“No substance,” he says, correcting her.
Kimmie looks offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
But he ignores her (and the worm), instead looking down at my coil pot. “You didn’t stick around at the studio on Friday.”
It takes me a moment, but then I remember how he’d offered to chat. “Too much homework, I guess.”
“Right.” He nods.
I look down at my work, suddenly conscious of my every move.
“Another bowl?” He gestures at my piece.
“A pot,” I say, as if there were some significant difference.
“Don’t you ever get tired of sculpting bowl-like things?”
I shrug, feeling my face flash hot.
“So, what was your inspiration?” he continues.
I wipe my hands and pull out my drawing pad, where I’ve sketched it all out. “It’s a spiral staircase,” I say, referring to the crude pencil drawing. “I was hoping I could replicate it in a pot.”
“Do you always put so much time into your plans?”
I nod, trying to get my handle just so. It keeps drooping from the weight of the twist. “I like knowing where I’m going before I even begin. It’s sort of like having a map.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
Problem? My face falls, just as saggily as my pot handle.
“You plan too much,” he continues. “You don’t let the work guide you. Maybe the piece doesn’t want to be a staircase. Maybe it wants to be a slide.”
“In other words, my pot doesn’t work?”
“It doesn’t have a pulse,” he says.
“I have a pulse.” Kimmie offers him her wrist. “Wanna check?”
Spencer shakes his head, suggesting to Kimmie that she worry less about her pulse and more about her lack of focus.
“Can you believe that ass?” she says, once he’s out of earshot. She murders her clay worm with a wooden spatula.
I shake my head and chew my bottom lip, my face grew hot from the sting of his words.
“Oh, puh-leeze,” she says, obviously noticing my funk. “I wouldn’t put much stock into what he said. He’s obviously just being pissy because you didn’t play in his sandbox after school.”
“Excuse me?”
“Because you didn’t stick around to chat with him in the studio the other day.” She rolls her eyes, frustrated at having to explain this to me.
I shrug, watching as my handle falls off completely.
“Maybe he’s the one who left that gift,” she continues. “I mean, he obviously wants to see you in your pj’s.”
“And tell me, oh, wise one, why is that obvious?”
“Hmmm. . . . I wonder,” she says, nodding toward the front of the room, where Spencer is sitting at Ms. Mazur’s desk, staring right at us.
26
I’m just about to join Kimmie and Wes in the cafeteria for lunch when Matt crosses my path from out of nowhere, not even two steps past the soda machines. “A ninety-eight,” he beams. “Huh?” I ask, feeling my face twist up. “On the French quiz,” he explains, giving his back a good pat. “It would have been a hundred, but I screwed up with the le-la-masculine-feminine thing.”
“That’s great,” I say, “about the ninety-eight, I mean.”
“So, where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.
I wanted to give you the good news.”
“Right,” I say, suddenly remembering how my mom mentioned that he’d been trying to reach me. “Things have been sort of intense lately.”
“Anything you want to talk about?”
I shake my head and peer over his shoulder, noticing Kimmie and Wes already sitting in our designated spots.
I wave, and Kimmie gives me a thumbs-up, but Wes, obviously still miffed about our last conversation, barely even nods in what would have to be the saddest attempt at a nonverbal greeting ever.
“So, I hate to ask you this,” Matt continues, “but, any chance you can help me again for the next quiz? I mean, I know it’s a hassle, so if you want, I can pay you.”
“No,” I say. “It’s fine.”
“Are you sure?”
He continues to jabber on—something about not wanting to let his grades slip and some scholarship he’s applying for. I’m only half listening.
Because Ben just walked in.
He takes a seat in the corner, but he isn’t eating. Instead, he opens a book and starts to write something, but I can tell he’s faking it, because he’s staring right at me now.
“You still fixated on that guy?” Matt asks, following my glance.
I shake my head, reluctant to tell him about our date, especially since I doubt we’ll be going on anymore. “I guess I didn’t realize he had this lunch period,” I say, practically stuttering.
“Probably because he spends most of his lunch periods in the library—at least, that’s what I heard. I also heard that parents have been calling the school like crazy to get him kicked out.”
“For real?”
“It’s not exactly a secret. Didn’t you hear about that freshman girl—Dorothy, or Daisy, or something like that. . . ? She said he was following her the other day. She made a big scene about it—started crying and saying her parents were going to sue. Everybody wants him gone.”
“Apparently so,” I say, motioning to John Kenneally and a pack of his soccer buddies. They’re standing in a huddle just a few feet behind Ben.
“What do you think they’re up to?” Matt asks.
I shake my head just as John approaches Ben, soup bowl in hand. He pauses right behind him to await more attention.
And it works. People start snickering. The lemmings are pointing. Mr. Muse, the gym teacher, turns his back, pretending not to see anything.
John raises the bowl high above Ben’s head.
“No!” I shout, from somewhere deep inside me—I have no idea if the word actually comes out.
By the time Ben notices, it’s too late. John has dumped tomato soup down the front of Ben’s shirt. It drips down in a muted red patch, covering Ben’s chest, as if his heart were bleeding out.
Someone yells out that Ben murdered another girlfriend. Someone else coughs out the words killer go home. And it’s high fives all around for John Kenneally and his cohorts.
Still, Ben doesn’t fight back. He merely wipes his shirt and sits there, pretending none of this bothers him.
It bothers me, though.
And so, without even thinking, I grab a stack of napkins and head over to his table. “Can I join you?” I ask Ben, sitting down before he can answer.
“I don’t think I’ll be sticking around,” he says.
“You’re not going to let them get to you, are you?” I motion to John and his friends, including Davis Miller, my guitar-playing neighbor, now sitting at the next table over. Davis glares at me with those giant brown eyes, wondering, maybe, why I’m sitting here.
And maybe I’m wondering the same thing.
“Why do you think I’m being as calm as I am?” Ben asks.
“Good question. Why are you being this calm?”
“Because they expect something else. But I won’t give them that. I won’t give them a reason to expel me. I need to be here.”
“Need?”
He nods. “By the way, you’re not having the soup today, are you?”
“I think you’ve probably had enough for everybody,” I say, passing him the stack of napkins.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“You’re covered in Campbell soup heinousness,” I say. “It looks like you could use a little help.”
“No. I mean, you don’t have to do this—commit social suicide over me.”
I glance over at Kimmie and Wes, a full five tables away. Kimmie tosses her hands up, silently asking me what I’m doing. But I look away.
“I’m not the one who needs saving, remember?” he continues.
“You mean, what happened in the parking lot?”
br />
He stops wiping his shirt and leans in close. “I mean what’s going to happen if you’re not careful.”
“Are you the one who called me Saturday night?”
He shakes his head, his eyes widening. “Is there something you want to tell me?”
“No,” I say. “There’s something that you need to tell me. What were you thinking by showing up at my house and telling me my life is in danger? That’s not exactly normal, you know.”
“I was thinking I want to help you.”
“Well, you have a funny way of showing it.”
“I’m not your enemy here, Camelia.”
“Did you leave me that gift and the note?”
His face knots up in confusion. “What gift? What note?”
I take a deep breath, trying to be calm, but my heart is pounding, and I keep fidgeting in my seat. “Is this some weird plan of yours to try and get close to me?”
“I want to help you,” he repeats.
I look around the cafeteria, noticing how the commotion has eased up a bit.
“You have something to tell me, don’t you?” he asks.
“I don’t know.” I glance up at the clock. Only three minutes before the bell rings.
“How about we get together tonight? Will you be free around six?”
“I have to work.”
“Then how about tomorrow?”
I shake my head, suddenly feeling the urge to flee.
“Just say yes,” he insists.
“I can’t.”
“Is it because you’re afraid of me?”
I bite my bottom lip, not knowing what the right answer even is. Ben tries to touch my forearm, but I pull away just in time.
“I have to go.” I get up from the table.
“That isn’t an answer. Come meet me tonight.”
I shake my head and turn away, before he has the chance to ask me anything else.
Before I have the chance to change my answer to yes.
27
What was she thinking with that scene in the cafeteria? I know she did it for attention.
What I don’t know is why she acts like this. You’d think she’d be grateful for the gift I left her. That she wouldn’t go behind my back, ignoring my warning like we never even talked.
Sometimes I wish I could just get her out of my head, but she’s everywhere, in my thoughts, in my dreams. She’s the first thing I think about when I wake up, the last thing to haunt me before I go to sleep. If she’d just listen to me, everything could be ok.
28
I spend the next couple of days keeping my distance from Ben. I don’t linger after chemistry, even though I know he wants to talk. I don’t sit with him in the cafeteria, even though that’s where he’s been eating lunch lately.
And I don’t let him touch me.
Even though he’s been trying to.
He’s been trying to hand me things, and brush by me, and make it so that we bump into each other in the hallway. Kimmie has this theory that Ben must have a touching fetish. Wes thinks the touching has more to do with control—sort of like he’s marking his own personal groping territory. “He knows you don’t want to be touched,” he explains, “and so he tries to do it anyway, to show you who’s in charge.”
Personally, I don’t know what the answer is. I just want it all to stop.
The thing is, ever since I’ve avoided talking to him, my life has somewhat gone back to normal, as evidenced by this afternoon.
It’s after school and Kimmie, Wes, and I are at Brain Freeze sharing a Banana Bucket—basically a huge banana split with three shovels for spoons.
“People are still talking about the little scene you caused in the cafeteria the other day,” Wes says.
“I didn’t cause it. John did, remember?” I thwack his shovel from my side of the pail, silently marking my ice-cream territory.
“Touchy, touchy,” he says.
“No pun intended, of course,” Kimmie adds. “So, where were you last night?” She looks at Wes. “I tried to call you, but your dad wouldn’t say where you were.”
“Nothing big.” He shrugs, his mouth full of ice cream. “Just out stalking some girls, taking random pictures of them when they least suspect it and leaving gifts outside their bedroom windows. The work of a stalker is never done, I tell you.” He lets out an exhausted sigh and then gives me a pointed look.
“I said I was sorry,” I remind him.
“I prefer a lot more groveling with my apologies. But, since we’re on the topic of stalkers, did you guys hear about that Debbie girl? I heard Ben’s been following her, leaving notes on her locker, totally screwing with her head.”
“Wait, is this girl a freshman?” I ask, remembering how Matt mentioned something similar.
Wes nods. “Debbie Marcus, captain of the JV swim team, currently dating Todd McCaffrey—”
“And supposedly getting stalked by Butcher Boy?” Kimmie interrupts.
“You heard it here first.”
“Exactly,” Kimmie snaps, dropping her shovel to the table. “How come I didn’t hear this first?”
“Getting a little behind on the gossip train, are we?” Wes smirks.
“No,” Kimmie says. “I just don’t hang out with freshmen.”
“For your information, I heard this from a fellow junior, who shall remain nameless.”
“Whatever.” Kimmie rolls her eyes. “Did your mysterious informant give you any details?”
Wes shrugs, but he clearly has nothing else to add.
“The juice is in the details, my boy,” she says. “Better take a seat in the caboose and let me drive this train. I’ll get the scoop.”
“Well, get this scoop,” Wes says. “I did spot the freshman in question chewing Ben out today and throwing a crumpled wad of paper in his face.”
“A crumpled wad of paper, or one of the suspicious locker notes of which you speak?”
Wes’s face crinkles up. “How the hell am I supposed to know?”
“I repeat,” Kimmie says. “Let me drive this train.”
I take a giant shovelful of ice cream and lean back in my seat.
“Have you told your parents about all your drama?” Kimmie asks, turning to me.
“Not yet.”
“If it’s really creeping you out, I think you should tell them,” she says. “I bet some loser at school has seen you hanging out with Ben and thinks it’d be funny to mess with you.”
“Maybe,” I say. “That’s why I just want to wait a little longer—see if I can figure this out on my own first, instead of turning it into a big deal.”
“A victim’s last words.” Wes snickers.
“Speaking of . . . ” Kimmie says, perhaps sensing my desire to change the subject, “my mom’s become my dad’s victim. You should have seen the way he was ogling Nate’s babysitter last night. Granted, the girl was wearing a hoochie-mama mini with a belly shirt and streetwalker boots, but still, she’s barely even eighteen years old.”
“Care to lend me her number?” Wes asks.
“Get in line behind my horn-toad dad. After Hoochie-Mama left, he kept trying to convince my mom to shorten her skirt a full ten inches.”
“Now there’s a sobering image,” he says.
“Not as sobering as you with a streaky orange face,” she tells him. “I told you . . . self-tanners need to be applied evenly.”
“At least it’s faded a bit,” I say, coming to his defense.
“My dad wouldn’t even look at me,” he says. “He said the sight of me made him sick.”
“So, does the sight of himself make him want to croak?” Kimmie asks. “I mean, let’s face it, he’s not exactly Calvin Klein material.”
“Or even Target menswear material.” I grimace.
“Doesn’t matter.” Wes shakes his head. “Nothing matters to him unless I bring home some eye candy.”
“Say no more.” Kimmie sighs. “What time shall I be there?”
“Thanks, an
yway.” Wes smiles. “But he’d never buy it. He knows you too well.”
“Well, then, how about Camelia?”
“Hold up,” Wes says, gesturing toward the door with his shovel. “Butcher Boy at two o’clock.”
I turn to look, and notice Ben standing by the doorway. “What do you think he wants?” I ask, sinking down into my seat.
“Well, this is an ice-cream shop,” Kimmie says. “Give the boy the benefit of the butterscotch sundae.”
“No deal.” Wes winks at me. “He’s spotted you. He’s coming this way. He totally wants to feel you up.”
I glance back in the direction of the door, but Ben is already standing at our table.
“Hey, there.” He nods at Kimmie and Wes, but then focuses on me. “Do you have a second?”
“I’m actually kind of busy right now.”
He looks at the bucket of ice cream, almost empty now. “Please. It’ll only take a second.”
“Can’t you tell me now?”
“We’re all ears,” Wes says, sitting up straight in his seat.
“I was actually hoping we could talk in private.”
“What difference does it make?” Kimmie says. “We’re her best friends. She’s going to tell us just as soon as you leave, anyway.”
I kick Kimmie under the table, thinking about the note again.
“It’s okay,” I say, finally. “But I only have a minute.”
“Thirty seconds until I polish off the rest of this bucket,” Wes says, scraping his shovel along the bottom of the pail.
Ben leads me to a booth in the corner, and we sit down opposite one another.
“How come you’ve been avoiding me?” he asks.
I take a deep breath, wondering where I should begin, noticing the urgency in his voice. His face is flushed, and he’s leaning in close.
“Because it isn’t practical,” he continues. “We need to work together. How else are we going to do our labs?”
“This is about chemistry?”
“No.” He sighs. “It isn’t.”
“Is it more about how something horrible is supposed to happen to me?”
“This isn’t fun for me,” he insists. “And this isn’t some excuse to try and get close to you.”