by Blair Holden
To others she might come across as a little scary, but she’s one hell of a friend.
“So will you tell me why you were running away from me like you’ve just killed someone and why you’re dressed like . . . that?” She turns her nose up at my appearance and I try not to be offended. I dressed like this for the better part of my life and nobody ever had a problem with it then.
“You don’t know?”
Apparently this is the worst thing to say to someone who feeds off gossip.
A crazed look comes over her face as her eyes become frantic. “What? What don’t I know?”
“Cole Stone’s coming back.” I gulp and there’s a telling pause. The pause that echoes what I already know. The shock that comes across Megan’s face lasts for only ten seconds as pity replaces it. She places her hand over mine and solemnly says, “I’m sorry.”
***
“I don’t get what the big deal is. Why is this Cole person so scary?” Beth asks as she takes a bite of her cheeseburger. Her face scrunches up in disgust as she spits it all out. Two years in this place and she’s not realized how bad the food is. We’re sitting hidden, in the farthest corner of the cafeteria that I could find and, surprisingly, I’ve made it to lunch alive.
Megan cuts me off before I even open my mouth. “Cole is Tessa’s stalker,” she says with ease.
Beth’s eyes bulge before I correct Megan. “He’s not my stalker. He’s just someone specifically designed to torture me,” I say in an eerily calm manner.
“It can’t be that bad.” Beth shrugs and digs around her bag until she pulls out a half-eaten pack of chips that’s been folded over repeatedly.
“Yes, it can’t be bad because you know what’s bad? Bad is when you run out of chocolate and Ryan Gosling during the week, Beth. Cole and his reign of terror deserve a far better title.” Once again Megan has taken to speaking for me. Hello—it’s my bully we’re discussing here.
“Is he hot?” Beth asks, smirking, and it takes a second for the question to register. I wait a few seconds to answer as I pull the proverbial knife from my back. Why does it matter if he’s hot? Hot monsters are still monsters.
“Honey, that boy puts Michelangelo’s David to shame!” Megan sighs dreamily.
I hit her arm and she pouts. “It’s true, though, that guy is hot.”
If only she were wrong.
***
Last period arrives without me running into either of the twin horrors, Nicole or Cole. But that’s largely because Nicole’s been stuck in dance practice all day. The last class is unfortunately PE and while I’m now much more comfortable with my body, the Fatty Tessie inside me still struggles to put on gym shorts while parading in front of judgmental teenage boys.
But I still have to because PE is a mandatory torture right up there with mystery meat Monday. The bell for last period allows me to put my guard down. It’s safe to suppose that Cole isn’t in school today and since I haven’t seen Nicole, I realize that it’s been a pretty good day. Too soon, these words just came out too soon. I mentally curse myself and bite my tongue when I hear her.
“Hey, Fatty.” Gritting my teeth, I morph my face into a neutral expression. Turning on my heels in the locker room, I come face-to-face with the she-devil herself.
“Nicole,” I say, acknowledging her presence.
She stands there in her purple-and-yellow dance outfit, which basically consists of skimpy skirt and an even skimpier cropped top. Her dark hair is pulled into a high ponytail and allows her features to stand out. Her skin is unblemished as always and the perfect caramel color. Her outfit accentuates the hazel in her eyes and her full lips are smeared with neutral gloss. My ex-best friend is a stunner and she knows it. Her Latin heritage makes her stick out amid the pale-skinned, fair-haired majority.
How she manages to look so good despite spending the day in a sweaty gym baffles me.
“I see you still aren’t doing the hip reduction exercises I told you about.”
Right. Mock me and my supposed huge butt.
“They don’t seem to have worked on you so I decided it would be a waste of my time.” The word vomit happens occasionally around her. I know better than to retaliate, but this day has taken its toll on me. I’m exhausted and honest-to-God sick of being afraid.
She sneers and closes the distance between us until a few inches of space separate us. She obviously means to intimidate me and it has surely worked.
“What did you say?”
“Uh-uh nothing—I said nothing,” I stutter, the bravado fast disappearing.
“That’s what I thought. Now move out of my way before I crush you like the roadkill you are.” She growls and literally shoves me out of her way.
After she leaves I find myself standing in the same spot for about ten minutes, struggling to stop myself from hyperventilating. I am not good with confrontations, and God knows what propelled me to talk back to Queen Bitch. I do some of the breathing exercises I’ve seen on TV, which prove to be pretty pointless. Still in shock mode, I walk to my locker, which is where I stash my gym bag and phone. I’ve taken to changing the combination every few months after a prank by Nicole and her cronies.
It’s more mortifying to walk around the school naked in real life than in any nightmare you’ll ever have.
After securing my belongings, I make my way back to the gym, only to be interrupted for the third time that day. This time, however, my heart reacts in the totally opposite way to how it had reacted to seeing Nicole.
My heart flutters, it flutters!
“There you are, Tessa. I’ve been looking for you all day.” Jason Stone comes into my line of sight, and I lean back against my locker to stop myself from fainting at the sight of his smile. He looks like a blond Adonis in his gym clothes. His strong, toned runner’s legs and bulging biceps make my eyes glaze over.
“You have?” I sigh dreamily as he nears me, then mentally slap myself for sounding so silly. “You have?” I repeat with a deeper voice, yet I manage to sound like my dad when he choked on a bone last week.
“Yeah, I have. I’ve been meaning to talk to you since yesterday, actually.”
I know I should listen to him, he’s obviously saying something important. But he’s just so beautiful. I let my eyes roam over his body, his face, his perfect blond hair . . .
“Tessa?” He waves a hand in front of my face, making me crash-land into reality.
“Wh-what?”
“I wanted to know if you were okay.”
“I’m fine,” I reply, knowing that a full-blown smile’s on my face this very second. Jay’s so cute, caring about me, asking if I’m okay, talking to me even though his girlfriend is vehemently against it.
“Really?” He seems surprised. I wonder why?
“Yeah, totally. I was a little feverish on Sunday, but nothing some good old chicken soup can’t help.”
“No—I wasn’t—” He looks so cute when he’s confused!
“What?”
“What?” he repeats, his face scrunched up in adorable confusion. We take a second to regroup and I pull myself together. Jay squares his shoulders and looks at me sympathetically.
“Look, Tessa, I thought you should know that Cole’s coming back. He left a message and he’s going to spend his senior year here, at home.”
I know all of that, you beautiful creature, because I spend my weekend nights stalking you. But he doesn’t really need to know that. Time to put my nonexistent acting skills into play.
“What? Are you serious? I . . . wow, is he really coming back?” I exclaim.
“Yeah, he is.” Is it just me, or does Jay look as unhappy about it as I am? “I just wanted to see if you’re okay since your relationship with Cole . . .”
“It’s not a relationship, Jay, it’s tyranny. He’s Bush and I’m like his mini Afghanistan.”
He laughs, and the cute little dimples appear on his cheeks, making me melt.
“I forgot how funny you were.” His blue ey
es shine as he grins at me, oh boy.
“Look, if he gives you any trouble, you come to me, okay?” he says seriously and I nod.
“You’ll protect me?” I sound sappy to my own ears but to hell with it.
Jay scratches the back of his neck and mutters “yes” as I resist the urge to kiss the life out of him.
“Thank you, Jay, it means a lot to me.” There is a faint tinge of pink on his cheeks and it stays there when we walk into the gym together. Thankfully Nicole isn’t there, and for that hour I pretend that Jay is mine and that everything is perfect.
Chapter Two : I’m Her Evil Russian Twin, Svetlana
“So, honey, I hear that Cole’s back,” my father says as we sit together for dinner.
Oh, he isn’t back yet. If he was, then I wouldn’t be sitting here in one piece, I think as I angrily stab a pea.
“He is? I didn’t know,” I reply, and my mother snorts in disbelief and chuckles.
“You two always were so adorable together. That boy could just never leave you alone,” she reminisces fondly as I struggle to contemplate which part of the misery I had been put through looked “adorable” to my mother.
“I wish he had,” I grumble.
“Now Tess, we can’t have you on bad terms with the sheriff’s son, can we? It’s election year and we need all the help we can get,” my dad says, and I give him my best “are you kidding me?” look. If he wants me to suck up to my nemesis just to make him win an election, he can kiss his office good-bye.
“Especially since your father was such a disappointment this last term,” my mom says sweetly, but making sure that her words sting as much as they can. I can sense the beginnings of a fight, so I finish my dinner in record time. All thoughts of Cole are forgotten and I rush upstairs before someone starts throwing cutlery around.
“Travis, get up!” I shout outside my brother’s door, knocking on it loudly three times and stopping when he utters his usual greeting, the F word. This is part of our daily ritual. Alarm clocks don’t work for my older brother, so I’ve taken on the duty of making sure he hasn’t slipped into a coma.
It might seem strange that my brother wakes up around dinnertime, but we’ve all gotten used to his nocturnal nature. My parents understand that they’ve lost their prodigal son, and I’ve realized that the best way to deal with new Travis is to keep a safe distance.
See, Travis is now twenty-one and still living at home because he got kicked out of his college. For plagiarizing a paper at that, pretty dumb for a straight-A student. Then the love of his life dumped him and he resorted to alcohol in order to, and I quote, “Deal with this shit.”
Ever since last year he’s almost always been chronically hungover, and as much as my father wants to, he can’t do anything about it. He’s the mayor and he can’t be airing his dirty laundry in public. When someone asks about Travis, we simply either ignore them or say something along the lines of how he’s working on his other “ambitions,” such as writing the next great American novel.
In the middle of this dysfunctional family we have me. Unhinged and facing a nuclear attack; others might refer to it as Cole Stone’s return.
***
I plop down on my bed and take out the material needed for my homework. I have an essay due tomorrow, which I’ve written already. Okay, so I outlined and wrote it the day it was assigned, but double-checking never hurts. It’s what you do when doing homework is the only thing you have to occupy yourself with. Nicole has made sure that I’m shunned from any sort of activity that might actually involve me being social.
I’m proofreading the essay and adding footnotes when my dad enters my room. His face is flushed and it’s because of the screaming match that just ended downstairs.
“Are you free, Tess?” he asks expectantly.
“Well, not exactly, I have this assignment—”
It’s like he hasn’t even heard what I just said as he thrusts a folder into my hands. “Good, I need you to take these to the sheriff right now. I would’ve done it myself but I’m going to head out and he needs these right away.”
“But Dad . . .”
He wants me to go to the Stones’? Is he out of his mind? Am I that big of a disappointment to him that he’s readily sending me to my end? I can’t go to the sheriff’s house because that sheriff fathered Cole. If Cole’s back, then going over to his place is as inviting as poking a beehive. Been there, done that, and it’s not pleasant.
“You’ll do exactly as I say, Tess, or you’ll be grounded,” he says smugly.
“Then ground me,” I tell him with a huge grin on my face.
It’s not like I go anywhere except the mall at times with Megan and Beth. Neither of them is a keen shopper so we mostly end up sitting at Starbucks and Beth winds up inside a music store, lost for hours as Megan shares gossip.
He sighs. “Just do it, Tess, and no arguments. I would’ve sent your brother, but since it’s morning according to whatever clock he lives by, he’ll either be too drunk to function or too hungover to actually comprehend what I just said.”
“But Dad, Cole might be there, and you of all people know how bad he is to me!” I whine, practically willing to fall to his feet and beg him not to make me go.
“Now is not the time for theatrics, sweetheart. Take these papers and go.” He pulls me upright and basically pushes me toward the door.
“You’re a cruel and heartless parent; you know that, right?” I say as he walks me down the stairs and to the front door, which he oh so graciously opens for me.
“You don’t become the mayor by being nice. Now hurry along.”
Then he shuts the door in my face.
Bloody brilliant. I wonder how many bones I’d break trying to sneak back into my room.
***
I wish I could say that the Stone residence is miles and miles away. If that were the case, I could say that I experienced severe dehydration, fainted, and ended up at the local hospital. The image of my father apologizing profusely for being such a dictator is surprisingly pleasant.
Sadly for me, the universe never fails to deliver, and it only takes about five minutes before I end up outside their mammoth three-story house. Farrow Hill is a town filled with people who have old money. Houses are more like estates, and the residents tend to be obscenely rich. Sheriff Stone may not be making millions but he comes from money and it shows. It’s the same for my own parents, which means that I’ve long stopped being intimidated by the grandeur.
My hand lingers on the bell as I imagine all the possible scenarios that might occur if Cole actually is inside. Most of them end up with me in the local hospital with a lot of broken bones and a badly bruised ego. While Cole has never physically hurt me, many of his pranks have been designed to target my obvious lack of coordination, and somehow I always end up in a cast. Now, even though I haven’t been there for nearly four years, it’s not like I exactly miss the place and the wonderful smell of disinfectant. I’d rather not visit old Martha, who’s my favorite nurse, anytime soon.
I squeeze my eyes shut and press the damned buzzer twice. After waiting five minutes, I decide to turn the doorknob. Maybe I’m lucky and no one’s home. That way I can drop off the papers without human interaction.
The sheriff often spends long hours at the police station, and his second wife, Jay’s mom Cassandra, is a doctor who works late-night shifts at the hospital. Jay could be out, too, I think grudgingly. He could be canoodling with Nicole, and the thought makes me clench my fists.
Luckily, I turn the knob and the door opens. Saying a quick thank-you prayer, I stick my head inside to find the entrance room empty. A single light illuminates the path to the kitchen, which is mostly dark. From memory I recall that the boys’ rooms are upstairs while Sheriff Stone’s is down here. I step in lightly, just so that I don’t make a sound. I was told to deliver the papers to a person and not just leave them lying around, but I could always tell my dad that no one was home. I walk farther into the house clut
ching the file in my hands, treading lightly. I leave the folder on a small desk that holds some other important-looking documents.
“Think fast, Tessie!” comes a voice that sends chills up my spine, and my head shoots up instinctively. A rookie mistake after all these years.
The moment I look up I see the bucket in his hands but as usual am too slow to respond. Cole stands half hidden behind the banisters and spills the contents of said bucket directly onto me, and in a matter of seconds I am completely drenched in a mixture of ice-cold water and green food coloring.
While the shock settles in, I hear the burst of evil laughter that erupts from the monster’s mouth. I stand there open-mouthed and soaked, the fact that I’d just been pranked not settling in.
He basically skips down the stairs, still laughing, as I stand rooted to my spot.
“Ah, Tessie, how I’ve missed you.” He chuckles when he nears me but the amusement in his face dies when he sees me. “You’re not Tessie.” He frowns, standing right in front of me.
Ladies and gentlemen, meet Cole Stone. An entire six feet one of pure evilness, he could fool the world with his shaggy brown hair and baby blue eyes, but not me. On first seeing him, any other person would see a devastatingly gorgeous, runway model God, but I’d call that person a fool. I see him for exactly who he is, and that’s the devil incarnate. He’s a jerk, a complete dickleweed filled and, and he’s . . .
Checking me out. Gosh darn it! I need him to stop staring at me while I look like a drenched green Smurfette.
“But you’re still an immature nincompoop,” I seethe as I pull my soaked T-shirt away from me and push away the hair that’s stuck to my mouth. Attractive, Tessa, attractive.
“You called me a nincompoop and you’re in my house when Tessie’s father said she’d be here. Who are you and what have you done to my shortcake?” he exclaims, gripping my shoulders and pushing me forward.
