“You look tired.” It’s a Friday, and Jesse Lachlin lazily leans against the locker next to mine. I glance at him out of the corner of my eye. Doesn’t he know it’s too early to be social? The first bell hasn’t even rung.
“Is that a nice way of saying I look like crap?” I ask.
He chuckles. “You always look good, Scarlett.”
The compliment is nice but untrue. I should be wearing a paper bag over my head with cut-outs for my eyes. I haven’t slept well this week. One, after three weeks of Mom and Dad getting along, this week has brought on very serious, unknown-to-me discussions between them at night. A few times their voices raised and that was enough to make me sick to my stomach. It’s baffling because I’ve been on my best behavior, yet they still find a way to fight.
The second reason is because I’m freaking myself out at night. I’ve been reading Glory’s books, and that is a tragic mistake. I see forms in the shadows now—my mind tricking me that there are ghosts from another realm in my room.
When I visited Glory a few days ago, I told her that her books were scaring me. She told me that it wasn’t a trick, but me opening myself to the awareness of the spiritual world, that I was awakening my psychic senses.
I need my head examined.
“You haven’t signaled for me yet,” Jesse says as if he’s asking if I did my math homework. “I still need to show you that special place on my land.”
I continue moving the dial on my lock one way then another and with a click, it opens. It’s been three weeks since I snuck out to see Jesse and laid with him in his bed. It’s not that I haven’t wanted to take Jesse up on his offer, it’s just . . . “Things are busy.”
Between schoolwork, my mom staring at me twenty-four/seven because she’s so disappointed that I lied about the job, trying to sneak in working for Glory at night so my parents don’t find out I’m lying to them again and sleep, there’s not a lot of time.
“Is that the only reason?” he asks.
I stop rummaging through my locker and study him. He’s not watching me, but instead observing the people coming and going along the narrow hallway. Most girls turn their heads in his direction, and I understand why. He’s in faded blue jeans that fit him perfectly, his solid-blue T-shirt is stretched taut across the muscles of his chest and the red stubble on his face makes him look more like a rugged man on a magazine cover than a high school boy.
Jesse Lachlin has this sexy presence that’s impossible to ignore, and the more time I spend with him, I find myself thinking way too much of our unspoken night in his bed. Of how our bodies were twined tight, the tickle of his hot breath on my neck and how I’d like him to touch me again.
“Are you testing me?” Jesse looks over at me, and while he keeps the lazy, relaxed posture, there’s a flash of hurt in his green eyes that causes me to ache. Because I have never liked seeing Jesse in pain and because I am testing him.
Testing him sucks, but I’m scared. I don’t know why I’m scared and that makes me angry . . . and then that ticks me off more. Aggravated with myself, I shove two of my books into my backpack harder than needed, causing three of my folders to fall to the ground. I sigh heavily, and Jesse crouches and picks up my scattered papers before I have a chance to dip for them myself.
His eyes flicker along the page. “You’re right. You’ve been busy.”
On the sheet is math—not Calculus or Trig or even Algebra Two. It’s real-life math. It’s estimates of how much I’ll make working for Glory if I continue at my current rate, and comparing that to estimates for renting an apartment versus living in a dorm at the University of Kentucky. It’s me trying to figure out my path to freedom.
“Where are these apartments that you’re looking at?” he asks.
“Somewhere close to UK.” Close, but not super-near. More important, they’re cheaper than the dorms.
“Are you familiar with the areas these apartments are at?” he asks.
“No, but you should see the pictures. The places look great.”
Jesse hands the papers to me. When I take them from him, his finger slips against mine. My heart pounds against my chest, and I lose the ability to make eye contact. I pathetically mumble some sort of thank-you and then my heart stutters again when he offers me a half-devilish grin in response.
I wish I weren’t such an awkward mess. I wish his touch would have lasted longer. I really wish the blush on my cheeks would disappear.
I shove the folders back in, shut my locker and head to class before anything else embarrassing has a chance to happen. Jesse is there beside me, loping along as if he doesn’t have a care in the world. Since the night in his bed, he does this now—finds me at my locker in the morning then walks me to class. Sometimes we talk. Sometimes we don’t. I find his presence strangely exhilarating, as if I were willingly holding on to a live wire.
Besides the morning routine, he hangs with his friends, I hang with my friends and the world returns to its normal social axis of him on one side and me on the other. Except I catch him watching me, openly, and he doesn’t turn away when caught. I notice this because I’m watching him, too.
“What if I told you those apartments probably aren’t what you think they are?”
I roll my eyes. “What makes you say that?”
“Living on your own is tough. It can get financially hairy quick.”
“Do you know everything?” I ask. “Or are there some elements on the periodic table you haven’t memorized yet?”
“Barium is BA and its atomic number is fifty-six. All I’m saying is that you might need to lower your expectations of what you’re getting into by living on your own. Have you thought about applying for financial aid?”
“Have you thought about applying for financial aid?”
“Nope, and you never answered before,” he says. “About if you’re testing me.”
Because I don’t want to answer. “What does that question have to do with barium or apartments? And why do you think I’m testing you?”
“When will you answer a direct question?”
“I answer plenty of questions.”
“You evade or you answer a question with a question. Neither are real answers.”
I scowl, and he smirks. Why must smug look so adorable on him?
With a deep breath, I force out a better and truer response. “I’m sorry.” For the test. “I don’t mean to be so messed up.” And I think of what Veronica said about being broken.
“I don’t think any of us mean to be messed up, but messed up happens regardless.”
Neither of us speaks for a span of a section of lockers because that is so real and raw.
“Will the test be much longer?” he asks.
I give him my most honest answer. “I hope not.”
“Me, too.”
At the water fountain, Jesse’s friends watch as we go by. Leo waggles his eyebrows at us while grinning, Nazareth watches with impassive interest and Veronica barely looks up from behind a piece of paper she’s cutting into a snowflake.
It’s fall, the leaves are a beautiful array of colors and there are dozens of snowflakes on her locker. She’s dressed in a red plaid, pleated skirt, an off-the-shoulder low-cut blue shirt, and a scarf and matching toboggan hat when today will be a high of eighty. Last week, she celebrated Thanksgiving and it’s only September. Veronica is definitely different.
“I can’t tell if your friends like me,” I say.
“You’re an unknown to them,” he replies. “Give them time and V will be putting snowflakes on your locker, too. If you aren’t careful, you’ll be her friend in time to celebrate Easter, which will probably be next week. As a warning, she doesn’t hard-boil her eggs and she likes us to throw them.”
“Awesome.” I think.
“On the other hand, your friends hate me.”
This is a very true story. The Jesse Lachlin bashing has reached near-epidemic status at our lunch table, and Camila is the one leading the charge.
“Does it bother you,” I ask. “That my friends don’t like you?”
“No.”
Crystal clear and simple. I wish I were more like that, instead of muddy and complex.
“Does it bother you about my friends?” he asks.
“Everything bothers me.” I pause at the corner, where we go our separate ways for the day, and he raises an eyebrow. I typically keep walking, and because I’m impaired, I also typically don’t say goodbye.
Jesse waits for whatever it is that I have to offer him, and the words are stuck. I need to go to Glory’s this weekend for work, and I don’t want to go by myself as odds are I’ll get lost once night falls. Glory told me she’d give me a bonus if I can pass her “test” on palm reading, but in order to pass, I need to read someone’s palm, and considering my friends are in the dark about my extracurricular activities, Jesse is the best choice.
I need his help, but I don’t know how to ask him and I don’t know how to explain that I hate asking anyone for help. Asking makes me weak, makes me think of Dad pushing me to depend on him, and my mouth turns down because I don’t want to be me for at least five seconds.
“Do . . . do you ever wish you were somebody else?” My words come out in a rushed cluster, and I’m not sure they make sense.
His green eyes soften as he looks at me as if I’m the only person in the world. As if there aren’t hundreds of people pushing past in their quest for the next destination. As if there aren’t loud voices demanding that we pay attention to them and not to what’s going on between us. He takes a step toward me, so close that the heat of his body wraps me in an embrace. My breath catches as my blood tingles.
“I used to feel that way,” he says. “About wanting to be somebody else.”
I inhale his sweet, dark scent and I become a bit light-headed from his presence. “How did you make it stop?” Because I so desperately need answers to fill the hole in my soul.
“I spend time with you, and because you let me, I held you in my bed. Why would I want to be anyone else when I get to be the guy who holds you?”
The warning bell rings and my pulse beats erratically. Then, as if he didn’t blow my mind, Jesse walks away.
* * *
I jump at the stack of books slammed onto the circulation desk. Camila’s glare is red-hot. I finish scanning in the book that was in my hand before I was so rudely interrupted, place it on the cart of books that need to be shelved, then offer Camila my full attention.
“What are you doing?” Camila asks.
“I’m scanning books.”
Evangeline nervously watches us from the other side of the library. I inwardly roll my eyes because I should have seen this coming. The two of them have been whispering to each other nonstop since the first time Jesse stopped by my locker. Not that them being in each other’s ears is unusual, but typically they wouldn’t be staring at me so much while conversing.
“What are you doing with Jesse Lachlin?” she rephrases.
“Nothing.”
“He has been at your locker every day for the past month and walks with you in the hallway. And you two talk.”
I have to fight the urge to laugh because the utter disbelief and shock that I would talk to Jesse Lachlin is a bit hilarious. “Would it be better if I didn’t talk to him?”
“Yes.”
My brief bit of levity fades, and I sit on the stool beside me. “That would be rude.”
“That would be lifesaving.”
“That is overdramatic.” I pick up the scanner to start my work again.
“No, it’s not.”
My response is the beep of the book being swept back into the system.
Camila reaches over and snatches the scanner from me. This time, she isn’t red-hot, but full of concern. Camila is overdramatic, but she rarely gets this emotional. “He hurt you, and if you become friends with him again, or worse, if you date him, he’s going to hurt you again.”
A fast debate in my head of how to answer any of this without tipping my hand. If I say the wrong thing, it could open a floodgate of questions I can’t answer.
I rest the book in my hand on the counter and look Camila straight in the eye. “The night of the readings, Glory couldn’t take me home so Jesse did. We talked, and he’s simply been stopping by my locker to talk some more. That’s it.” It’s a lie, but the truth will set her off.
She squishes her face in disagreement. “But talking is a gateway drug. Talking leads to more talking, and more talking leads to hanging out, and the next thing I know you’ll be smoking pot with Veronica, tattooed like Nazareth, and having a baby with Jesse Lachlin and living in his trailer. Soon after that you’ll die because of the Lachlin curse. Is that what you want, Scarlett? To be dead by twenty leaving Jesse behind to raise your infant triplets in his broken-down trailer?”
“Now that is definitely overdramatic.”
“Is it?” She’s dead serious. “Besides the fact the curse is real, you are who you hang out with. I know I’m not the friend I could be, but my way of being a friend doesn’t include destroying you. He’s going to hurt you again. I’m the one who held your hand when no one else would. Don’t be stupid and make the same mistake again. You can’t trust him.”
Bluntly honest. That’s Camila. She’s speaking her mind, and it’s not her fault there is menacing truth to her words.
“I know I’m not easy to be friends with,” Camila says in a low voice, a soft voice, one full of regret and sadness. One I’ve never heard from Camila before, “but you stick by me when not many people do. I care for you, and I don’t want to see him hurt you again.”
“This isn’t a big deal,” I say. “We’re just talk—”
“You have a date tomorrow with Stewart Mitchell.” Camila drops the gauntlet.
“What?”
“The only thing we can come up with as to why you’re talking with Jesse is that you’re finally considering going on a date so instead of giving the opportunity to some guy who won’t appreciate you, we found someone who will.”
“What do you mean by we? And what do you mean by date? And Stewart Mitchell?”
Camila laughs like I told a joke and that must be the sign Evangeline was waiting for, as she joins us at the counter. “Isn’t it exciting?”
Um . . . no. But I don’t say that. My head tilts because I have no idea what just happened.
Camila rounds the desk. “The whole lunch table is in on this. First dinner, then a movie, then dessert. Fifteen of us will be going. It is going to be the most epic first date on the planet.”
“It’s not a pity date,” Evangeline adds, as if that was a worry. “Stewart has been working up the nerve to ask you out all summer, but none of us thought you were ready so we told him to enter at his own risk, but now that you’ve been talking to Jesse, we know you’re ready.”
How any of that makes sense, I have no idea. “I don’t want to date Jesse,” I say slowly, but a small part of my brain dissents. “I’m just talking to him.”
“Just talking is code for flirting.” Camila playfully pats my hand. “Please, the only reason any girl at this school talks to Jesse is in the hopes of dating him.”
“Or kissing him,” Evangeline adds. “I’ll be honest, I’d kiss him.”
Camila takes my hand. “But we aren’t going to waste Scarlett’s first date, or first kiss, on some boy who is going to be voted most likely to end up in jail.”
Mental whiplash. First date? And did she say . . . “First kiss?”
“You don’t have to,” Camila says, then frowns. “I’m not sure if Stewart will get the opportunity. Your parents are letting you go on a group date. But we can work out a system. Like blink three times and everyone will turn their back.”
My head spins, and I grab the desk for support. “My parents are letting me go?”
Camila releases a blazing smile. “My mom called your mom. I know how protective your parents are, and I thought if my mom brought up the group date they would be on board.”
I swear with the way my tongue is twisted, I’m having a seizure. “They said yes?”
“It took until last night for your parents to get back to my mom. They took forever to agree to it, and there are like a gazillion rules, but you can go! Aren’t you excited?”
“I’m not okay with this,” I say.
“Give it a few minutes,” Camila waves off my concern, “then you’ll be fine. Besides, it’s all set so you have no choice but to go, which is the brilliant part of my plan because I know you better than you think. You’d be fine holing up in your room for the rest of your life pushing everyone away as long as people let you. So what that Jesse Lachlin hurt you years ago? The rest of the world isn’t out to hurt you. He’s cursed, and you’re not. It’s time to live, Scarlett.”
My mouth pops open, but nothing comes out. Camila twirls her hair as she examines me. “I think she’s in shock.”
“It is shocking,” Evangeline says. “You didn’t work up to the date. You blurted it out.”
“How does one work up to a surprise first date?”
“I don’t know. Maybe you could have said that Stewart thinks Scarlett is pretty, then you work your way up to the surprise first date.”
“That’s boring, and time-consuming. My way worked fine. She has to know she has no choice.” The bell rings, Camila loops her arm around mine, Evangeline gathers my things and I’m swooped off to lunch.