Love You to Death

by Bebe Faas Rice

  “You mean it?”

  “Yup. These things happen, so why worry because it seems a little unusual? Or because it isn’t happening to any of your airhead friends?”

  “Oh!” Julie put her hand to her mouth, remembering Tara. “That’s the other problem, Mollie. Tara wants Quinn for herself. She really got on my case this afternoon about him.”

  “So what? She can’t always be the belle of the ball.”

  “Yeah, but she really got mean about it. She could make my life miserable.”

  “I could never figure out why you’re friends with her in the first place,” Mollie said. “What kind of friend acts that way?”

  “She’s not that bad, really,” Julie protested halfheartedly.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  “I mean, we’ve been friends since—”

  Mollie rolled her eyes. “I know. You were a shy little eighth-grade nothing until Tara made you a star. And the old we’ve been friends for years’ bit.”

  “Well, she did, Mollie. And we have been friends for years. Doesn’t that mean anything?”

  “It might mean, sister dear, that it’s high time you moved on to more enriching, fulfilling friendships. There are lots of interesting kids at Jefferson High—and most of them won’t boss you around all the time the way old Bubblehead does.”

  “Boy, Mollie,” Julie said, laughing in spite of herself. “When somebody asks you for advice, you really give it.”

  “I give full value for your nickel,” Mollie said. Then she added, “But I wouldn’t worry, Julie. If Quinn goes for you, not Tara, she won’t want to lose face. She’ll probably try to act as if nothing’s wrong, don’t you think?”

  “Maybe. And maybe it’s time I stopped trying to please Tara. I’m not a lonely little eighth-grader anymore.”

  “That’s more like it!”

  Julie got up from the wing chair, bent over her sister, and kissed the top of her head.

  “Thanks, Mollie.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything. For being here. And for listening. I just needed someone to talk to, I guess.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  She was beautiful, even more beautiful up close than he’d realized.

  More beautiful than Alison? Yes, in a softer, sweeter, more vulnerable way.

  There’d been something a little hard and uncaring about Alison. Those girls she’d hung out with had done it to her. It should have been them, not Alison . . .

  No, he wasn’t going to think about that anymore. Not now, when he had Julie to love.

  Julie. He savored the taste of her name on his lips. Julie.

  My Julie.

  He stretched out on his narrow bed and put his hands beneath his head, seeing her face—Julie’s face—on his ceiling, replaying every delicious, exciting moment of their meeting today.

  Those eyes. That hair. The way she’d looked at him when he’d taken her tray and their fingers touched.

  She’d felt it, too, he could tell. That sudden, warm little shock when flesh brushed against flesh.

  She’d blushed. He loved the way it had tinted her face so delicately, calling attention to the fine bones of her cheeks and forehead.

  I wonder what she’s doing now, he thought. Is she thinking of me?

  Yes, of course. She has to be. If I’m thinking of her, she’s thinking of me. It’s almost as if there’s an invisible cord connecting us. She tugs and I feel the pull. I tug, and she feels it.

  He’d tested that today, in the cafeteria. He’d looked at her, willing her to feel his eyes on her. And she had. He could tell. She wanted to turn around and look at him.

  He smiled fondly.

  She probably didn’t think he noticed her looking at him out of the corner of her eyes. Well, she’d learn very soon that he was aware of everything she did. Every breath she took.

  Soon. But not right away. He’d wait just a little longer. Build up the suspense, the anticipation, both for himself and for her. You always appreciated something more when you’ve had to think about it, hope for it, yearn for it.

  He was sure she wouldn’t spoil it by coming up and talking to him. She wasn’t like that. She wasn’t one of those loud, bold girls.

  Her friend, now, that black-haired one with the blood-red lipstick, had done her best to make him notice her.

  He frowned and uttered an expression of disgust, remembering the way she’d kept throwing her body around like an alley cat and laughing in that stupid, empty-headed way.

  And she was Julie’s friend? His Julie?

  No, she wasn’t right for Julie. Julie was perfect, but that friend of hers was a bad apple. A corrupter. Not fit to be around the girl he loved.

  In fact, he didn’t want Julie hanging out with any of them. That blue-eyed guy, for example, who kept looking at Julie, touching her, trying to make her laugh . . . It had taken all his willpower and self-control not to go over there and knock that guy flat on his rich, pampered little butt.

  But that blue-eyed guy wasn’t worth losing his cool over. Julie didn’t even like him. Quinn could tell by the way she looked at him, her lips pressed together primly with disapproval.

  He chuckled. She was a prize worth winning, all right. And when he did win her, they would be together, and happy, forever.

  Just the two of them. They wouldn’t need anyone else.

  She would make him forget the terrible parts of his life. His father. Alison. The Place.

  He rolled over and adjusted the pillow under his head.

  But what if her friends tried to interfere, like last time, the way Alison’s had?

  Let them try. They’d be sorry if they did. He was older and smarter now. He knew how to handle creeps like that.

  Yes, he’d make them sorry if they did.

  And this time he wouldn’t get caught.

  CHAPTER SIX

  “Hey, Julie! Wait up.”

  “I can’t, Brad. I’ll be late for English lit.”

  “This will only take a minute.”

  Julie turned and leaned against the wall, waiting as Brad shouldered his way through the stream of scurrying students.

  “I didn’t see you at lunch today. Where were you?” he asked.

  “I had the car, so I went off campus.”

  “All by yourself?”

  “I needed a little time alone.”

  Brad’s blue eyes were worried. “Are you all right? Is everything okay with you?”

  “Look, Brad, I can’t talk now. I don’t want to be late for class.”

  “Okay, so I’ll walk with you. It’s just down the hall, and the first bell hasn’t even rung yet.”

  Sighing, Julie gripped her books tightly and began walking again, Brad hovering anxiously at her shoulder.

  “It’s Tara, isn’t it?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Tara’s been treating you like dirt the past couple of days. And it’s all because of that new guy—Quinn what’s-his-name. Isn’t it?”

  Julie stopped and looked at him in surprise. “What do you know about that?”

  Brad shrugged. “I’m not as dumb as I look, Julie. I notice things. Particularly about you. In case you haven’t noticed, everything about you interests me.”

  “Please, Brad—” Julie began.

  Brad held up one hand and smiled wryly. “Don’t worry, I’m not trying to come on to you or anything. At least not right now. It’s just that I don’t like to see anybody trying to hurt you, and Tara’s been doing a real number on you lately.”

  The first bell rang.

  “I really appreciate your worrying about me, Brad,” Julie told him hurriedly. “But everything’s okay. Tara’s just miffed about . . . something. You know how she gets sometimes.”

  She glanced over at her classroom. Mr. Houghton was standing in the open doorway, one hand on the knob, beckoning to her. He liked to start class right on time, with everyone seated before the second bell.

  “I’ve got to go,” sh
e said. “But thanks, Brad. Thanks for worrying. That was sweet of you.”

  “I’m a real sweet guy. See ya later.” Brad tossed her a little two-fingered salute and was gone.

  Julie found it hard to keep her mind on what Mr. Houghton was saying, even though he was one of her favorite teachers, and English lit one of her more enjoyable classes.

  They were discussing Shakespeare’s Othello, and the violent jealousy that caused Othello to murder his innocent wife.

  I’ve sure had some firsthand experience of jealousy lately, Julie thought. Tara knows there’s something going on between Quinn and me, and she’s burning up with jealousy about it.

  But what was going on between her and Quinn?

  Nothing . . . and everything.

  Julie had read somewhere that just before a tornado the earth gets still and heavily oppressive, as if the oxygen has been sucked out of the air.

  That’s how it was with her and Quinn. Something was coming. She could feel it.

  And so could Tara.

  Mentally Julie counted off the days she’d known Quinn: Thursday, that was the first. He’d come to school on Thursday. Then Friday, that was the day he’d touched her hand when he’d taken her tray. She’d thought about him all Saturday and Sunday, walking around in a daze, wondering what he would do on Monday.

  Monday was Day Five. Long enough, surely, for him to make his move.

  But he hadn’t. And not yesterday, Tuesday, either.

  It wasn’t that he was ignoring her, though.

  The term “stalking” came to Julie’s mind, but she brushed it aside. And yet wasn’t that what he was doing? Stalking her?

  No, being stalked was a frightening thing and this wasn’t frightening. It was exciting. Thrilling. She loved his looks, the way he moved, everything about him, and she was being consumed by her growing obsession with him. Like an addict, she lived only for her next “fix,” her next sight of him.

  These past two days, in the halls, she would turn around, feeling his presence, knowing he was there. And she would be right. He’d be behind her—at a short distance, but behind her. A couple of times he’d even accidentally bumped into her, disappearing before she could collect her wits.

  It was almost as if there were some sort of extrasensory bond between them. Julie didn’t even have to see him now to know when he was there, somewhere, watching her, brooding over her. She could feel his eyes on her . . . on her hair, her body.

  How much longer would they drift like this, alone but together? Should she go up to him and speak? No, it wasn’t the right time yet. She sensed that he wanted it like this. That it was his way of making himself known to her, courting her. That what was happening between them was too important to rush.

  I think this is what I’ve been waiting for all my life, Julie thought dizzily.

  The only thing that clouded her happiness was Tara. Julie didn’t know what to do about Tara.

  On Monday, Tara had come to school dressed for a manhunt: miniskirt to show off her gorgeous legs, a short, tight sweater, and her hair in the flowing, careless, tousled look that, Julie knew, took Tara hours to achieve. She’d positioned herself by the front entrance to the school that morning, waiting for Quinn.

  “Today’s the day,” she’d told Jessica and Shelley. “That McNeal hunk won’t know what hit him.”

  The three of them laughed together, sharing the joke. Tara was deliberately ignoring Julie, still punishing her for what had happened in the cafeteria on Friday.

  “I believe it. You look gorgeous, Tara,” Jessica had said admiringly.

  Julie had walked up to the trio earlier, trying to act as if nothing were wrong, but was unable to get a conversation going with them. None of them had called her over the weekend, either. They usually spent a lot of time together on the phone as well as at the mall on weekends, but whatever the three of them had done, Julie hadn’t been included. And judging from the cold look Shelley gave her Monday morning, she felt the same way as Jessica—that Julie had been disloyal to Tara on Friday.

  Julie finally shrugged and moved a short distance away to join a group from her homeroom who were talking about current movies.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she watched as Tara reached in her shoulder bag and pulled out a tube of lipstick. She smeared it on her lips without using a mirror. Julie had never figured out how she did it.

  “Oooh, that’s a sexy color,” Shelley said approvingly.

  “Crimson Passion,” Tara said with a knowing wink. “Nick says it’s a real turn-on.”

  “What about Nick?’ Jessica asked. “If you drop him for Quinn, he’s really going to be hurt.”

  “Well, those are the breaks of the game, aren’t they?” Tara replied, running her hands through her hair and shaking it back, readying herself for her first encounter with her intended victim. “All’s fair in love and war.”

  And then Quinn had treated her, the fabulously beautiful and desirable Tara Braxton, like a fly on the wall!

  When Quinn walked up the stairs, she’d turned the full wattage of her cheerleader smile on him, but he didn’t seem to notice.

  Then she’d dropped her books right in his path.

  Without saying a word Quinn had stooped, picked up the books, and handed them to her.

  “Thank you,” she’d said in her most seductive voice. “I’m such a klutz!”

  He’d smiled slightly, then started to move off, up the stairs and into the building.

  Tara sidestepped toward him. Then, prettily, in pretended confusion, moved with him as he tried to go around her.

  For a few seconds they seemed to be doing a bizarre little tango.

  This was Quinn’s chance to say something. A come-on line. Something—anything—that would be the start of that Something Big that Tara had in mind.

  Instead, smiling politely, Quinn took hold of Tara’s shoulders and moved around her and up the stairs.

  Julie witnessed the entire performance. She saw Tara’s jaw drop slightly and her cheeks flush with anger—saw Tara toss her head and try to laugh off what had happened, then turn and say something under her breath to Shelley and Jess.

  They laughed dutifully, looking a little bewildered.

  And then Quinn had turned and looked over at Julie. Looked at her long and hard, the kind of look that made her legs buckle slightly at the knees.

  There was no mistaking that look.

  Quinn was showing who he was interested in, making it clear that it definitely wasn’t Tara.

  Tara saw it, and her face turned an unbecoming mottled shade of red and white.

  And Julie had known that she was the one who would have to pay the price for Tara’s humiliation.

  She’d been right. Her relationship with Tara had tobogganed madly downhill from that moment.

  And as she’d expected, Shelley and Jessica took Tara’s part.

  Tara knew a hundred different ways of snubbing someone, and she used at least a dozen of them on Julie in the two days following the big meeting-Quinn-McNeal disaster.

  She started right away, at lunch on Monday.

  “Shelley, Jess,” she’d said loudly, making sure Julie was listening. “Let’s go to the mall after school. We can meet Nick and some of the guys later for pizza.”

  No mention of Julie. When Jessica looked over at Julie questioningly, Tara had said, “Oh, I’m sure Julie will be busy with homework. You know how hard she has to work to make the honor roll.”

  In a detached way Julie felt sorry for Tara. Most of the upperclassmen had been standing around watching when Quinn had walked past her, ignoring her charms. It must have been a major embarrassment for someone like Tara, not that she was going to admit it to anyone.

  “Maybe he had something else on his mind,” Julie heard Shelley tell Tara later that afternoon. “You know, like maybe he was depressed or worried or something.”

  Julie was in a back booth of the girls’ room. Tara, Jess, and Shelley were at the sink. Otherwise, the room
was empty. They evidently thought they were alone, judging from the frankness of their discussion.

  “Yeah, he had something else on his mind, all right,” Tara said grimly. “Sweet little Julie Hagan, from the looks of it. Who ever would have expected someone like her to make a play for a guy like that? Especially after I made it clear I wanted him.”

  “Maybe she wasn’t making a play for him,” Jessica said. “I mean, she was just standing there and . . .”

  Tara laughed. It wasn’t her usual tinkling, melodious laugh. “She’s making a play for him, trust me. I can tell. I knew she was interested in him that very first day. She was all blushes, remember? Besides, she’s been acting kind of funny lately, anyway.”

  “She has been a little distant or something ever since school started,” Shelley said. “But I don’t think she’s been trying to get to Quinn behind your back, Tara. I mean, she’s one of us!”

  “Maybe it’s not her fault that Quinn is interested in her,” suggested Jessica.

  “Believe me,” Tara said, “if Quinn is interested in her, she’s been doing something underhanded to get his attention.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Julie, though,” Jessica said doubtfully.

  “Oh, yeah?” retorted Tara.

  “But what should we do about it?” Shelley asked. “Should we talk to her or what?”

  “No. We’ll just play it cool for now—we don’t want the whole school gossiping about us. We won’t be too obvious about how we feel about her, but we won’t be too chummy, either. If Julie thinks she can steal Quinn McNeal from me, she’s got another thing coming.”

  “What do you mean?” Shelley said.

  “I mean I’m going to give him another chance. I always get every guy I go after, and I will this time, too. I want Quinn McNeal and I intend to have him!”

  Her voice was flat and hard.

  “But how?” Jessica asked. “Quinn isn’t like all the other guys here. He seems older. More sophisticated.”

  Julie, in her booth, could hear water running as Tara concentrated on a plan of attack.