“You were the one who shouted ‘sex’!” He hisses.
“You were the one who was born, so really I think that’s the root of the problem.”
“The root of the problem is you. Are fucking. Insane.”
“That’s not the point!” I slosh my soda in the general direction of everywhere. “The point is do you see that fine piece of ass over there who happens to be my kind of friend because she’s really into you and she’s the prettiest nicest goddamn girl in school and I only barely approve of you and if you crush her pure maiden heart I will pull your pancreas out through your nose and feed it back to you in a drip inserted into your anus is that clear?”
He opens his mouth, and for once, nothing snarky comes out of it. He leans back and folds his arms over his shirt.
“What if I pay you?” I ask. He smells like spices and soap and honey again and it’s extremely unhelpful slash gross.
“Pay me what?”
“Pay you to take her out. I’ve got some saved up, I can –”
He scoffs, in that you-can’t-afford-me way.
“Two hundred. Just to take her out and be nicey-nice like I saw you be with Madison.”
He glowers, icy eyes freezing my insides. He musses his hair up in frustration and makes a half-snarl in the back of his throat.
“Fine. I’ll go out with Kayla for two hundred.”
I make a quiet hiss of victory. “Where?”
“Saturday. The Red Fern, at seven. It’s a Thai place downtown. I don’t care if she’s allergic. That’s the only place I can go where they won’t recognize me from my escort work.”
“Cool. Obviously I will be going along.”
“What?” He snaps.
“To make sure you’re nice.” I smile. “Gotta make sure I’m getting my money’s worth! She needs this more than you know.”
Jack and I are the highest scores in the game, and at the tenth round, we’re tied by two points. He bowls a double strike. I have to get a turkey, or it’s over. I hold my ball up and breathe, trying to tune out Kayla’s crazy loud cheering and Wren’s sensible encouragement. Avery even snarks at me not to mess up. I get a double, and on my final round I eye the lane like it’s a live snake. Don’t bite me, lane. C’mon, we’re friends, even if you’re a reptile and I’m a mammal. Friendship knows no racial bounds.
I slip, and the ball plunks into the gutter and rolls happily away. Jack and I are dead tied. Wren and Kayla pat me on the back, and Avery tips her head back and downs more booze as she puts her shoes back on.
“Might wanna lay off on that,” I say.
“Mind your own business, fat girl,” she snaps. Kayla pokes her head between us.
“Don’t worry, I’m driving her.”
“Driving me insane,” Avery sighs. Jack and I are the last two to put our shoes back on. He sighs and shrugs.
“Neither of us won, but I might as well have. We both know I bowled a more tactically sound game. Your style is a huge illogical mess.”
“Yes, my style sucks. But at least I didn’t bowl half a game with a nacho stuck to my ass.”
I smirk as I saunter away, leaving Jack to feel the back of his jeans wildly. I hear a swear and feel a sharp something ping lightly off my head. The fat counter guy burps.
“Uh, that guy just threw a chip at you.”
“He’s mad I won, good sir,” I sigh happily. “And he’s mad because he’s just now realizing I’m going to keep on winning.”
-9-
3 Years
17 Weeks
4 Days
Jack Hunter is moving towards me without a shirt on and it is half-glorious and half-heart-attack-inducing and something in my stomach gurgles like I want to vomit. He smiles, but not like he smiled with Madison. He smiles like he means it, a soft, golden curve of his lips, and it somehow makes him look even stupidly handsomer.
“Jack,” I start, my throat tensing up. “You’re half naked!”
For some reason I’m wearing a low-cut bodice but I can’t remember how I got in one of these. It’s something straight out of the cheap romance novels I caught Jack checking out in the library.
Jack leans towards me, the smell of his honey-spice cologne wafting up, his bright blue eyes piercing into me as he leans down and nuzzles my neck. His lips are soft and warm as he says in a low voice;
“Would you like to help with the other half?”
And then suddenly the room is red, and there are roses everywhere, and the escort club receptionist that I called is sitting behind a desk watching us but for some reason she looks like Kayla, who frowns, sees Jack kissing my neck, and keels over, dead.
“Ahh!” I bolt upright in my bed, sweat cooling on my forehead. It’s the middle of the night. I’m in my own room in reality, hugging the stuffing out of Ms. Muffin. Jack’s abs have disappeared into thin air, and Kayla is not dead. At least I hope not. I reach up to feel my neck and squirm – it felt so real! I get up and douse my neck with hydrogen peroxide for good measure. Dream Jack or no, any and all Jack-touching needs to be disinfected immediately, lest I catch his fathead shitbaby germs.
The next morning at school I have to make sure Kayla is not, in fact, dead because my entire world is ending and I need to talk to her about it. She’s standing under a tree talking to Avery, but I have to make doubly sure she isn’t dead, so I inch up and poke her in the butt. Several times.
“Isis! What are you doing?”
“Oh, thank god, Kayla. Your fabulous ass is intact! The stability of world peace depends on that ass.”
“Get out of here, creep,” Avery sneers.
“Good morning, Avery-bobavery,” I chirp. “How are the pills treating you?”
The other girl she’s talking with looks confused. “Pills? What pills? You have pills and you didn’t give me any, Ave?”
Avery is too busy glowering at me to stop me from dragging Kayla away to a different tree.
“Isis, are you okay?”
“Kayla, do you think Jack is sexy?”
She makes a dying pig squeal and I shake her out of it. Politely.
“I had this nightmare wherein I thought Jack was sexy and you died.”
“O-Oh. Well. I’m not dead! So that’s good, right?” Kayla smiles.
“Oh Kayla, you gorgeous, sugary, incredibly fluffy butterfly, you are of no help to me right now and you have a date with Jack on Saturday at The Red Fern at seven I arranged it and I must go.”
I leave her to chemically combust and find Wren in the student council office, filling out extremely interesting paperwork. He’s buried behind piles of the stuff. I can barely see tufts of his blonde hair poking out. I reach into the paperwork pile and shove the two halves aside. Hundreds of them fall off the desk and to the floor. Papers drift through the air like snowflakes. Fat, boring-ass snowflakes. Wren looks up, face slack with shock.
“Whatcha doing?” I ask.
“Dividing up funding for the other clubs,” He whispers, clearly distraught. A paper plops onto his head and slides off dejectedly. I’m respectful for three seconds.
“So anyway, I had this nightmare in which Jack was sexy and Kayla died.”
“I’m…sorry to hear that?”
“Don’t you see? Jack cannot be sexy! I can’t even think that subconsciously, or else the war is gonna be lost! The countless troops living in my brain are going to lose morale if they spot a kernel of potential sexiness in Jack! They’ll get confused! I can’t like him. Not even one bit! Or the whole thing falls apart!”
“Might I suggest –”
“And that’s not even taking into consideration my timer!” I crow, bending and picking up the papers for him. “Three whole years, Wren! Three freakin’ years of not being a moron! I can’t…I can’t break that! I’ll never be a moron again! I won’t! Sexy thoughts leads to sex and sex leads to love! Or is it the other way around?”
“I’m pretty sure it’s –”
“I can’t do it, Wren!” I wail. “You have to help
me! If I start to like Jack, and Jack sees that, he’ll shoot me down because A. we are slightly at war and B. because I’m a fat ugly cow and then my timer will get reset and I’ll lose three years and I promised myself I wouldn’t do it again, Wren, I promised!”
I slam the stack of papers back on his desk, my voice trembling.
“What do I do?”
He sighs. “Look, Isis, I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but if the thought of liking someone freaks you out to the point of tears, I don’t think it’s good for you. You should stop.”
“I’m trying!” I shout, then whimper. “I’m trying.”
Wren sighs, getting up and putting an arm around my shoulder.
“It’s understandable, okay? He’s a good-looking guy. Maybe that’s just it. Maybe you like him only for his body. We’re teenagers. That level of libido is normal.”
“Oh god you used ‘libido’ and ‘teenagers’ in a serious sentence; what are you, eighty with a PhD?”
“And,” Wren says sternly to drown my groaning out. “He did kiss you.”
“As a joke.”
“Yes, well –”
“It meant absolutely nothing.”
“Yes, but you have to consider that even though your brain knows that, your body may not. And…your heart might be a bit confused, too.”
“Pffft,” I buzz my lips. “What heart? That thing I got rid of three years ago? Last I checked it’s impossible for organs to properly function outside of the body. Unless you put it on a pump. But that’s gross and I definitely did not put my dumb little heart on a pump, I threw it out the window when I was driving to Walgreen’s –”
“Isis!” Wren grabs me by the shoulders, gazing into my eyes with that unblinking stare. “Listen to me for five seconds!”
I’m stunned into being quiet. Wren, realizing this is an once-in-a-lifetime occurrence, barrels on while he still has the floor.
“It’s okay to like someone,” He murmurs. “Even if it’s superficial. You don’t have to let what my cousin did in the past define you. I know he probably did something horrible. He used to put frogs in the microwave and laugh about it. I know what he’s like. I know he hurt you. But if you’re feeling things for someone again, it’s good. It means you’re healing. You have to let that happen.”
“I don’t like Jack,” I whisper. “I don’t.”
Wren hugs me. I rip out of his grip and put on my brightest smile.
“Seriously, I don’t! Just ignore everything I said, okay? Jack’s just really fun to pick on, you know? I’m just getting that confused is all.”
“Isis –”
“Whatever he did must’ve been really bad if you go pale every time I mention it and Avery has to the go to a shrink, huh? He’s probably as bad as Nameless!”
Wren immediately clams up, mouth closing and fists balling.
“Plus Avery was drinking the entire time at the bowling alley, while he was there. And you only looked at him twice, so. Yeah. I think it must’ve been really, really horrible.” I tap my chin thoughtfully. “It has something to do with Sophia, doesn’t it?”
“Stop.”
“Did he do to her what Nameless did to me? I just have to ask her, and –”
“I said stop.” Wren’s voice is so soft and dark I can’t help but shudder. He adjusts his glasses and looks to me with those piercing green eyes. “Don’t hide behind what he did, just because what I said to you hits too close to home. Jack’s a better guy than Nameless, I promise you. It just takes a while for people to see that.”
“Avery said he was dangerous when people start getting to know him.”
Wren sighs. “He’s dangerous, period. There’s a reason he keeps people at arm’s length. He might seem heartless, but he doesn’t want to hurt anyone again.”
“Again? So that means…he hurt someone. He hurt Sophia.”
Wren flinches. “Look, I’m sorry, Isis, but you need to leave. I can’t talk about this right now.”
“You pretended not to know Sophia at first! You lied to me!”
“Leave, please. Now.”
I glare furiously at Wren, then turn on my heel and slam the door behind me. So much for Wren helping me. I’m on my own. I’m on my own and the terrifying thought that I might not absolutely hate Jack Hunter’s guts is looming over my brain like a guillotine. And the mystery of Sophia is getting deeper and extremely annoying-er. I have to find that girl, and pronto, if I want any answers.
But do I? Is digging around in Jack’s past really going to help me in not liking him? Of course it will, what am I saying? He clearly hurt Sophia. If I learn just how badly, I can knock this funky idea out of my brain that I think he’s cute at all. It’s the perfect tactic. And until then, I’ll quash whatever idiotic feelings are brewing for him under seven tons of lead bricks inscribed with the word NOPE. I have a war to win, a date to get ready for, and an arrogant asshole to finally force into apologizing to the only friend I’ve made so far.
Jack Hunter is not sexy.
Jack Hunter is on my shitlist, forever.
And just to let him know it, I sneak into the Agriculture building and scoop a plastic baggie full of goat-and-chicken-and-god-knows-what-other-animal-poop compost, and lob it on his windshield. It splatters on a new Dramaclub Wailer girl love note tucked under the wipers, and I smile to myself and run just as campus security yells after me. There aren’t many people in the halls, but I almost run smack into Knife-kid as I turn a corner.
“Hi,” I say breathlessly. “Can I use your jacket?”
“Uh,” He looks down at the military-inspired green jacket. “Sure. Just be careful. It’s vintage. See the holes with dark stuff around them? Those are stab wounds from Vietnam –”
“Fascinating. Thanks!” I grab it and put it on, running as the sound of footsteps gets loud behind me. I pull a hairband off my wrist, put my hair into a bun, and roll my jeans up. The first person I see around this corner has to cooperate with me, or I’m done for. I have to pretend I’ve been talking to them for ages, and I have to face away from the security, so they only see my back. I turn left and race down the hall, my heart singing when I see someone with their head in their locker. I pull their arm and slam the locker shut.
“Quick,” I hiss. “Pretend we’ve been talking for a long time, and if security comes by, point in another direction.”
“Why should I?” Avery glowers.
“C’mon, please!”
“You’ll owe me.”
“That’s great! Sure! I love owing the devil favors!”
The security comes barreling around the corner, and Avery raises her voice.
“So I was telling him not to call me again, but he just couldn’t get the message, you know? Anyway, do you have Calc or English after this?”
“Which way did the running girl go?” A balding officer pants. I pull my jacket slightly over my chin. Avery looks him up and down and jerks her thumb behind her.
“Thank you,” The other officer wheezes. They take off down the hall, pot bellies swaying. When they’re gone, Avery smirks.
“You’d think they’d be able to remember what a girl with purple streaks in her hair looks like. Idiots.”
“Right, so, what do I owe you? Let’s get this over with Shelob.”
“Are you comparing me to a giant spider?”
When I nod, she looks mildly impressed, and then suddenly points at me, all business.
“You’re going to help me break into Jack’s house after school today.”
“Wow, uh, normally I would be one hundred percent down for criminal robbery, but I’m sort of having a crisis pertaining him, and -”
“Wow, duh, I don’t care. Should I call those fat-asses back? Oh boys!! I’ve got someone here –”
“Fine!” I hiss, clamping a hand around her wrist. “Just tell me what to do.”
“Meet me in the parking lot after school. You’ll be driving. Are you in any AP classes?”
“Yes –”
<
br /> “What am I saying, of course you are, you’re ugly. Bring some unfinished homework from one of those classes.”
And that’s the story of how I was recruited to become a cat burglar by Satan.
***
Jack’s house is fancy and huge – a gravel roundabout at the front cleaving the verdant front lawn in two. Rose bushes and massive lilies and apple trees crowd around the house. A hummingbird feeder glows red with sugar-juice as tiny jewel-toned birds flit around, sipping nectar. A gardener waters the roses carefully, his curly-haired head bobbing as he nods at each one, satisfied they’re growing well. I park across the street like Avery tells me to. She grabs both sides of my face and forces me to look at her.
“Pay attention, fat girl.”
“Paying a thousand attentions,” I squeak.
“You are Jack’s project partner for AP Bio. You’ve brought stuff to work on with him. He’s not there right now, and I know this for a fact, because he’s visiting Sophia. His mother is disgustingly sweet. She’ll let you in with no problem. Ask for the bathroom. Go upstairs and enter the second door on your right.”
“I’m gonna puke.”
“Save it for when you get out of the house!” Avery snaps, and lets my face go. “It’s just Jack’s mom, and his room. It’s not him. I’ll keep watch. If he comes home early, I’ll text you, so put it on vibrate and get the hell out of there if you feel it go off. If he catches you snooping around…” Avery shudders. “What he did with your butt crack picture will look nice in comparison. Got it?”
“Got it!” I salute.
“What are you looking for?” She quizzes me.
“A cigar box of letters.”
“And which letter will you take?”
“The most recent one.”
“And what will you do when you get it?”
“Get the hell out of the house and definitely never open the letter even a centimeter.”
“Alright. Do this, and we’re even, you hear me? I don’t talk about you stealing, and you don’t talk about me going to the shrink’s.”
“That sounds fantastically equal and all, but you’re forgetting the slight problem of he’ll notice a letter is missing because he isn’t dead-ass blind and he’ll ask his mom and he’ll know it’s me and then I’ll get maimed.”