Stonewalling
There’s something about walking into school holding hands with a person you actually love. It’s strange—not bad strange. The best strange. I remembered what made couples hang around attached to each other like cold spaghetti. There were so many ways to be knotted up together. Arms draped around necks, hands crossed in pockets. We couldn’t even walk next to each other without our shoulders finding a way to bump, as if our bodies gravitated toward each other on their own. I guess when electric voltage marked each of those tiny connections, you noticed them more than the average guy.
Even though I should’ve been used to it by now, it still felt weird to walk down the halls while everyone stared at Lena. She would always be the most beautiful girl in school, no matter what color her eyes were, and everyone here knew it, too. She was that girl—the one who had her own kind of power, supernatural or not. And there was a look a guy couldn’t help but give that girl, no matter what she’d done or how much of a freak she would always be.
It was the same look the guys were giving her now.
Calm down, Lover Boy.
Lena bumped her shoulder against mine.
I forgot what this walk was like. After Lena’s sixteenth birthday, I lost more and more of her every day. By the end of the school year, she was so distant I could barely find her in the halls. It was only a few months ago. But now that we were here again, I remembered.
I don’t like the way they’re looking at you.
What way?
I stopped walking and touched the side of Lena’s face, below the crescent-shaped birthmark on her cheekbone. A shiver shot through both of us, and I leaned down to find her mouth.
This way.
She pulled back, smiling, and dragged me down the hall.
I get the picture. But I think you’re way off. Look.
Emory Watkins and the other guys from the basketball team were staring past us as we walked by his locker. He nodded at me.
I hate to break it to you, Ethan, but they’re not looking at me.
I heard Link’s voice. “Hey, girls. We shootin’ hoops this afternoon or what?” He bumped fists with Emory and kept walking. But they weren’t looking at him either.
Ridley was a step behind the rest of us, letting her long pink nails trail along the locker doors. When she got to Emory’s, she let the door close beneath her fingers.
“Hey, girls.” The way Ridley rolled out the words, she still sounded like a Siren.
Emory stammered, and Ridley let her finger trail across his chest as she walked past. In that skirt, she was showing more leg than should have been legal. The entire team turned to watch her go.
“Who’s your friend?” Emory was talking to Link, but he didn’t take his eyes off Ridley. He’d seen her before—at the Stop & Steal when I first met her, and at the winter formal, when she trashed the gym—but he was looking for an introduction, up close and personal.
“Who wants to know?” Rid blew a bubble, letting it pop.
Link looked at her sideways and grabbed Ridley’s hand. “Nobody.”
The hallway divided in front of them as an ex-Siren and a quarter Incubus conquered Jackson High. I wondered what Amma would have to say about that.
Sweet baby in a manger. Heaven help us all.
“Are you kidding? I’m supposed to keep my things in this filthy tin coffin?” Ridley stared into her locker like she thought something was going to pop out of it.
“Rid, you’ve been to school before, and you had a locker,” Lena said patiently.
Ridley flipped her pink and blond hair. “I must’ve blocked all that out. Post-traumatic stress.”
Lena handed Ridley the combination lock. “You don’t have to use it. But you can put your books inside so you don’t have to carry them around all day.”
“Books?” Ridley looked disgusted. “Carry?”
Lena sighed. “You’ll get them today, in your classes. And, yes, you have to carry them. You should know how this works.”
Ridley adjusted her shirt to expose a little more shoulder. “I was a Siren the last time I was in school. I didn’t actually go to any of my classes, and I certainly didn’t carry anything.”
Link clapped his hand down on her shoulder. “Come on. We have homeroom together. I’ll show you how it’s done, Link-style.”
“Yeah?” Ridley sounded skeptical. “How is that any better?”
“Well, for starters, it doesn’t involve any books….” Link seemed more than happy to walk her to class. He wanted to keep an eye on her.
“Ridley, wait! You need this.” Lena waved a binder in the air.
Ridley slipped her arm through Link’s and ignored her. “Relax, Cuz. I’ll use Hot Rod’s.”
I slammed the locker shut. “Your gramma is an optimist.”
“You think?”
Like everyone else, I watched Link and Rid disappear down the hall. “I give this whole little experiment three days, max.”
“Three days? You’re the optimist.” Lena sighed, and we started up the stairs to English.