Unfinished

by Carol Oates

  Unfinished

  Carol Oates

  Copyright Carol Oates 2011

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  Published by Carol Oates

  Smashwords Edition

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Cover Design by Carol Oates

  For Eric

  A boy who sees the world differently.

  I jumped at the clank of a nearby locker door slamming shut. It should have barely registered in the crowded hallway of Charlton High. For once, I couldn’t blame my mom for my anxious mood. Yoga started early for her on weekdays and she was gone before I emerged from my bedroom, a place I found myself spending more and more time recently. Something felt off today and I couldn’t put my finger on the reason. To top it off, Lottie was acting weird… weirder.

  The warning bell sounded and I pushed off from the wall. All around students hustled to class in a chorus of happy voices. I rubbed the stubborn crick in my neck that wouldn’t ease. Maybe I should try yoga too.

  “Good morning.” I beamed my cheeriest smile at my twin.

  I received no response for my efforts. Lottie simply continued to move books around her locker, gazing at them with an exaggerated concentration. I should have grown used to her ignoring me over the last several weeks. I was beginning to worry she’d never forgive me.

  Lottie sighed and closed the door carefully. She spun the lock and pushed a long strand of limp blonde hair, which had come loose from her braid, behind her ear. When we were young, our hair was the only way to tell us apart. We had the same almond-shaped brown eyes, skin pale to the point of being luminescent, the same narrow chin and round behind. We even had the same tiny oval birthmark on our hip, except hers was on the right and mine, the left. As we got older, there were other differences. I was always a little slimmer, tanned and wore my hair short and choppy. I wanted to be different.

  I hated my waist length hair, especially in the summer. It felt thick and heavy, and seemed to drag my head backward onto my shoulders. Sometimes I had imagined it as an extra piece of clothing I couldn’t shed. So, one night when we were ten I begged Lottie to cut it for me. She argued and then relented like I knew she would. Mom grounded Lottie when she discovered us sitting on the bathroom floor in a puddle of blonde hair. I ate ice-cream while Lottie quietly accepted her punishment, and our mom lamented over my lost locks.

  That was our way. I led and she followed.

  Not anymore.

  I walked with her as far as her English class, huffing every now and then because I didn’t like being ignored. I enjoyed nothing more than being the center of attention, the glowing sun in the center of everyone’s universe. It happened to be the very reason I currently found myself persona non grata.

  If the hallway hadn’t been mostly empty, I would never have noticed the shuffling that made both Lottie and me look up. The sound came from a boy walking toward us, the rubber soles of his sneakers scuffling and squeaking along the linoleum floor. I was pretty sure I knew every person at school, but his face was new. What I glanced of it at least. He watched his feet and held his books clutched tight to his chest. It struck me as odd. The guy was tall and lean with wide shoulders, strong muscled thighs and thick arms. He wore frayed jeans and a faded black T-shirt. Totally hot, in an ‘I’m too cool to care’ kind of way, but his whole demeanor gave off a different vibe. He seemed sad, like he cared too much about everything instead of nothing. The boy carefully maneuvered his way around the remaining people without ever lifting his eyes. None of us could fail to miss how his entire body flinched when anyone got too close.

  “Who is that?” I cocked my head to the side trying to get a better look at his face as he walked past. Perhaps he has acne or something. He didn’t. His dark hair skimmed the neck of his T-shirt and kept his eyes from view but I caught a glimpse of clear pale skin and rosy hued cheeks.

  Lottie didn’t respond—not that I expected her to—although she also paused to watch him walk by.

  “Jonas Darby,” Delia Montgomery informed us as she nudged past Lottie to get in the door. She shook her head gently so her mahogany hair swished and rippled across her back like liquid silk. As usual, her trio of assorted Barbie girls followed. I used to be Barbie number four.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Lottie asked with a curious expression on her face. She clutched her own books in a way that almost mimicked him.

  “No idea,” Delia responded. She stuck her head out the door holding on to the frame with one hand and carrying her trusty red leather journal in the other.

  I almost gagged on the candy-floss perfume and artificial cloud of hairspray accompanying her.

  “Nice ass though.”

  Those three words defined Delia’s view of the world perfectly. Only the outside mattered.

  “Come on squirt, I need your notes,” she said to Lottie, throwing one slender sun-kissed arm over her shoulder.

  I rolled my eyes thinking Delia would never learn. She was a princess, and high school was her kingdom. Delia’s father was mayor of our perfect little town. Charlton sported three thousand residents, a ninety-five percent employment rate and one corrupt police force. Of course daddy’s little angel was unaware the guys on the football team called her Drop Your Panties Delia because of her less than angelic reputation. With everything she had and everything that happened recently, I still pitied her. The things she got away with now would probably land her in serious trouble one day. Daddy’s reach only extended so far and high school wouldn’t last forever.

  “See you later, Lottie,” I said as she turned to walk into class with Delia. I felt reasonably secure in the knowledge they couldn’t get up to much of Delia’s usual trouble there.

  I followed Jonas down the hallway, keeping a safe distance so as not to disturb him. As it happened, we were going the same way. It seemed the new kid shared my English class, fortuitous since he intrigued me.

  We didn’t get too many new kids around here. I edged past him at the door noticing how his body appeared stressed to the point of being utterly immobile—the guy had serious first day jitters. I made my way to my usual seat at the back of the class and watched him as he skirted desks and people, never once looking up. Does he have some kind of bat-type sensor thing going on? Eventually, he sat in a desk right beside the window on the opposite side of the room and retrieved a notebook from his bag. He then proceeded to shift the bag around the floor at his feet in a weird ritualistic way. It ended up square under the center of his desk.

  Some of the other students kept an eye on the entire process, and although I couldn’t hear exactly what they said, I could tell by the disdainful glances and hands placed over their mouths to cover their whispers that he would be the butt of many jokes during his time here.

  Jonas turned toward the open window and inhaled, filling his lungs so deeply his back straightened. I caught a split-second glance of his handsome face and long curling eyelashes. They fluttered under those dark bangs. The buzz of the mower over at the football field and the fragrance of fresh cut grass crept inside. I empathized with his almost palpable and very apparent longing to be outside instead of sitting with us.

  Mr. Dover walked into the class then. Rushed as usual, he simultaneously juggled his books to find the page with today’s lesson, while closing the door with his
foot and fixing his round rimmed glasses. The class fell into a quick hush, because although Mr. Dover appeared soft and cuddly with his bow-tie and the leather patches on the elbows of his sweater, looks were deceiving.

  He took his place at the head of the class after locating the elusive pages in his notes. His watery blue eyes lifted and darted around the room until they settled on Jonas, who was still fixated on the world outside his window. “As you may well have noticed we have a new student. Jonas, stand please.”

  Accompanied by the sound of shifting seats, every set of eyes in the room turned. Jonas didn’t move aside from rhythmically tapping his index finger against his notebook.

  “Jonas Darby?” Mr. Dover called again after checking the semi-crumpled sheet in his hand.

  Upon his name being announced the second time, Jonas turned to face front and slid his seat back. He removed his cap, not bothering to push the flattened hair from his forehead and pushed off from his desk to stand. The action made his muscled arms strain and flex. Jonas lifted his face to Mr. Dover briefly and just as quickly looked away. It had to have been clear to Mr. Dover and everyone else in the room how difficult it was for Jonas to complete this one small instruction. The artery running up the side of his neck pulsed where his hair had curled away leaving it visible and his chest became utterly rigid as if he wasn’t breathing at all.

  Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew Mr. Dover was explaining to the class how Jonas Darby came to be at Charlton High; however, I didn’t hear a word he said. It wasn’t because I still felt bad for Jonas or because I wanted to join in with the twitters of laughter in the room. Astonishment overwhelmed me for a moment, because when Jonas lifted his blue eyes to the room, he looked directly at me.

  Several weeks ago this wouldn’t have surprised me at all, that had been when Lottie’s hair was still lustrous and shiny, when I had been the one providing Delia with her notes and when the Charlton police department wasn’t overlooking little things like mysteriously severed break lines.

  I jumped down quickly from my perch on top of the bookshelf, where I had been sitting over the last weeks after they removed my desk. I approached Jonas hesitantly, not wanting to scare him and worked my way around the desks between us. As I got closer I was disappointed to realize that, just like everyone else, Jonas couldn’t see me. His concentration seemed fixed on a poster tacked to the wall behind the place I had been sitting a moment ago.

  Words are the only thing that last forever

  Evidently not, I thought to myself. I was doing a pretty good job at sticking around.

  Jonas sat back down heavily and class commenced with everyone oblivious to my presence in the room.

  Everything was different now. There was a time I could part crowds simply by walking to class. Everyone knew me, everyone loved me… not anymore. I had grown used to wanting to be part of things and not being. I attended school as usual, slept in the same bed—well, spent my nights in bed—talked to my sister. I even studied for tests I would never get to take. It’s very strange how homework becomes such an important part of the day when it’s one of the only things grounding a person in reality.

  My routines kept me sane and reminded me I was still here. No white light greeted me when I crawled up the bank of Shepard River, no tunnel. I didn’t move on to a better place. No. For my sins, I ended up in school. There is seriously no justice in the world.

  ~o0o~

  I stayed in class until the shrill ringing broke into my wandering thoughts. Jonas never looked at me again. I honestly couldn’t decide if I was relieved or not. Having someone see me would have felt like a validation of my belief I still existed, yet my instincts told me trusting a boy who saw dead people wasn’t so much a validation as a little insane. I was a walking contradiction these days.

  “What’s next?” I asked Lottie as we walked along the hallway together. She studiously watched the ground. “Gee, get over it will you.” I teased her after a few moments passed in silence. “Maybe if you had your own life you wouldn’t be so mad at me.”

  I stopped talking when I spotted Will Keats, a senior and quarterback of the football team. He was the kind of guy who had it all, popular, good looking, smart, blond and nice…. He was the one. Not my one––the only one on the team who didn’t succumb to Delia. I had been heading to meet Will that fateful evening. It was his suggestion to meet at the small park down by the river so we could discuss my next move. Now he looked at my sister with those same worried green eyes he used to look at me with on more than one occasion.

  “Hey Charlotte,” he said awkwardly, running his fingers through his hair. Will never seemed to know what to do with his hands.

  “Hi Will,” she replied, a telltale blush creeping up her cheeks.

  Get a backbone, Lottie. I rolled my eyes. Lottie pulled her books closer to her chest. Her shoulders hunched and she barely managed to peek up at Will from under her eyelashes.

  “How are you doing?”

  “I’m okay, you know….” She trailed off with a sigh and her eyebrows pulled down into a frown making the skin above her nose pucker.

  Will nodded in acknowledgement to some guys from his team passing and scratched the back of his neck. Red marks bloomed across his skin. He rubbed at it as if he realized he had scratched too hard. “Yeah, I know.”

  He paused and looked around speculatively until I unconsciously moved nearer to listen to whatever he was about to say.

  “Do you have any idea why Cathy did it?” he whispered.

  If it wasn’t for the fact that he looked genuinely concerned, I would have been willing to take back what I previously thought about him being nice. In the moment when Lottie’s blush deepened and her eyes narrowed and fixed on her feet, I wanted to hit Will. Not that it would have done any good since I could only move small inanimate objects and even that took effort. Will was neither small nor inanimate, so I settled for glowering up at him. How could he have fallen for the ridiculous story I had driven off the winding road intentionally? He, of all people, should have guessed the truth.

  “No,” Lottie said frostily. “I have to go, Will. I’m going to be late for class.”

  “Sure, sure.” He stepped away and went back to messing with his hair again. “I was thinking… if you ever want to get together and talk….” The invitation hung in the air between them and a foreign jealously bubbled up inside me.

  I tried to convince myself he was being kind to my sister, but it actually sounded like he was asking her out. It sounded like, with me out of the way, Will planned to move on to the next best thing—my twin. I stepped between them although it didn’t make any difference. Lottie peered up at him straight through me.

  She smiled sweetly. “Thank you. I’ll keep it in mind.”

  I stood frozen in the hallway as they both moved away. Should I have been insulted that Will considered me so easily replaceable or because Lottie thought she could actually replace me? I wanted to cry, but I couldn’t shed real tears. So what if I didn’t consider Will my forever? He was still mine.

  I hadn’t managed to make myself move by the time every living creature deserted the hallway. For the first time I began to realize I didn’t really understand why I was still hanging around. Everyone was moving on without me. No one missed me. Mom had gone back to her ladies club and yoga sessions. Delia had Lottie and now Will, my sometimes boyfriend, had transferred his affection to my sister. A few of my classes had a desk removed for fear other students would think of me and become emotional. Wouldn’t want that, would we? It was as if I’d never existed. Lottie stepped neatly into my shoes. After all the years she’d spent in my shadow that must have brought her some form of satisfaction.

  The squeaking hinges of the girls’ bathroom alerted me to the fact I wasn’t alone after all and I turned to see Delia emerge with her phone pressed to her ear.

  “Good… of course I haven’t.” She seemed frustrated at the conversation and halted mid-step to swipe at her skirt. “I have
as much to lose as you… just play your part and everything will be fine.” A smile spread across her lips and she lifted her hand in front of her face to inspect her short manicured nails. “You know I’ll take care of you.”

  Delia ended the call, adjusted her bag on her shoulder and sauntered off down the hallway, her snake-like hips swaying side to side.

  It didn’t require much brainpower to work out what the subject of the conversation might be. Someone in cahoots with Delia wasn’t happy. However, it wasn’t my problem anymore. The last time I tried to get involved all it got me was dead.

  Rubber squeaking along the floor behind me caught my attention. I wasn’t the only one listening in on Delia’s conversation. Jonas stood near the exit door at the end of the hallway, just a short distance away. In his hand, he clutched a sheet of paper I presumed was his class schedule. He watched Delia intently as she moved away. Unlike earlier, he stood straight with an air of confidence that had been absent before. His vivid blue eyes reminded me of inkblots that appeared on paper after holding a fountain pen against it for too long, intensely dark and round against clear white.

  I glanced over my shoulder and saw Delia take a deep breath at the door, ready to enter class with a smile and some made up excuse as to why she was late. When I turned back, Jonas was gone.

  ~o0o~

  By lunchtime I felt entirely sorry for myself. Until now, I had never regretted my actions the evening I died. If I had been able to keep my nose out of things that didn’t concern me everything would different… for starters, I’d be alive. I had so much to look forward to but all that remained was an uncertain future.

  The sun shone down on the football field where some of Will’s teammates were training. I watched him move around the grass, cheered on by a gaggle of groupies that had congregated lower down on the bleachers to ogle. A twinge of guilt toward Will caught me off guard. I hated the idea of being replaced so easily, but maybe I deserved it. I didn’t treat him as well as I could have. I strung him along because I wanted to look like I had it all. I thought I had it all. I was popular, although now I knew it was only by my association with Delia and what she gives to people. I was smart, or so I thought. I wasn’t smart enough to see what was really going on around me. I had Will, but only because I wanted to walk down the hallway with a football star by my side.