We Are the Ants(31)

Even if things were different—if the world weren’t ending and Diego were into me—I can’t take the chance that it was my fault Jesse hanged himself and that I might cause Diego to do the same. It might seem ludicrous to believe I caused Jesse’s suicide, but in the dearth of answers he left behind, it makes as much sense as anything else.

The warning bell rang, and I rushed to rinse the last of the shampoo from my hair and shut off the water. I retrieved my towel from the hook on the wall and tried to dry off in the humid air. The best I could hope to do was mitigate the disaster.

I was drying my hair, the towel draped over my head, and didn’t hear their footsteps.

They were on me before I knew what was happening. One on each arm, dressed in black, wearing alien masks. They weren’t my aliens. The oval eyes gave them away. There were no shadows, either, and sluggers wouldn’t have grabbed me and slapped a sweaty hand over my mouth to prevent me from screaming.

The three aliens wrestled me to the floor. They were stronger, but I kicked and bucked and tried to run, dignity be damned. My knee slammed into the tile floor, and my leg went numb. An alien stuffed a pair of boxers into my mouth, while another bound my wrists together with tape. My shoulders ached from struggling like they were going to pop out of their sockets. When they finished with my hands, they pulled my legs out from under me and secured my ankles, leaving me prone on the wet, mildewed floor. I sobbed and tried to breathe, but I snorted water up my nose instead.

This is how I die. In the midst of the chaos in my mind, that’s the thought that calmed me. This didn’t matter. Nothing they did to me was important. I’d been ready to let the world end, prepared to sit back and wait for the apocalypse. What did it matter if I died a few weeks early? What did I matter at all?

“Hurry up!”

“Where’s Coach?”

“Taking a dump.”

“Bring it, bring it!”

The tile was slippery, and I swung my legs around, trying to squirm away. The tallest alien kicked me in the testicles with his grass-stained sneaker. The pain was excruciating, and it clawed through my stomach and up my spine. I gagged, trying not to puke with the underwear in my mouth. My vision blurred around the edges, and I thought for a moment the sluggers had come to save me. But no one was coming to save me.

Everything hurt. It hurt to move and breathe. I wished they’d kill me and be done with it. I looked up; one of them stood over me with a five-gallon bucket. I swore I saw him grinning through his garish alien mask. “Now you can be an alien too, Space Boy.” He tilted the bucket and poured green paint on my chest and legs and arms. It was cold and spread across my stomach like pancake batter.

“Close your eyes, Space Boy.” I clenched my eyes shut and held my breath as he emptied the bucket over my head.

“Shit, guys, come on. Time’s up.”

I heard the empty thud when the bucket hit the floor.

“Hold on. One more thing.” I was too afraid to move when one of them pulled something down over my head. I blew paint out my nostrils and, when I breathed, it smelled like latex and cut grass.

I lay sprawled on the shower floor, waiting for the next kick, but it didn’t come.

Look at you. Look at what you’ve become without me. Jesse’s voice was muffled through the paint and whatever else covered my head. But it wasn’t him. Jesse was dead. I’d seen his body. His parents had insisted on an open-casket funeral, and I’d looked. Despite my brother’s warning not to, I’d looked. He was so dead, and that last image of Jesse was the one that remained with me. Dead was the way I saw him from that point forward. You’re a punch line, Henry. The butt of a cruel joke.

It wasn’t Jesse.

I’m beginning to think you should have hanged yourself rather than me. I probably would have cried over you, but I wouldn’t have come to this. Jesus Christ, you’re f*cking pathetic. I don’t know what I ever saw in you.

It wasn’t Jesse. I repeated that over and over. Jesse was dead, Jesse had loved me, Jesse never would have said those things.

I only killed myself because of you. To escape you. You smothered me, Henry Denton. You loved me to death. You should be dead, not me.

It wasn’t Jesse, couldn’t have been Jesse, but he was right. I should be dead. I wish I were dead. Because you can only die once, but you can suffer forever.

? ? ?

Coach Raskin discovered me at the end of last period when he came to shut off the lights. Finding me victimized and covered in green paint on the shower floor probably confirmed his opinion of my weakness. I’m willing to bet there was some small part of him that thought I deserved it. He cut the tape around my wrists and ankles, moved me into his office, and gave me a towel, but he refused to let me go home.

Principal DeShields arrived shortly after and hammered me with questions: Who had attacked me? Had I provoked them? What were their names? Why was I in the showers? I did my best to provide answers, but my head throbbed, and the fluorescent overhead lights buzzed, bright and sickly. I wanted to go home, clean the paint off, and never return to CHS again. I didn’t mention smelling Marcus’s cologne because it would have pitted his word against mine, and he had the benefit of both a car and money.

The paramedics’ arrival saved me from further interrogation, but aside from scraped knees and elbows, and slightly swollen testicles, I was unhurt. They took my vitals anyway and tried to clean some of the paint from my face and around my eyes. The police arrived next.