Burning Blue

“I think Sam was crushing on you,” Nicole said.

“Sure she was.”

“You could have your pick of those girls.”

“Do you think Chrissie could have done it? Attacked you, I mean. Maybe she was just sick and tired of being number two to you all the time?”

“No,” Nicole said. “It wasn’t Chrissie. I’m sure.”

“How?” I said.

Her phone buzzed. She checked it. “David.”

Something flashed from the corner of the parking lot, then another flash, stinging white light. I recognized the car: Shane Puglisi’s battered old Honda. I headed for it, but he peeled out before I even got close.

No way I wasn’t in that shot. Dave Bendix was about to see me hanging with Nicole. Puglisi would make me seem to be doing more than walking Nicole to her car.

Nicole was sullen. “I wasn’t followed. I’m positive. How do they find me?”

“Seriously, you’re good with secrets?”

“Promise.”

I grabbed her phone and popped the back off of it with my Swiss Army knife.

“Okay, what are you doing?” she said.

“Tweaking your bandwidth, governor.”

“You’re clipping him.”

“Now I’m disabling your GPS.”

“I have it turned off.”

“You think you have it turned off. It’s only off when the phone is off, and even then the CIA is rumored to have a satellite that scans quiet drives for machine numbers. I don’t think this will keep the tabloids off you entirely, but it’ll be harder for them. Now you’re like me: invisible.”

“I wish. The boy reconfigures my phone in a parking lot. Scary.”

“That was messed up, what Chrissie said.”

“I’m letting it in one ear and out the other.”

A black Mercedes pulled up. Nicole relaxed when she saw who was inside, a dour-looking woman in her fifties. “Thought you were Mom for a sec,” Nicole said.

“She called the club,” the woman said. “They said you were here. Let’s go, Nicoletta. You follow me. Or better yet, I’ll follow you.”

“I have to drive Jay home. Jay, sorry, this is Sylvia. Sylvia, Jay.”

The woman gave me mean eyes and half a grunt. Then, to Nicole: “Now, Nicole. Dinner is on the table, and then you have to talk to the doctor.”

“I’ll grab the bus,” I said. “Have to go to the Apple Store anyway.” I walked her to her car.

“My turn to come clean,” she said. “Back inside, when you said to Chrissie, ‘Why would she ruin herself?’ The word ruin? It hurt.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. I meant like ruin your life. I’m making this worse.”

“I know what you meant.” She gave me a quick hug and got into her car and drove away. Sylvia gave me a glare before following after Nicole. I wondered if Nicole was even allowed to drive now that one of her eyes was ruined-compromised, rather.

I felt somewhere between uneasy and frightened. That Nicole had ruled out Chrissie so easily was, frankly, odd. In fact, she seemed not to be interested at all in talking about who the attacker might have been. Was this her way of coping, total denial? Was she afraid to find out who had burned her? A chilling thought flashed my mind and took root before I could suppress it: Did she know who the attacker was, and she was protecting him?

By the time I got home, Shane Puglisi’s shot was on the ’net with more of that Burned Beauty’s Beau garbage for a headline. Somebody’s headlights had saved me, casting me in silhouette. Not that this mattered. The minute Sam and the rest of the team rolled into the East Side Tennis Club, Dave Bendix was sure to have gotten word I was hanging courtside with his girlfriend. If he confronted me, I’d simply tell him the truth: Nothing was going on. Nicole and I were friends, like she said, end of story. She had my back, I had hers. I revved up my laptops and started digging, not even close to knowing just how deep into darkness I would have to go to find out who burned Nicole Castro.

TWENTY-FOUR

From Nicole’s journal:

Tuesday, 26 October-

Nye: “How do you feel about what Chrissie said?”

Me: “How would you feel if somebody accused you of burning yourself?”

Nye: “Have you ever wanted to hurt yourself?”

Me: “Have I ever wanted to hurt myself? No. Never. What possible motivation would I have? Do you really think I did this to myself?”

Nye sits there, reptilian in his stillness and as barren of warmth as the surface of the Moon, staring at me.

Nye: “You’re under a remarkable amount of pressure. You’re the go-to person for your peers. You’re deeply empathic. You assume a great deal of others’ pain and, by your own admission, internalize it. It would be understandable if you were feeling a need to let that pain bubble to the surface. Add to that your parents’ separation-”

Me: “Dr. Nye. I. Did not. Burn myself.”

Nye: “I believe you. My question was merely in regard to any inclination you might or might not have to injure yourself. If you ever do feel such an impulse-”

Me: “I don’t.”

He blinks. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen him blink. I excuse myself to the bathroom to catch my breath.

Skype session w Dad weird. He keeps asking me about David. I can’t bring myself to tell him about David’s asking me to lie for him. Three times now, he has asked. Begged. I wanted to scream, “Nobody thinks you did it, Dave. You’re being paranoid. You have no motive. Relax.”

Lying on my bed, picking at a scab. I’m a drone, painkiller makes the blankets feel too heavy, except I’m not under the blankets. How many days of rain have we had? Everything is slowing down. Out the bay window the wind bends the trees down, down, the branches creaking without relief, a deepening growl in the air. The rain isn’t falling. It’s floating, but not in a benign way. I see individual drops. They’re bigger than I’d imagined, rounder, fine-milled buckshot.

All I used to think about was the future. It was bright, shiny. But after the burn, thinking about the future feels wrong in some way, an abstract sin. Is it bad to dream of myself as I was before? To dream I’m hanging with Jay and Emma and maybe Marisol and Sam, before I was The Girl Who Had Acid Thrown in Her Face; we’re all at the beach, playing volleyball, glittering waves, the faint taste of salt and smiling and no sunburn, no bandages, no being stuck for the rest of my life in my room, my bathroom, staring at It?

Staring at the donor site this past Saturday as the surgeon removes the stitches. Me: “Why are they purple?”

Doc shrugs as he tugs the stitches from my hip: “Why not?”

Mom glares at him.

Doc: “How’s the case going? Police any closer to finding out who did it to her?”

Mom slaps the examination table. “Could you not be so cavalier? You’re not rehashing the latest CSI episode at the watercooler. She’s right here in front of you. She’s right here. You will acknowledge my daughter’s presence, Doctor. Or else we’ll just have to get another surgeon. There are plenty of you out there, but there’s only one Nicole. And you will respect her. Are you clear on that?”