Authors: Wendy Higgins
“Nothing, really,” I hedged. “It was weird. I’ll tell you about it later. I need to call Patti and tell her we’re on our way, then I want to hear about
you
. Who was that man you were talking to? What did he say? I guess Gregory is staying?”
The distraction tactic easily got me off the hook as we left the club. Jay always drove. After I called Patti, he gave me a breakdown of the entire conversation with Lascivious’s business manager. We dissected every word for all hopeful meaning, coming to the conclusion that the band’s manager was extremely impressed with the talent and ambition of Jay and Gregory, and that they would definitely obtain rock-star status by the end of the year. It was usually fun to dream big with Jay, but though I played along, tonight my mind was elsewhere.
Using my extended senses to find that stupid hot dog smell had put my thoughts in a jumble. A mile from my apartment I allowed my eyes to search, and then linger on a dark, abandoned house as we passed it. I stared at the boarded-up windows singed black, and the roof half-caved by devouring flames from long ago. If I let myself remember, I could probably still smell it and taste it like a mouthful of ash....
I was awoken at two a.m. a week before my ninth birthday with the powerful smell of smoke burning my nose. Our home was on fire. I got down just as I’d been taught and crawled through the darkness to Patti’s room, feeling like I might hyperventilate.
“Wake up,” I said. “There’s smoke!”
Patti jumped from her bed in a panic, running into the hall. And then she just stood there as I coughed and choked. She rushed through each room, and even went outside to peek at the nearby complexes.
“There’s no fire in the apartments, honey. Must have been a bad dream. Climb in bed with me tonight, and I’ll take care of you.”
It
had
been a bad dream, but not in the way she meant. For the family a mile away whose burning home I could smell as if it were our own, it had been a real-life nightmare. It had been a long, painful night for me as well: the night my five senses began to enhance.
“Dreaming of Kaidan Rowe, huh?”
I looked up. We were parked in front of my building.
“No,” I muttered. “I was
not
thinking about him.”
Jay laughed and I backhanded his big arm once again.
I sighed, imagining how he would react if I told him that I had the nose of an überhound and eyes like binoculars. He was totally cool with my being eccentric, but he didn’t know the extent of it.
“Thanks for taking me tonight,” I said. “I had fun.”
“For real? I knew you’d like it! So, I’ll pick you up for school on Monday?”
“Yeah, see you then.”
I climbed out and headed up the steps, feeling resentful toward that Kaidan kid for making me open my memory to things that were better off boarded up.
P
atti was frying eggs in our small apartment when I came in from my jog on Monday morning. I leaned over the counter to watch. She used her wrist to push a strawberry blond curl from her face. When the strand fell again, I reached over and wrapped it behind her ear. A translucent, pale yellow emotion swirled around her chest, wafting warmly toward me.
She flipped the egg,
tsk
ing when the yolk broke. Watching her at the stove, I wished she were my real mother so I could have inherited some of her genetics. I’d love to share her thick curls and soft voluptuousness.
Of course she’d waited up for me to get home Saturday night, then hounded me for details, pretending to be excited for me when I could see she was overflowing with anxiety. I gave her the G-rated version, leaving out the bits about lying to people and having strange encounters with a boy. She’d bitten her lip as I spoke and searched my face, but then accepted my story and relaxed.
Patti handed me a plate and shooed me off with a wave of the spatula. I sat at our round dining table, pushing aside a pile of unpaid bills and photo proofs from her freelance photography jobs.
“What are you up to today?” I asked her.
“The
Dispatch
hired me to shoot a press conference with the governor this morning. I should be home around four.”
Noticing the time, I scarfed down my breakfast and hurried to get ready.
Fifteen minutes later I kissed Patti, preparing to dash out the door, but she cupped my cheek with a gentle hand to still me.
“I love you, sweet girl.” Light pink love fluttered around her body.
“Love you, too,” I said. She patted my cheek and I left.
Jay always picked me up for school at exactly 7:10. He was prompt. I liked that.
“’Sup?” he said when I climbed in the car. His eyes were still puffy from his having just rolled out of bed.
“Mornin’, sunshine,” I said. It took two hard pulls on the creaky car door before it finally slammed shut. I twisted my wet hair and hung it over my shoulder. It would dry straight and I’d pull it back.
We usually drove to school in silence, because Jay wasn’t a morning person, but we hadn’t had a chance to talk since he brought me home Saturday night.
“I always wondered what your type was, but I never imagined it would be a hard-core rocker!”
Here we go. I had been hoping he’d be too sleepy for this conversation.
“He’s not my type. If I had a type it would be... nice. Not some hotheaded, egocentric male slut.”
“Did you just call him a
male slut
?” Jay laughed. “Dang, that’s, like, the worst language I’ve ever heard you use.”
I glowered at him, feeling ashamed, and he laughed even harder.
“Oh, hey, I’ve got a joke for you. What do you call someone who hangs out with musicians?”
He raised his eyebrows and I shrugged. “I don’t know. What?”
“A drummer!” I shook my head while he cracked up at his joke for another minute before hounding me again about Kaidan. “All right, so you talked about my CDs, you had some cultural confusion with some of his lingo, then you talked about hot dogs? That can’t be everything. You looked seriously intense.”
“That’s because he
was
intense, even though we weren’t really talking about anything. He made me nervous.”
“You thought he was hot, didn’t you?”
I stared out of my window at the passing trees and houses. We were almost to school.
“I knew it!” He smacked the steering wheel, loving every second of my discomfort. “This is so weird. Anna Whitt has a crush.”
“Fine, yes. He was hot. But it doesn’t matter, because there’s something about him I don’t like. I can’t explain it. He’s... scary.”
“He’s not the boy next door, if that’s what you mean. Just don’t get the good-girl syndrome.”
“What’s that?”
“You know. When a good girl falls for a bad boy and hopes the boy will fall in love and magically want to change his ways. But the only one who ends up changing is the girl. Like Jamie Moore, remember?”
Jamie Moore! That’s where I’d heard Kaidan’s name before! She was a junior at our school.
We parked in our usual spot at Cass High School.
“See you at lunch,” Jay said. He had his eye on a girl named Kaylah, who was climbing out of her car three spots down.
“Yeah, see you then.” I walked to school while he lagged behind to say hi to her.
Jamie Moore was on my mind all day.
I sat with Jay at lunch, but my eyes kept going to Jamie, sitting with her same group of friends, but sort of an outcast now. She sat on the end, keeping to herself as the others played and flirted.
Being unsociable and fashion-backward had never been issues for Jamie Moore. She was a year older than me, beautiful, and a genuinely nice person. Her primary color used to be the sunshine yellow of happiness. At the beginning of this school year she’d been a cheerleader and president of the drama club. In the fall I heard she was dating some guy in a band from a high school in Atlanta.
Kaidan Rowe.
Her colors began to change then. Yellow to red. Red to gray. Gray to black. She was full of anger, then self-loathing, and most recently depression. Gossip flew about pictures of Jamie taken on her boyfriend’s cell phone, and their eventual breakup. She was soon kicked off the cheerleading squad for failing grades. Next came stories of her partying, moving from one guy to another, but never being happy. For the first time she wasn’t given the starring role in the winter play.
My heart contracted tightly as I looked at her again, sitting there at the end of the long lunch table. She still dressed trendy and took time to style her hair, which was probably why she was welcome to continue sitting with the others. But her smile and her sunshine yellow were gone, replaced by a dull gray haze.
The bell rang and I watched her shuffle out of the cafeteria.
No, I did not want to see Kaidan again. Of that I was now certain.
I made my way through the crowded halls, barely cringing anymore at the onslaught of emotion from the people surrounding me. It had been difficult adjusting to a big school after spending the first eight years in a small private school, but I was used to it now.
It was almost the end of the school year—two more weeks to go. The Georgia heat had set in, bringing with it tank tops and flip-flops, as well as shorts and skirts that kept no secrets. I shied away from showing too much skin, partly because of my own modesty, and partly because I felt kind of bad for boys. Unlike other girls, I had to see firsthand that most boys were having a hard enough time concentrating on anything besides their overpowering hormones.
Jay mussed my hair as I passed him in the hall, never pausing in his conversation with one of the guys from band class. I smiled, smoothing my hair back down.
I slipped into my Spanish class and immediately started the class work written on the board. Once finished, I peeked over at Scott McCallister, who sat next to me. He was dozing off on top of unfinished verb conjugations.
Scott was an all-state wrestler—a cutie with big brown eyes and a baby face. He’d always been courteous to me, even flirtatious at times, but I didn’t take it to heart, seeing how he flirted with lots of girls.
The class finished early and we were told to work on our final project.
“Um, Senora Martinez?” I raised my hand and she nodded. “Are you going to collect the homework?”
A collective groan rose up from the students, and the guy next to Scott muttered, “
Shut up, stupid!
” I slunk down low in my seat, mortified by my own social faux pas.
“Ah,
sí
!” Senora Martinez said. “
Gracias
, Anna.”
“Why you gotta be so good all the time?” Scott whispered. I lifted my eyes and caught his teasing expression. He had no assignment to pass up when the teacher came around.
My face was still warm by the time she finished collecting the worksheets. Veronica, who sat in front of me, turned and gave me a sympathetic look. She was one of the only other students who did the homework.
Nobody worked on their projects after that. Well,
I
did, of course, compulsive rule follower that I was. The class erupted into the excited chatter of free time, and Senora Martinez turned to her computer, ignoring us. Even the teachers were ready to be done with this year.
I opened my notebook.
Veronica bent to put her stuff in her bag and caught sight of my sandals.
“Cute shoes!” she said to me. “Where’d you get them?”
Oh, how I wished I felt okay about lying. I kept my eyes on my notebook when I answered, “Thanks. Um, I think they were from a yard sale or flea market or something.”
“Oh.” Veronica glanced at them again with less appreciation this time, and we shared a polite smile. She had short dark hair and a Grecian nose with a slight arch to it. When she caught me looking at her nose I was stunned by the wave of dark self-loathing that came off her before she turned back around to face her friends. Of course, the feature she hated most about herself was the one I thought made her naturally seductive in a way I could never dream of being.
Scott turned in his desk toward me.
“So what are you doing next Friday, shorty?”
“
Nada
,” I answered.
“Huh?” His look of confusion made me smile.
“
Nada
,” I said again. “You know. It means ‘nothing’ in Spanish?”
“Oh. Yeah. See, you must be under the impression I pay attention in here or something. Anyway, you wanna come to a party? Gene’s folks have a lake house.”
My stomach jumped. “Wow, that’s cool. I don’t know, though.” I leaned my elbow on the desk and pretended to study the graffiti etched into the wood.
“Jay’s invited, too. Come on, we’ve never partied together.” I probably would have felt very uncomfortable if it had been anyone other than Scott giving me that dreamy look. I glanced at his emotions. Happy. Hopeful. Slightly lustful. I couldn’t help but be flattered by his invitation and apparent interest.
“I guess I can talk to Jay about it,” I said, leaving out the fact that it was Patti I’d have to convince. “But you know that I don’t really party, as in
party
party.” I couldn’t even make eye contact after saying such a lame thing, but I didn’t want him having any false expectations.
“Yeah, I know,” he said. “Why is that?”
How could I explain it? I didn’t have any nagging judgment toward my peers for drinking and partying. I knew it was innocent rebellion and self-exploration. But there was always a promise of dangerous excitement I strongly desired. Ironically, it was that desire that repelled me.
“Are you scared?” he asked.
“Kind of,” I admitted. “I don’t like the fact that it might make me do something I wouldn’t normally do.”
“That’s the fun of it. It makes you open and free.”
Open and free. I wondered if that was how Danny Lawrence had felt when he passed out on the lawn of a party last year and the other drunk guys thought it would be funny to stand around peeing on him. Or the most terrible thing that happened over Christmas break, which nobody talked about at Cass—the senior girl who was high and drove off the road, killing her best friend in the passenger seat. Had she been feeling bold? Every time I saw her walking the halls in a black cloud of remorse, I wanted to cry for her.
“I guess I’m just boring,” I mumbled.
I was ready to close down this conversation. I looked up at the clock, thankful to see the bell was about to ring.
“Trust me, Anna.” Scott leaned in. “One drink in you, or one hit of X, and you’ll feel anything
but
boring.”
Everything inside of me tightened. X. Ecstasy. The word bounced around in my head like a rubber ball, out of control and impossible to catch. My dark undercurrent stirred with craving and my breathing quickened. I didn’t like to acknowledge that darkness. It rose at any mention of drugs and alcohol. And to be honest, it was what had drawn me to Jay last year. I saw something similar in him, though not exactly the same.
A dark strand ran under the surface of his emotions. It was always there, threatening, especially at the mention of alcohol. I didn’t know what it meant, but I wanted us in it together. I thought I might be able to help him, or protect him. A funny thought, considering he was a brawny guy.
I looked at Scott, who grinned at me. Not a sinister grin, but an I-want-to-experience-something-with-you grin.
Veronica must have caught wind of our hushed conversation, because she turned and gave a conspiratorial smile to the two of us.
“Are you going to the party, Anna?” she asked.
“I don’t know, maybe.”
“You should come! It’s gonna be crazy. Everyone will be there.”
I looked down and traced the wooden grooves in the desk with my pencil’s eraser. Could I get away with changing the subject?
“So, I’m turning sixteen on Wednesday. I’m getting my license.”
“I am so jealous!” Veronica said, smacking my desk. “I’ve been sixteen for three months already, and my dad
still
hasn’t let me get mine! I’m pretty sure he hates me. Are you getting a car?”
“Uh, no.” Not even close.
Everyone jumped up and grabbed their things as the bell rang, and the tension that held a viselike grip on my neck finally relaxed its vicious fingers and released me.