The problem was, I’d listened to it. I’d believed it. Me, the girl whose kind the media insist don’t exist. Why would I believe anything they said?
“Mark,” I said. Clouds scudded across what had earlier been a clear night sky, which was odd, because the weather app on my phone hadn’t said a word about rain. Thunder rumbled, and suddenly, in addition to flowers, I was being pelted with hard, stinging rain. “Are you sure—-?”
“What do you mean, am I sure?” he snapped. “Yeah, I’m sure. I’m telling you, it was him. I don’t remember what happened after that, but ever since I woke up, I’ve been watching him put flowers on my girl’s grave.”
This was not good. This was not good at all. “Mark—-”
“And now you’re telling me everyone thinks I killed her, and that he’s some kind of saint, and I need to move on?”
I swallowed, using my arms to shield my head from the pouring rain. “Okay, look,” I said. “I wasn’t aware of all of the facts in the case until recently, Mark. But now that I am, why don’t we take some time to re--evaluate the situation and—-”
“Take some time to re--evaluate the situation?” Mark echoed. He was in tears, and I didn’t blame him. I felt like crying myself. “No thanks. Now that you told me what’s really going on, I think I have a better proposal. And it sure as hell isn’t that I should move on, or take some time to re--evaluate the situation.”
“Mark,” I yelled. I had to yell in order to be heard over the thunder and rain. “Don’t. Seriously. Don’t do anything you might regret. If what you’re telling me is true, then you have a really good chance right now of joining Jasmin, wherever she is. But if you do what I think you’re about to do, you’re going to lose that chance forever. Come with me instead. I’ll help you cross over, and then I’ll take care of this Zack person. That’s my job, not yours. You really don’t want to—-”
But it was too late. In a swirl of tears and rain and rose petals, he was gone.
And I was screwed.
Cuatro
WHEN I GOT back to my dorm that night, it was bedlam, and not just because of the sudden “super cell” that had swept into the tri--county area, soaking me to the bone and causing flash flooding on roads throughout Monterey Bay.
It was also because there was a man in my room.
Did I mention that I live in an all--girl dorm? Probably not, because it’s too embarrassing. It wasn’t my idea, believe me. It was my stepdad’s.
I guess I lucked out in some ways despite my alleged “gift,” since even though my birth dad died when I was little, the guy my mom married back when I was in high school (and for whom she moved across the country, dragging me from Brooklyn, NY, to Carmel, CA, when I was sixteen), turned out to be pretty decent.
Upside: Andy adores my mom, has his own home improvement show (which recently went into syndication, so he and my mom are currently swimming in payola), and is an amazing cook.
Downside: He has three sons—-none of whom I have ever even remotely considered boning, sexy--erotic--novel style—-and, being almost as Catholic as my boyfriend, is way, way too overprotective.
So I guess shouldn’t have been surprised when I was applying for campus housing and overheard Andy telling my mother that the only way I was going to be safe from all the sexual assaults he’d heard about on National Public Radio was if I lived in an all--girl dorm.
Never mind that I have been kicking the butts of the undead since I was in elementary school, and that almost the entire time I resided under Andy’s roof, I had a hot undead guy living in my bedroom. These are two of those secrets I was telling you about. Andy doesn’t know about them, and neither does my mother. They think Jesse is what Father Dominic told them he is: a “young Jesuit student who transferred to the Carmel Mission from Mexico, then lost his yearning to go into the priesthood” after meeting me.
That one slays me every time.
So I didn’t protest the decision. I didn’t do so well on the SATs (the things -people like me are good at, you can’t measure with a multiple--choice test, let alone an essay), much to the everlasting mortification of my high--achieving, feminist mother. It didn’t help that my best friends CeeCee, Adam, and Gina got into extremely good schools, boosting my mom’s dream that I was going to Harvard and live in Kirkland House, like Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Instead the only place I got into was the local community college, where I live in a suite in what’s not--so--jokingly referred to as the Virgin Vault, with a practicing witch, a klepto, and a girl whose family’s religion doesn’t allow her speak to men outside of their faith.
I keep assuring Mom it’s cool. Another one of our suite mates came out last semester as a lesbian (to the surprise of none of us but herself), and a fifth is sleeping with a guy who’s in an actual motorcycle gang.
“See, Mom?” I’d told her. “Way better than Harvard. There’s so much more diversity!”