If only I could make myself believe my own story. But my mind insisted on reliving those last few moments, when the baby had inched out of the shadow and bared those awful teeth at me. And when it had vaporized—for want of a better word—right in front of my eyes.
Which reminded me suddenly that the cloud of … whatever had passed right over my head. I ran a shaking hand through my hair and practically threw up when I saw the oily black streak that was left on my palm. It wasn’t much. Not so much a streak as a smudge. And there were probably a million things it could be, other than baby residue. I’d been wearing a hat, after all. But I bolted for the bathroom anyway.
I washed my hair about eighteen times, my skin crawling. The mark came off my hand easily enough, and if there was any more of it in my hair, I didn’t see it amid the suds I rinsed off. Yet I felt sure I was tainted somehow. I didn’t know what that “baby” had been, couldn’t even think of some convenient folkloric label to pin on it, but I was convinced, body and soul, that it had been evil. And I wished I’d listened to my instincts instead of being a Good Samaritan.
My night went from bad to worse a couple hours later, when my dad got home. He’d heard about the 9-1-1 call, of course, and he didn’t buy my story of mistaken identity.
“I can’t believe you would do something so selfish and childish!” he said. He didn’t yell, but with that deep, commanding voice of his, he didn’t have to. He glared down at me with steely eyes, so furious his cheeks flushed.
“It was an honest mistake,” I replied, making my eyes go big and wounded. When he and Mom were still together, doe eyes had often worked on him, but ever since the divorce this past summer, he was in a perpetual state of pissed off, and he seemed to like it there.
“Not another word!” he snapped. “You didn’t call the police because you saw a damn cat. What was this supposed to be? A protest about me working so late?” His scowl deepened. “Did that friend of yours put you up to this?”
This was just what I needed after my already traumatic, terrifying, and embarrassing night. How could my dad think I would make a crank call to the police? And why would he suddenly drag Piper into this just because he didn’t like her?
“No one put me up to anything,” I said, my own pulse quickening with anger. Sure, I’d gotten in trouble a few times lately, and most of the time it had been with Piper by my side, but I’d given Dad no reason to think I’d call 9-1-1 just for shits and giggles. It stung pretty hard to think he gave me that little credit. “This wasn’t a prank, and it wasn’t some stupid cry for attention. It was an honest mistake, like I said.”
“Don’t make it worse by lying.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to look defiant instead of hurt. “So what you’re telling me is that you’ve already decided what happened and why, and you don’t give a shit about my side of the story.”
For a fraction of a second I thought I’d scored a point, that Dad finally realized how unfair he was being. His eyes briefly softened, and there was a hint of doubt in them. But he hadn’t gotten where he was today by allowing himself to feel uncertain of anything. And getting him to change his mind was like trying to turn the Titanic.
“You are grounded for two weeks,” he told me. “You will not leave this house except to go to school and run errands. No Internet, and no phone.”
He held out his hand in a silent demand that I hand over my phone. When my dad says I’m grounded, he doesn’t fool around. I guess he was used to dealing with scumbags who made taking advantage of loopholes into an art form. I’d be lucky if he didn’t periodically toss my room just to make sure I hadn’t borrowed a phone from anyone.
“This isn’t fair,” I told him with a hitch in my voice. “I’ve done nothing wrong.” That, at least, was perfectly true.
He just stood there with his hand extended, his face cold and devoid of anything resembling fatherly compassion.
He didn’t used to be this way. He’d never exactly been warm and fuzzy, but he’d been fair, and he had a soft side that only my mother, my older sister, and I saw. There had never been any doubt in my mind that he loved me. But he’d been a different man since the divorce went through, harder and angrier and unyielding. I wanted my pre-divorce father back, but I didn’t think that was going to happen, at least not until after I graduated high school and left home.
When they’d split up, my parents had let me choose who I wanted to live with, and I’d chosen Dad because Mom was moving to Boston and I didn’t want to start a new school for my senior year. Right now, that wasn’t looking like the world’s greatest decision.
“I should have gone with Mom,” I told him as I slapped my phone into his hand.
CHAPTER TWO
There’s a part of me that’s always been jealous of Piper Grant, even though she’s my best friend. For one thing, she’s beautiful, whereas the most flattering way I can describe myself is “somewhat attractive,” and that’s only on my good days. She’s tall and lean, with lustrous red-gold hair that never seems to get frizzy or oily or tangled. As far as I can tell, she’s never had a zit in her life, and if we didn’t go to an all-girls school, she’d surely have every straight boy in school trailing after her in adoration.
Someone who looked like she did could easily become a bitchy mean girl, but Piper wasn’t like that. I’d had enough of bitchy mean girls in middle school, thank you very much. Piper was popular, but she never let it go to her head. She seemed to like just about everyone, and just about everyone liked her right back. Except my dad, who thought she was a spoiled, entitled rich kid who got off on manipulating her “worshipers,” which is what he said I was.
Although Piper and I went to the same school, we weren’t in any of the same classes. She wasn’t stupid—the Edith Goldman School for Girls doesn’t admit stupid people—but she wasn’t bound for academic glory, either. I’m in A.P. everything, and she was just scraping by “normal” classes with indifferent grades. We didn’t even have the same lunch break, so the only time I got to talk to her was when we passed each other in the hall, or after school.
I’d been thinking all day about what I was going to tell her about last night’s nightmare encounter. On the one hand, she was my best friend, and if I couldn’t tell her the truth about what happened, then I couldn’t tell anyone. On the other hand, why should she believe my crazy story when I barely believed it myself?
Every time I passed her in the hall, I expected her to stop and ask me what was wrong. I wasn’t trying to act all weird, but I’d barely gotten any sleep, and I was so distracted by my own thoughts that twice I almost walked by without seeing her. Two of my teachers had taken me aside and asked if everything was okay, so I knew I was being pretty obvious. But Piper isn’t the most observant person I’ve ever met—my dad would say because she’s too self-absorbed to notice other people—and if she thought I was acting funny, she didn’t say anything about it.
I was packing up my backpack after school when Piper suddenly appeared at my side, leaning against the bank of lockers and frowning. I jumped a little when I saw her, and her frown deepened.
“I’ve been standing here for like five minutes,” she said. “I was beginning to think I had to do a backflip to get your attention.”
I forced a grin that felt awkward as I hoisted my backpack and closed my locker. “Sorry. I’m a little preoccupied.”
“No kidding?”
I gave her a dirty look, thinking now she would surely ask me what was wrong. I still hadn’t decided what to tell her, though I was leaning toward the same cat story I’d told the police and my dad. She’d talked me through some pretty awful times as my parents’ marriage had broken up. I started lots of those conversations in tears, and they mostly ended with me calm and smiling. Even laughing sometimes. I could have used a good dose of her sunny outlook right now, but I didn’t have the guts to tell her the truth. She had always been very accepting of me, but I didn’t know how any sane person could accept this particular story.
<
br /> “I’m going to head over to Rare Vintage and do a little shopping before I go home,” she said. “Wanna come with?”
Rare Vintage is a vintage clothing store Piper was in love with. It was within walking distance of our school—not that it mattered, since Piper’s parents had given her a Volvo for her sixteenth birthday. My parents, on the other hand, had told me in no uncertain terms that if I wanted my own car I had to earn the money to buy it myself. They both grew up poor and made huge successes of themselves—my mom is a corporate lawyer and my dad the youngest police commissioner in Philly’s history—and they thought giving me things they couldn’t have afforded at my age would spoil me. Never mind that, without a car, my commute to school was pure hell, involving a couple of long walks to and from the train station as well as a thirty-minute train ride.
“I can’t,” I told her, making a regretful face even though Rare Vintage is not my favorite place. Maybe Piper has enough extra cash lying around to drop on fancy beaded flapper dresses she’ll never wear, but I don’t. “I’m grounded.”
Except for my dad confiscating my phone and not letting me use the Internet, being grounded wasn’t that big a deal for me. Most of my schoolmates lived out in the suburbs, and with me not having a car, it was really hard for me to hang out with them outside of school. On most days, I went straight home, and being grounded wasn’t going to change that. Though if I weren’t grounded, I’d have gone to Rare Vintage just as a chance to spend more time with Piper. She had about a bazillion friends, and getting a spot on her social calendar was something of a challenge.
Piper raised her eyebrows in surprise. “You’ve been getting into trouble without me?” she asked with mock incredulity. “How could you?” She lowered her head and put a hand to her sternum as if heartsick.
I laughed and let a little of the tension ease out of my shoulders. Even if I couldn’t get myself to confide what had happened last night, maybe spending time with her—even if it was only a few stolen minutes—was the best thing for me.
Piper glanced at her watch. “What time is your train?” she asked.
“Three thirty,” I told her, not looking forward to the long, cold wait on the platform. It was still in the twenties out, and the train platform was open and windy. The colder and more miserable the weather, the less likely the damn train would come on time.
“Hmm. I bet if I give you a ride home, I can get you there with time to spare.”
I bit my lip, thinking about it. I knew my dad. He would still be at work when I got home, but since I was grounded, he would definitely call and make sure I was at home when I was supposed to be. And Piper was a little fuzzy on the meaning of punctuality. Chances were that, if I went with her, I’d be home late even with the ride.
“If we don’t beat the train home,” she wheedled, “you can always tell your dad it was late. It’s not like it’s never delayed or anything.”
“True,” I said. My dad would never have to know I’d defied him. And it would feel good to give this unfair punishment the respect it deserved.
Piper didn’t wait for my answer, just slipped her arm through mine and gave me a tug toward the parking lot.
* * *
We weren’t in the store more than about five minutes before Piper’s phone rang, and I knew immediately by the goofy look on her face that the call was from her current boyfriend, Luke. I hadn’t managed to have a single boyfriend yet, myself—going to an all-girls school and not having a car combined to make meeting boys really tough—but Piper went through them like popcorn, one moment head over heels in love, the next bored and looking for a new adventure.
Piper gave me an apologetic smile before retreating to one of the changing rooms so she could have a private conversation with Luke, leaving me browsing the racks aimlessly.
I was the one who introduced Piper to Luke, though I kind of regretted it. There’s a gated courtyard behind my house, and Luke lives in the house across the courtyard from me. I’d had a crush on him for forever, but he never showed any sign of being interested in me in that way. For my seventeenth birthday, my dad had hosted a cookout in the courtyard. Piper was there, of course, but I’d also scraped up the courage to ask Luke. When he’d said yes, I thought maybe there was some glimmer of interest after all. But then he’d come to the party, and he’d met Piper, and that was that.
I’d never told Piper about my crush, so it wasn’t like she intentionally stole the boy I was interested in. But I couldn’t help a little twinge of jealousy every time I saw them together. I kept waiting for them to break up—they’d been together almost four months already, which was a record for Piper—but so far they were going strong. So strong that she was on that phone with him forever. I could hear her giggling from the back room as I kept glancing at my watch. Time was ticking away, and even if we left right that moment, I was going to have to lie to my dad and tell him my train was late.
I finally grew impatient and stomped back to the dressing room, pulling the curtain open and giving Piper a meaningful look before tapping my watch. She lowered the phone from her face for a second to glance at the time, and her eyes went wide.
“Oh, shit!” she said, raising the phone once more. “Sorry. I lost track of time. I’ve gotta go.”
I couldn’t hear whatever it was Luke said to her on the other end of the line, but it made her blush and smile. “I love you, too,” she said.
I turned my back to her so she wouldn’t see the sour face I made. There’s nothing quite like hearing your best friend saying “I love you” to the boy you’ve had a secret crush on for years. Maybe I shouldn’t have kept it secret. Piper had certainly made no secret about her attraction when she’d met him. She’d flirted with him from the moment I introduced them, and he’d lapped it up.
But then, Piper was beautiful, and witty, and brimming with self-confidence. How could Luke not have fallen for her? And why would he settle for an ordinary, socially awkward shy girl like me when he could have Piper? Even if I’d had the guts to tell him I liked him, and even if he liked me back, Piper would have dazzled him.
Maybe if you’d told Piper you wanted him, she wouldn’t have made a play for him, I reminded myself. Hell, if I’d told her, she’d most likely have thrown herself into a quest to hook me up with him.
Maybe that’s what I’d been afraid of. If she’d tried to play matchmaker and it didn’t work, I’d have been utterly humiliated. And with Luke living so close, I’d have my nose rubbed in that humiliation practically every day.
No. Better for him to be with Piper, even if it did make me jealous. Jealous was better than humiliated.
Piper finally got off the phone, and we hurried to her car. “I’m so sorry,” she said as we piled in. “You should have come and interrupted me sooner. You know how I am with time.”
I snapped my seat belt closed while she started the car. She was right, of course. I should have interrupted her sooner. But I hadn’t, and it was too late to change that.
“It’s okay,” I told her, insisting to myself that it was. I’d let her talk me into missing the train because I wanted to spend time with her. Instead, I’d spent my time browsing alone through a store I had no interest in while she talked on the phone. The cold, hard truth was that although Piper was my best friend, I wasn’t hers. If she were to disappear from my life, I’d be devastated; if I were to disappear from hers, she’d be sad for a while, then get over it. When you make friends as easily as she does, you just don’t get as attached.
“No, it’s not okay,” she said, surprising me. “I was being rude and inconsiderate, and I’m sorry.”
I sighed. Sometimes Piper annoyed the hell out of me, but she was still a nice person and a good friend. I’d just have to learn to be more assertive with her. She’d gotten off the phone the minute I’d pointed out how late it was. If I’d done that fifteen minutes earlier, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
“Hey, I know you forget the rest of the world exists when you’r
e talking to Luke,” I told her with a smile. “It’s my job to remind you.”
Mentioning Luke brought the smile right back to her face, as I’d known it would. “Well, he is a little distracting,” she admitted. “Somehow, we’ve got to find a boy for you. It would be so cool if we could go on a double date.”
Yeah, right. Because I would so enjoy seeing Piper and Luke make out. “What do you mean, ‘somehow’?” I asked, belatedly. “Is it that hard to imagine a boy liking me?”
Her eyebrows rose, and she turned to look at me. “No, dummy. It’s just hard to find a way for you to meet them.”
“You never seem to have any trouble,” I muttered. “And watch the road, please. My dad would kill us both if you got in an accident.”
She laughed, but thankfully turned her attention back to the road. “I don’t have trouble because my parents let me have a social life. If your dad would loosen up a bit, meeting boys would be a whole lot easier.”
Yes, it would. Thanks to being part of Piper’s social circle, I was often invited to parties, but my dad would never let me go. I had to be able to prove to him that there would be no drugs or underage drinking at these parties, and I never could. Probably because there would be drugs and underage drinking. It was pretty frustrating to have a friend who was so popular and not be able to take advantage of the situation. I’d spent a lot of time in middle school longing to be part of the in crowd, and now, with Piper, I could have that—if only my dad would let me.
“Maybe,” I said. “But I don’t see that happening anytime soon, do you?”
She made a face. She wasn’t any more fond of my dad than he was of her. “Doesn’t he realize that by this time next year you’ll be in college and making these decisions for yourself?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, but that’s the excuse he uses for why it’s perfectly fair for him to keep me under lock and key now. If he says ‘A year isn’t as long as you think’ one more time, I’m going to scream.”
We stopped at a red light, and Piper turned to me. “He does realize that just because there may be other people around doing drugs and drinking, that doesn’t mean you’ll be doing it, right?”