Call Me Grim (3 page)

What am I going to do? If I fail this test, I’ll fail history. And if I fail history, I might fail the year. But if Haley fails, she’ll never speak to me again. This is all my fault.

No. It’s my freaky stalker’s fault.

I turn the corner at the end of the hallway and charge directly into creepy-stare-boy’s chest. A crunch sounds in my skull and tears spring to my eyes. I take a step back and rub my nose with my palm.

“Oh jeez. I’m sorry, Libbi.” He places a hand on my shoulder to steady me. “Are you all right?”

I glance down at his hand on my shoulder then back up at him. A scowl pulls at the corners of my mouth.

He drops his hand from my shoulder and slips it back into his jeans pocket. His pale cheeks flush with color and I think he’s about to apologize for touching me, but instead he pulls a rolled-up tissue out of his pocket.

“You’re bleeding.” He holds the balled up tissue out to me. “Take this.”

“Uh…” I shake my head as I push by him. “No thanks.”

After freaking me out and disappearing last night, the guy has decided this is the best time to talk to me? But instead of making me swoon with his stalker prowess, he’s caused me to fail my final, piss off my best friend, and he’s given me a bloody nose. Smooth. And now he wants me to use his nasty snot rag? Gross.

“I’m sorry about your nose and your test,” he says as he follows me down the hall. “But I need to talk to you.”

I ignore him.

The hallway echoes with the clang of slamming lockers and the squeak of sneakers. I don’t need to stop at my locker, thankfully. It’s the end of the school year; most of my books are already turned in. But even if I was having the worst asthma attack in history and the only
inhaler in the world was in my locker, I wouldn’t stop. I don’t want to encourage conversation with this guy. He can ogle me from a distance if he wants, but I have to draw the line somewhere.

The double doors at the end of the hallway squeal when I shove them open. I squint as I step onto the green front lawn of the school. The sudden assault of sunlight makes me sneeze.

“Bless you,” he says at my shoulder.

Great goodness. He doesn’t get the hint.

I spin around, and he stops just short of slamming his chest into my nose for a second time. I take a step back and look up into his face.

His unruly black hair brushes his forehead and frames his angular face. A fine shadow of stubble darkens his chin and cheeks, but it’s not bad. He’s not a rug, or anything. And good Lord, those eyes. Azure blue and piercing. I’d love to paint him. It’d be a challenge to match that blue.

He’s cute. He shouldn’t need to chase any girl, much less me.

His full lips spread in a smile and my heart flutters, but only for a second. He is a crazy stalker, after all. Just because he’s good looking doesn’t mean he’s not a creep.

“Who are you, anyway?” I plant my fists on my hips.

“Sorry. My name’s Aaron.” He wipes his palms on his shirt and reaches out to shake hands. I ignore the gesture. God, this guy is weird.

“Well, Aaron, thanks to you, I probably just failed history.” I flick my hair out of my eyes. “So, I’m really not in the mood to talk right now. Why don’t you go be crazy with someone else? Okay?”

“I said I was sorry about your test.” A deep crease forms between his eyes. “And I’m not crazy.”

“That’s what all the crazy people say,” I mutter. “Well, if you’re not crazy, what was all of that crap last night? What were you doing outside my classroom? And why are you following me?”

“I’m trying to stop something bad from happening to you.” He spreads his hands in frustration, palms to the sky. The sunlight glints off the silver ring on his thumb.

“Just leave me alone.” I storm off across the grass.

“Wait, Libbi.” He’s at my heels. “Please.”

“Go away.” I start to jog up the hill to the street. A bit of distance grows between us, but not much.

Diablo Road isn’t called “Hell’s Highway” simply because of its devilish name. It’s twisty and busy and at least one bad accident occurs per year. If I’m lucky and there’s a break in traffic, I can get across the street before Aaron catches up. I can be at my front door and away from this creep in minutes.

I hear his slow, steady breathing behind me. His pants legs swoosh against each other as he climbs the hill. He’s close. If I cross the street and go directly to my front door, he’ll know where I live.

Okay. I’ll run around the block and come in the back door. Maybe the traffic will be too heavy for him to follow. I cross my fingers and pray as I race up the hill, checking both ways for a break in the steady stream of cars.

I see one. A break in traffic. If I sprint, I can make it. I swear I hear angels singing.

I dart forward and step off the curb with just enough time to race across the street before the gap closes. It couldn’t be any better. One foot grazes the blacktop and Aaron’s fingers dig into my upper arm. He yanks me back onto the grass.

He touched me. I can’t believe he touched me. Again. My hand balls into a fist and I swing around and slug him in the jaw. Hard. His teeth smack together with a pop.

“What is your problem?” I yell. People are looking at us. Someone mutters “freak,” but nobody bothers to help me.

“What did you do that for?” Aaron massages his red, swelling jaw.

“Get a clue and leave me alone!”

“You know, you should be grateful.”

“Grateful? Grateful for what? That you haven’t murdered me yet?”

Aaron shakes his head and laughs.

“What’s so funny?” I say, hands on my hips.

“I’m not trying to murder you, Libbi.” He meets my gaze directly. “I’m trying to help you.” His icy eyes penetrate mine and a chill prickles over my arms, despite the early summer heat. I don’t believe in ESP or mind reading or crap like that, but there’s something deep in his eyes. He knows something. More than he should.

“What the hell are you talking about?” I somehow manage not to stammer.

“I want to save your life and offer you a job.” His hand is back on my elbow. “And believe me, Libbi, saving lives is not something I do often.”

“Let go of me.” I yank my arm from his grasp and stumble back.

“Please.” He reaches for me. “Just wait a few more seconds before you cross. Please? Wait until it’s safe.”

“Safe?” I back away. “Until what’s safe?”

“If you cross now, you’ll get hit by a black pick-up truck and die.”

My heels balance on the edge of the curb. One foot slips and Aaron rushes to me. He’s too fast. He grips my shoulders and yanks me away from the curb. His arms wrap around me and he holds me against his body. My face presses into his chest and the smell of fresh dirt and dead roses overwhelms me. I yelp and struggle, but my balled fists are pinned at my sides.

“Three…” He whispers in my ear. “Two…” His warm breath brushes the back of my neck. “One…”

He lets go.

The shriek of tires against pavement startles me, and I twist around. A black pick-up truck takes the deadly turn in front of the school too fast and the backend fish-tails, sending the truck into an uncontrolled spin. It skids 180 degrees and crashes sideways into the parked Honda across the street from me. The Honda’s car alarm screams to life.

“Holy shit!” I jump away from the scene of smoking, twisted metal.

“I’m all right.” Jason, a senior and the driver of the pick-up, pushes his deflating airbag away from his face. The crumpled Honda he hit is in far worse shape, but at least it’s empty.

If Aaron had let me cross the street when I wanted to, I would have been standing beside that Honda when the truck crashed into it. I’d be squished between the two vehicles right now, and I’d probably be dead.

“Oh my God.” I turn back to Aaron with “WTF?” hovering on my tongue. “How did you know?” The colors blur and my heart pounds in my ears.

Aaron smiles down at me. He says something, but I don’t hear it. The last things I see before the world goes black are his eyes.

Blue like the summer sky before a sudden storm.

“Shit!” a girl yells. “My parents are going to kill me.” Her voice rolls around in my head, thick and garbled.

I pry my eyes open and turn slightly. The owner of the voice, Salma Byrd, runs up the hill toward her mangled Honda. She’s a junior, like me, but I never talk to her. Her friends are athletic and perfect. In other words, not me. She passes my sprawled body without a glance.

“Are you all right?” a different female voice says. “I think you fainted.”

A wide-eyed girl I don’t know, probably a freshman, kneels next to me and fans me with a pink piece of paper. A group has gathered behind her. Half of them watch as Salma flips a shit over her car. The rest watch me.

My foggy brain struggles to remember what happened. Did I have an asthma attack? Maybe, but I don’t think so. I feel fine, other than dizziness and my missing memory. No tightness in my chest. No post-attack exhaustion. Something weirder than asthma happened before I passed out. What was it?

My stalker. Aaron.

Aaron was standing next to me. He grabbed me. Whatever weird thing happened, it had to do with him and the squished Honda.

He has to be here somewhere. I scan the group hovering over me for his face, but I can’t see clearly. It’s too bright. My eyes refuse to adjust to the harsh sunlight. I blink a few times and squint and realize the burning light isn’t coming from the sun. It’s coming from the girl fanning me. Her skin glows like someone stuffed her with neon lights. But it’s not only her; her friends are blazing too. I’m surrounded by giant, human-shaped glow sticks.

I squeeze my eyes closed for a second and then refocus on the girl fanning me, but the glow is still there. What the heck?

Did I have a stroke? Or maybe I hit my head when I fell. My head doesn’t hurt, but there has to be some reasonable explanation for the shining people, unless a nuclear bomb went off while I was out. Maybe Aaron did something to me, brainwashed or drugged me.

I search through my foggy memory to see if I felt a pin prick before I fainted. I can’t remember. Maybe I did. I push up from the ground into a sitting position, but I’m too dizzy to stand.

“Wow! Are you sure you should sit up like that?” the wide-eyed freshman says. “You look like crap.”

“I’m fine,” I say, more to convince myself than the concerned girl. At least I’m not slurring my words. “Where’s Aaron?”

“Aaron?” She glances back at her friends. A boy in a black T-shirt printed with the picture of some band I’ve never heard of shrugs.

“Aaron,” I say. “The guy who was with me when I fell.”

The kid in the black tee frowns and says, “You were alone.” He’s the kid who said “freak” instead of helping me when I was yelling and running from Aaron.

“No, I wasn’t.” I shake my head. “There was a guy with me. He’s tall and has black hair and blue eyes. He grabbed my shoulders and…” The memory rushes back and I gasp. “He stopped me from crossing the street. Holy crap! He saved my life.”

“Um, I was right here,” the boy insists. “There was no guy with you. You were alone. You were yelling and talking to yourself, and then you passed out.”

“Fine.” I pull my legs under me and get to my hands and knees. “Don’t tell me where he went.” My legs feel steady enough, so I stand. The dizziness is gone, but everyone still looks like their skin is on fire.

I swing my book bag over my shoulder and scan the accident scene for Aaron’s bright blue eyes. Jason stands next to his crushed truck and shuffles his feet in the broken glass beside the open driver’s side door. His mouth forms a perfect circle beneath his glassy eyes. He’s glowing too.

“You ass!” Salma bellows. Strands of her chestnut hair come loose from her ponytail as she jabs her finger at his chest and then at her car. “You’re gonna pay for that, you know!”

“I’m sorry, Sal.” Jason backs up a few steps, holding his hands up to his chest, palms out. “I took the turn too fast.”

A small crowd gawks at Jason and Salma and the Honda/pick-up pretzel. Aaron has to be among them. He was beside me seconds before the accident. I couldn’t have been unconscious long enough for him to get far, but he’s not here. If not for my nose—which still throbs from running into his chest—I would think I hallucinated him.

“Um, excuse me.” A light touch on my elbow makes me jump.

“Sorry. You dropped this.” The freshman who fanned me earlier holds an elaborately folded piece of origami out to me: a lily with four delicately folded petals. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s beautiful.

“It’s not mine,” I say.

“It fell out of your book bag.” She steps closer and lifts the flower up to me. On one of the petals is my name written in unfamiliar, loopy handwriting, and there’s more writing deep within the flower. It’s a letter.

Didn’t Aaron say something last night about liking origami?

I snatch the flower out of the girl’s hand. It’s from Aaron. It has to be.

“You’re welcome.” She frowns.

“Sorry,” I say. “Thanks.”

I grip one petal of the flower between thumb and forefinger so tightly my nail beds turn white. It’s a short walk to an empty park bench, but something tells me I need to sit before I read this.

My fingers tremble as I disassemble the folded note and flatten it over my thigh.

Libbi,

Sorry I didn’t talk to you sooner. I should have explained everything last night, but something came up. Anyway, now that I’ve saved your life there’s someone important I need to see, and I can’t stick around until you wake up. Things are going to get really strange for you now. Don’t worry. I’ll explain everything if you meet me at Oak Valley Assisted Living at six tonight. I need to talk to you and show you something.

Please, don’t freak out. Just come. And don’t be late.

Aaron Shepherd

I know that name: Aaron Shepherd. Where have I heard it?

I read the letter again and again, but I can’t make any sense of it. What does he mean things are going to get strange? Is he talking about the light bulb people?

And why does his name sound so damn familiar?

I try to refold the letter, but give up when the first petal I fold pulls apart as I attempt to fold the second. I tuck the half-flower into my jeans pocket.