Spiral

by Jacqueline Levine

  If she had wanted more.

  Forget it, I scold myself. I try to shake myself of the thought.

  Don’t even think about it. Stop thinking about her. You can’t think about her like that.

  Shit.

  CHAPTER 20

  A few hours later, I’m woken up by a soft knock at my door. The room is darker, but I can still see daylight peeking through the blinds. I’m frozen to the bone, shivering, and I wrap my arms around my body. I glance at the time, but the quick turn of my head makes me dizzy.

  A knock again. “Jack, honey?” It’s Mom.

  “I’m not hungry,” I call out. Surprisingly, I’m not. I maneuver the comforter around my bare skin and shake beneath it, teeth chattering. I fumble for a pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt and pull them on hastily. Then, I climb out of bed and stumble to the thermostat. I raise it to 80 degrees and retreat back to my bed.

  “Jack, I’d really like you to come inside and talk to Cherie, please.”

  No way, I think to myself. “I just need some space, Mom, okay?” I actually couldn’t sit across from her and hold my head up right now if I tried. Why am I so exhausted?

  My mom hesitates, but I can tell she’s still at the door. She knows “space” is a hard word for her to argue with, especially when I say it. “Okay, I understand, but I really think it’s important that you two talk before the end of the night.”

  “Why, is she catching a train back to hell?” I smirk, but my mother sighs heavily.

  “Jack…”

  “I’ll find her later. Just not now, okay?” My head pounds a little more.

  “Promise?”

  “Yes, I promise!” Now leave me alone!

  I want to go back to sleep, and I do. As I bury inside of my blankets and close my eyes, my teeth click against each other.

  BANG BANG BANG!

  I wake up in a pool of sweat, and it is nighttime. I groggily look toward the door. The knob twists back and forth violently, but it is locked.

  I look at the clock. It is near midnight. Someone pounds at my door again and the knob jiggles. Could it be Britney? Suddenly, I sit upright in alarm.

  What if she snuck out? “Hold on!” I burrow my way out from under my sweat-soaked blankets and throw off my damp sweatshirt. I nearly lunge at the door.

  But when I open it, there’s no one on the other side. Could I have been hallucinating?

  “Hello?” I call, poking my head out and looking around. “Britney?”

  I hear rustling in the grass. A close palm tree shakes slightly. My pulse quickens as I realize it might not be Britney who’s out here. I suddenly think of all the possible crazies and stalkers who could be in our back yard and take a step back toward my door.

  “Hello? Who’s there?” A girly giggle follows, and I release the breath I had been holding for the last fifty seconds of my life. I move toward the tree.

  “Britney, you’re not supposed – oof!” Something hard slams against my back. For a second, the air is knocked out of me and, before I can stop myself, I’m flying face-first into the pool.

  It happens so fast that I don’t have a chance to keep from inhaling water. I’m engulfed, body and lungs, by the warm, chlorine-treated liquid. It stings my eyes and chokes me as I fight to get to the surface.

  I hear their cackling laughter as soon as I come up and take my first drink of air.

  “Oh my God, did you see his face?” says one.

  “Priceless! Did you get it, Claudia?”

  “The video’s too dark, but whatever! It was perfect in real life!”

  I’m gagging, barely able to find the pool floor with my feet. “You girls – are so – dead!” I gasp between coughs, clearing my vision and looking up. They cackle harder. Claudia, Chloe, and Cherie are standing just out of reach along the sides of the pool, pointing at me and throwing their heads back with manic laughter. I dive toward them, and that sends them into a tornado of shrieks as they run away, still laughing. My wet sweatpants weigh me down like a set of twenty pound dumbbells on my legs, and getting out of the pool takes every ounce of strength I have left. I know I won’t be able to chase them down before they reach the house. I collapse onto the cool stone along the pool’s perimeter and pant for air.

  I notice Mom’s bedroom light is suddenly on and can’t help but groan. The girls quietly slip into the house and vanish. My mother races into the kitchen and turns that light on, too. She is quick to throw the doors open, her eyes frantically searching the pool.

  “Brenton? Britney?!” Her voice is urgent. She fears the worst, just like I had.

  “It’s fine, Mom, it’s just me.” I get to my feet slowly.

  She steps closer. “Jack, what are you doing in the pool at this hour?” she nearly scolds. Behind her, the girls are back, making faces at me from the kitchen windows. They promptly disappear as Jim appears in the kitchen. “You’re soaking wet! What were you thinking?” She pulls a towel from a wicker ottoman and rushes to me, tsk-tsking.

  “The girls pushed me in,” I tell her, grateful for the dark that hides my shame. Ganged up on and outsmarted by a gaggle of girls twice in one day. How humiliating and frustrating this whole week has been. Cherie has kept true to her promise, and I regret ever challenging her on something as stupid as a room. It’s just not worth another two years of this.

  Mom wraps the towel around my upper body and rubs her hands over my arms. “What? Oh, honey, I’m sorry. Those girls! I’ll make Jim talk to them.”

  I nod but covertly roll my eyes. I know they’re both powerless against the sneak attacks of Cherie and her minions.

  My mother smiles at me as if realizing it’s been a while since she’s really looked at me. “My handsome boy, just look at you.” She leans in like she has a secret and whispers, “Maybe they tease you because they like you.”

  I’m disgusted and pull away. “Ugh, please don’t start.”

  “Oh c’mon now, honey, no sense pretending it’s not possible. They’re not related to you by blood, and you’re all at that age...” She pushes my wet hair off of my forehead.

  “Okay, okay, I’ve heard enough,” I sigh, turning from her.

  “Hey, what is this?” she asks, pulling me back and letting her hand linger. She feels my forehead then my cheek with the back of the same hand. “My goodness, Jack; you’re burning up! Are you sick?”

  That would explain a lot of things. I suddenly allow my posture to fall into a slump and hang my head. The minute Mom diagnoses me with a fever I’m through playing tough and resilient. I fold into her arms when she pulls me close.

  “We have to get you some Tylenol, and, oh, you’re so warm! We just may have to fill your tub with ice!”

  I draw the line there. “I’m fine, Mom, it’s probably just Brenton’s stupid flu.”

  “You need medicine and some TLC,” she whispers, standing on her tip toes and kissing my temple. “My poor baby; I’ve been neglecting you, haven’t I?”

  I don’t answer. I don’t need to. She knows I would never say that out loud, but it’s been a long time since she’s been this aware of me.

  “Come on, we have to dry you off –Jack, it’s a furnace in here!” she exclaims as she steps into my room.

  “I was cold before,” I mumble pathetically.

  “Oh, this will not do,” she replies, and she flips on a light switch. She rummages through my drawers for new pajama pants and a sweatshirt, and she marches me back outside.

  “You’re sleeping in one of the guest rooms tonight,” she tells me.

  I plant my feet, indignantly protesting, “No – Mom, no! I can’t do it – please don’t make me stay in the same house with them. They’re evil, Mom!” Fear is pouring out of me now, and I worry I may actually cry. God, I hate being sick. It turns you into such a pile of mush.

  “They’ll leave you alone, trust me. I will see to it. I simply cannot let you stay in here – you’re practically incubating more germs in this place. I have to disinfect the whole room
and clean your sheets!” She urges me toward the house despite my hesitation. “Let’s go, we have to get you out of these wet clothes.”

  I groan audibly and follow her to the house, my head hung low. I’m now forced to go into the house anyway. Point: Cherie.

  CHAPTER 21

  The girls do leave me alone for the night, and I don’t hear from anyone but my mother throughout the next day. She mentions taking me to an urgent care facility each time she enters the room because my fever won’t go down. She checks my temperature once an hour and feeds me pills once every four hours. She brings tea and a cool washcloth that she runs over my head and neck. I can’t begin to describe how much I’ve missed her shedding all of this attention on me. If I didn’t feel like I was on death’s doorstep, falling in and out of consciousness every other hour, I’d actually be able to enjoy this.

  It isn’t until nighttime that I finally hear from Cherie, who taps on the open door to the guest room and wakes me. I glance up and see her standing there with a tray in her arms, her hair falling in angelic ringlets around her shoulders and her lips shiny with gold gloss. I don’t want to see her like this, while I’m all weak and pathetic and she’s…

  Well, gorgeous and perfect.

  I lower my eyes. “What do you want?” I mutter gruffly.

  “Your mom asked me to bring this in. It’s chicken soup,” she says, setting the tray down on the nightstand.

  “I’m not hungry,” I lie. “I’ll eat it later.”

  She doesn’t leave, so I glance upward. Her mouth droops to one side as she studies me. “You’re pretty sick, huh? Aunt Eva says you’ve had a fever all day. She says you haven’t eaten anything.”

  “What do you care?” I grumble, pulling the bed sheets up to my chin. “It’s probably from some hex you put on me.”

  A laughing smile replaces her pitying frown, and she nods. “I must say, I’m pretty good at hexes.”

  I roll my eyes and turn away from her, burying my face under the sheets. “Just leave me alone, please.”

  I feel her weight on the bed behind me, and my heart thumps. What does she want? Why can’t she just go away? I pray she won’t be cruel enough to mess with me now; I wouldn’t have the strength to fight her off.

  “C’mon, Jack,” she urges. “I’m trying to call a truce.” Her fingers gently slide through the back of my hair.

  Usually, I hate when people touch my hair. Cherie causes a different feeling, however. First, chills rocket through my spine, then warmth spreads down my neck. I shake her off quickly.

  “Don’t.”

  Her chest falls with a heavy sigh. “Okay, okay. Sorry I touched your precious hair.”

  I sit up and glare at her. “Why are you here?”

  “I told you, I’m trying to call a truce,” she murmurs. “It got really ugly yesterday.”

  “Yesterday? It’s been ugly since January. I know you and the twins egged my car the other day,” I reply, and I cross my arms over my chest. I’m trying to stay mad at her, but it’s not working. Frowning at someone who looks like her is hard to do because really all I want to do is make her smile, and I blame the flu for this flaw in my logic right now.

  She doesn’t confirm or deny my accusation. “I’ve never hit anyone before,” she pouts. “I lost control. That’s not me, and I’m really sorry.”

  I still don’t believe her. “Did my mom send you in here?” I demand. “’Cause I don’t need some fake apology from you.”

  She looks genuinely hurt, and I feel like a jerk. “No one forced me to come in here, Jack. I’m trying to make it right, okay? I got, you know, scared when you held me down, and I just – I freaked out.” She clams up suddenly, shaking her head like she’s trying to get rid of water in her ears. Or a bad image in her mind. Something; like maybe she knows I was thisclose to kissing her.

  I feel compelled to say, “I wouldn’t have done anything.”

  She nods and breathes deeply. “Yeah, I know.” She changes the subject quickly. “Want a little soup?”

  I’m rocked to the core right now. What am I missing? What freaked her out? I may have punched a lot of people in the past, but I never hit a girl before, so what would make her think I’d hit her?

  I follow her thumb as it gestures to the tray. I nod dumbly and reach for the bowl, but she takes it into her hands and says, “Here, I’ll do it.”

  Now she wants to feed me soup? What the hell is happening? My inner machismo has to put a stop to this.

  “I can do it,” I try to argue, but she already has the spoon up and ready. She brings it to my lips, but I turn my mouth away. “You’re not feeding me.”

  “I don’t mind,” she insists, setting the spoon back down. She winks and teases, “You’ll be much neater if you’re being fed.” I’m too suspicious to laugh at her joke with her, and I feel my cheeks burn.

  I hold up my hand when she brings the spoonful forward again. “Wait a sec. Why are you being so nice to me all of a sudden?”

  Her smile fades a little. “I feel bad that you’re sick.”

  “Why do you care though? You hate me.”

  “I don’t hate you, Jack,” she replies, looking hurt again.

  I cock an eyebrow at her. Suddenly semantics matter? “Okay, you strongly dislike me.”

  She shrugs. “No matter how I’ve treated you, you’ve been there for me when I’ve been…out of it.” Her head hangs a little. Finally, she peers at me from under her long, black lashes. “Consider this my way of making up for that last night in New York.”

  I gulp. “Oh. I didn’t think you remembered.”

  She nods. “I remember everything.” The air stills between us, and she drops her eyes again. “And you were really nice the first couple of days after my parents died. I kind of liked having you around, you know, before you said that stuff to Uncle Jim.”

  Meeting my gaze again, I see a thousand nights of tears in her eyes, and I feel really, really badly.

  “I’m sorry, you know, for what I said that night.”

  “It hurt a lot,” she concedes quietly. “I already felt so alone, and then you, the only person I actually felt safe with, even you didn’t want me.”

  ME? Oh, now it’s like she’s kicking me in the stomach over and over. “I’m sorry.” I don’t know what else to say. “And I didn’t mean to hurt your wrists yesterday.”

  She smiles sadly. “I’m fine. Deserved it, I guess.” Now I feel even worse. She stirs the bowl of soup and sets it down, lays the spoon beside it, then looks at the clock.

  “Well, I’ve gotta go get ready,” she says. I want to ask why and where she’s going. I don’t know why I even care, but I do. I don’t really want her to leave.

  I nod. “Thanks for bringing the soup in. I’ll, uh, have it later.”

  Her lips purse together, and she slowly walks away. She pauses at the door and turns back to me.

  “I’ll, um, I’ll see you later, Jack,” she says. “Feel better.”

  I smile a silent thank you and try to look away. When she finally disappears, I release the breath I had been holding for the last thirty seconds. Her sad expression and sadder words haunt me as I slump down and stare at the wall.

  I think my fever finally breaks that night because I have some delirious, trippy dream filled with all of sorts of colors and sounds. Cherie is in my dream, too, lying next to me and stroking my hair, and I actually let her, which is how I know it can’t possibly be real. She is bathed in this white aura of light, looking like an angel. I try to talk, but it comes out in garbled, nonsensical sounds. She giggles and tells me I’m cute. She even kisses my cheek.

  When I wake up in the morning, I’m ache-free and alert. My skin is cool and every trace of my fever is gone.

  Except for the delirious dream part, because my pillow smells like Cherie.

  CHAPTER 22

  It's clear that Cherie must have taken some sort of kindness pills last night because they have worn off when I finally walk out of the house and t
oward the pool. Danika is sun-tanning by her side, furiously typing away on her phone. She looks up at me and smirks as I pass.

  “Hey, Danika,” I force myself to say. “Long time no see.”

  “Hello, Jack,” she replies icily.

  “Hi, Cherie.”

  Cherie barely looks in my direction, even when I sit down in the other chair beside her. She keeps her face pointed to the sky, her sunglasses set over her eyes so I can’t even tell if she’s awake.

  “Nice out today,” I say quietly, kicking my feet up and laying in the chair next to her, trying to be casual. We’re friends now, aren’t we?

  She turns her head the slightest bit, looks in my general direction, then turns back to the sky. “Yeah, nice.”

  And we’re back! “Yep.” Why do I sound so meek? I clear my throat and work up the nerve to ask, “Hey, did you come into the guest room at all last night? Like, really late?”

  She glances over at me and tips her sunglasses down, examining me like I’ve gone crazy. “No.”

  “Oh. Yeah, I didn’t think so.” I feel myself turning pink. Of course she wouldn’t have; that was just some dumb fantasy my brain conjured in my delirium. “Listen, I don’t know if I said it before, but – um – thanks for bringing the soup by last night and stuff.”

  She doesn’t respond. She instead looks kind of annoyed that I’m there. She turns to Danika and says, “Did you hear from Caz yet?”

  I’m not sure why, but his name sparks a twinge – just a twinge! – of envy. I try not to look over when Danika answers that she has indeed spoken to Caz.

  “He said we should meet him and Dominick at Blue Moon at 4.”

  “Fabulous,” Cherie sings with a grin.

  I let this news stew in my brain for a few quiet moments, and then I get up to walk to my room. So she’s meeting up with Caz Farrell today. Just great.

  I hear Brenton behind me asking Cherie if she wants to play with him, and she flatly denies him.