Life After Theft
Page 63

Two red spots stood out on Sera’s face. “You have no idea what she did to me, Jeff. I’m warning you; don’t go there.”
But the picture of Kimberlee sobbing on my bed was too fresh. “Did you ever consider that maybe you can hurt people even after they’re dead? That people’s feelings live forever? You don’t ever think about how she feels. You’re just like everyone else. You want to be forgiven for what you did but you won’t forgive her.” I clamped my mouth shut. I hadn’t intended to confess that I knew.
Her cheeks flushed bright red. “Who told you?”
“I wish you had,” I said quietly.
She swallowed hard. “I couldn’t. I knew you wouldn’t . . . you wouldn’t—”
“Forgive you? Well, you were wrong.”
She looked down at her feet.
“I don’t care about your past, Sera. But I care about now. And if you won’t let go of this thing with Kimberlee, then I don’t know if we can—” I clamped my mouth shut. I’d been about to say I don’t know if we can be together. But I’d stopped too late; she knew where that sentence was going.
She was quiet for a long time, her eyes drilling into mine. When she spoke, her voice was soft, controlled, and full of fury. “You don’t know anything. No one does.” She hesitated. “Even my parents and Khail don’t know everything. You want me to forgive her? Believe me, I’m working on it.” Her voice rose now. “I’m trying because I can’t live with these awful feelings inside me. She was terrible, Jeff. Completely inhuman. She would shove me in the halls, break into my locker and soak my backpack, destroy my assignments and books. She beat me up in the locker room one day—slammed me against the lockers so hard I blacked out for a couple seconds. And I never understood why.”
I did. Or, at least, I knew the reasons. Understand was something I would probably never manage. “Why didn’t you tell someone?” I choked out.
“I did, eventually. But—” She hesitated. “Let’s just say my parents weren’t very interested in me at that point. And that didn’t help either. I felt abandoned on all fronts. When things got really bad I was into some pretty messed-up stuff, and I was superhigh one night when Khail found me and worked the whole story out of me. I hadn’t told anyone because Kimberlee was basically untouchable, since her parents paid for like half the school. That was about the time I . . . got shipped off to rehab,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “When I came back I was determined to be clean and start over, but I was terrified of Kimberlee. Khail promised me he’d . . . he’d taken care of it, and that Kimberlee wouldn’t bother me anymore, but I wasn’t sure I could believe him.”
“And then she died,” I said weakly. I knew the end of this story.
But Sera shook her head. “My first week back she cornered me in the parking lot before the game and cut off my hair, Jeff. She grabbed my braid and chopped it off. Who does that? A monster, that’s who.”
I stared at her in horror, not wanting to believe. But everything in her eyes told me she was telling the truth. This was it—what I’d been trying to get them both to confess from the beginning.
And it made my whole mouth sour.
“I never told Khail. Never told anyone. Just said I decided to get it cut—into a really extreme A-line,” she added with a grumble. I don’t think Khail suspected anything. I was tired of needing him to fix my problems, so I decided to just take it. And I did. For a couple weeks. Then . . . then she died.” Sera walked forward, her eyes glittering with anger. “And you know what I felt, Jeff? Relief. No, it was more than that. I felt safe. For the first time in ages, I felt safe.”
“I—”
“Don’t. Don’t say anything. Just go get into your car and leave. I can’t talk to you right now.”
“Sera, I—”
“Please go,” she whispered.
I was in my car, driving aimlessly, a few minutes later. What had I done? After feeling sure that I had learned to see Kimberlee for what she was—especially this morning—she’d completely suckered me. She wasn’t a lost soul waiting to move on; she was a demon cursed to live a hollow eternity on earth.
I stopped the car in front of my house and stared up at my bedroom window. She’d be there. Where else would she be? As I pulled into the garage I went over Sera’s story in my head, stoking my anger. I punched the button to close the garage door and slammed the kitchen door open. No one was home and I was glad. I couldn’t have kept this quiet if I had wanted to—and I didn’t. I stomped up the stairs and threw open my bedroom door. Kimberlee was sprawled in front of the TV that I had started just leaving on when I left for school. I grabbed the remote and turned it off, flooding the room with silence. Kimberlee looked up at me, her eyes wide and questioning. And maybe a little scared.
“What did you do?”
“Do? I can’t do anything.”
“To Sera, when you were alive? What did you do!” I’d never been a shouter, but something about Kimberlee brought that side of me out.
Kimberlee rolled her eyes. “Is the little princess making up stories?”
“They’re not stories, Kimberlee, and you know it.”
Her face closed into an unreadable expression.
I took a step back and put my hands on my hips. “I want to hear it from you.”