But with Chay, I had no idea where I stood. Did he have any feelings for me beyond our duties as DAs? If so, he didn’t make it obvious, but he did flirt subtly—or maybe I read into things because that was what I wanted. Crap! Relationship stuff sucked. I wanted to go back to first grade when we just wrote, ‘Do you like me? Circle yes or no.’ on a piece of paper. Things were simpler then.
A large book bag slammed on the tall, black table next to me in chemistry. I didn’t bother looking up. I knew it was him. I could smell his cologne. I could feel his presence. And then, I could hear his mouth.
“You look better today. Not like you usually look.” He slid onto his chair next to me and started pulling his book and supplies out of his backpack.
Was that supposed to be a compliment?
I sighed and turned toward him, drumming my pen on my thigh. “How do I usually look?”
“Tired and crappy. But not today. You took the sleeping pill Jen’s dad left for you?” he asked, sifting through his notes.
“Yes. Wait, how do you know about that?” I gave his shoulder a shove. “Do I have no privacy whatsoever?” My face heated, not from a blush, but from anger. Who did he think he was interfering in my life? Demi-angel business, fine. The rest of my life he needed to stay the hell out of!
He rolled the shoulder I shoved, and one side of his mouth tipped in an amused grin. “We all need to know what’s going on. The pill interfered with your ability to function. You weren’t one hundred percent physically. We had to make sure we were.”
“Well, excuse me for sleeping.”
He looked down at his notes and shrugged. I had no idea what he was thinking. Jake was a shallow pond. You could see right to the bottom. A person could decipher every thought, snide comment, or joke. Not so with Chay. Compared to Jake, Chay was the depth of an ocean. Deep and dark. There was no way to decipher him. At least, I hadn’t found one. I needed a secret decoder ring.
Class started, and Chay and I worked silently on the assigned lab. He added the chemicals, and I wrote down the results. I reached for the lab slip and turned the page in the packet when he said something that threw me even more off-balance than I already was.
“You smell good today.” He tilted his head and watched closely as he poured chemicals into the beaker.
My heart did a little flip right before it tap-danced around my chest.
Why do I care what he thinks?
My hand stilled over the paper I recorded the results of our lab on. “As opposed to what? Do I smell bad most days?”
“No, you always smell good. Apricots.”
“Huh?”
“Your hair. You must use apricot shampoo. I like it.” He glanced at me then. Just a quick look out of the corner of his eye.
“Um, thanks. You smell good too,” I said, cringing when my voice came out strained and weird sounding.
He nodded once in acknowledgement. He didn’t speak, only winked, and one side of his mouth lifted slightly in a grin. He continued with the experiment, leaving me to wonder what the heck just happened.
“Done.” He flipped the book closed. “You should leave.”
“Why?”
“You’re gonna have a vision.”
“How do you do that? How do you know I’m going to have a vision before I know?” I shut my chemistry book harder than I meant to and glared at him.
“Sometimes I have visions of you having visions, not always, but sometimes. Actually, they’re more glimpses than full visions like yours. It’s odd, if you think about it. But there you go. Anyway, like I said, you should leave.”
“No. I can’t have one now.”
He shrugged a shoulder.
My stomach clenched, and I narrowed my eyes at him. I pushed my chair back. The feet screeched across the tiled floor. I walked to the front of the room and asked my chemistry teacher to be excused. With each passing second, my stomach twisted tighter. It felt like the time I got my hair stuck in the fan when I was a kid. It wrapped around the fan blades so tight that I thought it’d pull from my scalp.
“Is your assignment finished?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You can wait until the bell rings. It’s only fifteen minutes,” he said, not looking at me. I hated when people didn’t look at me when I was speaking to them.
My stomach squeezed harder, pushing the breath from my lungs, and I wrapped one arm around my middle and held on to the desk for support with the other.
“I really need to go to the bathroom,” I insisted. When I saw he was going to say no, I blurted, “I’m going to puke. I really need to go, and like, right now!” His face scrunched up in a disgusted look, and he nodded for me to leave. I hurried out of the room and down the hall.
I tried to think of somewhere private. I couldn’t have a vision in the middle of the hall while people pushed and shoved their way from class to class. Ducking into the bathroom, I locked myself in a stall. It smelled of urine and stagnant water. Wet toilet paper stuck to the puke-green floor. I stepped around the mess and leaned in the corner of the stall, my arms wrapped around my stomach like they could shield it from the searing pain shooting through it like missiles. My head pounded in time with my racing heart.
My vision started to fade, like someone was dimming the lights. The room turned gray, and then was cloaked in darkness. When all I saw was black, images started scrolling through my mind like credits after a movie.
Lily talking to Jake. Jake laughing. Hobgoblins watching from the rafters in the school’s ceiling, watching between the cracks in the tiles.
“Lily. What about her? Come on, come on,” I whispered.
Chay. Lily. Chay’s angry. Lily laughs and walks by, her finger trailing across his shoulders.
She’s trying to recruit the team one by one.
I flew out of the bathroom and skidded to a stop, my sneakers squeaking across the floor.
“What are you doing here?”
He’s blocking the bathroom door like a bodyguard… or a prison guard.
“Waiting for you. What does it look like?” Chay answered. He stood with his feet spread and his fingers hooked around the belt loops of his jeans. “What’d you see?”
“Lily talking with Jake. They were laughing about something she said. And…”
Lily talking with you.
“And what?” He arched a brow.
“Nothing. That’s all.” I wasn’t sure why I didn’t tell him I saw her talking with him, too. It just didn’t feel right. Maybe I didn’t want to hear the answer confirmed. Of course she’d talk to him. The real issue was what the conversation led to.
Would he switch sides? It would be a big win for Azazel if he did.
“I’ll talk with Jake and see what he has to say. She’s gonna try to convert us, you know. That’s her job,” Chay said with a shrug.
“I know.”
But who will she manage to get to switch? That’s what worries me.
We walked toward my locker just as the bell rang. I saw her walking toward me, a sneer on her face. It was becoming a permanent fixture.
“Milayna,” she said and shouldered me hard. I took a few steps backward to steady myself, my eyes never leaving hers. A burst of heat bloomed in my chest, bringing with it a longing for vengeance for her betrayal, but also patience. If she wanted to get a rise out of me, it wasn’t going to happen. Yet. But her time was coming. “Hi, Chay.” She smiled as she walked past him.
I looked at him through my lashes. His face was blank, unreadable. Was he hiding something or keeping his emotions in check in front of Lily? My stomach twisted in response. I wasn’t sure what it meant, but I didn’t like it.
“You can’t read minds, but you will develop the ability to feel what people are feeling, their emotions, and even what they might do just before they do it,” my dad had told me.
But I felt loyalty. Commitment. I didn’t think Chay would switch sides, but how could I know for sure? I didn’t want to be suspici
ous of him—the emotions filling me bounced off each other like bumper cars. I couldn’t focus, and felt confused and unsure. But I had to trust someone, and I desperately wanted that someone to be Chay.
We walked down the hall to calculus. Banners hung from the ceiling, painted in bright colors, announcing the football game the following night against our biggest rival. We had two high schools in the same school district, one on the south side of town and one on the north. The annual football game was a big deal—whoever won got bragging rights for the year, rubbing the other school’s nose in their victory and flying the victor’s flag for the year, declaring themselves the best in the district. My team, the South Bay Cougars, had lost seven years in a row. It was our year to win.
I stopped at my locker to grab my calculus book. Chay leaned his shoulder against the locker beside mine and watched me.
“What?”
“Just looking.”
“At what?” I glanced around, expecting to see something interesting. Lily, a goblin, a fight, a couple making out—you never knew what you’d see in school. It was like living in a reality television show. “I don’t see anything.”
“That’s because I’m looking at you,” he said slowly. He reached out, touched a curl in my hair, and rubbed it between his fingers. “Your hair’s pretty. I can see why Joe liked it so much.” It tickled when he brushed the curl behind my ear, and I rubbed my shoulder against my ear, giggling.
I’m giggling like a little girl. Get a grip. Geez, you’re losing it.
“You’re ticklish. That’s cute.” He smiled.
Is he flirting with me? ‘Cause it’s so working.
“Where’s Chay?” I tilted my head and touched my fingers to my lips. Chay’s forehead wrinkled and his brows knotted over his eyes. I smiled. “What have you done with the sour-faced, grumbling idiot I’ve come to know?”
He laughed. The sound was like a warm melody washing over me. I wanted to do something that would make him keep laughing. “Yeah, I guess I deserve that.”
I gave him a quick smile before looking down the hall. “I wonder where Muriel is. We always meet and walk to calculus together.”
I sucked in a breath and froze. Muriel and Lily were walking together, laughing and talking. When they walked by my locker, Muriel looked at me and smiled, waving with a wiggle of her fingers.
What is she doing? No, no, no! Okay, wait. She must have a reason for hanging around Lily. A perfectly logical explanation. Like, she’s gathering information! Yeah. That’s it. Because Muriel would never turn. She wouldn’t. Not Muriel.
“Like I said, you don’t know who you can trust.” Chay glanced over his shoulder at Muriel and Lily.
“How can we do our job if we are all wondering if the other has switched sides?” I squeezed the strap of my messenger bag until my fingers ached.
“It makes it difficult.”
“That wasn’t an answer, Chay.”
“That’s because I don’t have one,” he said, looking down at me.
“And you?”
“Me what?”
“Are you trustworthy?” I pulled my bag against my chest.
“You don’t know who you can trust, Milayna. Remember that. Once a demi switches sides, it hurts the entire group.”
I didn’t point out to him that he didn’t answer my question. Or maybe he did. He told me to trust no one. Him included.
I skipped swim practice that afternoon. I didn’t want to see Muriel, and since she gave me a ride to school, I was forced to ride the bus home. I hated the bus. It smelled of rotten lunches and body odor, with vomit thrown in to round it all out. I walked toward the dingy, yellow bus when he called to me.
“What are you doing, Milayna?”
“I’m not going to swim practice today. I’m catching the bus home.”
“I can see that,” Chay said. “But why?”
“Muriel was my ride.”
“Ah. C’mon.” He motioned with his head. “I’ll give you a ride.” My heart started thumping. Yes, please!
“Are you getting on or not?” the bus driver yelled over the rumbling engine.
I shook my head. She closed the door and gunned the engine. The gears groaned when she shifted into drive and slowly pulled away, leaving Chay and me standing in a cloud of gray exhaust.
“I thought I wasn’t supposed to trust you,” I said, following him from the bus line to the student parking lot. There were just a few cars left. His yellow car stood out like a beacon. It almost glowed in the afternoon sun, and I had the stupid thought that it was the perfect car for a demi-angel. It looked almost like a halo.
“I said you don’t know who you can trust. I didn’t say you couldn’t trust me. Let me have that.” He lifted my messenger bag off my shoulder. I grabbed it by instinct. He tapped my hand on the strap with his finger and grinned. “I’m just going to carry it to the car. You don’t have to worry about me stealing your chemistry homework.” He chuckled. “I have my own.”
I smiled and let go of the strap. “Sorry, reflex. I’m not used to having people carry my things.”
“Jake doesn’t carry them for you?”
I laughed. “You’re the spy; you tell me.”
“Spy?”
“Following me around.”
“Ah. I don’t follow you all day. I have other people to watch.” He grinned, and the sting of jealousy hit me. Who else was he watching? A girl? Why did I care?
I don’t care. He can watch a hundred girls… it doesn’t matter to me.
Yeah, keep lying to yourself, Milayna.
“No, Jake doesn’t carry my books. He carries Heidi’s.”
“The jock and the cheerleader, typical. But you like him.” Chay spun his keys around his finger.
“What?” I wanted to cover my face with my hands. I could feel the heat of a blush crawling up my neck to my face and burning my ears. Blotchy red face, red hair… not a good look with fair skin. If Bozo the Clown had a daughter, I’d be her.
“You like Jake. It’s obvious by the way you look at him.”
I’m that obvious? I wonder if I was that obvious to Jake.
“He’s okay,” I said, trying to think of a way to change the subject.
Chay snorted a laugh. “Just okay?”
“Yeah. Since we’re being so nosy today, who do you like? Whose books do you carry around during the day?”
“Yours, evidently.” He smiled at me, his blue-green eyes twinkling.
“Other than right this minute, whose books do you want to carry during the day?”
He shrugged a shoulder and looked straight ahead, not answering.
“Fair is fair, Chay. You know my secret crush, or, well, not-so-secret crush according to you. Now you have to tell me yours.”
“I’m not one of your girlfriends spending the night playing truth or dare. I don’t have to tell you shit,” he snapped.
I laughed. “That bad, huh?”
“No. Actually, she’s amazing.” There was that green-eyed monster again, smiling at me, taunting me. Jealousy raced through my veins, dragging knives against the sides, cutting me open. I cursed myself for asking. I didn’t want to know, because I was beginning to see the truth. My crush on Jake was over. There was another guy in town. Chay.
He held the passenger door of his car open for me. I slid in. Throwing my bag in the backseat with his, he closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side. I watched him move. So graceful—an odd way to describe a guy. I never thought of one as graceful, but Chay’s movements were fluid, easy. He seemed comfortable in his own skin, at ease with himself and who—what—he was.
He climbed into the car, and I immediately wished I’d taken the bus home. Even though it reeked, it was better than the smell in Chay’s car. It was all him. His clothes, his hair, his cologne. I was hyperaware of him. My breathing sped up, and I gripped the armrest so tightly my fingers ached.
Trying to distract myself, I looked around the car. Pop cans
and burger wrappers were thrown haphazardly on the floor in the backseat. Piles of folders and papers were stacked on the seat. CDs and his iPod were stuffed in a cubbyhole in the dashboard, and his cell phone was dropped in a cup holder. When I looked up, he was watching me.
He grinned. “I know—it’s a sty.”
“I didn’t notice it when I rode with you to the mall.” I laughed.
“That’s because I cleaned it out.” I raised an eyebrow and stared at him. “Okay, I threw everything in the trunk, but it was clean in the car.”
Wait. He cleaned it? Did he plan for me to ride with him?
Chay’s car rumbled to life. He shifted into drive, sat for a moment, and then shifted back into park.
“You wanna go get something to drink? You don’t have to be home yet, do you?”
“Um, sure. We can go somewhere and get something.” My heartbeat increased even more, though I didn’t think that was possible. I was sure it was going to give out from exhaustion any second. There was no way it could keep beating that fast and not suffer irreparable damage.
“What do you feel like?”
Kissing you. I paused and bit the corner of my bottom lip. Whoa! “How about a milkshake?” I said, and then cringed.
A milkshake? A milkshake, really? How nineteen-fifties can I get? Geez, way to wow him with your über sophistication, Milayna.
He smiled. “I knew I liked you for a reason. I love milkshakes. Well, ice cream in all forms. And I know just the place to get the best milkshakes in town.”
Wait, he likes me? Like, he likes me, likes me or just likes me? “Okay, let’s go.”
He shifted into drive and pulled out of the parking lot. I looked out of the window as we drove through town and forced myself to watch the buildings pass by instead of staring at him. According to him, I wasn’t able to keep my crushes a secret, so I decided looking at him would be a mistake, because I was pretty sure I was crushing on the guy.
Unfortunately, my eyes had a mind of their own and traveled to him more than once. And occasionally, I’d catch him glancing quickly in my direction. Neither of us spoke, but we couldn’t help the tentative smiles that touched our lips. When the corners of his mouth lifted in a grin, my toes curled and my stomach felt like it was free falling.
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