After Obsession (3 page)

Courtney’s lying on the bed, her eyes open, her arms rigid at her sides, her palms pressed against her thighs. It looks very weird.

“Courtney? You okay?”

Slowly, she turns her head to look at me. Behind her glasses, her eyes seem strange, magnified and too bright.

“We’re going out for dinner. You ready?”

“Sure. I’ll be right down,” she says in a dazed voice.

I close the door and back away a step. Behind the door I can hear her moving, the rustle of her clothes as she sits up on the bed. Deciding she must be okay, just emo-weird, I go back downstairs. Aunt Lisa is picking the last of the wood shavings from Mom’s hair and talking about somebody at the mill.

A couple of minutes later Courtney bops down the stairs. Her eyes seem normal again and she hugs her mom, asking, “Where are we going? Charlie’s?”

“Sounds good to me,” Aunt Lisa says. “You guys ready?”

Mom and I follow them out to their SUV, where I sit in the back with Courtney.

“You’re in class with my best friend,” Courtney says as we hit the road.

“Oh yeah? Who’s that?”

“Aimee Avery.”

I shake my head and shrug. “I haven’t learned many names yet. What class?”

“She didn’t say.”

“What does she look like?”

“She’s gorgeous, but she thinks she looks like a Muppet. She has red hair.”

I remember the gum-smacker in Swanson’s biology class. “I think I know who you’re talking about.”

“She’s nice,” Courtney adds. “Check out the cop car.”

I watch as a tall officer pushes some guy over the hood of a truck and cuffs him. The guy fights it all the way. “I wonder what he did.”

“Probably drunk,” Aunt Lisa says. “More people have been getting drunk and disorderly lately. You hear about another fight almost every day. Must be the weather.”

That night I wake up from a dream and sit up straight in bed. My eyes are open wide and staring in front of me but not seeing anything. It was a totem dream, a vision. Onawa, my totem cougar, was trying to tell me something. I lay back in the bed, my eyes still open. Reaching to the table beside the bed I find the leather thong of my medicine pouch and pull it to me, clutching it in both hands over my chest.

My heart continues to race.

Onawa was afraid. We were in a forest. I remember that. She stood on a rock so that her beautiful tawny head was level with my face. Behind her, though … it was all black, like the forest was being swallowed in a black fog. Shapes moved in the darkness.

Onawa had been saying something. Something important. I clutch the medicine bag harder, thinking, trying to remember.

I was distracted. There was somebody else in the dream. A girl? Yes, it was a girl. She was holding a torch, or some kind of red light. Or maybe she had red hair? Maybe. But there’d been something about light, too. She brought light. Onawa, though, told me something, and now I can’t remember what it was.

Then the mice start scratching under the floor again. Moonlight filters in through the thin curtain over my window. I feel sure there wasn’t that much light in the room a few minutes ago. It was pitch-black when I woke up. It was dark when the mice were scratching. Clouds? Maybe.

I must have fallen asleep, because my alarm clock starts beeping way too early, jarring me back into consciousness. I turn it off and roll out of bed. The bare wood is cold under my feet. This is crazy. It’s never this cold in Oklahoma this early in the school year. I slip the leather string of my medicine pouch around my head and let go of the bag. My left hand cramps from holding it so tightly for … what? Four hours? Five? I flex my hand as I paw through a box of clothes with my right, choosing a black Metallica
Kill ’Em All
T-shirt for the day. It’s a little wrinkled, but so what? I slip it on, hesitate, then pull the medicine pouch out to wear over the shirt. I yank out the rest of my uniform for the day: black jeans, black socks, and my Army-surplus combat boots.

I am not good at math. My transfer grade in algebra is a C minus, and it looks like it has nowhere to go but down as I sit in first hour staring at Mrs. Bailey while she scrawls numbers and letters across the chalkboard. She’s a short woman, late thirties, and not ugly for someone her age, but what she’s doing with those numbers and letters seems unholy. She tells us to work the problems on page 42, then goes to her desk.

Finally the bell rings and books snap closed, feet shuffle, backpacks are hefted, and the teenage Pavlovian dogs move to the next kennel. I move with them, trying to remember my way to biology class.

“There he is.”

I look over my shoulder and see three girls standing beside an open locker, all of them making sure they’re not looking at me. I turn away and keep walking. The bell is ringing as I walk through the classroom door.

There she is.

Red.

Courtney’s friend. The pretty girl with red hair. The dream rushes back to me. We were falling, clutching at each other, with twisting darkness all around us. Onawa had been there, too. The girl looks up at me and I realize I’ve stopped walking and am staring at her. I get my feet moving again but can’t stop staring. I see something in her eyes, something like recognition.

I take my seat, finally breaking the gaze we’ve been holding as I face the front of the room.

“Hey.”

It’s her. What’s her real name? Angel? Agnes? Something with an A. I turn around and say, “Hi.”

“How was your first day?” she asks.

“Pretty good.”

“Yeah? You’re Courtney’s cousin.”

It doesn’t sound like a question, but I nod. “Yeah.”

“She’s my best friend.”

“She told me. I forgot your name, though.”

“Aimee,” she says. “Aimee Avery.”

“Right.”

“People call me Aim, or—”

“Red,” I say. “They call you Red.”

She looks surprised. “Yeah. They do. Did Courtney tell you that?”

I’m not about to start telling some girl I’ve just met about my visions. Definitely not about Onawa. No matter how hot she is or how good she smells this close.

“Yeah, Courtney told me,” I lie.

“Miss Avery, are you about finished entertaining our new student?” Mr. Swanson asks from the front of the room. I didn’t even realize he’d come into the class. I give Aimee a quick wink and turn around.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Swanson,” Aimee says behind me. “He’s all yours now. Please teach us.”

Biology isn’t much easier than algebra, but at least it’s a little bit more interesting. Every time Aimee shifts in her desk behind me, though, I get a distracting whiff of her perfume. I can feel her foot tapping out some rhythm on the back leg of my desk. The bell rings and the ritual of shuffling toward the door begins again.

“See you later, Alan,” Aimee says, pushing past me at the front of the room and waving with her fingers. They look like one wing of a butterfly flitting away. She’s out of range before I think to say anything.

One thing is consistent: School lunches are school lunches, whether you’re in Oklahoma or Maine. The hamburger tastes like flavored cardboard and the Tater Tots have no taste at all until I cover them with salt. I’m sitting alone, chewing the crud, when I’m suddenly surrounded by girls. Four of them put their trays on the table around me.

“Can we sit with you?” one of them asks. She’s a blonde with big blue eyes and a tiny nose.

“You looked so lonely,” a brunette in a cheerleader jacket says as she sits across from me.

“Yeah, I guess,” I say. A cheerleader? Do I look like a guy who’d be interested in talking to a cheerleader? They all sit down and start firing questions at me.

“You’re from Texas?”

“Oklahoma,” I say.

“That’s where the Dust Bowl happened, right?”

“Uh, yeah, like eighty years ago.”

“Did you have a horse there?”

“No.”

“I heard you played football.”

“Uh-huh.”

“We don’t have football here,” the cheerleader says.

“I heard,” I say.

“Do you like Li’l Wayne, or do you just listen to that head-banging stuff ?”

“Just the head-banging stuff.”

“Why? I so can’t see the point in that.”

“Well, Li’l Wayne, Little Boosey, and all those other Little guys cornered the market on synthesized pop,” I say. A-ha! They can be quiet. Eight eyes stare at me, blink, blink, blink. Reboot. Then they start again like nothing happened.

“Did you live on a farm or ranch?”

“Is Oklahoma really just a big wheat field?”

“Alan? You’re supposed to come sit with us, man. Remember?” I look up from the hamburger I’d been studying to see Blake, the counselor’s aide, standing beside me. “Come on. Cross-country sits together.”

“Oh. Yeah. I forgot,” I say. “Excuse me, ladies.” I grab my tray and follow Blake.

“You’re quite the sensation,” he says as we cross the cafeteria.

“I don’t mean to be.”

“You’re new. You’re different. We don’t get many different people around here,” he says. “Aimee sent me to rescue you. We watched for a while, but when you were obviously zoning out on them she sent me to get you.”

There she is. Blake leads me right up to the table where Aimee is sitting with Courtney and three other people. I put my tray down and watch as Blake slides into the seat next to Aimee, puts an arm around her shoulders, and hugs her quickly.

“Blake to the rescue,” he says.

Something inside me deflates.

•
3
•

AIMEE

School happens. Eventually it’s lunch. Blake goes and rescues Courtney’s cousin Alan from the girls who always try to hook up with everyone.

“I hate school,” Blake is telling Alan when they come back over. “I mean, I act like I like school because I’d never get into NHS without that. There’s this stupid character component, which basically means you have to suck up to teachers. That’s rule number one.”

Courtney nods and looks at me. She knows that I really can’t stand any negativity about anything. She calls me her little peacemaker. She means it nicely, really. Anyway, just so Blake won’t get more cranky about the rules of National Honor Society, I try to make him laugh by pretending to be my father, all serious and acting like a “model father” from ancient 1950s TV shows even though he wasn’t even alive then. “You know, Blake,
hate
is a serious word with serious connotations.”

He makes like he’s going to chuck his bagel at my cleavage. I mock shriek, which makes the monitor, Mrs. Los Santos, point at me with a daggerlike black-nailed finger. I smile and she softens. I turn back to Blake.

“Are you threatening me with that?” I say in a Mafia-man tone. “Because let me tell you, I do not take kindly to threatening. Particularly threatening with bagels. I mean, do you know who you’re dealing with here?”

Alan cracks up, and I can’t help but notice that he’s so cute when he smiles. He mimics the voice back. “I think we do. I think we are dealing with a definite hard-ass here.”

And in that second I know, absolutely
know
, that something in my life has changed irrevocably. This is the guy from my dreams. Right here. And we are going to have to do something, save something, together. I just don’t know what.

“Aimee is beautifully weird today,” Blake says, biting into his bagel. He talks like I’m not here. “And she has paint on her hands.”

I do. “It’s hard to get paint off.”

“You paint?” Alan asks.

It is the first thing at lunch that he says to me directly. I look up into his eyes. This is such a mistake. “Yeah.”

I can’t look away. He doesn’t look away either. He was in my dream. He was the one pulling me out. It was him. And even though I don’t tell anyone about my dreams, I want to tell him. I want to tell him everything, which is a very wrong way to feel about some random guy I’ve just met when I have a boyfriend!

Courtney uses her dolphin-decal fingernail and scrapes at the paint on my skin. She does it so hard it hurts. “I don’t know why we put up with her.”

“Attention, people talking about me: I. Am. Right. Here,” I say, pulling my hand away. I decide to go somewhere safe and conflict-free. “Look, Alan, I’m not going to ask about Oklahoma and moving because—no offense—I’m sure it sucks and you’re sick of it, so I’m just going to bring you slam-bang into my life, unless you want me to ask the required questions, because I will, because I care, but I don’t want to be … I don’t know. I don’t want to bore you with the same old–same old.”

His lips quiver. He leans back and starts laughing again.

“Aimee!” Blake scolds.

“No.” Alan flattens one of his super-big hands out across the table. “No. I’d love it. I am so tired of people asking about me.”

I nod. It’s like we’re the only people here. There’s all this activity around us but none of it matters. I start, “So, anyway, my gramps—”

“Gramps,” Blake interrupts knowingly. He possessively puts his arm around my shoulder. He keeps doing that today, which is not really normal Blake behavior. Lately, it’s been like every bad quirk in everyone is taking them over. Blake’s possessiveness. My own insecure-ness. Courtney’s bitchiness. Blake continues mocking me in that cloying-boyfriend way. “So sweet.”

“He is mean to me,” I tell Alan, and continue. “Anyway, he and my brother, Benji, found a Cheeto they claim looks just like Marilyn Monroe.”

This makes everyone quiet for a second, and then Alan goes, “Marilyn Monroe?”

“She’s this old, dead movie star, you know. She was all curvy and probably slept with the Kennedys and sang ‘Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend,’ ” Courtney explains. “And that ‘Happy Birthday, Mr. President’ thing, and there’s this poster of her standing over some sewer thing in a city and trying to keep her white skirt from going over her head.”

“I know who she is. I just don’t understand the Cheeto.” Alan looks at me for help. My heart goes all crazy again.

“They think the Cheeto looks just like her,” I say. I’ve decided this is not the kind of story that makes a good impression and suddenly I don’t want to tell it at all.

“Does it?” Courtney asks.

I sigh. “No. It’s kind of bumpy like her breasts and everything, but I mean, it could be any female form.”

Courtney snorts water out her nose, which makes me shriek while Courtney pushes her hands to her face, laughing hysterically.

Blake thrusts napkins into my hand. Alan reaches for some, too. We both start wiping at the table. I dab at Courtney’s nose while he calmly asks, “Did they eat it?”

“That’s what I’m trying to explain. They did not eat it. Gramps took a picture of it and posted it on eBay.”

Courtney slams her fist onto the table. “Oh my freaking—
DUDE!
”

“Shut up. Shut up, shut up!” Blake starts laughing so hard he sputters and dribbles. I hand him a soggy napkin.

“They put it in a Ziploc bag and Gramps is hiding it on top of the fridge so nobody accidentally eats her,” I explain.

“That’s so wrong,” Blake says.

“It’s insane.” Courtney rubs her hand where she smacked the table.

“I know.” I smile at them because for a second it’s like it was before Courtney’s dad died. Blake’s not grumpy. Courtney’s not sad. We’re laughing.

“Has anyone bid on it?” Hayley asks, leaning over. Her beautiful brown hair swings dangerously close to my cream cheese, so I move my bagel. She blushes. “Sorry. I totally started eavesdropping.”

“It’s very eavesdroppable stuff,” Courtney agrees as everyone waits for my answer: Courtney, Alan, Blake, Hayley, Hayley’s boyfriend, Eric, and Eric’s and Blake’s best friend, Toby.

“Someone’s bid five hundred dollars.”

Everyone squeals and starts imagining a franchise of Cheeto look-alikes. We could do Elvis, or Jesus, or Barack Obama.

“Britney Spears!” Courtney says. “
I’d
pay a hundred dollars for a Cheeto that looks like Britney.”

It’s all good and happy and we laugh, then break off into two groups again and settle into our lunchtime routine of Courtney reciting sex facts from
Cosmo
. Blake rubs his foot up and down my leg in a sexified way, which for some reason just makes me feel a little restless and not at all sexified. Alan and Courtney argue about lobsters looking at you while you eat them and I play all peacemaker and then scoot a glance at Alan. He’s the guy from my dream, I know it. And that means he’s in some kind of danger, I think.

Blake passes me some new lyrics he’s written on notebook paper. He’s totally turned on by this New Hampshire–based hip-hop trio. We all say they’re brilliant, except Alan.

Court stares really hard at us and then looks at her cousin, who is focusing on the remains of his hamburger. “What do you think, Alan?”

There’s a massive pause.

Courtney injects into it, “Our metal-head cowboy action hero here doesn’t like hip-hop or rap or country or lobster or anything in the entire state of Maine.”

Wow, she’s snarky. It’s like this whole different person, I swear. Something inside me shivers. The bell rings.

“Saved by the bell.” Blake laughs, but it’s really obvious that he’s faking it. He’s hurt or something. Poor sweet Blake requires a lot of praise. He leans over, kisses my cheek, and is off to class with Courtney.

Alan and I stand there. The table separates us. He comes around to my side. “They ditched us pretty fast.”

“Their class is all the way in the foreign-language wing. They’re always late. I’m in the opposite direction,” I explain. I blush. I pull out some gum. “Want any?”

He seems to have a hard time deciding. “Sure.”

He reaches for the gum. His fingers touch my fingers and all of a sudden it’s my dream again. I’m falling downward. Something is pulling me. Water is everywhere and my lungs are ready to explode.

“Whoa … Aimee …” His hands are around my arms, jolting me back. My knees are shaking and it takes a second before I can focus on him. His face is right in front of me. I want to touch his skin with my fingers. Why? God.
Do not touch him!
He’s squinting hard like he’s trying to see inside my head. He can
not
see inside my head. I won’t let him.

“Sorry.” I straighten up, making sure I don’t touch him. I lie, because to tell the truth would make him think I was crazy. “Little woozy there.”

He cocks his head.

“Woozy?” he asks. “Do you get woozy a lot?”

He knows. He knows I’m lying.

“I’m going to be late. Um, thanks,” I say, still resisting the whole touching urge. His long hair swings a little in front of his face.

He drops his hands. I start fast-walking toward the cafeteria door, the one that goes toward social studies and language arts.

“I’m going that way, too,” he says. His voice is low and slower than a Maine voice, which is really saying something. It resonates a lot. He’s wearing a black metal band shirt. I hate black shirts. I hate metal bands.

We’re the stragglers, heading out of the cafeteria late. The sweet show-choir girl in front of us, Amber, doesn’t see us and the door starts to close in my face. Alan pushes it open for me, just reaches over my head and extends his arm, which is kind of Superman of him. I can see why the cheerleaders were moving in so fast.

I want to tell him. I want to tell him about my dream. I want to tell him about my visions. I want to tell him everything, but that’s not who I am. I do
not
tell people things—ever. I am not Aimee the Freak anymore. I am Aimee who goes out with Blake and plays sports and paints.

“Thanks,” I say, remembering my manners. “I’m sorry Court was so … so weird to you. She was kind of mean.”

He shrugs. “She isn’t always like that?”

“No.” We head up the hallway. I almost have to jog to keep up with him. He seems to notice and slows his pace. “She’s usually really nice, beyond nice. This whole thing with her dad … it’s kind of messed with her head a little bit.”

He nods. He swallows hard. It’s like he’s trying to figure out something to say.

I blurt ahead, somehow afraid of whatever it is he wants to tell me. “Blake and I have been going out forever.”

“Oh.”

I cringe. I can actually feel myself cringe. “Sorry. I mean … I think she feels like a third wheel sometimes, you know, so that can’t help. And … it’s just hard on her. I mean, it must be hard on you, too, moving here with no football, no actual mall or anything.”

“I’m okay with no mall. Football? Yeah, it’s not easy,” he admits. His shoulders are wide. He ducks his head down when he talks to me, like he’s worried his voice won’t carry down so low, like I won’t be able to hear him.

“Yeah … yeah … I bet. It’s really good of you, really brave. Most people would have a fit.”

“I’m not most people, I guess.” He looks at me full on. The right side of his mouth turns up in a smile. The left side just stays put.

“No, guess not.” I smile back.

Court sends me a text while we’re in AP English, which is totally against school rules.

REMEMBER SEANCE?

She knows that’s not something I want to remember.

Everyone left my house after this seventh-grade séance. They ran to their moms’ cars and rushed off thinking I was a total freak. Everyone except Courtney and Chuck. Right after the séance I had this vision thing where Chuck died on his way home, but that was after the other freaky thing that happened, after everyone left.

In my vision, I saw a Saab smash into his mom’s Subaru as she was waiting to turn left into the Tideway Market. I saw her car jump into the path of the box truck carrying lobsters. I saw Chuck’s body smashed up in the backseat, his mom sobbing, blood running down her white shirt. Her arm was broken but she was still trying to push away the EMTs, still trying to hold on to Chuck.

I must have gasped because Chuck, the still-living, still-breathing Chuck, bounced away from me, hitting the coffee table with his leg. “What? What did you see?”

I shook my head and stared at him and Courtney before finally lying. “Nothing.”

He died. Of course he died. He died just the way I saw. He died on his way home that day. I shake the memory away. What is wrong with Court? She knows I can’t deal with this at all.

I sit at my desk and trace the graffiti on it: EVERYTHING SUCKS. Juvenile, yet profound.

Somehow it does not make me feel better that some other person sat at this desk and felt the same way. I eyeball Blake and Court, who are stuck across the room. Assigned seats in here, which is very fourth grade considering it’s AP. But our teacher, Mrs. Bloom, is like that, all yip-yap peppy like she’s a cheerleader for the classics.