Finally, I shuddered against his chest, and pulled away slightly. He tipped back my head and studied my face.
“Sorry,” I gritted. “I actually am glad to see you.”
“I’ve had nightmares, too,” he said, smiling sadly.
I widened my swollen eyes. “You have?”
He nodded. “I keep seeing Kiyoko. The way we found her.” He had found me wandering in my pajamas on the shore; I had lost time, and I still wondered if I had seen Kiyoko die.
He took my hand and led me to the chaise lounge beside the pool. I glanced in, but Celia wasn’t there. Maybe she was gone. Or just dormant, like a volcano. Maybe I would survive all this—at least it was a good sign that my snarky side seemed to be rising from the dead.
“You must be a wreck,” he said, as we both sat down. “First semester at boarding school, and seeing her like that . . . ” He trailed off. “Julie said you were going through some tough times.”
From the way he said it, I was pretty sure he knew I’d had a nervous breakdown before I’d gone to Marlwood. But I wasn’t positive, so I didn’t respond, just let the warmth of his body heat seep into my fear. He began playing with my fingers, pushing against the tips of them with the tips of his, and I smiled a little.
“Your dad’s a car freak. Like me.”
“Cars are cars,” I retorted.
“Not my T-bird.” He pushed harder on my fingers. “You should know. You’ve ridden in it.” The way he said it sounded very sexy. A bunch of us had crammed into his car after Julie hurt herself during one of Mandy Winters’ stupid pranks. Troy had offered to get us back to our dorm in the same car.
I was not going to think about Mandy tonight.
“Maybe I was a little distracted,” I allowed.
“You need to give it another shot.” He blinked, and grinned. “Drive back with me to Marlwood.”
Whoa. I couldn’t even breathe now.
“We deserve it,” he said, “after what we’ve been through.” He leaned toward me and raised his brows. His smile was sweet, cute.
The porch light flicked on and the sliding glass door opened. My dad poked out his head. “Hey, kids, we’re going to play Monopoly. Want to join us?”
I knew that was my dad’s subtle way of asking me to be with the family again. Troy moved his shoulders what the heck? and nodded.
“I’m in,” Troy said.
“Sure,” I called to my father. Then to Troy, I said, “My parents would probably say no.” To driving back to Marlwood with him, I meant.
“We have some time to convince them,” Troy replied, smiling his model-charming smile.
TROY CAME OVER the next day, and he made himself at home. Everyone liked him. It was as if he’d been around for a long time, as if he had absorbed our daily routine by osmosis—he got CJ a cup of coffee and he watched cartoons with my little stepbrothers. CJ told him a little bit about her divorce—things I’d never heard—and my dad yakked on about his computer engineering job until I got embarrassed by his obsessiveness and tried to change the subject. But Troy wanted to hear more, as if Java applets were his life.
Everyone started teasing me as soon as he left. Tom started doing the K-I-S-S-I-N-G chant and Sam mimicked him, screeching with demonic glee because at seven, you think anything that rhymes and makes your stepsister blush is hysterical. My father kept calling Troy “Linz’s beau.” CJ told me Troy had great manners.
The day after that, Troy came much earlier, bearing late Christmas gifts for us—some homemade peanut brittle and the San Diego version of Monopoly. When we were alone, he handed me a beautiful card of a full moon trimming the waves of the ocean with silver.
Dear Lindsay,
A donation has been made in your honor to the Surfrider Foundation.
“Thanks,” I said. “This is amazing. No one’s ever done anything like that for me.”
“And . . . ” He reached into his pocket and handed me a small box. Jewelry, I knew. I opened it. It was a black crocheted silk necklace decorated with a silver crescent moon.
“Oh, it’s so beautiful,” I murmured. My cheeks went hot. Jewelry from a guy was so special and personal. Jewelry from Troy was beyond anything I had ever received. I hadn’t bought him anything. I would make it up to him some other way.
“I hope it’s not too goth,” he said.
“No, I love it.” And I did. It was different, kind of edgy. I wondered if he had picked it out because the crocheted silk reminded him of my knitting.
“Let me put it on you. Lift your hair.”
I put the silk chain up to my neck, then lowered my head and closed my eyes as he fastened the clasp. His fingertips lingered on the nape of my neck and then he bent down and kissed me there, once; and then he kissed my earlobe.
“It looks good on you,” he said. “Really good. Merry Christmas, Lindsay.”
“Merry Christmas, Troy.” And I kissed him to show him that I meant it.
By ten at night, my parents had agreed to let us drive back to school together. They were actually relieved; our Subaru was in need of major repairs and CJ’s old pre-marriage Camry was in even worse shape. They told me that they trusted Troy and me. It would take eight to ten hours straight to drive depending on traffic, then at least two more up the winding road to my school. Alone all that time . . . were they nuts?
I was amazed, but Troy wasn’t. “Parents like me,” he said. He wasn’t bragging or being devious. It was a statement of fact. Some people have charisma like that. Jane had it. Mandy Winters had it too.
I promised myself I wasn’t going to think about Mandy anymore for the rest of the break. I touched my necklace to remind myself that Troy had spent Christmas with me, not her. She was his ex. I was his current . . . or so I hoped.
The fourth day after Christmas, my true love’s family left to spend New Year’s in Cabo San Lucas, down in Mexico, and I was by myself with my family again, and my loneliness . . . and Celia.
It was almost as if as soon as Troy was gone, Celia got back to the business of making my life miserable. The next eight nights were filled with a mind-crushing mash-up of her nightmares and my own night terrors: I was sharing the bad dreams of a ghost. And I would keep sharing them unless I went to Marlwood, and got rid of her. How, I didn’t know. Yet. In these nightmares it was never clear what I had to do exactly in order to help Celia, to free her, but I knew I had to put her to rest somehow. As soon as I figured it out, I’d make sure my Marlwood friends were safe, too; and then leave again, and never go back to Marlwood, ever. That was the promise I made to myself, to stop from completely losing my mind.
I talked to Julie on my cell a couple of times, and texted a few more. It was obvious that she didn’t remember a thing about the night I had almost died. She thought all the bruises and scratches she’d found on her arms and legs the morning after were from getting way too drunk—a blackout binge she had no memory of. In her fifteen-year-old world, blackout drinking should have been cause for significantly more alarm than I heard in her voice. Marlwood had changed her, too, and not for the better.
I was so sleep-deprived by the end of vacation that I slogged through each hour as if I were dragging Celia’s body around, like she was part of the jumble of things I was cramming into my luggage. I cried silently as I packed, holding back a confession as my stepmother got another suitcase out of the garage to hold all my new loot. It was crazy there. It was evil, I wanted to tell her. I tried to stop it, but I failed.
Heather didn’t call. Neither did Riley.
I wanted to hate Celia for possessing me. But I had pulled her into myself by accident, on my very first day at Marlwood; and now that she was here, she couldn’t leave, not until she was at peace. Not until we had returned to Marlwood, and put her to rest.
On the last evening of break, I finished packing all my Christmas clothes, pretending to my family that I couldn’t wait to leave. But watching the clock the next morning, I felt like a condemned criminal, counting off the minutes
and seconds until it was seven thirty, and time to go. I played with my crescent moon as if it were a magic amulet that could ward off evil. It was a reminder that good things could happen.
“Here’s something for the road,” my big, tall dad said, slipping about six twenty-dollar bills into my sweaty palm as he kissed my cheek. I kissed him back. With a sharp pang, I remembered when I was little and I used to give him “butterfly” kisses on his cheeks with my eyelashes. I wanted to be his little girl again, let him fight the monsters for me.
“We’re going to miss you so much,” CJ said, sweetly wearing her sweater, her blonde hair pulled up and held in place with the snowman clay-on-hair-clip Tom had made for her in art. Her delicate, gentle fingers brushed curlicues of hair off my forehead. I knew she was conflicted about the way I was dressed. I had on my usual tattered jeans combined with the new soft-as-sin black cashmere sweater she’d given me for Christmas. And my new Doc Martens.
Troy was wearing his brown bomber jacket, a plain white T-shirt, jeans, and Cons. I still couldn’t figure out what it was that proclaimed that he was a rich kid. Was it his subtly perfect haircut? My dad had wanted one of those vacuum-haircutters he’d seen in an infomercial. My stepmom had refused to let him bring one in the house. Go, CJ.
“Are you going to get married?” Sam asked Troy.
“Not today,” Troy said easily.
“You shouldn’t marry her. She farts in the car,” Tom added helpfully.
“Boys,” CJ warned them while I silently rolled my eyes. It would take more than fart jokes to embarrass me.
Troy just smiled as my dad passed him my cheap chocolate-brown-and-turquoise polka dotted suitcases and equally cheesy matching backpack, tagged for delivery to my dorm. My luggage was years out of date. My mom’s medical bills still haunted us, too.
In the immaculate trunk of the T-bird, Troy’s single suitcase was leather the color of a good tan, no brand name anywhere, definitely not from Target like mine was. It featured a discrete brass plate with TAM engraved in bold capital letters. Troy’s last name was Minear. I didn’t know what the A stood for. Maybe the clue that revealed his wealth was his perfect, short fingernails or the simple ID bracelet he wore on his left wrist. It said TAM, too. Troy was heavily personalized.
“Here’s a couple six-packs of sodas and some snacks,” CJ said, hefting me a soft picnic container. She kissed my cheek. “Let us know you got there okay.”
“I will.” I kissed her back, closing my eyes and remembering my mom. I’d gotten used to this cognitive dissonance—missing my mom while at the same time being glad for the presence of CJ in my life. It was a minor version of my other seismic conflict—spending the day with Troy (yay!), going back to Marlwood (oh God, why?).
“Drive safe,” my dad said to Prince Charming. They shook hands. Troy was taller than my father.
We climbed in. I had hoped Heather would show up at the last minute, but apparently she and I really were done. She’d probably texted everyone she knew that Lindsay Cavanaugh was still as insane as ever. Maybe after I left Marlwood for good, I could bypass the San Diego experience by living with my Aunt Doreen in Hick-Sticks, Georgia. That’s what we called it, anyway. She loved bingo night at the Catholic church. I could learn to love bingo, too.
With me beside him, Troy backed his T-bird out of our grease-stained driveway. I waved again at my family, my throat tight as they smiled and waved back, the two boys hopping up and down and wiggling their butts. I might die, I told them in my mind. I might never see you again.
“Your family’s nice,” Troy said, waving too as we drove away and my little green house on the corner got smaller and smaller.
“Thanks. You should unroll your window. I feel an awesome fart coming on.”
He cracked up and slid a glance at me. “You’re funny. I missed you in Cabo.”
“I missed you, too,” I said honestly. “What did you do there?”
“Surfed, swam, hung out. You?”
“Pretty much the same. Farted around,” I joked. It wasn’t exactly lying. Except that I hadn’t gone anywhere near our pool. And as for surfing, I had surfed the net for information on the history of Marlwood Academy and all my rich new schoolmates.
“Partied with old friends?” he said, raising his brows above his hypnotizing eyes.
Was that jealousy in his voice? Was he really asking about old boyfriends? I felt a little smug, and very thrilled. Presents, jealousy—I was on a roll.
“Some.” Okay, that was a lie.
“Let’s go up the coast,” he suggested. “We’ll take the 5. It’ll morph into Pacific Coast Highway.” PCH was a Southern California historical landmark. The ocean views were the best to be had, and that was saying something.
“Sounds good.”
I studied his profile. Long, straight nose, cleft in the chin, dimple at the side of his mouth. Troy had modeled, as a lark. Friends of the family in the movie industry begged him to be in their films and TV shows.
There is a dead girl living inside me, I thought as he took his ocean-blue eyes off the road and glanced at me. His easy smile warmed me; if an amazing, hot guy like Troy could like me, I could throw Celia out of my life.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked me, a little lilt in his voice—as if he already knew.
“Not much,” I said.
He grinned. “Me neither.”
I tingled. Of course it had occurred to me that we could stop the car anywhere we wanted. We could look for a secluded spot. Or Troy could rent us a hotel room. Jane had rented lots of rooms; like her, he looked older and he had lots of money. What would it be like? I’d made out with guys, sure, but I had never gone further than second base. Everyone assumed I had, but it was my one big secret, back in the day.
He glanced at the road, then leaned sideways and kissed me, quickly, brushing his lips over mine. He smelled so good. His skin was warm and golden from the sun.
“I really did miss you,” he said, and then he leaned in, and kissed me again.
We made out in the car. A lot. We went pretty far, parked at various ocean vista stops along the way north. It was incredible—like flying: all these amazing sensations pulsating through me, far more intense than it had ever been with Riley. I tried to catch my breath and stay in control; but his skin smelled so good and his hair was so soft, and his lips were warm and he was gentle. . . . It felt like he was respecting me, in a way Riley never had. Riley had always pushed; when he and Jane had snuck into my parents’ room that night—she’d later asked me, “What did you expect? You teased him. What were you waiting for, an engagement ring?”
Troy and I ate all CJ’s snacks—tangerines, cookies, sandwiches, Christmas turkey, guacamole, and cheese—and drank most of the sodas. Then around three or four in the afternoon, Troy insisted on stopping at a French bakery for an enormous pink box of all kinds of pastries, which we scarfed. And later, as we got closer to the mountainous northern region of the state, there was a spiffy sit-down steak dinner in a cozy, dark restaurant called La Vie En France—me in my raggedy jeans, gazing at Troy across a candlelit table, the light catching my necklace. He’d loaded an iPod with great songs, which we listened to through his car speakers, then tore up the freeway laughing and singing.
The seaside town of San Covino was the last outpost of civilization before we began the slow climb into the mountains on a one-lane road. It would take about two hours to travel from San Covino to Marlwood. As we prepared for launch, it was almost eight o’clock, and I had to physically check in with Ms. Krige, my housemother, by ten. As we drove down Main Street in search of gas, shadows stretched across the mirrored store-fronts, making the town seemed deserted . . . dead. We stopped at a Chevron station, and I called my parents, reminding them that I probably wouldn’t be able to reach them again until I got to the landline in my dorm. We had terrible cell phone coverage at Marlwood.
Then we were back in the car in the Chevron lot when Troy got a text message on his wafer-thi
n phone, so new you couldn’t get it in the States yet, and his face fell. He was quiet for a moment, and then instead of pulling out of the station, he took my hand.
“I need to tell you something,” he said.
As soon as he said that, my heart dropped and the whole day of fun—the views, the salt spray, tossing tangerine peels at each other in the car . . . it all fell away like background noise, like a carousel winding down until the music warps, slows, and stops. Let’s face it. There’s never anything good coming when someone says, “I need to tell you something.”
Troy hesitated, tossing his thick dark hair out of his blue eyes. “I don’t want to seem like a player . . . ” Then he trailed off, and loosened his grip on my fingers.
A sickening dread rushed through me. I waited.
He gave his head a little shake. “I told you I would break up with Mandy. But she came to the hospital and . . . ”
I wasn’t stupid. I could fill in the blanks: he hadn’t done it. As I worked to keep the pain out of my expression, I was suddenly very grateful for my year as a Jane-bitch—because she had taught us never to show weakness in front of boys. Never to confirm that we liked or wanted them. They had to work to deserve us.
“She didn’t used to be so . . . so bad,” he said, wrinkling his forehead. Just . . . it’s so weird. She’s so bad.” And I wondered if he knew. About the hauntings. “She was . . . ”
He sighed hard and tsked his teeth, as if it was too baffling for him. “It’s her brother. Miles is crazy. He’s ruined their whole family.”
Before I could say anything, he looked up at me. “She was crying when she came to see me. She said she was afraid.”
“Of what?” I asked.
“My guess is Miles. But she wouldn’t say. She told me I wouldn’t understand.”
Of all the things that Mandy might fear, her brother Miles did not seem to be one of them. Word all over campus was that she and her brother had slept in the Lincoln Bedroom at the White House. Together. And that was why she got sent to Marlwood—late, although not as late as me. She had been going to boarding school in London, but Marlwood was much closer to San Francisco, where the Winters lived, and her parents could keep better tabs on her. I half-believed the gossip; she talked about Miles all the time.