Whatever Doesn't Kill You (17 page)

I'm reeling, feeling faint. I put my head down on the table to stop it from spinning, staring down at the scratched-up laminate because it feels like I'm going to pass out if I get one more piece of information right now.
It serves you right,
I can hear Simon's voice saying in my head.
You're the one who wanted answers. Now you've got
them: what are you going to do next?

“Jenna?” Travis puts his hand on my shoulder, gently, tentatively, like he's not real used to touching other people. “Jenna, are you okay?”

I lift my head to glare back at him, my eyes stinging with tears. “Yeah. Yeah, I'm just great. How else would I be?” I take a swig of my hot chocolate, which has finally dropped below the temperature of molten lava, and push it away from me. “Listen, Travis, thanks for the talk, but I really have to get going.”

I try to push my chair back, then realize it's the kind of chair that's bolted to the floor, so instead of the suave exit I was going for, I wind up looking like I'm having some kind of spasm. I've been fighting back the tears the whole time Travis has been talking, chewing my lower lip until I taste blood. Now, though, I utterly lose it, and I start to sob uncontrollably. I can't remember the last time I cried, and it feels…painful. Awkward. I can feel everyone in the restaurant turning to stare at me.

“Jenna, look, I'm really sorry…”

But I don't let him finish. I don't care if he's sorry. No, that's not true. I'm glad he's sorry. He's as sorry as a person can be, I guess. You don't get much sorrier than Travis Bingham. But somehow that seems irrelevant to me now.

I slide out of my chair, a little more gracefully this time, and stumble out of the Tim Hortons. The girl behind the counter gets a look at me, mouths “Are you okay?” as I pass by. I nod, snotty-nosed and bleary-eyed, and step out into the dark, freezing cold of the parking lot.

I stand in the bus shelter, which at least slows down the wind, and pull my cell phone out of my pocket. I angle it back and forth in the light from the streetlamp across the street, trying frantically to find Ashley's number in my directory. I can't go home right now, now that I know Simon is the one responsible for everything I'd always blamed on Travis Bingham. Even if my dad was as bad as Travis said, or worse, what the hell am I going to say to Simon now? I need a friendly place to fall, and since I seem to be running low on those lately, Ashley is my only option at the moment.

It occurs to me that, although she's been to my apartment, I don't have the faintest clue where she lives. Even if I wanted to just show up on her doorstep out of the blue, I wouldn't be able to. I scroll through the few numbers on my list: Griffin's cell, Griffin's home, Katie's cell, Katie's home, Marie-Claire's home—she's the only person I know who doesn't have a cell. I've gone through the list three times before I realize Ashley's number isn't there. Damn it! I think hard: when did we exchange numbers, anyway? It was after gym class a couple of days ago, mine scrawled hastily and hers etched neatly in big, round, girly writing on one of those pamphlets they have sitting in a little plastic display attached to the wall outside the girls' change room—
Sexually Transmitted Infections and You
or
What You Need
To Know About Illegal Drugs and Alcohol
or
Pregnant?
Need To Talk?
or something equally distressing. I tucked the half of the pamphlet with Ashley's number into the outside pocket of my backpack and…left it there. And my backpack is at home, sitting in the front hall of my apartment, exactly where I don't want to—where I
can't
be right now.

I catch the next bus that comes by, not even caring where it's going. It's one of the long, bendy buses that looks like it's got a big accordion in the middle. I flash the driver my bus pass and find a seat about three-quarters of the way back. I sit sideways on the seat, tilting my head back so the top of my skull is pressed up against the window as hard as it can be. It feels like my head is going to explode, and the pressure from the window seems to help, at least for a minute or two.

I've never been on this bus route before, and once we get off the main drag, I don't recognize anything. This part of town looks like a whole different world from the one I live in. There are vast expanses of parkland, and half-built houses that look like mansions compared to our old family home on Province Street. I think about all the perfect little families that will move into them, living their perfect little lives. I feel like a spy in a foreign country, but now I'm a spy without a mission. I've tracked down my target; I've completed my task, and all I feel is…empty. Now what do I do?

The bus stops here and there, letting one or two people off or on at a stop. I'm used to seeing the hordes of lost souls that wait in the shelters along the B-Line to cram aboard, so it's weird to see so few people taking the bus. I guess all those double garages are full of
SUV
s and minivans, so nobody needs public transportation up here.

I ride the entire way around the route, finally coming back to the bus shelter by the Tim Hortons where I first got on. The bus stops, lets off a woman in a brown visor who looks like she's starting her shift at Timmy's. I think about getting off, but I can't think where else to go. I stay on the bus for a long time, and finally the driver pulls over at a stop and comes back to talk to me.

“You okay, sweetheart? You know where you're going?”

I blink, startled. “Uh, yeah. No. I…um…” Can't think of a good lie. “I thought this bus went back downtown.”

He's an old guy—grandfatherly, I guess. Not that I would know. My dad left all his family back in Ireland when he came to Canada, and my mom's parents were both dead before I was born. “Not this one, honey. Come sit up at the front; I'll tell you where to get off to transfer.”

“Okay.” My voice sounds very small. “Thanks.”

He directs me off the #44 and onto the #11, down Parkdale and back into familiar territory. The intersection where I get off is shared by an adult video store and an elementary school. I stand with my arms crossed for a minute, hands tucked under my arms to warm them up, before I head across the street to catch the #3. I have to wait for a few minutes, wondering if I'm really heading in the right direction. But with no money and no place else to go, I don't really have much choice. My heart is racing as the bus pulls up and I step aboard.

“Cold night,” says the driver, a heavyset woman with thick glasses. I pull out my bus pass again, fingers stiff from the cold.

“It sure is.”

I catch a glimpse of myself in the driver's mirror as I take a seat near the front of the bus. I look like a wreck: hair tangled from the wind, my eyes red and bleary. I'm the only one on the bus except for an emo-looking kid sitting right at the back, with an army-green toque pushing out bangs so long you can't see his eyes. He's got his iPod turned up so loud I can hear the bass line from the front of the bus. He's bopping his head along with the beat, not a care in the world.

I tug the cord and the
Next Stop
light at the front of the bus turns on. I step out into the cold and look around, checking for crazies. There's a homeless guy down the block, shuffling up and down the sidewalk in front of a discount muffler place, mumbling to himself, but he looks mostly harmless. I'm not going that far anyway. I cross the street and climb the steps to the crooked old white house that has been my second home since I was about five years old. It looks more foreboding than it ever has before, and I've never been so nervous about knocking on the door. But it's this or freeze to death out here, and both options seem more viable than going home right now. I have to knock a couple of times before I hear footsteps on the stairs, and I wonder if anyone is even going to open the door. It's not like they're expecting me, after all.

“Who's there?” asks a voice through the door.

“Ms. Quinn? Is Katie here?”

“Oh, Jenna.” She sounds relieved. I wonder if the guy down by the muffler place has been wandering around for long enough to have freaked her out. “Katie's at work, but of course you're welcome to come in and wait.”

“Thanks.” I step inside, take off my shoes and coat.

“I'm making supper for Katie, but there's lots. Would you like some?”

Now that I think of it, that peanut butter sandwich was a long time ago. Plus, it's not wise to turn down a free meal when you don't know where your next one is coming from. I can't even imagine going home again right now. I'm thinking about worst-case scenarios, wondering if I'm going to be homeless, if they'll let me into a shelter or put me in a group home or something. I wonder about the crazy guy down the street, whether he was crazy before he was homeless or if being homeless was what put him over the edge.

“I'd love some supper,” I say, forcing a polite smile.

Whether she notices I've been crying or not, Ms. Quinn doesn't say anything. I guess she figures that whatever's going on, there's no problem a plate of pork chops and mashed potatoes can't solve. On an ordinary day, I'd almost be inclined to agree with her. She's a heck of a good cook. Katie's still not home by the time I finish my dinner, and I ask if I can wait for Katie in her room.

“I can't imagine that would be a problem,” says Katie's mom, and away I go.

I flop down into Katie's beanbag chair and pick up a magazine. Not a normal magazine, like
People
or
Seventeen
, but
Time.
I flip through articles about why kids these days are so fat, how bad the economy is, all sorts of depressing crap. I guess things are rough all over. I suppose I should buck up and stop feeling sorry for myself, but I'm finding it hard to see past the fact that my brother is, for all intents and purposes, a murderer.

It's another half hour or so before Katie gets home, and I hear her talking to her mother downstairs—not the actual words, just muffled voices through the floor. I can hear a whining note in Katie's voice, then a plaintive “You let her in my
room
?” that rises above the ambient noise of the furnace chugging away.

I feel a twinge of—what? Guilt? Self-righteous indignation? I have so much running through my head right now that I can't even tell what I'm feeling. I hear Katie on the stairs, the floor shuddering as she storms up them. She flings open the door, scowling deeply as she looks around the room, her gaze coming to rest on me in the beanbag.

“What the hell—” She breaks off when she sees my face.

“You were right,” I tell her, my voice cracking. “I should have just left things alone.”

Katie looks alarmed. She sits on the bed. “What happened?”

“It was Simon.” And in one breath, I pour out the whole story. Katie sits in silence through it all, her mouth open, eyes like Frisbees. I tell her everything, from meeting Travis on Saturday to getting off the bus by her house tonight. When I'm finished, she lets out a whistle.

“Wow. I'm really sorry.”

“Yeah.” I trail the heel of my hands across my eyes. “Me too.”

“I mean, here we were telling you to leave well enough alone, but you knew there was something more to it the whole time, didn't you?”

I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

“Wow, we had it all wrong. I'm so sorry. I mean, no wonder you were so obsessed.”

I suppose I should feel some sort of…what? Vindication? But I don't, really. I don't think I've been poking around all these years because I had some sort of sixth sense, I just…I don't know. Needed to feel some sort of connection to the father I never had. Momma always talked about him like he was some kind of saint, but I guess she figured telling me the truth about him would be adding insult to injury. I mean, he went and got himself murdered; did she really need to point out that he was a complete jerk as well? And the newspaper articles that talked about his murder said he was this great guy too, but what else were they going to say? That he was a terrible person and deserved what he got? Of course not.

I lean back against the wall, look up at the light fixture on Katie's ceiling. It looks like a glass dish with two light-bulbs in it. It hangs down a couple of inches from the ceiling, and in the summer it's always got a couple of dead flies sitting in it.

“Do you think…” I stare harder at the light fixture, not wanting to look right at Katie. I don't really want to look at anybody right now. “Do you think your mom would let me stay here for a few days?” My voice breaks a little bit. “I just don't think I can go home.”

“Are you sure you want to stay with me? I mean, I thought Ashley Walsh was your new best friend.” She doesn't sound spiteful, just…matter-of-fact.

I shrug. “Ashley's fine. But…” I figure it would be prudent to leave out the fact that I couldn't find her phone number and don't know where she lives. “I just haven't known her that long. I thought maybe you'd understand what a big deal this is.”