I found out later that Chay had also transferred out of the English class we shared. In a way, even though it stung, I was glad. That left only one class I had to face him in. Calculus—as if it wasn’t torture enough on its own.
Walking into class, I passed his desk without looking at him. I was proud of myself. It wasn’t until I sat down and looked at the board for the daily assignment that my bravado faltered. He was watching me over his shoulder, his eyes boring into me. I smiled coolly and flipped him the bird. His lips twitched, holding back a grin. I was glad he found something to smile about. I hadn’t.
By lunch, it seemed everyone in the school knew our dirty little secret. I heard the hushed whispers as I walked by tables in the cafeteria, or desks in class. I saw the stares in the hallway and the looks of pity from people walking by.
“It’ll get better,” Grams told me after school that afternoon. “There’ll be new gossip in a day or two, and you and the idiot will be old news.”
“I hope so.” I curled up on my favorite couch. I could’ve lived on it forever.
“Take it from me, the wise old woman. I know these things. High-schoolers are a fickle bunch. As soon as they smell blood in the water, they start circling, but they can’t resist another juicy piece of gossip. Soon they’ll move on, and so will you.”
17
The Date
It’d been more than three weeks since Chay broke it off. I rarely saw him at school and when I did, he didn’t look at me, much less speak. He came to my house once because the hobgoblins were running around making nuisances of themselves. He stood in the far back corner of the yard and watched. He didn’t come up to the house and when the little red pains in the ass had their say, he jumped the fence and jogged home without a word.
“So…” Xavier said slowly one morning in class. “I was wondering something.”
I sighed. “What?” I really didn’t want to talk. I just wanted to finish the chemistry lab we were working on and then crawl into the fetal position in the corner of the room and sleep the rest of the day.
“Have you found your rebound guy yet?”
I wasn’t sure what I was expecting him to say, but that definitely wasn’t it. “What do you mean?”
“You know, the guy you date right after a bad break up. The relationship usually doesn’t go anywhere, it’s just a, you know, rebound thing.”
“Ah, no. I haven’t found my rebound guy.” I looked down at my chemistry book.
Please, please, please don’t let this go where I think it’s gonna.
“Because I could help you with that.”
And there it is.
“Thanks, Xavier, but I’m not ready to date… even a rebound guy.”
“Then don’t date me. Just go out with me Friday night. We can call it whatever you want.”
“Xavier—”
“C’mon, Milayna. Just friends. We can even invite the other group members.”
“Um…” I looked up at the ceiling, drumming my pen against my lower lip. “I guess if it’s a group thing—minus Chay, of course.”
As it turned out, the other group members all had plans Friday night that didn’t involve babysitting Xavier and me on our non-date, date.
“Come on, Muriel, you have to go,” I pleaded on the way home from school.
“Sorry. Drew and I have plans.”
I flopped back in the car’s seat and folded my arms over my chest.
I knew this was a bad idea.
Muriel glanced at me before making a right turn into our subdivision. “Why don’t you want to go out with him anyway?”
He’s not Chay.
“Not ready to date yet,” I muttered.
“Pssh, you should get ready. Xavier is nice, sexy, funny, sexy, smart and, oh yeah, sexy as hell. Besides, if you didn’t want to go out with him, why’d you say you would?”
“I thought you’d have my back. It was supposed to be a group thing.”
“Sorry, chick, not this time,” Muriel said with a sympathetic smile. Or maybe it was a pitying smile. At the time, I didn’t care. I was trying to figure out a way to get out of going with Xavier on Friday.
***
The clenching in my stomach started after dinner. I was hoping it was just the fish my mom force fed me, but I knew better. The pain grew, traveling up my body and lodging in my throat. It was like a tumor, growing and growing until I thought it’d punch through my skin. Then, just when I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer, my head started to pound. It throbbed with each beat of my heart, my vision blurring with each contraction.
I waited for the images to begin. As soon as the vision played out, the pain would go away and I could finish my stupid calculus homework.
My house. Screaming. My brother, bloodied.
Sucking in a sharp breath, I scrambled off the bed. I stood with my back against the wall, my eyes moving back and forth as the vision’s images zoomed past them.
My mother crying. A man sitting in the living room. His back is to me. He laughs.
My heart stuttered, and the pain in my chest grew sharp, stabbing. Something was wrong. Very, very wrong.