Chapter 35 Avery
Avery
When we get back, Mr. McCullough and Caulder check the upstairs and downstairs again, but the house is as empty as ever.
There are no signs of Lucas or Emerson or Marlene.
With the larger group, the teachers feel okay letting us go to our rooms to change.
After I pull on dry clothes, I head to the bathroom and grab a comb and untangle my hair, then twist it up into a claw clip and wash my face.
After I pat it dry, I hold a damp washcloth to my forehead, and then I stand there and stare at myself in the mirror.
I look tired. I have dark moons under my eyes, and I’m pale—though I’m always pale. Otherwise, I look the same. Shouldn’t I look different, after everything? After death?
Maybe it will take a while. Maybe I’ll stay exactly the same.
I’m not sure which scares me more.
When I head downstairs, Caulder and Kaitlyn are sitting on the couch. They’ve both changed, and they’re as far apart from each other as they can get. They’re glaring at Mr. McCullough, who’s standing in the kitchen, and it’s hard to say who looks more filled with hate.
“So that’s really your story?” Kaitlyn demands. “You got lost? Why were you out there in the first place?”
So we’re back to this.
“I don’t have to justify myself to a bunch of teenagers,” Mr. McCullough says, digging through the cabinets and drawers. I watch him pull out a flashlight and test it, finding it weak, before he returns to digging for batteries.
“You do if their friends are being murdered because of you,” Caulder says.
I’ve never heard him talk to Mr. McCullough that way, but I don’t blame him.
I look from Mr. McCullough to Ms. Dorman, who’s washing her hands in the sink.
She winces every now and then, which makes me feel slightly guilty about stabbing her with a letter opener.
Then I remember she abandoned me, and I feel less bad about it.
“I’m going to go find the other kids,” Mr. McCullough says, ignoring Caulder and turning to Ms. Dorman.
“You can’t be serious,” she says with a huff of indignant laughter. “After what we saw out there?”
“Christine, I have to. They’re our responsibility,” he says.
“Exactly, and these children right here, they need us,” Ms. Dorman says, her voice a blunt-tipped whisper that carries.
“We can split up,” he says, pulling out a pack of batteries and loading them into the flashlight, not meeting her eyes. She’s finished washing her hands but lets the water run as she seizes him by the shirt, forcing him to face her.
“Gerard, I know you feel guilty for leaving, but this isn’t how we fix this,” she hisses. “It only makes the rest of us vulnerable. We all need to stay together.”
“I’m going with you,” Caulder says, making me jolt.
Now I feel like Ms. Dorman. “No way. Absolutely no way.”
But really, there’s no way Caulder’s staying. Not now. Not now that Javi’s dead.
Mr. McCullough shakes his head. “No, Caulder. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Try and make me,” Caulder says. “I’m going.”
I chew my cuticle, eyes bouncing between them.
“Caulder,” I say, sitting up. “You don’t…You shouldn’t go out there. Remember what Kaitlyn said.”
She’d filled us in on what had happened before we found her.
They saw a figure. They scattered. Kaitlyn found Emerson, bloodied and injured, who took off when they got to the cliffs.
She looked over the edge. She found Javi.
And now Caulder’s going to go back out there.
For Emerson. And Marlene and hopefully Lucas, too.
“If I can’t find anyone, I’ll head into town,” Mr. McCullough says.
“We tried that,” Kaitlyn grumbles, voice loud. “It’s too far away.”
I want to add that it’s impossible, that all of this is impossible. Every time we find someone, we lose someone else. I glance at Caulder, trying to read him, but he’s watching Mr. McCullough, who sighs before finally speaking.
“Then I’ll just keep looking until I find them,” he says. “I’m sure I’ll be fine.”
“Famous last words,” Kaitlyn says, rolling her eyes.
“Kaitlyn!” Ms. Dorman chides, but Kaitlyn only picks at the fuzz from her blanket.
“Lock the door after me,” he tells Ms. Dorman. “I’ll knock three times if it’s me, okay? Don’t let anyone else in.”
“I’ll have to,” she points out. “What if it’s the other kids?”
Mr. McCullough doesn’t answer. He tests his flashlight once more, pulls on his raincoat, and takes Ms. Dorman’s hand before squeezing it. I notice she doesn’t pull back. I notice, in fact, something I’ve never noticed before.
The look in her eyes. Not just fear. But something deeper and pained—and not just because of her stab wounds.
And then he’s opening the door, looking at Caulder, who’s right there with him.
“Let’s go,” Caulder says. “Let’s find them.”
Mr. McCullough nods, disappearing into the night. Caulder looks back at me, but I can’t read what’s in his eyes.
“Stay safe,” he says, and I nod.
“You too.”
And then he’s gone, the door shutting behind him.
In the silence that follows, Kaitlyn says, “Well, that’s interesting.”
Ms. Dorman doesn’t look at her. In fact, she doesn’t look at either of us. She goes to the door and flips the lock, then goes to the kitchen and roots around in the fridge. She pulls out a can of Olipop, cracks it open, and takes a long drink.
“Not your ideal chaperone trip, is it, Dormy?” Kaitlyn prods.
Ms. Dorman ignores her again but walks over to us, can in hand, and slips into the large armchair that Emerson was in earlier. She taps her nails on the side, and I notice one of them is broken, a jagged edge that she worries with her thumb in between taps.
She looks at Kaitlyn. “If this is how you need to behave to process this, I understand. But I’m not in the right headspace, Kaitlyn. I’m just not.”
Kaitlyn smirks. I look at her, again wondering how she continues to flip from terrified and hysterical to…this. She’s looking at Ms. Dorman like a cat that’s spotted a very slow-moving mouse, ready to give it a long, unrelenting death.
“I wonder if they’ll fire you immediately,” Kaitlyn muses. “Or if they’ll let it be more of a witch-burning kind of thing. You know, where they hand it over to the town.”
“Kaitlyn,” Ms. Dorman warns, rubbing her temple. “That’s enough.”
“No, I don’t think it is,” Kaitlyn says, tucking her feet under her. “See, my boyfriend’s dead because of you. And now you’ve sent my ex-boyfriend out to die.”
At her words, I stiffen. There’s a callousness to her tone that makes the hairs on my arms stand up.
Kaitlyn seems to remember I’m there, and she turns to me. I freeze, realizing I’m now the one caught in her crosshairs.
“Oh, I’m not saying he’ll die right away,” she continues. “Not yet, anyway. He’ll probably be one of the last to go. He’s tough like that, isn’t he?”
Ms. Dorman takes another sip from her can, her eyes closed. There’s a tightness to her jaw, and I wonder if she’s counting the seconds until Mr. McCullough comes back.
Kaitlyn’s gaze is still fixed on me. “But nope. I knew we were all doomed. Things have been set in motion and now…Look at us. None of us can do anything about it. Not even Caulder.”
Her eyes flash. “Like I said before, we’re all going to die tonight.”
I don’t say anything, and neither does Dorman. She just sips from her can. Maybe she thinks that if we ignore Kaitlyn, she’ll just stop talking. But she doesn’t.
“People like to think that Caulder’s perfect,” she says, eyes cutting to Ms. Dorman. “They look past his flaws. I can admit that even I did, too, for a while. But really, he’s got the same bullshit ego as all of them.”
She lets her hair down and begins to rebraid it, each move both sharp and careless at the same time.
“It’s partially his fault,” she says, “but it’s also the fault of the people who enable him. People who think that, just because he’s a guy, he gets to do whatever he wants.”
“Kaitlyn,” Ms. Dorman says, finally engaging. “We’ve had this conversation before. We don’t need to have it now.”
“Oh, I think we do,” Kaitlyn seethes. “Because you will let a mid baseball team miss every fucking class, but when the literal national champion volleyball team dares to miss a single period—”
“Kaitlyn,” Ms. Dorman says. “We discussed this. It wasn’t—”
Kaitlyn turns to look at me. “We let men be mediocre, Avery. We let them fail all the way to the fucking top, and we’re the ones who suffer for it.
When Caulder and the rest of the baseball team’s raking in scholarships for D1 because the school fought to bring scouts to their games and practices, my team will be struggling to get anything. ”
“Kaitlyn, you’ve already had offers—”
“My team, Dorman!” Kaitlyn snaps, throwing the blanket aside as she stands up. “Because unlike you, I’m not just looking out for myself. It’s my team that you’re constantly throwing under the bus.”
Ms. Dorman’s eyes narrow. “You and ‘your team’ are tardy almost every single day. It’s not my fault you haven’t kept your grades—”
“Oh, but it is,” she says. “You all fall over yourselves to make exceptions for the male athletes. But what about us? What about us, Dorman?”
“I have always treated my students fairly,” Ms. Dorman says, gaze flitting to meet mine. “Every single one of them.”
Kaitlyn snorts. “Sure you do, Dormy. What about the other teachers? Do you stand up for us to them?”
“I can’t control my colleagues,” she says.
“And when I was literally pushed down the stairs on camera, what then? What fucking then?”
The air is heavy. Ms. Dorman doesn’t answer. Won’t answer.
“What about letting a fucking predator into the school?” Kaitlyn asks, her voice even colder. “How about that? Or did you not think that was worth noting? You’re on the hiring committee, aren’t you?”
At this, Ms. Dorman looks legitimately shocked. Her face pales, and her eyes widen. She stares at Kaitlyn as if completely confused, and then sets her can down on the side table.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ms. Dorman says. “Mr. McCullough is not—”
“I’m not talking about him, am I?” Kaitlyn says.
And of course, now I realize what she’s saying.
What she’s talking about.
“Mr. Jay,” I say. “But how—?”
“He dated my sister,” Kaitlyn says, eyes fixed on Ms. Dorman.
“Let everyone think he was some wonderful boyfriend. And then, at a party, he raped her. Before she could come forward, he spun a narrative that she was some jealous, crazy bitch to wreck her reputation and make sure no one would ever believe her. I had to watch my older sister fall apart for years after because of that piece of shit.”
Ms. Dorman’s eyes are wide as Kaitlyn continues.
“He made everyone in the school believe they broke up because she was crazy,” she continues. “No one even knew what he did, but everyone saw my sister ‘lose it.’ And no one thought to get her side of the story. No one thought that maybe that asshole was the problem.”
“Kaitlyn,” Ms. Dorman says. “I had no idea about Hadley—”
“Liar,” Kaitlyn says. “She was your student. You saw them together every day, and then you watched her world explode.”
Kaitlyn laughs, cold and rough. “And then you let him come back and teach. You let him around your students. You fed us to a fucking wolf.”
Now Ms. Dorman truly looks like a sheet, like all the blood has been drained from her face.
“I swear,” she says. “This is all news to me. I would never, ever let that happen, Kaitlyn. But if you—”
Kaitlyn laughs, this time a sound so high and startling it pierces the air. And she keeps laughing, freezing Ms. Dorman and me in place until she stops and leans forward, blond braid swishing against her back.
“I didn’t touch that asshole,” she says. “If I had, he would’ve looked far worse.”