by Joy Elbel
“You can’t wear that!” Rachel cried as I threw it over my head and stuffed my arms into the sleeves. “You wanna bet?” I said defiantly, smoothing it down over my chest. In one swift, bold move, I had decided to wear my weirdness on my sleeve—almost literally.
I noticed that the locker room suddenly became quiet. They didn’t expect this from me. They expected me to buckle, they expected me to run off crying in search of Coach Hunter. Well, I wasn’t sorry to disappoint them. Not this time, anyway. I didn’t always feel this brave and determined—I needed to embrace it while I had the chance.
Instead of me being the one to panic, this time it was Rachel. “COACH HUNTER!” she bellowed, her words echoing back to us in that all too silent locker room. She continued to shout until Coach Hunter got to where we stood.
“Rachel, what’s wrong?” she asked with a worried look on her face.
Rachel merely pointed at me and said, “That.” With the way her eyes popped out when she saw the front of my shirt, I can only imagine the expression on her face when Rachel showed her the back of it. Visibly flustered, she took me by the arm and led me to a quiet spot in the corner.
“In all of my years as a teacher, I have never seen anything like this. I’ve heard the rumors, Ruby. I don’t need you to explain that part of this—at least not right now. What I do need you to explain is why you’re wearing that shirt! It’s inappropriate and I need you to take it off. I won’t let you take the field while you’re wearing that.”
“Coach Hunter, someone switched shirts on me— probably while we were on the bus.” That girl sitting behind me was most likely the culprit. That made me feel even more stupid for that dumb hocus pocus routine I pulled on her. “I’m sure that Misty was at the root of it all but I think she got someone else to put this into my bag. I’m wearing it as an act of defiance. I’m not going to let her get the best of me—not completely anyway.”
Coach Hunter slapped her hand against her forehead in exasperation. “As much as I admire your spirit, Ruby, I still can’t let you wear it. It could be construed as religiously offensive. That’s not the kind of impression I can allow any of my girls to portray. Take it off and I’ll find you something else to wear.”
There was a first time for everything and this was a monumental one for me. I was about to buck authority more than I ever had before. “No, I’m not taking it off.”
Coach Hunter was speechless. Dumbfounded. On one hand she probably wanted to sentence me to a week’s worth of detention the minute we set foot back into our own school. On the other, she more than likely wanted to give me a hearty fist bump. When she finally spoke, it wasn’t what I was expecting to hear.
“That day in the locker room shower—you know which day I’m talking about—that wasn’t because you’re afraid of water, was it?” I inhaled deeply and allowed my answer to flow out as easily as I allowed the air to then escape my lungs. “No, it wasn’t. I was in the middle of a supernatural attack. And Misty Landrum had the audacity to film it and distribute it like it was nothing more than some disgusting amateur porn.” There, I said it. I told the truth and it felt damn good.
“I see.” I could all but visualize the internal struggle she was having over this issue. She knew that I was right in wanting to wear the shirt but she still wasn’t willing to let me do it. But that’s how bullies like Misty get away with the dirty tricks they pull. They hover so close to the line between what’s acceptable and what isn’t then force their victims to be the ones to actually cross it. Maybe I would feel different once my ass was sitting in detention, but at this moment, I was willing to do whatever it took to stand up for myself.
Suddenly, Coach Hunter got a gleam in her eye. “I have the answer! Wait right here while I go find the Gargoyles’ coach.”
I waited like she asked me to, praying that I wouldn’t be disappointed with the outcome. When I caught sight of her striding across the locker room with a roll of duct tape in her hand, I knew exactly what she had in mind.
“As long as we cover up the virgin part, that’s all I’m concerned about,” she said as she ripped off a piece of tape with her teeth and slapped it onto the back of my shirt. Once she had that part concealed from view, I started to follow the rest of the girls out to the track. “Wait! Don’t you want a few more pieces of tape for the front?”
“Nope, It’s fine just the way it is,” I replied. Holding my head high, I joined Rachel and we sauntered off together like bosses. Unfortunately, that was my most triumphant moment of the day. I came in third at the 100 meter race. Despite Clay’s fierce urging for me to run faster, it just wasn’t happening. Those girls from Graysburg were fast. But at least I walked away feeling like I had done my best. The relay was a whole different story—one whose ending I wished I could rewrite.
We won the race but I had nothing to do with that victory. In fact, if I had been a casual observer, I would have betted that I was trying to lose the race on purpose. Graysburg got off to a terrible start when their first runner tripped and fell. By the time she picked herself up and made it to the handoff, Jordyn was already passing the torch to Misty. When I saw how much of a lead we had, I got confident. Too confident.
Misty’s handoff was as flawless as I could have asked for. For once, she didn’t even try to taunt me. No threats, no humiliating nicknames—nothing. As much as I still despised her, she was actually trying to be a team player and so was I. The baton was firmly in my grasp but unfortunately, luck wasn’t. I must have been holding it too close to my body because after only a few steps forward, it got caught on my shirt and the forward momentum of my body caused it to go flying out of my hand. I tried hard not to panic. I knew we still had a very good lead but the anxiety of knowing that if we lost it would be my fault got the better of me. As I rushed to pick it up, the toe of my shoe got to it a mere millisecond before my fingers did. Was I the first person in the history of the event to not only drop but also kick the baton? Probably not but it sure felt like I was.
I watched helplessly as it rolled out of my lane and completely off of the track. As I rushed to grab it, I could hear both Rachel and Clay cheering me on. But I could also hear the groans of my less supportive teammates and the fast approaching footsteps of my opponent. I fought the urge to run straight off of the track and keep running until I reached Charlotte’s Grove. But of course, I didn’t. I couldn’t. I had to finish what I started or face even worse torment. In the end, I crossed the finish line barely a tenth of a second before my opponent did. It wasn’t a pretty win, but it was still a win. And at the moment, that was all that mattered to me.
I closed my eyes and kept my head down for the entire ride home. I waited until I was in the sanctity of my own room before breaking down and crying. Clay sat there on the futon with me looking helpless. Nothing he or anyone else could say would make me feel any better about my day. Nobody. What crushed me the most was the fact that it seemed like every time I had the courage to stand up to Misty, Fate would promptly knock me right back down.
Once I finally pushed the whole thing to the back of my mind, another unpleasant thought popped in. Tomorrow was the day that I had to confront Zach about telling Mrs. Roseman my secret. Just like so many that had come before it, tomorrow was going to be a long day. In fact, the road ahead of me was paved with long days—I just didn’t know it yet.
19. Showered with Doubt
“Ruby! Wake up!” Clay’s panicked command cut forcefully through the veil of sleep, rousing me from an unnaturally deep state of slumber. I’d been plagued by sleep issues for nearly a year but insomnia was my usual complaint—waking up was never a problem for me. Until now, it seems.
“What’s wrong?” I asked groggily as I worked to bring my brain back to a state of full consciousness. From the way he was screaming at me, I half expected the house to be on fire. But once I coaxed my eyes open enough to look around the room, nothing seemed amiss. “What’s wrong, Clay?” I repeated irritably. He was going to need a damn good
reason for disturbing the most peaceful night of sleep I’d had in a long time.
“Oh, thank God you’re alive, Ruby!” Clay said as he collapsed onto my bed in relief. While his words were ominous and caused me to question what had happened while I was asleep, they weren’t the strangest thing about my rude awakening. When Clay plopped down onto the mattress beside me, I felt it give slightly under his…weight. Normal wasn’t something I was used to but this was too abnormal for me to handle especially first thing in the morning.
“Clay! Did you feel that?” But again, I already knew what his response would be. I was looking straight at him when I felt the trembling beneath me and his expression never changed. He felt nothing and that scared me more than the actual incident had. Something just wasn’t right here but I was the only one who noticed it.
“I don’t know what you felt but I felt nothing. But I bet that it has something to do with the dream you had. The dream we had.”
My mind went directly to my biggest dream fear regarding him and me. “Clay, you and I better not have been making the bed move in my dream, too! And if we were, you better have stopped it the instant it started! You promised me that you would!”
I watched as his face turned a bright shade of pink and he denied that anything like that happened in my—our— dream. He quickly raised his fingers and gave a resounding “Scout’s Honor.”
Eliciting that kind of reaction from a bad boy like him meant only one thing—he was telling me the truth. So my next question was obvious. “What did I dream about?”
“Um, well,” he stuttered awkwardly while obviously avoiding eye contact with me. “Clay! Tell me what the dream was about! Even on my best days, I hate suspense. Don’t even think about playing that game with me now!”
I overlooked his mumbled “Yes, dominatrix” and briefly marveled at the fact that he seemed to think I didn’t hear it. There was something about this mixture of innocence and sheer stupidity that I found charming. It reminded me of the time that Zach tried to send me mental signals thinking that it would actually work. Boys. Why couldn’t they all be as sweetly frustrating as Zach and Clay?
Once he raised his voice and finally answered my question, I wished that I could stuff the words back into his mouth and deny them another triumphant exit. “In your dream, you died. You were given a choice between life and death and you chose death. I was afraid that you weren’t going to wake up. Ever.”
Mentally, I started to shut down right then and there. Clay offered to talk about it with me but I refused angrily and stomped off into the bathroom instead. As hard as I tried to erase the emerging thoughts entering my brain, the harder and faster they seemed to come. Why didn’t I remember the dream myself? Why was I able to feel Clay’s presence more concretely than I ever had before? And why couldn’t he feel it himself? The longer I knew him, the more alive he felt to me. Or was it the exact opposite—was I growing closer and closer to death?
I stood there in the shower and cried. But with those tears came a decision—the decision to keep my fears a secret. At least for now. I wasn’t ready to hear the answer to what was happening to me. And the thought of sending anyone else into a deep, slow panic because of it wasn’t an appealing concept either. Now was the perfect time to don a golden metaphorical headdress and play like Cleopatra. Introducing Ruby Matthews, the new reigning queen of denial.
As I climbed into that ugly green SUV, I gave Zach the best fake smile I had. I still needed to confront him about exposing my secret to Mrs. Roseman, but there were obviously bigger issues on my mind. This unremembered dream thing was yet another dead albatross to wear around my neck like a gruesome fashion bauble. I was so out of sorts when I woke up that I even forgot about one other very important thing I wanted to try to get done today—locate Sophie Wester. Now more than ever, the bond between Clay and I needed to be broken.
I struggled to make small talk with Zach but my emotional distance was obvious. When he asked me what was wrong, my mouth opened up like a festering wound and my anger oozed out effortlessly.
“Why did you tell Mrs. Roseman that I was in contact with Clay? Never mind—I know exactly why you did it. But answer me this—did it not even occur to you that your insecurity could put me in danger? I know that you’re still upset about how torn I was between you and Lucas, but Clay may have been murdered. And if so, his killer won’t be very happy to find out that I’m well acquainted with his victim.”
A wide range of emotions flashed across his face as I delivered my poisonous monologue. When he opened his mouth in defense, I had no idea which one of them he was going to fling back at me as a weapon. As it turned out, he focused on the least important matter at hand, the one thing that I was least prepared to deal with.
“I knew it!” he shouted back at me angrily. “I knew that no matter what you said, you were struggling to make the decision between us. After all of those times that you insisted that you didn’t have feelings for him, now you decide to admit that you were lying. Why couldn’t you have just told me the truth?”
“Look, Zach, reminding me of my mistakes isn’t going to make me forget about yours! Lots of people know about my ghost connections but very few know about my connection to Clay specifically. You told her. Now I need a good explanation for why you did it.”
“I didn’t tell her a single thing,” he said with a slight hint of sarcasm in his voice. “Just like you didn’t tell me a single thing about wanting Lucas as more than just a friend.”
Sarcasm, anger, and hurt aside, he sounded like he was telling me the truth. This wasn’t the outcome I was hoping for—not even close to it. How could they all be telling me the truth? I never discussed Clay with Lucas in detail. If he were going to expose every ounce of my secrets, all of the ghosts I’d encountered would have been flung back in my face by now— not just this particular one. Out of all of those ghosts, he was the one that never posed any kind of threat to my life and was therefore not necessary to discuss. So if everyone who did know about him hadn’t told his grandmother, how in the world did she figure it out? Regardless of the answer, I didn’t want to fight with him while Clay was in the backseat—especially since Zach didn’t know that he was there.
“Zach, I’m sorry about the whole Lucas thing but really it wasn’t as bad as it sounds. I was more torn between having a normal life with someone I liked and having a messed up one with someone I loved.” I reached out and touched his hand and watched as his anger slowly melted away. “But in the end, the decision was easier than it seemed. I don’t care if my life is crazy—I just want to share my crazy with you.”
“That has to be the most oddly romantic thing you’ve ever said to me. But I like it.” Zach smiled back at me with that special smile he only reserved for me. That smile was missing for so long that I almost forgot that it existed. I never wanted to forget it again. Before he could change his expression, I whipped out my phone and snapped a quick pic of it.
With phone in hand, I realized that I could use it to try to find an address for Sophie. When Zach asked me what I was looking for, I had to lie. Clay was in the backseat and I didn’t want him to know that I was looking for her. So instead, I said that I was pulling up the restaurant choices near Pendleton so that we could stop for lunch before heading to the campus because I was starving. It wasn’t too far from the truth either— I was too upset to have breakfast and I knew that I would be ready to gnaw my own arm off by the time we hit the Ohio border.
My search yielded two women with that name. The first one was an eighty year old woman living in Nebraska— clearly not Clay’s Sophie. At least I hoped not. The second one was not even remotely what I was hoping to find. While I was pretty certain that the girl whose info was now on my screen was the Sophie Wester I was looking for, I was astounded by what I’d found. Her last listed address was in Rockview, a small town about ten miles northeast of where we were heading. I still wanted to look for her but I couldn’t do it with Clay looking over my shoulder. Wha
t I found out about her was a shock even to me—I had to be one hundred percent certain that this website was accurate before I disclosed any information to Clay. Looking for her today was out of the question. I would have to do more thorough research before attempting that. Disheartened, I quickly brought up a list of restaurants and made a hasty choice.
“How does Mexican sound? There’s a place called Cozumel just off campus. Their menu looks good and I haven’t had Mexican since leaving Trinity.” I laughed to myself when I thought of the last time Lee and I ate at Taco Loco. He would always take me there after we had a huge fight—to make up for being a jerk. The funniest part of it was that Mexican was his favorite, not mine. It was like he was apologizing to himself, instead of me. At the time, it would almost make me madder than whatever he’d done to upset me in the first place. But now, looking back on it, it was a good memory and one I would cherish fondly. Finally, I’d gotten to a place where I accepted his death and wasn’t constantly tortured by it. One sigh of relief in my otherwise relief-free existence.
“Sounds perfect,” Zach replied. “I haven’t had Mexican since last summer when we were in Erie. We need a Mexican restaurant in Charlotte’s Grove.”
“No, we don’t,” I said catching the absurdity of his comment. “We aren’t going to be in Charlotte’s Grove for much longer. So in fact, we now do have a Mexican restaurant— Cozumel.”
“I guess you’re right—we do. I want out of my dad’s house so bad but I keep forgetting how close I am to making that a reality. Time is actually flying by but it doesn’t feel like it.”
After that comment, Zach became sullen and silent. We’d already had enough heavy conversation for the drive out—I would save the topic of their fights for the ride back. Right now, I needed to lighten the mood. I flipped through the radio stations until I found something fun. I found what I was looking for on 97.6.
