Burning Hearts

by Melanie Matthews

  “Don’t forget it tomorrow, or we’ll just come here instead of the big game.”

  “I won’t forget it. I don’t wanna disappoint Kylie. She’s really excited to go.”

  He just rolled his eyes. She walked him to the front door. Everyone was already in Mrs. Dasher’s minivan.

  “You know,” he began, “the Scorpions were doing pretty well until Val broke up with you. I think you were his good luck charm.”

  She chuckled. “Yeah, maybe I should go back out with him—or better yet, have sex with him, and Oasis High will finally”—she raised her fist, feigning hope—“win that championship.”

  His face fell. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

  She smiled. “Always am.”

  He hesitated at the door. “Remember at school when I said I needed to talk to you?”

  “Yeah?” She acted cool, but she was really nervous.

  “I know this isn’t the time or the place, but I need you to know…I used to hate you, when you were with the Stuck-Ups, but…I also loved you. They made fun of me. You just ignored me. That bugged me the most. I wanted you to notice me, even if it was to make fun.”

  She was shocked, although his confession wasn’t unexpected. “Do you…do you still love me?”

  He nodded, giving a slight smile. “I love you a lot.” His smile faded. “But don’t worry. I’m not expecting you to admit the same.” He clasped her hand. “It’s just nice to be your friend—to be talking with you—to be around you.”

  She was moved by his words. But she was afraid of their friendship progressing into something more. What if it didn’t work out? They could no longer be friends and that would disrupt the entire harmony of the Misfits. Yes, they were outcasts, but they fit well together like found pieces from a lost puzzle.

  She gently squeezed his hand. Then she proceeded to make a stupid move. She kissed him on his lips. It was a dangerous thing to do. She had no intention of giving him hope, but that’s exactly what she did. But she couldn’t help it. After the way Val had treated her, it was nice knowing that she was loved by someone.

  “Jenna…,” he trailed off, not knowing what to say (for the second time that day).

  “You should go,” she urged him. “We’ll see each other tomorrow.”

  He hesitated, but then nodded, and turned away from her, walking to the minivan. He entered and sat beside Pru, who’d seen the kiss, along with Kylie and Caleb. None of them asked for the 411, staring straight ahead at the windshield. Before Riddick shut the sliding door, he smiled, waving goodbye. She waved back, not smiling.

  She feared that she’d set in motion a chain of events she couldn’t possibly hope to control. In high school, a kiss wasn’t just a kiss. It was a prelude to what she’d refused to give Val. She knew Riddick wouldn’t toss her aside if she refused him, but who was she waiting for?

  KISS AND KILL

  Jenna behaved.

  She didn’t look at her grandpa’s journal, but she read the letter. Well, tried to read. His penmanship was close to indecipherable, but she got the gist of it.

  There was no date.

  No hi or bye.

  He wrote as if he were in a hurry; it was perhaps the last thing he wrote before his death.

  By the short letter, she learned that her destiny had been awakened. He didn’t explain how or why. He told her not to be afraid; she’d do great things. Save the world type stuff. He encouraged her to read his journal, even though he admitted it was mostly illegible and there were places where he went off topic. By the end, she was in tears, reminiscing about his smile, his jokes, and his ability to always catch a flipped pancake in the skillet.

  His last statement of wisdom tugged at her heartstrings:

  Remember, my sweet girl, hate is in supreme abundance, but the smallest amount of love conquers all.

  She thought on those words as she drifted off to sleep. But sleep didn’t bring her peace.

  It brought her a fantastical dream, followed by a horrific nightmare.

  She woke with a start at precisely the rise of dawn as if her body had become attuned to that great hot orb like a fiery eye in the sky.

  The alarm clock went off, ringing. It was an old-timey one that she’d found in the attic, belonging to her Grandma Dottie. Jenna shut it off, gently, and relaxed with her sweaty neck against the pillow, reminiscing on her nocturnal visions.

  The dream started off well. She was at the football game with her friends. Malcolm, with his exotic appearance and confident stride, came and sat next to her, placing his arm around her shoulders. He kissed her cheek and the side of her mouth, until finally reaching her lips, where he tugged at her virgin soul with his pull and power; it was hot, intoxicating. But when she held his face in her hands to study his gorgeous features, she noticed that his eyes were no longer fiery blue, but red.

  Hate filled her heart, replacing love.

  The nightmare had begun.

  He struggled, trying to block her knife-wielding hand, but she was too strong and with one quick jab to his heart, she ended his life; she watched fire consume him in screaming agony from the inside out, until his body disintegrated upon the bleachers.

  The football game never stopped. The crowd never stopped cheering. And her friends never stopped to ask Jenna why the new guy was a pile of ashes.

  Her destiny was to slay evil-doers. So why’d she dream of killing Malcolm?

  SHATTERED GLASS

  As if having a dream about killing the new student wasn’t already a bad start to the day, Daniela and Emma decided to grace Jenna with their toxic presences in the restroom before first period.

  “I can’t believe we have to share the restrooms with the riff-raff,” Daniela commented to Emma.

  They stood in front of the mirror, reapplying their nauseating peach-scented lip balm. If they swiped any more, their fat lips were sure to turn into rotten fruit.

  Emma looked at Jenna in the mirror, narrowing her eyes. “Yeah, soon her freaky friends will be in here, stinking up the place.”

  Jenna, despite wanting to commit murder, held her cool as she casually approached the sink and washed her hands. She flicked water in their direction, gave a false apology, and dried her hands with the rough brown paper towels.

  After throwing the balled up trash in the can, scoring a three-pointer from across the restroom, she turned to the girls and smiled.

  “Dani! Em! It’s been too long! So what’s up? Dani, how’s that rash of yours? You know? The one you got from messing around with Deadfall’s quarterback? What was his name?” Jenna put a finger to her lips as if she were trying to remember, and then snapped her fingers in recognition. “Oh, yeah! I-Cheated-on-Barrie-Last-Year!”

  Daniela put her hands on her hips. “We were broken up!” She smirked. “And besides, Barrie already knows! So—ha!”

  Jenna wrinkled her nose. “The rash too? What does he do?” She raised her eyebrow in mock concern. “Like scratch it for you?”

  Daniela smirked again. “Oh, he scratches any itch I got! But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

  “No, I’ve never been with Barrie, but you know, he always flirted with me.” Jenna purposely spoke in a gossiping tone as if they were talking about other people. “And when Val broke up with me, well, let’s just say he offered himself to me.” Her mouth dropped in mock astonishment.

  Daniela gasped. “You lie!”

  Jenna smiled, back to her old self. “Most of the time. But not about this.”

  Emma looped her arm around Daniela’s. “Don’t listen to her, Dani! Val said she was liar! He said not to believe anything she said.”

  Jenna held out her hands, confused. “So when we used to hang out, y’all thought I was a liar then? Or after Val dumped all that propaganda into your empty little heads?”

  Daniela pointed a trembling finger at Jenna. “You’ve always been a liar! Val just made us see it!”

  “Yeah, and he was right about that new guy, Malcolm,�
�� added Emma.

  That made Jenna pause before she found her voice, and asked, “What do you mean?”

  “We thought he was all cool, but Val saw how much of a loser he really is.”

  Jenna smiled, shaking her head. “I highly doubt Malcolm’s a loser. Have you seen him? He exudes the confidence of a well-traveled man.”

  Daniela snapped her fingers. “Well, he can travel right on back to Egypt!” She nudged Emma, while still glaring at Jenna. “What did Val say? ‘He’s probably al-Qaeda,’” she repeated, and then declared with absolute certainty, “Oasis High has their very own Muslim terrorist!”

  Hot pools of anger rose from the depths of Jenna’s core. Her heart began racing, thumping against her chest, pounding in her ears; she envisioned picking Daniela and Emma up by their necks, and throwing them against the mirrors.

  In one quick move, her hand was up; but instead of ending their pathetic lives, she struck the mirror, causing shards and bits of glass to fly out.

  Daniela and Emma shrieked in fear. Fortunately, they’d ducked in time, so they weren’t injured. But that didn’t stop them from running out of the restroom screaming, “Jenna tried to kill us! Jenna tried to kill us!”

  The blow to the mirror wasn’t that painful, but her blood was everywhere. It gushed profusely from her hand, down the sink drain, and had splattered what was left of the mirror and along the wall.

  She held her hand, trying to stop the bleeding, cursing at her actions. It was all over now. A cold prison cell awaited her along with a roommate named Big Bertha, who liked to cuddle at night.

  But as Jenna waited for the law to come that was the school’s resident cop, Officer John Marlowe, she noticed that the gash on her hand wasn’t as big as before and the blood gushed less. By the time he finally arrived with Principal Yvette Greene and what seemed like half the school, the wound was nothing more than a large paper cut, the blood half-dried with the other half a slow drip.

  Officer Marlowe, a young man with a receding hairline—who spent most of his time doing crossword puzzles—escorted her out with one gentle hand on her back—as if he knew Jenna wasn’t as crazy as Daniela and Emma were making her out to be.

  “We knew she was dangerous!” Daniela yelled, pointing from the crowd of onlookers.

  “All those freaks are!” added Emma, thrusting her finger at the newcomers to the most exciting event in Oasis High history: Kylie, Pru, Caleb, and Riddick.

  Val stood nearby with a proud smile—as if vindicated for all his claims that his ex was really a crazy loser.

  Barrie was holding onto Daniela; Aidan was holding onto Emma. They acted as if Jenna was going to run toward them like a charging bull and massacre the whole school.

  Kit looked sympathetic, standing next to a grinning Sadie—who couldn’t get enough of Jenna’s dire predicament.

  Jenna never settled too long on any one of them; not even her fellow Misfits. But when her green eyes met Malcolm’s fiery blues from a space in the crowd, she couldn’t help but to focus, hoping that the concern on his face was real. It was. He took a step forward, desiring to go to her, to comfort her.

  But he didn’t make it that far.

  “All right, that’s enough!” barked Principal Greene; she was petite in stature, but made up for it by wearing three-inch stiletto heels and adopting a fierce attitude. She snapped her fingers and the students started to trail away. “That’s it! Off to class! They don’t pay me the big bucks to let y’all just stand there and stare with open mouths. Open those heads of yours! You might just learn something! Shoo! Shoo!” She waved the only remaining students away: Malcolm and the Misfits.

  She closed the door off to the halls, effectively blocking Riddick and Malcolm’s worried faces from viewing the student lobby. Officer Marlowe stood next to Jenna, no longer keeping a gentle hand on her back. The spot where he’d been comforting her felt ice cold.

  Principal Greene directed one of the school’s janitors, who’d just arrived, to clean up the restroom that could’ve been a set piece from a teen-slasher flick.

  She turned to Jenna. “C’mon,” she urged in a soft tone. “Let’s go see the nurse.”

  Jenna held up her almost-healed hand. “It’s not that bad.”

  Principal Greene smiled, shaking her head. “Can’t let you go without getting it looked at. Might have to call the ambulance.”

  Jenna didn’t want any more attention. “But I’m fine.”

  The principal shook her head again. “They’d rake me over the coals if I didn’t follow procedure. Now be a good girl and do what I say, okay?”

  Jenna nodded, feeling defeated. She followed the principal to the station of Nurse Nora, a tall lanky woman, who still thought beehive hairdos were in style.

  The room was very white and very bright, making Jenna’s eyes hurt. She hesitated at the doorframe, but Officer Marlowe gave her a gentle push inside.

  “It’s okay,” he coaxed.

  He was trying to make her feel better, but Nurse Nora with her beaky nose and her array of silver metallic instruments made Jenna tremble a bit. If she was some great Mage, a fighter against the forces of darkness, then she was poorly chosen if Nurse Nora in all her pasty glory could impose such fear.

  Eating saltines, she looked up from her Modern Nurse magazine and stared from left to right at Officer Marlowe, Jenna, and Principal Greene. “Ah, I heard the commotion outside.” She looked Jenna up and down. “By all the ruckus, I expected you to be covered in blood, growing claws and horns.” She gave a slight smile. “I was only half-right.”

  Jenna wasn’t warming to Nurse Nora’s humor, but there were worse ways to be addressed in a high school.

  “Nora,” began Principal Greene, “please attend to Jenna. She says she’s fine, but you know the rules.”

  Nurse Nora nodded. “Got it.” She patted the examining table with freshly placed sanitary paper. “Hop on up.”

  Gently, Jenna sat on the paper, but managed to tear it anyway.

  “All right, let’s take a look.” With care, Nurse Nora took Jenna’s hand in her bony ones, scanning the cut that was just a red line. “Let’s clean this off.” She dabbed hydrogen peroxide on a cotton ball and wiped the dried blood off the wound. There was only a pink scar left from the attack against the mirror. “Not bad. You were lucky. Let me put some gauze on it, just to be sure.” After she wrapped Jenna’s hand, securing it with bandage tape, she said, “Keep this on the whole day. You don’t want it to get infected. Schools are a nasty place.”

  Jenna just smiled and nodded, glad to be free. Well, almost free.

  Officer Marlowe was blocking the exit, looking confused. “But there was so much blood,” he reminded everyone.

  She acted cool, allaying suspicion. “It looked worse than it actually was.” She turned to Principal Greene, now tense. “Am I gonna get expelled?”

  The petite administrator sighed. “Well, you didn’t exactly hit anyone, but you did damage school property.”

  “I’ll pay for it.”

  She smiled, knowing Jenna didn’t have enough in her piggy bank to cover such expenditure. “We’ll call it an accident. It was an accident, right?”

  Jenna nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “So what happened?”

  The lie came quickly; she was becoming proficient in deception. “I accidentally hit the mirror while reapplying my mascara.” She shrugged. “I’m clumsy.”

  Principal Greene turned to Officer Marlowe. “Can you check on Maintenance? Make sure there are no students”—she wiggled her fingers—“milling about?”

  He nodded. “Yes ma’am.”

  He left and the principal turned to Nurse Nora. “Give us the room, please.”

  Nurse Nora smiled and left, carrying her issue of Modern Nurse and a half-eaten pack of saltines.

  The principal sat on a roll-around chair near a wall of pamphlets devoted to STDs.

  “I knew that when Daniela and Emma came running and screaming about you tryi
ng to murder them, that they were just blowing smoke, but…as I recall, you used to be friends with them. And Sadie, Kit, Barrie, Aidan. You and Val were the sweethearts of Oasis High. What happened?”

  Jenna shook her head. She wasn’t going to divulge the real reason to her principal.

  “We’re not friends anymore.”

  She chuckled. “Well, I can see that. Students around here think we’re deaf, dumb, and blind, but we know more than you youngsters think.” She gave a slight nod as if to say it were really true.

  When Jenna didn’t comment, the principal continued, “So you and your former girlfriends were in the restroom, words were exchanged, hand gestures were rampant, and yours happened to collide with a mirror? Mistaking your accident for malicious intent—because of course you have no desire whatsoever to injure your fellow classmates—Daniela and Emma fled, screaming bloody murder as they ran around the school? Is that about right?”

  Jenna snapped her fingers and smiled. “You got it, boss. Couldn’t have said it better myself.”

  Principal Greene sighed, adjusting the silk scarf around her neck. “Well, that’s the story for the report because you’re not going to tell me the full truth, and I’m forbidden to beat it out of you.” She smiled and waved Jenna off. “Go on to class.” She glanced at the clock on the wall. “You can still make the tail end of first period.”

  “Yay,” Jenna said emotionless in mock cheer.

  The principal escorted her to the closed off hall near the restroom where Officer Marlowe was stationed outside the door. He handed Jenna her backpack that was thankfully, blood free; she’d left it in the restroom, distracted by the possibility of her imminent arrest.

  Jenna cradled the rose-colored bag against her chest as if it might give her comfort in these troubled times. Then she turned to Principal Greene. “Sorry for messing up the restroom. It won’t happen again.”

  “Let’s hope not.” She gently squeezed Jenna’s shoulder. “Next time…well, I don’t have to tell you. You want to graduate on time, right? Get out of here?”