He’s sitting there with an amused grin, clutching at a folder from my mother’s advertising company.
“Hi,” I say. It comes out weak. The strong scent of spaghetti sauce permeates the air, and I can hear a pot of boiling water whirring on the stove.
“I had no idea your mother ran the Paragon division of Allthorpe.” He lets the folder slip through his fingers and onto the counter.
“He tells me he’s your new math teacher.” My mom sparkles at the thought. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear she’s taken by him.
“Sub,” I say making my way over to the fridge. “He’s just a substitute.”
“That’s right. My real passion is animals. I have a horse ranch not too far from here where I run an equestrian school.”
“Nice.” I pour myself some juice completely disinterested in the conversation.
“Skyla.” Mom slaps her hand against the counter. “Do you even realize how very, very rude you are?” She turns to him. “Please excuse my daughter. She’s been in dire need of an attitude adjustment since we set foot on Paragon.”
Normally I would be mortified. Instead I head over and at glance at the computer monitor to see what exactly he has my mother doing.
Guardian Equestrian Academy.
“You like horses?” He asks as though I’m eight-years-old.
“No.” I don’t care either way. I know this is all a ploy to dig into me.
“Skyla.” My mother hisses.
“She’d be a perfect model,” he quips.
My mother takes a breath and examines me up and down.
“Yes. I think a model would be perfect for the ad. We can have her on a horse with the wind in her hair,” she says.
“We should put angel wings on her,” he offers. “She has a rather angelic look about her, don’t you think?” The sarcasm practically sprays all over the room.
“She’s no angel.” My mother clicks away at the keyboard. “Trust me on that one. And, yes, she’ll model for you.”
I see the price of rudeness these days is far too high.
I hang out on the couch until they wrap up their meeting, and she walks him out the door. I wait until my mom comes back into the room before making some lame excuse about an assignment in an effort to catch him on the driveway in private.
“What are you doing?” I pant from the mad dash over. The wind is picking up and thrashing my hair into my face.
“I’m enjoying myself. Aren’t you?” His entire person ignites with the afterglow of taunting.
He’s playing me. The curve of his smile, the way he undresses me with his eyes, he wants more than to protect me.
“Not really,” I say.
“You will, Saturday. I have the perfect horse for you. Would you like a job on the ranch?”
“Scooping horse shit? No thanks.”
“Hmm. Mouth like a gutter. I have other projects for you, should you reconsider.” He opens the passenger side of his metallic blue sports car and throws in his briefcase before circling around to the other side. “Can’t wait to see you in angel wings.” He gives a smug look of satisfaction. His eyes sharpen in my direction. “I plucked them off the angel myself.”
22
Back
Chloe sits opposite me with that same abashed smile on her face she had the first time I arrived. She’s clad in nothing but a sheet, still giddy from her encounter with Logan. The whole situation is an invitation to stick my finger down my throat and vomit all over her bed.
“So are we getting your dad again?” She rumples the sheets, spreads them around her like the bottom of a very full dress.
“You make it sound like we’re picking him up from the airport.” I pluck a loose thread from the floral comforter with repeating patterns of roses. I wonder if Logan will remember the details of tonight. If he burned them into his memory to cherish forever like I would have.
“What’s the matter?” She pulls a curtain of hair away from my eyes. “I know you miss your dad.”
“It’s not just that. Actually that’s gotten better, knowing I can go back and see him. And he remembers, like you.”
She gives a slight nod.
“It’s Logan and Gage and this new person—a teacher named Mr. Dudley.” I tell her about Marshall and all his freaky ways.
The expression bleeds from Chloe’s face. She falls back on her elbows and searches an invisible horizon for answers.
“You need to let them know, and for sure don’t trust him. I’ll poke around and see what I can find out. Horse ranch?” She shakes her head doubtfully. “So what’s going on with Logan and Gage?”
“It’s clear to everybody I’m with Gage. He wrote me a poem.”
“A poem?” She pushes into my knee with her foot. “Does Logan know?”
“Yes.”
“Fantastic.” She restrains a laugh while biting down on her finger.
“You’re loving this aren’t you?”
“Definitely.” Chloe eases into a string of giggles. “For all the misery they’ve given me, I like the thought of a little coming their way. You’re my best revenge.”
Revenge.
I give her a blank stare before falling back on the bed and staring up at the ceiling. A heavy feeling presses against my chest. I want to push aside this endless heartbreak, run away and hide. There has to be somewhere I can go to forget all of this madness, forget who I am. I’d go anywhere not to be me for a minute.
“It’s too much.” She puts an arm around my shoulder. The sweet romantic scent of her perfume rises in the air like an aria.
It is too much. It’s funny how drowning in my emotions often leads to twin feelings in me—to simultaneously want to cry and kick someone’s ass.
“You need to be strong, Skyla. You’re forgetting the most important part.”
“What’s that?” I turn towards her in anticipation of the revelation.
“There’s nobody like you Skyla, except me.” She blinks a smile. “And I’m dead.”
***
My bedroom is unchanged. I marvel at the precision in which we’re able to transport ourselves. How amazingly close we are to the exact moment we were here last, and I wonder if eventually we’ll run into ourselves.
“Have you done this alone yet?” Chloe asks hopping onto the bed.
“No. I prefer the buddy system.” I pluck the book of poems off my desk and toss them in her direction. “Entertain yourself.”
It’s quiet in the hall. The house smells sweet, and now I’m pretty sure I’ll never be able to eat a cookie again without thinking of my father.
I dash downstairs and scan the dish on top of the small table in the entry—keys are still gone. I slide open a drawer in the kitchen, and the keys that had adorned the bottom have vanished.
“Pumpkin, is that you?” My dad calls from the dining room.
I round the corner and offer him a tight, long hug. His scent fills me. I try to memorize how soft he is in his t-shirt, how his cheek bristles against mine.
“Don’t go to work. Stay home, we can hang out.”
“What?” He plucks off his glasses. “A minute ago you were suffering.” He looks at me suspect.
“I am, I mean I was, but I took some pain pills and I feel better. Come on, when was the last time we went out to a movie—just you and me? It can be Skyla and Daddy ditch day.”
“It could be, but it won’t. Now get back upstairs and get to bed, curl up with a good book. Your mom will kill me if I took you to the movies on a school day.”
I consider the irony.
“OK, then let’s watch a movie here.” I shrug. Brilliant.
He folds over the top of the newspaper and mulls it over.
“OK.”
Watching a crappy B rated movie with my dad, turns out to be the single most greatest experience of my entire life. I don’t pay attention to the characters or the plot instead, I nestle in his warmth like a baby chick. I pull his arm over my shoulder and touch my cheek against his bare flesh—pre
ss my lips into the soft underbelly of his arm and close my eyes. God, I miss my father.
I must have fallen asleep on the couch. A colorful patchwork quilt my grandmother made covers me. I look out the family room window and see that the sun has come up over the backyard, which is usually where it was by the time I came home from school. Shit!
I bolt up and search the dining room—no sign of dad.
“Sweetie?” I hear his voice in the kitchen.
“There you are,” I say relieved. He’s making a sandwich, still in his sweats and t-shirt. He didn’t go to work today. I changed things.
I give him a full rocking hug.
“I’m going to bed now. I feel delirious. I might not remember any of this later.”
He turns to look at me.
“Why? Are you losing your mind?”
“Something like that.”
I head upstairs and find Chloe hunched over my computer.
“Just friended you on Facebook,” she says casually.
“I should totally friend Logan and Gage!”
“No,” she snarls. “Let’s get out of here. I have a biology test in the morning.”
I take Chloe’s hands, and we sit on the hardwood floor in front of my closet.
“You’re wearing my shirt,” I say recognizing the zebra stripped t-shirt. I hated it even then.
“Yeah, you’ve got bad taste.” She plucks at her chest.
I lock fingers with her and give her a yank.
“You’re like a sister to me, you know that?” I tell her before crossing my legs.
“And you’re like a sister to me.” There’s something sinister in her eyes when she says it, but I believe her.
The room fades to a palpable darkness, everything vanishes, and we’re sitting in a vat of nothing. Before I can say anything, or panic properly, we’re gone.
23
Caught
My father died that evening doing an ice cream run for my mother. That would explain my sudden disdain for the frozen confection and the fact I have no recall of my mother purchasing it since.
Paragon is enveloped in a storm—might as well be a monsoon.
Gage has gotten in the habit of picking me up and dropping me off. Drake and Brielle usually take her Jeep. I miss spending time with Bree. Here I thought we’d be getting closer, and yet we’ve drifted into our own hormone-ruled worlds.
“What’s going on?” Gage asks leaning over his desk. “You haven’t said a thing all morning.”
The bell rang minutes ago, and Marshall is late for class. He’s already quite the sensation around campus. The girls have renamed him Studley Dudley, so there’s a buzz in the air in anticipation of his arrival.
“I went back and tried to save my dad.” I look down at the floor and get lost in the black and white checkered pattern for a moment. The windows rattle in concert with the baritone thunder.
“Same results?”
“Always.”
“So who’d you go with?” He tries to hide the look of disappointment, or maybe it’s jealousy. I’m too worn out to analyze.
“Chloe,” I say, as Mr. Studley strides into class as though the world rides on his timeline. For his sake, I hope it’s his first class of the day, or maybe not. I don’t really care if they fire him.
“Morning class.” Skyla.
I turn fully around to face Gage, not bothering to acknowledge Marshall’s private greeting.
“Logan doesn’t approve of my light driving, as Chloe calls it, so I don’t let him in on my inter-dimensional jaunts.”
“I’ll take a drive with you again.” His face relaxes at the thought.
“OK. I need a plan though. Can you help me come up with something that might actually work to save my dad?”
“Sorry, no promises.” His dimples ignite, but no smile.
The heavy scent of cologne wafts over me, then the thick feeling of a person—not quite human, lingering behind my shoulder.
I turn so fast I bump into Marshall with my knee. An intense glorious feeling runs up and down my bones like a tuning fork. I have to catch my breath from the pleasure of it all. I clasp my hands over the rim of my desk to keep from latching onto him.
“Excuse me.” He steps over my shoes passing out papers as he goes along.
I have a surprise for you in my room at four-thirty.
I have cheer until four-thirty.
He walks passed my desk again.
“Looks like I forgot to give you one.” He places the back of his knuckles over the top of my hand, covering us neatly with the outline of the new syllabus.
Such an intense rush.
I open my mouth, and a choking sound emits.
Four-thirty.
***
Walls of water come down from the sky, sweeping rain, sideways rain. Rain that makes you believe you’re standing on the bottom of the ocean inundates West Paragon.
It’s dark as evening, the lights in the gym flicker in a cyclical pattern, and it feels like we’re doing our routines by candlelight. The football team is adjacent to us running drills, shouting in unison like an army, which makes it impossible to focus, at least for me. Logan and his half shirt—he’s been pumping iron like a prisoner and it shows in so many excellent ways.
“I can’t do this.” Michelle grips her midsection. “I’m cutting out early.”
“Morning sickness?” Brielle whispers over to me with a laugh.
The bitch squad disbands in unison leaving us to watch Nat and Kate jump and kick like a pair of Energizer bunnies.
“Oh, guess what?” Brielle squeals.
She probably scored a C on her lit paper. It doesn’t take much to rile her up with excitement.
“I’m spending the night, Friday,” she coos.
“Awesome.” I could really use some girl time, really clear my head without…
“Not with you. Well, technically with you.”
“Oh, I get it.” She’s going to get busy with my step bother. What is it with her and her fascination with nitwits anyway?
“Oh and I totally want to hear all about your angel thing. I mean do you actually have wings and stuff? I’ve sort of been waiting for you to bring it up, but since you so rudely didn’t, I’m inviting myself into the conversation.”
“Wings? No, but I will Saturday. Come with me to Dudley’s horse ranch. I’m supposed to do some modeling for him.”
She sucks in a sharp breath.
“He is so going to try to sleep with you! Modeling…” She chokes on her words. “It’s practically code for sex.”
If only she knew how right she was.
“It’s legit. My mom’s running the ad for him and everything.” Speaking of which, I check my watch.
Four-thirty.
I jump to my feet.
“I gotta run an errand.”
***
Rain falls like axes, flattening my hair, filling my shoes with an inch of water as I slosh into the English building, sopping wet.
I shake myself off wet dog style, listening to my tennis shoes squeak across the linoleum until I come to Marshall’s classroom.
Door’s shut. I can tell by the shadow from under the door that the lights are off. The one who supposedly can’t lie to me turns out to be a big fat liar after all.
I pivot to go. What if he’s not lying? What if he’s hung himself to prove some macabre point, or is waiting, wearing nothing but a raincoat ready to flash me as soon as I walk through the door?
It is my duty to thoroughly investigate. And, besides, if he’s not there, I can riffle through his desk. He might have a candy bar in there or something, so it won’t be a total loss. Or maybe if I touch his desk, his chair, I might get that intense feeling of a thousand roller coasters and every kiss from Logan and Gage rolled into one. He’s probably transferring some illegal street drug into me by osmosis. He’s that sick, I can tell.
I twist the knob and step inside.
The whites of two pair of eyes pierce th
e dimly lit room from over by his desk. All I see is long hair sprayed over flesh, and I quickly turn around to face the closet.
Shit!
Breasts! I saw breasts.
I’m going to kill Marshall. I’m going to figure out how he dies and pray he stays dead because obviously he’s perverse. Why else would he call me in to watch him go at it with some girl?
“This goes viral, and I’m coming after you.” A finger spikes hard into my chest.
It’s Michelle!
My toes curl tight, causing my feet to squeak unnaturally.
She motions for me to zip the back of her cheer top, and I do so mechanically, then she leaves.
I turn around in time to see Marshall tending to a zipper of his own.
“You’re sick, you know that?”
“No, I’m quite healthy, actually.” He holds his hands out and gives a placid smile.
“What? Was I late, so you took Michelle?” I say her name like it’s riddled with syphilis.
“Jealous much?” He says throwing his coat on in haste and snapping shut his briefcase. “Step outside. You have a reputation to protect.”
We speed into the hall, walking at a decent clip.
I needed you to see it. She’s got it out for you, and you’re going to need far more ammunition than that. He cuts a hard look.
“I knew it. You can read minds.”
“Simpletons. Not you.”
I pause straightening at the thought. I’m not a simpleton.
Don’t flatter yourself. It’s because you’re Celestra. You’re harder to crack than a lead egg.
“What about Levatio?” I want to know if he’s digging into Gage, picking his brain when no one’s looking.
“Depends—if it’s solid thinking, not usually. But if it’s mush, which open lust causes it to be, why yes, I can hang around and watch the show if I want to.”
We tap dance down the stairs at an alarming clip.
He sets his hand on the door and pauses before exposing us to the harsh elements ready to batter us on the other side.
“That boyfriend of yours has a lascivious mind.” He pulls back his lips and looks into the fog pressing against the window. “In fact you might even say he’s the one who inspired my ingenious plan.” He gives a quick wink and walks briskly into the rain before popping open his umbrella. “Don’t worry, Skyla. My plan includes you.”