Aven's Dream

by Alessa James

  In desperate need of a distraction, I got up and changed into a pair of sweats, spending the remainder of the morning doing laundry and then scrubbing the bathroom. With the music turned up, it was easy enough to keep my mind occupied. Darcy lay with his head resting between his paws at the edge of the bathroom and watched. As I contemplated bleaching the toilet and scorching my olfactory nerves, my phone rang, forcing me to strip off the plastic gloves I was wearing and dash into my room, my sweats wet and gross.

  “This had better be good, Sean,” I snapped into the phone, my tone a little harsher than I had intended.

  “Ouch. Hello to you, too.”

  “Sorry. Cleaning makes me a little homicidal.”

  “Homicidal when you’re cleaning, homicidal when you’re not eating … Maybe you are homicidal, Casey. Ever thought about that? Remind me to keep sharp objects away from you. Are we still getting together to study?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be ready in a half hour.”

  “All right, just eat something before I get there so I don’t have a mass murderer on my hands,” Sean snickered.

  “Whatever.”

  I had snapped at Sean once when I had been really hungry, and he was never going to let me forget it. As soon as I hung up, I started yanking off my sweats and headed back to the newly cleaned bathroom to take a shower. After letting Darcy into the back yard, I filled up his water, gave him some more food, and went outside to wait for Sean. We were going to go to the coffee shop by the bookstore where Sean worked. It was quiet, and Sean went there all the time during his breaks. Sitting on the porch, I watched as a light rain fell noiselessly onto the concrete sidewalk. Sean pulled up a minute later, and I made a dash for the passenger seat. He didn’t mention the night before, and I relaxed, relieved not to have to mention Scott Adams or Will Kincaid.

  When we got to the coffee shop, Sean found a table while I ordered drinks. Setting his in front of him, I slid onto the bench. It took a second before I noticed he was staring at me expectantly.

  “Well? What happened to you last night?” he demanded. “Were you there when the cops showed up?”

  My pulse spiked. This so wasn’t good.

  “I must have been gone by then,” I said carefully.

  “I had to make a run for it,” Sean continued in an eager rush before I could answer. “It was total freaking chaos. People running everywhere. Wild, huh?”

  I swallowed.

  “Yeah, wild. Did you talk to Allison?” I asked, trying to distract him.

  “Nope. I chickened out.” Sean’s face fell for a second before his expression brightened. “But she looked hot, that’s for sure.”

  “I saw her,” I said stoically.

  I was sure everyone else at the party had seen her, too, and I wondered curiously if my savior had seen Allison Monroe’s perfection yet. She would have been a good match for Will Kincaid, but even Ms. Spray-on Tan looked human compared to him. Besides, what was she going to do—hook up with Jason Everett and Will Kincaid? The thought made me nauseous and surprisingly jealous. I shook my head. I wasn’t even in the same realm as these people.

  “So, who’d you get the ride from?” Sean asked suspiciously.

  As far as Sean knew, he was my only friend with a driver’s license and a car—or more accurately, my only friend in Winters.

  “Someone from History,” I said, stalling for time.

  “Yeah? Who?”

  Sean was frowning and obviously trying to identify the likely candidates—all of them female, I was sure.

  “You have to promise not to freak out, all right? It wasn’t a big deal.”

  “Aven, come on. You’re driving me nuts.”

  “I thought it was just girls who are supposed to be pushy and nosy,” I muttered.

  “Low blow. Come on. Just tell me. I promise I won’t care.”

  “Will Kincaid,” I said, cringing as the name rolled across my tongue.

  He stared at me blankly for a second before erupting into laughter.

  “Wha—what? The new guy? The one who started school like two days ago? The same guy all the girls are talking about? Are you sure you didn’t knock your head on something?”

  “Nice, Sean. Thanks for the vote of confidence. You promised not to freak out,” I said, my tone acerbic.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. But, come on. You’ve never met the guy, and you got a ride home from him? He could be an axe murderer for all you know.”

  The concern in Sean’s voice made me smile.

  “I just really wanted to get out of there, and I couldn’t find you. Plus, he offered.” It was the truth. Part of it anyway. “Besides, it’s not like he’s a total stranger. We have a class together.”

  I winced at my own faulty logic. I had that same class with Scott Adams, who was obviously not harmless. My stomach dropped as I recalled the look on Scott’s face just before Will had appeared—predatory. A wannabe date rapist. Or party rapist, in last night’s case. I never in a million years would agree to a date with someone like that jock asshole.

  Still, before last night I had never thought about the possibility that someone I went to school with was a monster. I curled my legs up on the bench seat, not wanting to think of what might have happened if Will hadn’t arrived when he did last night. I shivered. I had read stories online about girls having their accounts hacked and being blamed and humiliated because someone had raped them. It made me angry and sad.

  “Well, you missed the real action anyway,” Sean said.

  His eyes gleamed as he waited for me to take the bait.

  “What?” I rolled my eyes as he drew out the suspense. “Sean, come on.”

  “You won’t believe it. I found out afterward that the cops went upstairs and found Scott Adams and two other gorillas in one of the back bedrooms, all of them totally wrecked from a fight. They’re big dudes, too,” he said in a low voice. “Adams had a concussion, broken arm, and two cracked ribs. At least. They had to call the paramedics when they busted up the party, according to this kid whose mom works the night shift at the hospital. Unreal, huh?”

  I gripped the bench, unable to speak. That couldn’t have been from Will. Could it? I had never actually seen Will move. One second Scott was ready to push Will off the balcony; the next all three were crumpled on the other side of the room.

  “Hey, are you all right?” Sean asked when I continued to stare into nothing.

  “Sure, yeah. That’s crazy.”

  “I guess it’s a good thing you took off when you did,” Sean said.

  Nodding, I pulled out my History textbook and started to review the study questions. My thoughts were spinning out of control. I tried to make sense of the events from the night before, but I couldn’t. Any memories I could recall were insane. Impossible.

  But things could have been a lot worse. Will Kincaid could have not shown up last night.

  When I got to school Monday morning, everyone was talking about the party—and Scott’s absence from school. Knowing that I was the last person to see my would-be attacker upright Saturday night made me edgy, and I had to wonder if people had seen me with him. Not that anyone in their right mind would ever think I had anything to do with flattening three huge guys. In Health Sciences, I heard that Scott was going to miss football season—a tragedy, as far as most of the school was concerned.

  I couldn’t have cared less. I was more interested in seeing Will again. But to my increasing frustration, he seemed to have vanished from school as mysteriously as he had arrived. I scanned the parking lot in the morning without success. No startling black motorcycles. When I passed by Sean in fourth period, he leaned over and nudged me meaningfully. Noticeably absent was Scott. And Will. My heart sank. Who missed class their first week in a new school? If it hadn’t been for Scott’s conspicuous absence, I might have gone back to wondering if Will had been some kind of strange, beautiful hallucination.

  History passed by slowly, but I didn’t want it to end. I continued to
hope—stupidly—that Will would show up and say something that would make me feel less insane. During the last five minutes of class, Mr. Anderson announced that we would be partnering for the term papers. Group work. I despised group work—one big headache. I sank lower in my seat, watching as he paired students according to where they sat. I glanced behind me at the empty seat. When he reached my empty row, Mr. Anderson consulted his roll sheet and frowned. Putting Kincaid behind Casey had clearly messed up his obsession with alphabetical seating.

  “Aven, you’re with the new guy. You can let him know tomorrow, if he shows up,” Mr. Anderson said, moving down the row.

  My cheeks started to burn as I heard a chorus of female voices behind me grumbling. Well, that’s great, I thought. One more reason for Allison Monroe and her minions to hate me. After History, I avoided Sean and went straight to my locker. It was too much to hope for that he wouldn’t make a comment about my pairing with Will. If he knew the whole story, I was fairly certain Sean’s head would explode, right before he ran off to tell the rest of the school. I contemplated where I could escape to on foot for lunch.

  I needed time to think. So far my encounters with Will Kincaid had been bizarre to say the least. Was he some kind of spooky guardian angel? Random do-gooder? Boy scout? Stalker? And realistically, what were the chances of someone like him noticing me except by accident? Whatever the reason, I was beginning to think that running into him in the park and then his arrival at the party had been a cruel joke by the universe. I thought about the feeling of riding on the back of his motorcycle, the feeling of his arm around my waist as I closed my eyes, the heat I felt when he looked down at me with his startlingly deep blue eyes. Shivering, I quickly decided that these were not good thoughts to dwell on if I wanted to retain my sanity.

  “You’ve gotta stop doing that, Aven,” Sean said, waving his hand in front of me.

  I had been leaning against my locker, completely unaware of Sean’s approach. I smiled weakly.

  “What?”

  “You know. Zoning. It’s creeping me out.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “I was just thinking.”

  “About your boyfriend?”

  “Sean! I’m seriously going to deck you the next time you say that.”

  My cheeks flushed in embarrassment, and I advanced on him with a binder I had been holding in front of my chest.

  “Easy, Casey. It was a joke. Funny. Ha, ha. No need to get all psychotic on me. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you that shade of red before. It matches your hair.”

  I blew out the breath I had been holding and realized that Will Kincaid’s jacket was in the locker behind me. I had brought it to school with the intention of returning it, and now I had no idea what to do with it. Sean would have a field day with that particular detail, and I was desperate to avoid further questioning.

  The rest of the week passed by at an excruciatingly slow rate. Finally, desperate for a distraction, I even let Sean convince me to have lunch in the cafeteria with Matt and Jeff. What a mistake. The minute I sat down across from Jeff, it felt like I was in one of those awful scenes out of the movies where the music screeches to a halt and everyone stares. Jeff just stopped talking midsentence the minute I joined them. I didn’t think he meant it in a mean way, but his silences always made me uncomfortable. I had asked Sean about it after I first met Jeff, but he had just shrugged.

  “Hey,” I said quietly.

  Matt grinned at me.

  “So what happened to you the other night?”

  I saw Sean beginning to open his mouth, and I quickly kicked him under the table. He frowned, but didn’t say anything. The last thing I needed was for him to bring up Will Kincaid, like I was some kind of delusional nutcase who made up stories about getting rides from hot strangers who disappeared the next day.

  “I left early,” I shrugged.

  “Saw you talking to Jason. What’d he want?” Matt pressed.

  I assumed he meant what was Jason Everett doing talking to the invisible girl, and I had no idea, either.

  “I just asked him where the bathroom was. That house was huge,” I said lightly.

  I glanced over at Jeff. He looked utterly miserable. I mentally reviewed my few interactions with him trying to determine if I had done something to piss him off. I couldn’t think of anything.

  “Hey, Jeff? How’d your soccer game go yesterday?” I asked with a smile.

  He sat up and began relating details from the game. Relieved, I smiled and nodded encouragingly, hoping he wouldn’t ask me any questions that would expose my utter lack of knowledge about team sports.

  For the remainder of the week, I alternated lunch periods between the cafeteria with Sean and his friends and eating alone at the stairs. I almost preferred the stairs since I didn’t have to worry about coming up with questions about soccer or the pounding in my head. Every morning without fail, I scanned the parking lot in hopes of finding a black motorcycle, and each time I entered fourth period, I held my breath. But Will Kincaid never appeared.

  When I thought about it, it was just my luck that he wasn’t coming back. Sean even stopped teasing. We had our exam on the second unit. I had studied like crazy, so I was expecting a good score. When I heard Allison Monroe complaining bitterly about the curve on the last test, I sank lower in my seat.

  On Friday Mr. Anderson stopped by my desk to tell me that I could have an extension on the outline for the paper since, with Will absent, I had no partner. I perked up when he muttered something about Will having some type of family emergency on the East Coast. That meant he was coming back, right? It bothered me that I was clinging to such a small glimmer of hope, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted answers. But more than that, I wanted to see him again. Why I wanted to see him was what I couldn’t figure out. Maybe so I would stop feeling insane?

  During my free period, I was grappling with a problem from Mrs. Kluman’s class when I looked up and caught the girl next to me staring. She looked away as soon as our eyes met, her brow furrowed like she was debating something. When she cleared her throat, I turned and smiled. I could almost feel the nervous tension coming off of her in waves.

  “You’re friends with Sean Murray, right?” she asked, biting her lip.

  “Yeah.”

  She straightened up.

  “I’m Lizzie.”

  I extended my hand across the aisle.

  “I’m Aven. Hey, do we have Health Sciences together?”

  “Second period? You just moved here at the beginning of the year, right?”

  I nodded.

  “Where from?”

  “Southern California.”

  “What part? I’m going down to San Diego to visit my aunt and uncle over winter break.”

  “Just outside of Laguna Beach,” I said, cringing when her eyes widened. “Irvine, actually.”

  “Wow, really? Isn’t everyone, like, loaded?”

  “Not everyone.”

  Definitely not us. That was part of the reason we moved. My dad hadn’t been able to keep up with the bills on one income in Southern California.

  “My dad took a teaching job at the university.”

  “Too bad for you. I love the beach,” she sighed wistfully. “Is it really like the TV shows?”

  “Definitely not for me.”

  “Oh.” She sounded disappointed. “So what do you think of Mr. Morgan?”

  “It kind of seems like he’s having a hard time staying awake in class.”

  Lizzie laughed.

  “Right?”

  “So why’d you want to know about Sean?” I reminded her.

  She blushed.

  “Oh! Seriously?” I asked.

  Not that I was surprised that someone liked Sean, but I was surprised in general. She glanced guiltily in my direction.

  “You guys aren’t going out, are you?”

  I suppressed a laugh.

  “Me and Sean? No way—I mean, we’re friends. He’s the best, though.”
/>
  Lizzie looked relieved, and I realized that I had neglected to mention his obsession with Allison. Then an idea struck me. Lizzie seemed nice, cute—with wavy ash blonde hair and big brown eyes.

  “Sean and I usually head over to Ford’s at least once a week. Why don’t you come with?”

  “That’d be great.” She smiled and then paused. “You won’t say anything to him, though?”

  I put my hand over my heart.

  “Not a word.”

  It felt weird playing Cupid, and I had a momentary and utterly self-serving fear about what would happen if the two of them started going out. The last thing I needed was for Sean to disappear next. But I wanted him to be happy. Besides, I couldn’t stand watching him pine over Allison Monroe one second longer.

  The weekend passed by uneventfully, and by Monday morning I abandoned any possibility that Will Kincaid was coming back, reminding myself that I preferred to work alone. In fact, I hated group projects, so I couldn’t figure out why I felt slightly disappointed. Or maybe I did know and just didn’t want to admit it to myself. In fourth period, as I was waiting for the bell to ring, I started writing down notes for my outline.

  “I understand we have a paper to write.”

  I nearly flew from my chair, banging my knee into the metal bar under the desk in the process. Rubbing my knee, I turned and found Will Kincaid sitting in the seat directly behind me, his face relaxed, an inviting smile on his perfect lips. I hadn’t heard him sit down. Flushed, I turned to face the blackboard.

  “You can’t keep doing that,” I whispered.

  The bell rang just as Mr. Anderson finished copying dates on the board and walked to his desk.

  “What’s that?” Will responded at a volume I was sure Mr. Anderson couldn’t hear.

  “Sneaking up on me,” I hissed.