Chapter 9
Callie
I take another desperate chug from my travel mug, the coffee burning down my throat, before putting it down on the cold tile floor beside me and commence rummaging through my bottom locker. Quickly, I swap out my Chemistry and English books and binders for my Pre-Cal and Psychology ones.
“Whoa, Callie love, where’s the fire?” Nolan chides, leaning back against the vibrant red lockers beside me, one foot pulled up in what I’m starting to think of as his trademark pose.
He’s dressed ‘casual’ today in expensive, pre torn jeans, a vintage t-shirt that looks like it’s from an old car show-- and is in French, hoodie, and a beanie that sits on the back of his head with well-coiffed strands of his white blonde hair visible across his brow. He may not act like the spoiled rich kid, but he sure does look like one.
“My aunt took me to the mall in Portland for clothes and supplies yesterday, which is great because I needed the stuff, but it’s a two hour drive and there was an accident on the way back, so we didn’t get home until late which means I didn’t get to bed until late, then I didn’t hear my alarm go off…” I ramble in one continuous stream.
I leave out that the few hours’ sleep I did get was broken by nightmares. Each time, I fought to stay awake, but despite my efforts, I was dragged right back under.
“Having a rough morning, got it.” Nolan raises his hands in surrender then gives me an assessing look. “Clothes shopping but couldn’t find a new hoodie you liked?”
“No knocking the sweater,” I warn with a tired glare. “I’ll have you know, I won this in a trivia contest when my class did a school trip to Arizona State University.”
Before last night, it was also one of the few things I owned that was untainted by the bastard, earned with what I knew instead of bought for me. The simple passing thought of him has last night’s dreams crawling their way across my conscious mind, and I shake my head to try and dislodge the feeling of acid burning through my skin. He’s gone. I’m safe. I’m safe. I’m safe.
Before any further comments can be made about my well-loved sweater, Kaleb drops down to one knee beside me. Hints of sandalwood fill the air, along with the sweet, musty smell of old books, reminding me of rainy afternoons spent holed up within the stacks of our local library. It’s a comforting scent that makes me want to curl up like a spoiled cat and sleep for days.
He’s pressed and neat in a black polo, unbuttoned to show a peek of the white shirt underneath, dark wash jeans, and black, well-polished boots. If he didn’t have the body of Captain America, one might accuse him of looking too preppy. Instead he has the sweet quality of someone that a girl could be proud to bring home to meet their parents-- well, you know, for girls that have parents worthy to impress-- or alive.
Quietly, he asks, “Is there any way we can help?”
I blink at him for several moments, my exhausted, frazzled brain jumping to all kinds of weird places. Coffee. I need more coffee.
Shaking my head no, I begin to zip my backpack closed. Kaleb smiles at me, before dipping his hand into my locker and pulling out my pencil case. Reopening my backpack, I see my paper bag lunch still inside. Oops.
“Thank you,” I murmur, taking the offered pencil case and placing my lunch into my locker. “I’m a little tired.”
“It’s fine,” he reassures. “We all have those mornings.”
I raise one brow, take a swig of my coffee, then challenge, “Even you?”
“Even me,” he chuckles softly, but something flits across his eyes that make me want to take the question back. Hello foot. Meet mouth.
“I could be your alarm clock,” Felix offers, dodging around a group of girls that are attempting to walk and stare at Nolan at the same time. “It’s not like you can hit snooze to make me go away.”
Nolan offers up a wink and smirk to the girls, before purposely turning his attention back to me. I can almost feel their confused appraisal, as they try to figure out what’s so special about the girl in the oversized, red hoodie who looks like she could be a zombie extra on some B movie horror flick.
My head feels like it’s filled with sand, as I roll it up to look at Felix. “As much as I appreciate the offer, I’ll stick with my phone for now. If I change my mind, you’ll be the first to know.”
“Aww, but I bet I could do a pretty good impression of a reveille,” he jokingly whines.
“That’s what I’m afraid of,” I grumble back.
Today, he decided to wear relaxed fit jeans and a black t-shirt that reads, “√(-1) 23 ∑ π… and it was delicious!” I’m too drained to decipher more than it has something to do with pie, but I do wonder if each choice is based off a shirt he once owned or if he makes one up each morning.
Out of the corner of my eye, I notice a couple guys at their lockers give me weird looks and I realize, to them, I’m talking to thin air. Oh well. Fuck ‘em.
I look down at my backpack then back up at Kaleb. “Did I remember everything this time?”
His laugh is more genuine, a deep rumble that’s still surprising coming from a seventeen year old boy. Maybe it’s a nephilim thing. His ever present smile grows enough to show some of his pearly white teeth, while he double checks that I have everything.
“Have your homework?” he asks after deducing that everything I need is in my backpack.
I nod, feeling like a bobble head. “Yup. Didn’t take it out since after school Monday.”
“Good girl,” Nolan teases, sounding too much like praising a puppy that piddled outside for the first time.
“Watch it, Casanova,” I grunt, blowing away strands of hair that’s broken free from the messy bun on the top of my head. “And for the record, you’re in charge of US History homework tonight.”
“But we didn’t have homework Monday,” he counters.
I give him a Cheshire Cat grade expression and say, “Yes, but I did the in class assignment, while you spent the hour switching from copying my notes and poking me. I’m counting it.”
He sighs dramatically. “Worth it. You make the best noises.”
Felix looks surprised and intrigued, while Kaleb simply looks surprised.
While closing my locker and zipping up my bag, I grumble, “No discussion of the noises. I don’t make any noises. If you think I make noises, you’ve clearly misheard.”
“Oh really?” Nolan smirks wickedly and I have just enough time to regret my last words, before he leans over and pokes me in the side-- eliciting a loud squeak.
It’s while they’re laughing that Connor comes strolling over.
“Morning,” he mumbles, then looks at us with an inquisitive raised brow.
“Don’t ask,” I mutter, accepting the hand he holds out to help me to my feet.
“Callie’s our new squeaky toy,” Nolan informs gleefully. “Look.”
Then he pokes me again which elicits another “Eep!”
Mirth dances in Connor’s eyes as I groan, accepting that this is going to be a thing now. He’s dressed in his normal jeans, boots, and hooded jacket, but chose a chocolate brown Henley today, proving he does own something other than button up flannel shirts. The tighter fit shirt follows the lines of his body, accenting the hard cut lines of the sensuous muscles underneath.
Nolan kicks off from the lockers, moves up next to Felix, and while adjusting the strap of his messenger bag, he asks, “Hey, I have a quiz in Algebra 2 this morning. Want to help with that?”
Felix shrugs. “Sure. What are ghost friends for?”
Kaleb does one of his looking for patience stares at the ceiling.
“You can’t be serious!” I hiss, which only seems to amuse Nolan, Felix and Connor. “You can’t cheat on a test.”
“A quiz. Not a test,” Nolan corrects matter-of-factly, as if that makes all the difference. “And I have a literal math genius here that no one in my class can see or hear. It’s a wasted opportunity not to.”
Felix holds his hands to his chest. “Awww. I feel so appreciated.”
“And I love you for your brains, not just your good looks,” Nolan says with a cheeky grin.
While they laugh, I check the ceiling to see if I can find the patience Kaleb is looking for. Mostly, I see gum and water stains.
Nolan offers up a “later” as goodbye, and he and Felix head toward Nolan’s first class of the day.
“If I wasn’t so tired, I’d be lecturing you right now!” I bellow after them, and get chuckling and dismissive waves back from both of them.
“You’re welcome to keep trying,” Kaleb sighs, his gaze shifting from the ceiling to my face, “but I’ve already gone through lengthy reasoning on why Felix shouldn’t help Nolan cheat. I might as well be talking to a brick wall-- then again I’m starting to wonder if I’ve turned into white noise by this point.”
“It sucks when you have to be the stick in the mud,” I sympathize, and Connor snorts.
Kaleb gives him a hard side eye, before replying, “I have a hard time not saying something when there’s a clear right and wrong, even if it falls on deaf ears.”
Connor’s face turns blank, but the wild energy that surrounds him I can almost feel tighten around his very being-- shifting from a careful control to a strangling noose. I want so desperately to be wrong, but there’s a painful knowing that slices through me. A tether of silence binds us that I know I should break, but how? How can I help him when I couldn’t help myself?
The morning bell rings, and I push the thoughts away before they can drown me.
Kaleb looks around confused. “Where’s Donovan? He’s supposed to be here to walk with Callie to class.”
“Maybe he got held up?” I answer. “It’s fine. I can…”
“I’ll take her,” Connor offers, his voice low and difficult to hear over the surrounding chaos of students rushing off to class.
“You don’t have to…” I attempt to interject.
“No, that won’t work,” Kaleb replies, crossing his arms. His fingers tap out a random pattern on his pronounced bicep. “You already have too many tardies. Any more and you’ll end up with detention. I should be okay to do it this time-- I’m never really late.”
Talk about deaf ears.
“Guys!” I yell, gaining their attention. “I can walk myself. Have two working legs and everything.”
They trade looks that I don’t understand, but before they can argue, I pick up my backpack, tell them I’ll see them both later, then disappear into the stream of students. I’m so short, I’m nearly impossible to find within the crowd. Their concern is-- touching? --but confusing. What do they think will happen to me walking from one side of the school to the other?
On my way to class, I find Donovan staring at one of those windowed displays where schools put up announcements and highlighted achievements. His black hair is wet and brushed back, leaving nothing to obscure the scowl on his face. He seems oblivious to the people frenziedly walking around him, as well that the morning bell has rung.
The smell of musk and his leather jacket fills my nose, as I walk up beside him. Tentatively I murmur, “Donovan?”
“It was supposed to be me,” he answers, seemingly unsurprised by my presence despite looking like he’s lost in another world.
“What was…?” I trail off when I see what he’s looking at.
It’s a large, smiling picture of what appears to be Felix’s sophomore class photo. His brown hair is cut much shorter than he wears it now, causing his hazel eyes and elfish features to stand out in higher contrast. He’s wearing a light blue, plaid button up, and has the clean cut look of picture day. Surrounding the photo are announcements about grief counseling, the news article about his death, and dozens and dozens of notes, brittle flowers, and small plush toys.
It’s a hard kick to the gut to see him so vibrant… so whole. Before now, I never really thought about what he looked like alive. As a ghost, his skin is smooth almost like it’s been through a Photoshop filter and has a golden glow to it. Though he isn’t transparent, there’s still an ethereal quality to him. Here there’s a ruddiness to his cheeks, a fading summer tan, and hints of acne along his forehead. This was him as flesh and blood, and I ache for a version of him I never knew. Alongside Felix’s photo full of life, is Donovan’s and my reflection in the glass-- both of us looking like worn and haggard versions of better people.
I’m lost in the bubble that’s absorbed Donovan, everything around us turning into a muddled hum, and with my heart in my throat, I ask, “What do you mean? Why was it supposed to be you?”
In the glass, I see him glance at me for a moment, his expression tense, before looking back up. I wonder if his focus shifts between Felix’s face and our reflection like mine does.
“Life pretty much ends for me after high school,” he starts, his jacket creaking as he folds his arms. “Once I’m on my own, every day will be borrowed time from the demon that will eventually kill me. It’s just the way it is.”
My stomach twists hearing the finality in his tone. I don’t know what to do or say to try and make him feel better. He speaks in facts of a world I don’t yet fully understand.
“I just…” He clears his throat, the gravel thick in his voice. “We were all at least supposed to make it through high school, then… I was supposed to go first.”
With a sharp jerk of my head, I look up at him. My eyes widen and immediately burn from not blinking. “You… but you’re nephilim,” I stutter out, my mind reeling with the horror that it’s not that he believes he won’t live his full 250 years-- “You don’t think you’ll live a normal human lifespan?”
His jaw flexes. “No. I don’t.” After a long pause, he adds, “I’ll be lucky if I make it to twenty-five.”
The ice in my veins snakes through my body until my very core is frozen. “That young?” I whisper. “Dark nephilim die that soon?”
“No…” He shifts his gaze to mine, his eyes searching my face. There’s a caginess to his tone and expression that is very unlike him. “I’m different.”
Before I can ask him to elaborate, he sharply looks back at the posters and snorts derisively. “Those assholes didn’t even know him,” he grunts, nodding at the notes and flowers. And we’re changing the subject. “He died in fucking July, but you’d think he died the first day of school, the way everyone was crying and shit. All fake. They just wanted to get out of class.”
My tired mind spins with the speed he switches topics. “Why do you think it was fake?”
“Because to everyone but us, he was the math nerd with the geeky shirts,” he states, his eyes narrowing to glare particularly hard at a card with a heart on it and a note in a feminine script. “They only started to notice him after he was dead. At his funeral, people who couldn’t tell you his last name, suddenly appeared and had all these fond memories of Felix, but they were total bullshit. It was the same thing over and over again. How nice he was. How smart he was-- but really, all they wanted to do was get more dirt on how he died.”
I blink several times, my brain sluggish, as I attempt to wrap my head around all the information Donovan is throwing at me like daggers. My emotions feel like they’re on a delayed reaction timer, and I know an hour from now, I’ll probably be furious. At least it keeps me from asking about details of Felix’s death. So not the time.
He doesn’t seem to care that I have nothing to say, continuing to share with me the details of the funeral. “He was there, you know? Because who would miss their own funeral? And their parents funeral?” His shoulders square and his chest expands, as his muscles tense and flex with his anger. “It was a fucking shit show to watch-- real mourners mixed with these pricks. Felix cracking jokes the whole time about how he didn’t know he was so well loved.”
The hallways are empty as the final bell rings, announcing that we’re late for class. Despite it being my third day in a new school, I ask, “Want to skip class and do… something?”
He snorts and shakes his head. “And miss fucking up Mr. Harris’ day?”
“It was a thought.” I shrug, at a loss for what else to say.
I don’t know how to handle my own shit, so I’m completely ill equipped to help him with his. It feels like weights drag at my limbs, as I question whether I’m worthy to be friends with the guys. They know how to be there for each other. How to comfort each other. I don’t know how to do any of these things.
Donovan packs away his feelings, looking down at me with an expression of his shielded emotions and the amused glint he gets when he’s about to piss someone off. “Ready? Harris is going to hate that we’re strolling in late and still know all the answers.”
I work hard to plaster a matching smile on my face. “Do you think it would annoy him more if I answered all the questions in a dumb blonde accent?”
He chuckles, turning to head towards class. “Only one way to find out.”
I take hurried steps to match Donovan’s long strides, and I ask before I can think too hard about it, “What’s Felix’s last name?”
His adam’s apple bobs heavily in his throat. “Jacobs. His last name is Jacobs.”