But it couldn’t be Blayze, I argued in my head. Not because he wasn’t capable—I had no idea what he was capable of anymore—but because I’d been with him. Mom would have gotten home at 4. If the envelope had been here when she got here, she would have picked it up and looked at it. Not Blayze. Definitely not Blayze. The phrase played over and over in my head like it was searching for an emotional reaction.
The only reaction it found was despair. My Blayze wanted nothing to do with me anymore, so his innocence in this was irrelevant. My only real suspect was eliminated, and my mystery stalker was getting bolder—and scarier.
Eventually my breathing slowed and I became painfully aware of where I was. Standing on my own porch in broad daylight, staring at an open envelope as if it would bite me. If I’d been looking at myself from the outside, I definitely would have judged that I was high or crazy.
“Get it together,” I whispered firmly to myself. “You can’t leave it there.”
I picked the envelope up and shoved it deep into my pocket, then burst through the door. Mom was right there, but of course she was. This stupid house was so small you could see the front door from every damn room. She took one look at my face and tried to intercept me.
“Arlena, you’re pale! What’s wrong? Are you sick? Are you hurt?”
I dodged her and took the stairs two at a time up to my room. If I’d opened my mouth I would have started crying and nothing would have made sense and she’d panic and call dad, who would force the whole story out of me like I was a witness in one of his trials, and then he would have called the cops, and then Blayze would be arrested on principle.
I slammed my door and leaned against it, sliding shakily toward the floor. Tears spilled out of my eyes, but they had barely kissed my cheeks when I froze. Fury and indignation exploded in my chest. There, on my bedcovers, was another envelope. The bastard had been in my fucking bedroom!
Terrified, but too pissed off to let it take me over, I started searching my room. In the closet, under my bed, on the roof outside my dormer window.
Nothing.
Nobody.
I didn’t touch the envelope. I couldn’t bear it.
Shaking and crying, I reached for my phone.
Blayze
“Dude, really?”
I was still staring out the window, looking at the spot where Arlena’s car had been parked. Something wasn’t adding up. She’d sat there crying for a long time, but it wasn’t the kind of crying I’d been expecting. I expected denial, guilt, maybe even rage. I’d expected manipulative crocodile tears or full-on hysteria. Arlena hadn’t done any of that. She’d wept. Wept like her heart was breaking, wept like a child weeps when they don’t understand why they hurt.
“Blayze, you gone deaf all the sudden?”
I tore myself from the window and my thoughts and shot a bored look at Eddie. “What crawled up your ass?”
He stood, glaring at me, arms crossed over his pot leaf-emblazoned hoodie. “Uh, your ex?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. Every damn time. “What did Sam do now?”
He blinked at me, then shook his head. “Sam’s your current, dumbass, or can you not keep track of that anymore? No, I’m talking about the rich bitch who just left. You told me yourself that she was a snitch and you had her over here?”
I shook my head. “Not exactly.”
He flung his hands in the air. “Not exactly, he says. Not exactly. Look man, I don’t give a shit where you get your pussy from. You know that. Bro code, right? But damn it, man, I just got my babies blooming, if we get raided that’s like ten thousand dollars just—” he snapped his fingers and winced, then glared at his bandaged thumb. He shook his head. “Remind me never to clip buds drunk.”
“Never clip buds drunk,” I said, cracking the ghost of a grin. He narrowed his eyes at me and I raised my hands. “I know, I know. I didn’t let her downstairs. Hell, I didn’t let her past the doorway.”
Eddie nodded appreciatively. “Damn, that good, huh? Shit son, I’m not in the habit of getting between a man and his good time, but take it to the truck next time. I don’t need her in here. My name’ll be lamed by association.”
“Well we can’t have that,” I said wryly.
“Nah. But no, seriously, bro to bro—what’s going on with you and her? You still into her or what? I mean, I get it. If a hot chick with money narked on you I can’t promise I wouldn’t hook up with her after you were gone, know what I’m saying? Women cast some kind of pheromone spell or some shit, ain’t no telling them no, right? So no judgement, no judgment, just wanna know where she stands with you.”
I shrugged. “She lied to me, she got into spaces she didn’t belong, she narked on my brother, now she’s getting dragged for it. As far as I’m concerned, she deserves all of this. I didn’t expect it to last this long, honestly. Guess Damon’s an even bigger deal than I thought.”
“But you’re still hittin’ that!” Eddie said. It wasn’t a question.
“Come on, man.”
“You come on.” he said. His tone was playful, but there was a seriousness in his eyes.
“Does it really matter?” I asked.
He nodded, blinking at me like he’d never seen anybody so stupid. “Yeah, it fucking matters. Because if you’re fucking her and she’s narking, you better be real fucking protected. And I’m not talking about condoms. You better have all your damn ducks in a row. Especially since you’re living here. Now I got nothing against the girl personally, she seems nice, she’s real hot—really hot, it’s honestly a shame she’s a rat—but I can’t have her running back to daddy telling him about the farm in my basement. Comprende?”
My phone started ringing. Saved by the bell. I didn’t know why I was hedging, why I was trying to protect her—an hour before, I’d been half-ready to kill her myself. I guess it was the look on her face that I couldn’t get it out of my head. I glanced down at my phone and my heart dropped. It was her.
“Yeah, I got you, Eddie. Look, this is a business call—”
“Say no more,” Eddie said, raising his hands in a temporary truce. “I’m not even here.”
I smiled tightly at his back as he turned to go downstairs. I started for the front door as I answered the call. Whatever she had to say, I didn’t need him in my ear insinuating shit while I was trying to listen.
“Hello?”
There was silence for a beat, then she sucked in a sharp breath. “I didn’t expect you to answer.”
She sounded small and scared. I braced myself against the wave of protectiveness which threatened to drown me.
“Well I did. What do you want?”
She sniffled, damn it. “Blayze, I know you’re pissed at me. But if you’re the one who’s doing this, you need to stop, okay? I get the message. Message fucking received, okay? But you can’t keep doing this.”
“What is it you think I’m doing?” I paced the sidewalk in front of Eddie’s house, kicking bits of trash into the gutter.
“These death threats,” she said, dropping her voice low. “Whatever, I get it, you’re trying to scare me. But breaking into my room is where I draw the line. You have to stop. You have to.”
My entire body tensed up. Death threats was way beyond the dragging I’d been expecting. Hell, all of this was. The feeling that there was more to this whole thing than I thought there was pounded in my head like a hangover.
“It wasn’t me,” I said and hung up before my temper could spill over onto her. I shoved my phone in my pocket. Things still weren’t adding up—but I was beginning to see the whole equation now, and it was way bigger than I thought.
11
He hung up on me.
It wasn’t me? So convincing.
I hugged my knees close to my chest and stared at the wall, the events of the last several weeks sloshing around in my head like a ship in a bottle. Knowing why people hated me should have made it easier to bear, but it didn’t. I couldn’t control who my parents were. It wasn
’t fair to punish me for that. Not to mention threatening my life over it or breaking into my goddamn bedroom.
You should have expected it. You brought this upon yourself. You lied to the whole school, you deserve everything that’s happening to you. Blayze’s words twisted and amplified in my head, filling the void where my emotions should have been. I did this to myself. I kept the wrong secret and made the wrong connections. My gaze drifted down to the envelope on my bed. And now I’m going to die for it?
I didn’t bother trying to call him back. I was surprised that he’d answered in the first place. At the very least, I’d gotten my message across. Stay the hell out of my room. Drop your stupid notes on the front step if you must, but stay the hell out of my room.
Shaking my head, I scoffed bitterly. If someone had told me a month ago that I would be telling Blayze to stay the hell out of my room, I wouldn’t have believed them. All I wanted, back then, was to be in bed with him. I felt as though I’d aged ten years since then. I wished I had. Then all of this would be a stupid high school memory that I’d look back at and—laugh? No. I didn’t think I would ever be able to laugh about this.
I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the wall. A few minutes, maybe an hour. Winter evenings don’t give much indication, especially in the middle of the city. God, I missed the stars. There weren’t any to be seen down here in the city. Out in the suburbs, away from everything, where acres of lawn separated each house, the stars took center stage every single night. I never thought of them as a luxury—just a fact of life. I was slowly beginning to see just how much of life I’d taken for granted.
“Arlena!” Mom’s voice rang up the stairs. I was in no mood to respond to her. She probably got sick of waiting for me to come downstairs and explain myself, and I just wasn’t ready to do that yet. Maybe if I pretended to be asleep— “Arlena! Your friend is here!”
A shock of terror ripped down my spine. I had no friends, only a stalker and a bitter ex-boyfriend. I wasn’t real anxious to find out which one it was. I heard Mom make soothing noises to whoever was downstairs waiting for me, then her voice came louder.
“Arlena, are you sleeping? Your friend is here! Come downstairs.”
Damn it. “I’m coming!”
I didn’t bother checking my face in the mirror. I knew I looked like hell. Didn’t matter anyway. Nothing mattered anymore. I shot one last glance back at my tainted bed, then started for the stairs. Whatever was about to happen, I might as well get it over with.
“There you are! I thought I was going to have to come up and get you. This boy is Blayze? She’s mentioned you a few times, but hasn’t told me much about you. Arlena, why didn’t you tell me your friend Blayze was so handsome?” She prattled on like a doting airhead, but her eyes were sharp and absorbent, taking in every posture and every expression.
I hugged myself tightly and kept my face as blank as I could. “Hi,” was all I could manage.
Blayze’s impassive face melted into concern as he looked me over. He didn’t say a word, just draped his arms around me and pulled me into his chest. His tenderness shocked a hole in the dam I’d built between myself and my emotions. Every breath was ragged and painful and full of his scent. For the first time in weeks, I felt safe—and it was too much to bear. Breaths became sobs and soon I was falling apart all over him, right in front of Mom.
She hadn’t moved. She stood, silently watching us. I could almost feel her putting pieces together, and l realized just how many clues I’d been dropping. My attitude, my absences, my slipping grades—she must have known something was up ages ago, and she hadn’t pushed the issue.
Now that Blayze was here with his arms around me, she was drawing conclusions I really didn’t want her to jump to. If she decided to tell Dad that I was dating one of the inner city ruffians, he’d lose his mind. But I couldn’t pull myself together enough to salvage the situation. I cried on Blayze until his shirt was soaked and my eyes were empty, then I just stood there for a while, clinging hard to his leather jacket and breathing him in. He was rubbing my back and rocking me slowly back and forth, soothing me like a child. I didn’t mind. It was working.
“Can we talk?” he murmured into my hair.
I nodded, still wrestling my breath under control. When I finally pulled myself together, Mom pushed a glass of water into my hand. “Go talk,” she said. “Dad’s working late tonight. Just don’t let me catch you naked.”
“Of course not, Mom,” I said irritably. Sex was the last thing on my mind. But boys had never been allowed in my room, not ever, and I appreciated the show of trust. I squeezed her hand and cocked my head at Blayze, who followed me up the stairs. He stopped just inside my door, staring at the envelope on my bed.
“You haven’t opened it?” He asked.
I shook my head. “I opened the rest of them, but the last one was blood. Just blood. I couldn’t make myself open that one.”
He looked at me, his eyes flashing. He seemed massive in my small bedroom, his masculinity filling my feminine space and overwhelming it. It was more comforting than anything else in that moment. Somewhere in my mind he was still filed under “protector,” and I hadn’t managed to re-file him even after everything.
For the moment, I wasn’t alone.
For the moment, I was safe.
“The rest of them?” He repeated, his voice hard.
I gestured at my message board. “They’ve been coming for weeks. Flowers, too, but there were only three of those.”
He stiffened and my heart sank. “What kind of flowers?” he asked.
“Roses. One fresh, one dead, and one crushed.”
He scowled and nodded, then turned to read the message. “Let me see the last two,” he said.
I gave him the bloody one, holding it by the corner, then gave him the unopened one from the bed. He laid them out, one after the other, then read the message out loud. Somehow, hearing it in his voice made the whole situation even more terrifying.
“’Beautiful princess, how can I hurt you? Let me count the ways. Aviation accident. Bloody brain-spattered BMW. Catastrophic car crash. Drag the river, she drowned! Either way there will be — blood, I guess? ‘I’m coming for you.” He paused and pierced me with a gaze that worked right down into my soul. “Jesus, Arlena. You didn’t tell anybody about this?”
I shook my head miserably. “It didn’t seem that bad at first. Whoever did this sent it one word at a time, so at first I thought it was a love note or something.” It sounded stupid when I said it out loud, but Blayze didn’t react. “Then by the time it was clear that it was a threat, I felt like it had gone too far to ask for help, I guess. Also…”
I bit my lip against the tears threatening to well up in my eyes. Shame coursed through my being as I remembered everything he’d said to me earlier in the car.
“Also—people were already calling you a snitch and you didn’t want to prove them right,” he said slowly.
I nodded. “There was that. But also—I thought there was a chance that you were sending me the letters. I haven’t told anyone else where I live, nobody’s ever been over here. I mean, except for Sam.” I made a face when I said her name, then straightened my expression guiltily. She was his girlfriend, after all.
“Sam?” He asked, startled. “Why was Sam here?”
I shrugged one shoulder defensively. “She was the one who showed me around when I got here. She came over before school on my first day to show me the best way to get there in the morning and helped me find all my classes and stuff. For a while I thought she liked me.”
“Extra credit,” he said, almost apologetically.
I nodded bitterly. “I found that out later when I asked her if she wanted to go get lunch on a Saturday.”
He winced and I smirked.
“I see you know her well. She laughed in my face and told me to put on my big girl pants and go by myself. Then she told me that it was all extra credit so she could pass some class or the other.”
“Humanities,” he said.
“How ironic.” My phone buzzed, interrupting. I looked at the text and shot to my feet. “That’s my mom. Dad’s on his way home. If he finds you here, he’ll lose his mind.” I looked up at him helplessly. I didn’t want him to leave me alone with my thoughts and the disturbing note. I didn’t want him to leave me at all. I hated Sam more than I’d ever hated anyone in the whole world, and it wasn’t even her fault. I hated her for existing, for touching him when I ached so desperately to feel his touch, for being a factor in my pain.
Blayze sighed as though trying to expel the entire world from his lungs. His eyes, now that I could see them up close, looked tired. Like it had been months since he’d gotten a good night’s rest. And all that life, that light, that mirth, that was a present constant on his face, was replaced by saddened lines of hurt. I was hurting, yes. But there was no missing the evidence that Blayze was hurting, too. So much of me wanted to console so much of him. As though two broken things could ever have a chance of mending each other. There was also the fact that even though he was here and even though he wasn’t the one sending me threatening notes, he still seemed to view me as the enemy. As the reason why his brother was now behind bars.
He washed his opened palms over his face before meeting my eyes with a deep, pensive gaze. “Want to go for a drive?”
12
Sam. Goddammit, of course it was Sam. She’d never liked Arlena, not for a itty bitty flitty second. I was pretty sure I knew why, too. With her long brown hair and big blue eyes, her comfortable height and welcoming curves, Arlena was just the type to spike Sam’s insecurities. In contrast, Sam was short and athletic, built like an MMA fighter with the skills to back it up—and secretly aspired to be Marilyn Monroe.
Plus, she’d been put on the spot at Damon’s trial. She hated being put on the spot, especially when she was in the wrong. And she hated having an audience when she wasn’t completely one hundred percent certain of her position, and she clearly hadn’t been certain of anything in her testimony.
Manic: A Dark High School Bully Romance Page 8
