Haunted

by Alexandra Inger

  I could hear my phone vibrating in my bag. I had a text.

  “Oh, you have a phone now?” Cheryl said almost in a mocking tone. “Welcome to the twenty first century!” she smiled sweetly.

  It was from Chad. It said:

  Sorry – phone was turned off.

  Just read your text. Everything okay?

  I slipped my phone back in my bag, but it was too late. I think Cheryl had seen it.

  “Who was that from, sugar pie?” she asked in her saccharine voice as she cocked her head to one side.

  “Oh – it’s just about the column I wrote that came out in today’s paper. It’s stirring things up a bit,” I said truthfully.

  “You’re still writing a column? For the paper?” she struggled to retain her sweet baby-doll voice. She was practically gritting her teeth in an attempt to maintain her composure.

  “Yes. Actually, you might want to read it. I mention you in it. Not by name, of course,” I added hastily.

  “Wha-?” Cheryl didn’t know whether to look angry or delighted that she had been mentioned in the paper.

  “Yes. Alright I really have to go and deal with this now. Thanks for having lunch with me,” I said as I stood up and strode purposefully across the room to the exit.

  Chad was just coming in as I was going out.

  “Hey – I’m sorry. Is everything alright? I’ve been looking for you!” He grasped me about the shoulders.

  “Yeah, yeah. Let’s not talk here,” I said indicating Cheryl at the back table with my head.

  “Gotcha. Okay. So what happened?” he asked as we made our way outside.

  “I sat there and said nothing and let Coffey do all the talking. He assured me that the decision to punish me and not Trevor had nothing at all to do with my ‘former middle class background’ and that he wanted me to write a retraction for the next edition.”

  “Your ‘former middle class background’?” Chad let out a guffaw. “That would be funny if it weren’t so….”

  “I know – but here’s the best part. Mrs. York followed me out of the office down the hallway and told me that she was completely on my side and that she was working behind the scenes on my behalf. She said it was completely off the record because she was trying to work within the bureaucracy, but it was really sweet of her and made me feel a million times better. Just to be believed, you know?”

  “So, did Coffey say what would happen if you refused to write the retraction?” Chad asked.

  “No. He didn’t, come to think of it.”

  “Well that’s fine. You can write all the retractions you want, and the editors at the Chronicle will refuse to print them!” Chad beamed at me.

  A grin slowly spread out across my face as I realized what he was saying.

  “In fact, I think I’ll head over to Coffey’s office right now and tell him that,” Chad said chipperly.

  “Chad, you don’t have to do that. We can wait and see…”

  “Nope! We can’t! The Chronicle stands behind what it prints. There will be no retraction. I’ll see you in Italian later,” he winked and was dashing off across the lawn towards the administration building.

  I was quietly thrilled that Chad was sticking up for me like this. Not just thrilled – strange sensations were going on in the pit of my stomach and I just stood there for a few seconds watching him make his way over to Principal Coffey’s office.

  Apparently a lot of people had read my column already, because when I entered math class that afternoon a couple of people that I had never spoken to before mentioned it to me.

  “Hey – love the way you handed Coffey his ass in the paper!” one boy said to me.

  “Are you the girl who wrote that?” another girl asked me. “I’m going to bring it up in my Social Studies class – we’re doing a unit on the women’s movement right now.”

  And another guy was amazed at the fact that someone he knew had actually won the lottery.

  “You seriously won the lottery? That’s incredible! Wow! You know what the odds of that happening are? Cool!” he gushed.

  Afterwards I raced off to Italian, eager to tell Chad about all the positive response.

  “Chad! So far, everyone is totally on my side! And no one even cares about my ‘former middle class background’,” I said doing my best impersonation of Mr. Coffey.

  “Ha! Well, I’m glad. I talked to Coffey at lunch and he’s pretty irate about it. The web edition has received a lot of positive feedback already, too!”

  “What did he say?” I asked.

  “He threatened me with detention. I told him I’d just write another article about censorship and freedom of the press. So he threatened me with suspension. I told him I didn’t think my father would be too happy about that!” he chuckled.

  “Why?” I was perplexed. “Is your father on the board, too?”

  “No,” Chad laughed. “But he’d likely be able to get Coffey kicked out of the country club!”

  “Are you serious?!” I half laughed. What a crazy world this was!

  “I think everything is going to be fine,” Chad assured me. “Do nothing and let it go now. We already know we’ve won from the response to your column.”

  He had used the word “we.” I smiled at him, but was at a complete loss for words.

  One person who didn’t have such a positive reaction to my column was Cheryl. She came banging on my door about two minutes after I arrived back from class.

  “What the hell is this?” she stormed, waving a copy of The Chronicle in my face. “Everybody will know this is me! I thought we had called a truce!”

  “Well here’s the thing, Cheryl. A truce is called when two opposing sides are fighting against each other. They both agree to stop doing what they’ve been doing when a truce is called. In this case, I hadn’t been doing anything, it was really just you agreeing to stop doing nasty shit to me.”

  “Uh, stealing my boyfriend counts as something!!! And since you stopped trying to steal him, I figured that was like admitting that you had been trying to steal him!” she raved at me.

  “He’s not your boyfriend,” I pointed out.

  “He was my boyfriend! And probably would have been again if you hadn’t come along!”

  “Why do you care? I thought you were seeing Trevor now, anyway?” I challenged her.

  She was momentarily stunned.

  “Who told you that?” she demanded.

  “It was easy to guess,” I lied so as not incriminate Chad.

  “And speaking of Trevor – everybody will know that that’s him, too! How dare you write about us like that?” She was shaking now.

  “You know what, Cheryl? I’ve spent the past few weeks pretty much in isolation. The couple of friends I managed to make here since the beginning of the year were taken away by you. And you know what I realized? That I can live. You can do your worst to me, you can spread all the lies about me you want to and turn everybody in the whole school against me and I will live. Because unlike you, I don’t need everyone else to tell me how great I am, or how popular I am. I’m good all on my own. Which is something you’ll never be,” I said as I walked over to my door and held it open for her to leave.

  “You’re going to be sorry that you wrote this trash,” she threw the paper down on the floor towards my bed.

  “Your ‘boyfriend’ was the one who suggested it. And printed it,” I told her.

  I could tell from the look in her eyes I had just cut her more deeply than I had intended to.

  “You’ll be sorry,” she warned me again.

  “The pen is mightier than the sword,” I countered.

  She rolled her eyes and stalked off.

  Phew! I fell back on my bed quite pleased with myself. I had finally stood up to her and I think I had even won!

  The door flung open and Margie jumped into the room.

  “Geez! What did you do to her?” Margie smirked. “I think she actually had smoke coming from her ears! Her nostrils were flaring and
her face was red and she damn near knocked me over!”

  “Ha! I did nothing to her!” I said, not completely without glee. “She’s done it all to herself, and she didn’t want to hear it, is all!”

  And with that, I got down to work on my paper for Jane Eyre.

  CHAPTER 30

  After our confrontation, I waited for Cheryl to start making good on her promise to make me sorry. But she surprised me – again – by taking another route.

  The next time we had English she came sidling up to me and plopped herself down in the desk next to me.

  “Hey, Catherine,” she flashed a smile at me. “I’m sorry about fighting with you the other day. It’s just that lots of people are asking me if that’s me in your column. It’s a bit awkward.”

  “I never said anything bad about you. In fact I hardly mentioned you at all,” I pointed out.

  “I know, but Trevor is really pissed,” she said to me with utmost concern, as if I too should be regarding the matter with utmost concern on Trevor’s behalf.

  “Cheryl, I could really care less about what Trevor thinks,” I said.

  “Hmmm. I guess I wouldn’t either if I were you. Anyway, how is your essay coming along?”

  “Pretty good. Actually I’m finished. I just need to proofread it,” I told her cautiously. I had a feeling I knew where this was heading.

  “Oh great!” she squealed over-enthusiastically. “Well you were going to help me come up with some ideas, remember?” She tilted her head at me and gave me her big, innocent doe-eyed look.

  “Cheryl – this paper is due next week and you haven’t even started yet? It’s worth nearly a third of our entire grade for the semester!” I was shocked.

  “No, I was waiting for you. You told me you’d help me,” she managed to say completely guilelessly.

  I was flabbergasted.

  “Cheryl! Why would I say I’d help you after what you did to me last time?” I searched her eyes for some clue that there was actually a sentient human being in there.

  “But this is different! I’m not asking you to do the paper for me – just give me some ideas about what to write about,” she persisted.

  “You haven’t even read the novel, have you?” I asked.

  “I tried to. I really did. I started it, but it was so boring…” she rolled her eyes.

  “Cheryl – it’s the greatest love story ever written! You should read it!” I blurted out.

  “Oh my god, you’re such a nerd. I mean it’s cute, but really! I watched a movie version of it, and it was dead boring. Just tell me something I could write about,” she prodded me.

  Fortunately I was saved by the bell. Ms. Tyrol came in and the class commenced.

  Now I knew why Cheryl wasn’t going to hold a grudge with me over this fight about my column – she needed my help in English. I was a bit unnerved – I could never imagine pretending to like someone or be their friend for the sake of extracting something that I needed out of them. How cold-blooded did you have to be to be able to do that?

  In the end, I agreed to go to her room after my detention and give her a synopsis of the novel.

  “Okay, so Blanche is the pretty one and she’s rich. Why doesn’t he like her instead?” Cheryl asked me sincerely.

  I thought for a moment.

  “That’s a good question, actually. Maybe you should focus your paper on that?” I suggested. I thought perhaps that in examining why Mr. Rochester would find the plain Jane more attractive than the beautiful Blanche, Cheryl might find stumble upon some insights about her own character. Perhaps that was very fanciful thinking on my part. Yes, it was. Quite.

  “The Halloween dance is next week,” Cheryl reminded me. “Have you thought of a costume yet?”

  “I’m barred, remember?”

  It wasn’t the first time Cheryl had asked me about it and it agitated me that I had to keep telling her.

  “Oh, honey, forget about that!” Cheryl sighed. “Come into town with us on the weekend and buy a costume that covers your face.”

  “And what if I’m caught? After what I wrote about Coffey I’ll get the book thrown at me for sure.”

  “Oh if I can forgive you, I’m sure he can too!” Cheryl joked.

  This time it was my turn to roll my eyes.

  “Well, I think that’s your topic, right? It seems that the character of Blanche is of greatest interest to you, so you might as well write about that,” I said as I stood up to leave.

  “Yeah, I guess,” Cheryl sighed heavily.

  “Hey – where’s Lisa?” I asked.

  It just occurred to me that I hadn’t seen her at all in almost a week.

  “Oh, god. Don’t ask. She went home on sick leave for a little while. She’s pretty much driving herself to a nervous breakdown,” Cheryl tutted.

  “Is she coming back?” I asked, concerned.

  “Oh yeah. Probably this week or next. I think her and her mother are at some spa resort in Arizona or something. Who cares?”

  “Wow. Okay. I’ll talk to you later,” I said as I slipped out the door.

  No! Really! No need to thank me! I thought as I made my way down the hallway.

  Poor Lisa! What had they done to her? I thought of trying to get in contact with her to see if she was alright, but I wasn’t sure if she’d appreciate it coming from me. I thought we had made amends the last time I talked to her, but we still weren’t friendly, even though I would have liked to have been had she given me the chance. I felt legitimately sad for her. She was obviously a very troubled girl, and having a best friend who likely doubled as a worst enemy was probably not terribly helpful.

  With my paper pretty much done, I didn’t have much other homework that weekend. Which was fantastic, because as soon as Margie left it meant that Stefano could come and spend the whole weekend with me. Who needed friends when you could have ghosts?

  “Things are going better for you these days?” he remarked.

  “I think so. I hope so! Finally. I think everything has calmed down and I’ve achieved something akin to normalcy,” I answered.

  “But you are lonely. You have no friends as you once did,” he eyed me.

  “Well. I don’t think the word ‘friend’ ever really applied to Cheryl anyway. Or any of those girls. I miss going riding, that’s for sure, but I’ve kind of hinted to my mother on the phone about how much I had loved it – I think I’ve got her thinking about maybe finding me my own horse to ride. It took them ages to think about how to get me a cell phone, so you can imagine a horse might take a while!”

  “But the girl with the horse – you are no longer friends?” Stefano said, coming back around to his point about me being lonely.

  “Andrea? Well we weren’t ever terribly friendly with each other. More like, cordial. I think she’s terribly shy and only has room in her brain for horses, so it was a bit difficult. We never broke the ice between us,” I said thoughtfully. “But, honestly, Stefano, I’m so busy with schoolwork. And I have Margie – she makes me laugh and I can trust her.”

  I shrugged. I was a bookish kind of girl. I didn’t really feel the need to have an active social life.

  “Mm hmm,” he regarded me keenly. “And what about the boy?” he asked.

  “Chad?” I asked stupidly. Of course he meant Chad. “He’s my editor. It’s strictly professional,” I said just a tiny bit defensively.

  “But it could me more. And there’s nothing to stop you now,” Stefano said solemnly.

  “What do you mean there’s nothing to stop me now? What was there stopping me before? Why are you saying that?” Offended, I turned my back on him and hugged the pillow from my bed to my chest.

  “Before you had the girl down the hall ready to gouge your eyes out if you so much as looked at him. But now that obstacle has effectively been removed,” he suggested.

  My jaw hung open. I was trying to work out why he was saying these things, but too many thoughts and fears and ideas flooded my brain at once and I couldn’
t sort through or make sense of any of them.

  “That wasn’t the obstacle. There never was an obstacle, because I was never trying to go down that path.” I searched Stefano’s glass green eyes for some kind of hint to his true feelings.

  “Because of me?” he asked quietly.

  “Yes, because of you. I love you. Deeply. You know that, right?” I tried to see into his soul, but he turned away.

  “I am sorry, then, for that,” he said plainly.

  “What do you mean? Why would you be sorry?” I was beginning to get rather upset now.

  “Because I’m keeping you from experiencing your life fully. And from experiencing love fully. And I love you too much to want to do that to you,” he said, his voice filled with sadness and melancholy.

  “Please don’t start this again,” I pleaded with him. “We’ve been through all of this before. More than once, I think.”

  “And we’ll keep going through it. Because at some stage we are going to have to let each other go.”

  I shook my head vigorously.

  “No,” I said. I felt the muscles in my face grow tense as the tears made their threats.

  “You’re not being honest with yourself, Lady Catherine. Or me,” he pointed out.

  I could see what he was doing. He was trying to be cruel to be kind. But I didn’t want to hear. I just wanted one full week without any emotional turmoil from anybody.

  “Look at me in the eyes, and tell me honestly, that you don’t yearn for an actual human touch. Tell me that when I run my fingers over your cheek, or wrap my arms around you, and all you can feel is something akin to warm air, that that is enough for you,” he persisted.

  “It is,” I insisted staunchly.

  “Tell me that you have never thought about that boy and wondered what his flesh and blood lips would feel like on yours?”

  “STOP IT!” I threw the pillow at him. It sailed clear across the room and landed on Margie’s bed.

  “Catherine,” he continued calmly. “I love you. Passionately. With all my heart. And as difficult as it is for me to be selfless, I know I must be, because of how true and pure my love is for you. All I want you to know, is that when the time comes, you can trust in me and confide in me and that ultimately I want what is best for you, for your life. So when it becomes so strong that you can no longer push it aside, I want you tell me.”