Serial Hottie (34 page)

“Excuse me?” I asked, incredulous. I was as mad at my sister as Seth, but Seth was about to be in the doghouse if he didn’t watch it.

Seth rolled his eyes at me. “You can’t give her what she wants. It’ll only get worse if you do. Don’t talk to her.”

It sounded more like a suggestion that an order, but still… “Tell me what to do one more time.”

Seth glared at me so hard his face turned bright red, but he choked back whatever argument he was going to say and instead went, “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to lose my temper, but Ellie, she got me arrested.”

“Uh, yeah, I was hauled down to the station too, but you don’t see me freaking out. She just asked to talk to me for a minute. She even said please.”

“She’s manipulating you.”

“I am not!” Angela yelled, finally brave enough—or at least angry enough—to face Seth. “Ellie, I
really
need to talk to you.”

“About what? You never need to talk to me.”

Angela’s eyes flickered to Seth before she could help herself.

“I don’t believe this,” Seth muttered. He turned all his fury on Angela. “Leave us alone! I haven’t done anything wrong. I haven’t hurt Ellie, and I haven’t touched you. She’s happy. I’m happy. Our parents are happy. Whatever your problem is with me, get over it, or things between us are going to get really ugly.”

Oh. No. He. Didn’t.
“Whoa. Did you just
threaten
my sister?”

Seth was startled by just how angry I suddenly was. He was confused and definitely not happy. “Whose side are you on?”

“Not yours, if you’re going to be telling me who I can and can’t talk to and threatening my family.”

Seth’s face crumpled like I was betraying him. “Ellie.”

He tried to plead with me, but seeing vulnerable Seth appear only pissed me off further. He didn’t get to threaten my family and then make me feel sorry for him about it—I don’t care how hot he is.

I instinctively hooked my arm through my sister’s and began to cart her home. “I’ll call you when I’m not so pissed off that I want to punch your lights out,” I spat over my shoulder. “And don’t eat all my Twizzlers!”

“Thanks, Ellie,” Angela said with a sniffle as we made our way into the house. “I didn’t think you’d listen. I thought you hated me.”

As soon as the front door shut I yanked my arm out of hers. “I didn’t do that for
you
.” I said, and then raised my voice to a shout. “And I
do
hate you! First you tried to make me like Seth when I didn’t want to. Then you ruined my first kiss. Then you tried to get me to unlike the guy you made me like. Then you got me arrested. And now you’re well on your way to breaking me up with my first boyfriend. Why can’t you just
stay out of my life
!”

Big, fat tears began falling down Angela’s face, but I didn’t care. At least, I told myself I didn’t care, but I knew that was a lie because it hurt when I stormed up to my room, and it was hard to ignore her when she called after me.

I guess Angela and I had had one too many fights lately, because my dad came in my room and literally dragged me downstairs by the arm. I could hear Angela in the office crying to my mom before I got there. “It doesn’t matter. She’s always hated me. Always!” she was saying.

“Oh, and like you haven’t always hated me, too?” I said when my dad pushed me into the office. “You’re embarrassed of me!”

“ENOUGH!” my dad exploded. “You two are going to stay in here until you learn to get along!”

Mom quickly scooted out of the office as Dad said, “Eleanor, if you lay one finger on your sister, I’m enrolling you in military school in the fall.”

With that, he shut us in the office. It sounded like he pulled a chair over from the kitchen table and popped a squat in front of the door so we couldn’t escape.

Brooding silently sounded like a much better plan than kissing and making up, so I plopped down in the desk chair and prepared to sit there all night. It was hard to stay as mad as I was, though, when Angela was crying hard enough to have snot running down her face. I grudgingly threw a box of Kleenex at her, but I still wasn’t volunteering any apology. She could kiss my butt first.

As it turned out, listening to Angela cry was torture, and I wondered if that was part of my dad’s plan. I was really relieved when she finally broke the silence, because I wasn’t going to last much longer.

“That’s not true, you know,” she said, starting to get control of her sniffles. “I’m not embarrassed of you.”

“Yeah,” I scoffed. “Right. You’ve invited me to hang out with you and your friends so much all these years because you like having a freak little sister.”

“Get over yourself Ellie. You’re not some victim here. You’re the one who hates me. You’re the one who’s embarrassed of
me
. You think I don’t know what you say about me? How you and your stupid friends all make fun of the popular girly-girl airhead? I’ve tried to be nice to you lots of times. I stopped inviting you to do things because you would never come.”

“Then why are you always trying to give me stupid makeovers? You always just want to take me shopping and do my hair and makeup and crap because I don’t look like you and your friends.”

“That’s not true. I do that because those are just the things I like to do. I like to go shopping. I like to do hair. I thought it would be fun to clean you up. You’re pretty, Ellie. You don’t think you are, but you are. Excuse me for wanting my baby sister to understand that being a girl isn’t a bad thing. There’s more to life than just playing hockey with the J’s, and you know I’m right. I know you’ve had some fun this summer. I know you’ve liked hanging out with me, too.”

“If you like me so much, then why are you trying to ruin my life? You’re perfect—pretty, smart, popular. Guys fall at your feet and worship you. Like, every guy. Even Dave. Even the J’s drool over you.”

“
Dave
likes me?”

Oh, geez!
“Why do you have to take away the one guy who’s ever liked
me
? The one guy in the world that doesn’t call me by my last name, or tug my ponytail, or who wouldn’t laugh if I wanted to put on a dress? Does it really bother you that much that Seth didn’t pick you? Is that why you hate him so much?”

“Oh, shut up. You know that isn’t true. As soon as I realized he liked you, I was the one who tried to hook you up, remember? You know exactly why I don’t want him near you.”

I let go a semi-crazed laugh. “Angela, you can’t really believe Seth is a serial killer! It’s crazy! You know it’s crazy. You said so yourself when I first mentioned it.”

“Ellie, Travis is in the hospital.”

That stopped me short. “What?”

“That’s what I came to tell you. Dave called. Travis was attacked last night. It was a carjacking.”

“A car…” I was in so much shock, I couldn’t even finish my sentence.

Angela nodded. “He was going home from some party downtown last night and his car was stolen. Ellie, he was
stabbed
.”

“Just like Seth.”

“
Exactly
like Seth. And he was beat up so bad that he’s still unconscious. Dave says everybody thinks Seth did it.”

“What?” I gasped.

“Ellie, you were there at the park. You heard what he said.”

“H-he-he—” I stammered. “He wouldn’t.”

“So this is what?
Another
coincidence? That the same thing that happened to Seth would happen to Travis just a couple days after Seth threatened to kill him? I know you don’t want to believe it. I know you don’t think he would hurt you but—”

“He wouldn’t hurt me,” I said fiercely. That much I knew.

Angela sighed. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe he wouldn’t hurt you. But would he hurt someone else if he thought he was protecting you?”

Yes. He’s told me so several times.

Angela could read the answer on my face, but she didn’t rub it in. “Is it such a stretch to think that if Seth could do that to Travis, that he could do it to someone else? Ellie, those girls…”

“He didn’t do that!”

“How do you know?”

“Because I just know! He may have attacked Travis, but if he did, it was only because Travis hurt me. He was just protecting me.”

“Should it make a difference? Travis is in the hospital.”

All of the fight, all of my anger, my defiance, all of it left me, and I slumped into my chair as far as I could go. How could he do it? How could he hurt someone like that?
Because he cares about me.

“
I
care about you, Ellie.”

I looked up at my sister in shock. Not because I’d somehow said my thoughts out loud again, but because of what she’d said in response.

Angela’s eyes welled up again and she reached for another tissue. “You’re right,” she whispered. “Maybe I have been a little embarrassed of you. We’ve both been pretty nasty to each other over the years. I know you think I’m awful, and I can’t blame you for hating me, but I don’t hate you. I’ve liked getting to know you a little this summer. I’ve liked having a sister I can talk to and hang out with. I’m really sorry about getting you arrested, and more sorry about your first kiss. But you have to trust me. I’m not trying to break you up with Seth because I’m jealous. I’m scared, Ellie.” She shrugged awkwardly and blew her nose. “I sort of just found you. I don’t want to lose you.”

My eyes burned and my chest felt like it was caving in on itself. I was so shocked, and more overwhelmed than I think I’d ever been in my life. “I’m sorry, too,” I managed to choke out. “I’ve spent my whole life having to hear everyone say over and over how perfect you are. Even our own mom. I’ve always hated you for that. I guess you’re not the one who’s been jealous.”

“You shouldn’t be jealous of me. Guys like me because I’m pretty, but they like you because you’re cool.”

When I looked up at Angela, she shook her head. “I never noticed it until that night at Rachel’s lake house. I always just thought you were a geek who only hung out with the J’s, but you had just as many friends at that party as I did, and the people that didn’t know you spent the night asking me about you.”

“I think that was just your bikini.”

Angela laughed at that, but shook her head again. “You’re fun, and tough, and confident. It took me a whole thirty seconds to convince Dave that you’d be an awesome girlfriend. So you guys didn’t have it. But now that he’s put the idea into people’s heads that you’re a dating possibility, they’re probably all calling dibbs over who gets to take a shot next. Trust me, they can’t all be like Dave. Somebody’s bound to make you swoon.”

Angela started to laugh, until she saw the look on my face. Somebody already had made me swoon. It just turned out that he was a jealous, overprotective, emotionally disturbed psycho. “Ang,” I whispered. “What am I gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered back. “But don’t worry. We’ll figure something out.”

And that’s when the unthinkable happened. Something that I don’t think has ever happened in the history of man except through excessive force. Angela and I
hugged
each other. “I’m sorry I didn’t listen to you,” I said with a squeeze.

She hugged me back just as tight and said, “No, I’m sorry. I should have trusted you when you told me he was weird in the first place. It’s my fault you fell for him.”

Of course that had to be the moment when my dad decided to check on us.

“All right, girls. How come I don’t hear…?” His voice trailed off and I looked over just in time to see the gum fall out of his mouth. “Karen!” he shouted, gaping at us. “Karen, hurry!”

My mom probably thought I’d killed Angela the way she came running. When she burst into the office and saw my sister and me with our arms around each other—and not because we were choking one another—her knees just about gave out. “Who are they and what have they done with our children?”

“I don’t know, but I think Hell must have frozen over.”

“Are you sure it’s real?”

“Did you put something in their dinner tonight?”

Dorks.

“Dorks.”

I was startled when my thought echoed me. This whole saying my thoughts out loud thing was starting to get out of hand. But it turned out that Angela and I just think alike. It was her who’d called them dorks.

My parents finally started laughing at themselves and congratulating each other on their excellent parenting skills, earning eye rolls and groans from both Angela and me. “Can we come out now?” Angela asked.

“I don’t know,” my mom said. “I’m thinking we should leave you in there forever.”

With another groan Angela looped her arm through mine and tugged me past them. “We’ll be in Ellie’s room.”