~
Caledonia had also dragged herself to school that morning. She’d spent a cold night curled up in the brush next to the graveyard, getting up at dawn to pick the leaves out of her braid. She tried her best to make herself presentable until she could get to the school bathroom and splash some water on her face.
It took some doing to dodge Calvin that day; he seemed to be everywhere she had to be, and he nearly made her miss getting a school lunch. She couldn’t afford to miss her lunch. She used every trick she knew to blend in, hide out and evade him. She wondered why he even bothered hunting her.
He may not have seen her, but she saw plenty of him. Leaning up against a bank of lockers with a bored look on his face, he was as handsome as the first time he’d caught her eye at the bus station. A girl came over and draped herself onto him, and Cali felt a little surge of annoyance. She hated that it bothered her, swearing to herself she’d never be like one of those girls.
All of her romantic notions came from books, and the casual way he went from girl to girl disgusted her. Calvin was no gentleman like Mister Darcy, and he could never be as loyal or passionate as Heathcliff. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that she must protect her heart from him. She didn’t want what he had to offer.
She had to wait a long time after school for Calvin to leave. When she finally made her way down the street to her aunt’s, it was late afternoon and she was feeling drained. She stepped inside the house with trepidation, wanting only to take a shower and get some fresh clothes. Her aunt heard the door and appeared from around the corner, wiping her hands on a dishtowel.
“Cal, can you come into the kitchen? We need to talk.”
She followed her aunt in and stopped short when she saw Phil sitting at the kitchen table. He glowered at her, his eyes sending a warning.
“Phil tells me that you’ve been running around with those trashy bikers while I’ve been at work. He says you got dropped off here last night on a motorcycle.”
Cal was stunned at her accusatory tone. “I haven’t done anything wrong. I just got a ride from a friend.”
Her aunt looked at her sadly. “You should be happy that Phil cares enough about your well-being to let me know what’s going on. Cal–I know you’re naive, but those people are trouble. I thought I warned you to stay away from them!”
“But–”
“Listen, you’ll be eighteen soon, and then you can move out and do whatever you please. I just want you to know I won’t tolerate any foolishness under my roof. If you’re smart, you’ll stay far away from those losers.”
“But–”
She shook her head with a patronizing smile. “Don’t look so upset. We wouldn’t say anything if we didn’t care.”
Cal’s wounded eyes met Phil’s gloating ones over Angie’s shoulder, and she felt like throwing up.
She climbed the stairs numbly, exhausted and defeated.
Caledonia resumed her pattern, dodging Phil at night and napping in the afternoons before an increasingly harried Angie left to work her double shifts. One day she woke up to find Phil standing over her bed, watching her sleep with hungry eyes. She jumped up with a cry, running to tell her aunt.
To her dismay, Angie believed Phil’s story about needing to get something from one of the boxes of his things that remained untouched in her room.
“Don’t be so selfish,” she had scolded Cal. “You should be grateful that Phil was nice enough to give up his office for you! And don’t you think it’s kind of lazy for you to lay around sleeping all day?”
Cal nodded sadly; there was no point in arguing because her Aunt Angie had no desire to believe her. Caledonia knew by Phil’s color what he’d had in mind, but unfortunately, she had no proof. Instead of waiting around for something bad to happen, she continued to avoid the house as much as possible.
Her life became even harder now that she had someone to dodge at school too, but it pained her to see Calvin, and she was so stubborn about avoiding him that she even missed getting her lunch a couple of times. Constantly ravenous, she started wasting away, growing thinner and thinner.
Wandering the streets at night like a ghost, she stumbled upon a little convenience store that was open all night, shocked by all the different things she saw inside it. She was forced to spend some of her precious dollars on food, taking it with her to the little clearing that she rested in at night. She stayed quiet as a mouse, fearful of attracting the frightening vagrants that sometimes shuffled by her hiding spot in the middle of the night, muttering to themselves.
She was back to only being able to read in the daytime, curling up in the quiet recesses of the school library, usually falling asleep out of sheer exhaustion. By the end of the week, she was coming to the end of her rope.
On Friday, Calvin finally caught up with her at school, cornering her in the cafeteria. He sidled up to her in line, getting right next to her before he announced his presence.
“Hey,” he said casually.
Her head snapped up to see him, and she froze, poised to run like some wild thing. When their eyes locked, the two of them stood rooted to the spot, staring at each other. The world all around them faded into the background as he scrutinized her with deep blue concern.
“Where have you been?” he asked her.
“Nowhere,” she replied, her voice barely a whisper.
She recovered, taking her food and leaving the building with him hot on her heels. She walked fast, going to the farthest bench to sit down and take out a book. His shadow fell across her.
“Are you avoiding me?”
She looked up at him. “What do you want from me?”
He was startled by her directness. She was nothing like the coy, flirtatious girls he was used to. She unnerved him, and he found himself groping for words.
“Hey Cal! Where have you been hiding?” They both looked up to see a pair of girls approaching. One of them hooked her arm around Calvin’s in a territorial display. Caledonia recognized the girl he had been kissing.
“Who’s she?” the girl asked, following his eyes.
“Hillary, Debbie, this is Caledonia.” He said her name slowly, enunciating each syllable.
“That’s a weird name,” the girl clinging to him laughed shrilly.
“It means Scotland,” Cal said, making Caledonia’s eyes narrow up at him suspiciously.
“Oh my Gawd!” Hillary squealed, “What is wrong with your eyes? That is so freaky!”
Caledonia looked at Hillary coldly. “It’s called heterochromia iridium. That means they’re two different colors.”
Hillary laughed again. “Like, duh–I can see that! What, are you some kind of science geek or something?”
She looked down at her lap. “I read it in Grey’s Anatomy.”
Now Hillary really laughed at her, scoffing, “Oh really? You can read a TV show?” The other girl joined in, and Caledonia was confused.
“It was a book first, stupid,” Calvin said, pulling his arm back from Hillary.
Caledonia snapped her book shut and got up to leave without saying a word. Calvin stood watching her hurry away around the corner, too proud to chase after her.
“A bunch of us are going to the fair this weekend. Wanna go?” asked Debbie.
“I don’t know,” he said, finally stalking off to look around the corner and see that Caledonia had already disappeared into the crowd.
She’d slipped away again, like sand running through his fingers.
The Athena Effect Page 18