“Helping me with my song. I wouldn’t have done the same thing for you,” Chloe said, with a surprising amount of honesty. “But I really appreciate it.”
Lilith waited a few seconds for the other shoe to drop, for Chloe to say that she was kidding and reveal the webcam she’d been using to punk Lilith, but it never happened. Chloe just went on acting like a regular person, and Lilith realized, to her surprise, that it wasn’t a total drag to hang out with her.
“Maybe I’ll see you there,” Lilith said, then made her way toward the bedroom door. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chloe smiling.
“Wait,” Chloe said. “There’s one more thing.”
“Yeah?” Lilith asked from the doorway.
“Yesterday morning, I was meeting Dean under the bleachers.”
Dean…Dean…Lilith racked her brain to remember who that was, then recalled that it was the name of Chloe’s jock boyfriend.
“Don’t look at me like that; it was totally innocent,” Chloe said. “We were practicing our moves for the first dance at prom.”
“Sure.” Lilith smirked. Nobody hung out under the bleachers to practice anything but making out.
“Anyway,” Chloe said, “I heard voices. It was Cam talking to my dad’s intern, Luc. They were arguing. About you.”
Lilith tried to control her face so the shock wouldn’t show. “Me? What about me?”
“I didn’t catch all the details,” Chloe said. “Dean was taking up a lot of my attention, but I heard them mention…a bet.”
Just then, Chloe’s mom poked her head into the room. “Chloe, you need your rest.”
“We’re almost done, Mom,” Chloe said, smiling brightly until her mother disappeared, without so much as glancing Lilith’s way.
“What kind of bet?” Lilith asked.
Chloe leaned forward in her bed. “I didn’t get it exactly, but basically Cam said he bet he could get you to run away with him after prom. And get this: If he can’t, he becomes Luc’s bitch. Forever.”
Lilith laughed nervously. “That sounds a little far-fetched.”
Chloe shrugged. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
“Luc’s bitch?” Lilith repeated. “How would that even work?”
“There’s clearly a lot about those two freaks we don’t know,” Chloe said, making a sour face.
Lilith tried to think why Luc and Cam would be hanging out in the first place, let alone making some bet about her. They hated each other. Was Chloe lying? That would normally be Lilith’s first assumption, but Chloe seemed more open and less scheming than Lilith had ever known her.
She almost seemed to be telling the truth.
“We must be missing some information,” Lilith said, trying to pretend she didn’t suddenly feel anxious. “Maybe Cam owes Luc money or something.”
“I don’t think so,” Chloe said. “Those guys were talking as if money was no object. They didn’t even seem to care about life or death.” She stared at Lilith. “All they cared about was you.”
Two Days
In poetry class the next day, Cam tried to lock eyes with Lilith. Because of his suspension, he hadn’t seen her in almost two days. The sight of her now, scribbling in her notebook, immersed in another world, drove him mad with desire. He ached to unwind the black scarf from her neck and kiss the pale skin underneath.
He tried passing her a note, begging her to meet him after class. When she pushed it off her desk unopened, he tried passing another, not even bothering to fold this one, his message exposed for anyone to see. Please just talk to me. But Lilith refused to read it.
A boy named Ryan Bang finished reading his experimental sestina and Mr. Davidson started clapping.
“Now, that’s the kind of poem the New Yorker wants to publish!” the teacher said with gusto.
Cam was hardly paying attention, though. He wished he could have denied the rumor Luc had spread, but he couldn’t lie to Lilith. The problem was he didn’t know how to tell her the truth.
At the front of the room, Mr. Davidson looked down at his notes. “Cameron, you’re next.”
“Next at what?” Cam asked, refocusing.
“The assignment? Choosing a poem that clearly expresses a theme? Earth to Cameron.” Mr. Davidson must have registered the blank stare in Cam’s eyes. “I imagine you will choose something about death, as usual? Come stand before the class and state your theme.”
Cam didn’t have anything prepared, but he had been around for long enough to encounter some of the world’s most brilliant poets, and right now one sprang easily to mind.
Cam made sure to walk past Lilith as he went to the head of the class. He wanted to brush his hand against her as he passed, but she would hate that. So instead, he simply rapped his fingers on her desk, hoping to get her attention.