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I slam the locker door and jump away, stuff my hands in my pockets and keep walking.
And around the corner comes the Triad.
Jesus. My mouth feels like someone just vacuumed all the saliva out of it. My heart’s beating a million miles a minute. Did they see me? Do they know?
Raine sees me and lights up like a freaking Christmas tree. “CAM! Oh my God, we were just talking about you!” she yells and runs towards me.
I instinctively take a step back.
She pulls up short. “What? What’s wrong with you?”
Shit. Flinching was just a reflex to seeing her unexpectedly. I didn’t have time to prepare myself and now I’ve gone and acted like an ass. I hesitate.
My mind goes temporarily blank. My mouth opens but nothing comes out. It feels like hours have gone by without me talking.
“Um…hello?” Becca says, waving a hand in front of my face.
And then an idea comes to me. I let out a bronchial cough from deep in my chest.
Becca makes a face and steps away from me. “Ew.”
“Shit, I’m sorry.” I cough again into my hand. “I woke up feeling like death.”
The three girls exchange glances. Teri smiles knowingly.
It makes me angry. They think I’m dying because of Raine. They’re happy about it.
“Oh you poor, poor thing,” Raine says. “What can I do?”
I shrug. “I’m okay. Just been so exhausted and run-down lately and now I’m sick. I feel like I’ve got pneumonia or something.”
Raine laughs. “I doubt it. Probably just a cold. You need some rest.”
“Yeah. Maybe. Practice has been brutal lately. I haven’t been myself in days.”
Again with the little smirk from Teri. I have to remind myself she’s a girl and that it’s better if they think I don’t know what’s going on. But it’s tough to bite my tongue right now.
“You probably just need to replenish,” Becca says, faking sympathy.
“Yeah,” Teri says. “You’re probably low on some important electrolytes. You should get Raine to give you some of her special sports drink.” She laughs and Becca shoots her a glare.
“What sports drink?” I say.
“Nothing,” Raine says. “She’s being stupid as usual. She drank like three sugar-free Redbulls this morning already” She rolls her eyes. “Anyway, we should probably get going. We’re all late for Chemistry now. I’m, like, failing that class. It’s soooo boring.”
“Okay. See you at lunch?”
“Of course.” She smiles at me. “Lunch. It’s a date. Feel better, Cam.”
And then they’re gone.
I breathe a sigh of relief. Once I’m sure they’re not coming back, I dig into my front pocket and pull out the little trinket I stole from Raine’s locker.
Weird.
I’ve never seen anything quite like it. A little sculpture of a black butterfly, and it looks like it’s been carved out of onyx or marble or something. Like a fancy chess piece.
And it’s attached to a silver chain. I heft it in my hand.
Something about it’s mesmerizing. A black butterfly?
A chill runs up my spine. I don’t like it. Something about it just seems…wrong.
But I’m probably just being paranoid. The important thing is that they didn’t see me going through Raine’s locker. I shove it back in my pocket and head back to math.
***
At lunch I have to play the game. Sit with all of these people I don’t even like.
Well, except for Aiden. But Aiden is kind of the low man on the totem pole and so everyone just goofs on him the whole time.
Which sucks for him. He wouldn’t even be at this table if he wasn’t my friend—
not that it’s done him much good. Unless maybe there’s satisfaction in hanging with the cool crowd even when they all treat you like dirt?
Aiden’s eating a Ding Dong and chasing it with a few big gulps of milk.
Bryan Forsythe, an all-star hockey player, elbows him. “Yo, you need to wipe your mouth, son. It looks like you just ate a doo-doo sandwich.”
“Shit, it does!” one of the other guys’ laughs.
The girls roll their eyes.
“Whatever, it tastes good,” Aiden says, but I can tell the comment bugged him. A couple minutes later he wipes his mouth with a little green napkin his mom probably packed for him. Something about this makes me sad.
And then there’s Raine and the Triad. They sit with us and make jokes about the ugly girls and dorky kids and we all laugh. I pretend to cough.
The whole time I can’t help but be distracted because Brody’s sitting with Natalia and her friends. It should be me over there. I know she likes me. I can feel it when we’re together.
She said she might like Brody, though.
How can she like him? The guy is such a fake. I have a feeling he knows about Raine and her friends, too. He’s got something to do with all of this, I just feel it in my bones.
“—space cadet?” Teri says.
I only hear part of it, but suddenly everyone at the lunch table is staring at me.
“Huh?” I say.
They all laugh.
Teri shakes her head. “Told you.”
Raine rolls her eyes. “He’s just not feeling well. Right, honey?” She takes a forkful of salad and daintily puts it in her mouth and chews.
“Yeah. Not feeling good.” I fake a cough.
Aiden gives me a quizzical look. “Since when? You seemed fine this morning.”
I give him a short kick in the shin under the table. “I was coughing like a madman this morning on the drive over. Remember?”
He makes a face. “Oh. Right. Yeah, yeah. I forgot. You practically hacked up a lung.”
Lancaster, one of the best receivers on our team, raises his eyebrows. “Dude, you can’t afford to be sick right now. Coach is gonna eat you alive if you keep slacking.”
“I’m not slacking. I’m sick.”
“He doesn’t care if you’re missing a kidney. Big game this weekend. Right?”
“I’ll be up for it. Don’t worry.”
“I’m not the one who should be worried, dude.” Lancaster pops a fry in his mouth. He’s big and blond, with a head the size of a lion’s, and almost no neck, like a tank. “Just sayin’.”
“And I’ll be good to go. Just sayin’,” I tell him.
“Football’s so boring,” Becca says, wrinkling her nose. “What about the homecoming dance next week?”
All of the guys groan.
The homecoming dance is more than two weeks away, but it’s a Santa Anna tradition that the girls ask the guys, so of course they’re going to want to start talking about it already.
I peek at Natalia’s table again, while pretending to stretch. I wonder if she’ll be going to the dance with Brody. The two of them are stealing little glances at each other and smiling over their bagged lunches.
Ugh. It’s enough to make me genuinely sick. I fake another cough for good measure.
“So, Teri, are you going to ask Donovan or what?” Raine says.
“I don’t know.”
“Well if you decide against it, I can be your fallback option,” Aiden says.
“Ummm…yeah…I don’t think so. I’m not into twiggy emo kids.”
Everyone’s cracking up. Even I’m laughing, picturing the two of them together.
“I’m not an emo kid. What, just because I listen to The Spill Canvas?”
“You should never admit that in public,” Lancaster says.
“I can’t believe none of us have asked anyone yet,” Raine says.
“Well who are you going to ask?” Becca says. “Hmmm?”
Raine shrugs. “I have my eye on someone.” She glances at me. “But it needs to be just the right moment.”
“Who you kidding?” Lancaster says. “You’re scared.”
“Oh? Of what?”
“Being rejected.” He grins at her.
You sure have some deep insights about people, huh? You’re like fucking Dr. Phil.”
He winks. “Yeah, well, I’m a deep guy.”
“Funny, that’s not what Deena said. She told me you could only go in like three inches because that’s all you have.”
Lancaster shoves a few fries in his mouth. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbles.
“Boys around here are so sensitive,” Raine says, tossing her hair. “I want to be entertained but no boys are entertaining me!”
“Probably just intimidated by your beauty,” I say.
Raine gives me a strange look. “Not you, though, right Cam?”
Out of the corner of my eye I see Natalia laughing and Brody putting his arm over her shoulder.
I feel my anger coming back. What is she thinking? I already warned her about him. For all I know she’s going to tell him everything.
“Not me, baby. I know what I want.” I smile at her.
“It’s not that easy,” she says, but I can tell she’s pleased.
When lunch is over, I purposely speed up on the way out of the caf so that I can bump into Natalia and Brody as they’re leaving.
“Hey Cam,” Brody says when he sees me. “Whaddup?”
We give each other a pound. As usual, Natalia gets quiet and stares at the ground instead of making eye contact with me.
“Nothing much,” I say easily. “How you kids doing?”
“Pretty good. Sorry about yesterday,” he says, and for a moment I think Natalia must have told him everything.
“What about it?”
“You know, Coach giving you a hard time. Wish I could have been there to tell him to lay off but—“
As if he would have. Brody would have loved seeing me get reamed out, he’s not fooling anyone.
“Yeah, what happened to you yesterday?”
He shifts his feet. “I had to visit my sister…”
“Oh.” I nod like this makes total sense, even though I know it’s a lie. He was with Natalia.
She glances up at me.
God, I want to kiss her. Get out of this dumb school and take her in my car, drive into the woods, walk around some field and have a picnic. The girl is turning me into a romantic sap.
“How’s the new school treating you, Nat?”
“Since when am I Nat?” she asks, grinning. Brody slings his arm around her shoulders, and I resist the urge to punch him out.
“Since now.” And then before I can stop myself, I add, “Cam and Nat.”
Brody’s expression darkens. “Some active fantasy life you’ve got there, Cam. I think she prefers Natalia.”
“Oh. Do you?”
She looks at both of us and shrugs. “There are pros and cons to both.”
“I’ll bet.” I grin. “Okay, I’ll see you at practice Brody. Later, Nat!”
And as I walk out of the cafeteria, I look back and see her watching me leave with a little smile on her face.
Chapter Three
Natalia
“So, you’re asking Brody, right?” Adrianna asks me in chemistry lab that afternoon.
“Asking Brody what?” I’m measuring tomato paste into a beaker, so that we can extract the color and then separate it using column chromatography. At least, I think that’s what we’re doing. Science has never been my best subject.
“To homecoming,” Adrianna says, sounding exasperated. “It’s a huge thing.”
“What is?” I ask, distracted. The blood red color of the tomato paste is making me think of what Cam said yesterday. About Raine and her friends measuring out the red wine vinegar and calling it Camerade.
“Homecoming!” She throws her hands up in the air. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Yes. But um, I don’t know if I’m asking Brody. I haven’t thought about it.
Besides, shouldn’t he be asking me?”
“No,” Adriana says, measuring something into our graduated cylinder. “The girls ask the guys. It’s a Santa Anna tradition.”
“Isn’t that only supposed to be for Sadie Hawkins Day? And even then isn’t it lame and/or something you’d only do in the ‘60s?”
“No,” she says. “It’s cool. Everyone has to ask the guy they want, and they go all out.” Adrianna’s mixing things in different cylinders and beakers. I think she’s given up on letting me do anything because I’m so slow. God, I hate chemistry. Science is so ridiculous, all kinds of measurements and experiments that people already know the answer to. Who cares what colors a tomato has? You’d think they’d let us do something a little more useful. To top it all off, we have to wear these ridiculous goggles and white coats, making us all look like total assholes.
“What do you mean, all out?” I ask her. The last thing I need is some new Santa Anna tradition to get involved in. The creepy girls and the hot boys I can’t seem to stay away from are enough activity for me, thank you very much.
“You know, like a big production.” She’s got everything in beaker now, and she’s waiting for it to do something (turn color?), so I pull out my binder and start to get to work on the lab report, figuring I should at least make myself useful. “Like, okay, last year Chelsey asked this guy Connor and she hired this singing Barber Shop Quartet to go to the pretzel place where he worked and sing to him.”
“That,” I say, “Sounds ridiculous.”
“No way,” she says. “It’s fun. So are you going to?”
“Going to what?”
“Ask Brody?”
“I don’t know,” I say, suddenly uncomfortable. “I’m not sure if he wants to go with me.”
“Are you kidding? He’s been sitting with you at lunch every day. I see the way he looks at you? I would kill to have a guy look at me like that.”
“How does he look at me?”
“Like he looooveeess you,” she says, and then makes kissing noises into the air.
“Stop!” I say, giggling. “You’re going to knock over our chromatography thing.”
“Do you not want to ask him because of Cam?” Adrianna asks. She’s suddenly really busy messing around with our beaker, even though the experiment’s basically done.
“What do you mean?” I’m trying to sound innocent, but I keep my head down and my eyes focused on my paper so she can’t see my face.
“Do you like Cam? More than Brody?”
“No,” I say, not sure if I’m lying.
“Good,” she says, “Because it would be a shame if you didn’t go because of Campbell Elliott.”
“It doesn’t have to do with Cam.” But it’s not true. Of course it has to do with Cam. Lately it seems like everything has to do with Cam.
***
After school, I don’t feel like going home, so I decide to walk to the Starbucks near school and study for a little while. I’m so behind on my history paper it’s ridiculous, and I figure I’ll be able to focus better if I’m out of the house, my ipod blasting in my ears, a cup of caffeine in front of me.
The coffee shop is only a few blocks from school, but it’s gotten cold out, and so I wrap my scarf around my neck and shove my hands in the pockets of my coat. As I do, my phone vibrates with a text, and I pull it out. For some reason, I hope it’s Cam, even though I know that’s silly.
“Hey N – it’s Derek – just wanted to say sorry for showing up at ur school – I’m ready to talk when you r”
My heart skips a beat, and I stop walking. I look around, but I’m on a main road, thank God, and there’s no one around. I pull my gloves off and text him back, my fingers angrily pushing against the keys. “How did u get this number?”
“Natalia?” a voice says behind me, and I scream and drop my phone.
“Jesus,” Cam says, picking up my cell and handing it to me. “What’s with you?”
“What’s with me?” I say, grabbing my phone. “I don’t know, Cam. My ex-boyfriend might be
stalking me, and you told me that Raine wants to put a spell on me or kill me or hurt or me or something. So I’m sure you won’t blame me if I’m a little jumpy.”