Outcast (10 page)

I ran into my room and closed the door. Then I flung myself on my bed next to my open math book. Homework. Yes. Homework. Focus on that and everything will be fine.

I didn’t know why I felt so embarrassed. I mean, I’d already seen him at the pool party in those tight wet jeans of his, hell I’d seen him even without the jeans, so seeing him with a towel wrapped around his middle was hardly a big deal. But the heat in my cheeks stayed with me as I finished up my algebra, and even when I’d got into my reading for English I still had that uncomfortable feeling in my gut.

“This is stupid,” I said slamming the book shut and pulling my knees in tight. I hated how Gabe made me feel, which was a kind of unspecific feeling. I also hated the guilt that always came along with it, how thinking about Gabe made me immediately think about Chris.

This time my thoughts went to Chris at his fifteenth birthday. We’d had dinner with his parents and then gone out back to sit in the tree. We sat up on the thickest branch, halfway up, facing each other, legs dangling down. That’s when he told me he wanted to go to law school, which was so crazy because everyone thought that football was going to be his thing. Well, everyone but me. I knew how much he liked to debate things. He’d debate the sky was green if I said it was blue. I remembered realizing then that in a couple years we’d be in university doing our own things. Apart. I remembered feeling so excited that he’d decided to follow his dream and also so scared of losing him.

Stop thinking, I told myself as the tears welled up. You’re doing this to yourself, you can stop it. Sweeping away a tear, I gathered my books together and tossed them into the corner. Then I changed into one of my oversized T-shirts and lay down on top of the sheets, folding my hands over my stomach.

I lay there, the breeze from my fan causing my bangs to tickle my forehead. Soon I wouldn’t need the fan anymore with the weather starting to turn. It made me a little sad. I always loved the heat the best. Mother always said she was in awe of how I could sleep so comfortably in the sticky heat, but I never understood why it wouldn’t be easy. After all, when it’s cold, you sleep with a cover to try to make you warm, when it’s so hot out you don’t need a cover. Isn’t that the same thing?

I closed my eyes and tried to empty my mind and relax. No thoughts about Gabe. No thoughts about Chris. Instead I pictured linear functions and multi-variable equations. It seemed to work.

I was drifting off when I felt a wave of cold wash over me. It woke me right up, and I sat, startled. My heart was pumping fast, and I glanced over at the window. It had been weeks since I had felt this cold feeling. I’d actually started to relax, forgetting all about it. For several days after the pool party I’d slept under blankets and curled in on myself to keep as warm as possible, but then it had gone. And hadn’t come back.

I climbed out of bed and tiptoed to the window. I hated looking to see if the figure was there, to see it standing glowing outside staring up at me. But I had to know. I had to look.

But it wasn’t there. That strange white-but-not figure, it wasn’t there. I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t. Maybe the ghost thing wasn’t standing outside my window, but I was still totally freezing and that freaked me out.

I let the curtains fall and walked over to the closet, turning off my fan on the way, and pulled out my blanket. I sighed as I threw it over my bed. Then I climbed in underneath, and, pulling it up under my chin, closed my eyes.

The blanket helped a bit and I felt warmer. Once again I tried to let my mind drift, but this time it was harder. Now it wasn’t a boy thing. It was a creepy ghost thing. Linear functions weren’t going to distract me from that. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter and tried to focus once more on the breeze blowing my bangs and that tickling feeling on my forehead.

Except, of course, my unconscious reminded me: you turned off the fan.

I opened my eyes.

A figure in white standing at the foot of my bed, its head covered in cloth. Staring at me. And a breeze seeming to blow the fabric pressed against its face out and back.

“Holy shit!”

I dove under the covers, the image still imprinted on my brain, my heart desperately scrambling to find its way out of my chest.

What was it doing there? How had it appeared there? Now I wished it was standing outside my window. Outside my window I could handle. Close up, in my room, no, that was not good. That was so not good.

I didn’t want to come out from under the covers. Not that the blanket protected me from that thing at all, but just looking at it scared me out of my mind.

“Go away,” I said quietly, more to myself than anything. “Please, just go away.”

He doesn’t belong to you, Riley.

It hadn’t spoken to me since the night of the pool party, and the sound of its voice in my head pierced through me, hit me deep. It made me hollow. It made me a little nauseous.

I wanted to stay under the covers until it went away, but I could sense it waiting, almost patiently. I knew it wasn’t going anywhere until I confronted it. I gathered my strength and pulled the covers slowly down so just my eyes were uncovered.

It was still standing there, perfectly still, at the foot of my bed.

He doesn’t belong to you, Riley.

The voice inside my head was calmer this time, kinder. It made me feel a little braver.

“What are you talking about?” I asked. Well, more like squeaked.

The figure just stood there. Was it confused?

He doesn’t belong to you.

“Are you talking about Gabe?” I mean, I assumed that’s what the figure had meant from the start, but I didn’t understand what belonging had to do with anything.

Yes.

I lowered the blanket a little. I was feeling so strange. Cold all over, terrified, and at the same time a little faint. I’d never felt faint before. Not even in the height of summer. “I know he doesn’t belong to me.” No, not faint. More like seriously sleepy.

Good.

“But why are you telling me that? I mean, it sounds like he actually does belong to someone the way you say it.”

He does.

He does? “Who then?” The figure in front of me was fuzzy, but that was because my eyes were half-closed. Or maybe the figure actually had become fuzzy.

It was time to sleep.

The Circle of Seven.

“The Circle of Seven. Okay. Cool.” I closed my eyes. The Circle of Seven. What the hell was that?

Let me stay and explain.

I nodded. That would be a good idea. Communication is very important. With every ounce of effort I worked to open my eyes. The lids felt like they were sewn together, and I pried them apart slowly.

The figure was gone.

I closed my eyes again.

The cold remained.

The ghostly thing’s visit stayed with me for days. I found it hard to fall asleep at night, scared that the second I closed my eyes it would appear at the foot of my bed again. I wished I was a little braver. Especially as it had provided me with new information: The Circle of Seven. I had woken the morning after with that phrase imprinted on my mind. What the hell did it mean? Well, whatever it meant, it was my first real lead. If indeed Gabe “belonged” to this Circle.

There was a part of me that did think I could handle the ghost thing showing up if it meant it was going to tell me something about the Circle. But I had to admit to myself, I always felt relieved when it didn’t show up again.

After two weeks with no ghost thingy, I concluded that I wasn’t going to be able to interrogate it any time soon, and I couldn’t just sit around waiting for it maybe to appear again. So I did what any reasonable person would do when they need to find out about something.

I Googled it.

But nothing came up. Well, there was a band that had that as a name, lots of clubs too, and there were these Canadian painters from the early 1900s that had called themselves the Group of Seven. But Circle of Seven and angels?

Nothing.

So I figured the next logical step was to take the really big one. The one I’d been avoiding for over a month now. Going to Commune. I didn’t have the guts to ask Pastor Warren any questions about angels one-on-one. There was something deep inside me that just didn’t like the idea of revealing to him that I might know something extra about angels that the rest of the town didn’t. I didn’t need him snooping into my private business.

But maybe at Commune something would be mentioned, or something would happen. I wasn’t really sure, but I figured, what was the harm in trying, right? It was one night. If nothing happened, oh well. One wasted evening.

I guess I could have gone on my own, but selfishly I wanted Gabe to come with me. I really didn’t want to go to Commune by myself. Also because of his strange reaction to the ghost thingy after the pool party, I thought maybe something like that might happen at Commune too. Maybe something would jog his memory.

I stopped by the garage after I was done with my homework in the library. Gabe was perfectly suited to being a grease monkey, loved working with cars. I had to admit it totally suited him. He looked great all clean, but, man, he looked amazing dirty.

“Hey there, sweetheart.” He wiped his hands on a rag, a rag really similar to the one I’d shoved in his mouth those many weeks ago.

“Hey.”

“Dwight, I’m taking my five.”

Dwight gave him a wave from under the hood of Wade Wright’s old pickup. Didn’t know much about cars, but I knew Wade’s old beat-up Ford. People become associated with their vehicles here. Kind of like how some dogs look like their owners, people here start to look like their cars. And if there was anything that was more beat-up than that Ford, it was Wade.

“Let me show you something,” said Gabe as he came over.

I nodded.

We walked through the garage out back. The sun felt extra hot today, even more so in the closed-off dusty lot.

“Check it out.”

I looked at what he was showing me. It was a bike, a motorbike. Old. Looked like it was falling apart.

“Where’d you get it, the junk yard?”

“Out back. Dwight had this baby hidden behind all these tires. Didn’t even know he had it.”

Made sense. Dwight’s sons were infamous for collecting crap from everywhere and dropping it in their dad’s scrap metal yard. It was like a compulsion. Wasn’t sure if they actually did anything with it.

“It’s…great.”

Gabe shook his head. “Should have known better than to show a girl…”

“Hey!”

“Don’t you know what this is?”

“No I don’t.”

“It’s an Ariel Square Four.”

“Oh, well then…that’s awesome?”

“1953, pretty sure. Amazing acceleration. Always wanted one of these babies. Couldn’t afford it, though.”

Okay, so it was something nostalgic for him, I could understand that. “Where’d it come from?”

“No idea. Just know that someone was a total square to get rid of this thing.”

“Well…it is junk.”

“Oh, dollface.” Gabe clutched at his chest melodramatically and staggered backward. “She’s beautiful. Look at those bones. All she needs is a little polish, a little love. She’ll be purring in no time.”

“Would you like me to leave you two alone?”

Gabe laughed. “Trust me, sweetheart. I’ll get her all fixed up, and then I’m taking you for a ride.” It was my turn to laugh. “I bet you’d look swell on the back of a bike.”

“Yeah,” I said, “clinging to you for dear life. Crying like a baby. Real swell.”

“You showing her your new toy?” Dwight joined us with a grin.

“Can’t thank you enough, man,” replied Gabe.

“Alls I need is for five minutes to mean five minutes, and I’m good.”

“Right.” Gabe nodded. “Gotta get back to work. Sorry, Riley.”

“Wait,” I said as he started to head back inside, “I actually came here to talk to you about something.” I looked at Dwight, tried to bat my eyelashes, but I just gave myself a bit of a headrush.

Dwight sighed. “Two minutes, Gabe, and you’re making it up end of shift.”

Gabe watched Dwight go and shook his head. “That guy’s got one heck of a internal clock.” He turned to me. “What’s up?”

“It’s been a while since we talked about this, but I was thinking, it’s Commune tomorrow…”

“Sweetheart…”

I knew what he was going to say. It’d been pretty obvious since school started he wasn’t as interested in investigating the crazy that was our lives as I was. “Gabe, please. I mean. It’s not ruining your fun, and I just think it’s my turn now. You’ve had your chance at your second shot, to live it up. But there’s still a mystery, and you’re not the one being stalked…” Shit, so did not mean to say that. Just keep talking, maybe he didn’t notice. “And…Even if you don’t care why you’re here, I just want to know what happened to Chris, Gabe. Please?”

Gabe put his hands on his hips and leaned toward me. “That thing’s shown up again?”

“Thing?”

“That thing. Thing we saw on the road after the party.”

“Oh, sure,” I said lightly, “stands outside my window sometimes.” And at the foot of my bed. But yeah, didn’t need to share that with him.

“Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” He looked angry now.

“Because I knew you’d get like this.” Oh, and also because the ghost thingy likes to talk about you not belonging to me and stuff.

“’Cause you know me so well.”

“Well, you got like this, didn’t you?”

He stopped for a second, trying to process my logic.

“You stay away from it,” he finally said.

What he didn’t realize was that my staying away from it wasn’t exactly the problem. It was it staying away from me that I really didn’t have much control over. Oh, whatever, we were getting off-track.

“Gabe, I need you to come to Commune with me. Please.” And because I was feeling desperate, I added: “Don’t make me go interrogate that thing outside my window.”

He shook his head. Yeah, he knew what I was doing. “Don’t threaten me, sweetheart. You talk about me getting second chances, but you don’t know what I did with the first one. When I’m backed into a corner, I’m not a nice guy.”

“No one likes being backed into a corner. How do you think I’m feeling right now?”

“Babe…can’t we just…be? We’re having fun, aren’t we?”

“Sure. For now. But who knows what’ll happen when it’s the Taking again? What if we could figure it all out before it comes round again? What if instead of one year of goofing off, you had one year of work followed by years and years of fun?”

“You don’t much live in the moment, do you?”

“Planning might seem boring, but it makes sense. You know it makes sense.”

Gabe sighed.

I didn’t bat my eyelashes, just looked at him in the eye. “Please.”

“I still get to work on my bike.”

“You still get to work on your bike, work here with Dwight, and most importantly on your school work.” He scoffed. I grinned. “You know you love it.”

“Damn hard is what it is.”

“If you ever need a study buddy…”

“Yeah that’s what I want, some junior being my tutor…”

“Gabe.”

He sighed and his expression softened. “Okay, I’ll go to Commune.”

“You’ll help me investigate?”

“Yes, Nancy Drew.”

“Thanks.”

He extended his arms toward me. “Come here.”

“No.”

“Come here.” He was walking toward me like Frankenstein’s monster.

“You’re covered in grease.”

“You love it.”

“Gabe, no, Gabe!” Too late, his long lean arms were wrapped around me, my head against his sweaty chest.

He was a really good hugger.