Get over here, Drew.
I left the fairgrounds and headed out toward the dirt parking lot, veering neatly around an endless line of Porta-Potties. My breath came in short, choppy bursts. The bad images were back. The really bad ones. They colonized my head and multiplied. I wanted them to go, to leave me alone, but more than anything I longed to douse that carny with gasoline, light him on fire, and watch him burn.
I entered the parking lot and kept walking. I reached down and picked a large jagged rock off the ground. It was hot, scorching, like it had just fallen to Earth, and I turned it over in my hand again and again, a hypnotic motion. I glanced to my left and right. When no one was looking, I dragged the sharpest edge of the rock along a row of cars. I felt the paint give way beneath my weight. I pushed harder. Forced my hand to scrawl the letters to the worst words I could think of. Ones I would never ever say out loud.
My heart soared. Forget summer’s heat, I was on fire.
“Hey!” someone called.
I dropped the rock and bolted. I ran so fast my whole chest stung. I didn’t stop until I made it back to the carnival. I skirted around the Orbitron but sprinted past all the other big rides, those huge vibrating machines of flashing lights and horror. The noises they made deafened me, all that high-decibel rumbling and clattering-whooshing-grinding intermingled with a piped-in sound track of throbbing rock music. I thought I heard people yelling like they were coming after me, but when I turned to look, no one was there. I breathed a sigh of relief. Escape felt good.
Coming into a crowded food area, I eased to a walk. My fingers went to my pocket, reassuring me I hadn’t lost all my money to that jerk of a carny. I found a drink stand and shoved some cash at the girl working there. I walked away with a frozen lemonade and headed toward an empty picnic table.
I sat and soaked up the night. My pulse slowed and the memory of the parking lot swirled through my mind, hazy and irretrievable like a lost balloon. Had I really done that? Written those awful things? Or had I just thought about doing it?
I didn’t know. I didn’t care.
A weak breeze rustled in, mussing my hair and offering a flickering moment of relief from the night’s swelter. I fished a scoop of crushed ice out of my cup and rubbed it against the back of my neck. A girl’s laugh floated over. I glanced up. Two tables away from me sat Keith and Charlie.
Their backs rested against the table. It looked like they were sharing fries. Charlie laughed again, turning to Keith and tucking loose hair behind her ear. My brother had a moony expression on his face, one I’d never seen before. I half stood to go over to them, but then Keith leaned in. Brushed his lips against Charlie’s cheek.
I choked. Didn’t move. Couldn’t. Charlie pulled back and said something. She was smiling. Then she reached out and curled her fingers with his before they ran back into the crowd together.
Way later, when Phoebe found me skulking around the midway, I had murder in mind.
“What’s up?” she asked.
I shrugged.
“You look upset.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah, you do.” She stared with those big bug eyes of hers until I relented.
“Keith and Charlie were holding hands.”
She thought about this. “So?”
“They’re cousins. They…” I swallowed hard. “They kissed.”
Phoebe picked at a scab on her elbow. “Okay.”
“It’s gross.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“You know,” she began as a wicked smile crept across her pale lips, “your parents are cousins. How gross is that?”
A jolt went through me. “That’s not true!”
“Oh, yes, it is. My dad told me.” She shrugged. “I don’t think it’s a big deal. You shouldn’t either.”
This upset me terribly. And it couldn’t be true. My parents had met when my mom took one of my father’s courses at the university. I knew that. It explained the big age gap between them and why my dad was always right and my mom was always wrong. But I hated the fact that Phoebe would even say such a thing.
“I’ll pay you twenty bucks.”
I had no clue what she was talking about. “What?”
“Twenty bucks if you go on the carousel.”
“Why?”
“I want to see if you’ll hurl.”
“No way!”
She kept at it, which irritated me. The offer eventually rose to forty bucks, but I was nothing if not stubborn. I felt a sudden slap on my back. I looked up and saw Keith grinning at me. Charlie stood right behind him. She arched an eyebrow at me in a smug way that said, I know what you did.
(FUCKCOCKSUCKASSHOLEBITCHCUNT) My cheeks went hot.
Keith pointed at the spinning carousel.
“Don’t do it!” he shouted.
chapter
nineteen
matter
Lex sees me preparing to leave Eden. He leaps up to block my path.
“Where’re you going?”
I duck around him. He hasn’t earned my response.