The Wild Within (Book 2)

by Jeff Hale

  Did I mention that she had an uncanny way of knowing when I was upset? Krista Vaughn, Kris for short. My best friend.

  We’d only been friends for eight years, but had clicked immediately when we had met, like we had known each other all our lives. She was several months younger than me, and a couple inches taller than my own five foot four, but that didn’t matter. We didn’t share any classes, except for PE, but we had about an hour on the bus everyday between going to school and heading home, as well as when we would hang out after school.

  I sighed. “Was just me being depressed again last night, being all emo again I guess. Sometimes it just hits and it takes the longest time to shake it.”

  “Did your dad do something again?”

  “Step-dad. And no, not this time. I dunno what it was that set me off this time. Mom was drinking, again, but that’s normal so… maybe I’m still upset about Prom.” I sighed again. “I dunno. I feel better now though.”

  She cocked her head to one side, as though trying to determine whether or not I was lying to her, then seemed to come to the conclusion that I was telling the truth. She reached out a hand to lift my Ipod and glance at the LCD screen.

  “Manson. Cool. Got the splitter?”

  “Of course.”

  She dug a pair of headphones out of her bag and plugged them into it, and we both settled back to listen in relative peace.

  High school sucked. Well, school just sucks in general but I think that high school is the worst. We went to a medium sized school, but it was a good school. Curriculum was better than a lot of schools out there, teachers were fairly nice, and classrooms weren’t too bad.

  But what sucks the most about a small to medium school is anonymity… or the lack thereof. Everyone knows everyone. Not very well necessarily, but you can’t just hide in a smaller school. No one is forgiving and certainly no one is forgetting. At least when I’d gone to school in Las Vegas I had been able to blend in, and I had made several good friends there.

  Once at school, Kris and I did our daily routine. She headed toward her classes, I toward mine, both of us with the unspoken promise to meet up at lunchtime. Classes were same old same old today, some of them boring, some interesting.

  I ignored Miss Bitch Melanie Jacobs, who had caught me staring at her to-die-for wrestler jock boyfriend during third period and had to point it out to the rest of the class. I sighed with relief when the lunch bell rang and headed to the cafeteria to meet up with Kris. We both went through the ‘fast food’ line, preferring burgers and fries over the mystery meal of the day that was the standard cafeteria food, both of us glad that we were slim enough to get away with the extra calories.

  We hadn’t been seated very long when I felt the bench give way a bit and a body plop down next to me. I turned to see Nate Thompson grinning at me. A lock of black hair fell over one of his green eyes. Nate was reasonably tall, lanky, and decent looking. He looked stoned. As usual. Today he was dressed in chain beridden black pants and a holey black long-sleeved shirt.

  “If it isn’t my favorite Ks!” He scooched up next to me and leered playfully at Kris across the table.

  She stuck her tongue out at him. He took it as an invitation, getting up and moving to her side of the table and getting cozy with her. She rolled her eyes at me.

  “Nate, dude, back off a bit, I’m trying to eat.” Kris’s comment seemed to remind him of his own food, which he dragged over and started eating. He didn’t move though. Kris sighed and scooted away a bit. He chuckled around a mouthful of burger.

  Kris and I thought Nate was a bit confused. We’d known him since Junior High. He had declared himself in love with both of us then, but had never actually asked either of us out. To my knowledge he’d never had a girlfriend.

  He liked to hang out with us at school, and he paid equal attention to us. To the point that a month or so back, to celebrate my return home, we had all been, well, being teenagers at Kris’s home while her folks were away and the alcohol was fair game, and he ended up making out with both of us at the same time.

  Now before you all get ideas, ew, don’t even go there. I love Kris, she is my best friend and she is beautiful, but we are both strictly into boys. But the whole incident brought up the question of which one of us was he interested in.

  We didn’t think he knew either. Meanwhile, until he figured it out, he courted us both in his own way. He was a nice enough guy, good looking, and fun to be around, so we enjoyed his company and found it amusing to say the least.

  “So,” Nate said, reaching across the table to grab my hand. “We’re all going out tonight, yes?”

  I let him hold my hand for a moment while Kris tried to not burst out laughing. “I dunno, what’s so special about tonight?” I asked him, trying to keep a straight face. My emotions were wavering between amusement and sadness; I hadn’t really been looking forward to this weekend.

  He gave me a hurt look and pouted, shaking my hand at the same time. “It’s Friday, Kat my dear, Fri-day, and our last chance to all hang out before I have to move. Please say you didn’t forget?”

  I hadn’t, even though I wished I could have. Not only had I left my new friends in Vegas behind when I had come back home, but now I was losing one of my closest friends here. I shrugged, hiding a sniffle behind a frown. “And if my step-dad decides to be an ass?”

  “You need to tell your old man to piss off.”

  Kris gasped and poked him in the side with a fist, causing him to choke on a fry. She pounded on his back to get him to breathe.

  “Trying to kill me, Krista?” he wheezed finally.

  “Only partly.”

  “I can so feel the love.” He squirreled up next to her again and she let him. He took that as an opportunity to put an arm around her. “But seriously, it’s Friday night, and my folks are set on flying us to California on Sunday. I start school with all new people who I really couldn’t give a shit about and I’d like to spend my last Friday here with you two. Is that so much to ask? You got the spare key made didn’t you?”

  The spare key. Yeah I had gotten it made. Last year, for my eighteenth birthday, Mom had gotten herself a new/used car… and gifted me her old one.

  Now while my mom was an alcoholic, on her more sober days she was a pretty cool mom. As far as she was concerned, as long as I put my own gas in the car, I could come and go as I pleased—but please let her know if I was going to be home later or past curfew.

  My step-dad on the other hand had decided once that I didn’t know where home was anymore—I hated home when he was there—and took my keys for a couple of days. That pissed me off, so Kris had suggested that I get a spare made the next time I was near a key cutter. I had. Dear old Dad could snag the keys I normally used all he wanted, I was still leaving.

  I held up my key ring, the car key dangling next to my house key. “Yup.”

  A hand reached out and snagged the key ring. I looked up to see DeeAnn Hall, otherwise known as Miss Bitch Number Two, Melanie Jacobs’s best friend. She was dressed in a green and gold cheerleader uniform that seemed to be a size too small. Her blonde hair was done up in little girl pigtails. She was pretty, in a Barbie kind of way. She shook the keys at me.

  “Big plans for tonight, catty Kat?” she asked brightly, a fake smile plastered on her heavily made up face.

  “Can I have my keys back, Dee?” I tried not to sigh. Those two, Melanie and DeeAnn, seemed to have a particular need to be obnoxious to me. It had been this way since before High School started and I didn’t recall doing anything to either of them that would have made them dislike me.

  “Oh, look, it’s one half of the Bitch Squad.” Kris gave DeeAnn the same fake smile and batted her eyelashes. “Did you lose your map of the cafeteria?”

  DeeAnn dropped a withering glare on Kris then said, loud enough for most of the cafeteria to hear, “You need to tell your friend that making doe eyes at Cody Grey won’t do her any good. Even if he wasn’t dating Melanie, he wouldn’t have any
thing to do with her.”

  Wonderful. Melanie had now shared my brief insanity of ogling Cody Grey with more than the third period class. I wanted to bury my head in the table and vainly wish for everyone in the cafeteria to disappear. But I didn’t. I stared straight ahead, noticing that Kris was rolling her eyes again.

  “Like Kat would want to touch anything that had Melanie cooties all over it?” Nate shuddered and made a retching motion.

  Did he really just say cooties? What, are we back in elementary school?

  “If she wants her precious keys back she might have to.” DeeAnn turned and pitched the keys in the direction of one of the tables, where Melanie, Cody, and DeeAnn’s boyfriend were sitting, all of them watching us with contempt. “Mel! Catch!”

  Melanie’s hand shot up, catching my keys. She gave me a bitchy grin as she patted her perfect brown hair in place and dangled the keys. A look of glee flashed through Melanie’s brown eyes and she reached towards Cody, grasped the waistband of his jeans, pulled them away from his belly and dropped my keys down into the gap.

  I groaned inwardly and imagined DeeAnn and Melanie choking on their pom poms.

  What they were expecting from me I didn’t know. In the past, I had usually fled their presence, straight faced, until I could find some nook to hide out in and attempt to calm down.

  But my friends in Vegas had taught me a thing or two about pride while I was there, so I stemmed the urge to run, took a couple of deep breaths and put a forestalling hand out to Kris. She had been about to get in DeeAnn’s face.

  I stood and stared at DeeAnn. “You are such a nasty bitch, Dee.” Then I turned and strode toward Melanie and Cody with a purpose.

  I stopped in front of them, my eyes going back and forth between them, noticing that Melanie was gloating, while Cody actually gave me a somewhat rueful smile.

  “Have you gained weight, Melanie? Your uniform seems to have shrunk,” I said, then promptly straddled Cody’s lap, facing him and wishing that my breasts were smaller so they weren’t almost pressing against his chest.

  He made a noise of surprise, his hazel eyes going wide as I leaned in and placed my palm flat against his stomach, then began to wiggle it down the front of his blue jeans. I made myself stare directly into his eyes, tried not to fixate on the way his short pale-blonde hair stuck up adorably, and tried to concentrate on the fact that I was only getting my keys, not that I had my hand down his pants.

  I expected to see mockery in his gaze to match his girlfriend’s, but I was somewhat shocked to see something else there instead; heat. It didn’t take long for my fingers to find the keys. I had to try to not yank my hand out of his pants like I had been scalded when those same fingers told me that he was quite enjoying their search.

  I removed my hand from his pants as nonchalantly as I could, confused again as I saw a brief disappointment in his eyes. But Melanie and DeeAnn, and even Cody, had been mean spirited enough to me in the past that I couldn’t help but try to get a little back of my own.

  I brought my face close to his, patted the obvious bulge in the front of his jeans, and whispered, loudly, “Down boy, your girlfriend might get jealous.”

  I scooted off of him, feeling triumphant at the open mouth shock on Melanie’s face, before turning my back and heading back to my friends. I heard the impact of a hand hitting flesh behind me and heard Cody give a small cry of pain.

  I sat back down at our table, my legs shaking, and forced myself to breathe before I threw up. Not because of where I had put my hand, but because I couldn’t believe I had stood up to them and gotten away with it.

  “Did I see that right?” There was astonishment in Kris’s voice. “Did you just stick your hand down Cody Grey’s pants and give him a boner?”

  I nodded, still breathing slowly, but starting to feel much better, and somehow more empowered. “I had to get my keys.”

  “Gimme those.” Nate took the keys out of my hand and proceeded to try to drop them down the front of his pants.

  Kris snatched them before he could and slid them back to me. “Pervert.” She smacked him on the arm.

  He shrugged, grinning. “It was worth a try.”

  I couldn’t help it; I laughed and snuck a glance at the Bitch Squad. Melanie and Cody were in the middle of a very quiet, very heated looking argument that he appeared to be losing.

  I sighed happily. “Alright, so I have my keys so a car is no problem.”

  Nate nodded, the Bitch Squad forgotten. “Then it’s just the three of us tonight. Nothing fancy, just want to hang out with my two ladies before I have to go.”

  “Allrighty then. We’ll pick you up on the way then, Nate? I would suggest that you could just ride the bus all the way home, but my folks don’t have a real high opinion of you.”

  He just shrugged. “That was months ago, I swear there is something wrong with your parents.”

  One evening early this last fall, Nate had been bored. He rode his motorcycle over to my place to pay me a visit. The problem was that it was around one in the morning. I was still awake, but my folks didn’t appreciate the knock on the door that late, then I sat outside talking to him for a couple hours and woohee the crap hit the fan.

  Asshole that he was, my step-dad had had a fit about me ‘entertaining’ some young man for two hours outside. I had told him that he made it sound like I was dancing on the sidewalk naked or something. So anyway, Nate was kind of persona non grata around our household.

  “Well, my folks think there is something wrong with you, so there. How little do they know…” I trailed off, giving him an impish grin that was rewarded with a fry being thrown at me.

  “Sooooo,” Kris began, eyeing me carefully. “Has he called yet?”

  I sighed, trying not to let depression settle in again. The only ‘he’ that Kris could be referring to was Aerick. She had been upset that I had had to go away over the winter, but when I had come back and told her I had met someone, she had been glad for me. Aerick hadn’t called again after the call I had ignored the day after Prom, and I hadn’t tried to contact him either.

  “Has who called?” Nate asked, suddenly alert and all ears. I hadn’t gotten around to explaining to Nate about Aerick because I didn’t want to upset him, and I hadn’t mentioned going to Aerick’s Prom. Our own Prom had been the week before and I had skipped it.

  “Well, you remember when my family and I had to go out of town, to Vegas for a few months, and I went to school there for a while?”

  Nate’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, that was right after I pissed your folks off and I thought they took you away ‘cuz of me. Kris and I missed you big time.”

  “Well, I met a guy there that I really liked. We’ve been emailing off and on since I got back.”

  Nate wrinkled his nose. “So long distance, huh?”

  “Maybe, I dunno. He hasn’t called or emailed lately. But then again, I haven’t tried to get hold of him either. We’re probably both being stubborn, but it’s probably for the best anyway. I doubt it would work out,” I said.

  “I’m sorry,” Kris said, frowning a little.

  “Don’t be, it’s not your fault, just the way the world works, I guess.”

  “We’ll find you a guy, I know we will,” she assured me, nodding.

  I glanced over at Cody for the briefest moment, then shrugged. “Yeah, sure, when I’m old and grey.”

  “So what’s this guy’s name?” Nate wanted to know.

  “Aerick.”

  “Ugh, sounds gay.” Nate made a gesture to convey more meaning with his comment.

  “Nate!” I watched with amusement as Kris picked up Nate’s can of soda, dumping it over his head. My laughter was interrupted by the warning bell to class.

  “Kris, dammit, now I’m gonna be all sticky for the rest of the day, thanks a lot!”

  She gave him a saccharine smile, leaned forward and kissed him on the nose. “Anytime, sweetie.”

  He stalked off to the boy’s restroom as we giggled m
adly, then we headed to our respective classes. The rest of the day went by relatively fast. I fielded some hateful glares from DeeAnn during my sixth hour class and caught Cody staring at me, but other than that, it was uneventful. The last bell rang and I joined Kris on the bus. We chattered for a few minutes then plugged ourselves into my Ipod for the ride home.

  I sighed, thinking of Aerick and the first time I’d seen him. He went to a big high school in Las Vegas. I had met him while attending school there for a few months while my mom and step-dad were in Nevada on business for my step-dad’s winery.

  It was a Thursday, my second day at the high school in Las Vegas. I’d already made a new friend named Nina, who had taken me clothes shopping the night before, and Aerick was her best friend. I felt somewhat self-conscious in the outfit I was wearing, something Nina had picked out and I had snuck out in that morning. It was an off the shoulder black blouse and a plaid school-girl skirt that had handcuffs hanging from either side, paired with black knee high Doc Martens. I loved the clothes, but wasn’t used to dressing this way at school.

  I went to put my books in my car, then headed back over to the place they referred to as the Wall, where all the smokers and non-yuppie types hung out. I saw Nina and her boyfriend, Dave, and waved, and then my eyes lit on him.

  He had shoulder length dark-brown hair and bright blue eyes and was absolutely fucking gorgeous. He had just crushed a cigarette out under his foot when his eyes met mine. My heart dropped down to my feet and I felt a connection, like I already knew him. He lit up a cigarette again as I got closer, seeming somewhat nervous.

  “Nina! It’s good to see you again!” I called out to Nina as I crossed the street to the Wall. The other guy, the one who was making my heart do laps in my chest, must have been the friend she had told me about.

  “Katelyn! Come over here, girl! I want you to meet some people!” Nina gave me a huge smile, seeming overly happy.

  I approached them, unable to take my eyes off of Aerick.

  “So I’m thinking this must be the infamous Aerick?” I said, then felt almost embarrassed afterward. He looked up at me slowly, his eyes lingering on my body and I had to fight not to blush. My hair was up in a ponytail and I pushed strands away from my face. “Not much of a talker is he?” I asked when he still hadn’t said anything.