The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)

The Return of the Native

Previously: "An Embarrassment of Cameron Hubers" 

You feel small, cold, and scrawny when next you wake, as though you have been stripped of all your meat, leaving you a thing of bones and skin on the other side. It is dark in the elementary school basement, and chilly. You lie on the table, shivering slightly, as someone or someones move and shuffle in the darkness.

You don't even push away the mask that is resting lightly on your face.

Eventually you do sit up though, and catch the mask your hands as it falls to your lap. Dim light filters in through the windows, just enough for you to make out the shadows of the piled up desks and cantered bookshelves. Someone is moving nearby. By his general shape and bulk, you know it must be Gordon, restored at last to his own body. He is dressing.

Your clothes are near at hand, and without speaking you start to dress too. After you've got your shirt and pants on, and are reaching for your shoes, you become aware that Gordon is loitering nearby, watching. You pause, but still neither of you speaks. After a moment, he shuffles off toward the stairs.

He is waiting outside when you emerge, hands on his hips, craning his neck to look up at the stars. Caleb is perched on the hood of his car, reading his cell phone. You pull the basement door shut behind you, and lock it, then the mount the last few steps.

Yeah, is what you'll probably say to Gordon, and Yeah, is probably what he'll say back.

You remember everything that he did as you, and it's as real to you as if you had done it yourself. You're sure it's the same, but in reverse, with him.

Caleb had suggested that you and he put on the masks of yourselves, which contain the memories of what you did as each other, and wear them so as to not feel lost when you returned to your old lives. It seemed like a weird idea—disguising yourselves as yourselves—but you tried it. The masks apparently had a different idea. You felt yourself go under when you put it on, and when you checked your phone after waking up, you found that you'd been conked out for twenty minutes or so. But you're not wearing the mask now. It was sitting atop on your face still when you woke up.

Like it gave me all the memories it was carrying inside itself, you thought, then popped back out. Clever.

But you're not very interested.

So when Caleb looks up and says, "You guys gonna be okay going home as yourselves?" you content yourself with a nod. You didn't even bring the mask back up with you, but laid it on the table next to the one Gordon left behind. "There anything else we need to talk about?" Caleb asks. "Okay, then I'm heading home." He waits a moment, then hops off his car and clambers in behind the wheel. A minute later, he's driving away.

You and Gordon still haven't looked at each other, but you sense it when he turns to face you. For a minute you look at each other.

Then he puts out a hand. You take it. His grip is strong but not crushing. You do your best to return it.

He's still holding your hand when points at your face and says, "You're not going to fuck anything up for me while you're wearing that thing, are you?"

For a moment you're confused, thinking that he's referring to the mask you put on to get the memories. Then you realize what he means, and grin back. "Long as you promise not fuck up anything for me while you're wearing—" You point at his face.

His smile is smaller than yours, maybe a little more wistful. He lets go of your hand, but knocks you sideways with a blow to your shoulder.

"Aw, Jesus, sorry," he says. "I need'a stop doing that."

"I don't mind it. Really." Not so much now, you silently add.

He gives you a quick squint, then grunts. You feel yourself blushing harder as he shuffles over to his Bug and climbs in. Not until he's pulled away and you're in your truck does it hit you that he didn't even wish you goodbye.

* * * * *

"Morning, champ," your dad says when he joins you at the table for breakfast. He's been calling you that for the past few weeks, ever since—

Well, ever since it was someone else going home with your face. "Got any plans for this weekend?" he asks as he props up his iPad next to his plate.

It's Thursday, and you never have weekend plans, except to shirk whatever jobs he's got for you. But that's something else that's changed in recent weeks. "No sir."

He gives you a quick glance over his half-glasses, and you wonder if he'll get used to that "sir" that's been popping up in your answers any quicker than you will. "Well," he says. "Keep your ear to the ground. I wouldn't want you missing out."

"You have anything you need me to do?"

"Not a thing." He flashes you a short smile. "Make hay while the sun shines."

"Yes sir."

That draws a slightly longer stare, and for a second he actually looks uncomfortable.

* * * * *

It was strange sleeping in your bed again, after so many weeks, even though you also remember sleeping in it last night. It was like a homecoming from being at camp—strange, but also instantly familiar. It was also strange because your room is much cleaner. The floor is clear, the desk neat, and carpet vacuumed. You remember doing all that, too, and you remember keeping it neat by cleaning it up each night before going to bed.

It's strange, too, pulling into the Westside student parking lot, and to find the asphalt closer to your chin when you hop from your truck. You trudge off toward the school, but slow up when you see the orange VW Bug parked next to the breezeway entrance. That's mine, you think, then shake your head. You push away that instinctive claim of ownership, and find it's like ripping a sticky Band-Aid off your balls.

You even pause in front of the gym doors. Should I go in? you think. I never used to. Even when it was Gordon wearing your face, he never went in to watch you at practice. But you do feel curious. Is Richards doing any better? What about Martin and Saxe, have they stopped getting in each other's way since you knocked their heads together and told them to cut it out? What is Gordon thinking, on returning to the squad? Does he find it working better, or worse?

Oh, but what would he think if you went in now, to sit in the bleachers to watch? Would he resent it, thinking you've come in to spy on your work? Or would he think you were being a creepy perv, like an ex-girlfriend who can't quit her guy? Or what if he's in there now, wondering why you haven't stopped by?

It gives you a prickling anxiety all over. You were in each other lives, taking care of them, fucking them up and then trying to put the pieces back right. You were sharing lives in a way that even married people don't. And now ...

Is it going to feel like you're ex-es?

* * * * *

"You looking forward to English?" Caleb asks as you fall into the desk next to him first period. He's tapping into his phone, and doesn't even spare you a glance.

"Why the fuck would I be looking forward to—? Oh! Fuck you."

He gives you a quick, sidelong smirk. "Just checking if it was really you. Was wondering if maybe you and the other guy might be having second thoughts."

You knead your forehead where the headache is starting to blossom. "I'm not having second thoughts. Or I wasn't, until—"

Until Caleb reminded you that in fourth period you'll be seeing Cassie Harper, and that since last Saturday, when "you" had a date with her, she's been sitting with you in the classes you share and chatting up a storm.

"Well, if you're going to cut it off, cut it off fast. I can only keep the hordes at bay so long."

"What hordes?"

He hands you his phone, and you squint at the screen. It takes you a moment to make out what he wants to you see.

When you decipher it, you wish you hadn't. It's a thread on that shithole x2z.com social media site, speculating about how serious you and Cassie are.

You're preoccupied the rest of the period, and don't hear a word Mr. Walberg says.

* * * * *

You're preoccupied in second period, too, and also on your way to third period. Usually you keep alert to the faces around as you push through the hallways, but today your eye is turned inward, and you don't see David Kirkham until after he's grabbed your shoulder and slammed you back hard against the row of lockers. You blink at him as your attention snaps back from a million miles away.

"Hear you've been acting above your station, Prescott," he hisses at you.

David Kirkham is shorter than you, but he's a lot stronger, and he might just be the meanest guy in the school. He hides his eyes behind tinted shades, and rolls a flavored toothpick around his mouth, between hard, white teeth. His voice is soft, but it carries all the menace of a cobra.

Acting above my station? you wonder with a frown, and you also wonder why you're not shitting yourself.

The answer comes in a flash.

For the last three weeks, every time the Molester has come for you, you've hit him back with a flurry of rabbit punches that never put him down, but did drive him away. And the one time he did try to close on you, you kicked him in the balls and tried to gouge his eye. The last time you saw him, he flinched and turned away.

Gordon's "anti-bullying tactic" in action.

Can you do it again, with Kirkham? You did it with the Molester.

Except ... that was really someone else doing it.

Next: "The Punisher" 

*
"Table of Contents (Vol. 2)" 
"The Book of Masks (Vol. 2)"