by Cassia Leo
“Can you pass me the soda?” I whisper, and he lifts the sweaty cup out of the cup holder on his right and passes it to me all, the while maintaining his grip on my hand.
I grasp the gargantuan cup in my left hand and yelp as it slips through my fingers and into Conor’s lap. Thirty-two ounces of ice-cold cola splashes across his crotch. He sucks in a sharp breath as he shoots out of his seat.
“Shit! I’m so sorry!” I blurt out and dozens of faces across the theater glare at me from all directions. “Sorry,” I whisper to the crowd.
“I’m going to the restroom,” Conor whispers.
“I’ll go with you,” I say as I follow him down the aisle, shooting remorseful glances as I bump the knees of almost every person sitting in our row. “I mean, I’ll go down with you… down there. I’m not going to try to go in the bathroom with you or anything.”
Shut up, Belinda.
Pacing the carpet outside the men’s room, I mentally curse myself for not taking Mara up on her offer. This never would have happened to Mara. Conor walks out of the restroom with a wet stain that stretches from his waistband to his knees. His eyebrows scrunch together as if he’s apologizing for embarrassing me with his wet pants.
“I am so, so sorry,” I chant repeatedly.
He waves off my apology. “Please stop apologizing,” he replies, but I can see the discomfort in his face. “I should probably just take you home so I can go home and shower before I start attracting bugs.”
Conor attempts to make conversation a few times on the way home, but I know he’s just trying to be polite. By the time he pulls into my neighborhood, I feel as if I’m going to cry.
I don’t know why I can’t seem to behave like a normal person around Conor. I know we hardly know each other. I can’t expect to be as comfortable with him as I am with Frankie. But I shouldn’t be such a complete mess. I don’t remember my date with Henry Rosales being this much of a disaster. What is it about Conor that turns me into a bumbling idiot?
Or maybe it isn’t Conor? Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I have no business trying to move on. Maybe I’m destined to live and die with a broken heart.
As soon as Conor’s car pulls up in front of my house, I throw open the car door, hoping to make my escape as quickly as I can.
“Thanks for the movie,” I blurt, but Conor grabs my hand before I can hop out of the car.
“Wait a minute. Where are you going?”
Yanking my arm out of his grasp, I slam the car door as the first tears begin to fall. I race up the walkway toward the front door. Darting up the stairs, I sprint down the corridor until I reach my room and collapse onto my bed.
My phone vibrates in my purse and I pull it out to see Conor’s name flashing on the screen. I hit the ‘ignore’ button and throw the phone across the room so I’m not tempted to call Frankie, then I bury my head in the pillow.
Chapter 11
I should probably be with Belinda right now comforting her after this catastrophe, but my curiosity gets the best of me and I follow Conor instead. I lie on his bed as he showers. As he dresses into clean clothes, I face the corner of his room to give him some privacy. I may be invisible, but I still have manners. A picture hangs on the wall before me depicting a young Conor kneeling on a baseball diamond with his hand propped on the end of a baseball bat. Even through his smile, at this young age, I can still glimpse the sadness in his eyes. The sadness of a boy forced to spend his hours doing something he doesn’t love.
Conor is an artist. Just like Darius.
I spin around and Conor is lying on his bed now, where I was a moment ago, wearing a pair of shorts and no shirt. His bare chest glistens and I have to keep reminding myself that he doesn’t know I’m here and he is not naked. There’s no shame in admiring a thing of beauty.
He stares at the ceiling in a daze. I know that look. I’ve seen it a million times on Darius’s face. Conor is falling in love.
He sits up suddenly as if he has just remembered something important. Leaping out of bed, he clambers to his desk, but I can’t move out of his way fast enough. He passes through me and I breathe the masculine scent of his shampoo. Taking a seat at his desk, he quickly opens his laptop. He searches for something on the internet, but I can’t see the words he’s typing until I’m standing right behind him.
Evil spirits exorcism.
I shake my head in disbelief. There’s no way he knows. Unless…. Maybe he can sense me. I’ve had humans sense my presence before. It’s only happened twice in the past 372 years, but it’s not impossible. I shouldn’t have allowed Belinda to go it alone today.
Quickly, I transport myself to Belinda’s bedroom and find her curled up on top of her bed with her pillow clutched tightly to her chest. Her face is raw and pink from crying as she stares at her window. After watching her for two months, I still don’t know if these tears are over Conor or Frankie.
I close my eyes and concentrate on making myself visible. Revealing myself to a human doesn’t require any more energy than existing, but it requires a substantial amount of concentration. Even when I’m invisible to humans, I can always see myself. I always appear to myself as a shadowy silver apparition.
Subhuman.
From the corner of her eye, Belinda sees me appear at the foot of her bed, but she doesn’t turn to face me.
“It was a disaster,” she mutters.
“May I speak?” I ask, and she shrugs. I take a seat on the mattress before I launch into the explanation I planned on the way here. “I think Conor suspects you might have been possessed.”
Belinda finally turns to me. “How do you know? Did you follow him?”
“Wait a minute, Belinda. Please don’t be upset. I merely wanted to find out if he was upset with you over the whole soda fiasco.”
“You saw that?”
“I’m trying to look out for you.”
She pulls the pillow over her head. “I’m such a klutz.”
“I don’t think Conor thinks that,” I continue. “I think he’s concerned about you. I really think you two can work this out…. I can help you, Belinda.”
She’s silent for a moment, though I can hear her labored breathing beneath the pillow. I remember feeling as if everything were going to fall apart with Samuel every time I said or did anything remotely rash. It’s a paranoia that permeates the mind of every lovesick teenager. Finally, she throws the pillow onto the carpet and sits up.
“How does this work?” she demands.
A knock at the door startles me and I lose my concentration. I disappear just as Belinda’s mom enters the bedroom.
“I thought I heard you talking to someone,” she says, glancing around the room. “Why is your pillow on the floor? What are you doing in here?” she says as she picks up the pillow and tosses it to Belinda.
“Geez, Mom, I’m not allowed to dance in my room without an inquisition?” I reply from inside Belinda’s body.
I place the pillow behind me and lie back.
“Dancing?” her mother replies with a snort. Belinda and her mom share the same snorting chuckle. “Yeah, right. Go to sleep. It’s almost midnight.”
She continues to chuckle as she closes the bedroom door.
I shake off Belinda’s body the way a dog shakes water out of its fur, but I don’t make myself visible. Belinda stares at the empty space where I was sitting a minute ago, unaware I’m standing right next to her now. Then she turns her head and looks straight at me.
Chapter 12
It’s just a flutter of movement, a trick of light, but I swear I saw her. I know Mara’s not inside me anymore because everything in my room has that crisp, vibrant appearance of home videos. When she’s inside me, I feel as if I’m dreaming, everything hazy, no control over reality. Am I really going to hand Mara total control?
She appears next to me in the same place I saw the shadows flicker a moment ago. It’s nearly midnight. I’m heavy with sleep, but all I can think of is calling Frankie to tell him what happen
ed. But Frankie doesn’t want to hear about my dating disasters—or maybe it will please him to know that I blew my chance with Conor and the one shot I had at getting over Frankie.
I don’t have any female friends outside of school, unless you count Krista, but she’s more of a colleague. We’ve never hung out outside of the library break room. Frankie’s the only person I can call at this time of night.
“Am I allowed to tell anyone about you?” I whisper. “I mean, is there some kind of rules against that? Am I going to be struck by lightning if I talk about you?”
Mara’s lips curl into a smile. “You can tell anyone you want, but don’t expect anyone to believe you.”
I sigh as I turn off the lamp on my bedside table and pull my blanket up to my chin. “It wouldn’t be the first time Frankie accused me of being crazy.”
Third-period English bears down on me like a stack of three-foot-thick books. I arrive early in my haste to get this conversation over with. As the seats fill up around me, I begin to panic as I stare at the empty seat in front of me. Finally, Frankie enters the classroom, his face beaming with glee. I flash him my best smile, but he doesn’t see me. Someone’s gripping his backpack. Frankie spins around and grabs her arm and they both laugh.
Helen Neubauer.
She punches him in the arm playfully and he pretends it hurts. Frankie hates when girls resort to physical violence to flirt. And Helen Neubauer? Frankie doesn’t hate her, but he knows she’s phonier than the designer purse she carries.
Helen and Frankie part ways as she makes it to her desk in the second row and Frankie strolls toward me. His smile dims as he approaches his usual seat.
I decide not to say anything about Helen. If that’s who he wants to toy with, it’s not my business. When he’s seated, I reach forward and tap his shoulder.
“What?” he says, without turning around.
“I need to talk to you.”
“About your date?” he replies, and there’s a sharp edge to his tone.
My determination to talk this over with Frankie is dissolving quickly. I’m about to say, “Forget it,” when the classroom gets fuzzy.
“Yes, it’s about my date, but there’s something else,” I say. “I think I’m possessed.”
Frankie finally turns his head and frowns at me. “What?”
“Stop by my house after school and I’ll tell you about it.”
“You know I’m going to the beach after school.”
“Meet me at the pier at 3:30.”
It almost looks like he’s going to refuse, but his shoulders sink and he relents. “Fine, but you’d better have an awesome ghost story for me.”
He turns to face the front of the classroom and I lean forward to whisper in his ear. “It’s better than ghosts.”
He glances over his shoulder at me as Mara exits my body and I settle back into my seat. He’s wearing a suggestive grin that makes my stomach flip. I get a weird urge to run my fingers through his hair the way I used to whenever we watched movies in his living room. We haven’t had a movie night in months. He turns around again to face the front of the class and all I can think is, “Please don’t let me screw this up, Belinda.”
I take a different route after school so Conor doesn’t have to see me when he drives home from St. Demetrius. I change into my blue bikini with the white strings, the only bikini I own that still fits me, then pull on a slightly sheer pink sundress. Grabbing my beach bag and sunglasses, I hop onto my bike and head to the beach.
I lock my bike up on the rack and race toward the pier. It’s not quite 3:30, but one of Frankie’s biggest pet peeves is tardiness. My flip-flops slap the hot blacktop as I race across the parking lot. When I reach the sand, I slip off my sandals and stuff them into my beach bag. I sprint across the hot sand barefoot, slowing down when I pass a group of old women so I don’t kick sand in their eyes.
Frankie’s not at the pier yet, so I pull my towel out of my bag and sit down to wait for him in the shade of the pier. He doesn’t arrive until 3:45.
“You’re late,” I say, trying not to sound too peeved as I stand up and shake the cool sand off my towel.
He stares at my dress, which appears almost completely transparent in the shade of the pier. “I had to pick up some stuff for my dad,” he says, without taking his eyes off my dress.
I cross my arms over my chest and he finally looks me in the eye. “Let’s surf,” I say, and a smile spreads across his face.
He reaches up and runs his fingers through his auburn curls. “Are you seriously asking me for a lesson? I thought you had something important to talk about.”
“It can wait.”
He nods toward the waves then takes off running. I chase after him, kicking up sand over the back of my head, but I manage to catch up to him and grab the back of his T-shirt. He topples backward and knocks me over.
A memory of Frankie toppling over on top of me as we stand in the ocean waves flashes in my mind. I shake my head to clear away the memory only to find Frankie lying next to me on the sand. My breathing quickens, but I don’t think he notices. He snatches the sunglasses off my face then scrambles to his feet before he takes off running again. I catch up to him at the water’s edge where his surfboard waits. He hands my sunglasses back to me as he admires the waves. The afternoon sun casts white ribbons of light across the ocean’s surface. The waves roar as they rise and crash.
“Those waves look kind of big,” I remark. “Are you sure it’s safe to surf today?” I’m pretty sure I said these exact words the last time Frankie tried to teach me to surf two years ago.
He shakes his head at me before he grabs his board and heads for the water. Throwing down my bag, I tear off my dress before I run after him.
I suck in a sharp breath when I reach the water. It’s cold, but Frankie is already paddling out. I flinch as a tangle of seaweed wraps itself around my ankle. Shaking it off, I follow Frankie.
When he makes it past the breaks, he sits on his board to wait for me. I’m exhausted by the time I reach him. I don’t know how he does this with a surfboard every day, over and over again. He helps me up onto the surfboard so I’m straddling the board in front of him as we face the shore. All I can think is that a Great White shark is going to mistake us for a seal.
“Where’s the leash?”
“No leash today. Just relax,” he leans forward and whispers in my ear. “Feel the rhythm of the water. Pay attention.”
The water dips and swells beneath us and the frantic pounding of my heart slows as I pay close attention to the pattern.
“It rises and falls like music,” he says. “You have to hear the melody a few times before you can sing along.”
I close my eyes and listen. At first it’s all jumbled and indistinguishable. Then I hear the crash of cymbals, the beat of a drum. Boom, boom, boom. Crash. Boom, boom, boom. Crash.
“You ready?” he asks, and I nod. “Scoot back toward me so I can slide off.”
I scoot backward on the board and my back is pressed against Frankie’s chest for a brief moment and he freezes. My heart pounds as I wait for him to slide off the board, but he doesn’t move and I can’t find the strength to object. He reaches forward and clasps his hands over my arms, and for a split second I’m certain he’s going to lean forward and kiss my shoulder, but he doesn’t.
“Hold onto the board so it doesn’t pop up,” he instructs me and I grip the rails of the board tightly as he slides off and into the water.
I look down at him and the expression on his face tells me he felt the same thing I just felt. My throat aches as I scoot backward a little more so the board doesn’t pop out from underneath me. He quickly composes himself as he holds onto the rail and rattles off instructions.
Don’t wait for the wave to crest…. Lean into the momentum and don’t stop paddling…. If you get nervous, just ride it out on your belly. You don’t have to stand up the first time.
I brush a few strands of hair out of my eyes before I
lie down on the board. His fingers brush my hip as he pushes the board forward and to the left, all the while keeping his gaze locked on the coming swells behind us. He gives the board one last shove and shouts, “Start paddling!”
I cup my hands as I paddle to push the water behind me and propel the board forward. My arms are already aching when I begin to feel the back of the board rise with the swell of the ocean. I paddle faster and lean forward on the board so my weight carries me with the momentum of the water. The wave is about to get away from me when I decide to push the nose of the board down and to the right before I stand up.
A loud whooping noise startles me and I immediately topple over as the board pops up out of the water. I’m forced under and the weight and power of the ocean where it buries me is a blur of whitewash. I kick desperately for the surface and as soon as my head emerges the board knocks me on the back of my head.
“Are you okay?” Frankie shouts as he swims toward me, though I can hear the laughter in his voice.
I hold up a thumbs-up sign as I grab the board and attempt to mount it again. I slip off the board once before Frankie reaches me and steadies the board so I can climb on. He pushes me back to our original position in the water.
“That was good,” he says, and the way the sun glistens in his curls and the sincere encouragement in his voice makes my stomach flip. “That was better than the last time.”
“Not much harder to get better than the last time,” I reply as I tighten my sagging ponytail.
“You want to go again or do you want to watch me to see what it looks like from here?”
“I think I’ll watch you before I try it again.”
I slide off the board into the water and he smiles as he brushes a piece of hair away from my eyes. He climbs onto the board easily, like it’s an extension of his body. He shakes the water out of his hair as he sits on the board waiting for the right moment. As I gawk at his smooth bronze skin, I have to stop myself from reaching out to brush my fingers over his smooth chest. Now I remember why I stopped coming to the beach to watch him surf.
