Chapter 22. Dahlia
DAHLIA
I look like a frumpy church girl ready for Sunday choir in this maxi dress, not an alluring femme fatale. A short skirt would have been a better choice for this swanky speakeasy. Feels like I’m wearing a blanket around my giraffe legs—my best feature, if I were pressed to name one.
I check my phone. Teddy and his friend Sam should arrive soon.
Sam works for a new stylist who’s getting a lot of buzz. She scored us the guest passes for tonight. But I got here early and managed to get in without one, acting like I knew the guy at the door. Oldest trick in the book. Surprised it worked.
This place has an Austin Powers feel to it and excellent people-watching.
I recognize a few guys at the bar from one of the ad agencies.
No one recognizes me from Falcon. I wear my hair pulled back under a ball cap, the brim low over my eyes, when I’m doing deliveries.
I hate the uniform almost as much as being a delivery person. Can’t knock the steady work, though.
Speaking of ad agencies: Micah could be here. Though something tells me this isn’t his scene, despite the fact that we’ve barely said two words to one another.
My breath stops. I do a double take, blinking. He’s standing with his back to me; still, I’d know him anywhere. The rescuer of my twenty-dollar tip.
He pivots a little.
I sit up straighter, craning my neck. That distinct profile. Like a Roman warrior.
He’s talking to someone. Long, dark hair. He looks away a lot. Maybe he’s not interested.
See me. Come on. See me.
My eyes grow hot, scoring every cell in his body. Turn. Around.
He looks over.
I grin like a Cheshire cat hoping he recognizes me from that morning at Dante’s. The only time we’ve spoken.
He says something to the girl beside him. All at once, two sets of eyes zero in on me.
I drop my drink. Holy crap. It can’t be. This is how you mourn his death?
Shit. I need to stop Teddy from seeing her too. He’ll go ballistic, say something he shouldn’t. Cody’s girlfriend doesn’t know who we are and it needs to stay that way.
Still I can’t tear my eyes away from her.
Her body language gives her away. How she arches her back, throwing her chest at him. Her eyes wide like he’s the best thing on the menu.
Unbelievable. Fresh dirt rests on Cody’s grave and she’s out and about, batting her eyes at another guy—my crush, by the way—like nothing’s happened. A red-hot iron drags down the middle of my back. If I don’t leave now, I’ll wind up doing something stupid.
I’m leaving, Cody. For you. Only for you.
The bullying hit a new level in fifth grade, with me on the receiving end of the popular girls’ social agenda: Kill or be killed.
I attended school in Westchester, one of the wealthiest counties in the state.
My classmates wore designers whose names I couldn’t pronounce and paraded around carrying the latest Macs and iPhones.
My clothes came from donation bins and clothing drives. Homework got done on a school tablet. And it didn’t help that I towered over my entire class thanks to an early growth spurt.
One day, my teacher announced our upcoming field trip needed parent volunteers.
My hand shot up. I planned to ask Silas, the director at St. Ignatius, a church in Westchester that worked with the Department of Social Services. He was the only adult in my life I trusted.
Seated a row behind me, Stacey Whittaker, with her dip-dyed hair and low-rise jeans, sneered through her braces, “Put your hand back down. You don’t got parents, trash.”
Kids around me began chanting trash under their breath, each one cutting the hole in me deeper.
I told Cody about it later, walking home from choir practice, choking back tears.
“Dahl, quit being jealous of jerks like Stacey.” He flung his arm around me. “Her family probably sucks. Not like us. You, Teddy, and I got to choose our family.”
In foster care, you could have more than one placement in any given year. It’s hard to get close to people when they’re mainly there to help out and not interested in being your parent or sibling.
Cody and Teddy understood this.
“I’m tired of kids and teachers treating me like I’m some poor orphan. Why do we have to keep paying for the bad stuff our parents did? We’re not them.” I jumped on the little black fencing around one of the trees, flattening it into the dirt.
Cody stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, watching me grunt and wipe the sweat from my forehead as I put the fencing back up.
“Change the line, change your life, Dahl. You’re better than all of these losers.
One day we’ll do great things. No one will care where we came from, and everyone will know our names.
” Wearing a grin, he created a rainbow with his hand as if onstage, his eyes beaming at the audience seated in the balcony.
“We’re like soaring stars, bright and bold, lighting up the night sky.
Imagine it. Creating our own Hollywood marquee in the stars! ”
He always found a way to weave in his dream of stardom with telling me how special I was.
Cruel memories of Cody’s last night crash through my head in vivid detail after I see Brynn with Micah. My brother’s face. The things he said. The unforgivable thing I did, killing all three of them. The lie I choke on every day.
I scan the street outside the Electric Room, unable to get my feet to move.
Teddy, where are you? I can’t do this again.
The night of Cody’s death, Silas went into protector mode. He told me to factory reset Cody’s phone to erase all data and uninstall his apps before disposing of it so the Elmsford police couldn’t trace us back to the accident. They’ll never believe people like you, he said. That’s how it is.
But I vowed to myself to never do what Silas asked; I could never erase Cody.
So I kept his phone intact. Pictures, videos, everything. And I’ve kept it tucked away these past seven months.
His phone could change everything—if only I had the guts, which I don’t.
In the right hands, it would rewrite the facts about that night and implicate Teddy and me.
I could never do that to him. They would separate us.
I’d go to jail and lose Teddy forever. People would call me a stupid girl who followed her brother blindly because she didn’t possess a backbone. And they’d be right.
They’ll never believe people like you. That’s how it is.
I stop short, blinking at the sight of our third-floor walk-up in Hell’s Kitchen. I couldn’t tell you how I walked home; the last thirty minutes feel like a blur.
I pace in a tight circle through wafts of fried chicken—courtesy of Sticky’s Finger Joint, which occupies the first floor of our building—my jaw cramped from all the clenching. My legs ache with adrenaline.
What if Micah sleeps with her tonight?
I scrounge through my purse for the Nicorette and settle on a cherry cough drop. Cherries and fried chicken. Yuck. I sigh and head upstairs.
Teddy and I turned our small apartment into a home with thrift-store finds and second-hand instruments: my two acoustic guitars (mine plus Cody’s), a crackling old amp, Teddy’s drum pad with the one good side, and the keyboard he uses for composing.
What if he and Brynn start hanging out . . . like, a lot?
I change into a tank and shorts and check my phone. Nothing from Teddy. I move his keyboard off the futon that converts into his bed. I sit. I pop back up.
Brynn will go through him like she did Cody. Micah doesn’t know her capacity for evil.
They’ll never believe people like you. Silas’s words gnaw at me like a rock in my shoe. Make me feel more like a pariah than I already do. I know he wants to protect us. But if they’ll never believe us, how can we believe in ourselves? I wish I had a fraction of Cody’s optimism.
CHANGE THE LINE, CHANGE YOUR LIFE . . . Cody’s words, written in red on the side of my amp. I use them for inspiration when I’m writing songs.
Change the line.
Change the line.
Change the damn line!
They’ll never believe people like us if we don’t believe in ourselves.
Isn’t that what they teach us, to believe in ourselves?
I replay the new phrase in my head. Like a new lyric that excites me, its rhythm beats stronger in my chest with every repetition.
I whisper the phrase aloud, letting it settle on my tongue.
I cup my mouth like a megaphone and repeat the words, drowning out the street sounds below.
My pulse quickens like it does when I’m onstage, ready to strike that first chord. I want to turn up the volume on my life. That’s how it is no longer works.
I raise the window and step out onto the fire escape. “They’ll never believe people like us if we don’t believe in ourselves!”
The rush of cars, sirens, and voices echoing from the street swirl together in agreement. I lift my chin and chest to the night sky, my arms spread like Supergirl.
A shooting star. I gasp.
A sob sticks in my throat. “I miss you so much, Cody.” I lay both hands over my strumming heart. “Thank you, brother. Thank you.”
Fifth-grade Stacey silenced me by calling me trash.
Silas told us to stay silent, to erase our part in and all evidence from that night. While Brynn slithers up to the next guy . . . ready to spread her venom.
I’m done being silenced.