Deadly Little Secret (3 page)

Instant closure.

“This is so very bold of you,” Kimmie says, using her pencil as a hair pick. “I mean, let’s face it, it might not even be the same guy.”

“It is,” I say, watching the second hand on the giant hallway clock. Only two minutes to go.

“So, you’re convinced that a boy who supposedly murdered his girlfriend is the same one who saved your life?”

“You can’t honestly tell me you believe all those rumors, can you? Besides, we don’t know all the facts.”

“Facts, schmacts.” She rolls her eyes. “So he saved your life and touched your tummy. Lots of people have touched my random body parts, and you don’t see
me
making such a big deal out of it.”

“Last I checked saving someone’s life
was
a big deal. Plus, it wasn’t just that he touched me; it was the
way
he touched me.”

“Oh, right.” Kimmie yawns. “It gave you goose bumps and made your heart go pitter-pat. How could I forget?”

Instead of trying to make her understand what she clearly doesn’t, I look back at the clock, watching the second hand get closer to twelve, wondering if I’ll have the nerve to actually talk to him.

I close my eyes, anticipating the bell, and two seconds later it goes off—so loud I feel the vibration inside my gut.

The hallway fills with kids, people pushing by us, probably annoyed that we’re just standing there, holding up traffic.

But then I see him.

He hangs back for a bit, just loitering there, in the doorway of Senora Lynch’s Spanish room, watching the herd go by.

“What’s he doing?” Kimmie asks.

I shake my head and continue to watch, hoping to make eye contact, but he doesn’t even look in my direction. Not once.

It’s several minutes before the traffic in the hallway thins out even a little. And that’s when he finally makes his way to his locker.

It’s so obvious people notice him. As soon as they spot him, they gawk and exchange looks of sheer buzzery, like this is the biggest thing ever to rock our small-town world.

“Here’s your chance.” Kimmie nudges me. “It’s either now or never.”

“It’s now,” I say, my voice shaky.

I make my way toward him and my face flashes hot. Ben rips a piece of paper from his locker door, tosses it to the ground, and then works his padlock combination, totally ignoring the fact that I’m now standing right beside him.

“Ben?” I ask, feeling my pulse race. “Can I talk to you for a second?”

Still, he ignores me.

“Ben?” I repeat, a little louder this time.

Finally he peeks out from behind his locker door. “Can I help you?”

“Do you remember me?”

He shakes his head and looks away—back into his locker to search for something.

“Three months ago,” I continue, trying to jog his memory. “In the parking lot, behind the school . . . a car was coming toward me, and you pushed me out of the way.”

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“You saved my life,” I whisper, catching a glimpse of the paper he tossed to the floor—a torn notebook scrap with the word
murderer
scribbled across it. “The car would’ve hit me otherwise.”

“I honestly have no idea what you’re talking about.” He slams his locker door shut.

“It was
you
,” I blurt out, as if he couldn’t possibly have forgotten something so significant.

“Not me,” he insists. “You obviously have me confused with somebody else.”

I shake my head and focus on his face—on his almond-shaped eyes and the sharpness of his jaw. He runs his fingers through his hair—out of frustration, maybe—and that’s when I see it.

The scar on his forearm.

My eyes widen, and my heart beats with new intensity.

Ben sees that I’ve spotted the scar and lowers his arm, buries his hand in his pocket. “I gotta go,” he says, glancing over his shoulder.

Throngs of people have collected around us: Davis Miller and his boy-band cohorts, a group of girls on the softball team, a couple of boys on their way to detention, and a bunch of drama rats en route to the theater.

“I just wanted to say thank you,” I say, deciding to forget them.

“It wasn’t me,” he says and then turns away.

Leaving me once again.

 6 

I want to talk to her. I had the perfect opportunity, but I messed things up. She’s just so perfect—so sweet, so shy, so amazingly hot—that I get all nervous.

It’s easier to watch her in private, like at the library. I hid behind the stacks, imagining what it’d be like to take her someplace nice. I pictured her sitting in a fancy restaurant, waiting for me to arrive, instead of sitting in the library, cooped up in school.

I noticed she’d chosen the table that looks out onto the courtyard. She kept gazing out at it, like she wanted to be outside.

What I’d give to be with her—to walk with her over fallen leaves, to hear the crunch beneath our feet, and then to kiss her, the cool autumn breeze whipping around us.

In time I know it’ll happen. I’ll make it happen. Or else I’ll die trying.

7

“Okay, so what did he say?” Kimmie asks. “I want
every
word.”

We’re sitting in one of the booths at Brain Freeze, the ice-cream shop down the street from our school.

“Oh, my God,
wait
,” she says, just as soon as I open my mouth to speak. “Did you see John Kenneally?”

I peer around at the other booths.

“Not
here
,” she squawks, dragging the word out for three full syllables. “In the hallway, while you were talking to that Ben guy. He was totally scoping the scene. It looked like he wanted to talk to you. He was so close to tapping you on the shoulder, but you turned the other way.”

“I didn’t notice.”

Kimmie sighs. “Leave it to you to miss a hottie like him. If
you
don’t go for him, I totally will.”

O

“He’s all yours,” I say, taking a bite of my mochalicious mud.

“So what did he say?” she asks.

“John?”

“
No
—that Ben guy.”

“Not much. Just that it wasn’t him—that I have him confused with someone else.”

“See, I told you,” she sings.

“But he’s lying,” I continue. “I
know
it was him.”

“Why would he lie about something like that?” Kimmie takes a sip of her peanut butter frappe.

I shrug. “Maybe he’s one of those superprivate people; maybe that’s why he took off after he saved me in the first place.”

“Doubtful,” she says. “I mean, think about it: if you were accused of murder, wouldn’t you welcome an opportunity where people could see you saving someone?”

“Sounds pretty serious,” Wes says, sneaking up from behind me. Spoon and straw in hand, he pulls up a chair and takes the liberty of mooching off our desserts. “Word’s out that you were harassing Killer Boy after school today.”

“Where did you hear that?” I ask, knocking his spoon away.

“People.” He smirks.

“What people?”

Wes’s smirk grows into a full-blown smile, exposing the tiny chip in his front tooth. “Everybody’s talkin’ about it.”

“You’re such a lame-o,” Kimmie says. “We’ve only been out of school for an hour.”

“Doesn’t matter.” He readjusts his wire-rimmed glasses. “I have ears . . . and eyes.”

“Stalking the girls’ softball team again?” Kimmie tsk-tsks. “You know how tacky that is, don’t you?”

Wes shrugs, obviously caught.

“My vote is that you forget about Touch Boy,” Kimmie says, pointing at me with her straw.

“Unless of course you want to wind up being the next victim of the week,” Wes adds. “Better start wearing clean underwear. You never know when you might end up lying half naked somewhere.”

“Good advice.” Kimmie nods.

“I’m nobody’s victim,” I say.

“You can victimize me.” He gives his spoon a good lick.

“Whatever,” I say, choosing to ignore him. “Forgetting Ben is a whole lot easier said than done. I saw the scar.”

“Wait, what scar?” Kimmie asks.

I tell them about the scar I saw on Ben’s forearm earlier—how I recognized it from the day he saved me.

“Do I smell a scandal coming on?” Wes asks, making his voice all gruff and deep.

Kimmie sniffs in Wes’s direction. “That stench isn’t scandalous . . . it’s downright venomous.”

Wes takes an extra-large sip of her frappe in retaliation.

“Forget him, Camelia,” Kimmie says. “I mean, yes, he saved your life; it was very chivalrous of him. And, yes, he’s totally buff, which further complicates things, but closure is way overrated, in my opinion, anyway.”

“Maybe you’re right.” I sigh, sinking back into my seat.

“No ‘maybe’ about it. Preoccupy yourself with someone yummier,” she insists.

“Like who? Matt or John Kenneally?”

“Well, since you bring them up . . .”

I roll my eyes in response.

“Oh, but that’s right,” she continues. “Matt was no good, as I recall. He called you all the time, gave you sweet little gifts—”

“Made you homemade chicken soup when you were sick,” Wes adds.

“It wasn’t edible.” I say, remembering the mystery gray chunks.

“Whatever,” Kimmie argues. “Give me a boy who can open up a can of Chef Boyardee, and I’m his.”

“I’ve got a Twistaroni with your name all over it,” Wes jokes.

“Matt was nice,” I say to be clear. “But there comes a point when nice is
too
nice—too clingy, even before we started dating.”

“Right,” he says. “What you need is a malicious killer.”

On that note, I excuse myself from the table and leave, since I promised my mother I’d help her with dinner tonight anyway.

Ever since I took a part-time job at Knead, the pottery shop downtown, my mom’s been all fanatical about the two of us having enough mother-daughter bonding time. And so it’s become our ritual—at least once a week, on a day I’m not working, we join forces to prepare dinner.

“We’re making summer squash pasta with soy butter and basil sauce, date-nut logs, and fresh kale-rot juice,” my mother announces, just as soon as I come through the door.

“Kale-rot?”

She nods and pulls one of my pottery bowls down from the cabinet—the widemouthed blue one with the yellow pinwheel swirls. “It’s made with carrots and kale.”

“Sounds delectable,” I lie.

My mom’s sort of a health freak, from her henna red hair to her organic cotton sneakers. As a result, my dad and I end up at the drive-through of Taco Bell at least twice a week.

“Come on,” she says, waving me to the island. “I want to hear all about your first day of school. Any cute boys? Inspiring teachers? How was your lunch?”

“Negative; not a one; and nauseating,” I say, picking at my pearl-colored nail polish.

“Now, there’s a healthy attitude.”

“I’m exaggerating.” I slide onto a stool. “Well, sort of.”

My mother, still in her yoga gear from work, takes a deep and cleansing breath, followed by a sip of her homemade dandelion tea. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“Maybe another time,” I say, thinking about Ben.

“Well, then, do you want to come to my full-moon meeting tonight? You might find it cleansing.” She sweeps a cluster of corkscrew curls from in front of her dark green eyes.

“No thanks,” I say, since a night of barking at the moon and impromptu belly dancing is hardly what
I’d
call cleansing.

Mom nods and looks away, down at her container of dates. She dumps the entire package into the food processor and then goes to click on the power.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” I ask.

It takes her a moment, but then she notices. She forgot to pit the dates first—a culinary offense I committed way back when we were trying to make raw fudge.

Mom scoops the dates out, her eyes all teary, like the possibility of having a dull food-processing blade is the worst thing in the world.

“Mom?”

“Aunt Alexia called today,” she says, in an effort to explain her tears.

“Oh,” I say, steeling myself for the blow.

She wipes her eyes, trying to regain composure. “It wasn’t anything bad. She just sounded kind of off, that’s all.”