Haunted

by Alexandra Inger

  “Maybe she just doesn’t have a fake ID,” I suggested, but it went over Cheryl’s head.

  “Yeah, maybe,” she said with a kind of faraway look on her face. “I just can’t believe we drove all the way out there for nothing.”

  “That sucks,” I pretended to empathize, but secretly I was glad she had had a terrible time.

  “What did you end up doing?” she turned to me on the bed, smiling and pretending to be interested.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Well I started to walk down the main street and I bumped into some other people who were on their way back to school so I just caught a ride with them,” I lied.

  “Well you’re lucky you didn’t have to drink beer out of politeness for a fat old man!” she groaned. “Oh my god, it was awful. And they weren’t even playing good music.”

  Had she believed my lie? Did she actually think that I was walking down the street and had encountered a group of strangers, asked them cheerily if they happened to be going back to Brandenhurst School, and could I please catch a lift with them? Or did she just not care enough to consider whether my story even made sense or was plausible?

  “Well I wonder where Chad did go last night. They went somewhere. I know his car was parked in a different spot this morning than it was yesterday afternoon. I can see the parking lot from my window and I always check it just to keep tabs,” she explained.

  “Hmm. I don’t know. Where else is there to go around here?” I asked.

  “Nowhere. That’s just the thing. If you’re not on campus then you’re in town. It’s all there is for miles. I mean, town is what, a 20 or 30 minute drive? And I don’t even know where there is another town. You’d have to get onto the highway and drive to the city and that’d take, I don’t know, hours!” she thought out loud.

  “Hmm. I don’t know. I guess you’ll have to ask him,” I said.

  “I’ve tried. I texted him like three times already this morning and he’s still ignoring me.”

  “Maybe he’s still sleeping,” I suggested. Again – right over her head.

  “Yeah, maybe. Do you wanna go down for breakfast? I’m starving.”

  “Where’s Lisa?” I was suddenly curious as to why she had showed up at my door and wanted to have breakfast with me without her partner in crime.

  “Oh god, she’s still sleeping. She refuses to get out of bed before ten on a Saturday,” Cheryl rolled her eyes in disgust.

  Lucky she has a choice, I thought.

  “Yeah, sure,” I acquiesced. I might as well go down with her; I was fully awake now. “Just let me get dressed.”

  By the time we got down to the dining hall I was beginning to feel legitimately sorry for Cheryl. She seemed genuinely sad about Chad not wanting anything to do with her and I was feeling horribly guilty about knowing where he had been last night and keeping it from her. But what was I to do? I couldn’t very well tell her that he was in fact planning on going to the bar and when he found out she was there he changed his mind and turned around and went home.

  “What exactly happened between the two of you?” I asked her once we were settled into a corner table away from everyone else.

  She took a very deep breath and began:

  “We met last year at the beginning of the school year. It was my first year at Brandenhurst but his second. I would see him around the halls and stuff, but we didn’t have any classes together obviously because he was a year ahead of me. I would do funny things to try to get his attention – like one time I was with Lisa walking down the hall between classes and we saw him, so I walked right up to him and made a big show of tripping and dropping my books all over the floor in front of him!” She was laughing to herself at the memory. “I mean, it was obvious I had done it on purpose to be funny, but my books went flying everywhere! He helped me pick them up and because Lisa was standing off by the lockers killing herself laughing and it was just me and him I got totally shy! But he was super nice about it and just helped me get all my things together and acted like it was an accident, even though I had so totally obviously done it on purpose. It was really cute, actually. Then after that, every time we saw him in the hallway I’d yell something out like, ‘Hey – there’s that nice boy who helped me pick up my books after he tripped me that time!’ and he’d turn red and laugh. Anyway, one time I was standing there looking for something in my locker and he came up behind me. He said, ‘All my friends wanna know what’s with the loopy chick who keeps saying that I tripped her.’ I started laughing and I said, ‘Aww, they don’t think you really tripped me, do they?’ And he was like, ‘Well they’re beginning to, since you yell it down the hallway EVERY SINGLE DAY.’ So we both were laughing and then he asked me to go to a party with him that weekend to prove to his friends that he had never really tripped me and that I was just crazy. So me and Lisa went to the party and we had a really great time, but then nothing really happened at first. But that’s how me and Lisa started hanging out with him and all of his friends to begin with. And then everybody went home for the Christmas holidays and I really missed him and couldn’t wait to come back to school. And believe me – me and school are like oil and water, so for me to really want to come back to school…it was because I missed Chad. Anyway, when we came back in January a bunch of us were at a party one weekend in town – it’s funny – I think your little friend Margie was even there – and we had been drinking a little bit and I just walked up to him and grabbed him by the hand and pulled him into another room and I told him that I thought we should be dating. And then we made out and then we were just together from then on,” she ducked her head shyly and was smiling sweetly at the memory of it.

  All my anger from yesterday converted into compassion as I thought how sincerely she must like this guy.

  “But what happened?” I prodded, “I mean what went wrong? You said yesterday that you guys were always fighting and breaking up and stuff.”

  Cheryl took another deep breath.

  “Well, everything was great for like the first month. And then it was Valentine’s Day and I had kinda been hinting that I might like a necklace from Tiffany’s. Not a super expensive one, but there was this one and we could have had our initials engraved in it – nice, right? Except that on Valentine’s Day, first of all he didn’t even make time to see me, because he was busy with some stupid thing with the school paper that he said was an emergency – I was like, yeah right, no one reads the school paper anyway, so who cares? And then when he finally did come to see me he brought me a bunch of red roses!” She scrunched her face up in disgust as she spat out “red roses”. Anyone not understanding English would have thought she was saying something that meant dirty socks.

  I must have been looking at her blankly or in confusion, because I suppose that not being a rich girl from Manhattan I couldn’t understand why having a good looking guy bring you a bunch of red roses on Valentine’s Day was such a horrible thing.

  She picked up on my look and impatiently explained.

  “Look – they say it’s the thought that counts, right? Well how much thought was put into roses? Like, who doesn’t buy their girlfriend roses on Valentines Day? You can buy roses at gas stations, for heavens sake. I mean the only more insulting thing he could have done would have been to give me a heart shaped box of chocolates from the drugstore.” She rolled her eyes.

  “So you had a fight about that, I take it?” I offered.

  “Yes, and it was the first of many. He told me I was too materialistic, and that really hurt my feelings. I was trying to explain to him that I wanted the necklace with our initials because of the symbolism of it, and that it meant that our relationship was really solid. You know, like some people get tattoos of each other’s names? That kinda thing?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I get it,” I nodded empathetically, but really I wasn’t completely sure what my opinion on this situation was.

  “But he told me that it was ridiculous because we had hardly been dating for a month and it wa
s way too soon for that sort of thing. Well that completely crushed me, because I was already thinking that I was completely in love with him at this point, so to hear that a stupid necklace with our initials was too much of a commitment for him was a punch to the gut.”

  On the one hand, I could see Chad’s point about it being too early for love tokens in the form of expensive jewelry, on the other hand I thought that Cheryl was just looking for a little validation from him and she was asking for it in the only form she probably recognized considering her upbringing – an expensive gift. On the other other hand, I could see that, if I were Chad, I would think that she was being materialistic and ungrateful. But then, I had never even had a boyfriend, so what did I know about all this?

  “But you did eventually patch things up and get back together with him?” I prompted.

  “Yes. We text-fought for the next week, and then finally one night I just went over to his room to talk to him in person and we were arguing, but then it turned into making out and then it turned into…more.” She was smirking at me.

  “More what?” I asked incredulously. I had a feeling I knew where she was going with this story, but innocent that I was, I was shocked to hear it.

  “We did it in his room,” she said in a low, conspiratorial voice.

  “Oh my god!” I exclaimed.

  “Shhhh shhhhh shhhhh!” she quieted me down. “Tell the whole world, why don’t you?!”

  “I’m sorry!” I whispered. “Oh my god! What was it like?”

  “I don’t know. It kinda hurt, I guess. We haven’t done it since,“ she shrugged as if she had just told me that they had been grocery shopping together.

  “So yeah, then things kinda went back to normal,” she continued, “and everything was good for a while, but then, I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. He’d just be irritated really easily with me, or he’d like start fights out of nothing, or I’d catch him in lies and stuff. Like, you know I can see the parking lot from my room, right? Well I’d notice his car gone, and I’d ask him if he’d gone somewhere and he’d say no. But of course I know he’s lying, because I’d know that his car was gone for two hours or whatever, so then if I called him on it he’d accuse me of spying on him and we’d fight about that. I mean, it wasn’t all bad all the time. Trevor started dating Lisa and the four of us used to hang out all the time and it was fun. But then at the end of the year last year he told me that he thought we just consider ourselves broken up for the summer.” Now she looked sad again. “And he’s been ignoring me ever since,” she added forlornly.

  My mind raced. It seemed as though she still harbored hopes for a reconciliation, but after hearing how Chad was talking about her last night I knew there would never be one.

  “Well, honey,” I started off trying to be as sensitive as humanly possibly, “It sounds like he’s really finished with the whole thing and maybe you should just forget about him and try to find someone who will appreciate you.”

  But I needn’t have worried about hurting her feelings. It was like I hadn’t spoken.

  “Oh my god, it’s Janice!” she squealed as she jumped up from her seat and ran towards a girl who was looking for somewhere to sit.

  The girl set her tray down on the nearest table and they hugged and shrieked and made a big fuss over each other. Then the two of them sat down together and began catching up in earnest, laughing and smiling and talking a mile a minute.

  Cheryl had completely forgotten my existence. Again.

  I finished eating by myself and gathered up my tray to take it to the bussing station. I noticed Cheryl’s purse hanging off the back of the chair she’d been sitting in, so I scooped it up and slung it over my shoulder.

  “Cheryl, your purse,” I said as I stood next to their table.

  “What?” she looked up at me, seemingly annoyed that I had interrupted. “Oh god – my purse! I completely forgot it over there!” she said as she slipped it off my arm. “Thanks so much, Catherine. I’ll see you later.” She waved me off without even introducing me to Janice.

  “No problem,” I forced a smile.

  I imagined that a girl like Cheryl must have had a lot of valuable items in her purse: credit cards, cash, expensive make up, cell phone. So I was bemused to think that at least I was in the same league as it in Cheryl’s mind – something of value that she could completely forget about.

  I went back up to my room and looked longingly at my bed. I wondered how long Stefano had stayed with me last night and I was newly annoyed that Cheryl had barged in on me. It would have been nice to lay there all sleepy and thinking of him and remembering how warm and good and safe it felt to fall asleep with him, but Cheryl had managed to wreck that. Not only did she wake me up early on a Saturday morning, but then she had come and sprawled out over my bed and put her head on the pillow where Stefano had been. I hated that she had defiled the traces of his energy and his memory with her presumptive behavior and I thought I should rip the sheets off the bed and wash her off of them.

  But before I got a chance, there was another knock on my door.

  “Catherine?” Now it was Lisa.

  “Hey,” I said as I opened the door to her. I was surprised to see her. I got the distinct feeling she could hardly abide my presence. Cheryl was moody and changeable, but I did think she had moments of liking me somewhat. She was just a spoiled, selfish girl at heart who thought of nobody but herself. It didn’t even occur to her that others bore thinking about.

  “Is Cheryl here?” she asked as she poked her head in to see.

  “No, she’s down in the dining hall. With some girl named Janice, I think?”

  I walked over to my bed and plopped down on it and she followed me into the room.

  “Oh. What happened to you last night?” I couldn’t tell from her tone if she was concerned or annoyed.

  “Well, I was walking down the main street looking for some place to have coffee or something, and there was a crowd of people who looked like students and I just asked them if I could catch a lift back to school with them.”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. Could she tell I was lying?

  “Why didn’t you wait for us?” she asked. Now I could tell she was annoyed. No concern whatsoever.

  “It was getting chilly already and I didn’t have a jacket with me. I didn’t know how long you guys would be. I saw an opportunity to get back home and took it,” I shrugged.

  “Oh, well, at least you got back home okay. Are you not pissed at Cheryl? I would have been furious if she had done that to me.”

  Lisa was eyeing me up now to see how I would react.

  She’s baiting me! I thought. She’s baiting me to see if I’ll talk behind her friend’s back!

  “No, not at all!” I was smiling and trying hard to suppress a laugh, which was a completely inappropriate response to her question. “I mean, what an absurd thing to suggest!” I said to try and rationalize my laughter. “It’s not anybody’s fault that I don’t have ID. Why on earth would you think that I’d be mad at Cheryl for that?”

  She saw that I saw through her little game.

  “Alright,” she said abruptly, “Well I think I’ll try to find her downstairs.”

  And she flounced out of my room with her nose in the air. The door slammed shut behind her.

  “What is with these girls?!” I said out loud.

  “Too much money, not enough class,” Stefano opined.

  “Oh you’re here!” I exclaimed, happy to see him. “Yes, I think you must be right about that.”

  He stepped towards me and cupped my face in his hands. I smiled shyly up at him and blushed as I met his shining green eyes beaming back at me.

  He smiled. He loved it when my face colored and he loved that when he noticed me blushing it made me blush even harder.

  “I missed you this morning when I woke up,” I said, my voice low and soft.

  “I stayed with you until I was sure you were sleeping. And then I had to let go. I get tired,
too,” his eyes twinkled at me.

  “I know,” I nodded. “It was nice to fall asleep with you, though. I can’t remember the last time I slept so soundly.”

  He gathered me up in the energy of his arms and cradled me in his warmth. Was there any better feeling on earth than this? To feel so wholly loved and warm and safe? It was like the depression I’d been suffering with for months just lifted and evaporated like it had never even existed. Nothing else in the world mattered at that moment. I couldn’t have cared less about those girls or what they thought of me. Cocooned in Stefano’s energy field as I was, nothing could hurt me, nothing could get to me.

  CHAPTER 9

  Except a knock on the door.

  “Catherine? You in there? It’s me, Margie!” I heard her gravelly little voice and wondered what she was doing back so soon.

  Stefano and I exchanged quick goodbye looks with each other and he bowed his head to me as he disappeared and Margie came barreling through the door.

  “Oh hey! Good – you’re up. I was worried I was going to wake you,” she said as she dropped her gym bag full of clothes on her bed.

  “Hey, Margie! Nice to see you – but what are you doing back so early?”

  I was confused. She said she wasn’t coming back until Monday. As late as she possibly could.

  “Bad news. My boyfriend’s grandfather had a stroke. They don’t think he’s going to make it, so my boyfriend is leaving town this afternoon to go see him. I asked him if he wanted me to come with him, you know, for moral support, but he’ll be gone for maybe a week. I said I was happy to miss a week of school, but he didn’t think his family would be cool with me hanging around. It’s fine. I get it. Families, ya know?”

  “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that,” I told her.

  “What about you? What’s been going on here?” she asked.

  “Well!” I began, “I met Cheryl and Lisa yesterday.”