I slid into a seat in the back of Mr. Ramsey’s classroom. Homeroom was only half an hour. I actually wished I had gotten assigned to Ms. Draper. Then I wouldn’t have to worry about socializing.
I knew almost everyone coming into the room. Jennifer, a girl I’d been friendly with my sophomore year, took the seat next to me. “It’s nice to have you back!” she said cheerily.
“Thanks! It’s great to be back. Did you have a good summer?” I started to relax a little as Jennifer told me about her family vacation in Canada. She was really cool and didn’t ask one question about my supposed coma.
The final warning bell sounded which meant that the students had one more minute to get to homeroom; otherwise you had to go to the principal’s office for a tardy. After three tardies it was a mandatory meeting with the principal and your parents.
Just a mere second before the final bell sounded, who should slide into the room but my absolute favorite person. NOT. I stifled a groan as Bunny plopped down in a seat in the front row. She didn’t have another choice; everyone who had gotten to the room early (like me) had chosen a seat in the back.
“You’ve met her?” Jennifer asked, seeing my annoyed expression.
“Unfortunately,” I replied.
Jennifer snorted. “She’s…something all right.”
“Please don’t tell me all the boys are fooled by her? She’s so fake!”
“I’ve found the best thing to do is fight fire with fire. Whenever she starts flirting with my boyfriend, Jack, I act super-duper sweet to her. Like over the top. And Jack just thinks we’re best friends.” She rolled her eyes.
I giggled. “Guys can be really clueless sometimes.”
“Sometimes?” Jennifer raised an eyebrow comically.
I laughed. This wasn’t going so badly. If I could just talk to Jennifer every morning then I could ignore Bunny and homeroom might actually be bearable.
Mr. Ramsey cleared his throat for everyone to be quiet. “Welcome back, students. I hope you all had a wonderful summer vacation.”
There were a few mumbled responses.
“This year,” he continued, “we’ll have assigned seats for homeroom based on alphabetical order of your last name.”
Everyone groaned. So much for getting to sit with Jennifer.
Mr. Ramsey instructed us to get our backpacks and come stand at the front of the classroom. Then he started reading the names from a list and pointing at desks.
By the time he got to the last names beginning with S, he was filling the back of the room. If he called me soon I’d get a prime spot on the last row. This might not be so bad.
No such luck. When Mr. Ramsey read Aurora Stone from his paper, he was pointing to the first seat of the third row. Which was also dead center in front of his desk. Wonderful.
Just when I didn’t think it could get any worse, Mr. Ramsey read the name Bunny Sutter and motioned towards the desk behind mine. For the second time, I stifled a groan.
“Hey doll?” Bunny said with her big fake grin. “You’ll have to tell me your name again? I keep wanting to say Allison but I just know that’s not right?” Bunny giggled.
I remembered what Jennifer had said. Fight fire with fire. “No, worries, doll,” I said in a sugary sweet voice. “My name’s Aurora. And I just have to say your hair looks amazing today.” It didn’t. She was wearing a big poufy bun with strands hanging down. It looked like she was getting ready to go to prom with that hair.
Bunny’s face briefly registered surprise but she didn’t miss a beat. “You just look so cute is that adorable little outfit of yours? Were you going for the boho chic look.”
I just smiled demurely. “Thank you, Bunny. You’re so sweet.” I didn’t even know what the boho chic look was. Then I turned around to face the front of the room. Mr. Ramsey was passing out our schedules, and I couldn’t wait to see mine. This was always the only exciting part of the first day, finding out your teachers, and if your friends (which for me, meant Henry) were in the same classes.
After homeroom ended, I was going to meet Henry so that we could compare schedules. We were taking a lot of the same courses, so hopefully we’d luck out and get them together.
Henry was already sitting on a bench in the courtyard when I got outside. “The moment of truth,” I said nervously. We huddled together, trying to see what classes we shared.
“Okay, we have first period English, then third period Advanced Calculus, then fourth period World History, and finally sixth period Study Hall. And do you see who it’s with?” Henry and I looked at each other and grinned. “Dr. Duncan,” we said in unison.
Dr. Duncan was a complete nut. No one knew if he was a real doctor, but all of the students referred to him as “doc” anyway. He was obviously biding his time for retirement, and he was quite possibly senile. Dr. Duncan would basically let you do anything you wanted to do.
I’d had him for an actual class – geography – a couple of years ago. I don’t know how I got an A because I don’t remember ever doing any work. He would just ‘decide’ that we’d all had a long day and should play board games or have a social hour instead of study geography. I didn’t learn a damn thing, but it was my favorite class, hands down.
“You know what this means?” Henry asked me.
“Yeah, he’s probably going to just let us talk through study hall and leave early, if he even monitors us to begin with.” I grinned. “This is a nice little present for our senior year.”
“Definitely,” Henry agreed. “And I’m stoked we have four out of six classes together. I was hoping for two or three!”
We got up and headed towards our first period class, English. The more I walked around the school and slowly started talking to people I used to know, the less surreal the experience was becoming.
The day dragged, as all first days tend to do. Teachers going over the semester lesson plan, giving us supply lists of things to buy for the class; it was so tedious. By the time Dr. Duncan’s class rolled around, I was mentally drained and ready to go home.
As was my habit, I grabbed a seat in the back. Henry wasn’t there yet. Dr. Duncan wasn’t either. But I saw a stack of board games along one wall and smiled to myself. Some things never change. It was a comforting thought, considering that just about everything in my life was constantly changing.
Students started trickling in, and finally Dr. Duncan, but where was Henry? I pulled my phone out of my purse to check for texts, to see if something had happened and he had to leave school early, but there was nothing. It’s not like him to be late.
The final warning bell rang, signaling one minute to get to class or face a tardy. I looked at the door nervously. Still no sign of Henry.
At least half a minute must have gone by since the warning bell. Where is he?
And then, as the final bell started ringing, Henry came running through the door. He was breathing heavily. Spying me in the back row, Henry made his way over to sit down in the seat next to me that I’d saved for him.
Some teachers might try and count that as a tardy. Technically you’re supposed to be in your seat when the bell rings, not careening through the door. But Dr. Duncan didn’t seem like he was even paying attention. He was wearing headphones and listening to something through the computer on his desk.
“What happened?” I hissed. Henry’s right hand was wrapped in gauze and I could see red soaking through the bandages. “Your hand! Jesus Christ, is it bleeding?”
“Not anymore, but it hurts like hell,” Henry said grimly.
“Did someone attack you?” I demanded.
“More like the other way around,” he replied, not looking me in the eye.
“Henry! You’ve never been in a fight before. What’s gotten into you? And you don’t want to fuck up your hand; aren’t tryouts for basketball soon?”
“It’ll be fine. The nurse overreacted. It’s only a little swollen. It looks worse than it is because she wrapped my hand up like a boxing mitt. ” Henry started to
unravel the layers of gauze, but I reached forward to stop him.
“You’re not a doctor,” I said in what I hoped was a whisper. “Leave the bandages alone.” I felt panicked. How in the world had Henry managed to get in a fight on the first day of our senior year? I don’t think he’d ever been in a fight before in his entire life.
Dr. Duncan seemed oblivious to the fact that sixth period had officially started. He was still listening to his headphones, totally ignoring his students.
“So who did you get in a fight with?” I hissed. “And why?”
“Benji Bloomer,” Henry replied.
“How could you let that creep push your buttons?” Benji Bloomer was this hulking, idiot football player who should have graduated the year before us, but he got held back his sophomore year.
He was eighteen already, and my guess is that the only reason he hadn’t dropped out of school was because he was holding on to a pipe dream of getting a football scholarship for college, playing there one year, then going pro. I personally didn’t think he was good enough to get the scholarship in the first place, much less go pro.
And he really was an ass. Pompous, confident, a new girl on his arm every week. After each of his brief relationships ended, he would go around telling everyone how he had “another notch” on his belt. I couldn’t stand the guy.
“Henry, I’ve never even seen you talk to that jerk before. What happened?”
Henry was still messing with a loose flap on his bandaged hand and wouldn’t look at me. “Benji was being his typical self,” he muttered. “It’s nothing.”
“Please, I’m not stupid. Something happened. Why won’t you tell me?’
Henry finally glanced up. “Because we got in a fight because of you,” he said, then returned his attention to his hand.
“Oh, so Benji was talking shit about me? What’s the big deal? He talks shit about everybody. I tune him out. And normally, so do you,” I said pointedly.
“Well this time he said something that I couldn’t ignore. He was in the hallway talking so loudly that anyone at the other end could have heard him. He said he couldn’t believe you had the nerve to show your face at school, after how you acted right before you died.”
I groaned. “But I was possessed,” I whispered. “It wasn’t me!”
“Yeah, and even if it had been you, that’s awfully rich of Benji to call you out for it. He’s all over his girlfriend of the hour at every party where I’ve ever seen him.”
“That really pissed me off,” Henry continued, “but I told myself to let it go. It wasn’t worth it. I had just passed him and was about to round the corner when I heard him say something that absolutely made my blood boil. I couldn’t help myself. I was seeing red I was so angry. I spun around and charged at him and started pummeling him in the face, over and over, until Mr. Corbin broke us apart.”
“What did he say?” I demanded.
“It makes me infuriated just thinking about it now.” Henry’s face had gone a deep red. I had rarely seen him angry. Usually he was so even tempered.
I placed my hand on his arm. “Calm down,” I whispered. “It can’t be as bad as you think. Just tell me.”
“Benji said that he was so disgusted by ‘the whore’ at the party, that he was glad when he heard you died. That if someone else hadn’t gotten to you first, he was going to give you what you so obviously wanted – from a real man.”
I shuddered. “That’s disgusting…and disturbing. I can see why you got so mad.”
“Believe it or not I hadn’t started hitting him at that point. No, it gets better. He then went on to say that since you woke up from your coma and hadn’t actually died, he might just have to reconsider his original plan to ‘give it to you.’”
I leaned forward, gagging. I couldn’t vomit, but I could apparently still have the physical reaction of heaving. I willed myself to calm down. “That’s just awful! So now I have to live in fear of this rapist creep?”
“Now you see why I attempted to beat the shit out of him,” Henry said grimly.
“Why in the world did they let you come to class? Usually fighting is a straight trip to the principal’s office for a call to your parents, then detention for at least a week!”
“That was the only funny part of the situation.” Henry laughed tersely. “I’ve known Mr. Corbin for years. He wouldn’t even let Benji talk. He basically decided that Benji had attacked me and I was the victim. Benji’s ass got hauled to detention. I doubt they can involve his parents since he’s 18. But I got this wonderful letter that I have to get a parent to sign, explaining the fight.” Henry held up a sealed envelope.
“I’ll sign it,” I said quickly.
Henry smiled for the first time. “You must have read my mind. I was going to ask. I’m sure I can get a sample of my dad’s signature from some legal document in his office. Come home with me after school and we’ll figure it out. He’s already breathing down my neck about college apps, doing more volunteer work, running for class president, blah, blah, blah. I really can’t take hearing an earful about this.”
“Understood,” I said. “It’s the least I can do.”
I had vowed I wouldn’t ask Henry about any other spells, but if Benji was really gross enough to come after me, I might need his help. Maybe he could cast a spell to put Benji in a coma for a year.
It was a horrible thing to suggest, but Benji was a horrible person. I was still wary to start playing with magic, magic that would fuck with people’s lives. But there might not be another choice.
I was already thinking about killing Senara and now I wanted to do bodily harm to Benji. The happy, go-lucky carefree girl I used to be would never have entertained anything like that.
Of course, I knew I had changed since I came back, but I didn’t realize I had lost myself, too.
Chapter 15
The first week of school was uneventful, as usual (except for Henry’s fight with Benji). His hand wasn’t injured that badly and wouldn’t affect basketball tryouts in two weeks. And no one questioned the note I signed as David Matthews.
By the time Friday rolled around, I was starting to feel, well, almost normal. But that wasn’t going to last for long.
I had just slid into my seat for first period English when Henry leaned forward in the desk across from me. “Tonight,” he said.
“Well good morning to you, too,” I replied sarcastically.
“I mean…tonight we do the spell,” Henry clarified his original statement.
“Really?” I hissed. “What if I can’t get everyone together?”
“Just make it happen,” was Henry’s only response.
Ms. Perry started talking so I couldn’t say anything else. The minutes ticked by painfully. This year, we were going to read The Sun Also Rises, Jane Eyre, Animal Farm, blah, blah, blah. I finally tuned out Ms. Perry. I’d figure it out once we got the final syllabus. There were more important things at the moment. If Henry expected for me to get Lucas, Nicholas, and Emmett together in one place he could have given me a little more notice!
I tried to discreetly take my phone out of my purse, which was on the floor next to my desk. There was so much I hadn’t told Lucas. He didn’t even know about my last meeting with Emmett!
I knew Emmett had said our phones were being monitored, but what choice did I have?
Can I come to your apartment after school? I typed the message to Lucas and quickly sent it.
Immediately he responded. Sure. Something up? Need a lift?
Yes, pick me up at 1:30? I’ll tell you when I get there.
“Ms. Stone, care to share with the class what you’re texting?” Ms. Perry eyed me disapprovingly.
“Sorry,” I said innocently. “I was just checking the time.”
“There’s a clock on the wall.” Ms. Perry pursed her lips.
Somehow, I forced myself not to look at the clock for the rest of class. When the bell finally range, Henry turned to me. “Were you texting Lucas about to
night?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I replied. “I have to go over there after school to tell him what’s going on and see if he can get Nicholas to come over for the spell. Do you think it’s safe to do it at his apartment?”
“That’s fine,” Henry said. “I already texted Emmett that we needed him after school, but he hasn’t written back yet.“
I spent the rest of the day thinking about what the evening would bring. It was so awkward with Henry and Lucas together! It would be the first time they had seen each other since Mr. Matthews’ party. Unless you counted him watching Lucas drag me off from Bunny’s party.
Well, at least Henry knew the truth…most of it.
School wasn’t out until 2:30, but I knew that I could ditch Dr. Duncan’s study hall, which is why I had told Lucas to pick me up an hour earlier. Henry was going to sign my name on the roll sheet that Doc passed around each afternoon. Dr. Duncan never checked the names or paid any attention to who was in the classroom.
Dr. Duncan might not care, but another teacher would if I was seen leaving the school early. After fifth period, I slipped out the door of annex A into the back parking lot.
Lucas was already there, parked at the far end of the lot. I jogged to his car and got into the front seat.
“Is everything okay?” he asked me.
“Yeah,” I assured him. “I didn’t want to say too much on the text. Emmett thinks our phones are being monitored.”
Lucas looked perplexed. “I should have thought of that. I can get you secure phones. No one can listen in on mine, but they probably can – and have been – on yours.”
“So how was your first week of school?” Lucas asked me, changing the subject.
“Boring.” I waved my hand dismissively. “Is Nicholas still in town?”
“Yes, why?”
“Right after you dropped me off last weekend, Emmett pulled up to talk to me. He was actually hoping to catch both of us, but he just missed you. He wouldn’t call because of the whole unsecured phone thing.” I quickly filled Lucas in on the conversation I’d had with Emmett and what we were planning.
“Henry’s going to do the spell?” Lucas questioned.
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