Then Emily left me there staring at the door; it flung open and three girls walked through, stopping very suddenly. After apologizing to them, I began to make my way toward second period. In my mind I told myself Emily was only kidding.
I told myself this, but that didn’t mean I believed it.
Chapter Nineteen
I had worked myself into a full-blown panic attack by the time I sat down in English Literature. Miss Loella, a young and pretty brunette with an affinity for costume jewelry, purple suede anything, and a fierce devotion for “the old ways,” lectured in mellifluous oratory, pacing verbosely before a chalkboard where the words Heart of Darkness were written in mint-green chalk. And while I was both a collector and reader of Joseph Conrad’s novels, a fan of this one specifically, I heard nothing Miss Loella was saying.
A curious emotion, terror; singular in its effect, with the concise ability to block out everything not directly related to the source. Emily’s words looped in my mind as if programmed to repeat every fifteen seconds. Man of steel or stuffing.
It began without me realizing. I entered the daydream like one being led through a secret door in a misty garden.
I was now standing in a courtroom; the air was stagnant and without sunlight. The portraits hanging behind the judge’s throne—of dead presidents and other prominent historical figures—seemed to direct their disapproving glances right at me.
“You are aware this predicament is entirely of your making, are you not?” President Lincoln inquired.
“I am, Sir.”
“Mm-hm. And how do you plead?”
“Guilty, Sir.”
“Yes, well . . . we’ll see about that.” Then Abraham Lincoln winked at me and went back to being a motionless portrait on the wall.
I balanced precariously on the edge of one of three chairs behind a glossy rectangular table. The one to my left was vacant. The chair to my right was not.
Emily—or more aptly, Prosecutor Emily Donahue—rose from her seat and placed both palms flat on the table. When she lifted them to smooth down the front of her navy two-piece skirt-suit, she left fogged handprints behind. They reshaped and turned to point at me.
I peered up at Emily, who bore the distinct look of someone supremely confident, someone artfully skilled in the mastery of acquiring hard-won confessions. She glared at the target approximately ten feet from us, leaning forward ever so slightly. As a smirk touched the corners of her mouth, I realized who she reminded me of—her mother.
Dominic sat behind the enclosed witness stand, eyes cast down, mouth taut, hands clasped loosely in his lap. Emily walked toward him. There was no fear in his eyes; he mirrored the same look of competence and equanimity as Emily; however not in stubbornness, but with the sheer certitude of the innocent.
I swallowed loudly and both sets of eyes turned to regard me, both waiting to see whose gaze I would meet first, whom I cared for the most. I shut them before they could choose. Then I heard her, Emily, her voice low and dangerous, the words fast and vicious. My eyes flew open. With her back to me, I could only make out a rigidity, running like a current up and down the sinuous, compact body. Raised on the dais, she was nearly eye-level with Dominic, snarling accusations into his face.
Dominic remained stoic and unflinching as she railed at him, a defiance moving from side to side along his square jaw. Behind the blue eyes was a burning malevolence. I didn’t need to be as close as Emily to see it. I suspected it also was mirrored in her own shrewd brown eyes. She said something too low for me to hear. For the briefest of seconds Dominic’s face registered genuine shock, then he smiled. It started off small, only the edges, but soon it grew and grew, burgeoning until it spread over his face and laughter was pouring from his mouth like water from a decapitated fire hydrant.
I saw Emily’s hand raise, pass just behind her head, and distinctly felt my stomach drop out of my feet. The sound erupted in the room, flesh meeting flesh in a shudder-inducing whack!
How? How could I have let this happen? They hated each other.
Despairing and desperate, I went to stand between them, laying a hand over each of theirs, and pleading equally on the other’s behalf. To Dominic, I begged him to see the friend Emily was to me, that she was neither mean nor possessory, but someone devoted to protecting those she loves, someone with an infinite amount of love and kindness in her heart. And to Emily, I implored her to see that she knew only the littlest of little about Dominic, a corrupted sliver of a story she didn’t yet understand—a story that I didn’t quite understand, but that even so, despite my limited time with him, I could say with all the certainty in the world there was more to him than the cruel, heartless boy she believed him to be.
For a moment they listened; I believed we might be getting somewhere and felt my body flood with hope. But when I was finished, regardless of lauding the other’s most admirable characteristics, I was unable to sway opinions. They hated and would continue to hate until I chose one over the other. Emily grabbed the gavel from the judge’s podium and whacked it forcefully against the balustrade encasing Dominic. She did this repeatedly, face contorted with effort, slamming it so hard I was moved to cover my ears to try and dim the inexorable hammering. All the while Dominic never flinched; he observed Emily minutely, through untroubled eyes, even as the gavel threatened to come near his hand. It began to splinter. Emily continued to thrust it up and down with all her might until it was only a stake of wood. The ringing went louder, to the highest note of a trumpeter’s trumpet, passing through my hands and piercing my eardrums. It was painful. It felt as though it would never stop. It was like an alarm or a bell—
When I came to, bodies were scooting past my desk and shooting through the doorway and out to the other side, as if sucked by a vacuum. Someone kicked my backpack beneath my chair. I decided to stay where I was and let those most eager to exit go first. This decision was aided by the almost certainty that my legs would not hold me if I stood up. I inhaled deeply, taking a moment to shake off the disturbing daydream. I ran a hand across my brow just below my hairline, and was not surprised to pull it back and find my fingertips slick and glistening.
I reached down and unclasped my backpack, sliding the unopened notebook back into its place between Physics and History. As I pulled away, a tendril became caught in the zipper, ripping a few hairs painfully from my head. I stifled the howl and hurried to put pressure on the stinging area at my left temple. I rubbed vigorously until it no longer felt like a hot fire poker.
By the time I had finished all of this, the classroom had emptied, including Miss Loella. I moved languorously. I could afford a bit of dalliance, and would make good use of the fifteen minute break Shorecliffs instituted in between second and third period. This was supposed to encourage students to use the restrooms prior to class, as well as alleviate the banter in class. I’m not sure how effective it was. And these conveniences didn’t really pertain to me, as neither Jake nor Emily’s routes crossed mine.
Out in the crowded hallway, I immediately slipped back into thought, slinking along the wall at near inert speed. Questions like steamrollers came barreling through my mind unbidden.
What had Jake said to Dominic after Emily dragged me away?
Did Dominic think me a phony and a coward?
Should I expect that to have been the end of something that never really began?
Was Emily capable of driving Dominic away?
That’s if he still wanted anything to do with me, I reminded myself, which he may not after what had taken place earlier.
I felt my body drag with the train of my thoughts.
Two girls turned around to stare at me, and I realized I must have made a noise.
Dominic and Emily—were there ever more two equally adept adversaries? The more I considered their respective personalities, the more I wondered if the duel might come down to not a battle for power, but a match of will and tactic. Neither would bend, neither would surrender. What happened when you put two
people, incapable of yielding, against one another?
I shuddered—from head to toe I shuddered and shuddered. I couldn’t allow this to happen. I would just have to figure out some way to keep them apart—preferably to the end of Time.
Only vaguely aware of my surroundings, I headed toward my locker, unconsciously veering away from the sanctuary of the wall, moving much, much slower than the flow of traffic. So it really wasn’t his fault when, from out of nowhere, a massive boy sent me flying into the wall of lockers. He had his football helmet tucked beneath his arm as he reached out to grab a girl by the waist, just before my elbow plowed into a clunky silver lock. I recognized my oblivious assailer as Travis Holmes, our football team’s most renowned Center. That is what his girlfriend, Missy Adler—a cellist in Mr. Balfy’s class—postulated. Travis, like the boy from the band room, was also wearing a purple and black lettermen’s jacket. His, however, was profusely decorated with various felted patches, including the numbers 2012, an imposing shark—Shorecliffs’ mascot—and the name Holmes scrawled in the space between his shoulder blades.
I saw Travis smile lasciviously at a raven-haired girl, who was not Missy Adler. It was so incredibly loud I almost missed the deep voice breaking through bursts of unintelligible chatter.
“Hey.” I watched the back of his head moving through the crowd, four inches above everyone else’s. “Watch where you’re going, man, you just knocked her over.” Dominic had turned Travis around, and still had his hand on his shoulder.
Travis glared at it, then Dominic, and shrugged it off. “I think you’re mistaken, Bro,” he said, his tone both snide and full of challenge. “I don’t see anyone.”
The noise was rapidly disintegrating, paving the way for only two voices.
“Let me help you, then,” Dominic replied, in what would have been a helpfully pleasant voice if the two were friends.
For a moment I could only stare in amazement at the colossal height and mass of Dominic. Side by side they looked like a Thoroughbred and a Bulldog. Then I realized Dominic was directing Travis’s gaze toward me and I couldn’t think about anything other than fleeing. But by now people were fully aware of what was taking place and itching for the best vantage point. I had a hedge of students directly in front of me.
“I don’t know,” a dark-skinned boy said. “Travis has mad skills on the field, for-sure, but I’ve never seen him fight someone. It could be all a front, you know? Who’s the other guy? I’ve never seen him before.”
“I’m not sure,” the other one replied, shaking his coppery head from side to side. “But from the look on Travis’s face, he’s about to get rocked!” He laughed and it was quite girlish, which I think he realized because he began coughing into his shoulder.
“I think you should apologize to her,” Dominic said.
Travis took a step forward, sneering. “For what? I told you, I don’t see anyone.”
“This doesn’t have to be big deal,” Dominic said mildly. “Just apologize to Foster for shoving her and we’re good here.”
My head shot up. A torrent of adrenaline plunged through my veins as heads all around me swung in the direction Dominic pointed.
“It was an accident,” I said, looking at Dominic. “I shouldn’t have been walking down the middle of the hallway. It was my fault.” I nodded vigorously.
“I’m not apologizing to anybody,” Travis said definitively. “I didn’t see her. And even if I did, she’s right—she shouldn’t have been in the way.”
A hardness moved swiftly into Dominic’s eyes. “Well, which one is it?” he asked, deep voice taut with control. “You didn’t see her or she was in your way?
“Take your pick, Bro. Either way, you’re not getting an apology from me.”
Dominic took a breath and exhaled. “Hey, if you want to be that guy,” he said, “the one nobody likes, but puts up with because it’s too much trouble trying to shut him up—fine. I don’t have a problem with that. But when you knock a girl clear across the hallway and don’t have the decency to say you’re sorry—that I do have a problem with. You are going to apologize to her.”
“Come on, Trav,” the girl behind him said, “Just say it.”
“I don’t remember asking for your opinion,” he replied without breaking eye contact with Dominic.
“You should listen to your girlfriend, Travis.”
A collective noise erupted. While Dominic likely didn’t know the girl who’d spoken wasn’t Travis’s girlfriend, the majority of everyone else did.
Looking back at Dominic, I knew he’d figured this out.
Travis bristled. “You made a big mistake getting involved. I hope she was worth it,” he said, finding me in the crowd of faces.
Dominic stepped forward, blocking his view. All I could see of Travis where two stocky arms sticking out. “Don’t make this about her. This is about you—and your bad decisions. You decided to chase after someone who isn’t your girlfriend. You weren’t paying attention to what you were doing and hurt someone. And you have decided you’d rather be a jerk than do the right thing and apologize. You, Travis. You brought this all on yourself, man. She had nothing to do with it.”
I closed my eyes tight, waiting for the inevitable physical response from Travis.
Another simultaneous gasp ignited from every mouth. Looking from face to face, I searched for injuries, certain I would find one of them with a bloody nose.
I hadn’t even considered what actually did happen.
Missy, while florid with fury, stood behind Travis in a knee-length white sun dress that belled out around her pear-shaped body; her shining blonde hair was pinned neatly behind her ears, making her look like the pinnacle of virtue, justice, and an advocate for every girl ever scorned.
Travis’s face registered his fate and I saw him cringe. He hadn’t even finished turning around when Missy slapped him so hard his lips wobbled. When he opened his eyes there was true fear in them.
“Miss,” he raised the arm not pinning the helmet to his ribs, “Let me—”
Missy reached back and slapped him again—harder. The sound was like a belly-flop in the pool. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dominic wince, then shake his head with a look like you had that coming. He began weaving through the crowd, people parting and peering up at him with variegated glances of awe and appreciation.
“Janelle sent this to me.” Miss held up her phone. “Did you forget I have friends, Travis? Friends who tell me when you’re acting like a Dumbhole!” She began waving it back and forth, shoving the little pink rectangle in Travis’s face, then began reciting the text message loud enough for even those of us standing in the back to hear. “‘Missy, I just saw Travis and Caitlin Manning all over each other. We’re over by B Wing. Hurry.’ Care to explain, Travis? And where is she, by the way?”
Missy was terrifying. I didn’t blame Travis for taking a few steps back or for trying to veil the look of guilt on his face. What I didn’t think would earn him any grace or forgiveness from anyone, was the next excuse out of his mouth. “Cat and I are just friends, Miss. Come on, you know I just play around,” Travis cooed and boldly raised his arms to embrace her. “Miss, I love you, come on.”
Travis tried everything from ducking to dodging to catching the hands grabbing for his face in the hopes of ripping the flesh from it; he looked like an antagonized bear trying to circumvent a particularly ornery swarm of hornets. When Missy was done, she turned to stare right me, panting and flushed. “You’re Foster, right?
“I am?” I said, and shook my head. “I am, yes.” Then I bowed. I bowed.
When I rose, the only thing missing from Missy’s complete look of bewilderment was a finger scratching her head. “Anyway,” she mumbled, then gave Travis a gimlet eye. “I heard he ran into you and wouldn’t say he was sorry. Is that true?”
I tried confirming this, but my brain’s voice was very displeased at the moment, and took to punishing me by not permitting the ability to think.
“No, he didn’t actually,” Dominic replied. Amazingly, I hadn’t seen him appear beside me. “He’s a bit stubborn, I noticed.”
“Among-other-things,” Missy hissed in measured syllables. “Like a cheating Dumbhole!” She slapped him a third time, on the back of his head. “Apologize to her, Travis.”
To this request he gave a low whine. “She got in the way, though. How is that my fault?”
Travis flinched, expecting another wallop, but this time Missy only pointed one finger at him, millimeters from his nose. “You say you’re sorry Travis Rudolfo Holmes, or I’m taking back the watch I bought you for Christmas.”
Abhorrent fear stole into Travis’s eyes. He clenched his jaw and sighed very deeply. Everyone waited to see what would happen next, and the sound was like air glossing a snowy mountain slope.
Then Travis looked at me without ever turning his head and growled, “Sorry.”
~
A crease appeared between Dominic’s eyebrows. “How’s your shoulder? Or was it your elbow?” he asked sincerely, his gaze sliding solicitously down the side of my arm. “Was it this one?” He touched my left elbow gently, somehow finding the exact spot where it still faintly throbbed. His fingers were warm, and it was extremely difficult to think about anything other than the fact that he was touching me.
“Yes,” I replied hoarsely, choosing to answer the last of the three questions only. I swallowed, hoping to lubricate my dry throat.
“Should we have the nurse take a look and make sure everything’s all right?”
“No,” I replied right away. “I don’t—it wasn’t—” Learning to speak the whole truth was proving to be as difficult as learning a foreign language. “I hardly feel it anymore.”
He chuckled humorlessly. “Foster, I watched the whole thing; you flew like a Frisbee.” He sighed with resignation. “An ice pack, at least? You can leave it on during third period—no one will notice.”
“All right,” I conceded. “I’ll ask the teacher for a pass.”
Awakening Foster Kelly Page 38