“Mom. No one’s drinking and driving.” Probably half of them would end up crashing at Justin’s. “He’d never let anyone leave if they were drinking.”
“My hero.” Mom placed her hand over her heart. “He’s one of the good ones, Callie. Beyond his years. Be smart. Call me if you need me. No one will know you called in the cavalry. I’m a nurse. I’m handy.”
My turn to sigh. “Got it.”
“I’m going to put on some coffee. Come downstairs when you’re dressed. We need to talk before you leave for school. I’ll drive you if you run late.”
We locked eyes for a moment before she left me to get ready. Something was wrong. I wanted to know but was afraid to find out. Maybe she needed someone to talk to.
I pulled a pair of jeans from the pile of clean clothes I’d stacked on the floor, yanked a fitted Swim Strong shirt over my head and headed for the bathroom. My eyes were at half-mast and my cheeks were flushed. Some people survived consistently on a few hours of sleep. I didn’t understand those people. If the rumors about all-nighters in college were true, I was in trouble. A little cold water opened my eyes. Makeup did the rest. I zipped my swim hoodie over the shirt and hoped somewhere between first and last bell I’d find motivation to swim this afternoon.
Mom’s red coffeemaker was ready. She poured two cups when she saw me. Maybe the makeup didn’t do all I thought it did.
“Callie, how well do you know Kristy Hines?”
My spine stiffened. I sat at the kitchen table with my coffee and waited.
“She was at a party last night and arrived in the ER around two this morning.”
“She’s in my homeroom,” I answered woodenly, unwilling to say what I knew. She’d been at a party fifty yards away from where we sat and I’d seen her with Liam, a guy other girls had claimed attacked them. The same guy I couldn’t shake from my mind.
“She’d been drinking heavily and was bruised up. Her arms and legs were covered in marks and she had a serious head injury. Someone left her in a hospital hallway near the cafeteria. We don’t know if she was in a car accident or what. Something happened to her to get all those bruises. If you hear anything at school today, will you tell me so I can tell her family?” A tear fell from Mom’s eye.
I had a good idea where a drunk girl could get a bunch of bruises. Tripping and falling over headstones seemed likely considering the party location.
“You should see her mom. She’s a mess. Her dad’s working with local authorities to find record of any car accidents, tracking cars that check into garages today for body work. I guess he works for the county, or an insurance company or something?” Mom raised hopeful eyes.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t. Kristy and I were barely acquaintances. I had no idea what her family did for a living. They were new here, too. She’d started Zoar High School last fall.
“If I hear anything, I’ll pass it along.”
Mom swiped tears off her cheeks and sniffled.
“I’m going to school. Why don’t you get some sleep? I promise to be safe tonight. Justin will watch over me.” I smiled. Any mention of Justin and Mom melted.
“I know his parents are out of town.”
Ah, the downfall to having our moms be best friends.
“Doesn’t matter. It won’t change anything. I promise.”
Mom looked me over. “Underage drinking is against the law, Callie. Remember that. Even if no one gets hurt or behind the wheel.”
“I know.”
She looked at the ceiling before dropping her gaze back to me. “Do you want a ride to school?”
“No. I’m good.”
She walked me to the door after breakfast, looking older somehow, worry creasing her forehead. “Be smart, honey.”
I zipped my winter coat over my hoodie and pulled my bag over my head, positioning it across my body. “I’ll be home after school.”
I felt Mom’s eyes on my back as I passed Hale Manor. The towering grey and black home loomed over me. I walked faster through its shadow on the sidewalk. The gables were dark and intimidating. The entire property reeked of foreboding. An enormous stable in the backyard had been transformed into a garage when I was a child. What did they keep in there? The renovations had bothered me growing up. The home had been abandoned, but it changed. For no reason apparent to my family or friends, workers would occasionally show up with a key and trucks and do something inside or on the property. At slumber parties we’d speculated the house longed for inhabitants to kill, so it phoned in orders to make itself more appealing, hoping to entice people inside where it would trap and torment them until they killed themselves. Slumber parties. Good times.
The school parking lot bustled with kids climbing off busses and pickup trucks unloading rowdy guys who raised the decibel level with every hoot and holler. Girls strutted in their short skirts and boots, rolling their eyes and hoping to be noticed. I put my hood up and slid into the thick of everyone, disappearing momentarily. I turned the corner to my locker and sidestepped a group of freshmen staring at the community bulletin board where school administration hung openings for office or library assistants and sometimes community event flyers.
Allison dashed through the office doors, cutting through the crowd to my side. “Did you hear?”
I peeked around her shoulders. “What were you doing in the office?”
“Ollie works there fifth period. I applied to help at that time, too.”
“Fifth period is lunch. Don’t you go to college at lunchtime?” I gave her my best crazy face. I hadn’t seen her this set on a mission since she’d applied to the early college program.
“What? I can’t eat here and miss half of my first college class twice a week?”
“No.”
“Don’t be a downer. I can at least use it for a conversation starter tonight.” She smiled her most mischievous smile.
“I don’t think they’re going tonight,” I admitted. “Liam dropped me off after swim yesterday and basically told me to get lost.”
Her jaw dropped. “No frackin’ way.”
“Way.” I turned for my locker. She followed.
“What happened?”
“Nothing. He was all, ‘I’m a mess and you aren’t so you shouldn’t hang with me.’” I frowned, pinching my eyebrows together. I planned to find out if he was a mess in Ohio History. How would Liam react to the news about Kristy? Then again, the odds he wouldn’t hear about it during homeroom were pretty slim.
“Hey.” Justin lumbered over to us and slung an arm around Allison’s shoulders. “Did you guys hear about Kristy Hines?”
“No.”
“Yeah.” I answered at the same time as Allison.
She looked at me with wide eyes. “What happened?”
“I guess she went to a party last night, got drunk and turned up at the hospital with alcohol poisoning and a concussion.” Justin looked truly sorry to deliver the news.
My mom had held back on those details. Alcohol poisoning and a concussion.
“Was your mom working?” Allison knew she was. Mom worked every weeknight and every other Saturday.
“Yeah. She didn’t tell me much though. She said Kristy was drinking and all bruised up, like maybe she was in a car accident.” I looked from Allison to Justin. “She’s a little weird about me staying with you tonight.”
“I won’t let anything happen to you,” Justin said.
Allison slid her gaze to him and back to me a few times. I nodded thoughtfully, hoping he wouldn’t see the gesture as an answer to anything in particular. Yes, I’d talk to him about us, or the lack of a romantic “us,” soon.
“See you at lunch?” I prompted my friends to leave. They agreed and headed to their homerooms while I slipped into mine.
As expected, the room was alive with whispers. The low hum of curiosity filled the air. In those short minutes, I learned Kristy had only had a couple drinks. Her friends were surprised when
she’d slipped away from them until they’d noticed Liam gone, too. My tummy rolled.
I ran to my first class and sat, angling my body toward the door. I couldn’t miss his entrance. I needed to see him notice me. His face would tell the truth. Had he hurt Kristy Hines? As much as the facts pointed to guilty, I wasn’t ready to accept that. The connection I felt to Liam was strong and not one that worried me. I rarely misjudged people. There were lots of others at the party. Lots of cups in hands. Liam was burdened and withdrawn, but not dangerous.
“Hey, ho.” Hannah took the seat in front of my table, dragging out each short word, pretending to do a cheerleader thing, while intending to piss me off.
“You’re so clever.” I used my perkiest voice.
“Where’s your new boyfriend?” She looked at Liam’s empty seat.
I shrugged, frustrated by the desire for that to be true.
“You moved on already? Careful, Callie. You’ll run out of guys before graduation.”
The bell rang, interrupting Hannah. She smiled and turned away.
My focus jumped to the door. No Liam.
“I trust you’ve had time to read the assigned stories from your books. Today you’ll choose an angle or topic for your paper and begin drafting an outline. The papers are individual, but you may confer quietly with your partner. When you’re confident, bring the outline to me for approval.” Mrs. Potter lifted green-framed glasses from her necklace and placed them over her eyes. She poised a red pen over a stack of papers and got to work.
I opened to chapter six and read the story on Hale Manor again. I’d read it the day she handed out the books. Useful facts were buried in the text, covered in speculation and urban legend. I assumed this was the reason Mrs. Potter had chosen these books. We had to dig. I scratched the facts onto my paper as I unearthed them.
Hale Manor was built in 1847 by Thomas Hale, an English farmer who’d come to Ohio to start a vineyard and ended up a millionaire. He’d bought hundreds of acres for planting grapes in the nutritious Midwestern soil and sold the mineral rights for most of his land when his men struck oil digging a pond for Hale’s wife, Violet. Violet’s strong religious beliefs had led her to believe the money was a test and should be given to the church. When Hale refused, she’d fallen into a depression and starved herself to death. Diaries left behind for her children detailed her intentions to suffer as a penance for what they were given. She’d thought her intentional pain might spare them whatever she thought was coming.
Two of her children had died on the property, one from a snake bite at ten and the teenage daughter in charge of the ten year old fell from the roof within a year. The fall had been speculated as suicide from the start, though no one had dared print the accusation until much later. The eldest son had married and had several children and three wives. His first two wives had each died in childbirth at the Manor. According to Haunted Ohio, the unborn children had preferred not to be born over being born into this home and that family. By the Great Depression, the Hales were one of the only families still afloat and Mary-Catherine Hale, like Violet before her, had worried their money was a curse. She’d given all she could to local orphanages and her husband had been irate. She’d stopped leaving her home and was found hanged from the original chandelier above the stairs.
The sensationalized accounts inside the book made Liam’s family sound like a horror movie and his home like the breathing monster I’d grown up thinking it to be. His family had the means to do anything and yet they suffered. When I thought of how little Mom and I had without Dad’s financial support, my mind struggled to grasp such a difference, especially when Mom and I were happy. My clothes were from last year and my makeup came from the drugstore, but I was okay. I had hope and a future. The black and white photographs inside the book seemed surreal. No one smiled. It was as if they knew their fate.
Allison and Justin were head to head in a whispered discussion when I got to lunch. The sight of her at our table snapped me into reality.
“Aren’t you on your way to the big time?” I asked.
“I was just getting Justin’s order for the party tonight. Tony’s picking up the beer for us.” An enormous smile filled her face, squishing both cheeks into her eyes.
“Nice.” I slid into the chair beside her and cracked open a diet soda.
“What are you drinking tonight?” Justin asked. “It’s on me.” He nodded at Allison who smiled impossibly wider.
She patted her purse. I’d missed the infamous cash drop, apparently. Nothing suspicious here, Principal, Justin always handed over large amounts of cash at lunchtime.
“I have no idea.” I didn’t. Apparently, Allison had forgotten Liam had asked her to disinvite Tony. Then again, he was MIA and had dumped me, so all was well. Plus, I wasn’t speaking to him anyway.
“No problem.” Justin shrugged.
The lunch crowd was louder than usual, everyone chatting about the game or the after parties. I breathed easier. With after parties thrown by jocks and cheerleaders, Justin’s party might make it to the end without the police showing up. Neither Hale brother was anywhere in sight.
“I’ve got to go.” Allison stood and bumped fists with Justin. She swiped the apple I’d set on the table. “See ya.” She bounced through the room, waving and smiling like the star of her own show. A few whistles and catcalls later, she was gone.
Justin’s crooked smile inched up one side of his lightly stubbled face. “Chin up, buttercup. Haven’t you heard?”
“What?” Curiosity stood the hair on my arms on end.
“It’s Friday. We’re halfway through this day and there’s a party going on tonight.” He winked. “It’s going to be epic.”
I laughed. “Oh, boy.” I rolled my eyes, fighting a smile. “Don’t say that. Ever. It’s ridiculous.” My bad mood melted as I watched the faux-offense ignite across my cowboy’s face. He pressed a palm to his chest.
“Stop.” I flipped a piece of French fry on his tray, aiming for his chest.
* * * *
Justin walked me to study hall, talking nonstop. He had more to say in those three minutes than he’d said all week. Tonight was his first field party as a senior and the first his parents didn’t know about. He vibrated beside me with excitement.
“I should cut last period and go home.” He shoved his hands in his pockets.
Students filed past as we stopped outside library study hall. Half the student body wore blue and white, our school colors. Skipping the pep rally sounded perfect to me. Forced school spirit was dizzying under normal circumstances. Today, it sounded like a nightmare.
“You want to come?” He raised onto the balls of his feet and dropped. Whenever I’d seen Justin with this amount of excess energy in the past, he’d strapped his hand to a wild bronco and beat himself into a happy place. He was right. He should go home and relax before who knew how many kids and kegs arrived to tear up his home, barn, and lawn. The field was safe. Even the most moronic of our classmates couldn’t hurt a field. Much.
“Can’t. I have one more day of detention.” My teeth ground together. Detention for two guys fighting in the library and neither of them had showed the past two days.
The bell rang and Justin jumped. “See you tonight.”
“Wait. When are you picking me up?” I glanced over my shoulder into the library where a dozen people stared back.
“Eight.” Justin turned the corner and disappeared from sight.
The only thing longer than study hall was every class after it, the pep rally from hell and detention. Swim kept the pattern going. I swam with intensity, putting my wild thoughts and frustration to use. My arms sliced through the water, pulling me forward faster than ever before. I flipped and swam. Flipped and swam. The exertion turned my muscles to goo after accelerating my pace to new personal records. Coach whistled and shifted his ball cap on his head when I finally came out of the water, dripping with fatigue, water, and determination. By
my last turn, I’d known what I needed. A party. A drink. Friends. I needed one normal night where I thought about college and bagged on my dad and dodged Kirk. Something familiar. In the past week, familiar had moved out of town and the Hale family had taken up residence.
I cut the hour short by fifteen minutes and waved good-bye to Coach as I simultaneously toweled my hair with vigor and sprint-walked past the red and white No Running sign nailed to the blue tiled wall. Inside the locker room, I pulled clothes on over still-damp skin and jerked my hoodie over cold wet hair. I texted Justin on my walk home. How about seven instead?
Yee haw! Justin responded.
I left him a slew of emoticons, the only thing as annoying as “Yee haw.”
Mom fed me a nutritious meal of baby spinach and salmon after I showered forty-five minutes of chlorine and ten hours of tension down the drain. I picked my most comfortable jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved shirt for the party. The evenings were cold, but the nights were downright chilly. The white thermal shirt had a cute V-neck and navy trim, the perfect mix of warmth and casual. It fit me tightly, following the curves of my body. I grabbed a hoodie on my way out the door.
Justin dawdled on the porch with Mom, answering questions about his mom’s work and his horses.
“What are your plans tonight?” Mom asked.
Justin leaned against the porch railing, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles.
“Hang out. Watch a movie later.” He tipped his chin to the darkening sky. “I thought about making a fire and maybe roasting some hot dogs.” He patted his stomach.
“Yum.” Mom hated over-processed crap like hot dogs. “What about s’mores? Wow. I haven’t thought of s’mores in years. I have graham crackers if you need them.”
“Yeah.”
“No.” I declined her offer in the same breath he accepted, pleasing Mom to no end. She dipped into the house.
“What’s your hurry?” Justin frowned at me from the porch.
I stood toeing loose paint chips on the floorboards.
“Here you are.” Mom handed Justin a yellow box and blew me a kiss.
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