Dare Me - By Megan Abbott Page 0,66
Matt was asleep. He took two pills. I had to see Will, Addy. That strangely robotic voice. So I called a cab. But I couldn’t call a cab to take me back, could I?
Snuck out at two in the morning, and Matt French didn’t hear her? It made so much more sense that she’d gone over earlier, made some excuse to Matt, or gone because Matt wasn’t home yet.
Could Will have been done with her, and she…
Suddenly, I think of last week, that sleeping snarl in the night as I lay beside Coach:
How could you do this to me? How?
Pow-pow, I can hear Beth say. Pow-pow.
A Post-it left for me on the kitchen island:
“A, Debbie says someone from PD called for you. Someone steal mascot again? Love, D.”
Yes, Dad, I think, holding the edge of the counter. That’s exactly it.
I’m running on Royston Road when the car pulls up.
I never run. Beth says runners are uncreative masturbators. I didn’t know what that meant, but it made me never want to run.
But this morning, my stepmother’s klonopin still sticky on my tongue, running seems right.
Like at practice, like at games, I can forget everything but the special talents of my special girl body, which does everything I ask it to, which is unravaged and pure, baby-oil soft and fluttered only with the bruises of girl sport.
The feel of the concrete pulsing up my shins is near-exquisite and when the release comes, it’s like hitting a stunt but better because it’s just me and no one can even see, but I’m doing it, doing it anyway and without peering out waiting for anyone to tell me I hit it, because I know I did. I know it.
So I keep running. Until all I feel is nothing.
And no one can touch me. My phone shut off, far from me, and no one even knows where I am, if I’m anywhere at all.
Except the detectives.
It’s just like on TV. They pull up to the curb, and one of them is leaning on the doorframe.
“Adelaide Hanlon?”
I stop, earbuds slipping from my ears.
“Can we ask you a few questions?”
The man gives me a bottle of water. It gives me something to do with my hands, my mouth.
We sit in an office, and when the woman sees my sweated legs puckering a little on the seat, she offers me the desk chair, and she doesn’t seem to care that I sweat on it.
“If you’d feel more comfortable with your parents present,” the man says, “we can call them.”
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “That’s okay.”
They both look at me and nod, as if I am being very wise.
Then they exchange a quick look. He leaves, and the woman stays.
In my head, I start doing my cheer counts. One-two, three-four. I count them until my heart finally slows down. Until I can empty my face, teen-girl bored.
“We’re just trying to confirm a few details about last Monday night,” she says.
She has a tight ponytail that reminds me of Coach’s, and a dimple on one side of her mouth. She doesn’t really smile, but she speaks softly.
Somehow I start to feel okay, like having to talk to the assistant principal about something you know about but had nothing to do with. If you just say as little as possible, they really can’t do anything.
The questions start generally, more like a conversation. What do I like about school? How long have I been a cheerleader? Aren’t some of the stunts dangerous?
When the questions turn, it’s a gentle turn, or she renders it gently.
“So you and Coach French spend time together outside of school?”
The question seems strange. I think I’ve misheard it.
“She’s my coach,” I say.
“And last Monday night, did you see your coach?”
I don’t know what to say. I have no idea what she told them.
“Last Monday?” I say. “I don’t know.”
“Try to remember, okay? Were you at her house last Monday?”
That second part, a gift. At her house. If Coach didn’t tell them that, who would have?
“I guess I was,” I say. “Sometimes I help her with her little girl.”
“Like a babysitter while she goes out?”
“No, no,” I say, calm as I can. Besides, who is she to call me a babysitter? “I don’t babysit.”
“So just pitching in?”
I look at her, at her bare lips and badly plucked eyebrows.
“I hang out there a lot,” I say. “She helps me through stuff. I like being over there.”
“So last Monday you were there with your coach and her husband?”
And her husband.