Spirits of Spring (The Haunting Ruby Series Book 4) (15 page)

“No, but I do want to talk to your friend Jeremy—he
may know something
but be too afraid to come forward.
What’s his last name again?”

“Carmott. Jeremy Carmott. He and my grandma are the
only two people I would really like you to take me to see. Can
we go find them now?”

“Now? Do you realize what time it is, Clay? It’s already
pretty late and I have school in the morning. We can go some
day this week, though—Scout’s Honor.”

While he looked bummed that I wasn’t going to take
him tonight, he managed a brief smile when I repeated his
trademark phrase. “I guess I need to leave you alone now, huh?
Time to go haunt the cemetery like a good little ghostie.”

He sure knew how to lay a guilt trip. I put the finishing
touches on the note in my phone, making sure to enter his
girlfriend’s name, as well. If I couldn’t get anything useful out
of Jeremy, Sophie was my next target—I just didn’t want Clay to
know that. Keeping secrets from him wasn’t as bad as keeping
them from Zach—or any other
living
person—but it still felt
slightly wrong.
To make up for it, I offered him a late night
haunting ground alternative that I was certain he wouldn’t
refuse.

“You don’t have to go wandering around alone in the
cemetery tonight—unless you
want
to, of course.
As long as
you swear not to get in bed with me again or anything else even
remotely inappropriate, you can stay here tonight.
You can
watch TV or something—just don’t rattle your chains and keep
me up all night, okay?” Wow. I was inviting a ghost to spend
the night at my house. Why did something so insane sound so
perfectly rational to me?

“Really? Sweet!” Clay exclaimed excitedly. “You won’t
even know I’m here—Scout’s Honor.”

“You’re welcome,” I said and turned the television on
for him. I skimmed through the channels until he found one
that he wanted to watch then dragged myself to my bedroom.
Before closing the door, I gave him one final warning. “Don’t
make me regret this.”

“Yes, Dom,” he said with a laugh as he held up two
fingers. Now if I could only work that same dominatrix magic
on Zach in the morning.
Getting him to allow me to buy him a
car was going to be the toughest thing I faced tomorrow—a
scary thought since I was up against a huge test in, gulp, French.

I woke up cheerful and optimistic—a rarity for me. I
grabbed breakfast and ran back up to my room so that Clay and
I could talk. Knowing that he once had the same issues with
money that Zach had, I wanted to get his opinion about my plan
to buy Zach a new car. Of course, I expected to hear that he
wouldn’t have accepted such an offering from his girlfriend. I
was shocked when Clay gave me the exact opposite answer.

“Giuseppe gave you that money because of what his son
did to you.
Zach was sort of a victim, too. Rightfully, some of
that cash
should
go to him.”

I’d never thought of it in that way before. He had an
excellent point and I now had an excellent rebuttal for Zach’s
inevitable argument. Without thinking, I blurted out, “You’re
right! OMG, Clay, I could
kiss
you right now!” It wasn’t until he
started to run his hand through his hair that I realized how
uncomfortable that comment made him. I was right. He really
did
have a crush on me.
I needed to be careful—ghost or not,
he definitely had feelings and I didn’t want to hurt them. Boys
are like turtles—tough on the outside, but defenseless once you
crack open their shells. My goal was to
not
turn Clay into turtle
soup.

My mood took a serious decline when Zach slid into my
car with a foul look on
his
face and
gave me a grumpy
“Morning.”

I smiled anyway. “Good morning, Sunshine! You look
like you could use some good news.”

Zach simply grunted in response.
Okay.
Maybe now
wasn’t the best time to tell him my plan. Would there ever
really be a
good
time, though? Probably not. I spit out what I
had to say as fast as I could physically say it. Rachel would have
been proud of me.

“Fine. Whatever. I’m going to need a vehicle to drive
back and forth to the construction site every day for the rest of
my life.”

“
What
?
What construction site?
What about college
and your job at the shelter?” The fact that he didn’t argue with
me about the car told me that something far worse was on his
mind.

“Dad told me that if I ever want to drive again, I’ll have
to get a better job. He found out how much my insurance went
up and hit the roof. He’s right, though. I can’t afford it with
what I’m making at the shelter. And how in the world am I
going to afford it once I’m in college? I’m going to have so many
more bills to pay when we move to Ohio. I can’t afford to go to
college now. I’m going to have to wait a year or two.”

“No. Absolutely not! You can’t! If you take time off,
you’ll never go back!” I shouted.

And I realized exactly what I was saying as my dad’s
words echoed from my own lips. I got it now.
I understood
completely why Dad thought I should spend my first semester
at Trinity. It was because he loved me and didn’t want to see
me make a stupid mistake—just like I didn’t want to see Zach
make one. Seriously, no one ever told me that growing up was
this humbling.
Dad was right.
He was one hundred percent
right. I was still going to Ohio with Zach, but I would now be
going with the knowledge that it truly was a stupid thing to do.
Dammit!
Growing up was supposed to be about having fun
new experiences, not turning into your own father before you
even turned eighteen. Out of the corner of my eye, I took a look
at the red streak in my hair just to make sure it hadn’t turned
gray already. Nope, at least one part of my teenage-ness was
still sacred.

As Zach opened his mouth in protest, I gave him the
rebuttal that Clay had provided for me. “Technically, some of
my money should be yours anyway. You’re going to let me buy
that car and pay for your insurance—and that’s final. You’re
going to Pendleton in the fall even if I have to drag you there
kicking and screaming.”

“Geez, when did you become such a dominatrix?” Zach
inquired with a slight smile. “Never mind—I kind of like you
this way. You’re right—if I don’t go to college now, I probably
never will.
I hate that I have to rely on your money but it will
be worth it in the end. We’re a team. We need to stick
together.”

Whoa. It’s like my whip was made of pure gold. I was
in total control of everything. Zach, Clay, my parents—life in
general. Maybe plans for world domination weren’t so far out
of my grasp. Under
my
reign, Misty and people like her would
be at the bottom of the high school food chain.
I had vivid
images of her and her coven working the line at the cafeteria—
hair nets and all—as Zach and I walked into the school.
Until I
was
distracted by
weird noises
coming
from
practically
everyone I came across. Why was everyone mooing like they
had mad cow disease?

“BOOO!” one of the lesser members of the coven
shouted as we rounded the corner to our lockers. “Did I scare
you, Ghost Whisperer?”

I froze in my tracks right there as she cackled straight
into my face. From where I stood, I could now see my locker
door.
It was covered with tissue paper ghosts and standing
right beside it with a smirk on her face was Misty Landrum.
They weren’t mooing, they were booing. Boo as in ghost. Ghost
Whisperer. Me. My secret was out.

10. This is How the Kooky Crumble

Lucas. This all had to be
his
doing. I racked my brain to
remember his last words to me at Something Wick-ed the other
day.
It was something about how I wanted something from
him. I didn’t get the meaning of his words at the time but I
certainly did now. He wasn’t just being cocky and arrogant—
he
was
being
honest.
I
did
want something
from
him—I
wanted him to keep my secret.
But it was
too
late now.
Everyone knew.
How much did they know?
I scrambled to
remember whether or not I’d told Lucas about breaking into
the school on Halloween.
Did I?
There would have been cops
here waiting for me if I had, wouldn’t there?
I simply stood
there dazed as everyone laughed and made fun of me.
Zach
took hold of my arm and nudged me forward. Numb, I let him
lead me past the mob of mockery and into the principal’s office.

Silent.
I sat there silent while Zach explained
the
situation in the hallway to Principal Lascher.
Silent while I
listened to laughter still ringing throughout the school.
Silent
while I felt the sense of control I had only moments earlier,
disintegrate.
Silent while my
golden whip crumbled into
nothing but gold dust and blew away. Even my darkest days at
Trinity were nowhere near this humiliating. Silent. I had no
defense for their accusations because they were true.
There
wasn’t a lie in the entire universe big enough to cover this up,
no rug large enough to sweep this all under.
Busted.
I was
totally busted. Life as I knew it was over.

Catatonia.
That was the highest level of functioning
that I could manage. Even when Principal Lascher asked me
direct questions, I couldn’t answer them. I couldn’t speak. Why
did I trust Lucas?
Everyone—and I mean
everyone
—warned
me not to. For someone so smart, how could I have been so
damned stupid? I could practically graph a parabola with my
eyes closed, yet I couldn’t see something that must have been
obvious to everyone else I knew. Why?
Because I listened to
my heart instead of my brain. My brain was supposed to be in
control. My heart was only supposed to beat because my brain
told it to. Somewhere along the way, the two switched roles
and now the damage was done. But the longer I analyzed it, the
more obvious it became that my heart had always truly been
the one in charge.
My brain only thought it was.
I had to gain
control of my emotions. But how?

Getting out of that school, out of that room whose walls
were slowly closing in on me—that’s how. “I wanna go home.”

They were the first words I’d spoken since the incident
began. Even though my words came out as barely more than a
whisper, everyone in the room fell silent when I spoke them.

“Your stepmother is on her way to get you now, Ruby,”
Mr. Lascher said in the calmest tones I’d ever heard from him.

The biggest part of his job was to yell at people.
He
didn’t seem equipped to handle situations like mine.
I
wasn’t
equipped to handle them either. Hearing those few words of
comfort coming from the unlikeliest of sources, I lost it. I mean,
totally lost it. Crying doesn’t even begin to describe what I did.
I wailed. I bawled like a sick baby. My cries were loud enough
to…raise the dead. One corpse in particular.

Clay
appeared
before
me,
confused
and
clearly
concerned for me.
Question after question flew out of his
mouth but I ignored them all. I couldn’t talk to him in front of
everyone—he knew that. But even if we were alone, I wouldn’t
have responded.
Why?
Because in that moment I needed a
punching bag. I didn’t have Scarlet, or Garnet, or Allison to
blame—all I had was Clay. So the one ghost who
didn’t
deserve
my wrath, got it.

I refused to look at him, even as he begged me to do that
one very simple thing. The second I saw Shelly’s face, my
catatonia disappeared. I practically threw my car keys at Zach’s
head, ran out the door, and never looked back. But as I got into
her car, so did Clay. With all of my tormentors far from view, I
unleashed every ounce of anger I felt—and I unleashed it all on
him.

“Stay away from me! This is all
your
fault! If it weren’t
for
you
, I’d be normal! I’d be happy! I wish I’d never seen your
stupid face! I’m
glad
you’re dead and I don’t
care
who killed
you!
Go back to the cemetery where you belong—stay there
until you
rot
! I don’t ever want to see you again!”

Shelly, clearly now armed with the truth about me,
warily asked, “Ruby, who are you talking to?”

 

Finally, I looked Clay in the eyes. “Nobody, Shelly,
nobody.”

 

The look in those eyes as he disappeared would haunt
me far worse than any other ghost possibly could.

Shelly’s words from months ago rattled around in my
brain as I mustered up the courage to tell her everything. “Lies
have a way of revealing themselves.” The lies I had under my
belt at the time she said that were nothing when compared to
the whoppers I’d racked up in the meantime.
She and Dad
knew the truth about what happened over the summer, but
nothing beyond that. I had over six months and two ghost’s
worth of lies to reveal now. This wasn’t going to be pretty. If
confession truly is good for the soul, I was about to reach
saintly status.

I made Shelly wait until we got home to hear the whole
sordid story. I made her wait until I had a steaming hot cup of
hot
chocolate
with
triple
the
recommended
number
of
marshmallows floating around on the surface.
I made her wait
until I couldn’t think of any more excuses for making her wait.
Then, I took a deep breath and dove into the truth.