The Screaming Season

by Nancy Holder

  “Maybe we should unwrap it,” Julie suggested, handing me my cloud pajamas.

  “No, it’s okay.” I took the pajamas. “Thanks.”

  I headed for the shower, bracing myself for a fresh wave of fear. I spent the majority of my days and nights at Marlwood in abject terror—either mine or Celia’s—and we had shared many horrible moments in the Grose bathroom. But this time, as I put down my pj’s and took off my bathrobe, I felt nothing. It was so odd and unexpected that I burst out laughing.

  I showered, washing my hair, shaking it out as if I were some kind of poodle, remembering the bandage too late but leaving it on for the sake of my friends. My pajamas smelled like clean cotton.

  I went back into my room, bundled up in the too-cute ski parka CJ had sent me (not even she could be right one hundred percent of the time when it came to clothes) and told everyone I was going to sneak back into the infirmary so I wouldn’t get in trouble. Julie insisted on going with me. But I didn’t want her to come back alone, so Marica volunteered to come too.

  We headed out like the three Musketeers, tiptoeing around puddles and trying not to make any noise. I couldn’t believe that Troy had finally done it. It was so amazing. This had been one of the most extreme nights of my life.

  When we reached the door of the infirmary, my phone vibrated. So it hadn’t been ruined after all. Life just kept getting better and better. I raised a gloved hand, and my escort halted. Pulling out my phone, I saw that I had four texts and a voice mail. The texts were from Troy, trying to get my attention, then telling me to check my voice mail.

  This was it. My supreme moment of triumph. I looked at my two friends and whispered, “Troy.” They lit up.

  I hit voice mail and put the phone to my ear. Julie did a little dance and gave Marica a hug. Marica laughed silently and they both grinned at me, thrilled.

  “Hello, Lindsay,” it began. “I—I’m sorry to do this over the phone but . . . ”

  He didn’t sound very happy. My stomach clenched.

  “ . . . I’ve been thinking and, I, well, the hammer thing did kind of bother me. A lot. So, I’m sorry, but . . . I . . . I’m just not ready . . . ”

  Then he was gone. I looked down at the phone to see if there was another message. If he’d been cut off and called back to tell me he was not ready to have his life ruined by Mandy. But some of my layers of individuality already knew that he wasn’t ready to have his life ruined by me. I was a life ruiner. I’d hit him with a hammer.

  But he said he loved me, I thought. I stood at the door, staring at Marica and Julie, numb and cold and shattered.

  “No Troy,” I managed. “For me.”

  Marica understood first. “He broke up with you too?” she asked.

  I swallowed hard. Then I put my phone back in my pocket before I broke down and played it again just to hear his voice. Pathetic, lovesick girls did things like that.

  My phone sat in my pocket like a burning piece of charcoal. My head pounded. I waited for Celia to say, “See? I warned you about him. They’re all the same.” But I still had no sense of her being anywhere around.

  “Oh, Lin-Lin, I’m so sorry,” Julie murmured, drawing me into her arms. “I’m sorry.”

  I let her hug me. She was five inches taller than me, and I closed my eyes and leaned against her.

  “There must be a misunderstanding,” Marica protested. “When he confided in me, I practically expected him to propose to you.”

  “Maybe Mandy made up some lies about you when he broke up with her,” Julie ventured. “Trashed you because if she couldn’t have him, she didn’t want anyone to have him.”

  “But Troy is smart. He would see through that,” Marica said.

  Julie patted my back. “He wasn’t smart enough not to go out with Mandy in the first place.”

  Maybe she told him that we’re both possessed.

  I didn’t want to cry in front of them; I really didn’t. Just as I was on the verge of losing it, the infirmary opened. Ms. Simonet stood there in her puffy coat and gloves, as startled to see us as we were to see her.

  “Lindsay,” she said. “I . . . what are you doing out here?”

  I still didn’t know if Miles had gotten her permission to spring me, or snuck me out, or what. Tears spilled down my cheeks and I wiped my nose with the back of my glove.

  “This guy she likes broke up with her,” Julie said. “On the phone. So she came to see us. And—and she tripped on her way.”

  “Oh. Oh, dear.” To my surprise, Ms. Simonet put her hand on my shoulder. “I’m sorry, Lindsay.” She stared at my bandage. “This thing is soaking wet. And you’re bleeding. Let’s go take a look.”

  “Thanks for walking me back, guys,” I said, sniffling, wishing I could just disappear. I wanted to be alone, to absorb the shock. All this time, I had assumed that Mandy was all that stood in the way between Troy and me. But I was in the way too. I was my own worst enemy when it came to Troy.

  Had Jane been there, she would have laughed at me. To her, guys were accessories—eye candy, arm candy, playthings, status symbols. She had lectured us over and over never to “cave” and actually like a guy. That gave them power over us . . . and we should never give up our power. Except to her, of course. She had even argued that she’d done me a favor by sleeping with Riley, as if it was just a reminder that no boy could be trusted.

  Dejected, I followed Ms. Simonet back into the infirmary. She led me into the bathroom and unwound the bandage. There was a big scrape on my forehead. Considering the fall I’d taken off the bike, it was a pretty light injury. Red eyes and a few tears hid the major damage.

  She gave me another pat. After she checked my pupils with a light, she had me hold an ice pack against my forehead. I climbed obediently back into bed, head swimming, heart breaking.

  And wondering what Miles had seen—or pretended to see—in the middle of the road.

  TEN

  THE NEXT DAY, Dr. Steinberg examined me and told me that as far as he was concerned, I could resume my normal life. I wanted to tell him I didn’t have one of those, but I nodded and thanked him.

  Shortly after he left, Dr. Morehouse stopped in. His expression was a mixture of sympathy and mild disapproval—after all, I’d snuck out—but Ms. Simonet had told him why I’d done it—my wretchedly true cover story—and he had the decency not to ask me how I felt about having my heart ground into the dirt.

  “Dr. Steinberg thinks you’re well enough to return to your dorm,” he said, sipping the coffee that “Trina” had brought him. It was early, and my dormies had not yet shown up with breakfast. “Do you?” Did I think I was well enough as in . . . Oh.

  “You mean, am I going to freak out again?” I asked bluntly.

  He regarded me. “You are so refreshing. Your lack of guile.”

  I wondered how much experience he had working with adolescents. I lowered my gaze and coughed to mask the growling of my stomach. Now that I was being sprung, I had mixed feelings about my freedom. I wanted to burrow in private and cry a lot, and I liked being safely squirreled away where no one could try to kill me. Celia appeared to be gone; therefore, I was out of the game. Wasn’t I?

  “I thought you’d be up and packing to go back,” he said, sounding surprised.

  To my dorm, he meant. Not San Diego. More mixed feelings.

  “It’s the boy thing, huh,” he said. “It’s thrown you.”

  I sighed. I really didn’t want to go into it. That was the problem with therapists. Everything was fuel for analysis and rehashing and sometimes—

  “Oh,” I said, getting it. He thought I was more thrown than most because I’d had a breakdown when my mom died, and then I’d found out that my boyfriend had had sex with another girl. I’d left San Diego in disgrace, at least socially, and Marlwood was supposed to be my safe haven. But here, Kiyoko had died, and the boy I liked had broken up with me before he’d even become my official boyfriend.

  “It’s hard getting past a hammer attack,”
I said, and we both smiled sadly at each other. “Hammer time.”

  His kind smile reached his eyes, giving him crow’s-feet and smile lines; it was genuine, and I liked him even better than before.

  “I’m okay,” I said. “I do want to get out of here. I’ll never make it to Harvard if I don’t get back to my classes.”

  “I detect a note of sarcasm.”

  “This is the school that’s supposed to make it happen.”

  “Yes, indeed. That’s the mandate. Okay. You can go back to your dorm on the condition that you come to see me once a week.”

  If he could keep Celia away, I’d see him every day. I paused, waiting to see if she had something to say to that. Nothing. Maybe I had only imagined that she’d warned me after the crash. I was so used to hearing her commentary on my life and her constant badgering to do what I needed to do to free her: kill Mandy.

  “I’m in Dr. Ehrlenbach’s office for the moment.”

  So she was still gone? “Not Dr. Melton’s?”

  He grimaced. “There were issues in his office. Black mold behind the walls. I’m not supposed to tell the students.”

  But he was confiding in me to help me feel special. I knew that trick. I figured I knew most of them.

  “It’s cool,” I said, when I realized he was still looking at me.

  “You’re really all right, Lindsay,” he said to me. “You’ve just had more to deal with than you should have had. Sometimes life’s not fair that way.”

  Ya think? Saying that aloud would have been perceived as hostile, or whiny, or both, so I just smiled weakly at him.

  He left, and I took a shower, poised to endure Celia’s flashbacks and for seeing her reflection in the mirror. Still nothing.

  “Thank you,” I said aloud to Dr. Morehouse, even though he couldn’t hear me.

  My dormies, fabulous in cashmere and wool, leather and silk, came to bring me breakfast, carrying covered plates and trays and coffee carriers, and this time they brought Rose. Rose Hyde-Smith, my capering clown buddy, smart and sassy. . . and once very possessed.

  “Linzita,” she said, throwing her arms around me. She was decked out in her bad-pixie finery—fuchsia ruffle petticoat under a black skirt; black mock-turtleneck sweater, and an engraved copper pocket watch dangling on a chain around her neck. Her hair was slicked back, and I realized for the first time that she looked a little bit like the actress Emily Blunt.

  “Hi, Rose, guys,” I said. I had on my raggedy jeans and Doc Martens, Memmy’s sweatshirt, and my army jacket. Quite a sight.

  “Linz, Linz, who loves you best ?” she cooed. “Oh, my God.” She covered her mouth, giggling. “Listen to this. Troy broke up with Mandy.”

  I swallowed hard. “Yeah, wow.”

  “You already knew. How did you know ?” She looked from me to the others, narrowing her eyes and pursing her lips. “Did you install webcams in Jessel?”

  “In Mandy’s laptop,” I said. “Because we, y’know, really care about what she does.” My voice sounded sharp and mean; I felt sharp and mean. I’d been broken up with too. I didn’t want to be the subject of gossip, the way Mandy was, but I didn’t want to hear about Troy the heartbreaker all day.

  “Woof,” Rose said. “High time you got out of there. Cabin fever made baby cranky.” She leaned forward and scrutinized my forehead. She whistled. “How did that happen?”

  “It just did, okay ?” I stomped past her, suddenly feeling injuries I didn’t know I had.

  “Jeez, wait up,” she called after me. Everyone else stayed quiet and kept their distance. I wished they wouldn’t.

  The sky was low and cloudy; the threat of imminent rain glowered over our heads as we walked toward the dining commons. Girls strode past us, heads together, giggling and chatting as if no one had seen each other for months instead of hours. A few came up to me and said hi and that they were glad I was better. No one seemed to know about the horrible scene in the operating theater. Stellar damage control. Or was Mandy just waiting for the exact right moment to use it against me?

  “Hey, sorry,” Rose said, catching up to me. “For whatever.” She leaned around me and crossed her eyes at me in a gesture of endearment, but I could see that the love wasn’t really there. In her eyes, I had slighted her by becoming friends with Shayna—and I had become friends with Shayna because Shayna knew what was going on.

  We had excluded Rose because neither one of us could fully trust her. We were afraid she’d tell Mandy any secrets that we shared. Now Shayna was gone, Rose didn’t know what had happened to her, and there was a dark void between us. She didn’t remember texting me when Mandy and the others abandoned her in the lake house, didn’t know that she’d gotten possessed that night and taunted me, promising that she was going to kill me.

  “You know what, I’m—I’m not hungry,” I said. “I think I’ll go for a walk.”

  I walked back to Ida, who was carrying my coffee, and Claire, who had a muffin. I took them, murmuring my thanks, and hung a right, past the library and into the sculpture garden.

  It was pretty crazy that I went there, and I really didn’t want to. I just needed to be alone and it was the closest spot. I’d spent an entire week holed up in the infirmary—just me and my nightmares—but now, when I needed to roll up into a ball and cry, I was surrounded by chattering girls.

  In the sculpture garden, not so much.

  I looked at the sexy statues with their massive chests and barely covered “intimate areas” and lowered my head. I tried to force back the tears, but they came, hard. A hundred fragmented fantasies blipped through my mind. Troy lived in a world of private jets, shopping crawls, and surprise trips to Paris. He knew Prince Harry.

  So did Mandy.

  That would continue to be her world, even if she and Troy weren’t together. And I had tried to hold that world in contempt—all those rich, snobby people, with their preoccupation with things—but the truth was, I had been looking forward to being treated like a princess—even if it was only for a little while. I was mad at him for breaking up with me and madder at myself because I felt like I deserved it. I had messed up again. I didn’t measure up again.

  And suddenly, as I was fuming over Troy, I found myself remembering how angry I had been with my father, because he had seemed so passive when my mother was dying. I found out about an online medical search engine called Medline, and I kept e-mailing my parents information about clinical trials and experimental procedures. But they didn’t investigate any of them. They didn’t even open up half the attachments.

  “Memmy doesn’t want to do that,” he’d told me. “The cancer is too advanced. She just wants to spend the time she has with us.”

  When I tried to argue, he said, “It’s her life, sweetie.”

  “But she’s my mom,” I’d argued with him, weeping. “She doesn’t get to decide things like that when’s she got a kid.”

  I couldn’t believe that she’d chosen to give up and die. It was cowardly. And it was selfish. She should have fought with every ounce of strength she had to stay with us.

  I’d kept collecting articles. I’d printed them out in a big file and got a huge shoulder bag to carry them around in. I would pull them out and read them every chance I got.

  And the one time I’d been alone with her in the hospital, the one time I could have talked to her about it without my dad around, she’d started talking incessantly, just babbling, and I hadn’t had the chance.

  Didn’t make the chance, Jane would have said.

  But these tears weren’t about my mom. They were about Troy. It was just that every time I was sad about anything, missing my mom came along for the ride. I didn’t know if I could ever get rid of it. I didn’t know if I wanted to. Missing her was almost like having her with me.

  As I was wishing for a tissue, my phone rang. We didn’t usually get phone coverage on this part of the campus, and I was startled. I jerked, grabbed it, and connected.

  “Lindsay,” Troy said.

/>   I closed my swollen eyes. He’s changed his mind, I thought. I felt as if someone had just strapped me into a roller coaster. I was so nervous I couldn’t make a sound.

  “Lindsay ?”

  I tried to clear my throat.

  “I’m so sorry,” he rushed on.

  Yes. Yes, yes, yes.

  “I hated doing that on voice mail.”

  I imploded. He hadn’t changed his mind after all.

  “But you did it,” I said, and disconnected.

  I turned around and saw Julie and Elvis heading toward me. The others were lagging behind, watching. Rose was swinging her petticoat in little half circles. I smelled bacon and coffee. And mud. I heard a bird trilling. I was hyperaware of everything, and I knew this was a moment I would never forget.

  Then my phone rang again. I wasn’t going to answer it. If he heard me crying, I would never forgive myself.

  But I glanced down at the faceplate and saw that it was Heather again. I looked up at Julie and Elvis, just a few feet away, and held up a hand. Julie blinked and smiled, clearly assuming I was talking to Troy.

  Turning my back, I swallowed hard, took a breath, and connected.

  “Hey,” I said hoarsely.

  “Oh, my God, I’m so glad you picked up. My mom dropped me off early because I have this stupid yearbook meeting, which I did not want for my elective, but who cares because you are not and I mean not going to believe what happened two minutes ago.”

  I sniffled. “You gave birth.”

  “Fea!”

  “Taylor Lautner asked you out.”

  “Are you ten? You won’t guess. Lindsay, Riley threw down with Jane. In front of everyone. He dumped her and then he turned around to all their friends—you know, your old friends—and he told them that she was a poser and a user and she didn’t really care about any of them. And that he was sick and tired of hearing her diss the world and he was sorry for every time she had said something mean about one of them and that he had not told her to shut the hell up.”

  “You shut up!” I cried.

  “Are you nine? Who says that anymore?”