Chapter 2
French was my least favourite class of the day. But whenever I thought about how I might not have been able to be there, suddenly it looked a whole lot better. Some part of me even wanted to become fluent just because I could.
“Bonjour, mes amis,” the teacher, Mme. Claire greeted us when we walked through the door with Aria, “comment allez-vous?”
“Bonjour,” I greeted back, not sure of what she had asked afterwards. Aria answered immediately; she was always good with French, then again, she was good with everything if it meant she was being graded.
We took our seats in the middle of the classroom, awaiting the final bell to start our lessons. When I looked around I noticed the boy with the headphones from earlier poke his head inside, look around and quickly leave. Nobody paid him any attention.
“Did you want your present after school?” Aria suddenly asked, pulling my attention towards her.
“Sure,” I said, “did you just want to come over to my place? Ben and I are going out to dinner so you can come.”
“Mmm.” Aria pursed her lips. “Will Ben be okay with it? I don’t want to intrude on any family time things.”
“No, it’s fine.” A thought occurred to me and I quickly added, “Just you though!”
“GAH.” She mimicked hurt as she held her hands over her heart. “All right. I won’t bring Owen.”
“Won’t bring me where?” As if on cue Owen sat down in front of Aria, leaning his arms over the back of the chair. She gave him a kiss on the cheek and laughed.
“To Mercy’s b-day dinner,” she informed him.
“Oh, that’s right!” Owen’s light eyes brightened even more. “Happy birthday! You’re sixteen now right? Gonna get your licence soon?”
“Hopefully.” I shrunk a little in my seat, hoping he wasn’t insulted that I didn’t want him to join us tonight. I didn’t dislike Owen, he was actually a really nice guy, but I only wanted Aria and Ben tonight.
“Hey guys,” Chase said as he appeared at the wooden desk in front of me, twisting his body to talk to all of us. He gave me a big smile, but I could see something else in his eyes too. He said to me, “Hey Mercy, and happy birthday! It’s good to see you back.”
“Thanks,” was all I managed to get out. The bell rang but half the class had yet to arrive; only about ten of the desks were filled with students.
Aria began to talk with Chase and Owen about some upcoming dance but I stopped listening. Being around the people I always hung out with was sort of reminding me of that night. Aria had been flirting with Owen, in hopes that he would ask her out. I had been planning on getting Chase to do the same thing. But now looking at his grey eyes and shaggy blond hair…did I still want to date him?
I shook my head, trying to focus on what they were saying and push the thought of Tristan from my mind. I’d had a crush on Chase for the longest time…but something about the thought of dating him seemed so unappealing now; and images of green eyes kept getting in my way when I thought of the word “date”.
“So the dance is next Friday,” Aria said facing me, her hand still on Owen’s arm, “did you want to go dress shopping in the city soon?”
“Okay.”
Mme. Claire clapped her hands at the front of the class, forcing Chase and Owen to turn around. I was glad when they did; I knew they were thinking about me and what had happened. Just as the teacher opened her mouth to say something, Eve burst through the door.
After an apology and what I assumed was a witty remark from the teacher, I waved Eve over to sit behind me. She looked both relieved and horrified that I was there, but she sat down anyway. Why would she look horrified? Had what happened at the bleachers been that strange?
Mme. Claire instructed us to open our textbooks and begin a new assignment. Thankfully, she was also letting us work with others. I reached under my seat and pulled out the worn textbook while Chase and Owen immediately began talking to each other. I shifted my body to face Aria and found she was texting someone, but that wasn’t the first thing I noticed.
Behind her was a crimson handprint on the window, smearing down as if the person had…no, was still falling. The blood looked thick, turning black as it dripped further and further down. I took in a sharp breath and blinked. The print was gone.
A beeping erupted from Eve’s pocket, her shrill phone going off again. Mme. Claire gave her a glare and she held up her hands as an apology. It was then that I felt my own phone vibrating in my pocket. I picked it out to find a text from Aria.
Do u want to invite Eve shopping? she asked. I looked up at my friend and knew what she was thinking. Did I want Eve with us, or did I want it to be a “just BFF’s” moment. I licked my lips and typed back a quick, sure.
At first I was about to say I didn’t want her to go; but that was selfish. She wouldn’t judge me because of my scars, and I would have to get used to people seeing them, asking about them. Maybe this would help me think of a good lie?
“Hey, Eve,” Aria whispered behind us once she received my text, “there’s a dance coming up, did you want to go dress shopping with us? It’s a formal so we get to be all shiny.”
“When were you thinking of going?” Eve asked absently as she flipped a page in her textbook, obviously not understanding what we were supposed to do. I let my eyes drift back to the window, imagining the bloody print that was once there. Or was it? Had I just imagined it? I pulled my lips towards my teeth, unable to understand.
“This Sunday maybe?” Aria shrugged. “I guess it depends if Ben is willing to drive us into the city.”
“You’re going to Groveswood?” Eve was suddenly perky.
“Yeah,” Aria said slowly, “it’s really the only place to get a good dress. I mean, there are shops in town, but they don’t really have any formal wear.”
“That’s not true,” argued Owen, turning around but being careful to watch Mme. Claire at her desk as she read a book. “Mr. Will’s downtown has good stuff.”
“Yeah,” Aria scoffed with a roll of her eyes, “maybe for a guy. I like heels and pink though, which Mr. Will has nothing of.”
As they began to argue playfully I went back to the textbook, opening to the appropriate page displayed on the front board and began to read the assignment. But as I fiddled with my hands in my lap and read the words, I realized they were in English. I didn’t understand what they were saying though.
I read, Eight more days. You only have eight more days to save them.
I blinked hard, and reread the words.
Fate is coming, you better hurry Mercy.
My hand slammed the book shut, drawing the attention of most of the class. I knew I must have looked pale, with the overhead lighting making it look like I hadn’t slept in years. Maybe I hadn’t…maybe I was just tired and my eyes were playing tricks on me.
“Mercy?” Aria asked, touching a gentle hand to my own.
“Spider,” I quickly lied. “There was a spider.”
She ripped her hand away from me, her fear getting the best of her. I knew how that felt. I set the book back underneath the desk, leaving it for someone else to use. Hoping to change the subject, I spun around to Eve.
“So are you in?” I asked her, a little too fast I thought.
“Yeah,” Eve agreed, her smile seeming more genuine than I’d seen before. “I’d love to go. There is another place I wouldn’t mind stopping by though. He’s an old friend and I’ve been meaning to talk to him.”
“Ohh,” Aria sang, her eyes lighting up, “is this a boyfriend?”
Eve blushed. “No,” she said defiantly, “he’s just a friend. Like a brother really.”
Aria started to tease our new friend while I sat in silence. I tried to force a smile on my face, and join in on their conversation but I found I couldn’t. Was I losing my mind? Or maybe everything was just stressing me out today? Yes, that was all it was.
“Y
ou should get something in blue,” Chase said in front of me.
“Sorry?” I asked, completely out of it as I twisted to face him.
“If you’re going shopping, I was just thinking you should get something in blue.” He shrugged. “You always look good in blue. Not that I’m trying to tell you what to wear! I just…you look ho—good in blue.”
His face reddened and he spun back around. I knew him saying that should make me happy, it should make me blush even, it should make my heart patter madly against my bones. But it didn’t. So instead, I just said a small “Thanks” and moved on.
English was the one class I was very neutral about. I liked reading, and writing, but I wasn’t close with too many people in it. Actually, I wasn’t friends with anyone there; it was the one class Aria didn’t have.
I took my seat in the back, and as far away from the windows as I could get. I started to gaze out the window, daring something to appear, when someone blocked my path, and I refocused my eyes to find Tristan smiling at me.
“We meet again,” he said, and suddenly his phone went off, emitting that same shrill beeping that Eve’s did. He reached into his jacket and it stopped. “I wanted to apologize for earlier.”
“Earlier?” I asked, remembering how he had kissed my hand. “It’s okay…I’m just not used to that.”
“But you’re not opposed to it?” He grinned and I just didn’t know what to do. I recognized the wiggly feeling in my stomach, and I couldn’t get over the way he looked at me. I never had time to answer when the bell rang, and the teacher began class. My body shifted to face the front, but I noticed Tristan never turned away from me.
I had almost forgotten that I had agreed to go with Aria to her dance committee meeting. But she cornered me by my locker and took me to an empty classroom where twelve others waited; apparently she told Ben to come later to pick me up. I only knew a few of the other students as we walked through the doorway, and the rest were seniors that I had never talked to. They each gave me a nod of acknowledgment before getting down to business.
Aria and I plunked into two seats and joined the circle. One girl said, “So how about we make the theme ‘Atlantis’ rather than ‘Underwater’. It feels way more fairytale, you know?”
“Oh, I like that,” agreed Aria, leaning forward in her seat. Her fingers clutched the edge of the desk, a bright sparkle in her eyes. I didn’t understand how she could get so excited over a dance, but I tried to muster some of my own. The key was to get back to normal, and dances were normal. Besides, decorating the gym could be fun no matter how much I thought the theme was overdone.
“We already settled on ‘Underwater’,” a boy said, a senior I didn’t know. He held a clipboard in his hands with thin glasses perched on his nose. I assumed he was the head of the committee. “We aren’t changing it now. We’re just here to discuss duties.”
“Dibs on making vines and seaweed!” Aria shouted, raising her hand high in the air. She waved her hand around and waited impatiently for the boy to pick her. He rolled his eyes with a sigh and finally pointed at her, she squeaked back in glee.
“What about you?” he looked to me and I raised my eyebrows.
“Me?” I questioned, pointing to myself. “Oh, uh, I don’t know…I’m not reall—”
“She can help me with decorations,” Aria said. She grabbed me arm, making me jump. “She’s super good at art.”
“All right.” The boy wrote something down on his clipboard. “Who wants to handle chair and table setup?”
Someone heaved a heavy sigh on my left, and I turned my head to find a very unenthused boy sitting a few desks over from me. He declared, “I’ll do it.”
The boys hair was blond and slicked back; clearly Malfoy or Spike inspired him. His ankle crossed over one knee, and he wore black clothes, with giant army boots, and a silver eyebrow piercing. The committee leader rolled his eyes again and mumbled something under his breath. He then said louder, “Alec’s got the setup, who wants to handle music?”
Another girl volunteered, and I leaned towards Aria to make sure nobody would hear. I gestured to Alec and asked, “Who’s that?”
“That’s Alec Lawson,” Aria whispered back, eyes watching the other members of the committee, “he’s only here as a detention thing. Last week he tried to light someone on fire in his Chem class. He’s a senior, but I think he flunked a grade or…three. I can’t quite remember.”
“On fire?” I questioned, a little too loud. My cheeks heated as a few nearby students looked at me with glares, as if it was blasphemous to interrupt their little meeting. But my eyes fell on Alec and he was smirking; my face flushed even more when he leaned onto the desk and licked his lips suggestively. I spotted a stud through his tongue.
Aria noticed as well and shot him a glower. But his hazel eyes stayed trained on me, and I gulped. Note to self, I thought, never come to a dance committee ever again. And avoid Alec Lawson at all costs. Apparently not all guys were as nice and gentlemanly as Tristan. I cursed myself for thinking of Tristan again.
The committee head went through a long list of duties, and divided them among the volunteers. Aria didn’t suggest I do anything else, but I was a little grateful that she volunteered me for the decorations. It wouldn’t be so bad, getting together after school to make them in the art room; that place had always been a second home to me.
Ben was already outside waiting to pick me up after the meeting. Unfortunately he was parked underneath the same tree I had watched a girl hang from a few hours earlier. She wasn’t there now, but it still gave me a strange numbness in my legs.
“So text us, okay?” Aria said as she put our numbers into Eve’s phone. My own phone buzzed as I got a new text from Eve, telling me what her number was. Aria’s own phone beeped as she sent herself a similar message.
“Okay,” Eve promised half-heartedly. She didn’t seem to care too much if she had our numbers, she seemed a little distracted. She glanced around the area when her eyes fell on a large black truck that Tristan by. I felt my face heat up at the sight of him, and Eve gave him a wave. She looked at us and said, “See you guys later.”
“Bye!” Aria called and I couldn’t even move.
Ben honked his horn at us and we hurried over to the car, taking one last glance at Tristan as he got into his truck. Before I opened the back door I peered up at the tree, no evidence of the girl I saw hanging there. It was just a big oak tree, nothing more. I climbed into the backseat and slid over, Aria following after me.
“I’m coming to dinner.” She beamed at Ben.
“I never would have guessed,” my brother laughed and sped off down the street. We just beat the school buses leaving as we headed back home.
When we got there Aria and I grabbed a snack and headed to my room. She and Ben had agreed to give me their gifts at the restaurant, as if that made it more special. It only made me feel like everyone around me was watching me. I removed my scarf and fell onto my bed.
“I made it,” I mumbled into the mattress after throwing the cookies towards Aria.
“You did,” she agreed and set the bag down on my desk before moving to my closet. She opened it and checked her makeup in the full length mirror I had on the door. “How do you feel? Was it as bad as you thought?”
“Not at all.” I surprised myself. “It was actually very…normal. So thanks.”
“What did I do?” Aria began to go through my closet, holding my clothes up to her to see how she would look.
“You were there.” That made her pause as she set a hanger back into the closet. I knew what she was thinking, and I regretted my choice of words, but we both moved on.
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