Divided (15 page)

Miss you so much, husband. We're OK too. At Fresno State now. Think about you 24/7 Love you.

I wanted to get up and swirl in circles or run to Sonya and Gary's classes and show them, but I managed a little restraint, sort of. I bounced my legs up and down excitedly and kept staring back at the message, smiling.

"Earth to Piper?" Nathan waved his hand in front of my face. "You there?"

"Sorry." I laughed and looked back down at the phone then up at him again. "Sorry, what?" I read the message again.

"Did you just win the lottery or something? I've never seen you so happy. What's up?"

I looked at the clock and at the window and back to the text message.

"Piper?" He put his hand on my arm. "You're acting like some strung out druggie. What gives?"

"He's okay. They're both okay." I clutched the phone to my chest. "And he's thinking about me."

He leaned back in his chair and nodded. His seriousness made me calm down a bit. He stared out the window, and I realized he might have a little crush on me.

"Nathan? You're awesome. You know I wouldn't want anyone else as a lab partner and friend, but I love my fiancé. You can't understand what we've been through, what—"

He put his hand on my arm again. "It's okay, Piper. You're nice and smart and beautiful. Any guy would be crazy not to have a thing for you—me included. I'm not in love with you or anything like that, but seeing you so happy over one text message—well it'd be nice to find a girl who'll go as crazy over a text message from me."

I felt awful for Nathan. I hadn't led him on or anything, and I believed him when he said he wasn't in love with me—which was a relief. But I could see how anyone would be envious over what Dev and I were to each other. I covered his hand with mine. "You'll find it someday. Just as long as you don't go around calling girls lesbos in your quest for it."

He laughed and returned to his usual upbeat self. "I learned my lesson on that one. So what did the fiancé say?"

I smiled painfully again. "He and my brother are okay. He loves me and wishes we were together."

He shook his head. "I never gave it much thought before, people serving our country in the military—must be really tough on their families. Don't you get to talk to him at all? Phone, email, letters even?"

Uh oh. I had to be really careful what I said here. I didn't want to lie to Nathan, but I couldn't tell him everything. "They're both Special Forces. Their location is top secret, and I rarely get to talk to them."

"That sucks. But they're together? Is that how you met him?"

"No. I met Dev last year in high school." I stared at the clock, thankful that there was only a few minutes left in class. "It's a really long story."

He nodded slowly, and I thought he was going to press me further. "Well, I wish I could have taken a picture of your face when you got that message. I bet he would've loved to have seen it."

I smiled wide again. "He would have."

After class, I sprinted over to Sonya and bounced up and down showing her the message.

She laughed indulgently at me as she read it. Nathan caught up to us, and she smiled at him. "This is good news. Maybe you'll actually sleep tonight."

I nodded and danced around her.

"Is that why she always looks so tired?" Nathan asked Sonya.

I was on such a high, I didn't care that they were discussing me.

"Yeah." She watched me, smiling contentedly at my hyper behavior. "He's in a really dangerous area. It's tough for her not to know if he's okay."

Gary came over, and I put the phone in his hand. After he read it, he hugged me and spun me around. I knew he was happy to find out Dev was okay too.

"I've never seen her smile like this before," Nathan commented.

Gary laughed and messed up the hair on the top of my head. "We call this the Dev effect." He walked over and kissed Sonya briefly. "It's a relief to see."

Sonya nodded and wrapped her arm around his waist before smiling at me. "If you think you can sit still long enough to digest your food, we can go eat."

I laughed and tried to tone down my elation with a deep breath. "I'm better now." But I couldn't keep the massive smile from my face.

The second interruption came the following day when it was announced that our History teacher disappeared. He was there one day, and the next day he was gone. I immediately started worrying about the infection and a possible outbreak until Gary told me the rumors flying around about his relationship with a student and how he'd gotten fired. I could understand running from a scandal like that.

An elderly man took his place, and he couldn't even hear students at the top row of the theater-sized classroom. There was a bunch of electronic equipment he could have used to be heard or to hear, but he seemed to be of the opinion that anyone who really wanted to be heard would see to it that they were.

The last bit of weirdness occurred while I was sitting in English class, talking to Sonya about the music video she'd been playing nonstop for several days.

Our instructor, Mr. Walker, placed a small green bag on my desk and smiled at me. "It seems you've made quite an impression on someone, Piper. This was left in my mailbox with this post-it note attached to it." He handed me a pink sticky note and walked away.

The sticky note read:
Please give this to Piper Kenley. I'm too shy to do it myself.

I turned to Sonya and gave her the sticky note. Reaching in the bag, I pulled out a small silver box. Inside the box was a strong silver chain with a small silver ring hanging from it. "It's a necklace," I explained to her and Gary. The ring looked like a very simple wedding band. "It's pretty, but it's weird."

Gary leaned forward and grabbed the box lid from my desk. "There's a message."

I took the lid back from him and read the handwritten note on the inside.

Thinking of you—an admirer

Gary laughed. "Looks like Vaughn's got some competition."

"Hardly," I said quietly. It wasn't even the teensiest of thoughts to be interested or even flattered by this strange gift. I didn't know what to think about the necklace, the note, the entire thing, but something deep in my gut told me there was more to this than the obvious.

Gary put his arm around my shoulders. "I'm kidding, Evie. It's probably just some kid with a crush."

I gave in and refocused on Mr. Walker as he began his lecture.

Sonya, Gary, and I had talked about how odd it was that I would have a secret admirer. Aside from Nathan, I rarely spoke to any of the guys in my classes. Between that and the ring on my finger, we were all convinced I wasn't likely to get another secret gift.

I didn't realize how wrong I was until when I walked into Natural Science, and there was a purple bag at my seat. Nathan was behind me jabbering away about some massive fight that had broken out in the dining hall after I'd left that morning, but he was quiet when he saw the bag.

I wasn't entirely convinced that the secret admirer wasn't Nathan, but the surprise on his face when he saw the bag told me it couldn't be him.

"What's that?" The way his eyes narrowed at the bag and his furtive glances around the room made me think he didn't approve. That was fine by me since I didn't approve either.

"I, uh—I have an admirer. He gave me a gift a while ago. Nathan," I grabbed his arm and he looked down at me, his forehead creased with concern, "Do you know anyone it might be?"

He looked around the room thoughtfully then shook his head slowly. "It could be a hundred guys, Piper."

"What do you mean? I've never even spoken to fifty guys here let alone a hundred."

He actually laughed at my remark. "You don't have to speak to any of them for them to want you. You're beautiful, and if it weren't for the fact that you're the most unavailable female on this campus, I'd be sending you gifts too."

I softened my smile and tilted my head at the compliment. Nathan was a good guy. "Thank you, but a hundred guys? You can't think of any that would actually send me things?"

He pursed his lips and looked around the room again. "Let me ask around. I'll get my brother in on it. What did he give you last time? Maybe it'll help me figure it out."

"He gave me a silver chain with a thin silver band hanging from it. It said, 'Thinking of You' and was signed, 'an admirer.'"

"Weird." He stared back at the purple bag. "Well, open this, and let's see what's inside."

I shook my head. "I—I don't…"

He nodded. "Here, let me." He pulled the bag in front of him, peeked inside and pulled out a small porcelain figurine of a girl in a pretty dress. The number 18 was in gold at the bottom of her dress. A thin ribbon was wrapped around the neck of the girl with a small card dangling from it. "And even weirder," Nathan commented.

I stared at it. "Looks like the kind of figurine you give to celebrate birthdays."

"Is it your birthday?" He opened the card as I shook my head. He read out loud, "Oh, the things you make me want to do—an admirer." He turned the figurine around in his hands and looked at the bottom. "It says, 'Love, Mom and Dad.' Huh. Maybe he shops at a thrift store?"

I lifted my tired shoulders in a shrug. "Your guess is as good as mine at this point."

"Well, I'll ask around." He squeezed his eyes shut.

"What?"

Shaking his head, he looked at the figurine again before placing it back in the bag. "Nothing—I just thought I'd seen this before, maybe in someone's dorm room." He shook his head. "I'm sure there are millions of these things.

Class started shortly after that, so the figurine left my mind quickly.

Gary and Sonya were just as clueless when I showed them the gift. Gary insisted we call Gabriel, and even though we argued, he pulled out his cell phone and made the call himself.

Gabriel was concerned about the gifts, but it was still harmless, so we decided it was best just to continue being careful. More shocking than the odd gifts I'd been given was the news that Gabriel and Evelyn had decided to put the house up for sale. Sonya was really upset since she'd lived there almost her entire life. Gabriel got her on the phone, but she walked away from Gary and me, so we couldn't hear what was said. When she came back, she seemed more disappointed than upset, but she wouldn't tell us what he'd said. I focused my energy on trying to cheer Sonya up. She realized it was safer for us to leave the area, but she was still upset about it.

The next day, as Sonya left our room, she cursed and came right back in. She went straight for her phone.

Putting it to her ear, she said quickly, "There's another gift outside our door." She said it a second time, but then hung up.

I sat up, still forcing myself awake, trying to process what was going on. When I walked to the door, Sonya grabbed my hand. "He said to stay inside, Evie."

I just nodded absentmindedly. Why did this weirdo have to pick me? Did I have a sign on me that read, "Please add more drama to my life because I'd really like to have a heart attack before the age of 20?"

Ten minutes later, Gary walked right into our room, not bothering to knock. He kicked the box inside with him as he talked to someone on his cell phone.

"It's the size of a shoebox, wrapped in yellow paper." He kneeled next to the box and carefully opened it, pulling out an old bear that looked well-loved. "It's a bear, Gabriel. It looks used. It has a Dallas Cowboys shirt on, and there's an envelope attached… okay." He opened the envelope. "It says 'Watching you makes me do crazy things and there are—shit—Gabriel this psycho's taken pictures of her."

My jaw dropped open, and Sonya and I sat on the floor by Gary as he laid out twenty or so pictures of me opening the previous gifts, walking with Sonya and Gary, coming out of my dorm room—everywhere really.

Gary's voice made me jump a little. He sounded so angry. "Okay, we're going to campus police. I'll call you back and tell you what they've said." He pulled the phone from his ear and put his finger to the screen before shoving everything in the box. "Where are the other gifts, Evie?"

Sonya pulled them out of the closet and handed them to him. I pulled on some jeans and a T-shirt and less than a minute later, we were gone. We spent over an hour filing a report and going through the same questions over and over about whether I'd been approached or attacked. I hadn't, and they said that without definitive proof that I was being stalked, there wasn't much they could do.

Gabriel was frustrated that they weren't doing more, but short of moving to Fresno with us, there wasn't much he could do either. He made Sonya and Gary walk everywhere with me, not leaving me alone. We included Nathan in on the deal because he'd proven himself more than trustworthy. He'd even been seriously pissed when he found out about the pictures. I tried to let it go and not suspiciously watch every single guy who looked my way wondering if it was him. The not knowing was killing me the most.

That weekend nearly everyone disappeared. Tuesday was Fourth of July, so we didn't have any classes for four whole days. Naturally, everyone headed for the beaches or home to celebrate with family, but Sonya and I were seriously worried about the history project that was due the day after Fourth of July. We decided to stay on campus until Sunday morning to get our work done. Of course, Gary stayed with us even though he insisted he'd done all he planned to do with the history project. I was surprised when Nathan stayed with us, but when he reluctantly explained that his brother was going home for a big date…with his ex-girlfriend, we all understood.

On Saturday, Nathan and I sat in the library trying to work, but my mind wandered. I found myself googling Dallas Cowboy teddy bears, silver necklaces, and porcelain figurines. I didn't find anything, but it really didn't make me feel much better. Even though Nathan was at a computer next to me, I still felt alone and exposed. The hairs on the back of my neck were standing up, but when I looked around, the only other person visible was a blonde-haired girl. When loud arguing erupted from the corner of the library, I decided I'd had enough research. Nathan, who'd been playing a game on the library computers for the previous twenty minutes, immediately got up to leave with me.