Page 4 of Revenge At Raleigh High
The next hour is hell. Alone, I walk barefoot to the end of the driveway and wait for the Uber I order on my phone. The driver thinks I’m drunk and nearly doesn’t let me in the car. He threatens me with extortionate cleaning bills if I throw up, but finally drives me across Raleigh to the pharmacy on the high street. Just as Sam said it would be, Dillinger’s store front is lit up, the only business besides the gas station that’s still open at three a.m. on a Friday night.
The Uber guy knows I’m not drunk now. He’s actually kind of concerned for me, I think. “You want me to wait for you, kid?”
I haven’t even looked at him once. I’ve sat on the backseat, vibrating with terror because I’ve managed to trap myself in such a small space, alone with a man. “No, I’ll be fine. Thank you.” My legs threaten to ditch me in the gutter when I climb out of the car. It takes some convincing, but I manage to talk them into keeping me upright.
The Uber driver’s window buzzes down. A face appears there, but still I don’t look at him. “I’d prefer to see you walk through your front door if it’s all the same to you,” he says. “My name’s Harry. I got a daughter your age. I’d feel like a shit father if I didn’t make sure you got back safely. Looks like you’ve had a bit of a tough night.”
A tough night…
I try and think of an adequate word to describe just how tough tonight has been, but I don’t think the English language harbors a word brutal enough. It is possible to walk home from town, but it’d would be a miserable hike with no shoes, feeling like my world has just ended. I could call for another Uber, but chances are high the next driver will also be a guy, and maybe next time that driver won’t be so concerned about my wellbeing. Maybe he’ll see me as an opportunity and take advantage. I am so, so fucking tired. “Okay. I won’t be a minute.”
The lights inside Dillinger’s Pharmacy are too bright. A strong medical, herbal smell hits me as soon as I walk in, making my head spin. The dress shirt I stole from Mr. Wickman’s laundry basket has an ink blot above the left-hand breast pocket that’s shaped almost like a crescent moon. I dab at it self-consciously—ridiculous, since I’m naked underneath the shirt and the material barely hits me mid-thigh. Not to mention my face is still stained with the remnants of my mascara, I’m covered in blood, and my feet are absolutely filthy.
The woman behind the counter sees me and stops dead, a phone handset half raised to her ear. “Sweet Mary, Mother of God,” she breathes. “What on earth’s happened to you, child?” She’s in her fifties. Blonde hair, greying at her temples. Short. A little stocky. Not a lick of makeup on her face. Her eyebrows are out of control. I can’t seem to stop noticing the details of her. When I get close enough, arriving at the counter, I smell her—talcum powder and Altoids—and I almost burst into tears. I don’t even know why.
“Dear, is everything all right?” She puts the phone’s handset back in its cradle. “You look like you’ve been in the wars.”
“I—” My voice breaks. I have to clear my throat. “I need…the morning after…”
The woman’s face leeches of all color. Her facial muscles relax in the weirdest way, like when an actor in a film pretends to die and everything about them just sags. She braces herself against the counter, steadying herself for a second. Then she reaches out for me and takes my hand. “Why don’t you take a seat by the cough medicine over there, sweetheart. I think I should probably call the police.”
“No! No. I just want the get what I came in here for and go home. I—” My throat’s closing up. No matter how hard I try to speak, I can’t seem to get the words out. The pharmacy clerk wobbles, the edges of her distorting strangely. I think I’m going to pass out, but then I realize that I’m crying. “I just…I want to go home.”
“Okay, okay. Dear Lord in Heaven, help me,” the woman mutters. She lets go of me long enough to hurry down one of the narrow shelves behind her, stand on her tiptoes, and retrieve the correct box. She places it gingerly down between us, looking ten years older than she did when I walked in here a few moments ago.
“Can you—will you open it?” I ask stiffly. The box is sealed in thick plastic, the kind they package razor blades in. You always need a pair of scissors to get through that stuff. I have no hope of ripping into it with my teeth. The woman peers at me from beneath tightly banked brows.
“Don’t you want to wait until you get home, sweethear—”
“No.”
She nods, her hands moving quickly as she produces a boxcutter from the pocket of her white jacket and deftly slices through the thick plastic. She removes the box from its casing and hands it to me. I can hardly hold the damn thing still as I fumble to get it open. It takes three attempts to rip the cardboard tab up, and then another two tries to successfully tug the sealed blister pack that contains the one tiny pill free from inside.
“Here, let me get you some water.”
I don’t wait for water. I pop the metal foil on the back of plastic sheet, thumbing the pill free from the other side, and I throw it back as quickly as I can, swallowing hard.
I walk out of the pharmacy without another word.
It isn’t until I’m home, sliding my key into the front door, creeping my way up to my bedroom, desperate not to wake Mom and Dad, that I realize I didn’t even pay for the pill.
A distant siren wails, setting me on edge as I retreat from the waking nightmare. I’m back in the cemetery, back in the freezing cold, staring down at Samuel Hawthorne’s grave. It’s all still so fucking fresh in my mind. It feels like it happened yesterday. Sometimes, it’s as though no time at all has passed and I’m still stuck inside my own paralyzed body outside that window, looking in, unable to move or turn away as I watch my friends turn against me.
“What the hell did you say to her, hmm?” I whisper at the headstone. “What the fuck did you say to Kacey to make her react that way?”
I’ve been asking myself that question for a very long time now. It must have been bad. Really fucking bad. I asked Kacey once, in the days after the party, and she’d spat in my face.Literally.
From his cold, lonely grave, Samuel Hawthorne refuses to confess his secrets.
I sigh, setting the bag down that I’ve been holding onto tight this entire time. Metal clanks on metal as I unzip the top of it, taking out a chisel and a hammer from inside. Dad’s tools, borrowed from the garage. Most of his time’s spent in front of a drafting desk these days, but back when he was in college he took a stone masonry class. He’s been promising himself that he’ll get back into it at some point, but so far he hasn’t had the time.
I have no idea how to use the chisel and the striking tool I’ve taken out of the bag, but I understand the general premise. Plant the chisel. Hit the chisel. Leave a mark.
I get to work.
It’s more difficult than I imagine it would be, but twenty minutes later I achieve what I set out to accomplish. My stone working skills leave a lot to be desired, but the word I’ve chipped deep into Sam Hawthorne’s headstone is perfectly legible.
Devoted Son.
