Take the Fall(21)
Does he want my help . . . or is he threatening me?
“Hey, thanks for the ride,” I say, stepping onto the curb in front of Aisha’s house.
“No problem,” she says. “Let me know if you need a lift home. They’ll be glad to see you.”
She heads up the stairs to her own house and I walk along the iron fence toward the front gate of Gretchen’s. My knees threaten mutiny with each step I take. I can still see Gretchen disappearing through her front door after I dropped her off that night, letting her hair down as she walked inside as if she was ready to sink into a hot bath, not plummet down a freezing waterfall. My heart thuds, heavy with sorrow, regret. Maybe if I’d just stayed with her, none of this would’ve happened.
My footsteps drag until I reach the iron gate. I look back to make sure Aisha is safely inside, then I take a deep breath and walk briskly down the street past the Meyers’ house. Across the road, the branches of the trees arch over the pavement, reaching for me like I’m something that shouldn’t have gotten away. I used to feel safe in the park. Gretchen and I spent so much time there growing up, I’d memorized every plant and rock by the time I was six years old.
I wrap my hoodie more tightly around me and give a nervous glance over my shoulder, thinking of Marcus watching me yesterday morning. A part of me wishes the photo was some misguided plea. I want to feel bad for him, do what I can to help. But if it’s really a threat, I’m not messing around—I’ll prove he killed Gretchen. Somehow.
The homes at the very end of Park Drive are a little smaller and not quite as opulent as Gretchen’s and Aisha’s houses, but Marcus’s grandmother’s family is one of the oldest in town. A few of the surrounding houses have started to look a little run-down, their trim in need of paint and gardens desperate for weeding, but they’re still some of the nicest homes I have ever seen. I’ve been to Marcus’s house exactly twice. The first time was with Gretchen right after they started dating. We were supposed to go to the movies, but she decided to drop in on him as a surprise. Those were the early days, before Marcus’s all-out aversion to me, and it took everything I could muster to wait for her on his front porch, trying not to envision the two of them making out upstairs. The second time, just before they broke up, she sent me over to get her lip gloss while they were fighting. Gretchen had a hundred lip glosses, but she still wanted me to go. Marcus met me at the door with it and never said a word, even after I managed an awkward smile and thanked him. I walked back to Gretchen’s feeling stupid for having tried to be nice at all. I stare up at the pale gray Victorian now and it looks much as it did before. Aside from one recently boarded-up front window, it’s tidy and well cared for.
The picture from my locker burns a hole in my back pocket.
I climb the steps to the big wraparound front porch. The doorbell has been painted over, so I knock. I attempt to peer through the curtains, but I don’t sense any movement inside. I rap again, more forcefully, unsure what my next move is, when I remember the little shed Marcus uses as a studio out back. Gretchen called it his “sensitive artist clubhouse.”
I wish you were dead.
I hesitate a long time before walking around the side of the house. Maybe I should just take the photo to the sheriff, let him handle it. But then I think of Marcus taking a punch in the face today just to ask me to hear him out, and it doesn’t make sense. I’ll just show him the photo, find out what he’s after, and go home. I’ll be fine. Every nerve in my body thrums by the time I head down the gravel path to the backyard. I palm Uncle Noah’s pepper spray. The shed stands in one corner and actually looks like it might once have been a fancy kids’ playhouse, built to match the main house. It has a window with a frilly curtain and a flower box with nothing planted in it. The door stands ajar and there’s angry music pulsing through the air. I try to peer in the windowpane, but all I can see through the curtain is light and shadow. A huge dark spider crawls from the glass over the back of my hand and I shriek, flinging it to the ground. The door swings the rest of the way open and I find myself standing red-faced under Marcus’s gaze.
His jaw drops at first, but he closes it, wiping his hands on an old cloth hanging out of his pocket. He’s wearing a ripped pair of jeans and a fitted dark blue T-shirt, and he looks more comfortable than I think I’ve ever seen him. I used to think Marcus seemed so much more my type than Gretchen’s. She was manicured and high maintenance. He’s rumpled and reserved—the way I always felt when I wasn’t with her. There’s green paint in his hair above his right ear and a large purple bruise blooming under his left eye. I wince when I see it, but when I meet his gaze, something surges in my chest. I grit my teeth and remind myself why I’m here.
He pulls the door shut behind him, digs a key out of his pocket, and locks it.
I cross my arms in front of me, hoping I look confident. “Let’s talk.”
He hesitates, his eyes darting around the yard as if searching for someone else. I touch the little can of pepper spray through my pocket. His fists tighten and he starts toward the house, but I hang back by the shed. I wonder what he’s working on, and why he would lock it.
Halfway to the door of his house Marcus looks back. “You coming inside or what?”
The aging Victorian was cluttered and dark the one time I went in. There’s no way I’m stepping foot inside it now.