by D'Ann Burrow
“Kennedy?” His voice sounded more than a little frightened.
“I’m alright.” The world around me slowly came into focus. I had to admit, the fact I was currently dripping helped. How had I made it off the porch and into the yard?
He didn’t look convinced. He cocked his head to the side and gave a look like a nurse trying to decide if a kid was just trying to fake being sick to go home from school for the day. He was trying to decide if I was really alright.
“If you’re okay, can we at least go up on the porch?” And that’s when I realized he hadn’t loosened his grip on my arms. He was still supporting most of my weight.
“Why did you come back?”
“You left your bag in my car. I figured you might want it. But it looks like I got here just in time.” He took a seat on the willow-branch bench looking out over the chickens running helter-skelter, trying to dodge the raindrops.
I couldn’t decide if I wanted to copy Tanner’s or the chickens’ behavior. I probably needed to sit down, but after my second slip in not even a day, it felt like I was going a little crazy.
“Do you want to tell me what was going on? Because you did it before. Last night. I thought you were asleep, but you weren’t.”
No. No matter what he saw or what he heard, I wasn’t having this conversation with him. Not here. Not now. Not ever.
That would break Rule #1. Never tell.
Mom said that was the only rule that could keep me totally safe. Keep us safe. No one could know what I could do. No one could know what I could see. Tanner might have saved me last night, but I didn’t trust him enough for something like this.
“Kennedy?”
“I’m fine.” I lied through my teeth. Ellie would have seen right through me, but Tanner didn’t know me well enough yet.
“You were standing in the rain.”
“I just needed to cool off a little.”
“In the rain.”
“I’d been arguing with Scarlett.”
He gave the slow nod of a character I associated with Westerns. “That makes sense, but last night?”
“I guess I was talking in my sleep. I don’t remember.”
I remembered everything.
Even the grip of the man’s hand around my arm.
“You’re doing it again.”
“Really. I’m fine. Thanks for bringing my bag.” I stood up. My shirt stuck to my back, and I realized just how wet it was. And when this shirt was wet, it really didn’t leave too much to the imagination. Tanner was trying not to stare. “And now I need to go in and change. You probably need to dry off too. Can’t have the star quarterback missing a game.”
He blinked at his abrupt dismissal, but he didn’t argue. He’d probably had more than enough of my drama to last a lifetime.
So had I.
16
Rule #110 – Always expect the unexpected. Always
September 3
7:12 a.m.
* * *
“Can you hand me the rolls?”
“Are you finished in the bathroom?”
“Did we have a chapter outline due in APUSH?”
After my decidedly uncomfortable conversation with Scarlett, instead of any improvement in our relationship, she seemed to have moved back to the yes or no stage of discussion questions. I’d ask her something, and she’d answer with as few words as possible, single syllables seemed to be preferred.
“Is your mom home?”
“No.” Scarlett rolled her eyes like that should just be understood.
“Do you know when she’s coming home?”
“No,” she answered with a roll of her eyes that would have gotten her phone taken away if Loretta had been home to see her. Since that was the problem, she was in luck.
It was funny, though. My father sent me here because Loretta was apparently supposed to take care of me. I’d barely seen her. If I counted up the days, she’d have been at one art show or another for half the time since I’d come to town.
Weird didn’t even begin to describe it.
I would have been happier back home with Maggie. My throat tightened at the mere thought of our housekeeper. I hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye. I wondered what she’d been doing. Did she even work for us anymore?
We all would have been better off if I’d just stayed in California. At least I wouldn’t be stuck eating frozen dinners and hitching rides with my cousin who made no secret of the fact she’d rather I was somewhere else—anywhere else—than in her car.
Monday morning’s drive to school wasn’t any different. The volume on the radio was turned up so high that I anticipated hearing damage. Scarlett’s lips moved silently, but not in sync with the song. She was probably rehearsing a new cheer to prepare for homecoming.
Even without being part of her inner circle, I knew that homecoming was already at the front of all the cheerleaders’ thoughts. With less than two weeks to plan, they were working with the intensity of college students during finals week. I thought they’d gone through a pot of coffee last night making final adjustments to the plan for the homecoming pep rally.
When Scarlett took her keys out of the ignition just as a roll of thunder reminded us of the nonstop rain since Saturday, she glared at the sky with a warning that rain didn’t fit into her plan. She jumped out of the car without a word to me, but she mumbled a few words when she stepped straight into ankle-deep water.
I didn’t really blame her. The parking lot hadn’t been designed with record-breaking rain in mind. Everyone around us seemed to be discovering they had the same problem today. Flooded shoes or barefoot. A surprising number chose to flood their shoes. Back home, we would have gone with barefoot. Which is exactly what I did.
I peeled my shoes and socks off and charged for the front door during a relative lull in the downpour. With my shoes in one hand and my books in the other, an umbrella wasn’t an option unless I sprouted an extra arm. I managed to make it in the building just as my jacket reached a level of soggy that indicated I wouldn’t be wearing it in class but before it soaked through to my shirt.
Before I made a trip to my locker, I paused to lean against the wall to put my shoes back on. There was an instant change in the typical mood at the school. Everyone around me was buzzing about something. Lots of whispers behind hands. An equal number of fingers flew over cell phone keys. I was definitely missing out on some need-to-know information.
We’d gotten to school later than normal today. The humidity was messing with Scarlett’s hair, and not even a ponytail would cooperate, so we left the house almost twenty minutes after her standard planned-to-the-last-second scheduled departure time. The bell signaling the start of the school day sounded just as I shrugged out of my jacket. I headed straight for my locker to drop off the soggy hoodie.
Technically, the senior lockers weren’t all that much different than the other lockers at the school. They were just a little farther away from the office, giving the seniors a little extra privacy since no teachers wanted to wander that far away from their classroom during passing periods. More than a few people took advantage of the What Happens Near the Lockers Stays Near the Lockers philosophy by engaging in PDA that would be frowned upon in other areas of the building, while others used the no-teacher-zone to dispense advice. Heatedly. And sometimes just as hands-on as those making out in the corner where the overhead light was perpetually not working.
So far, I’d not required the use of the senior corner for either reason. That stopped today. I wasn’t doing anything. I wasn’t talking to anyone. As expected, my abrupt disappearance from the first big party of the year had obviously been discussed at length—either in person or via electronic means. Based on the way the other students were staring at me as if a trained chimpanzee was walking the school hallways, everyone knew I’d vanished without a trace.
Even the freshmen were openly gawking. The rumor mill had already taken care of notifying everyone exactly who had apparently helped me leave on S
aturday night. Whispers trailed behind me like wet toilet paper on the bottom of my shoe.
I’d managed to get within fingertip distance of my locker before someone decided to make a point of the fact that I’d crossed some invisible social line. Literally. Something sharp plunged into the direct center of my back, and then a pointy elbow quickly followed. Off balance, I dropped the stack of books I was carrying as I almost pitched head first into the open locker next to mine.
“Sorry.” Nicole juggled a handful of freshly-sharpened pencils. I’d seen better fake expressions on two year olds. “I didn’t see you there.”
“Sure you didn’t.” I muttered under my breath, bending down to pick up the textbooks I’d dropped.
“Pardon me. I didn’t quite hear that.” Her voice dripped with fake Southern politeness. She spent too much time watching Gone with the Wind. When your best friend was named after the lead character, it might have just been an unplanned side-effect. “Do you need some help?”
“I’ve got it.” I bent over just in time for someone else to bump into me, once again scattering my books.
“You sure?” Stacia had joined her friend. If looks could kill, I’d be flat on the ground before a page on my book had time to bend. Someone must have forgotten the sugar in her grande mocha that morning. “I mean, you seem to be having some trouble with your books.”
I didn’t even bother to answer. Instead, I knelt on the ground, making sure to keep my eyes on each of them. They just needed Scarlett to complete the Mean Girl trio. Now that I thought of it, this was probably the first time I’d seen those two in the hall separate from her. Which suggested this locker collision wasn’t exactly unplanned.
“Leave her alone.” I knew that voice. Where had Tanner come from?
Stacia’s look of wide-eyed astonishment told me she hadn’t expected him to be around either. She couldn’t have appeared guiltier if she’d been a toddler with a handful of cookies. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I was just helping Kennedy pick up her things.”
“Looked more like you were helping her drop them.” He knelt down and picked up my math papers that had cascaded to the ground. He was aware that everyone in the bank of lockers had stopped, frozen as if they were in some type of science fiction movie, their interest in the exchange between me, Tanner, Stacia and Nicole holding them firmly in place.
Nicole was the first who moved. She took a step in Stacia’s direction, gripping her books to her chest a little too tightly while linking an arm through her friend’s. “Come on, we’re going to be late to practice.”
Stacia resisted at first, but Nicole tugged against her arm with such force that Stacia actually staggered.
“We’ll talk later.” Tanner started to reach out to Stacia, but her glare stopped him cold.
“Don’t count on it.” Stacia’s voice took on an ice-queen quality that would be suitable for a soap opera. I always hated overacting. But after I studied their body language, I wasn’t really convinced either of them were acting.
Tanner appeared caught in the moment. Naturally, he wanted some kind of connection with his almost-but-not-quite girlfriend. But when he tried to touch her, he paused with a hand in midair.
Stacia continued the ice-queen routine walking down the hallway. She and Nicole continued to discuss some issue with the stadium at the site of this week’s game a little too loudly and with a little too much animation. Neither cast even half a glance back.
“You okay?”
“Yeah, I just dropped my books.”
“Looked like you had a little help.”
“Maybe a little.”
Tanner handed me the stack of papers while not really looking at me before he got to his feet, leaving without another word. By this time, I didn’t even remember why I came to my locker in the first place, except to get a front row seat for today’s drama. I hadn’t counted on making a personal appearance in the show.
And then the pieces started clicking into place. Tanner’s behavior. Stacia’s attitude. Nicole being so hands-on. I might not understand what was going on, but I was certain something was happening.
Stacia and Tanner were fighting.
Not just a little bit. For an unofficial pair, it was an official fight.
“What did you do?” Mary Jo appeared at my side out of thin air. If she’d seemed to play by her own set of rules at the party, the fact that she was breaking the don’t-talk-to-Kennedy rule confirmed it. Her eyes bugged behind her round metal-rimmed glasses.
“No idea what you’re talking about.”
“Come on. You can’t mean…” Mary Jo blinked rapidly at me. “You really do. You seriously don’t know.”
Her mouth hung agape, and she froze like a third-grader on the playground playing freeze tag.
I was so far outside the loop that I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
I started walking to class, and Mary Jo scurried back to my side, grabbing at my shoulder. Her lips inches from my ear, she started to whisper loudly, as if she wanted everyone around us to hear. “Stacia and Tanner.”
“I got that far last time.”
“No. You don’t understand. They broke up.”
I’d seen that coming a mile away. I might not have been experienced at the whole dating thing, but I’d done enough master classes on body language to be an expert at interpreting it. I was surprised they’d lasted this long. “Big surprise.”
“Don’t you want to know why?” She had the over-eager-elementary-schooler thing going again.
“Not really.”
“Yeah, you do. Trust me.”
“Okay.” I stopped in the middle of the hallway, causing a freshman to bounce off my back. “Tell me. Why did they break up?”
“You.”
One word was enough to almost send me into shock.
“You can’t be serious?” But even as I asked the question, I suspected the answer. It made sense. And it explained why everyone was avoiding me like I carried Ebola or something. But it couldn’t be. Could it?
Tanner and Stacia were arguing. And they were fighting about me.
This was something I expected to see on television, not real life, and totally not my real life. How had I gone from trying to be the student that everyone tended to forget was actually in their class to someone who caused a fight between the football quarterback and his girlfriend?
I was drunk, and he drove me home from a party. No big deal. Yes, it was odd that he’d taken me home to his house, but I’d been locked out of mine. And I slept on a fold-out sofa that was probably as old as my aunt. My classmates certainly didn’t seem to know those last two details. Even if she knew what happened, it didn’t appear to be enough for Stacia.
The biggest drama that should have been happening between them was a fight about what time he was going to pick her up for the homecoming game, not some misdirected sense of jealousy about something that didn’t exist.
And I was certain we were never going to happen.
17
Theater Class
3:10 p.m.
* * *
“Hello! Hello! Hello!” The drama teacher burst into the classroom with the enthusiasm of a late night host trying to warm up his audience. “I’m so happy to see you today.” Mrs. Whitmore clasped her hands together and beamed at the class. “I do hope you took advantage of your three day weekend to get a little rehearsal time in for your partner work.”
All around me, heads bobbed in agreement. Kennedy was the only one who sat frozen in her seat. For someone who honestly wanted to be in this class, she wasn’t doing a good job of faking it.
But maybe no one else was either.
Maybe they really did rehearse on the weekend.
Something was seriously wrong with theater people. The whole scene was, what, two pages long? How hard could it be? And, besides, we weren’t performing for a while. We had plenty of time to fix stuff.
“Good, good.” Mrs. Whitmore’s smile would have looked creep
y if she hadn’t seemed so legitimately excited. And then her eyes fell on Kennedy. She wasn’t smiling anymore. In fact, if I didn’t know better, I’d think she was shaking her head in disappointment. But why? Kennedy had been in town for about a week. The lady needed to cut her some slack. “Now it’s time to see just how well it’s going for everyone. Today, you’ll be performing the first pages of your scenes for me.”
A hand shot up from the front row. “From memory?”
“Of course.” Mrs. Whitmore looked at me. She wasn’t smiling. She wasn’t even blinking.
Damn. Could my day get any worse? First Stacia ambushed me outside the weight room this morning and now this.
Kennedy squirmed in her seat, whispering under her breath with her eyes closed. I didn’t know her skin could get that pale. The guys on the team wouldn’t look that uneasy if Coach Dillon had just told us we were playing the Dallas Cowboys next week.
“Let’s begin.” Mrs. Whitmore bowed out from the front of the class and perched at the edge of a cushioned barstool sitting off to the side of the whiteboard. Her eyebrows launched toward her non-existent bangs as she seemed to be picking her first set of victims. She pointed at two people who weren’t me and Kennedy – and that’s all that mattered.
The first team wasn’t bad. I might even say they were good. Neither of them missed a single word from their script, or if they did, they covered it well enough no one noticed. By the end, Mrs. Whitmore had the excited-talk-show-host vibe going again.
I understood her game plan. She’d chosen those two to start on purpose. They were supposed to make everyone else nervous. And the tactic was working on Kennedy. She hadn’t stopped mumbling since Mrs. Whitmore announced what we were doing to the day. At this point, I couldn’t tell if she was practicing or praying. Probably a mixture of both.
Another team went.