Beads of water race down me and puddle onto the linoleum floor. I realize I’m standing in Leo’s house wearing nothing but my soaked underwear and bra. I can only imagine what would happen if his parents walked in right now. I dry off as best as I can with the towel then reach for Mom’s dress, which Leo left lying on top of a dryer.
I slide the dress over me, but my bra and underwear are still so soaked they are going to get the dress wet. I don’t relish this decision but realize it must be made. I unsnap and pull off my bra, then wiggle out of my wet panties. I frantically zip up my dress one-handed while trying to figure out what to do with my wet underwear. I spot a garbage can next to the dryer and toss them in covering them up with a few dryer sheets. Luckily they weren’t my favorites. This is by far the weirdest thing I’ve ever done, but I can’t have Leo come back finding me with underwear in my hand.
A few minutes later, he peeks around the corner and gestures for me to follow him. I tiptoe after him, finding it insanely difficult to be quiet. I want to scream with joy that I’m in Leo’s house. Leo chose me to be with tonight. I almost wish that Erika and Jack knew I was here so I could prove them both wrong about Leo.
He holds a door open for me that leads downstairs. I grab the handrails on both sides of the stairs to avoid tumbling headfirst in these heels. I reach the last stair and stop because the room is pitch black and I can’t see anything. Leo moves in front of me, takes my hand, and leads me through the room.
When he flips on the lights, I’m surprised to see a plush living area with couches, a flat screen television, and a wet bar. I had expected a cold, dank basement filled with boxes of Christmas decorations. Leo disappears behind the bar only to resurface seconds later with a beer in one hand and a familiar-looking can in the other. I recognize it as the energy drink Erika chugs before school every day. Leo hands it out to me and I reluctantly accept.
He pops the top on his beer and starts chugging. I stand there feeling awkward because I don’t want to seem rude, but I don’t think I should drink anymore of this stuff. I’m finally starting to feel like I could sit still without tearing my hair out and I don’t want to ruin my time with Leo by getting crazy hyper again. Not to mention the fact that I’m not wearing any underwear so I don’t want to take any chances that I might have the uncontrollable urge to strip again.
“Cheers to you, Laney Wentworth, Higginsville High’s valedictorian,” Leo says, banging his can against mine. “C’mon, let’s toast to you,” he urges. I guess one more sip isn’t going to hurt me.
I pop the can open and guzzle down the strong tasting drink. It isn’t nearly as good as the punch but I figure a tiny bit more won’t hurt me. He gives me a smile that doesn’t meet his eyes and a mental picture of The Grinch pops into my head for some reason. I’m starting to get a weird vibe off him, or maybe this is just another punch side effect.
A ringing interrupts the silence hanging over us. He stares at my purse and I realize that it’s my phone ringing. I pull it out of my purse to see Erika’s cell phone number flashing on the screen.
Leo leans forward to grab it and I instinctively jerk away.
“Don’t answer it. Please,” he adds sweetly.
“I should probably let Erika know where I am,” I say, swallowing past the newly formed lump in my throat. Deep in the pit of my stomach an alarm is going off. Something feels off, which is crazy considering how long I’ve dreamt about this very scenario.
“Let’s have one drink, then you can go back to your friends.”
“Sure,” I agree, realizing how paranoid I’m being. I slide over the decline button then set it carefully back in my purse, my hands shaking the whole time. Without even thinking, I suck down the entire can of energy drink out of pure nervousness.
“Should we get back to the party now?” I ask, feeling my pulse already start to quicken. I hate the fact that Jack was right. These drinks are doing something to me. I want to get back to Erika before I do something truly stupid this time.
“There’s one more tiny thing,” Leo says, gesturing at something in a dark corner behind me.
I turn around to see Amelia stepping out of the shadows holding something that is buzzing loudly. What is she doing here and why is she holding a taser gun? I turn to Leo for answers but he grabs my arms and pins them behind me, my purse and empty can tumble to the floor.
“You just couldn’t be second best, could you?” Leo growls at me. “Do you know how humiliating it’s been chasing after you all these years? I even hijacked your lab project sophomore year, but it still didn’t make a difference.”
Jack was telling the truth. Leo stole our lab project out of his locker. I can’t believe I’ve spent two years penalizing him for something Leo did. I thought Leo was being such a gentleman when he offered to stand up with me, when it turns out he’s the whole reason why Jack was a no show. This changes everything. I have to get to Jack so that I can apologize.
Amelia is dangerously close to me with what I now realize is an electric razor.
“I’m sorry I’m smarter than you,” I plead with Leo, trying to twist out of his grip.
“Are you really?” he asks, laughing like a deranged person. “I got you to come here, didn’t I? I tricked you into thinking that I liked you.”
His words sting worse than that razor probably will. I was really starting to believe that Leo liked me when it was all just an act. These two have been cohorts from the beginning. Even Jack tried to warn me. For someone supposedly so smart, I’ve been a real idiot.
“You’ll never get away with this,” I yell, not even sure what they’re trying to get away with.
“Let’s show her what it feels like to be humiliated, sweetie,” Leo says to Amelia. “Give her the Mr. Clean.”
Oh my God, they’re going to shave my head. I kick so furiously Mom’s heels come flying off. Leo winds one of his legs around both of mine. I jerk back and forth so hard I feel lightheaded. I’m not going to be able to stop this, I think, feeling the vibration of the razor on my forehead. I’m going to have to walk back into Josie’s party in front of everyone, completely bald. If they only knew how completely humiliated I already am thinking that Leo liked me, they wouldn’t even have to shave my head. I try to scream, but nothing comes out, not that it would matter, anyway. I feel pressure on my forehead then everything goes black.
Chapter Four
I’m having a dream where I have to pee super bad. I’m in a restroom that only has one stall and there are twelve pregnant women in front of me in line. I’m contemplating using the sink when I jolt awake. Everything is pitch black, not at all like the bright fluorescent lights from my bathroom dream. I have no idea where I am and I’m terrified, especially when I realize the only thing I carried over from my dream was an excruciatingly full bladder.
I try not to panic but my head is throbbing, making calm thinking impossible. Where am I? What time is it? I don’t remember falling asleep. Am I at Erika’s house? But I’m not in a bed. I’m not even lying down. I’m propped up against something hard. My butt is vibrating, there are all kinds of muffled sounds around me, and I feel constricted. I think somebody has me in a strait-jacket, but then I move my arms and realize it’s not a strait-jacket after all. Slowly, I realize I’m moving. Rather, whatever I’m in is moving. I must be in somebody’s car, on my way home from the party. But it’s so dark. It reminds me of the haunted house Erika talked me into going to last fall. I cover my face with my hands anticipating something spooky is about to pop out at me.
After a few seconds, nothing grabs me so I spread my fingers a little but I still can’t see anything but darkness. Tentatively, I reach my hands out in front of me, but there is nothing but air. A tiny sliver of light is peeking out from beside one of my legs and I put my hand out to grab it. My fingers grip a flashlight and the relief of being able to see again has the unexpected benefit of lowering my heart rate from dangerously-close-to-a-stroke down to a more manageable killer-headache-from-hell le
vel.
I massage my forehead with one hand while using the other to shine the beam of light around. Instead of the house of horrors I expected, I am surrounded by mountains of cardboard boxes contained in a larger metal box. My ever-so-helpful memory immediately accesses a story I read once about a girl getting kidnapped and held in a storage container never to be heard from again until her bones were found ten years later. I mentally cuss my brain for conjuring up that memory, but not how the heck I got in here. A soft whistling noise dangerously close to my side makes the hair on my arms prickle. I aim the flashlight directly at it.
The light illuminates black patent leather dress shoes, black dress pants, a white dress shirt and black jacket. A kidnapper in a tuxedo. I try to remember what Leo was wearing last night in hopes that I really ended up in some strange place with him. I vaguely remember him wearing shorts, but maybe he changed. Please God, let this be Leo.
Waking up somewhere strange and not having a clue about how I got here is not okay. This is exactly why I knew going to that stupid party would backfire on me. I’m completely stalling because I don’t really want to see the face of the sleeping tuxedo wearer. What if it’s some nut job wearing one of those Scream masks? I will completely lose my overflowing bladder all over. I ease the light farther up, holding my breath. The beam glows over a familiar silhouette, sleeping peacefully, looking angelic even though he probably has horns under that mop of curly hair. Startled, I drop the flashlight and it starts to roll away from me.
I scramble to pick it back up quietly, not wanting to wake him up. I flash the light back over his face to be sure I didn’t imagine it, careful not to put it right in his eyes because I’m not ready to deal with him yet. He’s wearing the most ridiculous black top hat, and I hate how cute he looks.
How in the world did I end up stuck in the back of some sort of vehicle with Jack McAllister? He must have drugged me. Okay, maybe not drugged me because Jack doesn’t do drugs, but maybe he told me there was a hurt puppy in the truck and I climbed inside and then he shut the door and trapped me in here. It’s the only logical explanation.
I move the light off Jack and toward the back of the truck to see if I can possibly escape before he wakes up. It probably isn’t the best decision, since we are moving, but I’d rather be road kill than spend a minute alone with Jack. But there is no handle. The entire door has to be pulled up…from the outside. That means Jack is a victim here, too, unless he paid the driver to take us somewhere. But where? And why?
I could give Jack one good tap with the flashlight to wake him up and ask him. But I need a bit more time to acclimate to my situation without him aggravating me. I would never admit it to Jack, but he has some weird effect on me that makes my normally rapid-firing brain cells sputter a bit. So I need to make sure I bring my A game before he wakes up. I can’t show him any of the pure fear I’m feeling and hopefully this stupid little prank of his will be over and I’ll be back to the party before Leo realizes I’m missing.
I’m sure this whole thing is Jack’s stupid version of Punked but that doesn’t explain my killer headache and passing out. I move the light around from side to side seeing nothing but boxes. Jack and I are actually surrounded by them and if someone opened the back of the truck they wouldn’t even know we were here unless we popped out at them. Jack sure went to a lot of trouble to carry out this little scheme.
The splinter of light from the flashlight is cutting into my pounding head, so even though I don’t want to shut it off, I need to get a little relief. I lean my head back against the cardboard boxes and try to remember the last thing I can remember doing. We hit a bump and I hear some of the boxes shift, but Jack doesn’t seem to move a muscle. My hair gets tangled in between two boxes and I gently pull it out. That’s when I realize that my normal frizzy hair is back and not the silken locks that Mom worked so hard on. That could only have happened if my hair got wet. I went swimming. Of course, I remember now. I had the entire pool to myself. Jack threw a hot dog at me. Then something happened and everybody went running inside.
Inside, where Leo and Amelia were. Now it’s coming back to me. Jack and Erika practically ran Leo off, forcing him to start getting chummy with Amelia. Okay, so he didn’t really have to get chummy with Amelia, but if they wouldn’t have bothered us, Leo would never have gone inside with Amelia. I have an almost uncontrollable desire to punch Jack in the face, but that would wake him up.
Although, I’m not quite sure how much longer I’m going to be able to keep up this charade because I have to pee so bad it’s about to come out my eyeballs. An idea pops into my head. But I couldn’t. It would serve Jack right though for dragging me away from the party. He definitely deserves some payback. I turn the light back on and stagger to my feet gripping the edges of boxes with one hand to steady myself. It’s not easy to do with the constant movement underneath me.
These dreadful heels of Mom’s I’m still wearing get snagged on something so I focus the light down and see my purse. My heart soars knowing my phone is inside and this will all be over soon. Maybe I’ll even press charges against Jack for taking me against my will. Okay, probably not, but I’ll be tempted. One-handed, I unzip my purse and retrieve my phone. I push the on button but nothing happens. It’s completely dead. How can it be dead? I’m obsessive about keeping it charged in case Dad calls. I flip it over and slide the back off to see my battery is missing.
That’s it. I’m totally going ahead with my idea for retribution against Jack. A few boxes tip over making an opening. I attempt to straddle the remaining boxes and climb over but my dress is making practically any movement impossible. I remember Mom’s dress being fairly tight but this is ridiculous. I shine the light on my dress to reveal a full-length, strapless evening gown covered in gold sequins and not the emerald halter dress I had on earlier. It’s exquisite even though I feel like I’m suffocating in it. The sweetheart neckline plunges making it very apparent I’m no longer wearing a bra. This is not good. I swear, if I find out Jack saw me naked, I’m going to kill him.
This dress is so tight I can only take baby steps or I’ll blow it out and the last thing I need is to be half naked when Jack comes to. I hobble over into a claustrophobic aisle and make my way carefully through the maze of boxes, shining the flashlight on them to read their inscriptions. All this stuff must belong to Jack’s family. Maybe they had to move again. I almost feel guilty but then feel the sequins brush against my skin reminding me that Jack is not to be pitied, especially if he has seen any of my unmentionables. I see a box marked Zander’s bedroom that I throw open but it only yields Star Wars themed bedding. I’ve heard that name before. It had to have been from Jack. I bet that is his little brother’s name. I continue on my mission and the flashlight beam lands on a towel draped over something in the corner. I make my way over to it, careful not to make any noise because I still haven’t rehearsed what I’m going to scream at Jack when he wakes up.
I lift up a corner of the towel to reveal a large plastic bin with a grated metal door. The light shines inside the bin onto something pale yellow and lilac-colored. I don’t know what it is but the smooth texture reminds me of a pair of Mom’s outrageously expensive shoes. I move the light further in the bin when it reflects back at me in a pair of ruby red eyes. A sliver of red forked tongue flicks out causing me to fall backward and tumble into a box. I wiggle out of the box shining my light back toward what I now know was a cage to make sure the giant snake hadn’t suddenly formed opposable thumbs and opened the cage to come after me.
I clutch my chest and try to resume normal breathing while getting as far away from that cage as I can. In another corner I spot a fat Oriental vase that is exactly what I was looking for. I gather the skirt of my newly acquired ball gown and squat on top of the vase. This isn’t my finest moment by far, but when I think of how priceless it would be to see the expression on Jack’s face when his mother asks him why her favorite vase is filled with pee, I don’t have any problem releasing my bladd
er into the vase. It feels so good not to have to hold it anymore that I accidentally drop the flashlight and it rolls away. I’ve broken the seal now so there is no stopping midstream to retrieve it.
I can still see a small sliver of light as it rolls away so I’m not too worried. I must have drunk my weight in punch last night. I wonder if Jack was right about me overdosing on caffeine and that’s why I can’t remember everything right now. I felt fine in the pool and I didn’t drink any punch after that. At least I don’t think I did. I’m so confused about everything. I bury my throbbing head in my hands and continue filling the vase. It dawns on me that I didn’t have any underwear to pull down before hopping onto the vase. That means I’m completely naked under this dress. Holy crap, I am not the kind of girl who wakes up missing her underwear. What in the world happened to me last night?
“Dimples, what are you doing?” Jack asks, shining the light right on me.
*****
“Stop calling me that,” I rant, after I’ve screamed at Jack to move away from me so I can drip-dry and fix my dress. “Is this your idea of a joke? Kidnapping me and holding me hostage against my will?”
“Calm down,” he orders, which ignites my temper further.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. Do you know how many people are probably looking for me? How long have I been gone? You’re going to jail for this, you know?”
He shines the light right in my eyes, nearly blinding me, but doesn’t say a word. I swear he is the most irritating person alive.
I take a few deep breaths and try to calm down since it is obvious Jack isn’t going to end this until I do. “Can you please tell me why you put me here?” I ask calmly, gritting my teeth.
He turns the flashlight up to the roof so the beam illuminates most of both of us. He rubs his free hand over his face like he is deeply considering my answer. His expression freaks me out more than if he would have whipped out a Joker-like smile and immediately admitted to being the mastermind behind my mysterious abduction.
High School Hangover Page 6
