“Okay, okay,” he says, holding his hands up in surrender. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s okay,” I say, feeling bad for going off on him. I shove my phone back in my pocket. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you.”
He looks around, then says, “Come here.” He grabs the sleeve of my jacket and leads me back into the trees that line the street. We’re still on the main road, but it’s kind of creepy. I mean, how much do I really know about Cam? Yes, we kissed. Yes, he’s hot. Yes, every time I see him I want to pull him close to me. But I have horrible taste when it comes to guys. He could be pulling me back here for any number of reasons.
“Where are we going?” I ask as our feet crunch through the leaves.
“Just a little ways back,” he says, “I don’t want anyone from school seeing us.”
“Wow, Cam,” I say, attempting to joke around. “If you wanted to get me alone, this is a pretty elaborate scheme.” But he doesn’t laugh, and then, I get nervous.
“Okay,” he says once we’re safely out of view from the street. “I have to show you something.” He pulls something out from his pocket. A necklace. He hands it to me.
“A necklace?” For a second, I think he’s giving it to me, and my heart speeds up.
“I found it in Raine’s locker.”
“You broke into Raine’s locker? Isn’t that a little reckless?”
“Save it.”
“Fine.” I shrug. “You broke into Raine’s locker and found a necklace. So?”
“So? Don’t you think it looks a little creepy?” I sigh. If a weird-looking necklace is his big smoking gun, he’s definitely gone off the deep end with this whole witch thing. Still, I take a closer look, mostly to humor him. It’s a butterfly. Black, which is kind of strange. It’s carved out of some kind of shiny stone, and on a silver chain. The delicateness of the chain is in sharp contrast to the boldness of the butterfly, and makes it look more dramatic.
“It is a little weird-looking,” I say. “But just because she--” And then I stop.
Because I’m remembering. The butterfly I saw that was dancing in front of Raine’s face at the spa. At the time I thought it was just part of my panic attack, but now… I look closer at the stone. It looks exactly like the one I saw.
“What?” Cam asks. “What is it?”
“It’s just… that day at the spa, when they said I attacked Becca. When all of that was going on, it .. I saw a black butterfly in front of Raine’s face. At the time I thought it was just…”
“Just what?”
“ A trick of the light. But it looks exactly like this one.” I reach out and run my fingers over the carving of the wings, and I shiver.
“I had a dream,” Cam says, “about butterflies. You were in a field, and there were all these butterflies. I was trying to find you, I was trying to save you, but I couldn’t.”
“I saw a butterfly the day you fainted,” I remember. “At Raine’s house. It wasn’t black, but it’s wings looked funny, like it was getting darker.”
“Jesus,” Cam says. “Any other times?”
I think about it, not sure I really want to tell him about the one other time I can remembering seeing butterfly. But finally I sigh and say, “My first day at Santa Anna.
When Brody came to my house. I remember thinking it was weird because it was starting to get cold out. That was the first time.”
Cam has a sharp intake of breath, and he looks at me, with an I-told-you-so look.
But weird butterflies or not, I still can’t believe that Brody has anything to do with this.
“This is fucked up,” Cam says. He takes off his baseball hat, runs his fingers through his hair, then puts it back on his head.
“It doesn’t mean anything.” I say. “Just because you had a dream?” I hold the necklace back out to him, wanting him to take it back. Something about having it in my hand is making me nervous.
“And because you keep seeing them every time something creepy happens?”
“Not every time.”
He looks at me skeptically. “Okay, fine,” I say, “What do you want from me?”
“I don’t know.” His face looks so serious and worried, that I feel like I need to say something to make him feel better.
“Look,” I say, “This is nothing to freak out about. I told you, girls mess with this stuff all the time. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence.”
“You’re sure?”
I think about it. “No,” I say finally, “Are you sure it is something?”
“No.” He looks up at me, and I look at him, and we don’t say anything for a second, and then finally, Cam takes a step closer to me. “I want to kiss you really bad right now,” he says.
“We tried that, remember? It didn’t work out so well.” I look away, not able to take the heat that’s bouncing between our bodies.
“Do you want to kiss me?”
“Look,” I say, shaking my head, and deciding to avoid the question. I cross my arms over my chest to put up more of a barrier between us. “What are we going to do? If they are doing some kind of weird witchcraft -- and I’m not saying they are, but if they are -- then what do we do? Find some kind of spell to counteract it or something?”
“I don’t know.” He sighs. “Let me think about it and see if I can find out anything else. I’ll call you tonight, okay?”
“Okay.” My heart speeds up even more at the thought of talking to him later, and I wish I’d kissed him when he told me he wanted to.
“And until then, we have to be careful. I don’t want Raine or Brody to know that we talked, okay?”
“I hate the thought of lying to Brody,” I tell him.
“Yeah, well, I’m sure you’ll be able to deal with it.” His tone is harsh. “I’ll call you tonight,” he says. “Go ahead and keep walking. I’ll wait a few minutes until you’re gone, and then I’ll go, okay?”
I nod and turn, starting to walk back toward the sidewalk.
“Natalia?” he calls after me.
“Yeah?” I say, turning around.
“I still want to kiss you really bad.”
I turn back around before he can see the grin on my face.
Chapter Four
Campbell
After seeing Natalia, I head back to school and get dressed for practice. As usual, seeing her has me all revved up, like I just took ten caffeine pills. I keep picturing her face, the way she smiled at me right as we were leaving each other.
I feel like I could run all day and night the way I feel.
Because of all this extra energy, I’m finally having a good practice, and even Coach has to admit it.
“Looking good, Elliot,” he calls from the sideline after I strip the ball from Lancaster on the five-yard line at the end of our team scrimmage.
Lancaster shakes his head and rips off his chinstrap. “That was helmet to helmet, dude,” he says, moving towards me.
“Head to head?” I laugh. “More like you’ve got your head in your ass.”
“What the fuck did you say?” He shoves me and I shove him back.
“Maybe from now on, at lunch, you’ll keep your little comments about my performance to yourself, dude,” I say, turning around and walking away from him.
I look at Coach and he’s grinning from ear to ear. They like to see us all riled up before a big game. And I have to admit, I kind of like it, too. Ultimately, it’s pretty harmless, and it’s been a long time—since before Raine’s party—since I felt this strong and energized.
Brody gives me a pound as I come off the field.
He’s holding his helmet by the facemask, his hair is all mussed and he’s sweating.
I wish Natalia could see this smelly, stinky idiot that she thinks is such a cool guy. “You trying to wind Lancaster up or what?” he chuckles.
“Nah. He just has a big mouth and sometimes he needs to be taken down a peg or two.”
“Sure, I hear that.” He spits.
Charming.
“So…how are things going with you and Natalia?” I ask him. “You two seem pretty close lately.”
Brody looks at me as if trying to figure out what I’m after. “I don’t know. She’s a really cool chick. We’re just…you know…hanging out. Seeing where it goes.”
“And what about how you called her a skank and told me not to see her?”
“What is this? A fucking interrogation, Elliot?”
“Just doesn’t make sense now that you’re like Jack and Jill, close as two peas in a pod.”
“Hey, everyone makes mistakes. Turns out I was wrong about her.”
“Oh.” I nod my head. Smile. “Cool. Well, I’m happy for you then.”
“Cam, I thought we squashed that whole thing already.”
“We did. We did. I was just making conversation. No worries.”
His brow is wrinkled. “Look, I hope you would never tell her I said that stuff.
She’s a nice girl. I don’t want to hurt her.”
“And I’m a nice guy. So don’t sweat it.”
***
When I get home, I can barely sit still.
I take a shower, change, listen to some music in my room. I pull out Raine’s necklace and examine it under my desk lamp. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Even after sitting under the heat from the 125 watt bulb it feels cool in my hands.
Maybe Aiden would know what it’s made out of. He’s a smart kid.
I go to my window and look outside. From the right angle I can see his driveway.
When we were kids we used to do hand signals to communicate from far away.
He’d stand at the edge of his driveway and ask me to come out and play by doing a series of ridiculous movements.
Like our secret code.
Picturing that makes me break into a smile.
Until I see the car in his driveway. It’s a silver Cabriolet. I’d recognize it anywhere. Becca’s car.
“What the hell is she doing?” I say out loud. Great. Now I’m talking to myself like a crazy person.
I throw on my varsity jacket and sneakers and walk the short distance to Aiden’s house. I’m pretty sure it’s not the smartest move to just show up like this, but I have to make sure he’s okay.
I walk up the front steps and ring the doorbell. It’s one of those annoying kinds that plays a whole song when you press it. I should have just knocked.
After a couple of minutes Aiden answers the door. He looks kind of drunk, smiling, his eyes half-lidded. “Yo, Cam!” He turns. “Hey, it’s Campbell!”
“Oh?” I hear Becca’s distinctive, bitchy voice pipe up from nearby. But I can’t see her.
Aiden turns back to me. His voice lowers. “I’m kind of in the middle of something…” He winks, but it looks more like both eyes squinting.
“That’s cool. I’ll just be a minute.” I elbow in past him. Something’s rotten about this whole scenario.
I mean, come on. Becca coming to Aiden’s house for a visit? She wouldn’t normally be caught dead within five feet of the kid.
As I come inside, I spot her standing on the stairs that lead to the basement. She’s wearing a total hoochie mamma outfit. Skirt, boots, and a tank top that shows plenty of boobage. Her blond hair is all done up and I can smell the perfume from a mile away.
She might as well have written “I’M UP FOR IT” on her forehead in bright red letters.
“Hi Cam,” she says, all giggling. “Fancy seeing you here.”
“Well, I’m Aiden’s friend so I come by all the time. What’s your reason?”
She shrugs. “Aiden needed a ride home.”
“And what about the little outfit change?” I ask.
Aiden starts down the stairs to the basement, talking as he goes. “Yeah, that’s a funny story. When she dropped me off, she noticed my folks weren’t home so Becca asked to come in. One thing led to another and we broke into the liquor cabinet.” He laughs and so does Becca.
“I got a wee bit tipsy,” she says, “And I told Aiden I wanted to do a fashion show for him. It’s a little embarrassing.”
I go downstairs to the rec room where there’s a pool table, flat screen TV and video game system. It’s a nice hangout spot. There’s a bunch of booze on the table and her purse and a couple plastic bags are nearby.
“You always carry around so many changes of clothes?” I say, surveying the room.
“You know girls,” she says. “We love to try on new outfits.”
Music is playing softly through the surround sound speakers.
“Looks like you kids were having a blast,” I say.
Aiden laughs. He stumbles and finally falls onto the couch, laughing some more.
“Whoa, I am drunkety drunk drunk.”
“You’ll sober up in a few.” Becca starts gathering her stuff.
“What? You leaving already?” he says.
She steals a glance at me. “Yeah. It’s getting late and I don’t want to get you in any trouble.”
“No, I’m sure you don’t,” I say.
She smiles. “It was good seeing you Cam. I’ll tell Raine—“
“—that I said hi. Definitely.” I flash her a fake smile back and she gets a weird look on her face.
I should be acting nicer but it pisses me off that she’s here, messing with Aiden.
He’s too good for her. For any of them. And I know she doesn’t care about him at all.
In fact, she’s probably just scrounging for info about me.
“Bye, Aiden,” she says and blows him a kiss.
He catches it while lying on the couch. “Bye Bec-Bec!” He shouts as the door slams closed.
A moment later we hear the car engine start and then she’s gone.
I fold my arms and look at him. He’s grinning broadly and a little dribble of saliva is trickling down his chin. “Dude, what the hell is going on?”
He sits up, but he doesn’t look too steady. “What do you mean?”
“What the hell did she do to you?”
He shrugs. “Why did you make her leave, Cam? I was about to…”
“What? You think you can get a girl like that?”
His smile fades. “Why not?”
I walk closer and sit down next to him on the couch. He smells of alcohol and perfume and…something else. Like dirt or moldy fruit or something.
“Aiden, listen to me. Listen.” I put my hand on his shoulder and he pulls away.
“I don’t need a lecture right now. You went and screwed it all up. I was about to—”
“You think she was going to bang you?”
He looks at me with unfocused eyes, his brown pupils as big and round as buttons on a suit jacket. “She kissed me. Tongue and everything. Let me grab her boobs. She even touched my Jack Johnson if you want the whole truth.”
The look on my face must say it all. “And why do you think that happened? You think it’s coincidence, Aid?”
He snorts. “No, I think maybe for once a girl noticed that I’m actually a pretty cool guy. I’m funny. I’m smart. I’m not totally hideous.”
“She said all that?”
“Maybe. So what?”
“So, has that girl ever so much as looked in your direction before today?”
“You’re just jealous, Cam.” His face looks pale and waxy. I’ve seen that look before, I think—on myself. In the mirror, the day after Raine’s party. Like someone had sucked all the life out of me.
“Jealous. Okay…I’m jealous…of…”
He stands up. “You like me being some loser, some scrub that sits around and waits for you to be ready to hang out. If I get a girlfriend and a life, where would that leave you? You need my life to be shitty so that you always have me on-call for when you’re bored or have nothing better to do.”
“That’s total bullshit,” I say, but I have to admit, the comment stings. I wonder if maybe he’s right. Do I use Aiden for when I have nothing better to do, as so
meone to make me feel better about myself?
“It’s not bullshit,” he says. “What’s bullshit is that you always find a way to make me feel worse about myself. Finally a cute girl takes an interest and you have to come over and ruin everything.”
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