Chapter Two #3
That night, lying in the dark and looking up at the ceiling, I’m not sure the sugar and caffeine I’ve gulped will be enough.
There is no way they’ll ever let me back into Wallingford if I sleepwalk again, so I don’t want to risk dozing off.
I can hear the dog outside the door, its toenails clicking across the wood planks of the hallway before it settles into a new spot with a soft thud.
I keep thinking about Philip. I keep thinking about how, unlike Barron, he hasn’t looked me in the eyes since I was fourteen. He never even lets me play with his son. Now I am going to have to stay in a house with him until I can figure my way back to school.
“Hey,” Sam says from the other bed. “You’re creeping me out, staring at the ceiling like that. You look dead. Unblinking.”
“I’m blinking.” I keep my voice low. “I don’t want to fall asleep.”
He rustles his covers, turning onto his side. “How come? You afraid you’re going to—”
“Yeah,” I say.
“Oh.” I’m glad I can’t see his expression in the darkness.
“What if you did something so terrible that you didn’t want to face anyone who knew about it?” My voice is so soft that I’m not even sure he can hear me. I don’t know what made me say it. I never talk about stuff like that, and certainly not with Sam.
“You did try to kill yourself?”
I guess I should have seen that coming, but I didn’t. “No,” I say. “Honest.”
I imagine him weighing possible responses, and I wish I could take back the question. “Okay. This terrible thing. Why did I do it?” he asks finally.
“You don’t know,” I say.
“That doesn’t make sense. How can I not know?
” The way we’re talking reminds me of one of Sam’s games.
You reach a crossroads and there’s a small twisty path going toward the mountains.
The wide path seems to run in the direction of town.
Which way do you go? Like I’m a character he’s trying to play and he doesn’t like the rules.
“You just don’t. That’s the worst part. It’s not something you want to believe you’d ever do. But you did.” I don’t like the rules either.
Sam leans back against the pillows. “I guess I’d start with that. There must be a reason. If you don’t figure out why, you’ll probably do it again.”
I stare up into the darkness and wish that I wasn’t so tired. “It’s hard to be a good person,” I say. “Because I already know I’m not.”
“Sometimes,” Sam says, “I can’t tell when you’re lying.”
“I never lie,” I lie.
* * *
After not sleeping all night, I’m pretty dazed in the morning.
When Valerio bangs on the door, I answer, fresh from a cold shower that jolted me awake enough to put on some clothes.
He looks relieved to find me alive and in my room.
Next to Valerio stands my brother Philip.
His expensive mirrored sunglasses are pushed up onto his slicked-back hair, and a gold watch flashes on his wrist. Philip’s tanned skin makes his teeth look whiter when he smiles.
“Mr. Sharpe, the board of trustees talked to the school’s legal team, and they want me to communicate to you that if you want to come back to school, you need to be evaluated by a physician, and that physician must be able to assure the school that nothing like the incident that took place the night before last will happen again. Do you understand me?”
I open my mouth to say that I do, but my brother’s gloved hand on my arm stops me.
“You ready?” Philip asks lightly, still smiling.
I shake my head, gesturing around me at the lack of any bags, the scattered schoolbooks, the unmade bed. Yeah, sure, Philip has finally shown up, but it would be nice if he’d asked me if I’m all right. I almost fell off a roof. Clearly something is wrong with me.
“Need some help?” Philip offers, and I wonder if Valerio notices the edge in his voice. In the Sharpe family the worst thing you can do is be vulnerable in front of a mark. And everyone who isn’t us is a mark.
“I’m good,” I say, grabbing a canvas bag out of the closet.
Philip turns to Valerio. “I really appreciate you looking after my brother.”
This so surprises the hall master that, for a moment, he doesn’t seem to know what to say. I guess that few people consider calling the local volunteer firemen to drag a kid off a roof as great care. “We were all shocked when—”
“The important thing,” Philip interrupts smoothly, “is that he’s okay.”
I roll my eyes as I shove stuff into the bag—dirty clothes, iPod, books, homework stuff, my little glass cat, a flash drive I keep all my reports on—and try to ignore their conversation. I’m just going to be gone a couple of days. I don’t need much.
On the way out to the car, Philip turns to me. “How could you be so stupid?
I shrug, stung in spite of myself. “I thought I grew out of it.”
Philip pulls out his key fob and presses the remote to unlock his Mercedes. I slide into the passenger side, brushing coffee cups off the seat and onto the floor mat, where crumpled printouts from MapQuest soak up any spilled liquid.
“I hope you mean sleepwalking,” Philip says, “since you obviously didn’t grow out of stupid.”