"I'm glad somebody understands," he said warmly.
I figured he'd go on his way, leaving me to zone out. Him being there made me highly self-conscious, and I didn't like it. But he didn't leave; he seemed perfectly content to stand there all day.
"I'm only just getting here," he explained. "Isn't that ridiculous? On the first day. Doesn't bode well for the rest of the year." He shrugged his shoulders, broad for his narrow body frame. "I can't think of an excuse, either."
He swept over and occupied the cubby to my left. I couldn't take in what was happening.
"The truth is, I slept in, but I don't think I can tell them that." Dark brown bangs poked out from beneath the hood, and he pushed them back with slender fingers. "Do you have any ideas?"
"Nope, fresh out," I said matter-of-factly. I glanced back at my textbook. It was impossible to read with him talking to me, but that didn't mean I couldn't try.
"Okay, if you insist on being unhelpful." For a moment, I thought he was flirting, and brushed the thought aside. "How about this? I was trying to save a possum caught in the middle of the road—"
"Make the animal cuter. Possums are kind of creepy, with the beady eyes and their garbage diet." I didn't know what had possessed me to help him.
"Point taken," he said. "Okay, I was trying to save a rabbit from being squashed. Everybody loves rabbits."
"So you saved a bunny. How he-man of you."
"Yes, but once I saved him, I had to help him find his way home. I couldn't just leave him to fend for himself." The tone of his appealing voice was low and intimate, even if his scenario was ridiculous. Like we were co-conspirators. I tried not to notice how full his lips were, and how they moved interestingly as he spoke.
"I went through the woods," he continued, "Forgot about the time. It took me forever to find my way back to the road, because I'm new to the area."
Running through the woods as the branches break beneath me, just trying to catch her. Why won't she stop?
Yesterday's dream had invaded my thoughts again. I forced my conscious back to the present with some difficulty, temporarily speechless. He didn't seem to notice.
"Do you think the ladies in the office will buy it?" he asked. He crossed his arms over his sweatshirt watching me as I pretended to consider the question.
"Actually, I think it's terrible," I admitted. "Way too complicated. Your pants are spotless, which they wouldn't be if you were prancing around the woods."
"No one said there was prancing," he said with a chuckle.
"Running around, whatever. Just tell the office people your parents had car trouble, like a normal person."
"I'm not really a normal person," he divulged. The silly smile was back, making the area around his eyes crinkle. It was the kind of smile any other person would immediately return, but he was beginning to get on my nerves with his perpetual good mood. Mostly because I couldn't reciprocate.
"Pretend to be. That's what I'm doing," I confessed.
"Interesting." His face was inquiring. "Mind telling me why?"
"I don't even know you. So no."
I told myself again that I just wanted him to go away. Part of me didn't, however. I tried to ignore that part. He kept grinning at me, as though feeding off of the irritation creeping into my voice.
"Don't you have some lying to do?" I added. He hefted himself onto his feet, clad in expensive sneakers, and began to leave. At the corner he turned back, holding on to the wall and leaning away like a flag caught in the wind.
"I'm Henry Rhodes," he said. "I'm the village idiot where I come from. There—now you know me."
I studied him silently. His hair was poking out of the hood again, and bright spots shone in his eyes, reflections from the overhead lights.
He was possibly the strangest boy I'd ever met.
"I'm Ariel. Ariel Donovan," I replied.
He tipped his hand from his head in my direction, as though tilting an invisible cap, then continued on his way. He had a noticeable strut to his step that seemed to be unintentional. I wondered if he'd really spout that lame excuse to get out of half a day's tardies.
As I watched him disappear, something nagged at my attention. The name clicked two seconds after he was out of sight.
Henry was the boy Lainey had claimed.
CHAPTER 3
AFTER MY ODD lunch break, I arrived at Honors American history. As I entered the room, I had a shock. Henry sat nonchalantly in the back row, his legs slung up on the empty seat in front of him.
Huddled around him were a few jock types, including one of the heftier football players and a boy I vaguely knew possessed a record number of swim meet medals. A few girls were unabashedly staring at Henry, entranced by his every word. He was obviously gregarious by nature, and as suggested by his devil may care posture, he didn't seem fazed by the attention.
Ambrose Slaughter leaned over Henry's desk, apparently giving him the rundown of the school. Leather tanned, with gelled golden hair and blue eyes, Ambrose had always reminded me of a demented cherub, pointing his poison-tipped arrow wherever he pleased.
I heard him tell Henry, "Steer clear of the garbage." I imagined Ambrose pointing to me, even though I doubted anyone had witnessed our interaction. Since just the sight of him made a strong wave of guilt crash into me, I figured it was better to get my mind off of him.
"Hi, Ariel," the teacher, Mr. Warwick, said brightly. His wide mouth smiled beneath a salt and pepper mustache as I took a seat in the front row." So, you finally made it to my side of the hallway?"
"Looks that way."
"At least I'll know I have one student who's actually listening," he said with a grin. He turned and began vigorously clearing off the blackboard with an eraser, raising a chalky cloud.
Mr. Warwick had been Hugh's friend for years. I'd known him for as long as I could remember, and he never seemed to change. He had been over for dinner countless times, and made a mean corn relish at our summer barbeques.
"Welcome to Honors American history," Mr. Warwick said to the students, clicking the door shut as the bell rang. "We're going to learn things about the Civil War you never thought possible. We may even get past it by the end of the year."
###
In art room B, replica posters of famous paintings hung on the walls, representing a vast scope of decades and styles of art. Watercolor flowers were placed next to a chunky modern print. Carts of paper and paints crowded the side aisles. On a wire shelving unit in the corner were tiny clay figurines and jars, shiny with aging glaze.
I quickly realized there was no assigned seating. Those were the hardest classes now, just finding someone to sit by was a chore.
It didn't help that I'm terrible at art. My best work was gluing sequins on Popsicle sticks, and even those came out crooked. But Hugh insisted I take it every year, not willing to admit to himself that I didn't inherit the art gene.
A girl sat alone in the back row, her dress made of different sweater pieces stitched together with thick, black thread. Behind slim tortoiseshell glasses, the girl's eyelids sparkled with silver glitter, like ground up coins.
As I walked slowly down the aisle towards her, she spotted me. Swiftly, she snatched her brown messenger bag from the floor and dropped it on the seat beside her. She scowled at me, in case I hadn't gotten the message. Little pins covered the bag, each of them with text I was too far away to read. It was a safe bet they had an antisocial theme.
I took a seat in the second row, next to a nerdy boy who ignored my existence. In front of me, I noticed with an internal groan, sat Lainey Ford. The shimmery waterfall of her hair glinted like a wig, in perfect waves. No curling iron would ever help me attain that.
Her cloying cloud of fruit punch-scented perfume hit me in the face like a chemical warfare attack. I swallowed a cough and peered around. The only other empty seat in class was right beside Lainey, and bumping elbows would be ten times worse.
The second before the bell rang
, Henry Rhodes breezed in through the door.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said aloud.
Both Lainey and nerdy boy stared at me like I'd lost my mind. I dipped my head, staring at my ragged, bitten nails. The situation was getting ridiculous, like the universe enjoyed rubbing absurd but gorgeous smile boy in my face. He had been in my Honors English class, too.
Henry swung agilely into the seat next to Lainey, depositing his books on the table. He spun around and gazed directly at me, and I gulped as blood rushed to my temples, making me dizzy. There was something intense and knowing in his look, churning behind the tawny irises.
"I'm not following you," he said. "I swear. This is purely a coincidence."
"Uh huh." I frowned. "I guess we just have similar interests."
I had no idea how to react to his attention. No boy had ever noticed me before, and I knew I was probably reading too much into one conversation.
"I have a question for you." He tipped his chair off the floor, looking at me down the defined slope of his nose. The bridge curved a little to the left, an imperfection that only made him cuter.
"Fire away," I said to Henry, attempting a casualness I didn't feel. I felt like the whole class was watching us, even though they were all busily carrying on their own conversations while waiting for the teacher to begin.
Lainey turned towards us, her china doll face wrought with confusion. She watched our conversation openly, like she had stock in it. The first girl that goes near him, I'll go ballistic, echoed the ghost of her earlier words. I didn't doubt it.
"Why do I irritate you so much?" His face was open and patient, waiting for my explanation.
"What gave you that idea?" I asked, embarrassed that I'd been so obvious.
"Just had that feeling. But I think you'll get used to me, now that we're going to be spending our afternoons together."
Before I could reply, I was staring at the back of his head. I didn't dare glance over at Lainey again, but I could feel her gaze like darts flying into my cheek.
"Funny how that turned out," I whispered to myself. After a moment in which I felt like I was frozen, unable to break my concentration on the wave of dark hair that stopped just above his sweatshirt hood, I looked away and unzipped my backpack.
With the moment broken, the guilt I'd felt for talking to him earlier rushed back, crashing over me. What kind of friend was I proving to be? How could I be worrying about boys when I had no idea where Jenna was, or if she was even still alive? I pushed the second dizzying possibility away.
What about me? I could practically hear Jenna whisper. I'm what's missing. You can't go on until you find me.
###
"How was your first day back?" Hugh asked as he was driving me home. He appraised me with a sideways glance. "You appear to be in one piece."
"Appearances can be deceiving. But I am, mostly. It wasn't as hopeless as I expected." I rubbed my itchy eyes. Now that I was out of school, I could use a nap. It felt like I'd been at Hawthorne for weeks instead of hours. It was amazing how long eight hours could feel when you were bored.
"Did you get homework?"
"Yeah, in nearly every class." I gestured to the bulging exterior of my backpack between my knees. "I thought we were supposed to be immune from that on the first day."
"Guess not this year. Welcome to the life of a big important sophomore." A van whipped out in front of the Mazda, and Hugh pounded the brakes. "I'm glad everything went okay. Now I can admit I worried all day about how it would go."
"This from Mr. You'll Do Fine."
"And you did," he countered.
I sat wordlessly for a moment, seeing only the blurry outlines of dark green trees and yellow street signs through the car window. Shards of afternoon sunlight cut through the grass.
"You know, I could walk home. It's only five minutes," I said, still watching out the window. "It would just be to school and back."
He muttered a curse at the van driver ahead of us, who had stopped short of a traffic light. He hadn't heard me or was pretending to not be listening. I studied my father's face. Hugh had finally shaved off the wiry beard he had adopted when Erasmus opened. Getting rid of it made his face ten years younger, childish round cheeks adding to his boyishness.
"What?" he asked, amused.
"When did you get rid of the beard?"
"About two weeks ago," Hugh said, looking perplexed. "Didn't you notice?"
"Of course I did," I fibbed. "I was just trying to remember."
At home, Hugh parked and we went around to the back sliding glass door. No one was allowed to come in or go out the front door, due to the pale living room carpet. A laminated printout on the door declared NO SHOES ON THE CARPET! complete with a border of dancing vacuums.
I lobbed my backpack on the dinner table to await later attention. In the kitchen, I pulled out sliced turkey and cheese from the fridge and started making myself a sandwich. I was suddenly starving, since I hadn't eaten anything other than a few flavorless potato chips.
Smearing mustard on bread, my mind flicked again to Henry Rhodes. The newcomer who had caught my attention, even though I didn't want it to get caught. He seemed to have enthralled Hawthorne's student body, as well. I'd heard his name being whispered countless times throughout the day, and girls had been falling out of their desks to get a look at him.
I didn't need to be thinking about him, though. I slammed the fridge door harder than necessary, condiment bottles clacking inside. I had more important things to focus on.
Finishing my sandwich, I tossed my trash and went into Claire's home office, shutting the door behind me. The windowless room was dark, save for the green power light on the monitor, and cool. It was the only computer in the house I was allowed to use, since I couldn't lay a finger on Hugh or Claire's laptops.
Booting the computer out of sleep mode, I navigated to Jenna's profile. It had become a wall of people posting Miss you and Come back home messages. Some names were familiar, others I'd never heard of. Jenna probably hadn't heard of them, either. The posts had dwindled to fewer in the last month, and only two this week.
I typed in the address for the Livingston County Gazette, then searched Jenna's name. Nothing new there, either—just the few brief articles published when she went missing. The computer hummed idly, buzzing like a trapped fly.
I shut the monitor back off. The sinking feeling in my heart only lasted for a moment; it was easy to brush off now that I felt it so often. The hope I had left was as fragile as glass.
Back in the kitchen, I washed off my knife and sandwich plate. A pile of dishes awaited me in the sink, and I began rinsing them off to pop into the dishwasher.
Hugh's paintbrushes rested in a white bowl he'd used as a palette, rainbow streaks of paint pooling from the bristles. I shook my head at the mess. At least he'd had time to paint today, or at least squeeze the stuff out of the tubes and stare at a canvas, instead of being buried in paperwork.
Hugh specialized, not surprisingly considering our surroundings, in hellscapes—surreal wastelands, sometimes with dramatic, frightening creatures. I was glad he had never been the one to tell me bedtime stories.
Wringing out the dish cloth, I glimpsed out the window above the sink. Startled, I nearly dropped the plate in my grip.
The weird, antisocial girl from art class was watching me, her small face peering over the fence separating our property from the neighbor’s. Bright green eyes bored through me, magnified by her glasses. The eyes of a cat watching a bird as it flitted around.
It took her a second to realize she'd been spotted. But as soon as she did, she jumped off the fence, spun around, and sprinted towards the yellow house behind her.
Awesome, I thought. My new neighbor is a weirdo.
###
I tipped the plate downwards, the china we'd used on my birthday glinting in the light. The spaghetti slid and splattered on the carpet, two thickly packed, greasy meatba
lls leaving dark snail trails. Claire was going to kill me for this mess. Cut my throat and bleed me like a stuck pig.
But the hungry carpet sucked the mess down, nourishing itself. It left behind only a smear of crimson. After a moment, that too faded. Gratitude warmed my worried heart.
Not strange at all. I had to feed the carpet, so it wouldn't get too hungry. If the ground became hungry, it might take a bite out of me.
The smear of color was back, rusty red, darker than ever. Small bubbles appeared as it began to froth and burble. The liquid was something else now: viscous, thick. Like blood.
I bolted upright in my bed, my heart a frantic bird trapped inside my ribcage. Clutching my comforter in both fists, I waited for my terror to abate. But the fear persisted, even though the dream was incredibly absurd now that I was wide awake.
Ludicrous or not, I pictured a creature lurking beneath the floor with sharp, bloodstained teeth. I pulled the blue and green comforter up to my chin and buried my face in its softness.
Taking a few deep breaths, I tried to pull the air into my lungs. It wasn't working. Still groggy, I lowered my bare feet to the floor gingerly and stood. It wasn't the lack of light or the dream that was scaring me.
Someone was lurking in the dark.
I couldn't see them, but I could feel them, as real as my own body. An unfamiliar animal instinct took charge. The stranger had been watching me sleep. I shivered strongly and swayed on unsteady legs.
A foreign buzz of electricity stirred in the air, like before a thunderstorm. But this was tighter, more claustrophobic than in my dream of Jenna; as though the individual molecules had started spinning too fast.
One of these things just doesn't belong...
My eyes darted to the closet first, the usual suspect in slasher films. I could almost make out a figure hiding behind the crammed clothing. Before my imagination could take off any faster, I crossed the floor and yanked the clothes apart. The hair on my arms and neck prickled, but the closet was unoccupied.
I turned, half-expecting to see a figure in a Halloween mask behind me—
Looking for me?
—but no one lurked there, either. For all I could see, I was alone. My room wasn't that big, with precious few hiding spots. I peered around the bed, then crouched and shifted the shoe boxes and books beneath it, coming up empty.