Young Writers Society

Later that afternoon, I was mindlessly flipping through channels when the doorbell rang. I dropped the remote and answered it, my heart skipping a beat when I saw who it was.

“M-Mr. Tyler?” I asked, staring at him with complete disbelief as he stood with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets. “What are you…what are you doing here?”

“Well, I’m just checking on you,” he said with a shrug. “How you holding up?”

“Aren’t you cold?” I asked. “Did you want to come in?”

“Uh, well, I don’t think I should—”

There was a loud rumbling noise from overhead. I turned around and Mom stepped forward, her mouth opening when she saw the two of us. “Mom?” I said. “This is Mr. Tyler.”

“Leave,” Mom said in an unsettlingly stern, icing tone of voice.

Mr. Tyler opened his mouth, then laughed. Mom didn’t laugh back. “Mrs. Kyle, right? I was just—”

“It’s bad enough that man comes to my home to tell me that I’m a crappy mother, but now you show up at my doorstep,” Mom said. “I’m going back upstairs. When I come back down here, if this kid is still here then I’m calling the police.”

She turned around.

“I’m an adult,” Mr. Tyler said.

She stopped.

Then she laughed. She turned back around. “You have a fourteen-year-old body sitting in a morgue right now,” she said. “Fourteen years old. And what matters to you is whether or not you’re an adult? You’re human scum. That’s what you are.”

“Hey! Stop it!” I shouted. “Why don’t you ask me if I want him to leave? Huh? Why don’t you care how I feel about it?”

“It’s not up to you,” Mr. Tyler said, shaking his head, reaching into his coat pocket. “She’s your mother. You live in her world.”

Mom rolled her fists and swallowed, her lips trembling as if she was trying to come up with the words, but couldn’t think of anything to say on the spot. Mr. Tyler pulled out a black DVD box and dropped it in my hands.

“That’s from Bailey,” he said. “She left it in my mailbox the night she died. For you only.”

He turned around and walked off into the distance. I stared at him until I could see him no longer.

I let out a lonely sigh, staring sadly at the DVD box.

***

That night, instead of watching people celebrate the New Year’s as if there was nothing wrong with the world, I spent hours watching Bailey’s last message – again, and again, and then one more time. To see her big brown eyes, her friendly smile, and the way she took off and then put her glasses back on; somehow it all made me feel so relieved. Like it was tricking my body into thinking that she was okay.

“Hi,” she said, her voice quiet, her eyes tired but her smile bright. “Well, this is kind of awkward, knowing that…well, you know. You probably think I was killed, right? Because I told you that my parents wanted to sue the academy?”

This time around, my little sister Susie walked into my bedroom. “Well, he didn’t,” she said. “I killed myself.”

Every single time she said it, a tear came out of my eye. Without fail, without question. “You remember the first time we met, back when I went to your elementary school? But I left in a few days, but it wasn’t because my dad was in the military…it was because I kept getting bullied. I went to four different schools, but everyone was always mean to me. Nobody ever liked me, and I never have been able to figure it out. Then…Coach Johnson did what he did.”

I heard Susie sniffling, as I turned my head to see her wipe a tear from her eye, then back towards the TV. “But don’t blame him,” Bailey said. “It’s my fault. I’m a coward. I can’t face him again. I don’t want to have to leave another school. I can’t make all new friends. I’m sorry, Toby. But you know what? I’m not afraid anymore. After what Coach Johnson did, I kept thinking back to when he had his hands wrapped around my neck. Back to when he was choking me. I thought I was dying. I knew I was dying. And I was so scared. But now I think back to it…and I kind of liked that feeling. It’s weird, isn’t it?”

I shook my head. “There’s one thing I want you to do,” she added. “Ben.”

I grabbed the remote and pressed the pause button. I couldn’t do it. Every time I got to the part where she mentioned your name, Ben. That venomous name that sent anger through my spine, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hear what she had to say about you.

“What, you’re not going to let me see the rest?” Susie asked.

“It isn’t easy,” I said.

“You’re not blaming yourself for all of this, are you?” Susie responded. “It’s all that gym coach’s fault. He’s a monster.”

I shook my head. “Coach Johnson didn’t kill her,” I said. “I did. Don’t you get it? The night I was on the roof, angry with her, she was getting ready to die in the basement. I did it to her. I’m the monster.”

My throat felt dry and huffy, and all of a sudden I realized that I was crying. But I didn’t wipe my eyes. I just cried. And I turned the TV back on again.

“Ben’s father died in a car crash,” Bailey said. “Then heard your father died in a crash. I thought it was just a coincidence at first. But then I remembered his father’s name…was Walter.”

“No,” I said, my mouth dropping, my heart freezing with a shocking wintery coldness.

Bailey nodded her head. Like she knew what my reaction would be like. I pulled out one arm towards Susie, hoping maybe she could pull me up, but she was just as frozen in disbelief as I was. “So I looked into it more. I found photos of his father. I found photos of your father. And I learned a secret that nobody else at the school seems to know. Not Dr. Sembagh, not Mr. Tyler, not even Headmaster Barnes knows it. Ben is your brother, Toby.”

I slammed my finger down against the power button on the remote and tossed it to the ground. “Toby!” Susie exclaimed as I stumbled to my feet, stomping towards the door. “Where are you going?”

“Finding out why Mom is such a liar,” I said.

Mom was still lying on her bed wide awake, her eyes open, lost, confused. Susie hadn’t followed me, and so I shut the door with a loud slam. Mom still didn’t acknowledge my presence in the slightest.

“When were you going to tell me?” I asked. “You didn’t send me to the Heartbeat Academy because you thought it’d be good for me. You wanted me to find out what happened to Ben for you. Even if that meant me getting hurt or—”

“Oh, will you shut up!” Mom cried, sitting up straight, her face quickly turning a bright, nauseating pink color. “What did you want me to tell you? Your bastard of a father cheated on me! When I was pregnant! Ben is not my son. Is he…?”

She started to cry heavy tears. I hadn’t seen her cry before. It was so surreal, so strange to watch the water escape from her eye-sockets, to listen to her heavy, sorrowful heaves. Trust me. You don’t know what it’s like to feel like dirt until you’ve really made your own mother cry.

“I’m sorry,” I said, putting my hand on her back in an effort to make her feel better.

“You can forget about the cards,” she sighed. “All I wanted to do was put it all behind us. Walter always told me to not worry about Ben, and to keep him out of my life. But why did I listen to him? When I heard what happened to him, it just broke my heart. I felt so terrible. After I sent you to the academy, I felt even worse. I thought for sure that your teacher had something to do with it, so I…”

“You sent the cards,” I said.

She nodded her head. We both went quiet as the night outside. We just looked at each other. Blankly. But somehow, I felt an odd sense of relief knowing that Mr. Tyler had nothing to do with Ben’s disappearance.

“I’m going back to the academy,” I said. “I need to find out what happened to Ben.”

Mom shook her head. “I can’t send you there,” she said. “Not after what happened to both him and Bailey. I have to know it’s safe. But wait! There’s one way.”

“What?” I said, getting my hopes up right away that she’d have a solid plan. “How can you make sure I’m safe?”

“I’m going to the Heartbeat Academy with you,” she said.