JAMIE WAS TUGGING MY ARM

out of its socket as he rushed me up the stairs. My heart was pounding in my chest. When we were finally outside, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I needed to calm down. But then I realized something.

“We have to go back,” I said.

He shook his head vehemently. “No, Mara.”

“We left the food.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. Then he hailed a cab, threw me in, and actually paid for the ride with cash he’d gotten from who knew where. Once back on the Upper West Side, he unlocked the door to his aunt’s house and we walked in just as Stella was ascending the stairs. Her face was tear-streaked and pale. She took a step back down, toward us.

“How could you do that?” she asked me.

She didn’t need to be specific. I knew what she meant. “They deserved it.”

She walked calmly down the rest of the steps until she stood at the bottom of the stairs facing me. I didn’t see the slap coming before I felt it across my face.

“Fuck! Jesus, Stella, what is wrong with you?” I asked her.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“The world would be a better place without them,” I said, holding my cheek.

“You don’t know that,” Stella said. “People change.”

I shook my head slowly. “No. No, they don’t. We are what we are.”

“Why all the shouting?” Daniel said, as he descended the stairs. He looked back and forth between me and Stella. “What happened?”

“There was . . . an incident,” Jamie said.

“You don’t feel guilty at all, do you?” Stella shouted, her hands balled into fists at her sides.

“For scaring them?”

“For torturing them,” she said.

No. I didn’t feel guilty. I was tired of feeling ashamed for the things I thought and wanted. “I’ve evolved,” I said.

Her jaw tightened, and she brushed past my brother on the stairs, bumping his shoulder as she climbed them. Then, halfway up, she turned to the three of us and said, “I thought we were better than this. I thought we were the good guys.”

Everyone was silent, until Jamie said quietly, “None of us ever claimed to be the good guys.”

Daniel’s brow furrowed. “I’m a good guy,” my brother said.

But you’re not one of us, I thought.

Daniel followed Stella back up the stairs, probably to find out what had actually happened this afternoon. I wasn’t entirely sure what she’d say, but I was entirely sure that I didn’t want to hear it. And I didn’t want to think about Daniel hearing it.

I sat down in the living room, toed off my shoes, and I looked at my reflection in the flatscreen TV. My face was blank like an empty plate. I caught a flash of movement behind me and turned. Jamie leaned against the door frame. He didn’t speak.

“Are you mad at me too?” My voice sounded dead.

“Mad at you?” He seemed surprised by the question. “No,” he finally said. “I’m not mad at you.”

But he was still standing there, looking at me in a way I couldn’t describe but didn’t like. “Then what?”

“I’m scared of you,” he said, and left the room.

Date: 2015-01-29; view: 650