The Moment Before

Chapter Sixteen

SIXTEEN

Grieving sister wants answers is the above-the-fold headline in the Life & Lifestyles section of the paper the next morning. Smack in the middle, there’s a photo of Sabine and me, taken at the Raising Cheer event a few months back. It looks like we’re clinking pop bottles, all smiles and good times. Really, what was going on there? I was trying to grab a rum-loaded drink away from her. She was shit-faced, and later that night she puked her guts out. The granite countertops of Connor’s house shine brightly in the background—the same setting where just yesterday, he’d rejected my kiss. And under that photo, another one. Sabine, under a tarp on the Greenmeadow gymnasium floor.

            I grab the section of Portland Journal before my grandparents can see it and shove it in my backpack. This, they do not need. Nona is busy making eggs and bacon, wanting to send me off to school with some food in my belly. Nono is still in bed.

            “I gotta go, Nona,” I call over my shoulder. “I’ll grab a Starbucks on the way. Can’t be late for school.”

            “You want you can take the car, Brady,” she calls. “We’re not going nowhere today.”

            The thought of negotiating the Lincoln and its ginormous hood through the high school parking lot gives me chills. “Thanks, but that’s OK. I’m used to the bus.”

            “I’ll make sauce today,” she calls out after me. “We eat at five.”

           

As soon as I’m out the door, I pull the section of paper from my backpack. From the blocks of ink, I pull out my crazy ramblings: She was my hero. So strong. So brave. Her neck snapped in half. Like a toothpick.

            And then: She was trying to win another trophy for her squad. Nobody stopped her. She wanted to do something no cheerleader had ever done.

And then, next to the picture of my dead sister, under the sheet of plastic, a little call-out: She tried to hide it, but she was having boyfriend issues. Big ones.

            Rory Davis, that zealous reporter, named the boyfriend. Who couldn’t be reached for comment, by the way. Probably because he was outfitting his new car with a stereo system.

            What happened to the arts funding article? The entire Cupworth Prize issue was summarized at the end of the article, hidden on page eight, after all the gruesome statistics on how cheerleading is the most dangerous sport in high school. Clearly, Rory Davis saw a bigger story than the yawn-yawn of yet another school-funding piece.

            By the time the bus comes, I’m pretty convinced that if I go to school today, I’ll be shot on sight, so, when the 5 pulls up to the mall kiosk downtown, instead of riding toward Greenmeadow, I get off the bus. I get off with my backpack and the article about how sad and pissed off I am, and the $46 Mom put in my overnight kit plus the $29 Bingo winnings from Nona, and I’m thinking that’ll buy a lot of chocolate croissants and double skinny chai lattes.

           

Downtown is chilly this morning. The homeless guys are still burrito-wrapped in their sleeping bags in the various doorways of semi-abandoned buildings. A few dreaded teens are setting up their panhandling stations on the busy corners by Pioneer Square. It’s still too early for the Greenpeace kids, and the Sponsor an Orphan from Africa kids, but the real destitutes, the prostitutes, and the crazies are floating around amongst the gainfully employed.