Heartbeat. Elizabeth Scott

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      Olivia sold the car—through the one newspaper left in the area, which is basically just ads—and bought a used car. It’s so old all it has is a CD player and a radio. We bought CDs at yard sales for a while, but all we could get was old music, which we both hate, and the radio is just people telling you that what they think is what you should think, so we mostly just drive around in silence.

      It used to bother me sometimes but now I like it. The inside of my head is so full now that silence is...I don’t know. There’s just something about knowing Olivia is there, and that we don’t have to talk. That she gets it. Gets me and what’s going on.

      Her parents were unhappy about the car, though. Really unhappy, actually, but then there was a big crisis with one of their server farms at work and by the time they surfaced for air they hadn’t slept in four days. And when they said, “Olivia, that car was a gift,” she said, “Yes, it was. A gift, meaning something freely given, for the recipient to use as she wanted to, right?”

      As we hit her locker, we pass Anthony, and he says, “Ladies,” bowing in my direction. A real bow too, like it’s the nineteenth century or something.

      “Ass,” Olivia says.

      “A donkey is actually not as stupid as people believe. However, you are entitled to your own beliefs about asses. And me.” He looks at me. “Hello, Emma.”

      I sigh. “Hi, Anthony.”

      “If you ever want to talk about your grades, do know that I’m here.”

      I can’t believe I ever thought the way he talked was interesting. It’s just stupid, like he’s too good to speak like a normal person. “I know, Anthony.”

      “I really would like to be of assistance to you. I believe in helping everyone. I’m talking to Zara Johns later. I think she feels threatened by the fact that I’ve been asked to help her organize the next school blood drive.” Translation: he’s butted in, and Zara’s furious.

      “Either that or she just doesn’t like you. Emma, let’s go,” Olivia says, slamming her locker shut, and we head for mine.

      “You okay?” she says, and I nod. Anthony doesn’t bother me at all anymore, just like Mom said would happen. I look at him and feel nothing. Well, some annoyance, but then, who wouldn’t after listening to him talk?

      Of course, I didn’t always think that he was annoying. I open my locker, deciding not to go down the Anthony road, and hear the guy next to me say, “No way! I mean, everyone knows what’ll happen to Caleb if he steals another car.”

      Olivia and I glance at each other. If Anthony is the ass end of the smart part of the school, Caleb Harrison is the ass end of the stupid part. He’s a total druggie and three years ago, when we were freshmen, he came to school so high he couldn’t even talk. I heard that stopped last year, but then, as soon as school got out, his parents sent him off to some “tough love camp,” which is rich-people code for boot-camp rehab.

      He came back seemingly off drugs but newly into stealing cars. He started by grabbing them at the mall and parking them in a different spot, but then he stole a teacher’s car.

      And then he graduated to a school bus. It was empty at the time, but still, I heard that got him a couple of weeks in juvie, or would have except for his parents, who intervened. I guess now he’s taken yet another step forward and by lunchtime, I know what Caleb stole.

      His father’s brand-new, limited-edition Porsche. And he didn’t just steal it. He drove it into the lake over by the park, drove right off the highway and into the water. The police found him sitting on the lake’s edge, watching the car sink. They were able to pull it out, but water apparently isn’t good for the inside of a Porsche.

      “You think he’ll go to jail this time?” Olivia asks as we sit picking at our lunches. I love that we have lunch together this semester, but it’s the first lunch block, and it’s hard to face food—especially cafeteria food—at 10:20 in the morning.

      “I guess it depends on his parents,” I say. “Last time they talked to the judge or whatever. They’ll probably just ship him off again. He must hate them, though.”

      “Yeah. To sit by the lake and watch the car sink like that—”

      “Exactly.”

      “Even when my parents are sucking their lives away with all their computer crap, I’d never do anything like mess with their stuff,” she says. “How can you hate someone who raised you, who loves you so—” She breaks off.

      “Dan didn’t raise me,” I say tightly. “And he doesn’t love me. Or Mom.”

      Olivia nods and I think about hate. I understand what can make someone do what Caleb did, although I don’t think a bored, rich druggie really gets hate. Not real hate.

      I do, though. If there were something I could do to Dan that would hurt him, I’d do it.

      4

      The rest of school is like school always is. I sit, I pretend to listen, avoid my AP History teacher’s attempt to try to talk to me after class and wait for the final bell to ring.

      I used to like school. I was the person—along with Anthony—who got A’s on everything and so wrecked any possible grading curve. I did extra credit assignments for fun. I went out and did research about authors we were going to read. I learned about minor historical figures we’d discussed in passing.

      Last summer, I audited a biology class at the community college to make sure everything I’d learned in Advanced Bio stayed in my head. I was going to do the same thing with chemistry this summer, and maybe something in literature too.

      I was a great student. The kind of student everyone hates, actually. I didn’t make friends in my classes, I had acquaintances that I blew away at everything, but I didn’t care. I wanted great grades, the best grades, and I had Olivia, who was in regular classes and who knew there was a list of the top one hundred colleges out there but had no idea which was number one. Or eight. Or forty.

      I knew what the number one school was, and I knew I couldn’t go there because one year of tuition cost an amount that was enough to support a family (or possibly two) for that year and they were stingy with scholarships, but I wanted a scholarship to one in the top ten. I wanted to be the best, not just for the scholarship I’d need to go to a great college, but because I could be.

      A lot of the time, I was. The best, I mean.

      At school, anyway. Personally, my social life was...well, it was pretty poor. A few kisses at a few parties. Anthony.

      Very poor, really.

      I didn’t mind. My dad—my real dad—was a history professor, and I wanted to be like him. Ever since I was little, that’s what I wanted. To be what my dad was. To see my mother’s face when I got my PhD in history.

      I don’t care about school at all now. I sit in class and if I get called on, I say, “I don’t know.” I don’t do my homework and the leeway I got at first is gone. I’m getting F’s on quizzes. On tests. I’m still ignored by my classmates, but now it’s because I’ve fallen so far behind I’ll never get back to where СКАЧАТЬ