The Mary Shelley Club by Goldy Moldavsky (ebook reader for manga TXT) 📕

I waited for him to show himself. To let out a guttural scream and knock over all his bookshelves and act out in a violent rage. But all he did was sink onto the edge of his bed and slump forward, his head bent. He emptied his pants pockets, tossing cash and pills on the bed behind him, until he was left holding my key fob.

He looked at it for a long minute, and he might have kept looking for even longer, but I accidentally nudged the closet door. I froze, but Bram’s head snapped up. His eyes zeroed in on the crack in the doorframe, and if he thought there was a monster in here, he wasn’t afraid. He stood and approached me, but I swung the door open before he could get to it.

He didn’t seem all that surprised to see me, but maybe he was keeping his emotions in check.

“I should be mad that you’re in here.”

Yeah, I thought. You just found me snooping in your room. Get mad. Show me who you really are. But all he did was go to one of his dressers and pull out a plain white T-shirt, slipping it over his head.

“But I get it,” Bram continued. “Your friend just died. You’re distraught. You want answers. What I don’t understand is why you’re so attached to the idea that I’m the bad guy.”

Was he serious? From the beginning Bram had been cold to me. He had never wanted me in the club—he’d told me as much. Saundra had ended up dead in his Fear Test. Bram could say he wasn’t a bad guy, but he’d barely shown me a sliver of good.

“The Upper Lower School trip.”

“What?”

“Fifth grade. You went to the Empire State Building. Saundra was scared, but you calmed her down. You held her hand until it was time to leave.”

Bram looked at me blankly. “Saundra was afraid of heights,” I said. I could feel my voice starting to quiver, but I had to go on. “The only way she ever would have gotten on that roof was if you were there with her.”

“What are you talking about?”

I swiped at a tear. “She told me that herself. Don’t you even remember?”

“Rachel.” Bram said my name like he felt sorry for me.

“Freddie was with me when Saundra died,” I said. “But I have no idea where you were or what you were doing. I’m trying to find out what happened. That’s why I’m at your party, that’s why I’m in your room—I need to know.”

It was my voice that betrayed me. The sound of it ragged, desperate. It was all I could do not to break down in front of this boy who didn’t care about anything or anyone except himself. And the worst part was that his eyes wouldn’t meet mine. Even in this moment, when I felt scraped bare.

“Look at me, Bram.” To my surprise my voice didn’t sound angry. It sounded tired. “Why don’t you ever look at me?”

Bram did look at me then. And for the first time, the mask that he’d worn since the moment I’d met him fell away and I glimpsed something real in him. The look in his eyes was different. Softer, somehow. For once, he didn’t look like he hated me. He actually looked like someone capable of empathy. He walked over to his bed and lifted the corner of the mattress. Underneath was the mask. He came back to me. “Is this what you came here for?”

I didn’t need to fight him for it; he placed it in my hands. It was wiped clean, but part of the fabric, where it had touched the monster’s rubber forehead, was stained dark. Bram saw the spot that I was fixated on.

“Blood,” he said. “But it’s not Saundra’s. It’s mine.” He pushed back the hair that swooshed over his forehead, revealing a cut close to his hairline. It wasn’t like the fresh cut in his eyebrow. This one was healed but was still tinged with pink. “Saundra smashed a bookend over my head. Knocked me out cold. I deserved it.”

I stepped closer, my fingers reaching to touch this damage that Saundra had done. It was so recent, indelible; it was like she was still there. I dropped my hand when I realized what I was doing, shifting my gaze from the scar to his eyes. “What are you saying?”

“I didn’t come to until she’d already fallen,” Bram said. “I’m truly sorry for what happened to her, Rachel. But it wasn’t me.”

I couldn’t accept that. New tears sprang to my eyes, unbidden. Saundra was dead and it was somebody’s fault. “It was you.”

“No.”

“Then why were you hurt the night after Felicity’s Fear Test?”

“What?”

“I saw you grab your ribs and wince. Sim told me he kicked the masked guy in the ribs. So why were you hurt that night?” I made sure to keep my voice steady and calm, clear as a bell.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

He was lying. I could hear it in his voice, see it in his eyes. All of him suddenly, subtly, dimmed. And he knew I could tell, because he came closer, like he needed to contain the situation, contain me.

“You’re a liar,” I said.

“Rachel, don’t believe me about anything else, fine, but believe me about Saundra. Whatever you think of me, you know I didn’t do anything to her.”

I shook my head. “I don’t know that.”

“You do know that. Deep down you know it. You want me to be the bad guy because it means you can ignore the truth.”

I shook my head, shaking the tears loose from my eyes. It had to be Bram. All signs pointed to him—it had to be. Putting all the blame on Bram was easy, because it meant that I didn’t have to take any of it for myself. But more than that, it meant I didn’t have to acknowledge the truth locked away in a dark corner of my mind.