Summer's Desire (18 page)

Plus, I still ache from yesterday, so if
it came to a catfight, I wouldn't like my chances.

The only good news is that Josh hasn’t appeared
today. He'll probably skip school for a few days until he heals some—Seth
messed him up pretty badly. God, I'm really scared of seeing him again. I hope
I won't have to. I hope he took Seth's warning to heart and will stay away from
me.

During lunch, I hide out in the library.
I don't have any food since I didn't get a chance to buy anything this morning,
and I'm hungry, but I suffer through it. Better this than braving the cafeteria—and
all the stares, the whispers, and the people.

I keep thinking of Seth, my reflections
spinning and twisting until my earlier headache has begun to feel more like a
steel trap crushing my head. I'm still in shock over how fast and how wrong
things have gone between us. And I don't know how to deal with the fact that he
is now truly, utterly lost to me.

One could argue that I had already lost Seth
a long time ago—more than five years in the past, actually—but that wouldn’t be
completely true. Deep inside, mostly hidden even from myself, I've always
carried the hope that someday, somehow, we would find our way back to each
other. So even though I lived without him, I lived with the
hope
of him.

After the way he cared for me yesterday,
after the way he held me close last night, this hope burned so bright I felt as
if I was glowing. So this morning I entrusted him with all my faith.

And he crushed it.

I ask myself now how I even dared to
feel hope. I should have given up my foolish dreams the moment I saw Seth in
the student cafeteria two weeks ago, when already on first glimpse it was so darn
clear that the distance between us was insurmountable. I'm still me whereas
he's...
more
.

Truthfully, even in the past I had felt
that, but it never actually
mattered
before because the two of us were
always equals in our need for each other. But on seeing him again after my
return to Rockford, I should have recognized that it was only me still needing
him.

He
had moved on a long time ago.

I can understand this, truly I can. He's
popular, handsome, headed for a successful future. He can have anything he
wants in the world. So why should he want
me
by his side? I have nothing
to offer him but myself: an orphaned, nightmare-plagued, messed-up wreck of a
girl.

So I can understand that he doesn't want
me, that I'm not enough anymore. I've only myself to fault for ever hoping
differently. Still, understanding doesn't stop the pain.

I
trudge to my first class after
lunch, Chemistry, and enter seconds before the teacher. Marcie and Dana both
shoot me looks of reproach for having skipped lunch with them. I know they
still want to talk to me, so the moment the bell rings after class, I'm out the
door and walking fast.

I have World History next and I'm
terrified of seeing Seth again; the wound is still too raw. I enter the
classroom and start breathing again when I see that he and his friends aren't
here yet. I go to my seat.

In these two weeks, after that first day,
Carter approached me a few more times, trying to jerk my chain with his
outrageous flirting. I think it was a game to him; he always looked hugely
amused, for some reason. While trying to chat me up, he kept sending insolent
side-glances to Seth and was met by fulminating glares in return. I kept
ignoring Carter completely.

But right now, for the first time I’m
kind of grateful that Seth shares this class with Carter and Jacob; it’ll be
good to have them acting as a buffer between us.

I'm sitting on tenterhooks, watching the
hands of the clock on the wall, and they're vexingly slow. Finally, the bell
rings. Still no trace of Seth and his friends. Seven minutes later, Mr. Abbot
shows up as well. Even now, Seth's group is not here.

He's not coming, I realize belatedly.
He's skipped class for the first time in the two weeks I've been here.

This entire hellish day I've somehow
managed to suppress my enormous urge to cry, but this little thing—Seth's
uncharacteristic absence, most likely because he doesn’t want to see
me
—almost
tips the scales. Sweet mercy, now he can’t stand to even look at me! I blink my
smarting eyes furiously and bite my inner cheek so hard that I feel blood dripping
in my mouth.

But I don't let go of my tears.

Chapter 13

As I enter the Andersons' house, my eyes
fall instantly on Jessica and Louise. They're sitting on the luxurious couch in
the living room, both facing the entrance in a manner which makes it clear that
they've been waiting for me. Given the way they're looking at me—Louise wearing
a mask of disdain, Jessica one of malice—I can't help but mentally compare them
to vicious cobras poised to strike.

Lucky me, to be the target in their
visor.

"Well, hello, Summer," says
Louise in a cold, mocking tone. "Did you have a nice sleepover?"

"Yes, thank you." I notice
Jessica clenching her fists at my calm response.

Her mother stares at me with an evil
glint in the eye. "Do tell me again the name of your friend who had you
for the sleepover. I seem to have forgotten it."

That's a lie; she never asked it in the
first place.

"Marcie Lauren," I tell her
politely. "We've been paired on a project for Honors English."

"Indeed?" Louise's voice has
turned from cold to icy. Swear to God, she's almost giving me frostbite! Her
daughter looks even more incensed at my continued composure.

"Indeed, Louise. The project is
about Robert Browning's Poetry."

"Then maybe you'll enlighten
us," Jessica spits out, "how come you arrived to school from your
sleepover at
Marcie
's in
Seth
's car! Last time I checked, they weren't
living together!" Her voice rises with each word, and by the time she
finishes, she's screeching like a she-devil.

I take great satisfaction in seeing her
uncontrolled fury contrasted against my unruffled calm. I love to irk the bloody
bitch; it's the only way I can get one over her, unfortunately. Other measures
would be too risky to undertake if I don't want to be kicked out of the house. Which
I clearly don't.

So I put on an expression of contrived
bafflement. "Of course that Seth and Marcie don't live together. Seth
simply passed me by in his car this morning when I was walking from
Marcie
's
to school. He stopped to offer me a ride." Then, anticipating a minor
inconsistency in my tale: "I was walking alone because Marcie didn't have
first period today." It's not like Jessica can prove differently at this
point.

Her face has turned blotchy with her
rage. "Why would the most popular guy in school offer a ride to
you
,"—she
says this making the
you
sound like a four-letter word—"the
school's biggest freak?"

Ouch. That actually hurts... because
she's kind of right. Seth may have bridged the gap between us yesterday when he
helped me, but he must have done it solely because of some leftover fondness on
account of our shared childhood. And as this morning's events proved, that
fondness was all used up after he spent just a few hours in my company.

Seth will never again drive me in his
car.

Still, to answer Jessica's question, I attempt
an indifferent shrug. "I don't know why Seth would stop for me. Christian
sympathy, perchance?"

"Was it also Christian sympathy
that made him give you his hoodie to wear, you stupid moron?" Seems like
dear Jess has traded up to direct insults. I glance at Louise, but of course
she doesn't admonish her hell spawn, just continues to observe the proceedings
with cool boredom. Like mother, like daughter, and that's God's honest truth in
this particular case!

I sustain Jessica's glare. "Actually,
Seth did remark during the drive that he owns a similar hoodie. What a
coincidence, right?" I let a bit of sarcasm escape.

"Yeah right, freak! 'Cause it's so
obvious that hoodie you're wearing is in your size!" The hoodie is huge on
me; I could literally swim in it.

Still... "All my clothes are a few
sizes too big," I point out, truthfully enough.

Jessica looks about ready to explode. She
doesn't believe me at all, even though my answers were consistent and complete;
I'm good at lying to anyone other than Seth.

So why doesn't she believe me? Or at
least give me the benefit of the doubt? For that matter, why wouldn't she
believe the easiest explanation? To an outsider, the truth—namely that I spent last
night sleeping in Seth's arms—would sound much more outrageous than the tale
I've just spun.

Why does Jessica suspect the truth
instead? There's no rhyme and reason to it—not unless she knows about my history
with Seth. But that's impossible. Maybe she's just insanely jealous of him?

Either way, I'm through with this
conversation. I'm not a criminal to be brought before the judge and
interrogated, no matter what Jessica would prefer.

I address her mother: "Louise, I
skipped lunch today, so I'd like to look for some leftovers in the kitchen. If
you'll excuse me?" Truthfully, I've lost all appetite, but right now I'd
use any pretext to escape this room.

"Of course, sweets." Louise's tone
is dripping with false sincerity. "Eat something, you look pathetically
thin! No wonder Jessica's beau took pity on you and drove you in his car."

I don't reply, just turn on my heels and
head for the kitchen, with Jessica's furious eyes digging in my back.

* * *

It's late evening and I'm lying on my
belly in bed, eyes puffy from crying.

After forcing myself to eat some
leftover lasagna, I went up to my room and finally released the floodgates of
my grief. Crying usually eases my pain, but this time it's just exhausted me
and worsened the headache I've had all day. At least I'm all cried out; I don't
think there's a single drop of moisture left in my body.

The door to my room opens behind me. I
don't need to turn around to know it's Jessica; she's the only one who invades
my room whenever she wants, without even the courtesy of knocking. Plus, her
cloying perfume reaches my nose almost instantly—wow, she must have used a half-bottle
of perfume this time, instead of her usual one third.

"Well, well, well," she says
gleefully, "aren't we pitiful, hiding in our room all alone on a Friday
evening?"

I want to ignore her, but when I hear
her stepping closer, I quickly turn to face her and sit up in my bed. I can't
afford to keep my back turned to her if she's near enough to, say, stick a
knife in it.

She's dolled up to the 100th degree. Her
black hair is shiny and thick, arranged in an elaborate twist. Her face is
perfectly made up, though definitely too heavy on the black eyeliner and
lipstick, in my humble opinion. Still, it makes her gray eyes look smoky and
her thin lips fuller, so I guess it works for her. She's wearing a black corset-type
blouse with deep cleavage and transparent sleeves, and a violet micro-skirt.
Her outfit is completed by fishnet tights and high stiletto boots.

Boys will certainly think that she looks
scorching hot in her getup. Personally, I can't get past my knowledge of how
utterly rotten she is on the inside, to appreciate her outer glamour.

Seeing my reflective gaze, Jessica gives
a theatrical little spin. "So, you like?" she asks mockingly.

I furrow my brow for effect, as if
considering her question. "Sure, I think you'll fit in perfectly with all the
other night ladies. You'll probably even manage to scrounge up a few desperate
clients tonight, don't worry." I smirk.

She glares, then takes on a feline
expression. "Oh, I already have a party lined up for tonight. And a man. He'll
really like my look. And he'll get to unwrap me and enjoy
all of this
."
She molds her hands suggestively down her upper body.

"Know who he is?" she asks
slyly. "You get one guess." She's the one smirking now.

"Seth never goes back for sloppy
seconds," I remind her flatly.

Her mouth purses together and her face
clouds with rage, but she recovers fast. With an eerie smile, she extracts
something from her bodice. She opens her hand, shows me a little packet. "Know
what this is? You get one guess again."

I stare, horrified.

"Oh, I think you guessed it!"
she says cheerily. "I'll tell you a secret. Seth is a wild
, wild
thing
in the sack, but this little thing"—she plays with the packet—"will
add some more spice to the
jazz
."

I jump from the bed. "You bitch!
You're going to drug Seth to get him to have sex with you? Are you actually insane?!"
I reach for the packet, but she quickly slips it back in her bodice—and slaps
me hard.

I stagger back a step and look at her in
disbelief. Then I instinctively take the step back toward her, my hands balled
to fists. She's taller than I barefoot and much taller now that she's wearing her
killer heels, but the way I feel right now, I swear I could tear her to pieces.