Haunted

by Alexandra Inger

  “Well now hang on,” I told her. “Imagine how you would have felt if you had seen someone slow dancing with Chad.”

  Cheryl was stunned into no response and she just stood there and stared at me with a look on her face as if I had slapped her, too.

  “That’s different,” she said finally.

  I had no interest in arguing with her.

  “Okay, fine. Whatever,” I said and I turned to go.

  “Well don’t walk away!” she laughed at me as she recovered herself. “I’m not mad at you. But finish telling me what happened with you and Trevor.”

  “It was a joke – they made me dance with him. I didn’t want to. He was drunk and clinging on to me…then he grabbed my ass and I slapped him.”

  Cheryl burst out laughing. “Oh he left out the part about grabbing your ass! That’s hysterical!”

  “No, it really wasn’t! And Lisa saw the whole thing and got really upset…but forget me – where were you? What happened between you and Chad?”

  “Oh god, the usual.” She gave another dramatic eye roll. “I just wanted to talk to him about how he was feeling – just to like, check in with him, you know, but he got all defensive and freaked out.”

  I didn’t have to hear Chad’s side of the story to know that she was seriously sugar coating the events for me. She had already told me that she was planning on getting him away from everybody so that she could try to seduce him. I rather thought that whatever had happened was something more along those lines; after all, it had worked for her once before. But Cheryl had been drinking a great deal more than Chad had, so despite her fearlessness, I’m sure he had his wits about him. If she had tried and failed I’m sure she’d be too embarrassed to admit it. Of course, she might have been so drunk that she couldn’t even remember what she had said or done.

  “Oh my god! There he is! He said he wasn’t coming back!” she shrieked as she grabbed at my arm.

  He was talking to Trevor and he looked like he was angry.

  “Oh my god – they’re arguing,” Cheryl observed. “I wonder what about?”

  I hoped it was not me. I had not wished to cause trouble between Chad and Trevor. I still wondered at their friendship – they seemed like polar opposites. But regardless, they were roommates and were stuck with each other whether they liked it or not.

  Cheryl and I stood there for some minutes watching them through the crowd. Finally Chad threw up his hands in exasperation and stalked off. Trevor had an angry ironic smirk on his face (I was beginning to think the smirk was permanent) and he turned around and immediately spotted me and Cheryl watching him.

  “He’s coming this way!” Cheryl exclaimed. “I can’t wait to hear what that was all about!”

  I could.

  “Let’s go, Cheryl. I don’t like this,” I said as I tried to guide her towards the refreshment table on the other side of the gym.

  “No – he’s coming to talk to us. I want to know what happened,” she insisted.

  I sighed, waiting for the boom to drop.

  “Happy with yourself, you little bitch?” Trevor said accusingly as he reached us.

  “Trevor!” Cheryl said in astonishment.

  “Well that’s what your little friend is,” he continued. “Don’t go defending her – do you know she was outside just now with Chad?”

  Cheryl looked from Trevor to me.

  “Is that true, Catherine?” she asked.

  I shot Trevor a dirty look.

  “Yes, it’s true. I bumped into him when I was coming back from the dorm. I went to the dorm to make sure Lisa was alright,” I reminded her.

  “Yep. And she had a little hissy fit and started crying to Chad about how I practically molested her on the dance floor, isn’t that right?” Trevor sneered.

  “He could see I was upset. He asked me what had had happened,” I said plainly as I reminded myself in my head that I had done nothing wrong and had nothing to hide.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had seen him?” Cheryl demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me you were just outside with him?” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Why is it you two always seem to get caught together, huh? And there’s always a little story to explain it all away? You know, Janice swears on her life that it was you in the car with Chad that night. We had a fight about it and everything but she never stopped saying that she was absolutely sure that it was you and him in his car. Even though it was making me mad and I told her to stop, she still swore it was you!”

  “And let’s not forget that she hit me – right in the face!” Trevor added. “Too bad I wasn’t smart enough to go boo-hoo-hooing to Chad first!”

  “So tell me now! Tell me the truth! Were you in Chad’s car that night?”

  She had hellfire in her eyes now and between the two of them I was ready to snap myself.

  “Yes!” I screamed back at her. “Yes I was in his car! Because you and Lisa drove me into town and then abandoned me on the street!”

  “Don’t scream at me! We tried to get you into the bar – it’s not my fault that you don’t have ID!”

  “I told you before we left that I didn’t have ID. And so when you guys took off on me, I went back to your car – in the dark, by myself – to wait for you! Chad saw me loitering about your car and asked me what I was doing there! When I told him what you had done to me, he felt so bad about it that he volunteered to drive me back to school himself! Even though he’d never ever met me before! Which is more than I can say for you!”

  Cheryl was shocked. I don’t think anyone had ever spoken to her like that before. She took a few moments to collect herself before she came at me, her voice low and sharp and slow. “You both lied to my face. You must have decided together, you must have planned it! To lie to me! You pretended you had never met him the next day!”

  “Yes, we did. Because Chad thought you’d freak out and over-react! And so did I. So we agreed that we wouldn’t tell you. But then Janice decided to interfere and cause trouble, so instead of just not mentioning it we had to out and out lie. Yes! That is correct!” I paused to catch my breath. “But here’s the thing, Cheryl! Me and Chad are friends! Just friends! I don’t like him beyond that and he doesn’t like me either! It’s actually really above board! You create all this drama for yourself in your own mind!”

  And with that I whipped around and left the two of them to stand there gaping at me as I marched out of the gym.

  Well, now I’d done it. I’d not only enraged Trevor and had a big fight with Cheryl, but I’d betrayed Chad in the process. That was the part I regretted the most. I wanted to find him to tell him what I’d done before Cheryl got a hold of him, but how? I knew where his room was, but it was also Trevor’s room and therefore enemy territory.

  Damn! I wished I had a cell phone already. With everything that was going on with Lisa last weekend I had forgotten to call home and find out what the status was on my parents getting one for me.

  I stumbled out into the fresh, cool night. The air felt so nice on my face, which was now hot and red with anger instead of tears. I guess the only place to go was back to my room.

  “Catherine!”

  I jumped about a mile out of my skin.

  “Sorry, that’s the second time I’ve done that to you tonight,” Chad smiled at me.

  “Oh, Chad! I need to tell you something, but can we just start walking very fast and very far away from here?” I entreated him.

  “Okay, sure. Are you alright?” he asked.

  “No! Please, can we just get away?” I implored again.

  “Okay. Come on, follow me. I know just the place.”

  We walked in silence towards the back of the school grounds and for a minute I thought he was taking me towards the wooded area. But as my eyes grew adjusted to the dark and I realized where we were I knew he was taking me to the rose garden.

  “I love this spot,” he said shyly as we approached. “Not a lot of people know it’s here, or if they do, they don’t come here. It’s qu
iet. I come here a lot to think.”

  “The rose garden!” I said.

  “You know it?” he asked me, surprised.

  “Yes, I found it the week before school started. I came here quite a bit, then.” I said a little sadly, for this was my place with Stefano, and I missed him and I didn’t want to be here with another boy. It felt like infidelity, although I knew it was ridiculous to feel that way.

  “Here, have a seat,” Chad directed me to the little stone bench.

  Oh this was the last place I wanted to sit with him! I hesitated, but Chad prodded me and after a few seconds hesitation we both sat down together.

  “So?” he looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Oh, Chad. I’m so sorry. Trevor came over to pick a fight with me, and he told Cheryl that I had just been outside with you. She got crazy angry about it and…to make a long story short I wound up admitting to her about you driving me home that night from town.”

  “Huh,” he said as he mulled this over.

  “I’ll understand if you’re angry at me, but please know that I’m really, truly sorry. I didn’t mean to cause you any trouble with your friends,” I said shaking my head sorrowfully and staring down at the grass. “I know we had a pact, and I didn’t mean to, it just came hurtling out of my mouth in anger. I’m sorry.”

  “Okay,” he chuckled. “You’ve said sorry about thirty-nine times now, it’s alright.”

  “No, it isn’t, I’ve caused you to fall out with Trevor and now Cheryl is going to be on your case…”

  “Firstly,” he said almost sternly, “Trevor is responsible for what Trevor did. His behavior was disgusting. Was it because he was drunk? Probably, but that’s no excuse. He made the choice to get drunk in the first place, so he’s responsible for his actions to follow. Secondly, he deserved to get slapped – he doesn’t think he did, he thinks you could have chosen a better reaction. But he was the one who put you in the position of having to have a reaction in the first place. He was out of line, you knocked him back in line – end of story. I told him so. He didn’t like it and we had some words about it. But tomorrow when he’s sobered up, things will be fine between us, so don’t even worry about that. As for Cheryl…” He faltered for a moment. “As for Cheryl, I never wanted her to know about me giving you a ride home for your benefit, not mine. I knew she’d have a freak out and make your life miserable, and unfortunately you have that to look forward to now. But don’t worry or think you’ve betrayed me in some way. I would be perfectly happy to never have anything to do with Cheryl ever again, so if this stirs up so much trouble that that finally happens, I’ll be nominating you for some kind of medal.”

  I gave a tiny little laugh.

  “I mean it. The only reason I ever even agreed to try to be friends again was –“ He broke off and seemed to be searching for the right words. He took a deep breath and started again. “It was so that, you know, the group dynamic wouldn’t be damaged in some way.” He frowned and looked down at his shoes. “What I mean to say is that, I like Cheryl’s friends, and I didn’t want to not be able to be friends with them anymore because of not being friends with Cheryl.”

  There was an awkward silence for a few beats.

  “Although, I am mad about one thing,” he suddenly said brightly. “You were supposed to help me with Italian this week!” And he gave me a friendly nudge with his elbow.

  “Oh!” I laughed. “I’m sorry! How about tomorrow sometime?”

  “We meet at one o’clock in the dining hall. We’ll have lunch and then get to work,” he said.

  “Thanks for being so cool,” I said. Then I added, “You know I think this night is pretty much over for me, so I’m going to go back to my room now and try to sleep it off!”

  “Yeah, me too. I’ll walk you there,” he said as he stood up.

  “Thanks,” I smiled at him as he helped me up.

  CHAPTER 18

  I had never been so happy to be locked up in my room alone in my life. I didn’t realize until the moment I got home and flopped down on my bed how exhausted I’d been from being permanently on tenterhooks for two solid weeks. Two weeks! This was only the first two weeks of school and already all this drama! Part of me was relieved that me and Cheryl had had it out and I wouldn’t have to lie to her anymore about being friends with Chad, but part of me was deeply, deeply afraid about how and when she would retaliate. No doubt Lisa would take her side, despite me having tried so sincerely to be a good friend to her when Cheryl had let her down. I didn’t care about Janice so much, since she had always kind of been on the periphery anyway. Trevor absolutely despised me: it was too bad Lisa and me couldn’t have been allied against him. Or, who knew? Maybe we could. It was too early to try and guess how it was all going to play out. All I knew is that I would have to start making some new friends. How did one do that if it didn’t just occur spontaneously? I was thinking I’d have to look into joining some clubs or trying to get on some teams or something. But I wasn’t athletic. I didn’t think there was any hope for me in that direction.

  “I’m beginning to think that looking troubled is simply what your face looks like,” remarked Stefano from the doorway. “But since I have seen it also express happiness and wonder and a multitude of other things, I know that cannot be true.”

  “Oh, Stefano,” I said in the biggest sigh ever let forth from a teenaged girl.

  He came closer to me. “You have been crying! Amore, amore, what has happened?” he asked as he rushed to sit next to me on the bed and encircle me in his arms.

  I clung to him for a few moments before we broke apart and I began to speak.

  “I had the worst possible evening,” I began.

  “But my lady, when you left here you looked so radiantly beautiful and happy! This was to be a wonderful night for you! What went wrong? Who spoiled it?”

  His eyes searched mine for answers and I thought, what does it matter? As long as I have your sea green eyes to stare into when I come home.

  I recounted the events of the evening to him, trying not to let emotion cloud my narrative.

  “You know what is the cause of all this?” he asked me seriously. “It is your beauty. I have told you before. It is why the girls from down the hallway are so spiteful. It’s why this horrible creature tried to lay his hands on you. How dare he disrespect you so blatantly? And he thought he did not deserve a slap for that? If I had been there I would have challenged him to a duel! He should think himself lucky that he escaped with a mere slap from a woman’s hand!”

  “Thank you for saying that,” I started to say.

  “No, do not thank me for telling you the truth. They want to be whipped, all of them!” Stefano had worked himself into quite a frenzy and was now pacing back and forth in my little room. “I am so sorry that this happened to you! I wish you could understand how helpless I feel that there is nothing I can do about it. I’m useless. Quite, quite useless,” he said as he dropped his face into his hands.

  “No, don’t you dare say that!”

  I stood up and went to him.

  “You are the best, most wonderful person I have ever met. I need you, I rely on you. You are not useless at all! Just being here, talking to me, reassuring me that I’m not crazy,“ I took a breath, “loving me…..these are all the best, most useful things anybody could do.”

  “I take off my hat to the other young man, although every time I hear his name my heart thrills through with jealousy. I owe him a debt of gratitude for defending your honor and seeing you home safely,” he said quietly.

  “Don’t be jealous,” I said to him, although secretly I enjoyed that he was. “I know you think that it should have been you to defend my honor and you to see me home safely, but you’re the one I wanted to get home safely for. Can we please forget this? Please?” I implored him. “You know what I’ve been really dying to talk to you about?”

  He lowered his head and met my eyes with a knowing look.

  “Ah, yes. Caterina,” he smiled
wistfully.

  We arranged ourselves comfortably on my bed and he began to tell me her story.

  “Caterina was a servant in the employ of this, my castle. Now, when I tell you it was my castle, you must understand that it has not here been reconstructed in its original form. What I mean to say is that these are the bricks and stones that were my castle, but the edifice itself was nearly completely redesigned. So, certain areas now draw me, in my present state, more than others. I don’t know why, except to muse that perhaps certain parts of the building have a greater concentration of the stones that made up the walls of my chamber or some other room that I felt a particular affinity for. I don’t really know. Over the years there have been very few other students who were able to perceive me, but they all came from this wing of the dormitory. Perhaps it is because I myself feel my energy most strongly here.”

  I was fascinated. “Go on!” I prodded him.

  “Allow me to mention that I have never had a relationship with a student before as I have with you. I allowed myself to be seen on occasion, I suppose for my own perverse amusement as much as anything else, but I have never communed with the living as I do with you.”

  “That’s good!” I smiled. “Because I have never communed with another ghost as I do with you!”

  He gave me a stern look, but I could see from the twinkle in his eye that he appreciated my little joke.

  “Caterina never should have been known to me at all – she was no more than a scullery maid. It was by chance that we ever met, even though she was housed in my own servants’ quarters. And I am ashamed to say that those quarters were mean. But, I digress. I was coming around to the barn to fetch my horse: we were having unusually fine weather and I planned to ride out for the afternoon. I surprised her in the stables – she was curled up in a pile of straw with a volume of…” he gave me a sheepish grin before he finished his sentence “…Dante! I recognized it as one of my own, from my own library. She was frightened out of her wits and thought I would whip her for any one of her transgressions. In the first place, she had taken a book from my library, in the place before that, she had even dared venture into the library, in the next place she was neglecting her duties and hiding in the barn…well, suffice it to say she was terrified.”