Don't Get Caught(40)

“I just meant—”

“So you don’t get to try to make me feel bad about this, you got it? You wanted us to pull a prank in the name of the Chaos Club, and that’s what I did. If I chose Libby as my target, that’s my decision, not yours.”

“But—”

Malone drops off the chair and walks through the jam-packed students still in the room.

Wheeler gives me a yeeesh look.

Adleta’s not even looking at me.

And Ellie says, “I’d think you of all people would be a little more supportive.”

“I’m just saying maybe that may have been a little much. You saw Libby, right? And that’s the drawing she’s been working on for weeks. It’s completely ruined.”

“So what? Maybe try to see it from Kate’s point of view next time and not just your own. I have to get to my locker before class.”

“Smooth, dude,” Wheeler says.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

? ? ?

For the rest of the day, I feel like shit, which is only compounded by Malone ignoring my apology texts. But am I wrong? Making a bunch of guys puke and destroying a girl’s art—how does it help us get back at the Chaos Club? What was business before is now personal, and I don’t like it. Or maybe I’m overreacting. Stranger things have happened. It’s really an ethics question, so I do the only thing I can think of: I stop by Watson’s room on the way out of the building.

“What can I do for you, Max?” Watson asks. He’s at his desk in the back of the room with his feet up, an Existential Dread Is My Copilot coffee cup resting on a pile of today’s pop quizzes.

“I have a philosophy question,” I say.

“Then you came to the right place. Fire away.”

“Is revenge ethical?”

Watson raises his eyebrows.

“Now that is an excellent question. Maybe it should be this week’s Big Questions of Existence topic.”

“I’d rather hear what you have to say on it.”

“Well, not to be evasive, but it doesn’t matter what I think. What matters is what you think. All questions of ethics are like that. The answer depends on what you believe in—your religion, if you have one; your upbringing; your environment. You have to set your own parameters for what’s acceptable. If you don’t, someone else will do it for you.”

“I should’ve known better than to come here looking for a straight answer.”

Watson laughs and says, “I’m not one to give answers. I’m more interested in giving you the tools to come up with the answers yourself.”

“And in this case?”

“That means thinking about what you believe in and why—the why is the important part—then making decisions based on that. It’s the only honest way to do things.”

“You’re like the illegitimate child of Yoda and Socrates,” I say.

“That might just be the best compliment I’ve ever received,” Watson says. “However, I will say that revenge and justice aren’t the same thing. Most people make the mistake of confusing the two.”

? ? ?

I wish I could report the clouds parting and a rainbow of understanding shining down on me, but no, two weeks later, I’m as confused as I was before. I do know that I hate having people mad at me though, and Malone’s cold-shouldering me gets to be too much to take, so one night, I drive to the Asheville Climbing Center, where she works. Just the sight of those walls with their tiny handholds is enough to make my stomach do somersaults. I find Malone at the base of the expert wall with a group of college-y-looking guys in a semicircle in front of her. Kate’s wearing black soccer shorts and an employee shirt with the sleeves cut off. She looks absolutely badass.

“I can’t,” she’s saying to one of the guys. “I’m not allowed to climb during work hours.”

He says, “Come on, I’ll even make it easier for you. I put up ten bucks and you put up nothing. Just race me.”

“Like I said—”

He snorts and says to the guy next to him, “I knew it was all talk. No girl’s that good.”

If he’s trying to push Malone’s buttons, he’s picked the right one. Without a word, she clips onto the wall and motions for a coworker, another girl who looks like she could snap me in half. Once the guy clips in, he and Malone stand waiting at the base of the wall.

“Want a head start?” he says.

Malone ignores him and asks the worker for a quick countdown.

At zero, Malone is gone, a spider monkey climbing the wall. Her legs and arms flash this way and that as she rockets toward the ceiling. It takes her less than twenty seconds to climb fifty feet, and when she reaches the top, she clangs the cowbell at the ceiling’s base. Then Malone pushes off the wall and drops down, rappelling past the poor bastard who isn’t even three-quarters of the way up.

As she unclips, she tells the guys, “Have your friend give Mia my ten bucks when he gets down. Whenever that is.”

The girl who spotted Malone gives her a high five and says, “You’re so hot.”

“Thanks, Mia,” Malone says. “I’ll see you later.”

I follow Malone as she walks to another area of the building. She’s not even breathing heavy.