by Amy Reece
“This Christmas? No, I have to stay here. I can’t be gone for Christmas. Mom? Grams? I don’t want to go.” I could feel the pressure of tears building behind my eyes. A trip to Ireland might sound like a dream vacation to some, but it sounded miserable to me. It sounded like Christmas without my family. And what about Jack? This would be my first Christmas with him. On the way home from the mountains we had talked about our plans for the break. Plans that included shopping with Megan, taking her to visit Santa at the mall, baking cookies, watching old Christmas movies. Things that couldn’t happen if I was in Ireland! Well, they could happen, and probably would happen. Just without me.
Mom came and put her arms around me. “Sweetheart, I know. I don’t want you to go, either. But Grams and I have talked, and we think this is important. You’re going through some things that are very…concerning. I worry that waiting until spring break or summer could be a mistake.” I started crying in earnest. Jeez, I have never cried so much in my entire life as I have these last few weeks.
“Ally, I know this is a shock, but this is an opportunity to find out what’s happening to you, to find out what this means,” Cassie added to her argument.
“What do you mean, ‘find out what this means’? Why should it mean anything?” I wanted to know.
Cassie replied, “Well, what it means for your life, for your future. Ally, there is a path for you to follow and the Council can help you discover it. Your power is important and we need to discover its full extent. You are at a crucial point in your life. Right now you’re on the path of the Seeker, but your powers are developing so rapidly. Soon you will have to make choice. Will you take your place in the realm of the Seers?” She didn’t quite meet my eyes and I realized she was holding back. There were obviously still some secrets she was unwilling to share. I felt a certain sense of resentment at this. Who was she to come in here, after nearly a month of complete silence, and start messing with my life? But with both my mother and grandmother standing with her, I didn’t have a chance and I knew it. I was going to be spending Christmas in Ireland. Shit.
***
I didn’t want to talk about this wreck of a situation to Jack over the phone or by text, so I waited until Saturday night, in the middle of our date, to break the news. Not my best idea.
“So, when do you leave?” he asked as we waited for our appetizer.
“Our flight leaves early Saturday morning, right after school lets out for the break. Jack, we had so many plans for Christmas! I don’t want to go,” I said grumpily.
“Well, look at it this way: you get a free trip to Ireland. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I think it’s a great thing.” He didn’t seem nearly as upset as I had expected.
“But what about all the plans we made? Don’t you care?”
“Well, sure. Of course I care. I will miss you like crazy. But it’s not the end of the world, querida.” He took my hand that was lying on the table. “It’ll be okay.”
Now, I’m not especially proud of the next few minutes and would actually prefer to skip the play-by-play, but in the interest of giving an accurate account I will go ahead and tell what happened. Could we agree that all the crazy emotions of the last couple weeks, combined with some newly active hormones, conspired to make me completely flip out?
“Well, maybe it’s no big deal for me, either. Fine. I think I’d like to go home now, Jack. Can you take me home, please?”
“Now? But…we just started our dinner,” he sputtered.
“I really don’t freaking care about dinner!” Only I didn’t say freaking. And then I stormed out. Yeah…not my best moment. I was standing outside the restaurant, freezing because of course I forgot my coat in the midst of my dramatic exit, and letting the tears run down my face. I was so angry! And yeah, I was totally feeling sorry for myself: poor little me, who has to have stupid visions about someone she doesn’t even like, who has to go to Ireland over the holidays instead of spending them with my family and my seriously hot boyfriend. Boohoo. Talk about your first-world problems! Within about two minutes I went from angry and feeling sorry for myself to abject shame and embarrassment. Did I really storm out of a restaurant like some drippy diva in a bad romance novel? Was I really that big a brat? It would serve me right if Jack left me there. Jeez, I didn’t even bring my cellphone. I would have to crawl back into the restaurant and retrieve my things in order to get home. So, I should probably leave the drama to professional actors and slither back in and apologize to Jack.
I was working up the chutzpah to go back inside when I felt warmth from behind as Jack draped his jacket around my shoulders, followed by his arms folding me in close.
“You’re going to freeze to death out here. You stormed out without your coat,” he whispered against my hair. Ouch. But I deserved it.
“I’m sorry. This whole thing has turned me into a crazy, weepy bitch. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I used to be a fairly normal, even-tempered kind of girl.”
He turned me around to fold me deeper into his warmth. “You are not crazy nor are you a bitch. I’m going to let you have weepy, for now.” I chuckled slightly against his chest. “Hey, I’ve got a crazy idea. Why don’t we go inside and finish eating? It’s cold out here.” I nodded, sniffing, and he lifted my head to kiss me quickly. “Mmmm. Salty, cold lips. Come on.” He took my hand and led me back inside. The waitress was tactful, not mentioning our absence nor my wrecked face. I have mentioned before that redheads are not pretty criers—and the evidence doesn’t disappear right away. I hoped Jack would leave her a good tip.
Later that night, as we sat in my driveway, cuddling in the warmth of his front seat, he looked into my eyes and said, “Listen, just because I act calm on the outside doesn’t mean I’m not seriously bummed about you not being here for Christmas. It’s totally going to suck without you here. I might be forced to hang out with Mat. While you’re enjoying the sights and sounds of a Christmas in Ireland, I’ll be working double shifts at the garage to keep from going crazy.”
“There,” I said, kissing him on the jaw. “That’s the kind of stuff I need to hear. I need to know that you are sharing my misery.”
***
Getting back to school after the short break was brutal. Thanksgiving was so late this year that we only had three weeks before we would be out again for Christmas or Winter Holidays, as the public school system calls them. I was still upset about the whole Ireland thing, but I was trying to be mature about it. I also thought more and more about trying to block the visions; maybe I could call off the whole trip if I wasn’t having visions anymore. Illogical, but it made sense to me at the time.
When I saw Veronica in fourth period physics, I was shocked at the deterioration in her appearance. She had dark circles under her eyes, and her skin had a sallow, dull appearance. When she sat down at the lab table next to me, I could see that her nails were bitten to the quick. I couldn’t help staring. “Holy shit,” murmured Jack as he sat down and noticed where I was looking. “She looks nearly as bad as she did at the party.”
“Jack, I don’t know what to do. I feel so useless. I’m supposed to help her, but I don’t have a clue how!” There was little time to talk during the rest of class because Mr. Chiszowski was introducing us to our final project of the semester in which we were given some skid marks from an automobile and had to be crime scene investigators, figuring out the velocity and acceleration of the car. I normally would have been into a project like that, but I had a difficult time concentrating with Veronica sitting so close by, looking so miserable. Jack was ultra-patient with me, gently taking the tape measure from my hands when I took the wrong measurement three times in a row.
“Querida, let me do it.”
“Sorry,” I muttered. “I’m having a hard time concentrating right now.”
“I know. It’s fine. We’ll figure this out, I promise.” He gently squeezed my hand as he took the tape measure.
I was also distracted by my hopefully subtl
e attempts to spy on Mr. Chiszowski. By about halfway through the period I had decided that my first instincts had been correct: there was no way that the guy who was hurting Veronica was Mr. Chiszowski. He was too old and his arms looked nothing like the arms I had seen in the vision. Those had been young, muscular, and darker than those of my physics teacher. That left Nicholas Grayson as my only suspect. I was feeling hopeless and ridiculous about this whole investigation idea.
I looked back at Veronica huddled miserably on her stool and gripped Jack’s hand tightly as I suddenly felt myself being pulled into another vision.
“Ally?” I heard him say, although it sounded like it was coming from a distance instead of right next to me. Hearing his voice made me remember that I wanted to fight, to block these visions.
Veronica was walking down a hallway that somehow seemed familiar to me…
I fought to hold my concentration in the present, here in this classroom, not walking down that hallway with Veronica.
She approached a door, looking back over her shoulder…
With a slam of my palm on the lab table, I wrenched myself fully out of the vision and sat, breathing hard. Jack, still gripping my other hand, stared at me with questions in his eyes.
“Is everything all right over here, Mr. Ruiz?” It was Mr. Chiszowski coming to check on us, drawn by the noise, no doubt.
I slipped my hand out of Jack’s and shook my head slightly at him.
“Um, fine, sir. I dropped something. Sorry,” he said.
Mr. Chiszowski wandered away and the rest of the class turned back to their own labs.
“What was that about?” Jack whispered.
I looked around to make sure no one was paying attention, leaned close to him, and whispered back, “I just blocked a vision.”
***
I soon found out why Veronica was looking so wretched. When we got to the cafeteria, she was sitting by herself at a table in the corner, while all her supposed BFFs, including her boyfriend, Danny, were at their regular table, heads together, whispering. Have I mentioned how much high school sucks?
Tara sat down, tray in hand, saying, “Well, it’s all over school that Veronica cheated on Danny and has someone else’s bun in her oven.”
“How did everyone find out? How did he find out?” I asked.
“Apparently Veronica refused to talk about it with her parents, so her dad went to Danny’s house and confronted him. Well, Danny was shocked because apparently they’ve never done the deed. I heard that her dad punched him and his parents are thinking about pressing charges. And Veronica still refuses to say who the father is. This sounds like a friggin’ soap opera!”
“Oh, my God. This is such a mess. Why won’t she admit who got her pregnant?” I was shaking my head at how far the situation had deteriorated.
“You know,” Jack spoke up, “it really seems like Veronica is terrified to say who the father is. That tells me that she has something to fear from him, whoever he is, like he has some hold over her. He may be more than simply a violent asshole who beats women and rapes them. What if he’s still threatening her in some way?”
“I need to talk to her.” I got up to go over to her table, but Jack held me back.
“Ally, this is getting beyond you. You could be in danger.”
“Well,” I said, determined, “that’s too bad. Don’t worry, nothing is going to happen to me at school.” I leaned down to kiss him quickly. “I’ll be careful.” I was having very mixed feelings about having successfully blocked the vision during physics. What if it had been something important that would have helped figure things out? Was my comfort more important than Veronica’s life? I didn’t like the guilt I was feeling and figured I better do something, anything to help her. She was leaving the cafeteria, throwing what looked like her untouched lunch in the garbage as I caught up with her. “Veronica, wait.” She ignored me and walked out of the cafeteria. She was quick on her feet, I have to give her that. I finally tracked her down in the girl’s bathroom in a side hall. She was leaning against the sink, sniffling, when I came in.
“Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”
“You have to talk to somebody, Veronica. You look like shit. I’ve heard the rumors, so I know you have to be going through hell.”
“I don’t know why I don’t get rid of it.” She began crying. “Danny dumped me, called me a slut. After everything I did for him.”
“What did you do for him? I mean, you said you didn’t sleep with him.” I winced as I said it, realizing how tactless it was.
“Forget it. If you really want to help, find out where I can get a free abortion. Do they have those? My parents refused to pay unless I tell them who knocked me up. Danny refuses to pay. Why should he? It’s not his kid.”
“Is that what you want, Veronica? To have an abortion? I get the feeling that you don’t really want that.” If she really wanted to take that option, wouldn’t she have done it already?
She started crying harder. “I don’t want one. I don’t believe in it. I really don’t. I was planning to give it up for adoption, but I don’t know if I can do it. I never thought everyone would turn on me. They’re all such fucking hypocrites!” she exclaimed. “Did you know that Tracy Peña, on the squad, had an abortion last year? I stood by her. I didn’t judge her. Why am I being judged like this? I hate them!”
I walked over and put my arms around her and let her cry. “I’m sorry, Veronica. I don’t know what to say.” She seemed at a breaking point, so I didn’t push for any more information.
Later that night, as I lay in bed, I thought about what she was going through. What would it be like to have that kind of stress? I mean, my life was no picnic right now, what with the visions and the upcoming trip I didn’t want to take, but at least I had a supportive family. I knew, absolutely knew and would bet the farm on it, that Mom and Grams would never treat me like Veronica’s parents were treating her. If I ever found myself in that kind of situation, they would be there for me. And although I haven’t known him all that long, I knew in my heart that Jack would never do what Danny had done. Maybe it was because of all the crap he had gone through after losing his mother, or maybe because he felt such a responsibility to help raise Megan, but his character was so much stronger than any of the other high school age guys I knew. I was so incredibly—I don’t know…lucky…blessed—to have such good people in my life. I was also still feeling plenty of guilt over having blocked what could have been an important vision. On one hand, I was proud of myself for being able to control what was happening in my mind, but at what cost had I done it? Was there any way to see the visions without completely freaking out?
I fell asleep with renewed determination to find a way to help Veronica.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“The more I see, the less I know for sure.”
–John Lennon
I arrived at cheerleading practice the next afternoon and was greeted with the buzz that Veronica had officially been kicked off the team. I thought this was completely unfair! She really cared about cheerleading, and yet she was kicked off the team because she got pregnant. Nobody but me seemed to know she had been raped. Why didn’t she tell anyone? What was she so afraid of? Was Jack right? Was she in danger somehow? Was she being threatened or blackmailed in some way? I had thought that maybe her stepdad was her rapist, but now I wasn’t sure. She had spoken about her parents being so mad at her and not letting her out of their sight and I had been there at the hospital and seen her interactions with him. He might be kind of a jerk, but she didn’t act like she was afraid of him or anything. I had also tried to watch Veronica and Nick Grayson, but as far as I could tell, there was absolutely no interaction between them. So, following up on the Nicks had been a dead end, apparently.
Coach informed us that rather than having tryouts yet again, they would promote one of the junior varsity cheerleaders. As we were beginning our stretching and warm ups, I overheard a couple of the girls talking abou
t how Veronica was in the locker room right now, cleaning out her locker and turning in her uniform pieces. I really needed to talk with her, or try to talk some sense into her, so I told Coach that I was having ‘feminine trouble’ and needed to get some things out of my locker. Here’s a hint: if you ever need to get out of class or P.E. or pretty much anything, all you have to do is mention that you are having some sort of woman problem. Nobody questions this. Guy teachers stammer and look in any direction but yours, and female teachers know better than to question the vagaries and viciousness of Mother Nature.
I found her sitting on the bench listlessly in front of her open locker. I went and sat beside her silently.
“I’ve spent almost every day after school here, in this locker room and in the gym or on the field. It’s been such a huge part of my life. What do I do now? I was counting on a cheerleading scholarship to college. I don’t have anything else. I’m just a cheerleader. I love it.
“Veronica, why don’t you tell people what happened? Tell them that this isn’t your fault,” I implored.
She stared at me. “How…what do you know? Who told you? Nobody else knows except—” She stood up. “You can’t tell anyone! Please, Ally! Swear you won’t tell anyone!” She was shaking me by the upper arms.
“Veronica! I don’t know anything! All I know is that this isn’t your fault! Who’s hurting you? Who are you scared of? Tell me! I can help!”
She dropped my arms. “No one can help. It’s too late. Please leave me alone, Ally.” She turned and left without another word.
Damn it! That went very, very badly. I went back to practice, but my heart wasn’t in it. Luckily, Coach thought I was having cramps.