Duality: Vol 1, Melancholia (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (20 page)

I nudged her with my foot to distract her.  “What’d you and Dad do all day?”

She gave me a watery smile and waved in the air with one of her hands near the side of her head.  “Oh, you know.  The usual.  He was online most of the day with work, and I did some baking.”

My mom’s baking days were legendary.  Sometimes she channeled her obsession over me and concerns about what I was doing into flour and sugar concoctions, and then we’d be up to our ears in cookies and cakes for weeks solid.

“Did you make eight batches of brownies this time?”  I was teasing her, trying to get rid of the anger simmering inside me.  This wasn’t her fault.  She was doing the best she could.

“No.  But I made a tart.  Or a couple tarts, actually.”

I tilted my head down and looked up at her.  “How many are a couple?  Two?”

“Um … no.  More than two.”

I smiled at her, she looked so embarrassed.  “Tell me you didn’t make twenty tarts.”

“No, silly.  Not that many.”  She stood.  “Are you coming downstairs now?  Your father wants to see you.”

“I’ll be down after I use the bathroom.”

She wrung her hands.  “Okay.  Well, I’ll be down in the kitchen.  I have something in the oven.”

“Tart number nineteen?”

She waved me off and left the room, leaving the door slightly open.  Her evasiveness told me there would be tarts in my future for possibly the next week, maybe longer.  Hopefully she managed to fit a blueberry one into her baking frenzy.  No matter what she did with that fruit, I always liked it.

I was standing to go to the bathroom when I heard my phone beep again.  Another text.  I slid my hand under the pillow and pulled my phone out, fully expecting to see
Jazzy Butts
on the screen.

My heart nearly exploded when I saw Malcolm’s name there instead.

“R u ok?” 
The text was blazing out at me.  The words were so innocent, but they could have meant ever so much if he even had a clue about my life.

My hands were shaking so badly, I almost dropped the phone.  I lifted up my thumb to type my response in on the keypad, and it remained poised over the buttons for several long seconds.  My stomach was burning with nerves. 
What should I say?  Should I be cool?  Just say one word and walk away?  Act like I don’t care?
  Other people were way better at being cool than I am.  I suck at cool.  Cool and me, we’re strangers.

Just be honest.  Speak from the heart.  He’s going to disappear out of your life anyway.  Everyone always does.

I typed out my response and hit send before I could talk myself out of it and flush my phone down the toilet.

“Good.  I guess.  Sorry about my father.  He’s a pain.”

I expected Malcolm to say it was okay or just blow it off.  I wasn’t expecting him to send the message that came across my screen next.

“You hide in bathrooms.”

I felt like I couldn’t breathe.  My lungs were tightening up and my throat was closing, like I was having an allergic reaction.  Total system shut down.  I was flat-out a mess over a four-word question sent through my phone.

Maybe he was just making fun of me, but I didn’t think so.  This was something else.  I was afraid to even wish for what it could be.

My thumb tried to respond quickly, but I kept hitting the wrong button, like one of the nightmares I have where I have to dial a number in an emergency and I cannot dial it at all, always hitting the key next to the one I really wanted.  It took a full two minutes to finally finish my message, and even then, I waited to send it.  This could be a big mistake.  A huge one.  Three simple words.  They carried so much meaning.

“So do you.”

I waited after sending it, holding my breath.  My face turned red with the effort of denying my body what it needed.  Pounding, pounding.  My heart kept pounding, regardless, slower but still insisting I live.  I finally let my breath out in a big gasp when his answer came.

“Why?  Why do u hide?”

My finger was less shaky this time.  I was doing this.  I was telling him things I probably shouldn’t, but I didn’t care.

“
I told you already.  Close.  Ppl get 2 close.”

“But why?”
he asked almost immediately.

I didn’t know what to say.  If I told him the truth, I’d sound like a freak.  But if I lied, I’d never know why he was so interested in the answer.  This was the second time he’d asked for it.  If there was even one speck of a chance that he could know someone like me, or understand me even just a little, I had to take it …
didn’t I? 
Would the chance of being able to be near him on a regular basis be worth the risk of losing it all?  Or was I better off just letting it go, living my life, being friends with him as long as he could stand the Rainbows and then letting him go when he got sick of them?

Years of the same thing, of getting my hopes up and disappointment crashing down on top of not only my head but the heads of my parents too, told me that
No
, it wasn’t worth the risk.  I’m the only one of my kind in the entire world.  I would never have a true friend, a boy who could love me for who I am.  Any affection I ever received would be the kind given in exchange for the drugs I offered.  Payment for the buzz my presence delivered.

I hit the red button to clear my screen.  “Just let it go,” I said out into the room, feeling sick to my stomach.  I used the supreme strength of my well-practiced willpower to shove my phone under my pillow, leaving my room right after to join my parents downstairs.  Every step I took away from my room tore my heart just a little farther in two, but I kept going until I was at the bottom of the stairs.

The television was on, and I could hear a football game being played, the commentators discussing the latest call made by the referees.  Pots and pans banged around in the kitchen and the water splashed on.

Our house sounded like many of the other houses in America right now, with moms and dads doing what they do, and teens like me hovering on the outskirts of it, trying to fit in.  But our house was like no other house anywhere.  Of that, I was absolutely certain.

Chapter Nineteen: Malcolm

I STARED AT MY PHONE for a full ten minutes before I finally accepted the fact that Rae wasn’t going to answer my question.  My words glowed out at me from the backlit screen, taunting me with their deeper meaning.

“But why?”

It was a great question, one I wish I had the answer to myself.  I threw my phone down, disgusted with my ridiculous love-starved attitude.  I’ve known this girl for less than a day and for some insane reason I was expecting her to have the answer to the question I’ve been haunted by my whole life. 
Why do people want to get too close?

I was halfway across the room when my phone beeped, signaling there was a text waiting for me.  I ran and dove for the cell, dropping it in my hurry to read the message. 
Answers, answers, answers. 
My eyes scanned the screen, starving for the response I was hoping it held.  It’s the closest I’ve come to praying in a very long time.

Kootch’s name came across the screen, dissolving my dream into a million unanswered pieces.

“Dude.  Party time.  Meet me at the Mickey Ds.  I’ll get u at 9.”

I frowned.  I was tempted to ignore it, but after the day I’d had today and the crap I’d been through, I realized I didn’t want to blow him off.  Not this time.  So I at least had to be nice about turning him down.

“Busy.”

“Fuck that.  B there at 9:45 or I kick ur ass.”

I laughed.  All alone in my shitty apartment, I laughed at his attitude and boldness.  Normally I’d write this persistence off as a Miserable’s single-minded dedication to being unhappy, but today he’d sure seemed pretty un-Miserable.

I felt the tingle of excitement move out from my chest.  Maybe I should take advantage of his good mood or temporary immunity to my effects and try to forget the fact that Rae was blowing me off - the one girl who I wanted to get to know better, the one person who I thought I might have a chance of getting to know better without death being involved.

What the hell.  Just say yes for once in your life.  What’s the worst that can happen in a single night at a stupid party?

I punched in my response before I could be smart and run away again.  I was tired of running.  Just for tonight, I was going to stick.

“C u there.”

Chapter Twenty: Rae

MY PARENTS INSISTED I STAY downstairs the entire night, greedily sucking up my last daylight and evening hours with veiled conversation and dinner.  Every question was designed to seem innocent, but they all boiled down to finding out one thing: who was getting too close and acting like a threat to their total possession of me.  They wanted names and contact information.

I did a pretty good job of throwing them off the scent of any new friends.  I’d grown very adept at that over the years.  The only person I did mention was Mr. Holder.  As far as I was concerned, it couldn’t hurt to have the principal watching that guy a little closer.  I knew my parents would be on the phone with Mr. Tweeds over the weekend, now.  Surely they would have his home number and cell too, just like they always did at every new school.  Copies of police reports and restraining orders always gave them special privileges and an inside track to authority.

I didn’t get back to my room until after eight.  Glancing at my pillow, I walked over to my dresser and pulled out my pajamas.  I was determined to not look at my phone until tomorrow morning.  Nothing would make me check my messages until then.  If I did, I knew I’d answer them and then blow everything.

My phone rang as I was pulling my shirt over my head.  Not wanting my parents to hear it, I raced over and grabbed it from under my pillow.  Jazzy Butts was calling.

“Hello?”  I pressed my phone to my ear and spoke in low tones, staring at the door while praying my parents wouldn’t choose that moment to come in.

“Why aren’t you answering my texts, woman?  You think I’ve got nothing better to do than get eyeball cancer from staring at my damn cell screen all night?”

My smile came through in my voice.  “Sorry.  I was stuck downstairs with my parents and my phone was under my pillow in my room.”

“What was it doing there?”

“Long story.  What’s up?”

“Party.  Kootch broke his vow of silence and invited us.  And by us, I’m pretty sure he meant you, but whatever.  I’m going and so are you.”

“Dammit, I wish I could.”  I stared harder at the door.  “But my parents would never let me go in a million years.”

“Lame.  But you don’t need to ask for their permission.  Just go.”

I laughed bitterly.  “Yeah,right.  I’ll just walk out the front door and come back when I feel like it.”

“You got it half right.  Front door, no.  Window?  Yes.”

“I live on the second floor.”

“Fine.  Front door it is.  But you have to go.  If you don’t, then I can’t, and if I don’t get out of this empty house and intermingle with some other humans, I’m liable to do anything.  Shaving cream might be involved.  I might even go throw more stones at Kootch, and then where will we be?”

I laughed, wishing more than anything I could go.

“You don’t want to be responsible for that, do you?” she asked.  “He doesn’t let shit go.  I’ll probably hit him right in the middle of his big-ass forehead, and then we’ll have to call him Cyclops for the next five years.  And as appealing as that sounds right now, I can easily think of eight other insults I’d like to use first.”

“Oh, man, I wish I could go.  I really do.”  My mind was turning and turning, trying to figure out how I might be able to sneak away.  I’d never done that before, but it was mainly because my parents put our house on lock-down every night.  They feared the eager Rainbows who had more than once come looking for me after school hours were long over.

“Listen, you need to just find a way and get your butt outside.  Ten o’clock outside your gates, Kootch will be there with yours truly to pick you up.”

I tapped my foot in agitation at my situation.  I always hated being locked in, but this was worse, knowing there was something fun to go do on the outside.

“And, oh … by the way?  Malcolm will be there.”

I squeezed the phone so hard I’m surprised it didn’t break.  “Fine.  I’ll be there.”  My heart slammed against my ribs like a bird crazy to be free.

“Good.  Later, tater.”  Jasmine disconnected the phone before I could respond or ask her what she was wearing.  I’d never been to a party before.  I had no clue what to put on after school hours, at a place where no adults would be around to watch or scold or judge.  Chances are nothing in my wardrobe would even be close to cool.

I threw my phone down on the bed, staring at the floor.  I had to figure out an escape.  The clothes were a minor issue compared to that little detail.  I needed a way out that my parents wouldn’t suspect or detect.

The first step would be letting them see me asleep, so I put on my pajamas and did all the things I normally did before bed.  As I brushed my teeth in the bathroom, I thought of all the routes out of my house.  The doors and windows were all alarmed, but I knew the code.  And I knew the special system for shutting the alarm off of just one entry and leaving all the others connected.  The back door was my best bet.  It was farthest from the stairs and the least likely to be heard opening and closing by my parents whose door was near the top of the stairs.  There was no way I could go out the front.  They’d hear that easily.

I rinsed my mouth out, and took my makeup off.  I’d bring my eyeliner and mascara in my purse so I could put it back on fresh, outside when I was well away from the house.  If my parents saw me before bed and they noticed I still had it on, they’d get suspicious of the change in routine.  I had to act as if this was like every other night in a string of typical nights, not a night like no other.  A night when I’d run around in the dark, free of their web of protection.