Hannah Jayne - Truly, Madly, Deadly

Principal Chappie’s eyes widened, pinning Sawyer. “But everyone knew it,” Sawyer backpedaled, “everyone knew that was what Mr. Hanson was allergic to. He had a no-peanut sign up in his classroom.”

“A no-peanut sign?” Detective Biggs asked.

“You know, like, Mr. Peanut with a red slash across him.” Sawyer made the sign of a circle and a slash with her hands, then felt immediately ridiculous doing so. “Everyone knew,” she finished softly.

“That’s fine, Sawyer, thanks. Now, after you met with Mr. Hanson, did you drive home right after school?”

“No. I mean, yes. I took a kid home. I dropped him off and then, yes, I went home too.”

Detective Biggs pressed his lips into a thin, hard line and read over his notes, which Sawyer guessed must have been a series of no’s and nothing else. “Okay, well, that’s all I need from you.”

Relief washed over Sawyer. “That’s it?”

“Yeah.” Detective Biggs’s grin was kind, almost fatherly. “Unless there’s something you want to admit to.” He chuckled, the buttons on his shirt vibrating.

Sawyer pushed back in her chair. “No, thanks.”

As she wound her way out of the conference room and through the administrative office, Sawyer breathed deeply, peeling her suddenly damp T-shirt from her back. Her heart rate had just slipped back to normal when she heard someone calling out to her.

“Oh, Sawyer! I was about to send a note to you.” Mrs. Cambert, school secretary, from the top of her silvery bun to the bottom of her sensible shoes, smiled up at Sawyer. She slid an enormous bushel of blooms toward Sawyer. “These came for you.”

Sawyer blinked at the velvety red roses, blooms as big as fists interspersed with sprays of eucalyptus and tiny budding baby’s breath. She felt the smile press across her face. “These are for me?”

Mrs. Cambert plucked a small white envelope from the foliage and pressed it into Sawyer’s hand. “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

Sawyer nodded at her name typed across the front. “Sure is.” Sawyer snaked one arm around the glass vase and clutched it against her hip, still smiling. “Thanks so much, Mrs. Cambert.” She stepped into the hall and rested the vase on the edge of the water fountain, sliding a finger under the envelope’s seal.

She took one look at the enclosed mint green card and sucked in a sharp whoosh of ice-tinged air.

Sawyer—

You know I’d do anything for you.

It wasn’t the message that scared Sawyer so much—it was the curled piece of plastic that slid out with the card. With fingers shaking, she unfurled the thin label.

“Arachis oil?” she mumbled to herself. “What the heck is—” Sawyer’s heart stopped when she read on: 100% Cold-Pressed Gourmet Peanut Oil. A black circle was drawn in Sharpie around something in the bottom corner. It was flanked by a hand-drawn smiley face. Sawyer squinted. “Caution: allergen.”

The tremble that started at Sawyer’s fingertips spread through her entire body until her teeth were chattering and her bones, it seemed, clattered against each other. Her throat closed to the size of a pinhole, and she struggled to breathe, feeling the blood rush to her head in a thunderous pound that brought tears to her eyes.

Is this what it’s like to suffocate?

She clamped her eyes shut and tried to focus on bringing her sensibilities back under control.

Is this what it was like for Mr. Hanson?

Vaguely, she felt the vase slip from her fingers, heard the echo of glass shattering on the floor, the water pooling at her feet. The roses scattered, blood-red petals scarred with shards of glass, cut, torn, turning in on themselves.

“Ms. Dodd?” Sawyer heard from a thousand miles away. “Ms. Dodd?”

She felt the slight weight of a hand on her shoulder, felt her eyes try to focus on the figure before her. She worked to move her mouth, her body, but all she could do was ball the peanut oil label up in her fist, the telltale crinkle of the cellophane screaming for everyone to look at her, to look at the girl who could cause a man to die.

“Can we get the nurse in here?” Detective Biggs was yelling over his shoulder, his hand firm now, holding Sawyer up.

“I’m okay,” she finally forced her mouth to say. “I’m okay. I just slipped and—”

The school nurse rushed out next, a pin of a woman who doubled as a lunch lady and a part-time librarian. Her lips were pursed, her eyes slanted in that sympathetic way, the pink sweater buttoned over her shoulders flying like bat wings.

“Oh, Sawyer.” She looked at Sawyer and then at Detective Biggs. “She’s had a rough couple of weeks. Shall I call your father, hon?”

Sawyer stepped back, sliding out of Detective Biggs’s reach, her sneakers crunching on the broken glass. She licked her Sahara-dry lips and nodded. “Yes, please. I think I need to go home and lie down.”

Nurse Tucker slid a motherly arm across Sawyer’s shoulders and pressed her hand against Sawyer’s cheek. Her fingers were soft and cool, and Sawyer longed for comfort, for her own mother. “This must be too much for you. First Kevin, and now Mr. Hanson,” she clucked, tucking Sawyer’s head underneath her chin. Then, she dropped her voice into a totally audible whisper, her chin jutting toward Detective Biggs. “Her boyfriend was Kevin Anderson, you know. The one who died in the accident. It was so tragic.”

Sawyer didn’t have to look to know that the detective nodded knowingly. For the last three weeks, people had exchanged glances whenever Sawyer was around, glances that spoke volumes, glances that reminded Sawyer that she was now and forever would be attached to Kevin’s death—more so than she ever was to his life. A lump strangled what breath was left in Sawyer’s throat and she doubled over, coughing and heaving.

“Oh, honey!”

“No.” Sawyer wagged her head, using her fisted hand, peanut oil wrapper locked inside, to wipe her eyes, her nose. “Can you just let my dad know that I’ve been excused? I need to go home right now.”

“I don’t think you’re in any condition to drive, Sawyer. I’d be happy to run you home,” Detective Biggs said.

“But I have my car.”

Nurse Tucker made a dismissive motion with her hand, her mob of tiny bangles clinking as she did. “The detective is right. You shouldn’t be driving. You can lie down in my office for a while to calm down if you’d like.”

Sawyer looked from Nurse Tucker to Detective Biggs, the array of shattered glass and broken roses on the floor behind him. “I think I’d like to go home now, please.”

Detective Biggs kept silent as they left the administration building and walked out to the parking lot. Sawyer was grateful for the silence; every time the detective sucked in a breath and looked like he was about to speak to her, her skin tightened, every muscle in her body seemed to collapse in on itself and she had to look away. Biggs seemed to get the message and repeatedly just cleared his throat.

He gestured toward his car, and Sawyer stood at the passenger side door, hands hugging her elbows, until he clicked the lock.

Detective Biggs drove a big, gray, unmarked cop car that smelled like cigarettes and McDonald’s. Sawyer wrinkled her nose when she got in.

“Sorry,” Detective Biggs said, a hint of sympathy in his voice, “my partner is a smoker.”

Biggs cleared the passenger seat of a stack of coffee-stained files and crumpled fast food wrappers and Sawyer sat down, her body stiff, her hands clutching the straps of her backpack.

They pulled out of the school driveway and onto the street when the rain started to fall. Heavy droplets thunked against the hood of the car. Sawyer liked the sound, thought it was soothing. She liked the way the rain marred the windshield before the wipers took it away. If she squinted, she could pretend they were somewhere else, that she was someone else.

“I hate the rain,” Detective Biggs said.

“Take the Old Oak highway, please.”

“Oh, right.” The detective nodded, puckering his lips as if considering something. “So, I guess Kevin was pretty popular at school.”

Sawyer hiked her backpack onto her lap and wrapped her arms around it, her hands disappearing in the long sleeves of her sweater. “Uh-huh.”

“Done much unpacking?”

Sawyer looked at the detective, but he didn’t look at her. His eyes were focused hard out the windshield, guiding the hulking car over the slick black highway.

“Not really.” She vaguely wondered if he knew about the shoes—maybe he had a spy or a bug or something. She tightened her grip on her pack. “Not since you were there.”

“Tragic about what happened with Kevin. I really hate to see something like that.”

Sawyer nodded, replaying the rest of the conversation in her mind. It was the same one every time an adult tried to talk to her: Tragic about what happened. Such a waste. Just goes to show you that nothing in life is guaranteed; we’re all mortal.

“Kevin much of a drinker?”

Sawyer blinked. “What?”

“It was a drunk driving accident, right? Was Kevin a drinker?”

Sawyer shook her head, feeling her ponytail tag the side of her cheeks. “No, not really.” She began to wonder why none of these questions had come up the day Detective Biggs appeared at her house.

“But he was definitely drinking that night,” Biggs said matter-of-factly.

She remembered that night. It was raining then too, big quarter-sized drops that pelted her forehead, that made the fresh cut under her eye sting. She felt the pain of that cut again, remembered the way Kevin’s eyes looked when he noticed the blood. He studied the dime-sized drop that clung to his class ring. He didn’t look at the red velvet drop that bubbled under Sawyer’s eye.

Sawyer remembered seeing Kevin’s face, and it was blurry, soaked. She watched him roll up on the balls of his feet, saw his fingers curl, one by one in molasses slow motion until they were fisted. Sawyer felt her body instinctively recoil, start to flinch.

A flash of something flitted through his eyes at that moment. It was almost—joy. Amusement. He made a fist, her body instinctively flinched, and he liked that. As if he enjoyed the fear he’d cultivated in her. Anger, harder than fear, roiled through her body. He always let her believe it was her fault.

Not tonight.

Kevin’s fingers were still wrapped in that tight ball. He wouldn’t raise that fist to her, but he gritted his teeth, his eyes narrowed and spitting a kind of wicked anger she had come to recognize.

“Leave me alone, Kevin.” She heard her own voice and it rang out loud, clear, and strong through the rain that night. “I’m done with you.”

As she sat in the car she searched her memory for the waver that must have been in her voice, for the shrinking fear she knew she must have felt. She turned around and Kevin reached for her, clamping a hand on her wrist. He squeezed, digging his fingernails into her flesh. She wouldn’t wince. She wouldn’t cry out.

“Don’t you dare run away from me,” he spat.

She shrugged him off violently. “I said leave me alone.”

He gave her a hard shove, but Sawyer kept her ground.

“Screw you, then!” he yelled to her back. “I don’t need you. I made you. No one knew who the hell you were until you started dating me, you little slut.”

Sawyer still felt the sting of those words as she clenched her jaw and hugged her backpack a little tighter, feeling the sharp edges of her books dig into her chest.

She heard the plink! and spritz of a beer being opened, then felt the whiz of the bottle as it soared past her left ear, leaving a spray of cold beer soaking her shoulder, dribbling down the naked skin on her throat and collar bone.

“I’m so done with you,” she said, surprised at the calm finality in her voice.

Kevin shrugged and took a pull on the beer he was holding. “Then what the hell are you still doing here?”

She felt the adrenaline in her legs even now as she remembered her slow jog away from Kevin, his beer bottles, and his car. The rain had started to let up, and she could hear the crinkle of leaves and twigs underfoot as she ran. She picked up speed and her hood slipped back. What remained of the drizzling, spitting rain rushed into her eyes, beer mixed with rain, and Sawyer kept running, kept going even when she heard Kevin’s tortured voice on the wind. “Sawyer!” he was yelling. “Sawyer, stop!”