Summer's Desire (17 page)

My eyes follow him helplessly.
Impossible to miss, then, the two
jeunes femmes fatales
—one tall, with
mile-long legs; the other shorter, with generous curves—that were obviously
waiting for his arrival near the parking lot. They immediately sidle up and
fall into step with him, smiling and trying to chat him up. The three of them
enter the school building as a group, leaving my sight. Seth never once looked
back.

He's really done with me.

Chapter 12

Looking at Seth's back as he's walking
away from me, I have to lean against his car because I have no strength left in
my legs to sustain me.

I don't know how long I stand like that,
slumped against the black BMW. But eventually, the feeling of a hundred eyes
trained on me breaks me out of my stupor. I right myself and look around.

Though a quick glance at my cell
confirms it's still early, fifteen minutes before the bell, it seems as if at
least half of Rockford High's studentship is gathered on the school's front
lawn, next to the parking lot. And they're all staring... at me! Oh, for crying
out loud!
Really?! I have to deal with this too, on top of everything
else?

I realize the avid interest is due to
the fact that I've just been seen getting out of Seth's car. And what the
dickens will everyone be assuming about
that
little tidbit?! I shudder
to even imagine, so I don't. I can't think anymore; my mind has reached its
breaking point.

I force myself to start walking.

Keeping my head down, I near the school.
Just before I pass through the doors, I feel a sharper prickle at the back of
my neck, so I turn my head slightly... and meet Jessica's eyes. She's glaring
at me with virulent hatred. A shiver of foreboding passes through me.

I shake it off and continue walking.

* * *

After a detour to the bathroom, where I
shut myself in a stall for ten minutes and tried (unsuccessfully) to calm
myself, I am now moving through the student-infested hallways of Rockford High.
It feels as if I'm traversing the burning circles of hell, heading straight for
damnation.

Once they see me, students stop and
stare, then the whispering starts, like the buzz of a thousand crazed bees. My
ears are ringing and my skin is crawling with the number of eyes looking at me:
some curious, others disbelieving, some disgusted and hate-filled (the latter reactions
belong to a daunting number of girls).

The one exception is Jacob, when I
coincidentally cross paths with him in front of my Honors English classroom.
The moment he sees me, his widened eyes move quickly between my face and the
hoodie
I'm wearing, of all things. Then his lips curve into an approving
grin.

I duck into the classroom, and it
instantly fills with a suffocating kind of silence. I head to my seat without
meeting any gaze, sit down, and wearily lay my forehead on the table.

A minute later I hear someone taking the
seat beside me. "I'm pretty sure we've never had so much excitement here.
Before
you started at R.-High, I mean." It's Marcie, her voice sounding cautious.

I raise my head and glance at her. Her
eyes are kind.

"Yeah, I live to entertain," I
murmur, too drained to muster the adequate amount of sarcasm.

She gives me a small smile, then her
gaze sharpens. "What's with your lip?"

I stare at her stupidly for almost ten
seconds before I can think of a lie. "I tripped and banged my head on the
door." Original, right? I give myself a pass, though, since I have good
reason for not being at my sharpest right now. And really, the cut was barely
noticeable this morning when I checked in the mirror.

I quickly change the subject. "So it
seems the students are talking about me?"

She nods cautiously.

"But just a few of them, right? And
it'll blow over by second period, right?" I hate being the center of as
much focus as I've had directed at me all morning.

Marcie looks incredulous. "Well, if
by 'a few' you mean the whole flipping school, and by 'second period' you mean one
in, say... I don't know, a year from now!"

A chill goes through me—I didn't imagine
it would be that bad. "But
why
all this interest?"

Her expression wars between skepticism
and pity. "Summer, you were seen getting out of Seth's car. We're talking
about
the
Seth Lewis, yes?—the one who's R.-High's big kahuna."
Kahu-what?
"That's strike one. You're not the first girl in his car, trust me."
She snorts. "But he's never driven a girl to school in the morning. Before
you, I mean."

I look at her, uncomprehending. "So
what's the big deal? Seth drove me to school. And that means what, exactly? Nothing!
At most, people will think that I'm his latest fling—which come on, from what
you and Dana have been telling me, would hardly make me special. What's so unique
about one more girl possibly being screwed by Seth Lewis, who's reputed to have
made a career out of screwing girls? Except for the fact that I hardly look
like his usual fare." The words are like sandpaper scraped over my throat.

Marcie fidgets in her chair with
impatience. "There's two unique things, actually. First of all, Dana—who
really knows everything when it comes to gossip—mentioned just yesterday that
Seth
hasn't
been umm... screwing any girls lately. Which is pretty much:
oh my gosh, the end of the world is coming! His posse of fangirls is already frantic,
and you wouldn't
believe
some of the things they've been trying, to
umm... seduce him. Really, you wouldn't believe.

"And second, even when Seth was
banging girls—pardon my French—he never
slept-
slept
with
them."

"What do you mean, he never slept
with them?" I can't keep myself from asking, though I know I should.
Seth's forever lost to me, so why am I torturing myself by still thinking of
him?

Anyway, I don't get to hear Marcie's
answer, because Mrs. Roberts walks in.

We're discussing Robert Browning's
poetry today, and Mrs. Roberts writes a quote on the blackboard:

All poetry is putting the infinite
within the finite
.—R.
Browning

Turning to face the classroom, she tells
us, "You now have fifteen minutes to work with a partner on figuring out
the meaning behind this quote. You don't have to agree with your partner, but
you do have to be able to defend your interpretation. All right, people, get to
work!"

Marcie and I instantly turn to each
other. All around me, I hear shuffling and whispers as students pair off for
the assignment and start working.

But not me.

It's as if I have a stranger in my body,
for I can't stop myself from giving voice to the question that's been echoing
in my head ever since Mrs. Roberts came in.

"Seth has never slept with any girl?"
I whisper at Marcie.

"Yep, that's a well-known fact
among his many lusty admirers." Marcie rolls her eyes. "He never stayed
the night with any of the girls he's been with. Dana heard his fangirls were all
flipping out because of this, took it as a challenge, sort of, and tried all kinds
of, umm... skanky tactics to get him to do a sleepover after the sex. But they
all struck out.

"So if they"—Marcie throws an
annoyed look at the students in the classroom who are pretending, poorly, that
they aren't still staring at me—"think that your arrival in Seth's car this
morning means that you, say, spent the night with him...
that
would make
you special all right. Did you, by the way?" She grins at me.

I press my fingers over my temples; my earlier
headache has gotten so much worse. I ignore her question.

"So Seth driving me to school, with
all that implies, is strike one," I recap wearily. "What is strike
two?"

"You're wearing his hoodie."

My expression goes slack with dismay. "How
do you
know
that?"

She smiles ruefully. "After our football
team won State Championship again last November, there was a school-wide
assembly in their honor. Principal Adams—pretty much bursting at the seams with
pride, one might say—made a huge fuss over his fantabulous Rockford Rams. And
he gave them lots of goodies." I don't think I like where this is going.

"Among those goodies," she
continues with studied casualness, "was a special-order batch of black
hoodies that the jocks have been wearing a lot since. Probably because they're
all cocky so-and-sos, so not surprisingly, they all loved that cocky 'Those who
can, do' motto. Anyways, the hoodies are all unique—what with being inscribed
with the players' own numbers on the team, and all."

"And," I conclude resignedly,
"fifteen is Seth's number." What the heck was he playing at, loaning
me a hoodie that everyone would immediately recognize as his own? And why did
he choose 15 as his number? It can't be that—

Marcie twinkles at me. "Him letting
you wear his clothes... that's a pretty intimate thing to do by any standard.
And trust me, Seth Lewis does
not
do intimacy. Everyone says so."

I keep quiet, overwhelmed by all that
she's told me.

"And then there's strike three too,"
she says. Oh, lordy, there's
more
still?!

"What's strike three?" I ask
like someone compelled to drink their glass of poison down to the bitter dregs.

"Word has gone out about the thing
with Josh yesterday."

All blood drains from my face.
"What?!"

"You know, the thing yesterday, in
World History." I start breathing again. "Josh bothering you and Seth
going all knight-in-shining-armor for you. Which is also way weird—Seth Lewis putting
himself out for a girl. Plus, according to Dana, word from the guys' locker
room is, Seth had already kinda warned Josh a few days ago to leave you alone."

I stare at her, disbelieving.

She nods at my stupefied expression.
"Really, Dana said so. But anyways, seems like Josh didn't listen. So he's
either terminally stupid or he has a death wish—no one riles Seth Lewis and
hopes to get away with it. I mean, not only he has the pull to, say, make
anyone a complete social outcast at R.-High, but Robbie wasn't joking about
Seth's scary factor. Trust me, this boy's a real badass."

"Seth isn't a badass!" I
retort sharply, offended by that description. It makes him sound like... some
cruel bully, or a conscienceless troublemaker. I've dealt with those types, and
Seth is the furthest thing from them that there is. Yes, he can be ruthless
when he has to—I know that. But I also know that, in spite of his Mom's best
efforts, he never let go of his basic integrity. And I'm not going to pretend
otherwise and paint him all black just because he rejected my friendship.

"But Seth and Josh almost came to
blows over you yesterday?" Marcie asks with a raised eyebrow.

"Something like that," I mutter.

She seems to be waiting for a further clarification
from me, but recognizing that one isn't going to be provided, she continues to
share the current gossip. "Well, some people were saying that Seth punched
Josh in World History. But no one's seen Josh today—he hasn't shown up in
school yet—so they can't check if he has any bruises."

Then, with a spark in her eye: "Come
on, Summer! I've been doing all the talking. It's
so
your turn to dish!"

I wince inside. "Actually, this is
really not a good time." Nor will it ever be; what happened between me and
Seth is nobody's business but our own. "Shouldn't we get started on the
assignment? We barely have five minutes left to do it."

Marcie gives me a knowing look.
"Okay, you can keep your secrets for now. But I warn you, you stand no
chance against Dana. And she'll be all fired up to waylay you at lunch."

Oh joy, I can't wait! Maybe it'd be a
good idea to avoid the cafeteria today, what with all the feminine death glares
I'll be sure to receive and with Dana's planned ambush. Not to mention Seth,
whom I don't know how I'll ever be able to face again.

Luckily for now, Marcie and I get to
work, and I'm distracted from the thousand thoughts revolving in my head—all
centered around a certain blue-eyed boy.

* * *

I somehow muddle through the rest of my
day.

The stares and whispers grow, if
anything, worse, but I try to ignore them. I would really, really like to at
least be able to change out of Seth's hoodie—it's continuing to draw way too
much attention to me—but I can't do that since I have nothing else to wear. And
I can't walk around in just my black T-shirt; it's too tight and ratty. Plus,
I'd likely freeze, given how unseasonably cold it is today.

A couple of times I notice Jessica in
the hallway, surrounded by her gang of cheerleaders, looking around as if
searching for something. Then, on seeing me, a dangerous glint enters her eye,
and she starts moving toward me along with her friends. Each time this happens,
I quickly turn in a different direction and lose her in the crowd. Right now, I
truly don't have the energy for a confrontation with that devil's spawn
and
her minions.