by A. E. Rought
A short breath sucks between his teeth. Alex’s eyes widen, and I get the feeling he’s seeing me on a different level when he stares. His pupils dilate, the left a fraction smaller than the right, like a cat with heterochromia. His eyebrows sink, and scrunch closer together, and his gaze changes, as though he’s looking inside himself for the answers. A fist clenches at his side, then relaxes.
“I wish I knew,” he says, hanging his head in some kind of defeat. “I have to…”
He seems as shocked by that truth as I am.
For a moment he’s the wounded, scraped hollow boy I saw by the car, a sad jack-o’-lantern covered in deer blood and regret. Ghosts past behind his pupils, then his face closes off, and he grunts, “Gonna be late for class,” and stalks off.
I push my hair back with my immobilized right hand, and then stop dead with my hand before my eyes. Yesterday’s deer blood darkens and crusts the ribbing of his sleeve over my cast, exactly the opposite side of the white broken heart on my wrist.
It’s official.
A nightmare beginning to my Thursday is just the start.
Chapter Eleven
If I didn’t know the girl the rumors tore apart throughout my morning, I might find humor in her being: clueless and conniving, a slut and whore (there is a difference), a gold digger and luckiest girl in school, emotionally dead and a cutter.
But, I am that girl.
And I would be dead tired if I were all those things—way too much work.
What would those whispering, gossiping girls think of Alex’s many scars? He’s been cut five ways from Sunday, and I bet they’d find it sexy on him. Have they been close enough to him to feel the electricity in his skin? Something is left of right with Alex, and I don’t care—they’d probably run. Would they have ignored his distress and avoided the filth, the blood and the deer? Would his daddy’s money matter if they knew what a psycho his father is?
Ally Rhodes gives me stink eye the entire third period, and I know it’s not because I’m excused from the basketball tourney due to my broken hand. She’s staked claim to Alex Franks, and the whispers going around the school have slipped like poison into her ear. I’m no longer an inconvenience, I’m now clearly competition.
If she could’ve felt the heat in his gaze this morning, she’d know how much.
I sit on the bleachers close to Mr. Ashford’s usual Base of Operation at the corner closest to the locker rooms. My location keeps the basketballs from becoming ballistic weapons, but does not give me any shelter from the bitchy glares or stage-whispered gossip.
Daniel and I used to sit near here for basketball games, and we always sat together at this end for pep rallies, despite his senior and my sophomore status. Now thoughts of Alex cut into my musing, thin but sharp-edged, slicing under my defenses and into the empty ache. He’s barged his way into my dreams. He feels familiar and foreign to me at the same time.
I choke back a snicker when Ally’s team is cut from the tourney, then suppress a groan when they swarm the bleachers, all long limbs, forked tongues and hard eyes.
When our Drill Sarge blows his whistle, I bolt from the bleachers and hit the lockers. The rest of the girls stream past to the showers. Giggles and hoots and catcalls roll in the steam toward me, and while the joking around tugs at parts of me long gone cold, a bigger part of me wants nothing to do with a nest of vipers slicked up in perfumey soaps. Coiling, waiting to strike, and, lately, I’m the target of choice.
My phone buzzes to life, a short storm in a tea kettle. Buzz, buzz, bing! Buzz, buzz, bing! Two texts. Then my factory standard ring tone follows. Undressed to my underthings, I fling my gym clothes over it to muffle the phone.
Somebody’s persistent.
Glaring at the wad of rumpled jersey cloth, daring the phone to ring again, I horse my way back into my street clothes, including Alex’s hoodie.
“Nice shirt,” Ally says, wrapped in nothing but a white towel.
Averting my focus I say, “Thanks.”
“Nice for the men’s department,” she adds, tossing her wet hair over her shoulder.
Don’t sink to her level, I tell myself. Do. Not. Sink… I can’t fight the words rising like bile in my throat.
“Funny, because I’m sure that’s where it came from.”
Ally stops a locker row away, and turns the feral grin on me.
Score one for Ally.
Jerking my focus from her, I hook my backpack over my immobilizer and shove my things into it. My pretty pink cell phone blinks the Message Waiting light at me. Just one more thing to avoid as I skulk from the locker room.
I should’ve kept my mouth shut. Now Ally will either compound the Alex-and-I-got-naked rumor, or start another one saying my mom shops at Goodwill. Not that where my clothes comes from matters. I’m sick and tired of hearing about myself secondhand.
The Ugly Room door closes on the humid, sweet-sour air, shutting in the confirmation my day is getting worse and not better. Flinty glares come from random angles, and cut passing time between gym and lunch into uncomfortable bits. The trophy cases dissect and reflect the faces, distorting them until a multitude of shining faces leer. Another gauntlet to run.
Huffing a sigh, I tip my head down and aim for the stairs to the catwalk.
My footfalls echo in the empty stairwell, tumbling like lead in the cold air. The punctuated silence balms my fraying nerves. Tension leeches from my muscles, a fraction at a step until I can finally relax my shoulders at the second floor landing. Air whistles around the door to the catwalk, an odd sucking and pushing sensation, identical to how I feel while around Alex and thinking about Daniel.
My heart thumps a sad beat.
And then another.
Wrenching the catwalk door open, I walk a different kind of gauntlet.
Lightning from the thunderstorm washes the floor in shades of blood. Daniel’s echo appears by the support bar where we first met. He’s the Daniel after his fall, trail of red leaking from his skull over his eye. Then a new specter rips to life beside him, a ghost of the Josh that was, all wispy and tones of fire and flesh. His body rotates, pulsing with a dead, dark light. Spinning, smoky limbs whirl around him like flames licking into smoke, but his stationary face is a savage, sharp version of the Josh that is.
“Emergizer bunny,” Daniel croons.
I close my eyes and pound across the carpet for the door into the main building. An itchy kind of fright vines out along my nerves. I push the door and the latch catches. I feel the pressure of Daniel’s death, and Josh’s destructive tendencies. I push my panic against the door keeping me from escape. Please, please, I beg, let me out of here!
I want to get past them.
Please.
The door latch releases with a click and flings me into the hallway. I stumble into a sea of faces, all of them wiped blank in a moment of surprise. Numerous gasps precede tittering and giggles. I’m too relieved at escaping the echoes in the catwalk to care. Give me gossip. Give me narrowed glances and bitchy stage whispers. They’re nothing compared to seeing the love of my life rot before my eyes, and his former best friend turn to a burning shade.
Maybe I should avoid the catwalk, and the ghosts haunting me there.
Maybe I should seek psychiatric help for seeing what isn’t real.
Straightening my backpack, I toss my hair back and am tempted to swipe it from my face with my right hand. The bloody reminder on Alex’s cuff flashes in my memory and I fuss at the fall of blonde over my shoulders with my left hand instead.
Voices and lunchtime din pour up the stairs, thick and scummy with dirty words and residual gossip. I wade through the noise, plunging deeper into the shallow waters that churn Shelley Highs’ rumor mill.
I wonder if Alex has had the same kind of day. Has he basked in it? Is it affecting his rep the way he wants?
Why do I feel like a volleyball being whacked back and forth?
Bodies crowd the side hall, the line frayed and snarled enough to look li
ke I feel. In the lunch line, Bree is a dozen people in front of me. Today, I stalk past the whisperers, the zit-faced freshman and up to my saved spot in line. Bree’s eyes widen, then her eyebrows sink a little, she reaches out and brushes a hand over the fabric stretched over my brace.
“Didn’t get my text?”
“I figured it was your standard, ‘I’m saving you a spot,’” I say.
“Totally was.” She smiles, and winks, flashing her brilliant sparkly blue eyeshadow at me. “So, where’s your boyfriend?”
Immediate thoughts rush to Daniel. He’s gone. So gone it hurts. Then I realize who she means, and frustration washes through me.
“God, Bree. Et tu, Brute?” I quote Shakespeare at her.
She rolls her perfectly-lined eyes and hitches one half of her mouth into a smile.
“You know I don’t speak French.”
“It’s Latin,” I remind her. We had the same English class in tenth grade, we had the same lesson on Cesar and Shakespeare’s version of the fal of his empire.
“Whatever, Em.” She casts glances back the way I came, scanning for someone. Most likely Alex Franks. Between the way he tangles my emotions and the gossip mongers set his name on repeat, I’m fast getting tired of it. When she opens her mouth, I know I’m going to hear it again. “I don’t speak either of those languages. And what does that have to do with Alex Franks looking for you?”
He’s looking for me? Damn my heart for beating quicker.
“Nothing.” I wish I could resist looking back, but I can’t. He’s not anywhere in line.
“Good. Then can we drop the crabby?”
“Sure.” I take the tray she hands back to me.
By the smell suffused in the air, a mix of Mexican Taquería and arm pit, it’s Chili Crispito day and my stomach is already rolling up tighter than a fist. Spicy and half-nauseous don’t go well together. Once inside the food service room, I aim for the soup kettle filled with Chicken and Rice, and grab a handful of cracker packets. Bree and I rendezvous at the drink cart. She takes a milk, I grab a water bottle and we trail past the In Crowd for the Thespian tables.
I run my tray up the back of Bree’s white sweater and nearly dump soup on us both when she stops suddenly. The thin yellow broth slops along the lip of the Styrofoam bowl and splatters the cracker packets.
“What the hell?”
“He’s the hell,” she says, light and surprised, then steps one pace to the left.
At our table, sitting next to Jason Weller, is the Reputation Spin Doctor himself.
Alex smiles under his hood, the only brightness on his face. Dark puddles sag under his eyes. His skin is an off shade of not healthy, like he should be puking or slicking with fever sweat any minute. Maybe Asia Folley’s flu is catching up to him… He slides to one side, making room for us. Bree’s change is subtle, but I see it, her spine straightens, her shoulders roll back, thereby hoisting her chest and making it look fuller. I shrink in Alex’s hoodie, silently cursing myself for the rash decision to wear it.
What was I thinking anyway?
Simple answer? I wasn’t.
Like all those months with Daniel, I acted like what’s his—in this shirt’s case, Alex’s—is mine.
Bree glides into the seat closest to Alex. The hood turns toward her, a swift snap of motion. Jason makes a sound somewhere between surprise, jealousy and warning, making eyes at Bree and then shifting them to tell her not so subtly to move. She chuffs a breath, lifts her shoulders in a slight shrug then slides down a place. I feel like an actor delivering a silent soliloquy, my emotions for a moment unguarded on my face and easily seen by the rest of the table.
Shaking my head, I ease my tray to the table, not the least bit surprised when Alex settles the soup before it spills and then holds a hand out to take my backpack for me. Daniel would’ve done the same. If he were alive.
Bree arches her eyebrows in a significant manner, rocking her glance between me and Alex stashing my backpack between our feet. She says so much by saying nothing. See? He likes you. Yep. I called him your boyfriend first. Told you so… I shake my head at her, eyes wide, telling her to knock it off. Of course with Bree, things don’t get better, they get different. And this time, worse.
“So, Alex,” she says as she opens her milk carton. “I have a couple questions for you.”
“And maybe I have answers,” he says, laughter slipping through his tenor.
“How is it a good looking, well-dressed, wealthy guy like yourself is single?”
A flash of some emotion tears acoss his face so quickly, I can’t decipher it. He drops his eyes, worrys at the edge of his napkin with his fingers. “I had a girlfriend last year.”
“So it’s a seasonal thing?” asks Jason. “Cool! Maybe I should try that…”
“No,” Alex’s hood slips a smidge when he shakes his head. “I mean I had a girlfriend, but when I woke up from surgery I just didn’t feel the same anymore. It’s like, I don’t know…” He rips his napkin in half, “it’s like I saw her with different eyes then, and didn’t like what I saw.”
End of story. Case closed. I can see it in his eyes. Bree wisely moves past it and says, “Okay, now that my curiosity is sated, I have one more question. Have any plans this weekend?”
His face is carefully composed to show nothing inside his hood. “Not sure what you mean.”
“Oh come on. I know you’re a smart guy.” True to Bree’s usual fashion, now she’s buttering him up before whipping out the carving knife and filleting him. “You know… the football game on Friday, and then…”
I want to smile when a flash of recognition flickers in the depth of his hazel eyes, but he maintains the clueless charade. One shrug, an elegant lift of his shoulder.
“The Halloween Ball on Saturday,” she prods.
“Oh… that.” He shakes his cowl. “Nope. No plans.”
“You’re not going to the dance?” She sounds aghast, one hand fluttering to her chest like the drama queen she is.
“Hadn’t planned on it.” He lifts the awful Mexican pizza and takes a bite, chewing, waiting for Bree to respond. She seems flustered and out of verbal ammo—a rare thing for her. “I have a reputation to keep, y’know.”
I can’t help but grin when he turns and winks at me.
Bree doesn’t miss the gesture. And she certainly doesn’t look flustered anymore. My throat cinches tight around a mouthful of dry cracker.
“Speaking of…” She leans back a little, eyes bright and focused. “I’ve heard a lot of chatter about you and Emma lately. You know she’s going to the dance, right? Perfect opportunity to perpetuate the gossip.”
Or stop it completely.
My calf muscle convulses with the sudden desire to kick her under the table. Instead, I sputter and glare daggers at her.
“You never said Emma was going.” He says to Bree, but holds me with a lingering gaze. Damn my heart for trembling. Then he kills the thrill by saying, “Rep perpetuation is good.”
“Oh no, new boy.” I say and hold up my spoon. “Worry about your reputation. Leave mine out of it.” Mine’s taken a nosedive into depths I don’t know if I can plumb to pull it back up.
I expect him to be flip, to tease or toy with me.
Alex turns, fixing me with his shadowed gaze. His raw darkness pulls me in, shuts out the rest of the Thespians, the Crowds, the world. I sit limp in his gaze, the wrongness in him repelling me but the honesty, the sweet open need in his eyes drawing me. My right hand is out of view on my lap, Alex reaches a finger closer, runs it over the Velcro straps cinching the brace closed. His other fingers settle on the immobilizer, his index finger resting where the hollow heart is in my skin.
“It won’t be worth it if you’re not there, Emma.”
Maybe it’s the honesty in his voice. Maybe it’s the way he exposes himself from the inside out.
“Fine.” I blow out a long-suffering sigh. “I’ll go.”
His smile goes all the way to his eye
s, disturbing the dark shadows beneath them. If anything, his skin pales to near grave pallor, and he lifts his hand from my cast to wipe at beads of sweat on his forehead.
“You feeling okay, Alex?”
“Not really,” he says. “I’m feeling kinda tapped out.”
“Low blood sugar? Asia’s flu?”
“No. I’ve been dealing with this since I woke up from the accident.” He scoops up the backpack and deposits it on the seat where his butt was minutes ago. “Can you turn in the report to Mr. LaRue? I think I need to go home.”
“Sure.” The word sounds more hesitant than it should. Worry unfurls in me, a dark, bitter blossom I haven’t tended over a boy in a long time. “You wrote it. The least I can do is turn it in.”
He teeters a little where he stands, all bravado and attitude gone. More color drains from his face, the swatches under his eyes turn almost black.
“Want help to the office?”
“No.” The shake of his head is a weak jerk. “I’ll make it. Just gonna call my dad.”
His dad.
Of course he’d call his dad. The man’s eyes, pinching nearly as tight as his grip on my hand. The brusque way he brushed off my pain. How could he be so loving and dedicated to saving his son?
Guilt roots me to the spot. I should help him. A strong urge burns in me to slip under his arm and walk with him to the office, to be there even if he doesn’t need me. I know he would be there for me. Instead, I stand numb and watch him go, his back straight and head bowed.
“Poor guy,” Bree says. “Got the flu that’s going around.”
It’s not the flu. I’m not sure how I know, other than we have a connection we forged over the dying deer, or that deeper note that trembles in the hollow inside me. What’s left of right in Alex’s hollow is sapping his energy. His naked chest flashes in my mind, all the careful scars shining in the sunlight.
What really happened when his father brought him back?
What price does he have to pay now?