated each word so that they hit Avery like poisoned darts. "You probably wanted him dead."

"What's going on in here?" Ms. Holly broke through the door like a wave of fresh air, and Avery felt her legs nearly give way. She wanted to report Kaylee, to defend herself and Fletcher, but there was nothing left in her. Kaylee had shredded her, and Avery didn't know how to begin to put herself back together.

The cla.s.s answered Ms. Holly with silence. No one stepped in. No one pointed out that what Kaylee had said was mean and just plain wrong from beginning to end. No one asked about Avery.

"Take your seats, everyone. Come on, come on. Cla.s.s is starting."

Avery could hear Ms. Holly's voice, but it felt like her ears were full of cotton.

"Avery? You can sit down now."

Avery snapped to attention, gasping for breath as though she had been holding it the whole time. Tim wouldn't meet her eyes. Kaylee looked unaffected, lazily flipping through pages in her textbook. Avery sank into her seat. Did that really just happen?

Twenty-three.

Avery had no idea how she made it through the rest of her cla.s.ses. Around her, the rumors circulated-that she and Fletcher had attacked Adam together, that it was their plot all along, that they were the modern-day murderous Bonnie and Clyde.

"She snapped," Avery heard someone say under her breath.

"Fletcher is in love with Avery. He'd do anything she said..."

"Avery said if he got rid of Adam..."

Each new theory was a stab to Avery's self-worth, but the accusatory stares were even worse. Once upon a time, she had been invisible, a goody-goody-now she was a celebrity criminal, tried and convicted in front of a jury of her peers. There was no reason to defend herself. The decision had already been made: Fletcher killed Adam, and Avery had helped. Maybe Fletcher would have defended her, but he didn't show up at school nor did he answer any of Avery's calls or texts. When the final bell rang, she tried again.

After the third ring, a woman answered in an uncertain, scared voice. "h.e.l.lo?"

"Mrs. Carroll?"

"Who is this, please?"

Avery cleared her throat. "It's Avery. Avery Templeton. I'm a friend of Fletcher's." She knew that Mrs. Carroll knew exactly who she was, but adding that she was Fletcher's friend somehow felt important.

"Yes, Avery. May I help you?"

Avery's eyes started to fill with tears, even though she knew the offer to help was part of a greeting rather than any actual offer. She couldn't talk to her father much, and she'd always been able to talk with her mother...

She cleared her throat. "Is Fletcher there?"

There was an extra-long silence. "I'm sorry. Fletcher can't come to the phone right now."

Avery found herself nodding even though she knew Mrs. Carroll couldn't see her. "Sure, yeah, okay. Would it be okay if I came by the house later?"

Another pause. "I don't think so, Avery."

"Can you tell Fletcher that I called? I've been trying to get hold-"

"Sure, Avery," Mrs. Carroll's soft voice cut her off smoothly. "I'll let him know that you were looking for him."

Avery was about to reply when the line dropped and she was listening to silence. She stared at her phone as if that would explain everything: Fletcher seemingly avoiding her and Mrs. Carroll's quick cutoff. Or did Mrs. Carroll just not want her to talk to Fletcher?

Avery turned and Ellison, standing with Tim and some other kids, wandered over to her. "Hey," Ellison said.