The Year of the Great Seventh (5 page)

I wedged in between Nate’s body and the set of lockers into the hallway. “Okay, I’ll choose the place, and don’t worry about me keeping my distance. I’m in for that one,” I said skeptically.

Hanging his backpack on his shoulder, Nate gave me a scrap of paper. “That’s my phone number.”

I stowed the small piece of paper in my pocket, and we went in different directions. I didn’t like that he’d dodged my demand for an explanation on the spot. But the way he tried to protect me from being seen with him made me feel just the smallest amount of empathy. I knew what he’d done to Ethan was unspeakable—there was no excuse for that—but he genuinely seemed to hate himself for it. Maybe he had a convincing explanation for why he acted the way he did.

When I got to the classroom, Ms. Harris had already begun the lecture. I waited outside, peeking through the door window, and when she turned to write on the board, I tiptoed to an empty seat in the last row. Thankfully, the place next to Megan and Emma was taken. I didn’t want them to continue interrogating me about Saturday’s events.

Ms. Harris was reading a passage from
Moby Dick
, but I was incapable of following the lecture. I replayed the encounter with Nate in my mind over and over. What could be troubling mysterious Nate?

I came to realize that regardless of what Nate told me, it was going to be impossible to get out of this situation without any social damage. People said that the high school years were tough, and now I realized that was an understatement.

When I thought things couldn’t get any worse, I spotted Ethan with his bruised face, sitting in the row ahead of me. A chill ran down my spine at the thought of Ethan’s payback plans if he thought it had been my fault. At that moment, he turned to look at me and flashed a sarcastic smile, reminding me that he was up for the task of making my life miserable. I sank down in my seat and imagined that these last few days had been only a bad dream.

*

Later that day when I got home, Dad was relaxing on the living room sofa with his bare feet on the coffee table, watching football and sipping a beer. It was obvious that Mom had gone out and wouldn’t be back for a few hours.

Feeling terrible for interrupting his peaceful time, I said, “Hey, Dad, do you have a few minutes? Well, maybe a bit more…”

I needed an outsider who could leave the drama aside and help me find a solution. Dad was a scientist, and he always analyzed the facts without jumping to a fast conclusion.

“Of course, honey. Let’s go to my office,” Dad answered, switching off the TV and swinging his feet to the floor.

I followed Dad and we sat at his desk across from each other—like a doctor and his patient discussing a diagnosis. I gave him an adult-filtered version of the party, the garden talk, the fight, and the day’s school events, but he didn’t appear surprised by my story.

“I don’t think there’s anything to worry about,” Dad said, swirling a pen on the desk. “People will forget sooner than you expect.”

“Why do you think Nate reacted the way he did?” I asked.

Dad brought his gaze up to look at me. “I have no idea. Maybe he has some problems at home. Why don’t you ask him over tomorrow evening, and perhaps you can discuss whatever is troubling him?”

I wanted an explanation from Nate, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted to help him with his problems or introduce him to my family. This morning he seemed to be worried about what was going to happen to me, but still, I wasn’t sure if he deserved my help after getting me into this.

“I don’t know. Why should I help him after he’s turned my life into mayhem?” Tipping my head back, I sighed.

“Sophie,” he continued in a soft voice, “I’m not defending him, but why shouldn’t you help someone if it’s in your hands?”

It was true that he didn’t deserve my help, but the idea of discovering more about Nate’s unknown life was enough of a driving force.

“Fine, but what about Mom?” I knew if I told her about the fight, she would turn the story into a drama.

“She’ll be out tomorrow evening, too,” Dad replied, winking at me.

“Okay, I’ll ask him over. Thanks, Dad. I’ll be in my room finishing my homework.” I kissed him on the cheek, feeling better after talking to him.

The evening sun sparkled on the floor tiles between piles of clothes. My room appeared to have hosted World War II. An impossible number of shoes were scattered on the floor, my bed sheets were crumpled in a ball, and books were piled on the desk. Ignoring the mess that surrounded me, I slid the windows open to let in the cool breeze.

I lay on the sofa by the window with my legs on the armrest and brought my gaze to the ceiling. After examining the tiny piece of paper carefully folded into quarters, I unfolded it. Nate’s number was written in red ink.

I felt a bit bad for having judged Nate unfairly without having the full set of facts. After all, he’d shown today that maybe he wasn’t the monster I believed him to be. Nate needed to explain what happened before I could formulate my opinion, and there was only one way to discover the truth. I grabbed my cell phone and texted:

You owe me an explanation. Tomorrow, 6 p.m. at my place. Don’t get excited. Dad will be home, watching your moves.

I added my address and then hesitated for a moment before I pressed send.

I changed into a T-shirt and a pair of shorts and lay on my bed, reading my science assignment.

My eyes were closing. I dropped Newcombe’s
Introduction to Biology
on the bed and buried my face in the pillow. When I was about to fall asleep, I heard my cell phone beeping. It was a text message. I grabbed the phone from the night table and saw the word “message” lit up on the screen. I carefully pushed the “read” button, as though by doing so I was activating the launch of a nuclear bomb.

The message read:
I’ll honor my part of the deal, but you have to honor yours. We keep our distance. See you tomorrow. Nate.

Nate had accepted my proposition, and I would soon be able to decipher the finale of this nightmarish episode. I wanted to know what had driven beautiful Nate to morph into a possessed beast.

*

The next evening I got home an hour before Nate was supposed to arrive. I wondered whether he was really going to come.

After changing into a pair of jeans and a T-shirt and letting my hair down, I went to the living room to watch TV with Dad. It was already five past six, and Nate was nowhere to be seen. A car racing up the street caught my attention, and since I was used to Nate speeding into the school parking lot, I sprang to my feet to look through the living room window. My heart sank when I saw an old guy with a ponytail and a blond, plastic-looking woman driving past our house.

“Are you sure he’s coming?” Dad teased, as he realized I was staring out the window.

“Dad, stop it!”

I stood next to the window, looking anxiously out into the street, and all of a sudden I heard another car speeding. A black sports car was driving down the street. My throat contracted when I saw this time it was, in fact, Nate.

The car windows were wide open. Nate’s arm rested on the window frame as he steered the wheel with his other hand. His gaze was focused on the road. His dark brown eyes transmitted a seriousness that could make you tremble. The dolefulness of his expression made the perfect angles of his face more like those of a twenty-five-year-old than a sixteen-year-old.

Nate slowed down and was attentively reading the gate numbers. After finding ours, he came to a halt and parked the car on the street. He switched off the engine, but surprisingly he remained inside the car, staring thoughtfully toward the end of the street. It seemed that he hadn’t decided yet whether he was going to enter the house or drive away.

He was now rubbing his face with his hands as though he was thinking intensely. Then abruptly, he then got out of the car and paced up the driveway. His ragged jeans and white T-shirt emphasized his olive skin and brown eyes.

I realized it was going to be difficult to be objective with the facts when I couldn’t tear my gaze from him. I forced myself to picture Ethan bleeding on the floor to remind myself why Nate was here today, and somehow, it worked.

Nate knocked twice, and before opening the door, I counted down.

“Hi, Nate,” I said, opening the door.

He stared at me for a second with a worried expression and spoke, rushing through each word. “I’m not sure if this is going to help you in any way at all. How about we forget about what happened?”

We stood there gazing at each other. I couldn’t bring myself to utter one single word, and he finally followed with, “Okay, let’s do this. I just want you to know that I warned you.”

I didn’t say anything and began walking toward the living room. I could hear Nate following behind.

“Hey, Dad. This is my fri—” I murmured and quickly corrected. “This is Nate. Do you mind if we use your office?”

Dad replied without moving his gaze away from the TV. “I’m Charles, Sophie’s dad. Sure, you can use my office.”

We went into Dad’s office, closing the door behind us, and sat on the Victorian sofa next to the desk. Nate was silently staring at Dad’s cluttered shelves as though he was internally debating a life-changing decision. He fumbled with the car keys. Nate was an utterly confident person and it was weird seeing him act like this.

“I still don’t understand what the big deal is about Saturday. Ethan provoked me, and I lost my temper. I think that’s all you need to know,” he said.

Nate seemed as uncomfortable as humanly possible. He kept playing nervously with his keys and looking at the coffee table in front of the sofa. After he’d come all this way, I wasn’t going to let him leave without giving me a proper explanation.

“Come on, do you want me to believe that you almost killed Ethan because he grabbed me? I’m not that naïve. You need to tell me what happened.”

He left the car keys on the coffee table and turned to look at me. “Sophie, things aren’t black or white. It’s not that simple.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You just can’t control everything that happens around you,” Nate murmured, beginning to lose his patience.

“Why are you saying that?” I brought my feet to the sofa and turned to face him. “You’re not making any sense.”

Nate was staring directly at me without pronouncing a word. There was something about his dark brown eyes that hypnotized me. I couldn’t bear Nate’s intense gaze, so I spoke, breaking the heavy silence. “I still don’t understand why you almost killed Ethan.”

Without moving his gaze, Nate finally stuttered, “I… sometimes…”

Suddenly, Nate covered his face with his hands and inhaled profoundly. Then he unveiled his grimace as though he couldn’t believe what he was about to do. He spoke briskly, staring at me. “You seem to bring out the worst in me. It’s just your presence that angers me, just like now, and that’s why you need to leave me alone. You stick to your friends, and don’t ever tell anyone we spoke. Do you understand?”

His attitude had changed all of a sudden. He was acting just like the arrogant Nate I’d observed at school. I was speechless. Not in a million years would I have imagined that he could be this cruel.

I wasn’t ready to give up yet, though. I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me. “The first day of school when you looked at me, you saw it too, didn’t you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“The coffins. You felt that suffocating fear. That’s why you looked away.” This was the first time I’d allowed myself to think about it again, and the moment the words left my mouth, I realized how crazy they made me sound.

“You’re insane,” Nate said with disdain.

“I saw the worry in your face. You saw it. Just admit it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nate seemed truly frustrated. He didn’t have a clue what I was talking about. Then it was when I regretted having said anything. Not only did he think I was a loser, but also insane.

“Just leave me alone, okay? I don’t even know you. I don’t even know what I’m doing here. If you ever see me around, pretend I’m invisible.”

He didn’t wait for me to say anything. Before I reacted, he grabbed the car keys, and as simple as that, he walked out of my life. Soon after, I heard the front door slam and the engine of Nate’s car fade away.

I was sitting on the sofa, unable to come to terms with what just happened. I still didn’t have a clue about what happened last Saturday, but I couldn’t care less. I was trying to help him, and this was his way of thanking me. He considered himself a superior race.

How could this be any more embarrassing? Nate Werner had driven to my place only to remind me that I was an insane loser and I should stay away from him. The thought of his friends laughing at me when he told them what he’d done flooded my mind. I had officially committed social suicide.

The truth (even if I didn’t want to recognize it) was that I thought there was a possibility Nate had feelings for me, too. That’s why he’d agreed to meet me at home. But I’d been a fool. Popular guy falls for unknown girl only happened in movies. And I hated myself for having built castles in the sky. Now I was left to deal with the cruel reality; loving him in silence was as far as our relationship would ever go.

A few minutes after Nate left, Dad came into the room, bringing me back from my reverie. “How did it go, Sophie?”

I couldn’t let Dad know Nate came here with only the intention of bringing me down. “I’m not sure,” I said, trying to put my almost nonexistent acting skills to use to control the emotions that rushed through my mind. “He is a bit strange, but I think he’ll be fine.”

Dad knew me too well, and I wasn’t fooling him. At least he realized I wanted to keep Nate’s confession to myself.

He spoke, sitting in his desk chair. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find a way to help him.” Dad turned on the desk lamp and mumbled as though he was talking to himself. “Do you mind moving to the living room? I need to correct some exams.”

“No problem,” I said, walking out of the room.

I went upstairs and hid under the bed covers. I was never going to get over this. I never wanted to go back to that stupid school if it involved having to face Nate and his friends. How could I have been such an idiot? How could I have trusted him? I should’ve known better. It was no secret he was arrogant and thought no one deserved his time. What was I thinking?