Twisted (19 page)

I smiled and nodded and he smiled back, a smile intense enough that it reached his eyes.

“I don’t work at all next weekend. Maybe we could go out of town then?” he suggested, almost shyly. He kept his eyes on me, not everyone around us.

“Absolutely,” I said, unable to contain what I was sure was a ridiculously huge grin.

He looked as though he wanted to say more but he hesitated. I waited.

“Do you really want it to be a date?” he asked, sounding almost stunned by the idea. He had his head tilted to the side, his grey eyes taking in every inch of my face, as if my answer alone wouldn’t be enough.

“Yes. But only if you’re okay with it,” I honestly replied.

He nodded slowly. “Yeah, I’m okay with that. If you’re sure it’s what you want.” He gave my fingers a final squeeze before pulling his hand away.

I decided it was time for a subject change. “Aren’t you going to eat?” I asked, eyeing his cheeseburger and fries, sitting untouched so far.

“I hope he is,” Phoebe said as she slid into the chair next to me, startling Ben. She grabbed a fry off his plate, swiped it through his ketchup and popped it into her mouth with a happy little noise. “You need to eat this,” she said as she tossed my sandwich down in front of me.

After talking to Ben, my appetite had returned. “Thanks.”

“Sure. I had to get out of there. I’m starving and I cannot deal with those people anymore.” She removed the lid from her salad and looked at it with disappointment. Her eyes wandered back to Ben’s fries.

By ‘those people’, I had to assume she meant Olivia and Henry. It was difficult not to look over my shoulder to see what they thought of this latest development.

When neither Ben nor I said anything she looked around, as if wondering if she had made a mistake. “Am I interrupting or is it okay if I sit here?”

“Yeah,” Ben said, surprising me. “It’s fine.”

“Good,” Phoebe said, giving him a relieved smile.

“You do realize you just walked away from Henry, again?” It was no wonder the boy had a complex.

She nodded as she tossed her greens around with her fork, mixing in the dressing. “I warned him first. I told them if I had to hear one more word about what happened with Alec the other night, I was leaving. Olivia wouldn’t drop it, so I left.”

Ben stopped with his burger half way to his mouth. “What happened with Alec?” His eyes darted to me, full of concern.

“Oh,” Phoebe said, guiltily looking back and forth between us. “It was nothing.”

“Did he do something to you?” he asked me, anger flashing across his features.

His eyes darted around the room, looking for Alec, I was sure. I started to worry that after all of this time avoiding Alec, that he was seeking him out.

“No,” I quickly replied. “Not to me, to Phoebe. He shoved her pretty hard.”

Ben’s face was grim and questioning.

I gave him the condensed version of what had happened. It was important to me that he knew we were out for pizza and that Alec had just shown up. I didn’t want him to think I’d gone somewhere that I knew Alec would be. Like a party that Ben would never be invited to. When I got to the part where Alec shoved Phoebe, Ben was clearly angry.

“Its fine,” Phoebe assured him when she saw the look of concern on his face. “Henry was there. He threatened Alec and after about two seconds Alec was running off like the little crybaby he is.”

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Ben asked her.

“Yeah, thanks. I want you to know not everyone agrees with Alec. There are a lot of people who can’t stand him. Henry, for example, has always hated that cocky little bastard,” she said with delight. “I think he was happy to finally have a reason to do something about it.”

“Yeah, well,” Ben said, sounding uneasy, “I don’t think your boyfriend approves of me either.”

“What?” Phoebe asked, turning around to see what Ben was looking at. She let out an indelicate snort of contempt. Henry was sitting next to Olivia but he wasn’t paying the least bit of attention to her. He was facing our direction and he was clearly not happy. “Henry isn’t my boyfriend. He’s Olivia’s.”

“Since when?” Ben wondered.

“Feels like fricking forever,” Phoebe told him and he gave her a peculiar look. “But dude, it’s not you he’s glaring at. It’s him,” she said as she motioned past Ben to the cafeteria door.

Alec, with his blackened eye, had just walked in.

Alec’s eyes grazed over us but he kept his face neutral and then headed off to retrieve some food. Ben clenched his jaw when he saw him. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. I didn’t know if the look on his face was his typical look of worry. Or, after hearing about the altercation on Saturday, maybe he was just plain pissed.

When we were done eating, Phoebe excused herself, heading off to the little girl’s room. I thought it was simply her way of giving Ben and me some time alone. It felt nice walking to class with him, even though he kept enough distance between us to squeeze in another person. We had plenty of time before Lit so we weren’t in a rush. I did my best to ignore the stares, thinking he’d been ignoring them for so long now. As well as trying to ignore the whispers and the pointing. I wondered if he noticed and hid it well, or if he was oblivious to it all by now.

“You should’ve gone with Phoebe,” he muttered when we rounded the last corner. Three girls I thought were juniors had just darted past, giggling and pointing and muttering names that made my blood run cold. It had been silly of me to think he could ever be oblivious to any of this. He had just had a lot of practice at pretending not to care.

“I would walk with you every day if you’d let me,” I said stubbornly.

I heard Ben groan and curse under his breath as he came to a sudden stop. My eyes darted around to find what had upset him. There was a group of students assembled around my locker. I felt an icy trickle start to course through my veins. As had been the case in the parking lot, I couldn’t see as easily as Ben. I tried to stretch my neck but it was no use. Ben pushed his way through the small crowd. I was just steps behind him. Taped to my locker was a doll. She had bronze hair, the ringlets hanging down nearly to her elbows. Her big green eyes were open wide.

A strip of duct tape had been trimmed to fit over her mouth.    

A rope was tied around her neck. The rope had been duct taped to my locker door, keeping the dangling doll in place.

Ben tore the doll off my locker. He didn’t say a word to anyone in the crowd. He didn’t even stop. He walked away, the doll in his hand, until he passed the nearest garbage can. He slammed the doll inside and never looked back.

I realized belatedly that I should’ve run after him. I also knew he wouldn’t have wanted me to and that’s why I stood where I was, frozen in place.

“What did I miss
?”
Hailey demanded as she appeared at my side.

“Nothing!” I snapped as I spun around to face her.

Kayla and Amy were standing there, amidst the gawking crowd.

“Do you still think Ben is a ‘nice guy’?” Kayla asked as she did little finger quotes in the air.

“Ben
is
a nice guy,” I said through clenched teeth. “It’s whoever put that doll on my locker that’s a nutcase!”

Amy gave me a haughty little toss of her head. “We heard he also gave you a box full of maggots.” She shuddered.

I ground my fist into my hip. “You would have to be an idiot to think this was Ben. It has set-up written all over it.”

“You think
we’re
idiots? Come on Maya. You’re the one spending time with a guy who was arrested for killing someone,” Kayla chided condescendingly. “Who else would do something like that?”

“I just had lunch with Phoebe and Ben. It would be awfully hard for him to be in two places at once.” They had me so distracted I had to redo my locker combination. Twice. I completely turned my back to them, ignoring their snotty glares.

“She did actually just eat lunch with him,” Hailey told them. I was surprised that she came to my defense. “And she’s right, unless he’s capable of being two places at once...I think you might have the wrong person.” Then she lost any ground she had just gained with me. “And since everyone knows he doesn’t have any friends it’s not like someone helped him.”

“
I’m
his friend,” I shot at her. I finished up in my locker and then stormed down the hall.

There was a small whispering crowd gathered near Ben’s locker, too. As I passed, I saw what had gotten their attention.

MURDERER

The word was scrawled in black permanent marker. Ben was nowhere in sight. I went straight to the classroom but he wasn’t there either. I stepped back into the hall, hoping to catch him before class.

“How are you?” Phoebe asked as she shoved her way through the migrating students. “Hailey told me what happened.”

I nodded. “I’m okay. I’m worried about Ben though. I can’t find him.”

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Phoebe said sympathetically.

“No,” I insisted. “I don’t think he is. You didn’t see his face. I think this time, whoever is doing this has gone too far.”

“It was a doll that looked like you?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I know you don’t want Remy to say anything but I think you need to tell her. That doll was clearly a threat.”

I nodded. “I know it’s Alec. And it’s getting out of control. I’m worried that he’s going to do something to Ben. I mean, worse than usual. I’m afraid he’s going to really hurt him.”

Phoebe looked at me sympathetically. “I agree completely. The fact that he showed up late for lunch just makes it more obvious. But if it’s left to Mrs. B, she’ll never make Alec take responsibility. You need to get Remy involved to back you guys up.”

“I know,” I said miserably. “Remy is not going to be happy about this.”

“Promise me you’ll talk to her about this tonight,” Phoebe demanded.

I nodded, too distracted to argue.

“I think Ben’s parents should be involved too.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen. From what Ben says, they won’t side with him anyway,” I quietly told her.

“He really doesn’t have anybody, does he?” Phoebe asked.

“He has me.”

Phoebe sighed. “I feel so terrible about this. I’ve never personally said or done anything to Ben but I’ve never stood up for him either. I should have. I just…” she shook her head miserably. “I guess I just never wanted to get involved. I didn’t think I had any reason to and I never realized, until now, how awful it has been for him. From now on, I promise, I’m not going to just stand by anymore.”

“Thank you,” I told her and meant it with every cell in my body.

She glanced around the nearly deserted hallway. She gave my elbow a squeeze. “I’ve got to run, we’ll talk later,” she said as she darted off.

I took my seat just as the bell rang. I’d undoubtedly made Phoebe late, probably for the first time in all of her high school years. Ben still wasn’t in his seat. As I looked around…neither was Alec.

The last few hours crept by at an interminably slow rate. I had glanced out the window, scanning the parking lot. Ben’s car was gone. I knew how important school was to him. Despite all of Alec’s harassing, he’d never skipped before. Knowing that he was skipping left little room for doubt; seeing the doll on my locker, knowing what it represented, had upset him more than anything else had so far.

After the dismissal bell rang, I had swiped a black marker off of Mrs. Edward’s desk. I’d gone back to Ben’s locker and blocked out the word. I knew all eyes were on me but I didn’t care. In fact, I was glad. I wanted people to know I thought he was worth standing up for. I blackened the word into a black bar, going round and round until it was utterly indiscernible. I met anyone’s eyes who were on me as I finished. I was disgusted by how many people turned away, pretending as if nothing was wrong.

Then I’d marched into Mrs. B’s office to tell her what I had done and why. She couldn’t possibly think Ben had written that word on his own locker.
That,
I hoped, could not be turned around on him.

She listened and then lectured me about how students were still struggling. She explained that since I was new to the school, I may not understand the turmoil that Ben’s presence caused. She assured me that she did her best to try to keep things peaceful. I knew her best was nowhere near good enough but I thought it would be more beneficial if I left that for Remy to tackle.

I let her know that it was how Ben was being treated that I was there to discuss. How
horribly
he was being treated. Writing like that on his locker was hateful. As far as I was concerned, it went beyond bullying. Supposedly, bullying at Beaumont High was not to be tolerated. Yet it was obvious that not all students were protected under that policy.

I told her I expected his locker to be taken care of as expediently as mine had been. I knew he’d already seen it. I told her I wanted it repainted before everyone came back in the morning. I wasn’t sure if it would be done. In fact, I doubted it but at least I had tried. And that was more than anyone else bothered to do for him.

I left her office knowing it was for the best that I didn’t mention the doll. She wouldn’t have listened to me. I would leave that to Remy as well. She might be young, or maybe it was because she was young, but she wouldn’t let Mrs. Birkendorf get away with ignoring the problem.

I hadn’t expected to find Phoebe waiting for me, but she was. She was seated on the bench outside of the school, fidgeting as she waited.

“He was gone before I got out here,” Phoebe reported as I joined her.

“I know,” I told her. I reiterated my unproductive conversation with Mrs. B as we walked to the parking lot.

“You should have told me you were doing that,” Phoebe admonished. “I would’ve gone with you.”

I shrugged. “Thanks, but I don’t think I did any good.” I wasn’t sure Phoebe’s presence would have made much of a difference but I did appreciate the offer.

“Hey, Phoebe! Wait up!”

She turned to the sound of the voice. Her eyes widened as Henry darted toward us.

“I have something,” he said. He unzipped his backpack and started rummaging around inside. Phoebe’s smile faded as Henry pulled out a pair of sunglasses and handed them to her. She held them in her outstretched palm as if they were a foreign object.

“Could you give those to Olivia for me?” he asked. “She left them in my truck the other day. I forgot to give them to her at lunch. I’ve been waiting at her locker but I must have missed her because she never showed up. Since you’ll be seeing her again tonight I thought maybe you could just give them to her.”

Phoebe looked down at the sunglasses. She shook her head. “What do you mean ‘again tonight’?”

“She said you’ve been helping her make posters for some charity thing,” Henry told her, as though she may have forgotten. “The ones you were working on last night?”

Phoebe looked at me helplessly.

I decided to step in. “Um, last night?” I asked, directing the question to Henry.

“Yeah,” he said, looking to Phoebe for confirmation.

“No, I don’t think so,” I told him. Then I looked at Phoebe. “Weren’t you and I,” I swung a finger back and forth between my chest and hers, “together last night?  ’Cause I could’ve sworn it was you helping me devour the blueberry sauce and Haagen-Dazs.”

Phoebe nodded then looked at Henry. “I saw Olivia for maybe fifteen minutes right after school,” she admitted. “But after that, I spent the evening at Maya’s.”

Henry’s brows scrunched in confusion. “I called her last night, around eight. When she answered she told me she was at your house.”

“I can’t believe this,” Phoebe muttered under her breath. She closed her eyes and when she opened them it was clear she felt conflicted. “Listen, Henry, I’m really sorry to have to tell you this. Olivia wasn’t with me last night. Or a few weeks ago when you borrowed my notes. I’ve hardly spent any time with Olivia for weeks. So if she’s told you otherwise, it’s not true.” She met Henry’s gaze and his eyes were narrowed in suspicion. Whether it was immediately directed at Olivia or Phoebe, I wasn’t sure.

“What about tonight?” he asked.

“I never made plans with her for tonight. Believe me, I have practice and I’m barely going to have time to squeeze in my homework. It’s not like we made plans and I forgot or something. We simply never had plans in the first place. I doubt she’s studying with Maya.” They both glanced at me and I shook my head. “And I doubt she’s studying with Hailey or she just would’ve said so.”

Henry’s face was starting to redden. He looked at me. “How much has she been with
you
?”

“Not at all, really,” I said honestly. “Not out of school anyway.”

He shook his head. His cheeks were getting redder by the minute. “I didn’t want to be one of those possessive boyfriends. So when she said she needed ‘girl-time’ I just let it go, even though it got to be night after night.  I’ve hardly seen her at all for…I don’t even know. Weeks, maybe longer.” He paused, obviously mulling something over. “How much do you call her? Because her phone is always ringing.”

Phoebe and I shared a look and then we both shook our heads. I, for one, rarely called Olivia. I doubted Phoebe did either, at least not lately with Henry constantly on her mind.

“The night we were stuck making all of those cookies? Remember how her phone was constantly ringing?” he asked me and I nodded. “That’s normal. You were all there so I suppose she had to pretend it was the lady from the shelter.” He swept his hands over his face. “I am so damn
stupid
!”