The Lost Boys

by Lilian Carmine

  Tiffany and I got back to school late Sunday afternoon. I hugged Tiff and headed to my room with a weary heart and a pounding headache. All I wanted for the night was a nice hot bath and an early night. I was so tired!

  When I opened the door, Seth glanced up. He was sitting on his bed, a deep worried frown on his face. “Hey, Joey! Thank God you’re back. I was about to call you.” He seemed flustered.

  “Hi, Seth. What’s wrong?” I asked. I could see the concern flooding out of his eyes.

  “Tristan’s been really sick today. He doesn’t want me to take him to the infirmary. He said it’s nothing, but he looks real sick!”

  Tristan was lying on his bed, covers up to his neck and eyes closed. He looked really bad, sweat pouring out of him, his face pale as death. I remembered the last time I’d seen him like this. New Year. The night of the spell. I threw my bags on the floor and hurried to Tristan’s bed. “How long has he been like this?” I asked Seth.

  “Yesterday he just looked really tired. He mentioned he’d been wondering during the week if he was getting a cold or something. Today he woke up pretty bad. He had a light fever but his temperature has been rising since then. Maybe we should call a nurse?” Seth said, running his hands through his blond hair in distress.

  “No nurses,” I said at the same time as Tristan. His eyes were slightly open now. The brightness of the room seemed to be hurting him, so I turned the lights off, leaving only the lamp over my night-stand on.

  “You two and this ‘no nurses’ nonsense,” Seth mumbled at his bedside, aggravated.

  “Don’t worry, Seth. He’ll be okay,” I said, sitting by Tristan’s side. “He’s always like this with the flu. Tomorrow he’ll be all good again, you’ll see.”

  I passed my hand over Tristan’s forehead. He was burning up! The moment the palm of my hand touched his forehead, sharp pinpricks of energy shot into my fingertips like needle stabs. A wave of heat spread out of my hands, making me feel like I was dipping frozen fingers in to steaming hot water. It didn’t hurt, but it felt really strange. My headache stopped pounding immediately. Tristan sighed and closed his eyes in relief, relaxing beneath his covers. “See, he’s already feeling better!” I pointed out to Seth. I know I was! It was amazing; Tristan really did look instantly better.

  Seth eyed him suspiciously for a moment then shrugged, realizing he had been worrying for no reason after all. “All right. Well, I’ll go grab some dinner, then, since you’re here with him now. Do you want me to bring you anything?” Seth asked, heading for the door.

  “Yeah, a juice box and any sandwich would be great! Thanks, Seth!”

  “No problem. If you need me, ring me and I’ll be right back.”

  “Okay. Thanks, we’ll be fine. Don’t worry, go have your dinner!”

  Seth left us and I took off my shoes, climbing into bed with Tristan. I snuck inside his covers, but remained seated, resting my back against the headboard. I put my arm over his head, trying to be as close to him as possible. I could feel the side of my leg touching his body, the tingling sensation reverberating through us. He mumbled something and turned to his side, wrapping his arm tightly around me. I sat there for a long time, watching him.

  Seth returned after a while with my dinner, and I ate it in bed with Tristan. I hoped Seth would think I was only being a caring sister right now. Each passing day was turning out to be harder and harder to cover up our lie. Especially for someone observing things closely, like a room-mate.

  I don’t remember when I fell asleep that night, but I woke up next day real early, lying in Tristan’s arms. It felt so good having him this close to me that I wished I could spend the rest of my life there.

  Then I remembered Seth. I stiffened immediately but, when I looked over, he was sleeping heavily, bundled inside his covers. I let out a sigh of relief and turned to look at Tristan. God, he looked so handsome asleep … I tried to focus on the more important matter at hands: I needed to get out of his bed. Like, right now!

  I moved slowly, trying to dislodge his arm, but the movement woke him up. He blinked a couple of times, registering his arms around me. He started to smirk, but then he saw my worried face as I silently mouthed “Seth!” at him. He looked over at Seth’s bed and quickly released me.

  I climbed out of his bed fast and went to mine. Tristan was yawning and rubbing his eyes. He looked much better – in fact, he looked completely fine. I whispered in the lowest voice I could manage, “Are you okay?”

  He looked at me groggily and nodded. “Yeah. I feel fine now. Yesterday I felt like cra– I mean, I felt awful,” he said, correcting his language.

  I rolled my eyes. “Tristan, you can say ‘crap’ to me, for God’s sake!” I hissed. “I’m gonna take a bath now, but I need to talk to you about this spell thing. Wait for me before you leave for classes, so we can talk, okay?”

  He nodded and pulled up his covers again, getting back to sleep while I tiptoed to the bathroom.

  I finished my long, steaming bath at the same time as Seth’s alarm beeped loudly. The boys got up grudgingly and went about their daily wake-up routine.

  Seth was impressed by Tristan’s quick recovery, but I reassured him it was a normal occurrence, and that Tristan’s “colds” were always like that. Seth seemed to buy that explanation.

  “You do look a lot better,” I said, when Tristan emerged from the bathroom.

  “I’m fine. Thanks for staying with me all night,” he said, sitting on his bed.

  “That’s no problem. I’m glad you’re okay. Miss Violet was right, though. She said this would happen again …”

  “Why do you think that is? I mean, why now, all of a sudden?” Tristan asked thoughtfully.

  “I don’t know. I was thinking about it. Maybe it’s because I was away at the weekend?” I hazarded.

  Tristan pondered the idea for a second. “No. I don’t think that’s it. You were away before, your first week at school. Nothing happened then. And I started feeling this way during the week. About Tuesday, I guess.”

  I bit my lips, thinking hard. “Well, maybe we need to think about what these two occasions have in common … First time it happened was New Year, right? What about Tuesday? That was …”

  “February, first,” Tristan completed. “Maybe it’s at every start of every month?” he ventured.

  “Maybe. It makes sense. We’ll have to wait until next month to find out for sure,” I mumbled, looking at the calendar hanging by my desk.

  I hoped we were wrong about this, though. Otherwise we’d have to go through this again at the start of every month. This did not sound good! At least I’d only felt a little tired this time, not violently ill like the first time it had happened … But Tristan was as sick as before.

  What what would happen if we were apart during the first days of the month? If we couldn’t be together?

  This thing was starting to get really complicated. Haunting nightmares with this creepy cloaked being, magic spells compromising my feelings, weird bonds making us ill …

  Tristan was looking at me with worried eyes. I was glad I hadn’t told him about Vigil; he’d be even more worried if he knew. I realized I hadn’t spoken for some time now, lost in my own thoughts. “Listen, let’s not worry about this for now, okay? We’ll figure this out later. The important thing is that you’re feeling better. Let’s get you some breakfast,” I said, standing up and reaching out my hand to him.

  He smiled and took my hand, but I knew he was still worried.

  “I didn’t have the chance to tell you about my weekend!” I said, holding his hand and walking with him out of the room. “You think you had a bad day yesterday? My mom and Tiffany took me shopping!” I said, shivering as I remembered the horrors of the trip.

  He smiled at me again, and this time his smile reached his gray eyes, the fear of moments ago replaced by warmth and happiness.

  We were going to be fine. We’d be fine as long as we were together.

  Chapter Nineteen<
br />
  The Bet

  After proving my worth, delivering so many amazing lyrics, melodies and song suggestions for the band, I was now an official member of The Lost Boys.

  Well, I was actually a Lost Girl, but you get the idea. I was putting the final touches to my first official song, and working simultaneously on three others for Harry, Sam and Josh now. I was having a hard time picking one theme for Tristan, though. We still had a lot of work to do.

  By the end of the week Tiffany surprised me first thing in the morning in front of my locker, practically jumping up and down in excitement. “So, Joey! Are you anxious about tonight?” she squealed in her high-pitched voice.

  “No. What’s happening tonight?” I asked calmly. Clueless, that was me.

  She gave me a scowl. “Are you serious? Everybody’s been talking about this party all week long!”

  Oh. Yeah. The sort-of-Valentine’s party: with Valentine’s Day being on Monday, the plan was to “celebrate” this side of the weekend instead … though, in all likelihood, it was more a case of any excuse for a party. I’d overheard the boys babbling something about it, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. The truth was, I wasn’t very good at parties. I always found a way to embarrass myself, and people usually stared uncomfortably at me and tried to avoid me because I said the most inappropriate things. I guess I was too blunt and too honest, and that was a major party killer.

  “Oh, yes, I’ve heard about it … but I don’t think …” I started to say when Tiffany interrupted me.

  “Great! Fantastic! And don’t you dare say you’re not going, because you are, and that’s final. We need to pick your outfit! You’re so lucky I went shopping with you this last weekend, otherwise you’d only have those old sports clothes to wear! Oh! And you MUST wear that new purple top I picked out for you!” she said excitedly.

  “Really, Tiff, I’m not good at parties …”

  “I don’t care if you are the worst ever in the whole wide world at parties, Joe Gray. You are going! And in the purple top!” she said, stomping her foot. Gosh, she was so bossy!

  “Okay. All right,” I agreed, giving up.

  She smiled at me, happy she had won the battle, and then she spent the whole day talking about the damn party. And I spent the whole day dreading the evening to come.

  At least I managed to forget about it through part of the afternoon, because of my music lesson with Professor Rubick. I was picking things up really fast and my piano didn’t sound so rusty any more.

  When class was over, I headed to my dorm room. Seth and Tristan were inside, with the rest of the boys spread around the room. Tristan was on his bed with my iPod plugged in his ears, shaking his head in synch with the beat of whatever song he was listening to, and Seth was lying on his bed strumming his guitar. I plodded inside the room and slouched on to my bed, pushing Harry out of the way because he was spread wide across the whole mattress. Seth stopped playing for a second, and Tristan took out his earphones when he saw me walk in.

  “Hey,” I greeted them sourly. “Harry, scoot over, will ya?”

  “Jeez, Miss Sunshine. What’s with the long face today?” Harry asked, shuffling across my bed and leaning against me.

  Harry was a very touchy-feely person. He liked hugging, holding hands and leaning close. And it wasn’t just with me; he acted this way with the rest of the band too. But he only acted like this with people he really liked and felt comfortable with. He was very shy and reserved with people he didn’t know or trust. Harry’s hugs were the best thing in the world. I don’t know why, but they always gave me this warm, fuzzy feeling inside. It was quite addictive.

  “It’s nothing,” I mumbled, leaning my head on Harry’s shoulder. “I just really don’t wanna go to this party tonight.”

  “Tiff is ordering you to go, isn’t she?” Seth said, chuckling over on his bed.

  “Yep,” I confessed.

  “So, don’t let her boss you around! If you don’t want to go, then don’t go!” he said, getting back to playing his guitar.

  “No way! You totally have to go, Joe!” Harry gasped next to me. “It’s your first party at the school! It’ll be so much fun! We’re all going to be there, right, guys?”

  “I’ll definitely be there,” Josh said, standing up and stretching, the muscles on his arms bulging over his black T-shirt. Josh was really fit. I tried hard not to stare.

  “Me too,” said Sam, standing up as well. “In fact, we should head over to our room and get ready! You two take for ever to get ready!” he complained with an eye-roll.

  “Okay, then, let’s go,” Josh agreed, heading to the door.

  Harry stood up, his red hair all ruffled up, and followed Josh and Sam. “See you there, then, Joey!” he said, waving at me. “I’ll come with Tiffany to get you if you dare chicken out!”

  I grunted under my breath. Great, now there were two of them forcing me to go to this party! “Are you going too, Seth?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m not much of a party guy. What do you think, Tristan? Are you up for it?”

  “Sure. Why not?” Tristan said, shrugging.

  Great. Everybody was going. Now I had no way out of it. Especially as, at that moment, Tiff walked in.

  “Hey, girl! Come on, grab your clothes, we’re dressing in my room!” she ordered, waving me to hurry up.

  “Aaaawww man!” I whined, and stood up reluctantly. Tristan and Seth chuckled at my childish antics.

  Then Seth got up, saying he’d better start getting ready too, and Tiff obviously had to throw in a snarky remark about how Seth had finally stopped being such an “indoor geek”, and then Seth was like, “What’s that supposed to mean?” and Tiff bit back at him, “You know you never go to any parties, Seth!” and he was like, “That’s so not true!” which made me snort out loud because he had just said a minute ago how he wasn’t much of a party guy, and then he looked at me with murderous daggers in his eyes and I had to give him a pleading, sincere, apologizing look while Tiffany mocked him some more.

  I shoved my clothes into my backpack in dead silence after that. I didn’t want to get in the middle of any of their fights.

  Tiffany and Seth were constantly arguing over the smallest, silliest, random things. They enjoyed teasing each other like nothing else. It was a constant poking, provoking, sneering, scowling and mocking each other all the time. And when I say “all the time”, I mean it! There wasn’t a single occasion they were in the same room together that an argument wasn’t born. At first I thought Seth was still miffed about Tiffany’s bullying me during my first week, but then I realized he just simply enjoyed teasing her. It was his thing.

  Tristan and I were used to it by now. So we usually just rolled our eyes and let them argue it out, until they got tired of it and made up.

  Seth stomped back to his bed then, saying he wasn’t in the mood for parties any more, and that he was fine being an “indoor geek”, thank you very much. He grabbed a book and stared at the pages, pretending he wasn’t noticing anyone in the room any more.

  Tiffany tried to apologize to him, but Seth was fake-focusing all his attention on his book. She looked at us quite crestfallen when she realized what she had done. I think she’d been really happy that Seth was coming to the party, until she had gone and screwed things up. Tristan smiled at her and said he would take care of things, winking playfully. He’d convince Seth to go to the party later, then.

  I followed Tiffany out of the room, walking like a woman going to her own hanging. Surprisingly, I had never been to Tiff’s room before. When I entered her third-floor room, I was awestruck! Her room was twice the size of ours, with one king-size bed in the middle, a spare single bed to one side, lots of wardrobes around the room, a big mirror on the wall, a flat TV screen in the corner, and a small kitchen area that had a mini bar and also a portable stove on the countertop.

  “Are all the girls’ dorm rooms like this?” I asked, momentarily regretting my decision to room with the bo
ys.

  Tiffany shrugged and pushed me quickly into her bathroom, where I gasped in amazement. The bathroom was gigantic, with a beautiful pearly white tub and a big marble sink. Everything looked sparkly and sophisticated. I jumped, startled, when Tiff banged on the door, yelling that she wasn’t hearing any shower running.

  I stopped gawking at the place and hurried the hell up to get ready. After a quick shower, I walked into her room to get dressed and let Tiff help me with my make-up. I stared at my reflection in the huge mirror on the wall. A scared girl looked back at me, feeling slightly awkward with her new look.

  I had on a tight top and black jeans with black pumps. I’d put my foot down about my pony-tail. Tiff wanted me to let my hair loose, but the dark-purple lipstick and black mascara she’d insisted on applying were already too much of a change for me to handle. Plus the purple top she had picked for me had a little too much cleavage showing for my taste too. So Tiff gave up on the hair, because she knew that in life you have to win some and lose some.

  My stomach was twisting with nervousness as we arrived at the party. The outside space where the party was being held was already packed with students, everybody chatting and mingling. I could already see Sam, surrounded by a large group of people. He looked like he was telling a funny story and everyone was hanging on his every word.

  Surprisingly, Josh was over the other side of the party, looking all cool and sexy in a black T-shirt over loose black jeans. He was talking to three girls who were giggling and batting their eyelashes at him. I realized Josh partied alone and preferred the female-only kind of audience.

  I didn’t need to search for Harry, because his high laughter caught my ears before my eyes could find him. I followed his voice to the middle of a group of skater-looking boys. He looked like he was having a lot of fun. Then he caught me looking at him and waved excitedly, coming over to greet us. “Finally! I was about to come get you! I thought you had cold feet!” he said, smiling at me.