The Wolves Are Waiting Read online

  As he hit, he didn’t just think about form or bat speed. He thought about fourth-grade gym. Until he moved to Faber, he had never picked up a bat or a glove. Mr. Milner must have smelled it on him, because that first day of the baseball unit, he put Adam Xu last in the order. Which was actually a good thing. Adam got to observe the first twelve batters, so that by the time he came up to the plate, he had a fair handle on what to do: swing the bat, hit the ball, and run. His first two strikes had been embarrassing. He swung and missed in dramatic fashion, spinning in a full circle on the first pitch, falling down on the second. Then, by some miracle, instead of striking out, he connected, hitting a weak dribbler up the third-base line. He ran like hell, cutting left at first base and heading to second because the third baseman bumbled the ball.

  That’s when it happened. The kid playing first, a floppy-haired loudmouth named Kevin Hamm, yelled, “He didn’t touch first! He missed the bag!”

  And everyone on Adam’s team started yelling, “Go back! Touch the bag! Touch the bag!”

  So Adam ran back to first base, squatted down, and touched the bag. With his hand.

  If he closed his eyes, he could still hear the laughter. It was the funniest thing they had ever seen. The Chinese kid touched the bag! Touched the bag! Literally! Hahahahahahahaha!

  The feeling of disgrace never left him. Adam tended his shame like a small plant, watering it, pruning it, vowing to himself that he would learn everything there was to know about baseball so that, one day, he could wipe the smirks off everyone’s faces. One day, he would earn their respect.

  Wump. Last spring, he’d finally done it.

  Wump. He’d made JV.

  Wump. This year, he would make varsity.

  Hahahahahahahaha!

  The sound of laughter, deep and low. It took him a moment to realize this wasn’t a memory bubbling to the surface of his brain. He was hearing it in real time.

  He turned his head. The sky over the golf course was clear, full of stars. The sound would be easy to follow.

  Hahahahahahaha!

  He walked quickly.

  Partyers? he thought.

  He remembered the fair. It would be over by now. But the college students were probably just getting started.

  He saw figures up ahead, dimly lit by the moon. Three of them… no, four. One was flat on the ground.

  The closer he got, the clearer the scene became. One of the figures was holding something in the air. A phone? Another was bent over the body on the ground.

  “Dude, she’s completely out.”

  The third was—wait. Was he taking off his pants?

  “Hey!” Adam shouted. He hadn’t planned to. It was pure instinct.

  The three figures turned. They were big, way bigger than Adam. For a second, he panicked. But then he remembered the bat in his hand, and something took over—some strange, subterranean part of him.

  “Ting xia lai! Huai dan!”

  He was yelling in Chinese, words his mother yelled at their dog, Bao Bao, for chewing on the furniture—Stop it! You bad egg! Between Adam yelling and the glow-in-the-dark baseball bat slashing Z’s through the air like Obi-Wan’s lightsaber, he must have freaked them out, because the figures took off running.

  Three of them were gone.

  One was still lying on the ground.

  Adam did not realize, at first, who she was. He saw only that her clothes were half off.

  “Hey,” he said. “Are you okay?”

  No response.

  His head spun. Was this a crime scene? What was he supposed to do? The girl was so still, so utterly motionless, he was almost afraid to touch her.

  But he did. He had to. He knelt down to brush the hair off her neck so he could check her pulse.

  And there she was.

  Nora Melchionda.

  The rhythmic throbbing of her heart against his fingertips.

  Nora Melchionda with the golden braids and the triple-pierced ears and the eyes that crinkled into aqua slits when she smiled. No-ra-Mel-chi-on-da. Her name was a waterfall of sounds.

  Okay, fine. Yes. Adam had never admitted this to anyone—but it was true: He loved everything about her. Nora Melchionda. No-ra No-ra No-ra-Mel-chi-on-da.

  She probably didn’t remember, but in fourth grade, the day before winter break, his milk carton exploded when he tripped over a chair and went flying. He had been living in Faber for only a week, and already he was on the floor of the cafeteria, covered in milk. Everyone was staring.

  “You okay?”

  He had looked up, and there she was, squinting down at him. She was wearing the ugliest sweater he had ever seen, a reindeer head covered in pom-poms and sparkles. He could do nothing but nod.

  “Up you go.” She reached out a hand and yanked him to his feet.

  He nodded again, in thanks. She was four inches taller than he was. Maybe five.

  “Here,” she said, thrusting a fresh carton of milk into his hand and smiling a dazzling smile full of braces. “Merry Christmas.”

  This time he managed to say it: “Thank you.”

  “No prob.” She shrugged. “I’m lactose intolerant. I always give away my milk.”

  That was the first thing Adam learned about Nora Melchionda: She was lactose intolerant; she always gave away her milk.

  He discovered other things, too, over the years. Countless details, like how she bit the nails on her left hand but not her right, and how green apple Airheads were her go-to candy, and how she loved classic rock. There was so much to be learned about a person just by paying attention. Not that Adam was a stalker or anything. He wasn’t. He was merely an observer, a quiet satellite in Nora Melchionda’s extraordinary orbit, gathering information.

  It didn’t take a genius to see that Camille Dodd was Nora’s best friend. They were inseparable. And all Adam had to do was listen when Nora read her personal essay out loud in freshman English to learn that her favorite movie was The Fighter, based on the real-life story of boxer “Irish” Micky Ward. As for knowing her astrological sign—Aquarius, the water bearer; intelligent, unyielding, grounded—he just had to watch every year on February 2, when Nora’s friends decorated her locker and showered her with gifts and cupcakes from the Blue Bird. Nora always laughed and did a silly birthday dance in the hall, not caring who was watching.

  All those things had endeared Nora to Adam and made him want to know her better. He had once gone so far as to read an article entitled “What Attracts an Aquarius Woman,” where he discovered that “an Aquarius female loves a good conversationalist.” Although he had always felt too shy in front of Nora’s many admirers to strike up a conversation with her, if, by some miracle, they ever ended up alone, he would know what to talk about. The final boxing scene from The Fighter: “Head-body, head-body!” The ingredients in green apple Airheads: Blue 1, Blue 2, Red 3, Red 40, Yellow 5, and Yellow 6, but no actual green. Crazy, right?

  Crazy.

  But not as crazy as this: kneeling on the grass of the golf course at 1:27 AM, two fingers to Nora Melchionda’s neck, the closest he had ever been to her, and he couldn’t even prove what a good conversationalist he was. If she could see him on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Live, talking about metamagic feats, she would know that he could articulate clear and intelligent thoughts without turning red in the face. But this wasn’t D&D Live. Not even close.

  “Nora? It’s me, Adam Xu… from school… Can you hear me? Nora?”

  Nothing.

  He straightened her clothes, gently, careful not to touch any more of her body than he had to. He could have, of course—no one was there to see. But he never would. That was the difference between Adam and the Neanderthals he’d chased off with his baseball bat. Adam had loved Nora Melchionda since she was a scrawny ten-year-old kid, before she had any “body” to speak of—before every guy in Faber started noticing her. Just thinking about those three guys lifting up Nora’s shirt, pulling down her underwear, made Adam feel as unhinged as he had ever felt in his life. H
e wanted to tear through the night with his baseball bat cocked.

  But no. He had stay focused.

  He removed her phone from her pocket, and he held the screen to her face. Gently, he lifted her eyelids, and when the phone unlocked, he found her best friend’s number.

  It’s Adam Xu. Nora needs you. Faber golf course 9th hole, asap.

  NORA

  “YOU ARE NOT INSPECTING MY VAJAYJAY,” SHE SAID.

  She was standing in the middle of Cam’s bedroom, on the braided rug where she had stood a million times before. The whorls of purple and blue made her dizzy.

  “Vajayjay?” Cam gawked at her.

  “I’ll call it what I want,” Nora said. Her head was still throbbing. She’d chugged three glasses of water in Cam’s kitchen, but it hadn’t helped. “And you are not getting out that stupid hand mirror.”

  “How are you going to see your pubic area without a hand mirror?”

  “I’ll see it fine,” Nora said.

  This was exactly like that time when they were twelve and Cam insisted on showing her how to put in a tampon—not just provide moral support from the other side of the bathroom stall like a normal friend—show. Cam’s comfort level with her body, her freakish lack of embarrassment, made Nora feel like a sixteenth-century nun. Privates are private. That’s what Nora’s mom always said. Unlike Cam’s mother, Imani, who said things like Own your pleasure, girls.

  “Take some pictures with your phone,” Cam told Nora. “If you see any bruises or scratches, you’ll need documentation.”

  “Okay, CSI Miami.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Nor. You woke up half-naked on a putting green. You don’t remember anything. What if you were gang-raped?” Cam’s voice dropped to a theatrical whisper, and Nora rolled her eyes. Drama queen.

  “Nora.” Cam’s face meant business, like Principal Hicks during assembly that day the seniors toilet-papered freshman hall.

  Okay, fine… could she have been gang-raped? Three guys in a remote location? Her memory a blank? Yes, she supposed it was possible—if this were New York City, where crazy things happened in the dark. But not in Faber. In Faber, the crime rate was 0.01. No one locked their doors. There were only two traffic lights. A rocking Friday night meant the Red Barn roller rink and two slices of bacon and pineapple at NY Pizzeria. If it weren’t for the university, no one outside of Chenango County would even know this place existed.

  “Enough stalling,” Cam said. “Go look at your body.”

  Nora did not appreciate Cam’s bossy tone, but she didn’t have the energy to argue. She shuffled into the bathroom to the left of Cam’s bed, flicked on the light, and shut the door behind her. The brightness made her eyeballs ache.

  Nora lifted her shirt up over her head, let it drop to the floor. She unhooked her bra, flung it over the shower rod. She stepped out of her skirt and underwear and stood there, in front of the full-length mirror, squinting.

  She could see her whole self.

  I am a ghost, she thought, pressing her fingertips to the hollow beneath her neck. She could literally see the veins running like blue-green highways under her skin. Over the summer, she’d been a nice toasty color from weeks spent at the lake. In Cam’s mirror, she was translucent. How had that happened?

  Cam always told her she was lucky, that there were women the world over who would kill to look like Nora, blond and curvy. It was the law of bodies, Nora supposed, that girls always wanted what they didn’t have. Whenever she watched Cam run the 200-meter, those long legs pumping, quad muscles gleaming, she felt a spark of envy.

  “Your body is amazing,” Nora had said once, after a track meet. “You’re like the female Usain Bolt.”

  Cam, being Cam, had bristled at the compliment. She was an athlete in her own right, she’d told Nora.

  “Listen to this,” Cam said from the other side of the door. “I googled ‘What happened last night? I don’t remember anything,’ and here’s what I got. ‘The signs of a sex crime may be very obvious or very subtle. You wake up in a strange place. You have bruises or scratches or unusual pain. You feel hungover even when you didn’t drink alcohol…’”

  Cam’s voice was urgent, but Nora was barely listening. She didn’t like standing in front of the mirror, everything on display. Her skin was so pasty. Her breasts were so… breasty. They had come out of nowhere. All her life she’d been thin, like her little sister. She’d assumed she would look like that forever. Then, suddenly, Nora’s body had gone into hyperdrive, morphing from a string bean into what her friend Becca called a “loaded potato.” Everyone, it seemed, had something to say about this new development, even Nora’s brother, who’d stood in her doorway a few weeks earlier, looking supremely uncomfortable.

  “I have to tell you something,” he said. “Guys at school are starting to talk. Seniors.”

  When Nora asked him to elaborate, Asher said, “They’re making comments about your… you know… appearance. Compliments, technically, but still.”

  At first, Nora had felt a strange rush of pride, like she’d won a contest. Senior boys have noticed me!

  But then Asher said, “When you wear things that are too tight… or too short… some guys see that as an invitation.”

  At which point Nora had felt the opposite of proud. She’d felt ashamed. As though she had done something wrong by growing boobs and hips, by not dressing like Laura Ingalls Wilder.

  Ugh. She didn’t want to think about that. She didn’t want to think about her body. She didn’t want to think about what happened on the golf course. All she wanted to do was pull on sweatpants, crawl into bed, and sleep.

  But no. Cam was still going. “Do you see anything? Bruises? Blood? Hairs that aren’t yours?”

  Nora stepped closer to the mirror. The front of herself looked normal. She wasn’t bruised or bloody or covered in random hairs. She turned slowly to the left, then to the right, glancing over each shoulder at her backside. Nothing.

  Wait—there was a strange bluish mark on her upper arm. Maybe one of the guys grabbed her? Nora stepped closer to the mirror.

  Ha!

  It wasn’t a bruise. It was the temporary tattoo Nora’s sister, Maeve, had insisted on giving her a few days earlier, after some Potterhead event at the library. The tattoo was a Ravenclaw crest. That’s what Nora was, Maeve told her: a Ravenclaw. Intelligent, witty, wise.

  “Do you need the hand mirror?” Cam asked from outside the door.

  “No,” Nora said. She most certainly did not need the hand mirror.

  “You sure?”

  “Yes!”

  God, Cam was bossy. If she weren’t three feet away, insisting that Nora inspect her privates, Nora wouldn’t even bother looking. But there Cam was, right outside, and she wouldn’t stop yammering until Nora did it.

  So fine.

  She took a deep breath, squatted, and bent over. It’s just another body part, she told herself. It’s perfectly normal to be checking out your own crotch. She squinted, trying to focus. Okay. This was completely weird. Flipping upside down, poking around at her nether region, checking for signs that some strange guy, or guys, had been down there without her knowledge. What was she even looking for? Suddenly, Nora was filled with a sick, dizzy feeling. Did she want to know? No. She did not. All she wanted was to pretend the frat fair never happened.

  “Well?” Cam said from outside the door.

  Nora rolled up slowly so she wouldn’t get a head rush. “I’m fine,” she said. Not just to Cam, but to her own reflection. To the pale, naked girl standing there with her hands clenched.

  I’m fine.

  I’m fine.

  I’m fine.

  CAM

  CAM HAD TWO MAIN CONCERNS. THE FIRST WAS HER best friend, who seemed to be in denial. When Nora walked out of Cam’s bathroom, she was calm. She hadn’t seen anything on her body, she said. No scratches, no bruises, no blood, no hair. She hadn’t smelled any strange smells on her skin or clothes. The only pain she felt was her head. Nor
a was telling the truth—Cam would know if she weren’t—but still. If Cam had woken up half-naked on the golf course, and there was a witness who had spotted three guys at the scene, she would be screaming. She would be punching a wall. The fact that Nora was showing zero emotion only made Cam worry more. How dare anyone hurt her best friend?

  Nora was the most decent, loyal person Cam knew. She had been there for Cam through every hard time in her life. When Cam got her tonsils out, Nora showed up at the hospital with two kinds of ice cream. When Cam’s grandfather died, Nora sat in the front pew and held her hand while she cried. When Cam tripped in the final lap of the 4x400 relay, Nora ran out onto the track and helped her up. That’s the kind of friend she was: decent and loyal.

  Well, it was Cam’s turn to be decent and loyal. She would show up for Nora. She would absorb whatever emotions Nora was feeling but could not express. She would be a true friend.

  There was just one thing. Cam’s second concern: her cell phone, pinging from the back pocket of her jeans. There were three texts already. She had read them while Nora was in the bathroom.

  Wow

  Still reeling

  No regrets

  All three texts were from Nora’s brother, Asher. Nora’s brother, Asher, who Cam had inadvertently made out with in a closet at Kyle Tenhope’s party.

  She hadn’t planned to. Really. She had been just as surprised as anyone when Asher Melchionda rolled up on his bike in front of the Tenhopes’ house. Even though Asher was a senior, he didn’t go to parties. (As a sophomore, Cam typically wouldn’t have gone to an upperclassman party, either, except that Kyle Tenhope was captain of both the cross-country team and the track team, and he had invited her because—not to brag or anything—she’d been a varsity runner since freshman year.) So there Cam was on the Tenhopes’ front stoop, holding a beer and scrolling through her phone, when Nora’s brother rolled up on his silly bike. Asher had his driver’s license, but he rarely drove. Over the summer, he’d found an old, beat-up beach cruiser at the dump. He’d fixed it himself and painted the frame yellow. He’d named it Odd Duck, which was appropriate because Asher Melchionda was pretty much the opposite of every guy Cam knew in Faber.