Phantom

by Laura DeLuca

  “I can see that. Hey, Becca. Mind if we join you?”

  Tom was annoyed. “Of course we mind. Like I said, this is a date. We’re supposed to be alone.”

  “Aw, come on. I don’t mind a little PDA, you know, public displays of affection. You can make out all you want. Just expect me and the guys to be watching every second of it.”

  Now Rebecca was annoyed. The last thing she wanted was to spend the rest of her evening with Jay spying on their every move. “Tom,” she whispered. “I would really like it if we had some time alone.”

  Jay heard her and he crinkled his nose in distaste. “Dude, are you gonna let some chick tell you how to spend your Saturday night?”

  Tom looked torn for a minute. Then he made the choice that any self-respecting guy in the popular crowd would make. “Oh, come on Bec, it won’t be so bad to sit with the guys. The more the merrier, right?”

  There was absolutely nothing merry about the situation at all, but Rebecca knew it wasn’t worth fighting about. There was no escaping Tom’s faithful sidekick and his string of minions. But she wasn’t happy about it, and she came very close to pulling away from him when Tom took her hand to lead her into the movie theater with Jay and the others in tow. It wasn’t in her nature to be argumentative, so she let him have his way.

  She spent the next ninety minutes being hit in the head with popcorn kernels and listening to a wide array of strange and almost musical bodily functions. Even when Tom tried to slip his arm around her, Jay had to make his presence known by moving to the other side and laying his head on her shoulder, oohing and awwing like the juvenile moron that he was, and in general making a complete nuisance of himself. The crowd was so rowdy that Rebecca could barely follow the storyline of the movie. She was surprised that they made it through the whole picture without getting kicked out. Strangers shot them icy stares and there was more than one loud “shhh”. When the credits finally started to roll, Rebecca heaved a sigh of relief. It couldn’t have come soon enough.

  Tom was quiet and obviously embarrassed on the ride home. Rebecca felt a little sorry for him. He had planned a nice normal evening. It wasn’t his fault that Jay had shown up uninvited and ruined things. She understood why he had given in to their demands. Adolescent male teasing could be a brutal force to reckon with. And she really did have a nice time with him at dinner. All in all, the evening hadn’t been a total loss.

  Tom pulled into the driveway and shifted his truck into neutral, still looking grim. “I guess there’s not much hope that there’s going be a third date, huh?”

  When he turned those sad blue eyes on her, any lingering sense of annoyance melted completely away. “I wouldn’t jump to conclusions just yet.”

  He smiled a huge bright smile and was visibly relieved. “I’m sorry about Jay. He’s . . . you know . . . he’s Jay.”

  She did know. There were few non-vulgar words that could be used to describe Jay Kopp. “It’s okay. I won’t hold you accountable for his actions.”

  She would have thought it impossible, but Tom’s smile widened. “Good. Because I’d hate to think I’d blown it with you, Becca. I . . . I really like you. You’re smart and pretty . . . and not like the other girls. You know, you’re special.”

  Rebecca blushed. “I . . . I like you too, Tom.”

  If he wanted to ask if she liked him more than Justyn, he restrained himself. And she was glad. She wasn’t ready to answer that question just yet.

  “I’m glad to hear that.”

  He leaned over the armrest and pressed his lips against hers. The kiss wasn’t at all rough this time, and she found herself returning it with much more willingness than she had on Halloween. It was a nice kiss, and she waited for the warm fluttery feeling in her chest to finally come back. She waited for that sudden burst of inspiration where she would realize that he was the one. But as sweet as the kiss was, there were no fireworks. No breathlessness. No yearning for something more. Maybe she had just read too many romance novels. Or maybe Tom wasn’t the one that she really wanted to be kissing.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Hi, Becca!”

  Justyn buzzed past her on his black bike, which was a perfect match to his black silver-chained pants and metal-tipped boots. He came to a screeching halt just a few feet away from her with a huge smile on his face. She didn’t think twice before jogging to catch up with him. She couldn’t deny that she was happy to see him. And she was even happier when the two of them walked side by side to the bike rack, where he locked his bike up securely.

  “So, will I be riding on your handle bars on Saturday night?”

  Justyn smirked. “Don’t worry. I have a car. I just prefer to be out in the fresh air whenever possible.”

  It was a beautiful day. Groups of students were loitering in the walkways, putting off the inevitable for as long as possible. It was a shame that it was a Monday and they were going to be stuck inside all day. It was warm and mild, without a cloud in the sky.

  The sky? That reminded Rebecca of something interesting she had read that weekend. She pulled Justyn’s book out of her backpack, and handed him the small paperback.

  “I finished reading your book,” she told him.

  He raised a pieced eyebrow. “And?”

  “Skyclad, huh?”

  “Ritual nudity is completely optional.”

  Now it was Rebecca’s turn to raise her eyebrow. “And do you opt for it?”

  He shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to tag along to one of our get-togethers and find out for yourself.”

  “Is that what we’ll be doing this weekend? Dancing naked in the woods with a bunch of witches?”

  “Maybe . . . I guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  Justyn wasn’t about to give up any information. Rebecca had a feeling that trying to get him to change his mind would have been a pointless endeavor. If he had his mind set on keeping their date a surprise, nothing could drag the secret from him. But it was certainly going to make the next five days go unbelievably slow for Rebecca while she waited in suspense.

  As they walked toward the school entrance, Justyn explained some of the symbolism in Wicca. Rebecca asked one question after another, hungry for as much information as possible. The more she heard about Wicca, the more fascinating she found the religion. Before she knew it, Justyn was planning a whole reading list for her, which she found herself more than willing to accept.

  Justyn held the door open as they slipped into the hallway. She noticed a few kids were pointing and snickering in her direction as they moved towards her locker. She assumed it was because of Justyn and his fashion sense. He still had a strange effect on most of their classmates. But he didn’t seem to be bothered by people staring at him, so Rebecca didn’t see any reason to let it bother her either.

  Their lockers were in different directions, and Rebecca was just about to say goodbye to him when Carmen and Debbie swooped down on her like a pair of whirling dervishes. They each grabbed one arm in an almost eerie synchronization, and started pulling her down the hall toward the girls’ bathroom before she knew what was happening. She didn’t even have time to look back over her shoulder to see if Justyn was surprised by her sudden and unintended departure.

  “What’s going on?” Rebecca demanded. “I know you guys aren’t crazy about the idea of me and Justyn, but don’t you think this is a little extreme? What’s next, a chastity belt?”

  “Shhh.” Carmen hissed. “This has nothing to do with your freaky Gothic boy toy.”

  She locked the bathroom doors even as Debbie was checking under the stalls to make sure they were alone. Rebecca was getting nervous. She had never seen her friends act so strangely. It seemed like hours passed before they were sure the bathroom was secure and even then they stood there in silence, surrounded by the smell of bathroom disinfectant. She waited for her friends to explain themselves, but they just stared at each other stupidly, each one waiting—no hoping, that the other would begin.

  “I
s someone going to tell me why I’ve been abducted?”

  Debbie was twitching nervously as she ran her hands through her short hair. “We wanted to get to you before you saw it.”

  “Saw what?” Apparently they needed some prompting.

  Carmen shook her head. “Girl, you don’t even want to know. You should just go down to the nurse’s office right now and beg to be sent home for the day.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Debbie took a folded newspaper out of her backpack, and handed it to Rebecca, which only added to her confusion. She shook her head in exasperation as she flipped it over to the front page. She stared down at the familiar face on the cover, and it all started to fall into place. The pointing and the laughter when she had come in the door had nothing to do with Justyn. They were laughing at her because she had made front-page news.

  It was only the school newspaper. A thin, four page printout that was handed out every Monday morning by the mousy little editor-in-chief. Normally, the articles were the typical boring stories that were found in high school papers across the country. Like which sports team was heading to the championships or who was most likely to be elected class president. Never before had anything so blatantly scandalous been splashed across the front page. Rebecca had to wonder how it had made it past the teacher who was the newspaper’s moderator.

  “Phantom Star Rebecca Hope Named Number One Suspect in Russ Murder”

  That one line was horrible enough. But the humiliation didn’t end with the headline. It only got worse as she skimmed through the whole article. A little further down, right under an old yearbook photo of Mr. Russ, a disgusting question was raised in large bold print.

  “Russ & Hope—were they involved in a secret love affair?”

  The very thought made Rebecca a little sick to her stomach. Mr. Russ had been old enough to be her grandfather. He had been dirty, and about as unattractive as humanely possible. She wanted to die from the shame of the whole thing. As soon as she thought that, she felt guilty, because poor Mr. Russ was dead, and possibly murdered. Even pity for the old janitor couldn’t overshadow the complete humiliation of having such horrible lies printed about her for the entire school to see. It didn’t even matter than everyone knew it wasn’t true. This was high school. They were going to use this against her anyway. Who could have printed it? Who hated her this much?

  “Becca, are you all right?” Debbie asked.

  She and Carmen were both standing at a careful distance in case she decided to start throwing things. They were right to be cautious. Rebecca was furious—angrier than she had ever been before. Angrier than she knew she was capable of. She crumpled the newspaper into a ball, and with a cry of outraged fury, she sent it hurtling across the linoleum.

  “Who did this?” she demanded. “Who?”

  She didn’t wait for them to answer. She already knew who was responsible. There was only one person nasty and vindictive enough to pull off this kind of stunt. There was only one person in the whole school who hated Rebecca enough to try to tarnish her reputation this way. And she was going to find that person and straighten her out once and for all.

  Rebecca unlocked the bathroom door and burst into the crowded hallway without waiting to see if Carmen and Debbie would follow her. Anyone who dared to look at her and giggle was immediately silenced by her smoldering glare. Most of them probably started to wonder if she really was capable of murder. At that moment, she was starting to wonder herself, because only one fantasy kept playing through her head. That fantasy involved wrapping her hands around Wendy Wright’s neck and squeezing it until she turned blue. When she spotted her at her locker, laughing with her friends as she held up the offensive newspaper, that fantasy very nearly became a reality.

  Wendy saw her coming, and the hearty laughter settled into a pleased smirk. Rebecca had always thought she was pretty, but her personality was really bringing out her ugly side, and it had nothing to do with the fading cuts on her face. Rebecca felt the last of her self-control slipping away.

  “How could you do this to me?” She grabbed the newspaper from Wendy’s hands and tossed it haphazardly to the ground.

  “Do what, Becca? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  The feigned wide-eyed innocence was ten times worse than the open sarcasm. It pushed Rebecca right over the edge. She took both Wendy and herself completely by surprise when she shoved the blonde against her locker with all her strength. Nevertheless, Wendy knew how to play a better game, and she was a good actress. The innocent look quickly changed to startled fear, and the people around them probably thought Rebecca was as crazy as Wendy tried to make her out to be in her article.

  “Becca, please don’t hurt me!”

  Wendy put her arms up to make it look like she was defending herself. Rebecca noticed a few teachers peeking out their doors to see what was happening, and she let her arms fall down to her side, defeated. There wasn’t anything she could do about the newspaper article. There wasn’t anything she could do about Wendy in general. She had won this round. Wendy knew it, and she smiled.

  “I warned you,” Wendy whispered, just loud enough for Rebecca to hear her. “I told you I’d get you back for the mirror.”

  Rebecca started to shake her head, when she had a sudden realization. Denials hadn’t worked. Peace talks hadn’t worked. Maybe the only type of conversation that would work with Wendy was threats. Maybe that was the only language that she understood. Maybe Rebecca needed to jump on board and threaten her right back.

  “You better be careful, Wendy,” Rebecca told her. “The next time someone throws you into a mirror, maybe you won’t survive.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  “Watch out! There’s the psycho killer!”

  A group of underclassman snickered as they passed by Rebecca and her friends. Rebecca felt her face turn crimson for what must have been the millionth time that week. She had to wonder when the childishness was going to end—if it was ever going to end. Maybe she would just spend the rest of her senior year in exile.

  “Wendy is the only psycho in this school,” Carmen called out loudly from their corner of the stage. Her voice carried pretty far, and a few people turned to stare at her, including Wendy. The look she gave them was anything but friendly. Wendy had the masses on her side, as the popular crowd always did.

  “Really, Becca, you shouldn’t let her bother you anymore,” Debbie told her. “Everyone will have forgotten about this stupid joke by the end of the weekend. They’ll have moved on to another victim.”

  Rebecca would have loved to believe that. But five days had passed and it hadn’t been enough to make anyone forget about the newspaper article yet. In fact, the rumors had gotten even more twisted as they were passed from one gossipy teenager to the next. The last she had heard, she was having Mr. Russ’s love child. The stigma didn’t end with her. Carmen and Debbie had become outcasts by association. Rebecca never appreciated them more than she did that week. They stood by her through every taunt and sneer, and had truly proven themselves loyal friends. It only gave Rebecca one more thing to feel guilty about. She sat down on the edge of the stage and put her head in her hands.

  “I’m so sorry that you guys got dragged into this mess.”

  Carmen shrugged. “What are friends for?”

  “After all, we’re The Three Musketeers, right?”

  “That is sooo corny, Deb,” Carmen complained with a roll of her brown eyes.

  Practice was about to begin and they all moved to their allotted spots, promising to get together when they were done. The rehearsal proceeded without any problems. Rebecca noticed, not for the first time, that Tom seemed to be avoiding her. He called her every night, but in school he was always conveniently unavailable during the times when they would normally run into each other. Justyn, on the other hand, seemed to be lurking around every corner, and took her new leper status as further proof that they were destined to be together. He never came right out
and said that he found the whole thing amusing. He didn’t have to. She could sense that he enjoyed the fact that Tom, and every other available male, was staying away from her. This left the door wide open for him to make his move. That might have been the one bright side of the whole ridiculous situation.

  “So, are you ready for tomorrow night?” Justyn asked as they packed up to leave after practice.

  “Do I need to wear a black cloak?”

  He laughed good-naturedly. “You could wear a burlap sack if you wanted and I wouldn’t care. You’d still be beautiful.”

  Rebecca felt her cheeks grow warm, and that fluttery feeling had finally returned with a vengeance. “You still aren’t going to tell me where we’re going, are you?”

  “Not a chance. But trust me; you’re going to love it. I’ll be at your house around six tomorrow,” he told her with a secretive wink. “See you then.”