Destiny Binds (10 page)

I was tearing off bits of biscuit and rolling them into tiny little balls when Ashley Johnson sashayed into the restaurant. While the rest of us had spent our afternoon throwing snowballs and watching mind-numbing television, Ashley had put her daddyʼs credit card to good use.

The members of our Shakespeare class were pretty easy to pick out in the crowd. We were the ones who had obviously slept in our clothes and were lacking basic beauty products. Of course, that would never do for Ashley. She was decked out in a Vanderbilt University sweat-suit, complete with a baseball cap to hide her unstyled hair. She looked like a freaking recruitment poster.

“James, how nice of you to share your breakfast with a poor, destitute street person,” she said, stopping at our table. “Oh wait. Scout, is that you? My bad.” I was too exhausted to put with her crap or deal with Talleyʼs silent treatment. Not to mention, the sight of Jamesʼs greasy hair and the faint sour smell that accompanied him was turning my stomach. I decided sitting with the creepy Ronald McDonald statue outside would be preferable to keeping my current company. I got up to dump my uneaten food in the trash.

“God, would you look at her,” Ashley said as I passed by. “No wonder poor Alex had to go home. I would probably need hospitalization if I was forced to spend time with that.” I snapped.

The look on her face when my fist connected was priceless. She staggered back into a table, her eyes filled with tears.

“You bitch!” she shrieked. “You broke my jaw!”

“No, I didnʼt.” I had hit her in a spot that would, at best, leave a bruise, though my fun-filled night hadnʼt left me with enough strength to do even that much damage.

“Just wait until the school administration finds out. My dad will make sure you get expelled over this.”

“Youʼre not telling anyone,” Talley said from my left.

A blob of ketchup fell from Ashleyʼs new sweatshirt as she resumed an upright position.

“And why is that, Porky?”

Jane managed to grab me around the waist and jerk me backwards before I could break her jaw for real.

I expected Talley to cry or, at least, look deeply hurt and embarrassed. The sardonic grin that spread across her face put Ashley and me both on edge.

“Because while everyone else seems to have forgotten who you were before your step-mom performed her magical make-over, we haven't,” Talley said. “We have enough stories and pictures for a new humiliation every single day between now and graduation.”

“Like I care,” Ashley said. It was fairly obvious, however, she very much did.

“Fine then. Scout, you still have those pictures from your thirteenth birthday party, right?”

“You bet.” That was the night that Ashley decided we needed to “prepare” ourselves for our lives as teenagers. There were pictures of her in my momʼs lingerie, the top stuffed with toilet paper, making out with a poster of Zac Efron.

Of course, there were some equally embarrassing pictures of Talley and me, but no one is going to see those. Ever.

“You know, if you wanted, I could probably make sure that at least one or two of those pictures made it onto
All Around the School
,” said Jane, who was was the student director of our televised morning announcements. I was taken aback by her support. Jane is a nice girl, but weʼve never exactly been friends.

“I donʼt even know what you guys are talking about,” James said. “From what I saw Ashley tripped and fell into that table.”

If Janeʼs assistance was unexpected, then Jamesʼ was downright startling. It was generally his goal to speak as infrequently as possible, and he never did so voluntarily.

“Fine,” Ashley spat at me in a quite literal fashion. I had to wipe the moisture from my face.

“You and your little freak friends get your way this time, but I swear that I will pay you back, Harper Donovan. And that moment when I do? Youʼre gonna wish I had just broken your ugly face.”

It wasnʼt intentional, but it turned out that yawning was a fairly appropriate and awesome response.

As was typical with local weather patterns, an hour later the temperature was racing past 40 degrees, turning the ice incrusted streets into tiny rivers and the picturesque snow covered landscape into a muddy mess. Once Ms. Ryder finally showed up and downed two large cups of coffee we were on our way back home.

I got a second wind as we trudged along the Interstate and had a very long and animated discussion with Jane about our favorite singers. It was nice to find someone else who knew more about Damien Rice and Regina Spektor than the Lady Gaga. I practically came unglued when she showed me where Ryan Adams had scribbled “To Pottsie - Try the tacos, Love Ryan” on a napkin after she met him at a Mexican restaurant in Atlanta.

Talley offered to give me a ride home once we finally found ourselves back at school. The sun shining through the windows had created a greenhouse effect in her car. The gentle warmth, coupled with the hum of tires on pavement, acted as a lullaby. I was more asleep than awake when Talley cut off the engine in front of my house.

“Iʼm sorry I got upset with you this morning,” she said. “I just want to help. You know you can talk to me about anything, right?”

“Of course.” I could tell Talley anything. Just not this. I couldnʼt tell her about the homeless man and what he was going to do to me. I couldnʼt tell her about how I had panicked and almost let it happen. I couldnʼt tell her how afraid and humiliated I was. And I certainly couldnʼt tell her about Alex.

Talley leaned across the gear shift to give me a hug. I leaned in and rested my head on her shoulder, embracing the security and comfort she offered.

There were tears in Talleyʼs eyes when she finally let go. “Are you sure youʼre alright?” I shook my head, unable to speak. I should have asked her if she wanted to come in. I really needed to thank her for giving me a ride, but I felt an ocean of tears threatening to spill over.

I went directly to my bed, crawling in without bothering to take off my soiled clothes. No matter how furiously I fought against it, the tears came with an accompaniment of sobs that shook my entire body.

It took longer to fall asleep than I would have imagined, but eventually exhaustion took over. I expected to dream of violent encounters in snow filled woods and four-legged beasts stalking their prey. Instead, I dreamt of a boy with grey eyes and dimples.

Iʼm not really much of a dreamer. Most nights when I go to sleep thatʼs all I do, sleep. My brain doesnʼt turn into some big, bizarre movie theater the moment my eyes close. If I do dream, I rarely remember details.

This dream was different. I remembered everything. I remembered how the air smelled of honeysuckle and dirt. I remembered the green of new leaves, the yellow of a hundred daffodils, and the murky brown-blue color of the lake. I remembered the feel of the breeze tickling my neck. I remembered the way he looked as he leaned against the gnarled trunk of an old oak tree, arms and ankles crossed, head cocked so that his bangs hung down over his right eye.

The lake was less than fifty feet wide here, so I was certain Alex was watching me from the opposite shore. I raised my hand in an awkward wave.

“Hi,” I said, feeling like a complete dork.

Alex looked over his shoulder as though he was expecting there to be someone standing behind him. When he realized he was alone, he looked back at me, startled. I saw his mouth move, but was unable to hear anything he said.

“I canʼt hear you,” I called back.

Again, I saw his mouth move, but heard nothing.

“Alex!” I yelled as loudly as I could manage.

He was shaking his head as he continued trying to talk to me. I could tell he was yelling, but all I could hear was the splash of the water on the shore and the tree branches as they rubbed against one another.

I donʼt know how long we stood there, struggling to be heard by the other, but my throat was growing sore, which bothered me. I had figured out that I was in a dream already, so wasnʼt I supposed to be impervious to pain?

Eventually, Alex had enough and tried another approach. I watched as he tore off his shoes, socks, and shirt. His hands hesitated at the waist band of his jeans. I was ashamed to realize I felt disappointment when he decided to leave them on.

The world had been very peaceful until the moment Alex put his foot in the water. In the blink of an eye, the sky turned black and the wind grew violent, tangling itself in my hair and thrashing my body with my clothes. The lake churned and swelled, pulling Alex under.

My scream was lost in the thunder.

I was about to do something really stupid, like jump in after him, when his head popped up out of the water. As a wolf, he was able to swim against the current, back to shore.

The storm continued to rage on around me. Debris flew in the air as a nearby tree came crashing to the ground. Something jabbed me in the back, just above my right hip. The pain was so sharp I let out a yelp.

My eyes flew open. It was dark, and it took me a few calming breaths to realize the figure standing by my bed wasnʼt Alex.

“That is one nasty bruise,” my brother said, flipping on the lamp by my bed. A soft, white light burned into my retinas. “Did you and Talley get into it over who was going to get to marry Billy Lomac again?”

In first grade Billy Lomac was the epitome of cool. He wore his hair in spikes and always shared the candy bar his mom tucked into his lunch box with whomever was his girlfriend that week. The only fight Talley and I ever had occurred when he dumped me for her.

By the ninth grade, he was the schoolʼs most notorious pothead and roughly resembled Phillip Seymour Hoffman. Iʼm pretty sure the only way I would fight Talley over Billy Lomac was if she tried to date him.

“I told her, he was mine first,” I said, pulling my shirt down so the bruise was covered. I vaguely remembered feeling a rock embed itself into my hip when I was thrown to the ground.

“No, really. How did you manage to come back from some boring play looking like one of those refugee people from the news?”

I sat up on the side of the bed, cringing as pain radiated from one spot to the other. Jase watched with concern etched on his face.

“I fell down. You know me, always a klutz.”

“Youʼve never been a klutz. You were the first toddler in history that didnʼt toddle. Our entire martial arts class had to spend months learning ninjitsu because Sansei liked your grace.”

“Well, this is one ninja that never learned to walk on a solid sheet of ice in a pair of three-inch heeled Marc Jacob wanna-be boots.” Or to actually use her ninja skills when she was in trouble. This ninja sucked.

“Thank God Iʼm a boy,” Jase said, commandeering my computer chair. He swung it over to the edge of the bed before straddling it backwards. “Thereʼs no way you could get me to strut around in a 3-inch heeled anything.”

“I seem to remember it taking very little to get you in a pair of ruby red stilettos. And you didnʼt strut, you pranced.”

“Scout Donovan, what did I tell you that I would do to you if you
ever
mentioned that?” I looked as angelic as possible. “I fell down. Hard. I may have even broken my tailbone.”

“So?”

“So, my big brother doesnʼt fight people on the injured list.” That managed to get an eye-roll. I only referred to Jase as my big brother when I wanted something or was trying to get out of trouble. I mean, five weeks hardly counts as older, and the inch of height he had on me was pretty much moot as soon as I put on a good pair of shoes.

“Yeah, just remember this conversation when I give you a proper ass kicking the moment youʼre back to one hundred percent.”

Now it was my turn to roll my eyes. “Iʼm looking forward to watching you try.” I might not be able to fight off a homeless man, but Jase was easy. It wasnʼt so much that I was stronger than him, because I wasnʼt, but he was very predictable. It was like fighting a robot.

Jase and I sat talking for a long while about absolutely nothing. Despite its lack of substance, our conversation managed to erase some of the tension that I had been carrying around for the past twenty-four hours. He even managed to distract me from the whole werewolf freak out that I should have been having.

When Angel heard that I was awake she came into my room, bringing a turkey sandwich to guarantee her admittance. I didnʼt realize how hungry I was until I took my first bite. I was famished by the time I popped the last piece into my mouth about ninety seconds later.

“That was so good I think Iʼll go get another one,” I said. “And maybe some chips. And cookies. We have cookies, right?”

“But youʼre gonna take a shower and put on clean clothes first, right?” Angel asked. She was snuggled up to my side. I got the feeling that she had missed me while I was on my impromptu overnight trip. Since I was actually letting her sit like that I must have missed the Munchkin a little bit too. “No defense, but you stink.” This, of course, made Jase nearly fall out of his chair from laughing so hard. I felt embarrassed despite the fact that I had seen the other two people in the room walk around in dirty diapers.

“Thank you for that helpful bit of information, Angel Dear,” I said. “And itʼs ʻno offenseʼ not ʻno defenseʼ.”

“But offense is when our team has the ball.”

“Yes.”

“And defense is when the bad guys have the ball.”

“The other team isnʼt really ʻthe bad guysʼ, but yeah.”

“So, itʼs no defense,” Angel said as if she had just made the most stellar closing argument in the history of litigation.

There is no logic quite like kid logic.

“Makes perfect sense to me,” Jase said. “And the other team is ʻthe bad guysʼ. Especially if weʼre playing those arrogant jerks from Marshall County.” Well, Jase logic and little kid logic are pretty much synonymous.

My brother and sister were almost overly-attentive all evening. Angel insisted on making my second (and, to be completely honest, third) sandwich. She maintained that sandwich making was the same as cooking, which I was not allowed to do under any circumstance. Jase had recorded last weekʼs episode of the newest angsty-upper-class-teens-with-major-issues show we were both hooked on and the three of us piled onto his bed with a bag of chocolate chip cookies to watch it.