Mom turned back and stared at me, her gaze accusing again. She didn't say anything else.
"Don't bring that up," I said. "This isn't the same."
Mom turned her gaze from me to the phone. "I'll try her cell phone again."
I'd already tried it a dozen times, but I didn't argue.
When I'd finished up the dinner dishes and Adrian still hadn't come home, new waves of worry spread over me. What was she doing? Why was she so mad? Certainly Rick had explained what happened. She had to know he wasn't lying. He had the welt to prove it.
I shouldn't be so concerned.
But I was. To look at Adrian you wouldn't think of her as fragile. Fragile people didn't wear black leather. Yet Adrian seemed to continually run along the edge of destruction, to always be putting one foot far enough over to feel the air on her toes.
I took my cell phone into my bedroom and fingered it while I paced back and forth between my bed and dresser. Finally I called Tanner. Our fight didn't seem important now, and he'd know Rick's cell phone number. Rick probably knew where she was.
Tanner answered the phone, his voice cautious. "Hi Chelsea."
"Hi Tanner." I couldn't just blurt out that I wanted Rick's phone number, and besides, hearing his voice made my heart skip in an unexpected and aching way. I decided to start at the beginning. "Rick apologized to me at school today. He said you told him to. I wanted you to know I appreciate it, even if immediately afterwards I did smack him in the face with my locker door. That was an accident. It really was."
Tanner's voice turned incredulous. "You hit him with your locker door?"
"Accidentally. And um, have you seen Rick since school? I mean, I couldn't tell how badly he was hurt. Do you have his cell phone number?"
A hint of suspicion crept into Tanner's voice. "You want my brother's number?"
"For Adrian."
"Adrian already has his number."
"No, I mean, Adrian walked up while I was checking Rick's face and she thought . . . well, I think she thought that Rick and I were doing something."
Tanner's suspicion turned to alarm. "Exactly how were you checking his face?"
I let out a sigh. Not this from Tanner too. Were Rick and I the only ones who'd noticed that we didn't get along? "I was just looking at his eye. That's all. But I had to pull his hand away from his face first, so I was sort of holding it in mine, and Adrian saw us and stomped off. She hasn't come home yet." My throat clenched and I could only get the rest out in a whisper. "I'm worried and I need to talk to her. I need to explain."
Tanner's voice turned soothing. "I can give you Richard's number. That's easy enough, but if he is with her, wouldn't he have explained everything to her?"
"I guess, but she doesn't trust me. She . . ." My voice came out in an uneven rhythm. "See, there was this thing with this other guy . . . " I didn't want to tell him. I knew he'd think less of me for it, but at the same time I wanted him to understand why Adrian acted the way she did. In halting phrases I explained about Travis.
He listened quietly and I wished I could see his face to judge his reaction, to judge how awful he considered my confession to be. What did he think of me now that he knew I'd stabbed my own sister in the back? Perhaps it was better that I couldn't see him, after all.
"I just thought you should know," I finished up, "so you'd understand why I got so mad at you yesterday. Adrian isn't white trash. She wouldn't be this way if I hadn't messed things up for her."
"She's told you that? She blames you for the state her life is in?
"Not exactly in those words, but yeah."
He paused for a moment to let out a grunt. "That must be a power trip."
I didn't answer because I wasn't sure what he meant. Was it a power trip for me because I had the ability to mess up my sister's life or did he mean it was a power trip for her because she could lay this huge guilt trip on me?
I stood staring at my dresser but not seeing it, trying to work it out in my mind.
He spoke again, this time his voice sounded almost businesslike. "I'm sure Adrian's fine, Chelsea. I'll call Richard for you and see what I can find out, then I'll call you back."
I guess he didn't think I was coherent enough to talk to Rick right then, which was probably true.
I sat on the corner of my bed waiting for my phone to ring and thinking over what he'd said. Between Adrian and me, who had the power? Was there a balance? Where had it shifted to? Was it wrong for me to want it back again? After a few minutes the phone rang.
"I called Richard," Tanner told me. "He tried to talk to Adrian at school, but she wouldn't listen—just kept calling him a hypocrite and stormed off. He doesn't know where she is."
"Oh." The word left my throat hollow.
"Do you need help looking for her?"
I wasn't sure whether he was volunteering Rick's help or his own, and I didn't want Rick's help. "We haven't checked with her friends yet. But thanks for the offer."
"She'll be okay. She's probably just blowing off steam somewhere."
"Probably," I said.
"Look, I've got to go work right now, but I'll talk to you later, okay?"
I wanted to keep talking to him. In fact, I wanted to lean up against him like I had on our first date. But he wanted to hang up.
I tried to force some cheer into my voice. "Right. Thanks. Talk to you later."
We hung up and I walked out of my room to tell Mom that Adrian wasn't with Rick. Before I'd even shut my door, I heard Adrian come in. I could tell by the way Mom laid into her. "Where have you been? I've been calling you for the last half an hour."
Adrian answered defiantly. "I was thinking."
"Well, next time you can answer the phone while you think."
"I didn't feel like talking."
A pause and then Mom's voice softened. "Chelsea told me about school. She was just checking Rick's face. Nothing happened between them."
"She was just checking his face?" Adrian nearly spat out the words. "Is that her new excuse? I admit it's better than, 'It just happened,' but only slightly."
"You saw Rick. Chelsea said she hit him with her locker door."
"Yeah, I saw him, and yeah I believe that Chelsea hit him with her locker door." I could tell that she meant it, and I stood in the hallway shaking my head. If she believed me, then why was she so upset? I took a step toward the living room to ask her.
"But what was he doing at her locker in the first place, and since when did she start holding his hand, even in sympathy?"
"You don't really think that Chelsea is going after Rick, do you?"
I stopped, still hidden by the hallway, waiting to hear Adrian's answer. It might change if she saw me. Her answer wouldn't be the truth then, just whatever she thought would bother me the most.
"Do you know what first attracted me to Rick?" Adrian asked, bitterness lacing her voice. "He was the one guy I knew who would never choose Chelsea over me. Everyone else likes her best. Chelsea walks into a room and—poof—I become invisible. Do you know what it's like to live your life always second-best?"
"You're not second-best," Mom said. "If boys can't see that—"
"It isn't just the boys. She's pretty, she's popular, and she gets whatever she wants every time. When people find out I'm Chelsea's sister, I always get the same reaction: a look of surprise on people's faces, the look that says, 'How can you be Chelsea's sister? You're not blonde and gorgeous. What a disappointment. We wanted another Chelsea.' "