by Meg Cabot
Felt something the other day? I was feeling something now, and all he was doing was running the tip of his finger down my neck. It wasn't right that this guy I hated - and I did hate him, I did - could make me feel this way. . . .
. . . while the guy I loved could make me feel like such absolute -
Paul was leaning so close to me now, his chest brushed the front of my sweater.
"You want to try it again?" he asked. His mouth moved until it was only about an inch from mine. "A little experiment?"
I don't know why I didn't let him. Kiss me again, I mean. I wanted him to. There wasn't a nerve in my body that didn't want him to. After being dissed so hard back there in Father Dom's office, it would have been nice to know someone - anyone - wanted me. Even a guy of whom I'd once been deathly afraid.
Maybe there was a part of me that still feared him. Or what he could do to me. Maybe that was what was making my heart beat so fast.
Whatever it was, I didn't let him kiss me. I couldn't. Not then. And not there. I craned my neck trying to keep my mouth out of his reach.
"Let's not," I said tensely. "I am having a very bad day, Paul. I would really appreciate it if you would back off - "
On the words back off, I laid both hands on his chest and shoved him away from me as hard as I could.
Paul, not expecting this, staggered backward.
"Whoa," he said, when he'd regained his balance - and his composure. "What's the matter with you, anyway?"
"Nothing," I said, twisting his handkerchief in my fingers. "I just ... I just got some bad news, is all."
"Oh, yeah?" This had clearly been the wrong thing to say to Paul, since now he looked positively intrigued, which meant he might never go away. "Like what? Rico Suave dump you?"
The sound that came out of me when he said that was a cross between a gasp and a sob. I don't know where it came from. It seemed to have been ripped from my chest by some unseen force. It startled Paul almost as much as it did me.
"Whoa," he said again, this time in a different tone. "Sorry. I... Did he? Did he really?"
I shook my head, not trusting myself to speak. I wished Paul would go away - shut up and go away. But he seemed incapable of doing either.
"I kind of thought," he said, "that there might be trouble in paradise when he never showed up to kick my ass after, you know, what happened at my house."
I managed to find my voice. It sounded ragged, but at least it worked. "I don't need Jesse," I said, "to fight my battles for me."
"You mean you didn't tell him," Paul said. "About you and me, I mean."
When I looked away, he said, "It has to be that. You didn't tell him. Unless you did tell him, and he just doesn't care. Is that it, Suze?"
"I have to get to class," I said, and turned around hastily to do just that.
Only Paul's voice stopped me.
"Question is, why didn't you tell him? Could it be because maybe, deep down, you're afraid to? Because maybe, deep down, you felt something . . . something you don't want to admit, even to yourself?"
I spun around.
"Or maybe," I said, "deep down, I didn't want a murder on my hands. Did you ever think about that, Paul? Because Jesse already doesn't like you very much. If I told him what you did to me - or tried to do to me, anyway - he'd kill you."
This was, as I knew only too well, a complete fabrication. But Paul didn't know that.
Still, he didn't take it the way I'd meant him to.
"See," Paul said with a grin. "You must like me a little, or you'd have gone ahead and let him."
I started to say something, realized the futility of it all, and spun around again to leave.
Only this time, classroom doors all around me were being flung open, and students started streaming out into the breezeway. There is no bell system at the Mission Academy - the trustees don't want to disturb the serenity of the courtyard or basilica by having a claxon ring every hour on the hour - so we just change classes every time the big hand reaches twelve. First period was, I realized, as the hordes started to mill around me, over.
"Well, Suze?" Paul asked, staying where he was, in spite of the sea of humanity darting past him. "Is that it? You don't want me dead. You want me around. Because you like me. Admit it."
I shook my head incredulously. It was, I realized, hopeless to argue with the guy. He was just too full of himself ever to listen to anyone else's point of view.
And then, of course, there was the little fact that he was right.
"Oh, Paul, there you are." Kelly Prescott came up to him, flinging her honey-blond hair around. "I've been looking for you everywhere. Listen, I was thinking, about the voting, you know, at lunchtime. Why don't you and I stroll around the yard, passing out candy bars. You know, to remind people. To vote, I mean."
Paul wasn't paying any attention whatsoever to Kelly, though. His ice-blue gaze was still on me.
"Well, Suze?" he called, above the clanging of locker doors and the hum of conversation - though we were supposed to be quiet during period changes, so as not to disturb the tourists. "Are you going to admit it or not?"
"You," I said, shaking my head, "are in need of intensive psychotherapy."
Then I started to walk past them.
"Paul." Kelly was tugging on Paul's leather coat now, darting nervous glances at me the whole time. "Paul. Hello. Earth to Paul. The election. Remember? The election? This afternoon?"
Then Paul did something that would, I realized soon after, go down in the annals of the Mission Academy - and not just because CeeCee saw it, too, and filed it away for later reporting in the Mission Bell. No, Paul did something no one, with the possible exception of me, had ever done in the whole of the eleven years Kelly had been attending the school:
He dissed her.
"Why can't you," he said, pulling his coat out from beneath her fingers, "leave me alone for five freaking minutes?"
Kelly, as stunned as if he had slapped her, went, "W-what?"
"You heard me," Paul said. Though he did not seem to be aware of it, everyone in the breezeway had stopped what they were doing suddenly, just so they could watch what he'd do next. "I am freaking sick of you and this stupid election and this stupid school. Got me? Now get out of my sight, before I say something I might regret."
Kelly blinked as if her contact lens had slipped out. "Paul!" she said with a gasp. "But. . . but. . . the election . . . the candy bars . . ."
Paul just looked at her. "You can take your candy bars," he said, "and stick them up your - "
"Mr. Slater!" One of the novices, who are assigned to patrol the breezeway between classes to make sure none of us gets too noisy, pounced on Paul. "Get to the principal's office, this instant!"
Paul suggested something to the novice that I was quite sure was going to earn him a suspension, if not expulsion. It was so inflammatory, in fact, that even / blushed on his behalf, and / have three stepbrothers, two of whom use that kind of language regularly when their father isn't around.
The novice burst into tears and went running for Father Dominic. Paul looked after her fleeing, black-gowned little figure, then at Kelly, who was also crying. Then he looked at me.
There was a lot in that look. Anger, impatience, disgust.
But most of all - and I do not think I was mistaken about this - there was hurt. Seriously. Paul was hurt by what I'd said to him.
It had never occurred to me that Paul could be hurt.
Maybe what I had said to Jesse - about Paul being lonely - had been right after all. Maybe the guy really did just need a friend.
But he certainly wasn't making many at the Mission Academy, that was for sure.
A second later, he'd broken eye contact with me, turned around, and strode out of the school. Shortly after that, I heard the rev of the engine of his convertible and then the squeal of his tires on the asphalt of the parking lot.
And Paul was gone.
"Well," CeeCee said with no small amount of relish as she came up t
o me. "Guess that takes care of the election, doesn't it?"
Then she held up my wrist, prizefighter-style. "All hail Madam Vice President!"
15
Paul didn't come back to school that day.
Not that anybody expected him to. A sort of all-points bulletin went through the eleventh grade, stating that, if Paul did come back, he would be put on automatic suspension for a week. Debbie Mancuso heard it from a sixth-grader who heard it from the secretary in Father Dom's office while she was there handing in a late pass.
It seemed the best thing that Paul stayed away until things cooled down a little. The novice he'd cursed at was rumored to have gone into hysterics, and had had to go lie down in the nurse's office with a cool compress across her forehead until she recovered. I had seen Father Dom looking grim faced, pacing around in front of the nurse's office door. I'd thought about going up to him and being all, "Told you so."
But it seemed too much like shooting fish in a barrel, so I stayed away.
Besides, I was still mad at him about the whole Jesse thing. The more I thought about it, the angrier I got. It was like the two of them had conspired against me. Like I was just a stupid sixteen-year-old girl with a crush they'd had to figure out some way to handle. Stupid Jesse was too scared even to tell me to my face he didn't like me. What did he think I was going to do, anyway? Pop him one in the face? Well, I sure felt like it now.
In between feeling like I just wanted to curl up somewhere and die.
I guess I wasn't alone in feeling that way. Kelly Prescott seemed to be feeling pretty bad, too. She handled her victimhood better than I did, though. She very dramatically tore the Slater part of the wrapper off all the candy bars she had left. Then she wrote Simon on the inside foil with a Sharpie instead. It appeared she and I were running mates once again.
I won the vice presidency of the Junipero Serra Mission Academy junior class unanimously, except for a single write-in vote for Brad Ackerman. Nobody wondered very much who could have voted for Brad. He hadn't even tried to disguise his handwriting.
Everyone forgave him, though, on account of the party he was throwing later that night. Guests had been instructed not to arrive until after ten, at which point it was determined that Jake, getting off his shift at Peninsula Pizza, would arrive with the keg and several dozen 'zas. Andy and my mom had left a note on the refrigerator that morning listing where they could be reached and forbidding us from having guests over while they were gone. Brad had found it particularly hilarious.
For my part, I had more important things to worry about than a stupid hot tub party.
Except that CeeCee and Adam wanted to go out after school to celebrate my victory - which really had turned out to be a hollow one, since my adversary had basically been kicked out of school. But Adam produced a bottle of sparkling cider for the occasion, and I couldn't say no to that, of course. He and CeeCee had both worked so hard on my campaign, to which I had contributed exactly nothing - well, except for a single slogan. I felt guilty enough that I rode with them to the beach after school, and stayed there long enough to toast the sunset, a custom dating back to the first time I'd won a student election, way back when I'd first moved to Carmel, eight months earlier.
When I got home, I discovered several things. One: some of the guests had started arriving early, among them Debbie Mancuso, who had always had a bit of a crush on Brad, ever since the night I caught the two of them making out in the pool house one time at Kelly Prescott's. And two: she knew all about Jesse.
Or at least she thought she did.
"So who's this guy Brad says you're seeing, Suze?" she wanted to know, as she stood at the kitchen counter, artfully stacking plastic cups in preparation for the keg's arrival. Brad was outside with a couple of his cronies, giving the hot tub a heavy dose of chlorine, no doubt in anticipation of all the bacteria it was going to become filled with, once some of his more unsavory friends slid into it.
Debbie was in full-on party wear, which included a midriff-baring halter top and these balloony harem pants that I guess she thought hid the size of her butt, which was not small, but that really only made it look bigger. I don't like to be disparaging of members of my own sex, but Debbie Mancuso really was a bit of a parasite. She had been sucking Kelly dry for years. I just hoped she wouldn't turn her suckers on me next.
"Just a guy," I said coolly, moving past her to get a diet soda from the fridge. I was going to need a heavy-duty caffeine buzz, I knew, to fortify myself for the evening - first confronting Jesse, then the party.
"Does he go to RLS?" Debbie wanted to know.
"No," I said, cracking open the soda. Brad had, I saw, removed the note from Andy and my mom. Well, it was a little embarrassing, I guess. "He isn't in high school."
Debbie's eyes widened. She was impressed. "Really? He's in college, then? Does Jake know him?"
"No," I said.
When I did not elaborate, Debbie went, "That was really weird today, huh? About that Paul guy, I mean."
"Yeah," I said. I wondered whether or not Jesse was upstairs, waiting for me, or if he was just going to leave without saying good-bye. The way things had been going lately, I was betting on the latter.
"I kind of ... I mean, some of the girls were saying ..." Debbie, never the most articulate of people, seemed to be having more trouble than usual spitting out what she wanted to say. "That that Paul guy seems to ... like you."
"Yeah?" I smiled without warmth. "Well, at least someone does."
Then I drifted up the stairs to my room.
On my way up, I met David, coming down. He was carrying a sleeping bag, backpack, and the laptop he had won at computer camp for designing the most progressive video game. Max trailed on a leash behind him.
"Where are you going?" I asked him.
"Todd's house," he said. Todd was David's best friend. "He said Max and I could stay the night. I mean, it's not like anybody's going to be able to get any sleep around here tonight."
"A wise decision," I said approvingly.
"You should do the same thing," David suggested. "Stay over at CeeCee's."
"I would," I said, saluting him with my soda. "But I have a little business to attend to here."
David shrugged. "Okay. But don't say I didn't warn you."
Then he and Max continued down the stairs.
I was not surprised to find that Jesse was not in my room when I got there. Coward. I kicked off my slides, went into the bathroom, and locked the door. Not that locked doors make any difference to ghosts. And not that Jesse was going to show up anyway. I just felt more secure that way.
Then I ran a bath, undressed, and sank into it, letting the warm water caress my battered feet and soothe my tired body. Too bad there was nothing I could do to comfort my aching heart. Chocolate might have helped, maybe, but I didn't happen to have any in my bathroom.
The worst part of it all was that, deep down, I knew Father Dom was right about Jesse's moving out. It was better this way. I mean, what was the alternative? That he stayed here, and I just kept pining away for him? Unrequited love is all right in books and things, but in real life, it completely sucks.
It was just that - "and this was the part that hurt the most - I could have sworn, all those weeks ago when he'd kissed me, that he'd felt something for me. Really. And I'm not talking about what I'd felt for Paul, which was, let's face it, lust. I'm warm for the guy's form, 111 admit it. But I don't love him.
I'd been so sure - so, so sure - that Jesse loved me.
But, obviously, I'd been wrong. Well, I was wrong most of the time. So what else was new?
After I'd soaked for a while, I got out of the tub. I rebandaged my feet, then slid into my most comfortable, hole-filled jeans, the ones my mom told me I was never allowed to wear in public and was always threatening to throw away, coupled with a faded black silk T.
Then I walked back into my room, and found Jesse sitting in his usual place on the window seat, Spike on his lap.
He knew. I saw with a single glance that he knew Father Dom had talked to me and that he was just waiting - warily - to see what my reaction was going to be.
Not wanting to disappoint him, I said very politely, "Oh, you're still here? I thought you would have moved to the rectory by now."
"Susannah," he said. His voice was as low as Spikes got when he growled at Max through my bedroom door.
"Don't let me stop you," I said. "I hear there's going to be a lot of action over at the mission tonight. You know, getting ready for the big feast tomorrow. Lots of pinatas left to stuff, I hear. You should have a blast."
I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but I swear I don't know where they were coming from. I had told myself, back in the tub, that I was going to be mature and sensible about the whole thing. And here I was being peevish and childish, and it wasn't even a minute into the conversation.
"Susannah," Jesse said, standing up. "You must know it's better this way."
"Oh," I said with a shrug to show him how very, very unconcerned I was with the whole thing. "Sure. Give my regards to Sister Ernestine."
He just stood there, looking at me. I couldn't read his expression. If I'd ever been able to, I'd have known better than to have let myself fall in love with him. You know, on account of the whole his-not-loving-me-back thing. His eyes were dark - as dark as Paul's were light - and inscrutable.
"So that's all," he said, sounding, for reasons I couldn't begin to fathom, angry. "That's all you have to say to me?"
I couldn't believe it. He had some gall! Imagine, him being mad at me't
"Yes," I said. Then I remembered something. "Oh, no, wait."
The dark eyes flashed. "Yes?"
"Craig," I said. "I forgot about Craig. How is he doing?"
The dark eyes were hooded once again. Jesse seemed almost disappointed. As if he had anything to feel disappointed about! / was the one whose heart was being ripped out of her chest.
"He's the same," Jesse said. "Unhappy about being dead. If you want, I can have Father Dominic - "
