Jessie Humphries - Killing Ruby Rose

“No, he was definitely a white dude. Sort of light, graying hair and stubble. Anyway, do you know someone like that?”

“No, I don’t.” If he wasn’t talking about Martinez, then I had no idea who he was talking about (and I was officially crazy). None of my Filthy Five fit that description, unless one of them had hired a stylist and hit the gym like crazy for a few weeks. My fingers ached to open the notebook in my lap and write it all down.

“Then you passed out and he disappeared,” Liam said. “Do you think this guy has anything to do with the text you got that night?”

His question caught me off guard. No one, not even Alana, had dared ask me about that night. Even though most of the details had been leaked to the media—including the fact that I thought the text was from Liam—I’d successfully given off the don’t-talk-to-me-about-it vibe. Even without strict orders from Jane Rose, Esquire, I knew it wasn’t wise to discuss the investigation with anyone.

“You know, the night you…” Liam paused, and I prayed he wouldn’t say shot that dude. “…saved that girl? You think it might be him?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. “I have no idea.”

“I was going to ask you to Homecoming—just so you know.” He crushed another bulb. “I bought the flowers and everything. And I was on my way over to your house when Alana called me to tell me about—”

“Uh-huh.” I didn’t need to hear the end of that sentence. I knew what had happened next. I went into seclusion, and he’d gone to Homecoming with Taylor instead.

“I would’ve done the same thing.” He turned to face me. “I would have pulled the trigger on that Charlie LeDouche, too. You did the right thing. No matter what anyone says, especially that Bill Brandon dude. I think you were brave.”

I squirmed a little. He was sneaking past too many of my carefully constructed boundaries with his charm and sincerity. This is what I admired about Liam from afar—his ability to make people feel better about themselves.

“Obviously, I don’t know exactly what happened,” he continued. “Only what I’ve seen on the news or read in the papers, but it seems to me you were put between a rock and a hard place, and you ended up saving a little girl. That’s totally amazing.”

I felt for the picture of the girl hidden in The Cleave. Next to my other important stuff—cell phone, lip gloss—she was there.

Then I did something totally unexpected. I pulled her out to show Liam.

“She sent me this,” I said, holding up the small picture.

His first reaction was shock—possibly at me reaching into my bra. Then his look changed as he wiped his hands on his wet suit and took the picture.

“Wow, this is her?” he asked.

“She sent me a letter, too, thanking me, telling me I’m her hero.” I looked out at the ocean and the frothy waves crashing in. “But I haven’t contacted her. The thing is, I don’t feel like a hero. I mean, I don’t regret killing him, because he deserved to die. He’ll never hurt anyone again,” I said, trying to stop the swell of truth gushing out of me, but unable to because it felt so good. “But it never should have happened. I never should have been put in that position. He should already have been behind bars. That little girl never should have needed saving—”

“She looks like you,” he said.

My attention jerked back to him. He saw the similarities, too. Liam Slater was smart, observant, and protective. And he seemed to really want to help me.

“I know!” I said. “No one else noticed that.”

“Well, they didn’t release her name or picture,” he countered.

“I mean the police. My mom. My therapist. People who saw her. None of them noticed.”

“I don’t know how they could have missed it.” He stared sadly at the picture, running his finger over the bandage on the girl’s neck where LeMarq had tried to kill her.

After a moment Liam reached up to his left ear and pulled his shaggy hair back over it. Through the wet strands I saw what he was trying to hide—a serious scar, pink and fleshy on the top part of his ear. I was surprised that, after all this time shamelessly staring at him, I’d never noticed it before. It must be why he always wore his hair long. I found myself desperately curious to know who’d done that to him and why.

The closer I looked now, the more I saw. His ear didn’t bear his only scar. There were scores of little circles up and down the sides of his body. Like he had the chicken pox or—someone had used him as an ashtray. I teetered on the edge of asking, but I didn’t dare. He was allowed to have his secrets, too.

He caught me examining him, and instead of being angry or ashamed, a look of little-boy sadness fell over him. He stared out at the sea with those eyes that changed a different shade of blue for every occasion. They were now a stormy slate, just like the clouded horizon.

Suddenly, I felt more truth bubbling inside me, and the urge to word-vomit everything. To share why I passed out in the cafeteria, the tattoo in the art, the Love, D. S. signature, the fact that I was stalking LeMarq, the photo of a frightened girl someone texted me last night, and the text blaming me for her death this morning. Another girl who looked like me. Liam already had more clues than the police did. He’d seen the guy who might be Mr. D. S. He could help me.

Or—he could hate me, despise me, and see me for who I really was. He could go to the cops, or worse, the media. Regardless of the way he was looking at me now, things would change. The truth would disgust him, repulse him.

The tide turned inside me, and my shell closed just like the oysters out in the ocean. I couldn’t let these little pearls of truth escape. Ever.

“I gotta go,” I said, grabbing the picture from his hand. As I shifted to get up, I felt his hand on my arm.

“What’s wrong? What’d I say?” he asked. His touch and the worry in his voice almost cracked the shell back open.

“Nothing.” I pulled away. “School starts in twenty minutes. I don’t want to make you late.” I speed walked through the clumpy sand, away from the emotional riptide that almost pulled me under.

“Ruby!” he called after me. “I’m sorry…” But the wind whipped away the last part of his apology.

As I climbed into Big Black, I resolved not to let Liam Slater get that close to me again. He could never hurt me if I never let him.

I walked through the halls of Huntington Beach High wondering what it would be like to be that girl over there by the lockers—clearly in love with the boy next to her, and completely oblivious to every other concern in the world. Or that cheer chick in the courtyard, the one at the center of a gaggle of equally happy-go-lucky girls, laughing and listening to her glittery pink iPod. Or even that Goth boy by the water fountain, totally high as a kite. At least he looked happy.

I wondered what I looked like.

The bell rang, and I hurried to my Calc class at the end of the hall with my head down. Relieved not to be stopped, I slid into my seat at the back of the room and busied myself with my OCD preparations. Organizing my desk with the proper arrangement of my sharp mechanical pencil at my right, sleek calculator at my left, textbook center-right, notebook center-left, and bottle of water upper-right. A crack of the knuckles, and I was in the zone. A place where the only problems I had were mathematical.

When Mr. Holsum began to speak, I couldn’t help but notice that Liam’s desk was still empty. I told myself not to care. That it most likely had nothing to do with me. That he simply couldn’t resist the storming ocean swells, and he was ditching so he could stay out with his boys. Surfers around here often did that. Even teachers were known to call in sick on big surf days.