Soul Fire

by Nancy Allan

  I felt a little guilty. “Sorry Jess, I was thinking about the casts coming off.”

  “Hmmn. Be nice to see my guy again," she said pushing delicately into the corner of the couch. "You’ll be walking before you know it and then right back on the ice.”

  She never let go of that. “We’ll see,” I said.

  “You’ll do it, Justin. You have it in you. Everyone says so.”

  “Everyone?”

  “You know, the team, everybody at school…”

  I was confused. “The team? You hang out with the team?”

  “Uh-huh? Why not?”

  “Without me?” For some reason that bothered me. A lot. Didn’t seem right. She came by the house less and less lately. Maybe that was why. Maybe she was staking out her next big star . . . just in case.

  “Sure, I go to the parties and stuff.”

  I swallowed that hard as I visualized those scenes. “Seems weird. You going without me.”

  She bristled. “You think I’m going to sit around and mope? Have no life? It hasn’t been a picnic looking at you all cemented up like that, not to mention putting up with your freaked out parents.”

  I could see her point. “So, why do you?”

  She rolled her gum around in her mouth, and then blew a huge bubble. When it popped, she said, “Cause one day you’re going to play again…and that’s the guy I love.”

  Ashla

  CHAPTER TEN

  Celeste tapped her toe and checked the time on her phone. “We’re going to be late, Ashla, hurry up.”

  I’d slept in. A first for me. Getting out of bed had been a struggle. Instead of leaping up before the alarm and racing off to the shower as I usually do, I had rolled over and snoozed, not waking until Mom came up to find out if I’d croaked. “Jeez, Ashla, what’s wrong. You have the flu or something?” she had asked, concerned.

  It was worse than the flu. I felt thickheaded. My body weighed at least three hundred pounds and it felt like I was wearing heavy workout weights on my arms and legs. “Tired,” I mumbled, rolling out of bed and staggering into the shower.

  “You go ahead," I told Celeste afterward. "No point in both of us being late.”

  She didn’t move but watched as I wiggled into my jeans. “You look terrible.”

  Really? I wonder why? Glancing in the mirror, I saw that she was right. My hair was dull, my eyes had purple swatches underneath, and my skin was so white I looked like a phantom. I’d lost weight and my figure was suffering. Ah well, who cares.

  “You know today’s going to be horrible,” she said.

  “I know.”

  “Everybody will have seen yesterday’s newspaper or last night’s news, so it’s going to be all over the school.”

  “I know.”

  “You just have to get through today, Ashla. It will be forgotten eventually. Things will be back to normal in no time.”

  I dug the biggest sweatshirt I could find out of the back of my closet and put it on. If it got really bad, I could hide inside it. “Normal? Oh, sure. I can forget all about it too. No point in feeling guilty all your life, right? Why not forget about it right now? Who needs the baggage?”

  Celeste closed her eyes. “How long do you think this will last?”

  I picked up my pack and started down the stairs. No time for breakfast and too late to make a lunch. “The guilt?”

  “Yeah.”

  I stuffed my feet into my sneakers and grabbed a jacket from the closet. Another place to hide.

  “Forever.”

  I yelled goodbye to Mom who was inundated with day care kids. She called back, “I made your breakfast to go. It’s on the counter next to your lunch bag.”

  I started out the door without bothering, but Celeste dashed into the kitchen and retrieved both brown bags. “Here,” she said handing them to me. “Eat before you disappear.”

  “Disappear sounds good. At least when I get to school no one will see me.”

  “Won’t be that bad,” Celeste forecasted.

  But it was worse. Much worse.

  Everybody, and I mean everybody stopped talking when we entered the school. The walk down the hall took forever. All eyes turned to us. Whispers, accusing looks, stares, and pointing fingers followed us.

  It was like walking the death walk. It took forever.

  Finally, we turned to our lockers. Some smart-mouthed tool called out, “Hey, Cameron, wipe out any great hockey players lately?”

  “Yeah, Cameron, nothing but the best for you, right?”

  “Somebody ought’a give it right back to you.”

  “No kidding. She’s got it coming big time.”

  Nausea washed over me. I almost bolted. I wanted out of there. I’d never get through this day. Tara and Brenna, whose lockers were only a few feet from ours, kept their backs to me. Then they disappeared.

  The bell rang and Celeste and I went to our separate classes. Same thing all over again, only up close and personal this time. I walked into the classroom and everybody clammed up. Just like that . . . deathly silence. I’ll bet Miss Trent would’ve liked that kind of power over her class. I couldn’t recall ever hearing so much silence. Eyes, accusing and cold, followed me. I sunk into my seat and tried to blend in with the desk.

  Whispers . . . stares . . . dirty looks. A paper ball landed in my lap. I ignored it. Something hit me on the back of the head.

  I could feel their eyes burning through me. It was like someone had thrown a million watt spotlight on me. I felt like an animal in the headlights right before it was hit. Distain soiled the air. I wanted to melt into my seat. In a heartbeat, I had lost my elite status at this school. I felt filthy—like I was the scum of Mount Olympic High. There was nowhere to hide. I was in full view and the butt of everyone’s anger.

  Lesson one: never mess with Seattle’s upcoming hockey stars. Lesson two: popularity is fleeting. Lesson three: If you mess up like I did, stay home.

  The morning dragged. I changed classrooms twice. Same thing happened each time. As I hurried down the corridor, accusing angry eyes glared at me. I glimpsed Brenna walking toward me. Our eyes met and she turned away. Behind her was Lisa McDowell. We’d known each other for years and had shared ice time since first grade. We were both on the precision skating team. Our eyes met for a second before she looked away. All those years I believed we had a solid, pleasant friendship.

  I heard a male voice, “Hey, there’s the hotshot who took out Ledger.”

  A girl answered, “Where?”

  “Over there.” They pointed at me and my world tipped. I couldn’t breathe. I had to get out of there. Right now! I caught sight of the exit doors and bolted through them. Racing down the concrete steps, I ran for all I was worth across the grounds, breathing in the cold winter air, and heading for…for what? Where was I going to go? I couldn’t go home. I would have to explain myself and this was way too humiliating to discuss with my parents.

  A guy called Delta was leaning against a tree half a block from the school. I slowed to a jog and swerved to avoid him. He was one of the losers—a kid to be avoided at all costs. A Tarantula. They were all big trouble.

  He took a drag of his smoke and blew it at me as I passed by. “Hey, Cameron, looks like you’ve lost snob status. How about I make an application for you to join the Tarantulas?” He chuckled. “You’d fit in great right now, being a newbie loser and all.”

  Reluctantly, I glanced at him and then down at his hand. Smoke drifted up from what was left of a self-rolled joint. Slowly, deliberately, he lifted it to his lips and took a long drag. He held his breath for a minute and then smoke escaped from his nose and mouth into the chilly air and formed a cloud around him. “Want to give it a try?” he asked, holding the joint out to me.

  I stopped in my tracks. Pot? Never given it a thought. I was captain of our swim team. Team leader of the senior precision team. Lung capacity was everything.

  “Come on,” he taunted. “Just one little puff. Won’t hurt ya. You won�
��t fall over dead or anything. You don’t know what you’re missing. Here.” His hand brushed mine.

  I stared at the joint. I had never even tried to smoke a cigarette, not to mention one of these limp looking appendages. But right now, I needed something. One puff probably wouldn’t hurt. Might even feel better. Couldn’t feel worse. In fact, I couldn’t stand how I felt. I was a bundle of crackling nerve endings. Jumpy. Confused. Bitter. Angry with myself. I felt dirty. I’d done something awful and I didn’t know how to process that.

  I didn’t know who I was anymore.

  One thing was for sure, I knew who I wasn’t. I wasn’t the Ashla Cameron who could do no wrong, who was respected by teachers, coaches, and family. I wasn’t the Ashla Cameron who commanded the center of attention at school, at the pool, on the ice, and with my friends. I wasn’t the Ashla Cameron I used to be.

  So, who was I?

  I was somebody I didn’t like, that’s who.

  “Why not,” I heard myself mumble as I joined him under the cedar tree. He lit a fresh joint and I watched my hand reach for it. He slid it between my fingers and as I lifted it to my lips, I thought, I shouldn’t’ do this. There were horror stories about these things being laced with heroin and other unknowns. What on earth was I thinking? Not knowing how to inhale, I assumed I was supposed to take a deep breath. Smoke filled my lungs, strangling me. I coughed and rasped and nearly choked to death right there. He rescued the hand-rolled morsel before it fell to the ground.

  “Man,” he said when I recovered. “A newbie every which way.” He took another drag, and then passed it back to me. “Try again. Just a small puff this time.”

  Once more I watched my shaky hand take the joint. This time I followed his suggestion. Same deal. Big coughing fit. I guessed I wasn’t cut out for this.

  He grabbed the joint and dragged on it, waiting for me to recover. When I stopped sputtering, he said, “So how’s it feel to suddenly be a reject?”

  I looked at Delta through watering eyes. He was tall, slim, and wiry. Really good looking, but he belonged to a wannabe gang of thugs called the Tarantulas. They were the dregs of Mount Olympic High, and for that matter, the entire community. Most of us feared doing anything that could put us in their sights. If any one of us were so unfortunate as to attract their attention, we knew we could be tormented viciously. At best, we might simply become the target of their cruel taunts. In the last two years, I had seen half a dozen beatings. In the most recent incident, a freshman had been kicked so badly by a Tarantula that he had almost died. A favorite pastime of theirs was to beat the crap out of an easy mark. When not inflicting pain, this unsavory group did drugs, roared around in junkers, sprayed graffiti, and generally pissed everyone off. Because there were about forty of them, they managed to get away with a lot.

  The irony of me standing with one of them, smoking pot—or trying to—was not lost on me. I ran with the untouchable crowd. We were the elite group of stressed out over-achievers. We got top grades and were committed to a sport, dance, or an art form that took us over the top. We organized food bank collections, did community service, signed up for the annual play, rooted for our school teams, ran the school newspaper, and so on. We were considered the most likely to succeed, provided we didn’t burn out first.

  Delta was looking at me expectantly. Instead of answering his last question, I asked, “So, how did you get into the Tarantulas?”

  He shrugged. “Did stuff.” He dug in his pocket and pulled out a sandwich bag of little pink pills. “Want to go to a party?”

  I eyed the plastic bag. “What are they?”

  “Greatest high ever.”

  “Don’t think so,” I told him, walking away, still choking on the smoke that lingered in my lungs and noticing that the world suddenly seemed a slightly happier place.

  “Hey,” he called after me.

  I turned around.

  “Two’s a party. Why don’t we go somewhere and give these babies a try.”

  Hmmn. Did I want to do that? If I went home, Mom would freak. My new after school job at Elenas, in the mall, didn’t start for hours. That was, unless they decided to fire me for being the dweeb that crashed into Justin Ledger. So why not? Nothing else to do. “Maybe.” I heard myself say, and we set off.

  After a few blocks walking double time, I asked him, “Where are we going?” Having no coat, I couldn’t stop shivering. Winter months were always cold and wet and I hadn’t stopped at my locker for my jacket.

  Delta noticed. “I know a place where we can get out of the cold.”

  “Yeah, where?”

  “Not far,” was all he’d say.

  We turned down a street of older homes, none in good repair. Children’s old toys littered scruffy yards, flags were the draperies of choice, and paint seemed in short supply. We turned up a weedy drive to a small, once green house, and he opened the back door. No key. I looked around. Cleaning supplies were in short supply too. “You live here?” I asked skeptically.

  “It’s my uncle’s place. He’s out of town, so I keep an eye on it for him.”

  I backed out the door. “Some other time,” I said and charged back down the drive.

  “Hey! Wait up.” He caught up to me in no time. “Okay, so I have another idea. We could go to my house, but you have to promise me two things.

  “I’ll pass.”

  “Come on. It’s a nice place. Not like this,” he said motioning to the rundown neighborhood we were fast departing.

  “Where is it?” I asked scurrying back the way we came.

  “Vine Street.”

  Vine Street was in an okay neighborhood. “What are the two things?”

  He seemed relieved. “You’ve got to promise you’ll never tell anyone where I live.”

  “What’s the big deal?”

  “Just promise.”

  “Okay, I promise. What’s the other thing?” He had my curiosity going full roar.

  “We have to be really quiet. My mom’s home, and I don’t want her to know we skipped out.”

  “So what are we going to do? Sneak into the basement?”

  “We can go up to the TV room.”

  “What about your dad?”

  He grew suddenly quiet and I began to think he wasn’t going to respond. “You don’t have to worry about my dad.”

  “Is he at work?”

  “He’s . . . gone.”

  “You mean he left…permanently?”

  “Yeah. The jerk.”

  “So, okay, I promise to be quiet.” I cast a critical eye over Delta. What kind of guy was he? Would he get me high and then . . . ?’’

  Delta seemed to read my thoughts. “Don’t worry. No funny stuff. I may be a loser, but I’m not a creep.”

  No, he didn’t seem like a creep. Never heard anything like that about him. I knew he had a steady supply of drugs, but that was the only story attached to him. Not a bad guy, really, I thought as we walked down Vine Street. This neighborhood was lined with older multi-story homes, well maintained, but nothing fancy. Yards were tidy. A few cars were parked on the road. Again, Delta opened the back door without a key and put a finger to his lips to remind me to be quiet. Inside, I found myself tiptoeing across gleaming linoleum floors, up carpeted stairs, and down a hall ending at a huge room overflowing with mismatched furniture. He closed the door behind us, and I stared at him.

  “What?” he asked closing the blinds.

  “Where’s your mom?”

  He pointed downstairs. “In her room,” he whispered.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because that’s where she is. Want something to drink?” I thought he meant booze, but he went to a small fridge, pulled open the door, and pointed to water bottles and a couple of cans of cola. I took a water. He grabbed a soda and we each settled into an overstuffed recliner. “Aren’t you afraid she’ll come up here?”

  He gave a wry smile and shook his head. “She won’t, don’t worry.”

  I found this strang
e. “How can you be so sure? If my mom even thought she heard a sound in the house, she’d be all over it.”

  He shook his head. “Won’t happen.” He reached into his pocket, and dumped the bag of pink pills onto the glass top coffee table in front of us. He slid the zipper open. “Feel free,” he said, popping one.

  Am I crazy or what?

  “Go ahead. They’re just X. It’ll cure what ails you. You’ll feel great in no time. Promise.”

  I doubted that and considered the pills. X. Ecstasy. I had heard stories about this stuff. I popped one and sent it down with a gulp of water. I wanted to feel anything but what I’d been living with for the past weeks. Delta was right. I felt great in no time. Wonderful, in fact! Things started to look brighter, smells intensified, and I began to feel detached. I felt myself sliding into a kind of time warp. I'm not sure whether I fell asleep or what, but I heard a voice a long way away, “Hey, Ashla, can you hear me?” I was being shaken and opened my eyes to find Delta gazing down on me. “Say something intelligent,” he ordered.

  “That’s beyond the scope of this high,” I told him thickly. “This is ‘a high’, I assume.”

  “I might have thought so if you hadn’t started snoring. You go without sleep for the last couple of nights, or what?”

  I sat up and looked around. It was dark outside. “Sleep is optional lately. What time is it?” I got up and looked out the window.

  “Almost midnight.”

  “You kidding me?” I crossed the room, grabbed my backpack, and started for the stairs. My parents were going to think the worst—an accident or something equally horrible. Not only that, I had missed my first day at work. Had they called the house?

  “Wait up. I’ll walk you home,” he said, following me down the stairs.

  I wasn’t waiting. “I’ve got to run.” And with that, I fled out the back door. It took a few minutes, but he caught up with me, handing me a woman’s jacket. “Here. It’s freezing out.” The jacket he handed me was pink. I hated pink, but he was right, the sidewalk gleamed with a coating of frost that sparkled under the yellow streetlights. He had stopped to put on his black jacket with the big silver Tarantula on the back.