A stray tear trickled down my cheek. You wiped it with your thumb, saying that you couldn’t possibly imagine what I was talking about. “I’d love to get to spend more time with you,” you said.
I wanted to ask you why, but I couldn’t, because more tears dripped down my face. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, feeling like such a freak, disappointed to be letting you down.
“Don’t be. Just let me be here for you.” You slipped an arm around my shoulders. The embrace was awkward and stiff. Like me.
“Just let me be your friend,” you said.
I continued to let you hold me, even though my gut told me to pull away.
…
IN MY ROOM, I change into a pair of sweats and then lie back on my bed. My bedroom window is open a crack, and the cool March air filters into the room, making me feel more alive than I have in a long time, despite all the drama in my life.
I draw the covers up, still able to feel Adam’s arms around me. I close my eyes, imagining him here beside me, and thinking how comforting it is to always know exactly what’s on his mind.
A second later, my cell phone rings. I pick it up, hoping it’s Kimmie and that she’s feeling every bit as horrible as I am that we haven’t talked.
But it’s actually Ben.
“Is everything okay?” he asks as soon as I say hello.
I sit up in bed, suspicious of his seemingly perfect timing. “Why wouldn’t it be?” I ask him.
“Just making sure. We kind of left things weird the other day,” he says.
“Is that the only reason?”
“Should there be another?”
I look out my window, remembering the nights when he used to linger outside, waiting for me to come home. “You aren’t outside my house, are you?” I ask, almost feeling paranoid.
But the street looks fairly empty tonight. I don’t see his motorcycle parked anywhere.
“Ben?” I say, when he doesn’t answer. There’s a tense silence on both ends of the line.
“I’m still here,” he says. “And I still want to discuss the whole Danica issue.”
“Yes, but that doesn’t answer my question.”
“First try answering mine: have you talked to Danica?”
I clutch my pillow, wondering if he might’ve followed me to her house the other day.
“Yes, but we didn’t really get too far.”
“Will you call me after you’ve spoken to her again?”
“What do you know about her?” I ask him.
“Not so much more than you.”
“Is there something that I should know?” I ask, fairly confident that he’s lying, but still giving him one more chance to open up.
“Only that I’m trying to help you, so I’d appreciate it if you could keep me in the loop.”
“Is that all?” I ask, tired of talking in circles and still suspecting that he might have some other reason for calling me.
“Isn’t that enough, Chameleon?”
I continue to gaze out the window, surprised to hear him call me that, and curious to know if he might be trying to tell me something. I close my eyes again, picturing the chameleon tattoo on his upper thigh. He got it before he came to Freetown, before he ever met me. He’d recently touched his mother’s wedding band—something that reminded him of soul mates—and then couldn’t get the image of a chameleon out of his mind. And so he had it tattooed on his thigh, hoping its permanence might help him understand it more—might help him understand his own future soul mate more.
“Were you waiting for me to come home tonight?” I ask him.
“Would that be such a bad thing?”
“I’ll take that as a yes,” I say, my heart beating fast. I search the street for shadows, eager to find any trace of him.
“I’m just looking out for you,” he explains.
“What for?” I ask. “I mean, you said it yourself: there’s no reason why I shouldn’t be seeing Adam.”
“Yes, but there’s no reason you should be seeing him, either.”
“How about the fact that he’s straight with me, that he doesn’t play mind games, and that he tells me how he truly feels?”
“And how do you feel?” he asks. “How do you really feel spending time with him?”
“I should go,” I say, unwilling to indulge his probing for another second. I tell him good night and snap the phone shut.
At the same moment, there’s a knock at my bedroom door. “Camelia?” Dad asks, stepping inside before I invite him in. He comes and sits at the foot of my bed. “How did things go today with the therapist?”
“They went well,” I say, curious as to whether he heard any of my conversation with Ben.
“Are you sure? Because just say the word and we’ll switch you to somebody more helpful.”
“Dr. Tylyn is helpful. We’ve talked a lot about choices. And, I don’t know, as obvious as it may sound, the idea of having choices over what could possibly happen in my future feels really empowering.” More than any superpower could.
He glances at my night table, where I keep Aunt Alexia’s journal tucked inside. “Do you feel like you can tell her things?”
“Yes,” I say, surprised when I think about how much I’ve already told her. “She seems really knowledgeable about stuff.”
“Well, that’s good,” Dad says. A smile crosses his lips, but I can tell there’s something still on his mind. He keeps looking around my room, as though trying to find the answer to a question he has yet to ask.
“I think Dr. Tylyn might be a good fit for Aunt Alexia as well,” I venture.
“Funny you should say that, because I did some asking around about the doctor. It seems she has an interest in the supernatural and metaphysical.” He studies my face, seemingly eager for some sort of reaction.
“And?” I ask, eager for his reaction, too.
“And I’m almost surprised that Ms. Beady would recommend someone like that.”
“Do you believe in supernatural powers?” I venture, feeling my lip shake.
Dad’s eyes remain locked on mine. “I’m starting to,” he says, in a voice much softer than usual.
The next thing I know, Mom barges into my room, breaking the moment to ask me about my time spent with Adam (rather than my time spent with Dr. Tylyn).
“It was fine,” I tell her.
“Just fine?” she asks, fishing for more details.
I bite my lip, disappointed that only minutes ago I was so excited about him, but that now, between her and Ben’s probing, things are starting to feel a bit lackluster. “He’s nice,” I say, suddenly desperate to be alone.
“Nice?” Dad asks, getting up from my bed. “That’s the kiss of death.”
I feel myself smirk, knowing that Adam would’ve said the same—that he did in fact say the same when I told him how funny he was.
Finally, my parents wish me good night, perhaps sensing my longing for alone time. But they fail to even make eye contact with one another as they exit the room.
I click off my lamp and lie back in bed. The cool night air continues to filter in through the window, over my face. But instead of enlivening me as it did before, it makes me ever more on edge.
I sit back up, wondering if I should pull the storm window closed. And that’s when I hear it: the familiar rumble of Ben’s motorcycle as it starts up, and then drives away in the distance.
I SPEND THE NEXT FEW DAYS trying to talk to Danica: before school, when she gets off the bus, in the library during my free blocks, and between classes whenever I spot her by her locker.
But not once during any of those times does she even breathe in my direction, let alone engage me in any conversation that involves more than a grunt in passing to acknowledge my existence.
Not so different from Kimmie.
Though Kimmie and I still sit together at lunch and in sculpture class, our conversations have been mostly superficial, centered around safe topics (those that don’t include Danica, touch, or anythi
ng extrasensory).
I’ve continued to try to talk to her about the rift in our relationship, asking if we can get together, if I can come over to chat, if we can go split a peanut-butter barrel at Brain Freeze like we used to. “I’m sorry,” I told her voice mail last night, devastated by the idea that she no longer cared—that she could so easily cut me out of her life. I slept with my phone clenched in my grip, hoping she’d call me back.
But, sadly, she never did.
And so I’ve decided to give her some space and focus my attention on Danica. By Thursday after school, I finally get Danica to talk.
She’s sitting on one of the benches in front of the main building. I cross the lawn and stand right in front of her, waiting until she acknowledges me.
“You of all people should know there’s a law against stalking,” she says, barely looking up from her notebook.
“Are you planning to report me?” I ask.
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Okay, but can you please just give me five minutes of your time first? I promise I won’t bother you any longer than that.”
“Five minutes,” she says, glancing at her watch. “Then I have to go to work.”
I sit down beside her and gaze out over the lawn, where the first signs of spring are breaking through the soil in the Tree Huggers’ flower bed. Danica props her backpack between us, to block what she’s writing, perhaps, and I notice an ad for vaginal itch cream stuck to the front pocket.
“So, what’s all the fuss?” she asks.
“Like I said before, I’m trying to be a friend here.”
“Yes, but why?”
“Look, I know I was there that day…at the park…with the Candies and the avocados…”
“Excuse me?” she asks, pretending to be confused. She looks away, and I rip the itch cream ad from her bag. “Am I really that much of a charity case?” she asks.
“Danica—no.”
“It was actually a rhetorical question.” She slams her notebook shut. “I’ve known the real answer for years now, but it’s not like I even care.”
“I need to ask you something,” I tell her.
“Hence the reason you’ve been stalking me?”
“Do you have any enemies?”
“Another rhetorical question?” She nods toward the pack of Candies standing in front of the auditorium doors. All are wearing matching puffy pink jackets; they stare at us, making the L-for-Loser sign by holding their fingers up to their foreheads.
“I mean, significant enemies,” I say to clarify. “Is there anyone you think might want to cause you harm?”
“I repeat: is that a rhetorical—”
“I’m being serious,” I say, cutting her off.
“And so am I. I can’t even remember the last time anyone’s paid this much attention to me. And if you haven’t already noticed, I sort of like it that way.”
“Your parents must pay attention to you.”
“Try to even find my parents.” She stuffs her notebook into her bag.
“What do you mean?” I ask, wishing she’d take me back to her house, thinking that I may be able to find out more there. “Are they away? Are you staying by yourself?”
She zips her backpack, readying herself to leave. “Who wants to know?”
“Whose car was that in front of your house yesterday?”
“What car?” she asks, seemingly confused.
“When I came by your house, there was a car parked a few houses down the street. A black sedan with tinted windows…”
Danica stands up, clearly frustrated by all my questions. “I have to go,” she says, tugging at her skirt; it drags on the ground, nearly catching under her shoes.
“There’s something you’re not telling me,” I persist. “Are you seeing someone? Do you know whose car that was?”
“What is all this about?”
“I have reason to believe that you might be in danger.” My pulse is absolutely racing.
But Danica seems less than startled. She looks back at the Candies, perhaps suspecting an ugly prank.
“Have you been getting any weird phone calls or texts lately? Is there anyone new in your life that you don’t fully trust?”
“What is all this about?” she repeats.
“Let’s just say that I heard something,” I tell her, referring to the voices.
“From whom?”
I close my eyes, completely frustrated by how ridiculous the answer sounds inside my head, never mind how it will sound out loud. “I don’t know,” I tell her finally.
“And you know what I heard?” she asks, her tone much braver than before. “That
Camelia Hammond is crazy—that she had some sort of maniacal attack in sculpture class.”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“Help yourself,” she says, raising her voice. “Because, for the first time in a long time, I’m doing just fine on my own.”
AT SCHOOL THE NEXT DAY, I see Danica bolt out the front exit, clearly on a mission. Just before homeroom, I made yet another attempt to talk with her, but she simply slammed her locker door and walked away while I was midsentence.
“Do I smell a scandal?” Wes asks, sneaking up behind me at the front of the building.
“You smell something, all right,” I say, catching a whiff of his cologne, the scent of which reminds me of burnt apple pie.
“Details, please.”
“Where’s Kimmie?” I ask.
Wes shrugs. “I think she has some online design thing she’s working on.”
“Whatever. I know she’s avoiding me.”
“Funny, but she says that you’re avoiding her.…
Something about you skipping out on sketching naked people together.”
“Life drawing,” I say, smacking the side of my head, having completely forgotten Dwayne’s class last night. “Is she pissed?”
“About you blowing off class? I doubt it.”
“And about my desire to help Danica?”
“Not pissed, just scared. There’s a difference. It’s all about psychology,” he explains. “If she puts some space between the two of you, your relationship will weaken on its own, before it has the chance to change as a result of a) your untimely death (by either your own or someone else’s doing), or b) your ending up in a padded room because of all the voices inside your head.”
“She actually told you all this?”
“I have eyes,” he says, crossing his own to be funny. “And the way I see it: you two need to talk. Haven’t you noticed that the poor girl is desperately trying to stay in the Land of Denial with respect to your touch stuff?”
“I have,” I say, remembering how she questioned whether the premonition I had in my basement studio was even significant, and how she also insisted that I stop doing pottery altogether.
“Bottom line,” he says, “the girl loves you more than Lycra, but she needs to know you’re not going to be sporting a straitjacket anytime soon.”
“I miss her,” I tell him, looking away, feeling my heart ache.
“I’ll see what I can do, okay?”
I nod and let out a breath, trying to hold it together. A moment later, Danica crosses the front lawn, passing Tess Moon, the new transfer at school, who’s rumored to be Debbie Marcus’s cousin.
Debbie is the girl who told everyone she was being stalked, though nobody believed her.
Instead, they blamed her “stalking” on practical jokes played by friends. But Debbie was convinced otherwise, thinking that Ben was the one who was after her. One night, on a walk home from a friend’s house, paranoid that he might’ve been following her, she wasn’t paying attention to where she was going and was struck by a car. The accident almost killed her.
When she came out of her coma two months later, even though Ben wasn’t to blame, she made it her mission to see that he paid for her lost time. And so she tried to frame him for stalking me, in the hope that he would be forced to leave our school once
and for all. Only, in the end, she was the one who was forced to leave.
“New blood,” Wes says, nodding toward Tess.
“Interested?”
“Maybe I should be. My dad said that if I don’t start coming home with something soft and curvy, he’s going to take away my car.”
“Will a blow-up doll do? Or a really juicy pear?”
“Been there, tried that. I’m going to have to get serious.”
“As in, finding a real girlfriend?”
“Or better yet, hire another one.” He’s talking about last fall, when he hired Wendy, a struggling college student who worked part-time at the Pump & Munch, to pose as his main squeeze. “Less drama, much less complicated. Plus, believe it or not, it’s actually a whole lot cheaper.”
“Fewer rose bouquets to buy for screwing up?”
Wes doesn’t answer. Instead he follows my gaze toward Danica. She’s just crossed the street, headed for the bus stop. “So, I hear Danica Pete’s the new VIQ?” he says.
“What’s that?” I ask, scrunching up my face.
He rolls his eyes, frustrated at my failure to be fluent in Wes-speak. “Victim in Question.”
“Oh, right,” I say, finally noticing the red and black Where’s Waldo scarf wrapped around his neck. “I think she’s the one I’ve been having premonitions about.”
“Fascinating,” he says, tapping his teeth in thought.
“How so?”
“Because I may have spotted Benny Boy studying with her in the library today.
Coincidence? I think not.” He reaches into his pocket for some licorice; only the licorice no longer has its packaging, so there’s a bunch of lint stuck to the sides. “Something sweet?” he asks, offering me a stick.
“What do you mean by ‘studying’?” I ask, forgoing his sickly sweet offer.
“I mean, they were doing that thing, you know, with books.…”
“Were they talking?”
“I don’t know. Maybe a little. I wasn’t exactly stalking.” He winks.
I bite my lip, suspecting that Ben knows a whole lot more about Danica than he’s actually letting on. “Danica’s definitely in trouble,” I whisper, thinking aloud.
“Then what are we waiting for?” Wes crams two licorice sticks into his mouth and grabs the keys to his car.
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