by C. J. Valles
“That is just wrong … on so many levels,” I seethe.
I turn and keep walking quickly. When I reach Kayla’s table, I take the end seat, leaving Alex nowhere to sit except across from his new fan and two of her friends. He shoots me a dirty look as he sits down, and I shrug, watching as my lab partner immediately begins peppering him with questions. I try not to pay attention, but every time he says something, I get the distinct feeling that nothing coming out of his mouth is the truth. He mentions moving around a lot, but I decide it’s not a good idea to fixate on him. The only way to do that is by distracting myself, so I turn to the guy from my U.S. History class.
“Hey, you have Kahn second period, right?” I ask.
“Yeah.”
“I’m Wren.”
“Chris.”
His eyes shift toward Alex and the growing fan club at the end of the table.
“Are you ready for the AP test?” I ask.
“Not really,” he shrugs.
I smile and look down, trying to think of something else to say. I had every intention of trying to be moderately sociable today, but this guy isn’t helping. I glance over at Alex. He’s staring at me like, See, I was right, and I can’t help thinking about the fact that I can’t get a normal guy to even look at me. Not that I care really. Looking back at Chris, I don’t feel the slightest flicker of interest. I imagine he feels the same about me, which makes us even.
“So, are you going to the dance on Saturday?” Kayla asks Alex.
Chris suddenly turns to me with renewed interest.
“What about you?”
I smirk. Well, hello, Jeff Summers. I’ve been down this road before, and I don’t need somebody using me to get attention. I shake my head.
“We are, in fact,” Alex says.
Absorbing that he just said we, I look at Alex and then at Kayla, wondering who looks more shocked—Kayla or me. Fantastic. Right after I told her that I don’t know Alex, here he is acting like we’re old friends … or something else. He’s crazier than I thought. My heart pounds, and the second the bell rings for sixth, I jump up and storm toward the doors. I make it to my locker only seconds before Alex arrives next to me.
“Are you trying to make things overly complicated?” I demand.
“No, I’m trying to ask a girl to a dance.”
I scowl up at him.
“Would you like a list of reasons why that’s not a good idea?”
“You can read it to me on Saturday night.”
He starts walking away, and I feel a brief urge to run after him and strangle him.
“Yeah, well I don’t have a dress, so—sorry!” I call after him.
He looks back at me and smiles.
“Taken care of.”
Exasperated, I stalk toward Chemistry, dreading my lab partner. Not surprisingly, when I get to class, she doesn’t look happy to see me.
“Hey, look,” I start. “I know Alex was thinking we could go as a group, because he didn’t ask me.”
And, technically, he didn’t ask. And I didn’t say yes.
“Oh, yeah. I figured,” she says huffily.
“I wasn’t actually going to go in the first place …” I mumble.
“Do you even have a dress?” she asks.
I shrug. I feel like I’m getting hunted by this freaking dance. And Alex is making things complicated. But it doesn’t matter. At this point, I refuse to get involved in anyone else’s drama, which means I’ll be leaving Alex to do his own one-man act.
17: Take Me Down
I’m relying on something terrible to save me from Saturday’s dance. World destruction or mass hysteria, maybe. At least that’s what happened right before Springview’s dance, I think bitterly. I have a hazy memory of being really excited about the dance, which makes zero sense.
Dancing in public has always represented mortal embarrassment to me. Sure, if I had gone to the dance at Springview I would have gotten the chance to hang out with my friends, but I could have done that at school or any other time without humiliation being the central theme. I comfort myself by remembering that even if disaster doesn’t give me an excuse to skip this dance, I can still back out, seeing as Alex will have more than enough female attention to keep him company.
When I get to lunch on Thursday, I sit at Kayla’s table with her friends and I do a pretty good imitation of a normal high school student while watching most of the girls drool over Alex. He really is remarkably perfect looking. In fact, the more I look at him, the more he stands out against the backdrop of the rest of us mere mortals, like he’s glowing. I’m not going to tell him this, of course. What’s the point in inflating his ego, which is currently being fed by a group of giggling girls? When he gets up and sits down next to me, I lean toward him and cup my hand to his ear.
“Needed a break from your worshippers?” I whisper jokingly.
As I lean away, he grasps my hand under the table and doesn’t release it for several seconds. By the time he finally lets go, my cheeks are hot and my breathing is a little choppy. He leans closer and tilts his head toward mine. When I feel his lips at my ear, I shiver.
“I’m only here to be closer to you.”
I pull away from him and don’t say anything, because arguing doesn’t work with him. Instead, I get up. I need water and space. Part of my brain is screaming at me to ignore reality and just give in. So what if his fixation on me of all people doesn’t make sense? And if I’ve accidentally entered into some parallel universe, why not just enjoy it? I can’t do it, though. Because I can tell it will only cause me pain.
After refilling my water bottle, I return to the table and squeeze in next to Chris. His behavior, at least, I can understand. His thoughts, at least, I can read. And just looking at him doesn’t make my heart bump in my chest and cause my breathing to speed up. I glance at Alex to confirm that just one look into his crystal blue eyes makes my chest tighten.
By Friday, I decide to avoid the whole thing, and when the lunch bell rings, I don’t look for Alex, and I avoid Kayla’s table. When I find a quiet corner, I sit down on the ground against the wall. Eating intermittent bites of an awful chicken salad sandwich, I pull out my book. The plot has taken a turn I wasn’t expecting. The spy and his love interest have just escaped some plot for world domination. But she’s wounded. A couple of pages ago, I was confident that she was going to survive for the happy ending. Now I’m not so sure.
“Deserter.”
I look up and see Alex smirking down at me.
“You left me to fend for myself,” he accuses.
“I left you to enjoy unadulterated adulation.”
“I stand corrected, then. Unadulterated adulation? Quite. And now who’s using SAT words?”
I smile.
“I suck at math, so I had to go with my strength. I keep a vocabulary builder on my desk.”
He nods and picks up my backpack. When he holds out his hand, I scowl at him.
“What?” I demand.
“You’re coming with me,” he says.
“Um, no. That depends on where you’re going.”
“I have something for you.”
“Are you going to tell me what it is?”
“A surprise.”
My heart rate picks up.
“No offense, but I don’t like surprises.”
“No trust,” he chides.
After a moment’s hesitation, I’m finally curious enough to hold out my hand, and he lifts me a little too easily into a standing position. I study him surreptitiously. He’s well built—I blush even admitting this to myself—but he doesn’t look freakishly muscle-bound. When he gestures for me to follow him, I do, reluctantly. At the administrative offices, I cringe as I see a teacher walking straight toward us. She looks directly at Alex and doesn’t say a thing as we walk off school grounds right in front of her. So much for a closed campus. At the student parking lot, I shake my head.
“You never get caught at anything, do you?”
/> “Do you want to know the secret to getting away with things?” he asks cheerfully. “It’s not feeling guilty.”
“Oh,” I half-laugh. “Well, I feel guilty, so we should have gotten caught by now. What are we doing in the parking lot anyway? You know we can’t leave during lunch, right?”
“We’re not leaving. I’m simply giving you something.”
He stops in front of a midnight blue sedan. I don’t recognize the emblem immediately, but I can tell that the car is ridiculously expensive.
“Who are you?” I gulp, remembering what my new lab partner said about him showing up at school on Monday—like me. “And what are you doing here—really?”
“I am someone with a large fortune and very little happiness to show for it,” he says.
I sigh.
“You know, I’ve got plenty of my own issues, so I’m not going to push it. Someday, though, you’re going to have to tell me the truth, or this friendship thing isn’t going to work anymore.”
“Fair enough. Then I will ask you a question someday and expect the truth,” he says somberly.
Staring back at him and seeing nothing but his perfectly blue eyes, I wonder which one of us has the bigger secret. As the trunk of the car opens, I look down and see a garment bag lying inside. Alex takes it out and unzips it. I flinch at the sight of a black dress with a sweetheart neckline. It looks expensive, and I’m already shaking my head.
“Absolutely not! I can’t accept this. We barely know each other, remember?”
He laughs.
“Wren, this isn’t a marriage proposal. It’s a dress. Give it back to me at the end of the night, burn it, donate it to a worthy cause if you don’t want it after Saturday. Whatever you wish. Now, where is your car?”
I nod toward the other side of the parking lot and start walking. When we stop in front of my car, Alex laughs.
“What?” I snap.
“Nothing. It’s just that when we first met, I expected you to drive a cute little automatic.”
“Huh. Thanks. I’ll bet I drive stick better than you do, stalker man.”
Oops. Blushing, I remember the fact that I showed off my great driving skills when I flooded the engine right before Alex magically appeared and saved from those two Neanderthals at the beach. Without another word, I open the trunk and watch as Alex lays down the dress. Then, from his other hand, he produces a shoebox.
“The glass slippers,” he smiles.
“You don’t know my size.”
“Stalker, remember?” he says, placing the box in the trunk.
The bell rings, and we begin walking back toward the school.
“However, assuming it won’t earn me any points if I use my vast talents as a stalker to show up at your house without ever having been there, I will need your address,” Alex says.
I gesture for him to hand me his phone.
“Here, I’ll put the address in your phone.”
“Tell me. I’ll remember.”
I recite my dad’s address and wobble as the ground beneath shudders. Alex grasps my elbow and steadies me. Recovering from the shock—of his touch and the earthquake—I laugh.
“I guess that’s my official welcome back to So Cal.”
I look at Alex and feel my smile fade. He looks seriously disturbed.
“Come on. That was a baby earthquake, if that.”
Alex nods distractedly. When he doesn’t snap out of it, I wave and start walking toward class.
“I’ll see you tomorrow at seven-thirty,” he calls after me.
I look back at him. The barely contained look of dread lingering on his features makes me shiver. Maybe he has an earthquake phobia. Or maybe he’s never felt one. Which means he’s definitely not from California. I’m almost to class, and the halls are nearly empty. I groan. I’m going to be late, and my independent study teacher doesn’t seem like the forgiving type. Just as I reach the door to Mr. Brummel’s classroom, I see Kayla standing at the end of the hall. I frown and lift a hand, waving tentatively and wondering why she’s not rushing to class. When our eyes lock, she grins at me in such a creepy way that I recoil.
Help me!
I jump as her thought echoes in my head. She leers again and then turns and starts running. My pulse begins pounding. I don’t know what, but something is really wrong. Scared and confused, I drop my backpack and take off after her, sprinting just to keep sight of her. I turn the corner, and she stops and stares at me again before swinging open a door and disappearing inside. Reaching the door, I see a sign that says Roof Access. When I swing it open, I have to brace myself against the musty smell. Hearing the clatter of hurried steps above, I launch myself onto the stairs and take them two at a time.
“Kayla!”
I’m breathing heavily by the time I get to the top, and jerking open the door, I step out onto the gravel. I spin around, searching for Kayla. When I catch sight of her, she’s at the very edge of the rooftop, looking down. I run toward her.
“Stop!”
She spins around on one foot, like she’s not even worried about falling over the edge. When I see her face, my skin crawls. Something is wrong with her, but I don’t know what. Her eyes, which had seemed brown before, are now black as coal.
“Kayla! What are you doing?”
“Kayla? Kayla’s not here to take your call right now,” she says in a sing-song voice.
My blood runs cold, and I’m suddenly really scared. Summoning all my nerve, I take a step closer.
“Wren? Oh my God, you have to help me,” my lab partner says in a more normal voice.
I still can’t tell what’s happened to her, but I know she needs help. I take another step, trying to figure out how I can pull her away from the edge without falling myself.
“Kayla, just reach out and take my hand.”
“Wren, don’t get any closer to her,” a voice says from behind me. “She will take you down with her.”
Turning carefully so that I can keep Kayla in my peripheral vision, I see Alex right behind me.
“We need to help her!” I cry.
“You have no chance. Just let the girl go,” Alex says, not to me, but to Kayla. “Her mind won’t last more than a day or two.”
Kayla gestures toward me and grins lasciviously. My lip curls up in horror at the strangely lecherous look on her face.
“That one will last forever.”
“No chance,” Alex says with deadly calm. “Now release the girl.”
“Sorry, no can do,” Kayla says in the same creep-tastic voice.
I turn and watch in slow motion as she whips around and leaps gracefully over the side. My stomach lurches, and Alex grabs me as I jerk forward, trying to reach for her hand.
“No!” I shriek.
Ripping myself from Alex’s grip, I run to the side and look over. The sight below causes my chest to tighten. The angel I saw in my dream is standing holding Kayla in his arms. When he starts carrying her away, I panic. I don’t know whether it’s because he has my lab partner, or because I’m terrified of losing sight of him.
“Wait!”
He turns back and looks at me once before retreating. Then Alex grabs my arm and pulls me back from the edge. Tears are forming in the corners of my eyes.
“Wren, I want you to listen to me very carefully. Your friend is going to be fine. Like you, she isn’t going to remember any of this. You started feeling ill, so you went to the nurse’s office …”
***
As I walk into Mr. Brummel’s independent study with a pass from the nurse, I’m still feeling sick, but I don’t think I’m going to throw up, so that’s something. I’m glad that I have a period that doesn’t require a lot of attention, because my head is a little foggy. Sitting down, I start on my homework. But I can’t concentrate, so I take out my spy novel, fixated on the spy’s love interest and whether she survives—or not. When the bell rings a few minutes later, I frown, realizing that I must have spent more time in the nurse’s office than I
thought. Looking toward the door, I smile before I can stop myself. Alex is waiting for me. I join him and then cock my head when he starts walking with me to Chemistry.
“It’s so weird. I feel like I’ve known you forever, and I don’t even know your last name,” I laugh.
“Rousseau,” he says.
“Well, Mr. Rousseau, why the escort to class? Don’t trust that I’ll make it there intact?” I tease.
“Given you were pursued by a pair of miscreant scum in a city with one of the highest rates of police officers per capita, I would say you have the worst luck possible, Ms. …?”
“Sullivan. And thanks,” I mumble.
“For what?” he asks pleasantly.
“For saving me. There, I said it. Happy?”
“No, not yet.”
The way he says yet makes me squirm. When we stop in front of Mrs. Dewan’s room, I smile awkwardly, not knowing what to say. Then I walk into Chemistry and join Kayla, who looks a little pale and out of it, too.
“Did you have the chicken salad?” I ask wryly.
“Yuck. No. But I am feeling kinda funny, though.”
“Me, too.”
“Are you still going to the dance?” she asks quickly.
I nod, and I can tell, even without reading her thoughts, that she’d prefer to have Alex all to herself. On the bright side, I never expected that we’d be best friends forever. When Mrs. Dewan hands back our lab write-ups, Kayla looks elated by the A-, and I’m afraid she thinks I’m some kind of Chemistry genius who’s going to carry her weight the rest of the semester. I should tell her that I already did this lab at Springview, but I don’t bother. When class ends, she makes sure that I know where to meet up with her group at the dance, which makes it feel like I’m participating in hostage negotiations. If I produce Alex, I will gain peripheral inclusion into her little clique.
As soon as I reach my car, I stare down at the rear passenger-side tire and groan. It’s completely flat. Walking around, I see that the other rear tire is flat, too. Even if I knew how to replace a tire—which I don’t—that would still leave me one tire short of a functioning vehicle. Now I’m going to have to call my dad … who’s going to call Jessica … who’s going to take three hours to come get me. Finally, I decide it’s best just to walk.