I pin the picture of the dogs on my bulletin board, and do my math homework, and then when I go to sleep, I dream about Dare.
I dream and dream and dream. My dream turns my stomach to warm sunlight, and a weird sensation travels through my thighs and belly, a hot feeling like fire.
I dream that sunlight filters in through the Carriage House windows, and that I’m seated on the couch, lounging on my side. I’m completely naked but for high heels and my cheeks are flushed, and I’m older. Maybe seventeen? My hair is long and red and curls around my shoulders, flowing down my back .
Dare sits in front of me and he’s got a pencil in his mouth, chewing on it as he studies me, then he draws on the paper. He’s drawing me, and he’s beautiful and he’s beautiful and he’s beautiful.
“You’re so beautiful, Calla-Lily,” he murmurs. “You’re so much better than I deserve.”
The light shines into his eyes and they seem like gold instead of black, and his teeth are ever white. A silver ring gleams on his finger and it spins in my mind,
Spinning
Spinning,
And I startle awake,
And when I gather myself,
I realize my cheeks are flushed, just like in my dream.
It’s hours before I finally go back to sleep, and even the next day in school, I find myself thinking about that dream. It’s a situation that I would be unlikely to be in… exposed like that in the sunlight. It’s so out of my character.
I manage to focus my attention for long enough to take my math test, and then Finn and I are out for the day, and on our way home in the brisk cold Oregon air.
As we hike up the road lugging our heavy backpacks, our Chucks squeak on the rocky road, the light sheen of rain making it slippery. I curl my hands inside my mittens while I inhale deeply. Breathing in the salty smells of the ocean, I absently stare over the side of the cliffs toward the beach below.
Something bright blue catches my eye in the rocks below. The blue is out of place against the drab winter background of the beach. I pause, interested, dropping my backpack as I inch closer to the edge to get a better look.
Someone stares back at me, and the eyes aren’t friendly.
They’re dead.
I gasp, loud and long and Finn’s hands yank me away from the edge.
“What’s wrong with you, Calla?” he demands in agitation. “You could’ve fallen over the side. You know not to mess around with these cliffs.”
I can’t answer. I’m so completely shocked and appalled as I point with a shaky mitten-clad finger.
That couldn’t be what I thought it was. Who I thought it was.
But it is. I lean forward and look again and I see that I wasn’t wrong.
I also see that no matter how much death a person is exposed to, nothing prepares you for the dead and unexpected face of someone you know.
Finn peers around my shoulder, and I feel him startle as he recognizes the body on the rocks below.
“Is that Mr. Elliott?” he asks in shock. I nod dumbly, unable to make my lips move.
Mr. Elliott is one of the few teachers who has ever been nice to me, although he never really liked Finn. Apparently, skinny underdeveloped boys don’t impress him much, and so he never stepped in when the football guys stuffed Finn into trashcans in the locker room.
I hated that. But I can’t deny that I still liked him…for how he treated me.
Specifically, he never made me participate in dodge ball.
He knew I’d be pummeled into a bloody pulp, so he always let me sit it out. And he never acknowledged that he knew why. He never said the humiliating words, I know everyone hates you so I won’t make you a target. I always appreciated that.
But now, he’s dressed in jogging clothes and lying in a broken heap at the bottom of the cliffs. One of his knees is bent, and his foot is cocked at an unnatural angle, pointed up at the sky.
As Finn pulls out his phone and calls the police, all I can focus on are Mr. Elliot’s socks. They’re the old-school kind, the gym socks that you pull up to the knee…the ones with the stripes. His stripes are bright blue.