Twisted Read online

  Mr. Hughes’s mouth moved, chewing through the air and the seriousness of the situation. I nodded when I was supposed to nod and shook my head when that seemed like the right thing to do. No, I didn’t know anything about this, no sir, not a thing. I couldn’t have done it, sir.

  I did not hurt Bethany. I knew that.

  But nobody else did.

  53.

  They said I was taken out of school in handcuffs again, but that should show you they didn’t know squat. I went home, normal time, in Yoda’s car. Yoda spent the whole ride home BSing me with one hundred reasons why nobody thought I pornogrified the girl of my dreams.

  The cops showed up at eight thirty that night, just as Dad was about to eat the reheated leftover take-out enchiladas. I was watching television with Mom. Hannah was the one who sprinted to the answer the doorbell.

  “The police are here,” she said.

  “What?” Mom asked.

  I looked in the kitchen. Dad was at the table, his briefcase open on the chair next to him. He had some papers in one hand and a forkful of enchilada in the other.

  He dropped the fork. “Don’t let them in!” he said.

  “What’s going on?” Mom asked.

  Dad pushed away from the table and went to the door. “Everybody stay there.”

  Hannah sat down on the couch without looking at me. I studied the rug. If I could tear through it with my bare hands, then rip through the wood underneath, I could squeeze through the hole in the floor, drop down to the basement, wiggle out one of the tiny basement windows (maybe), and take off before the cops even got inside.

  Dad walked back in. “Hannah, go upstairs. Linda, Tyler, come with me.”

  We sat in the living room, the room in which no living was ever done except for dusting the piano, vacuuming the lemon-colored carpet, and entertaining people we didn’t like. Police officers, for example.

  Officer Adams walked like his feet hurt. He was Dad’s age, but he still had his hair. He was taller than Dad but looked underfed and tired. Mr. Benson, my probation officer, was with him. The look he gave me when he walked in the door made me want to dig a hole through the floor again.

  Mom’s smile looked like the kind you see on a mummy, when the skin has shrunk so far you can see the teeth and gums. She was having a hard time speaking.

  “Have a seat, gentlemen,” Dad said.

  Adams and Benson sat in the white, stuffed chairs. Mom and Dad sat on the couch under the framed print of The Starry Night. I sat on the piano bench. Hannah was sitting on the stairs, just high enough that Mom and Dad couldn’t see her.

  Dad opened his mouth, but Officer Adams jumped in first. “I know you folks must be nervous.”

  Mom squeaked. Dad put his hand on top of hers and patted it.

  “But,” Adams continued, “we’re just looking for information.”

  That was cop-speak for “we have all of the information we need to send your son away to federal penitentiary for twenty years, but we’ll save the taxpayers a lot of money if we can squeeze a confession out of him right here.”

  “Of course,” Dad said.

  “We’re investigating an incident that took place at a party Friday night. A young woman, apparently under the influence of alcohol and or drugs, was stripped naked and photographed. Those pictures were then posted to the Internet.”

  Mom tried to squeak again, but no sound came out.

  “That’s a terrible thing,” Dad said. “But I fail to see any connection to our family. Tyler wasn’t at any party. He’s still under the curfew imposed by the judge in May.”

  Mr. Benson’s eyes darted to me. I wondered if it would be possible to crawl into the piano and close the lid. Maybe the wires would cut me into hundreds of pieces and I would bleed out before anyone noticed.

  Adams nodded. “Well, sir, we’re at the beginning of this investigation, but it’s clear that your son was indeed at the party, according to”–he paused to flip through the pages of his notebook—“according to seven witnesses. Your daughter, Hannah, was there, too.”

  There was the sound of clumping feet running up the stairs, down the hall, and then a door slamming.

  “Ah,” Dad said.

  Adams turned to me. “You were at the party, right, Tyler?”

  I nodded.

  “And by that nod, you mean yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  He asked a bunch of boring questions—how did I hear about the party (everybody knew about it), how much did I drink (one sip doesn’t count), how much did I smoke (nothing), how many people were there (lost count), how did I get there (walked).

  “You walked?” Benson interrupted.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “We don’t let him drive anymore,” Mom explained.

  Adams cleared his throat and turned the page in his notebook. “In which room did you take the photographs?”

  “I didn’t take any pictures,” I said.

  “In which room did you have sex with Bethany Milbury?”

  Crapcrapcrap.

  “We didn’t have sex.”

  “Bethany Milbury!” Dad roared. “Is that who we’re talking about? Christ Almighty, Tyler, what were you thinking?”

  “Please, Mr. Miller,” Benson said. “Sit down.”

  “Would you like a minute to compose yourself?” Adams asked.

  “No,” barked Dad. Wisps of smoke trailed out of his nose and mouth as he sat. “Go on.”

  “Did you go into a bedroom with Bethany?”

  The sound of metal doors locking. “Yes.”

  “Were you alone in the room with her?”

  Older inmates. Big, older inmates. With gang tattoos. “Yes.”

  “Was she drunk?”

  “She had a beer in her hand. I got there late. I don’t know how much she had to drink.”

  “What happened when the two of you were alone in the bedroom?”

  I looked down. The laces of my sneakers were frayed. “We talked, mostly. I was at the party because she invited me. I thought…I thought she liked me. So we talked.”

  Adams was staring at me. “What kind of physical contact did you have with her?”

  My mother was sitting very still.

  “Tyler?” Adams repeated.

  “Not much.” I cleared my throat. “She came on to me—we kissed. She wanted to do more, but I didn’t. I mean, no, I did, but I didn’t, not like that, not there, not when she was—”

  “Drunk?” Adams asked.

  “Yeah. Drunk. So I blew her off and she got mad. She said some bitchy things and took off. I didn’t see her until the party ended.” I explained where I found her and how she was dressed. Mom stopped looking at me. Dad didn’t.

  Adams finished writing and spent a long minute reviewing his notes. “How long have you been stalking her?”

  “What?” I looked up. “I haven’t been stalking her. I was trying to protect her. The only reason I stayed was to keep an eye on her because everybody was so trashed.”

  “If you were keeping an eye on her,” Benson interrupted, “then how did those pictures get taken?”

  Adams waved him off. “Were you responsible for a serious accident on August the twenty-eighth, during which Bethany suffered severe lacerations on the bottom of her foot, which necessitated a trip to the hospital and multiple stitches?”

  “It was an accident!” My voice was panicked. I had no control over it. “Chip shoved me. I couldn’t help it.”

  “Did you verbally harass her in school on Monday afternoon?”

  “Who told you that?”

  “That’s enough, Tyler,” Dad said. “Settle down.”

  Benson closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Are you going to arrest my son?” Dad asked.

  “Not tonight,” Adams said. “But when we do, he’s looking at felony charges that could include lewd behavior, forcible touching, sexual harassment, sexual misconduct, all kinds of voyeurism counts, and possibly a kidnapping charge.”

/>   Kidnapping? I couldn’t even get the word out.

  “Okay, good job,” Dad said. “You’ve terrified him—congratulations. We both know you can lie about anything you want right now, so let’s cut to it. What evidence do you have?”

  “We’ve talked to a number of students—”

  “Ev-i-dence,” Dad said slowly. His yellow dragon eyes flashed at Adams. “Aside from rumors spread by drunken morons, what makes you believe my son did anything beside break curfew?”

  “Did Bethany accuse Tyler?” Mom asked. “Was she–?”

  Adams thought for a moment before he answered. “There is no medical evidence that she has ever had intercourse. And she claims her memory of the incident is spotty. We’re starting with the photographs.”

  It hit me. “I don’t have a camera,” I said. “How could I take her picture without a camera?”

  “We believe the photographs were taken with a camera phone,” Adams said.

  “Tyler doesn’t have a phone,” Mom said.

  “He doesn’t?” Adams asked.

  “We took it away when the first thing happened,” Mom explained.

  “He could have used anyone’s phone,” Adams said. “We’re investigating the possibility of coconspirators.”

  Dad interrupted. “But the point is you have no evidence. I want to see this Web site.”

  “It’s been taken down, Mr. Miller. It was up for approximately four hours.”

  “So how do you know that a crime was even committed?”

  “Numerous students printed the images.”

  Ouch.

  “We’d like to borrow Tyler’s computer,” Adams said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “Our experts will be able to tell if your computer was used to upload, store, or download the images.”

  “I didn’t. I mean, Hannah showed me the site last night; you’ll see that in the browser history. But I didn’t do it. My computer will prove it, so yeah, take it.”

  “How do we know you won’t set him up?” Dad asked. “What if you guys think he is the easiest kid to nail for this, and you’ll doctor his computer to prove it?”

  “I can come back with a warrant,” Adams said.

  This is not happening. My dad is not going toe-to-toe with a cop, defending me like he cares. I am not a suspect. Nobody did anything criminal to Bethany. In fact, the party never happened.

  “I’ll take you to his room,” Dad said.

  I stayed on the bench while Dad supervised the removal of my computer. Mr. Benson carried it, component by component, to the squad car while Adams interviewed Hannah in her room, with Mom standing guard. Hannah was bawling. She always cried when she got caught.

  As Adams and Benson pulled out of the driveway, Dad watched through the living-room curtains. I hadn’t moved. Mom was still upstairs with Hannah, who had cranked it up to a full-blown wail.

  I knew what was coming.

  Dad snapped the curtains shut. He stood in the middle of the lemon-yellow carpet, opened his jaws, and sprayed fire everywhere. I was a loser, a liar, a jerk, an idiot, a disgrace, and an embarrassment. I had cost the family a fortune in lawyer’s fees already. I had ruined the family’s good name, my father could barely hold his head up at work, and now this—

  Breathe. Breathe.

  “—this is the last straw, Tyler. Brice Milbury will fire me and blacken my name. I’ve worked twenty-seven years to get where I am, and you just blew it all to hell, because you had a hard-on for some drunken little bitch.”

  “Don’t call her that,” I said.

  “Look at me when I’m talking to you! I never thought I’d say this, but I wish you took drugs. If you were high, I could blame it on that. But no, you screw up just for the joy of it—”

  I tuned out again. He kept at it for another hour or so, flapping his wings and tearing at the sky with his talons. He was done with me. Done. If they arrested me, he’d kick me out of the house. He blamed me for Mom’s migraines and his blood pressure. He blamed me for my bad grades, my bad attitude, and my bad haircut. I was also responsible for the price of gas, global warming, and the national debt.

  My butt fell asleep. That piano bench was hard. No wonder Hannah and I quit lessons when we were little. As he paced back and forth, I studied the family Christmas photos behind him, and the spots where the wallpaper seams had separated.

  The furnace kicked on, blowing that faint moldy smell across the vacuum-cleaner lines at the edge of the lemon-yellow carpet, across the strings inside the piano, across the laces of my sneakers.

  Dad’s nose twitched. He stuttered once, then shouted, “Go to your room!”

  I stopped in the upstairs bathroom, popped four ibuprofen, and chugged half a bottle of NyQuil. Then I went to bed like the bad little boy I was.

  54.

  The sound of my parents yelling at each other woke me up at one thirty. It was an All-Star cage match: Out-of-Control Dadman versus the GinandTonica Momster.

  Hannah slipped into my room. “I can’t sleep.”

  “I wonder why,” I said.

  It had been a long time, but we both knew the routine. I pulled out the sleeping bag from the top shelf of my closet. Hannah crawled into my bed. She had her old Raggedy Ann with her. That’s the kind of thing brothers don’t tell about sisters. I tucked the covers under her chin.

  “Thanks, Tyler,” she said.

  “Yeah.” I unrolled the sleeping bag on the floor and got in. Mom and Dad were still at it downstairs. Their vocal cords were made of leather. After a while it faded back into a green NyQuil haze, thunder booming on the other side of a hill.

  “Ty?”

  “What?”

  “This is going to get better, right?”

  “Right,” I lied.

  “Ty?”

  “I’m trying to go to sleep, Hannah.”

  “I know you didn’t do it.”

  I rolled over. “Thanks.”

  55.

  All the crap I had endured up until then—the face flushes in middle school, the wedgies, the names, being ignored, mocked, teased, spit on, even being hurt by Bethany–that stuff was all kindergarten. This was big league.

  Every step in a crowded hall came with a shove, a trip, a couple of quick shots to the kidneys. By lunchtime my notebooks were in shreds, my wallet had been stolen, and my watch was in a million pieces in the Math wing. A couple teachers saw it. They saw it and they saw nothing.

  I thought about walking out the front door, just walking, but that would have been a giant admission of guilt, and I was still stupid enough to think it mattered.

  Hannah looked me over as I sat down in the cafeteria. “That bad, huh?”

  “Worse. You?”

  “I’m okay.” Her eyes were still swollen from crying and arguing with Mom the night before.

  “Don’t worry,” Yoda said. “They’ll figure out who did it, and everybody will chill.”

  “Thank you for lying,” I said. “I feel better now.”

  “And Bethany will find out that you are not an evil, perverted stalker, and you guys can hook up again.”

  “Are you high?” I asked him. “I’m toast. Done. Fini.”

  Hannah dipped a carrot stick in a cup of ranch dressing. “Leave Calvin alone. He’s in shock. He can’t believe that Mom grounded me until graduation.”

  “I’m not even allowed to call her,” Yoda said.

  Hannah laid her head on his shoulder. “We’ll figure something out.”

  “Don’t worry,” I said. “Sneaking out to a party is nothing like committing a dozen felonies on the boss’s daughter. If I get arrested, they’ll forget all about grounding you.”

  “The police won’t arrest you, because you didn’t do it.” She bit the carrot. “Stop being so negative.”

  “I’m going to be arrested, tried, convicted—for something I didn’t do—sent to jail where I will become the girlfriend of a large, scary man, and where I will also develop an addiction to…I don’t know,
sniffing bleach or something.”

  “Sniffing bleach will kill you,” Yoda pointed out.

  I picked up the fork from Hannah’s tray. “Then sign me up. Bethany Milbury will never look at me again. In fact, she’ll forget I ever existed.”

  Hannah let out a long and dramatic sigh. Yoda and I waited.

  “Okay,” she started. “I hate to be the one to break this to you, but—”

  “My life is over? I know that, thanks.”

  “No, listen. This Bethany thing? You never had a chance.”

  “What are you talking about? She likes me. Well, she liked me. Past tense.”

  “It wouldn’t have worked,” Hannah explained.

  I tried to stab the fork into the table. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Yoda shook his head a little, trying to get her to back down. She ignored him.

  “Bethany is popular, Ty.” She said it carefully, as if I had never heard of the concept.

  “What’s your point?”

  “You aren’t.”

  Yoda tried a diversion. “I’ve never understood what makes the popular kids popular. It must be a hive activity, a neurochemical message that all hive members receive, but no one understands.”

  “We’re not bees,” I pointed out.

  “It’s not that complicated,” Hannah said. “The popular kids aren’t really popular. They’re obnoxiously loud, good-looking, and rich. Nobody likes them, but they rule the place.”

  “And everybody wants to be them,” Yoda pointed out.

  “Well, duh. When a non-popular kid tries to cross the line, like Ty, bad things happen. You can’t mate a dog with a racehorse. Give me that fork before you hurt yourself.”

  They talked about nothing and cuddled for the rest of the period. I drew small blue demons on my hand with a pen.