"What were you thinking?!" Mrs. Wakes shouted.
"I was just s...sitting out there," Randy stammered. "And I f...fell."
Mrs. Wakes collapsed into her easy chair. Lia was sitting on the couch next to Randy, looking worried. "Is your leg all that hurts?" she asked. Her hair had melting bits of powdery snow in it.
"Yeah," Randy said. "It wasn't that bad of a fall. I think I just passed out 'cos I was scared."
"You certainly scared us with all of your shouting!" Mrs. Wakes bellowed. Her father was sitting, head in hands, in another easy chair.
"Calm down, Belinda," he said. "She just slipped from her window. Lia did that once in high school, too, remember?"
Lia's cheeks turned bright red. Mrs. Wakes sighed. "Lia wasn't doing all that carrying on, though," she explained. "Lia was trying to climb up on the roof to get a tan, not trying to commit suicide!"
"I wasn't trying to commit suicide!" Randy protested.
"I heard you!" Mrs. Wakes hollered. "You were talking to Taylor!"
Randy's mouth snapped shut, and a thick tear ran down her cheek.
"He's dead, Miranda," Mrs. Wakes said. "He's gone someplace that you can't go while you're still living, and we'd appreciate it if you didn't try to follow after him by other methods. You're loved here, Randy, and that's what's important."
"I know," Randy said through gritted teeth. "It was just an accident."
Mrs. Wakes nodded and waved her away. "Fine, Miranda. You can go on up to bed now."
She'd heard Randy's shouts and had run upstairs to check on her, only to find the window open and Randy gone. She'd looked down and Randy was sitting up, brushing snow out of her hair and rubbing her knee. Her face was red and tear streaked. Mrs. Wakes had never been so scared as she was at that moment. Thankfully Randy was tough. A fall from a second story window was probably one of her lesser falls. When she was 8, she'd fallen out of the top of a tree, hitting several branches on the way down. 3 cracked ribs, a broken arm, and a sprained ankle later, she was begging to go do it again as soon as she was allowed to leave the house. Once before that, she'd jumped off the top of one of her friend's houses while playing army. She'd twisted the same ankle and had to be taken to the doctor. Twice she'd fallen off of ladders trying to put up Christmas lights.
"Please, Randy, stay out of your window," her dad told her. "You're a klutz and lord knows it wouldn't take much for you to break you neck."
"Yes, sir," Randy said, before darting up to her room.
The anger passed as quickly as it came. By the end of her break, she knew that it was less than reasonable to be angry with a person who was dead. He'd left her telling her he loved her. That's how it was supposed to be. She'd even gotten to say goodbye. Most people didn't even get that much.
Taylor had been taken from her. She understood that. God had called him home, and who was Taylor to refuse God? As she packed her backpack for school on Monday, she felt an eerie exhaustion. There were so many emotions still tumbling around in her. Above all, there was curiosity. She remembered what Isaac had said. "We don't want you to feel like anything was your fault."
What could he have meant?
Whispers again followed Randy through the halls. She shook her hair back over her shoulders and elbowed her way to her locker. "Hey, Randy," someone said. She smiled at her friend, Elizabeth, before delving headfirst back into her locker.
"I can't find my damn pen," she muttered.
"Which one?" Liz asked, peering over Randy's shoulder.
"The one with the rocks in the tip?" she said, pulling out and looking at Liz curiously. "Did you see it on Friday?"
"You let Mark Johnson borrow it 6th hour," Liz told her.
Randy felt her lip quivering. "That was my favorite pen..."
"Taylor gave it to you, didn't he?" Liz asked.
A thick tear slipped down Randy's cheek.
"Oh, gee, Randy," Liz sighed. "I'm sorry." She swung her bookbag around in front of her and fished around in one of the zip pockets. She pulled out a black pen. "Here you go. Ask Mark if you can have it back today, okay?"
Randy nodded and took the pen. She jerked her English book free and stalked to class, Elizabeth right behind her. "Did you do the assignment?"
"What assignment?" Randy asked.
"You were supposed to read The Odyssey," Liz reminded her.
"I forgot," she replied, her voice still shaky. "I'll just try to lay low and get out of it by not answering any questions. Is they're going to be a quiz?"
"I don't think so," Liz said.
The class was already packed. Randy took her usual seat in the back corner, and pulled a pair of glasses out of her bag. She didn't usually wear them, but as exhausted as she was lately, she needed them. She pulled out her literature book and glanced over The Odyssey. She'd read it once already as a freshman. She didn't remember much about it, except the guy went off to war leaving his wife and kid at home, then didn't return home for a very long time. He made some god angry...
Class crept by. There was a quiz, which Randy was positive she failed. Also, when she asked Mark for her pen back, he said he'd left it at home. Tears again sprang to her eyes. The teacher asked what was wrong and she waved him away.
"Is it because of your boyfriend, Ms. Wakes?" he asked.
Randy's mouth hung open.
"Just because I'm old doesn't mean I don't keep up with the news," he said. "I'm very sorry about him, Miranda. But I think maybe you should pay more attention in class, okay?"
She nodded weakly, and the class continued.
"Here." A white pen with the name of a museum in Montana scribed in the side was shoved in front of Randy. She blinked, staring at the pen astonishedly. At the top of the pen was a clear plastic casing that contained small bits of polished, multi-colored rocks. Taylor had bought it for her after the first tour. She'd had to replace the ink part in it seven times. Half the pens in her room had been robbed of their ink cylinders so that this particular pen would have ink.
"Thanks, Mark," she said, taking the pen and hugging it to her. She kissed the top, and smiled up at him. "Thank you."
He shrugged. "I know it means a lot to you. I ran home and got it third hour."
"Really?" she asked, even more surprised.
"Yeah," he said with a shrug.
"Didn't you have to cut class?" she asked, knowing that senior study halls were only 2nd and 5th hour. He shrugged again.
"It was no big deal," he told her, before walking off. Randy smiled and looked at her friends who sat with her at lunch.
"Wasn't that nice?" she asked. Liz noted the tears that glimmered in her eyes. Randy had been crying off and on all day.
"Yeah," the group chorused.
"How sweet of him," she said.
"Very," Liz said, her eyes lowering to her plate. She was very curious, but was worried to ask. A lot of rumors had been flying around about Randy being the motive for Taylor's death. Liz had met Taylor and knew he was one of the nicest guys around. She couldn't imagine why anyone would kill him in cold blood. Now, maybe they would kill him because of something else...
"Randy, is it true what they've been saying?" Jake, another guy who sat with them asked.
"Huh?" she asked, tucking the pen into her bookbag.
"What they've been saying," Jake repeated. "Is it true?"
Her face was tinged with confusion. "What do you mean?"
"They've been saying that the reason that girl shot Taylor was because he was going out with you," Jake said quietly. "They've been saying that the girl killed him because she didn't want him to be with anyone but her..."
Randy's face was blanched. "What?"
"I was just wondering if it was true," he said softly, looking at his tray.
"No," Randy snapped. "No, it's not true."
However, her heart was beating rapidly in her throat. Her insides felt as if they might burst out of her body at any minute. She stood up, roughly pushing her chair over backwards and bumping the table. Liz's glass of ice water toppled over, sending the freezing liquid rushing across the table. Liz pushed away and stood up, grabbing for napkins. Randy blindly reached for her bag and snatched up her tray. Her salad flew off the corner of her plate and onto the table behind her. Tears stung at her eyes.
"Randy," someone was saying. She tried to get back to the window to return her tray, but her hand was shaking so badly that her tray slipped out of her hands. It clattered to the floor, sending a spray of food across the white linoleum.
She turned and ran for the door, not bothering to pick anything up. She heard her name being called as she raced through the door. Outside, she turned the wrong way, and ran into a trashcan. She fell back on her bottom. After a moment of stunned realization she curled into a ball. Of course, she thought. Nobody would ever hurt Taylor, 'cos he's never hurt anybody. There had to be a motive, and what better one than jealousy and selfishness. Randy had wanted him for herself, hadn't she? If she had just stayed away...
A soft hand landed on her shoulder. She turned toward the faceless hand and buried her face in their shoulder. Liz's soft voice whispered in her ear, "It's okay, Randy. It was just a stupid rumor..."
Her mind screamed in protest. Screamed that she was guilty. A million apologies ricocheted through her pounding head, but none seemed to make up for Taylor's death. How could you apologize for being the cause of the loss of a life? You couldn't. There was no apology that would ever be good enough.
Randy could think of only two words to describe her situation. Two words that rang sour bells in her mind; sad, bitter tones of self-loathing. They were utterly clear in her mind.
Eternal damnation.
That's what this is, she thought, her body trembling violently, and nobody can save me from it.