Diana Peterfreund - Rites of Spring (Break)

“Too late,” Salt said, and steered us into the dock of Cavador Key. “We’re going to work this out right here.”

“Over my dead body,” Demetria said. “I bet he already got through to the coastal unit or whatever they’re called.”

“We’ll see, miss.” He turned off the engine.

Ben was crouched by Darren’s head. “The bleeding is worse than the cut,” he said. “Head wounds. But he’ll probably need stitches.”

Darren said nothing. He was looking at the dock in fear.

Every light was on, and a crowd had gathered. I saw the remainder of my club. I saw Malcolm and a host of other patriarchs. I saw the Gehrys standing there, waiting to climb aboard the boat the second Salt threw over a rope.

Or maybe not even that long. Because here was Mr. Gehry, right on deck.

“Darren!” he bellowed. “Son, are you okay?”

“Yeah, Dad,” he said.

“What the hell were you thinking? What were you doing? You could have killed this girl! Have you gone mad?”

Everyone was silent. Darren looked at the assembled crowd, and then at me, and then, at long last, at his father.

And burst into tears.

“Dad…”

“How could you?” Kurt shrieked. “Considering what we’re dealing with?”

“Dad…”

“Knowing everything we’ve been through?”

“Dad…”

“Is this how we raised you?”

“But I don’t know!” Darren snapped. His father stepped back. “You won’t tell me anything. No one will! You leave your job, you send me and Mom and Belle here, and you don’t let us watch TV, and you don’t let us make phone calls, and you don’t let us have our computers…”

“It was for your own good, son. You’re too young to understand…”

“I understand everything!” Darren shouted. “Do you think I’m stupid? I read it all on the Internet before you made us come here. It was D177’s fault. They ruined it all for you. He asked you to resign…he asked you to resign, and it’s all their fault. It’s because they don’t have any respect for you. These stupid college students dismissed you, and you lost your job because of it! How could I let that stand? They need to recognize what we can do! That’s what you always told me. That you need to show them how dangerous you can be.”

Kurt Gehry stood there for several moments, then he dropped to his knees in front of his son and pulled him close. “No. No, Darren.” He sighed. “No. That’s not why I resigned. I’m so sorry if I let you believe that. I’m appalled that I let you listen to those rumors and didn’t tell you the truth. It’s my fault.”

“Then why is Mom like that?” Darren sobbed. “Why is she always—”

“Darren?” Mrs. Gehry’s face appeared over the side of the boat, and she, too, scrambled aboard. “Oh, God, Darren, what did you do? You stole my medicine, you ran away, you’ve been hurting people!”

“Hush, Gail,” Kurt said, leaning back. “He made some pretty serious mistakes, but he thought he was doing it for us.” He looked back at Darren. “Son, we love you. We’d do anything for you, anything to protect you. I don’t know what you were thinking, but I promise, you don’t need to do anything to prove yourself to me. You don’t need to protect me. I can protect myself.”

“Tell me the truth!” Darren cried. “Tell me why we’re really here! Hiding…Why did Isabelle and I have to leave school? Why are we stuck here? Why are you ignoring us?”

“Not here, son. We’ll talk about it, I promise, but not in front of these strangers.”

“Bullshit!” Demetria yelled crossing the deck from my side to the family’s. “We all know anyway. And your stupid secrets almost got Amy murdered tonight. She was certainly assaulted. And certainly kidnapped. Don’t you think you’d better explain it to Darren before he has to face the police?”

“No!” Kurt Gehry said, and rose. “I will not have you using your hatred of me to destroy my son.”

“How about my hatred of your son?” Demetria said. “There is no way I’m letting this get swept under the rug. He did who knows what to Amy, and I think he did it with the help of drugs that you or your wife obtained illegally. I don’t need a doctor to tell me what she was on tonight. We’ve seen your wife on the same shit. Rohypnol, huh, Darren?” she hissed at the boy, and his mother held him closer. “Pretty smart of you, with the blue Gatorade. Quite the date rapist in training. Now you’re in real trouble, and there is no way I’m letting any of you get away with it.”

“Demetria,” Clarissa said.

“You will do nothing of the sort,” Gehry insisted.

“How you gonna stop us?” Demetria said. “You can’t do anything. You can’t keep us here.”

“Listen, you bitch…” Gehry said.

“You have no idea what a bitch I’m going to be,” she replied.

“Stop.” I pushed to my feet, wavering, and they did stop. I looked at Darren, tearful and bloody, on the other side of the deck. I looked at his mother, cradling him in her arms, the blood from his head soaking into her sweater. She looked all too sober right now. I looked at his father, broken, battered, and crazy with concern over his child.

That was a first. Clarissa’s dad would humiliate her in front of all his Digger friends. Malcolm’s father had dropped him the second his son had declared anything that jarred with his own worldview. But Kurt Gehry, evil patriarch, hypocritical lawmaker, all-around jerk—everything he’d done had been to protect his children, however misguided, however damaging it had ended up being. And nothing had changed. Even after seeing what Darren had done, he was still fighting for him. He’d been a real dad.

No wonder Darren loved him so much. No wonder Darren had gone to such insane lengths to protect his father, in turn. The teen looked so tiny, so lost in the shadows on the deck. I remembered playing darts with him, making costumes. He’d been trying so hard to impress us all. Too hard.

“I’m not pressing charges,” I said.

“What!” shouted voices all around me. I put a hand to my head.

“I’m not,” I said.

“Amy, you aren’t thinking clearly,” Demetria said. “You’ve been drugged—”

“Nothing happened,” I said. “It could have. I’m not going to lie about that. But…” I tried to shake my head and failed. “This was a really bad mistake.”

“It was a crime!” Demetria insisted.

“There are a lot of those going around.”

A couple of months ago, I was terrified that Dragon’s Head was going to call the police because I’d broken into their tomb. And yet, I’d never once considered pressing charges against the society members for ruining my textbooks or pouring drinks all over me. It was all fun and games. Part of the package for society members. Last semester, we’d broken into Micah Price’s apartment and filled it with rats, and none of us was facing jail time. This was society culture. This was what Darren had been taught to idolize. He was just too young to see the distinction between mischievous and truly dangerous.

And maybe there was no distinction. Poe had ended up in the hospital after we’d broken into Dragon’s Head. What if his wounds had been worse? What if Micah’d had his finger bitten off by one of those rats? What if I’d slipped on the icy sidewalk Dragon’s Head had left for me and broken my neck? What if any of our supposedly innocent society pranks had gone horribly wrong? Would it be one of us trying to figure out if we could plead down from felony to misdemeanor and wishing we still had the parachute of under-eighteen to keep us from ruining our lives? Except Darren wouldn’t have that parachute, either. He was too famous. The son of Kurt Gehry was media fodder, and if he got arrested after his father’s fall from grace, given his father’s notoriety, well, he would be destroyed, plain and simple.