Duality: Vol 1, Melancholia (A New Adult Paranormal Romance) (19 page)

I jumped to my feet.  “No!”  I held out my hands in an apologetic way.  “No.  Seriously, it’s not necessary.  I can hang out at my friend’s house.  He offered to take me in just today.”  I was totally making shit up.  Kootch’s face was flashing across my mind, but there was no way I was going to even talk to him about this crap.  No frigging way.  He’d be dead in a week, living with me.

She pursed her lips.  I could tell she was thinking about it.  It was so much easier for her to just say yes and not do all the paperwork required to move a foster kid.  She knew it.  I knew it.  The silence in the room was deafening.  It was broken finally by the sound of the neighbors three doors down screaming at each other.  I wondered briefly if an ambulance would be called this time.  The thought crossed my mind that maybe I should just let Mrs. Gonzalez move me so I could give these people a break.  But then there would be another group of people going dark on me at the new place, so I disregarded that idea.  It was better to just ride it out here and then disappear when my birthday came.

“You know I only have three more months left in the system, Mrs. G.  And I’m totally clean.  No drugs, no crimes, nothing.  I stay out of everyone’s way and just mind my own business.  My grades are good, too.”  Hopefully, she hadn’t seen my latest report cards.  I spend too much time trying not to stick out to do well in school, and teachers naturally felt like giving me crappy grades just because I bummed them out, anyway.  I learned not to bother with homework and participation a long time ago.  I only did the minimum to pass and that was it.  I’m convinced teachers gave me Cs just so they wouldn’t have to see me in class ever again.  It worked for everyone, so I never said a word to anyone.

“But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I just let you slide and live in this … place.” Mrs. Gonzalez was looking around the room, taking in the two pieces of furniture and the thick layer of grime on every surface, her lip curled in distaste.

“I’m fine …
you’re
doing fine.  Don’t you have about a hundred other kids who need you to take care of them?  Kids with problems like drugs and pregnancy and stuff?”

“Try two hundred.  But that doesn’t mean I ignore kids, just because they’d rather I go away.”  She fixed me with a stare.

I’ve seen this expression before on lots of other faces.  Faces of people who think they have my best interests at heart.  People who think they know better than me how to keep me alive and healthy.

I decided to try and appeal to her overworked schedule, play the delay game.  “How about we cut a deal … you give Mrs. Brown another few days to show up, because you know she always does, and then if she doesn’t, we’ll talk about me moving in with my friend, okay?  That way you can avoid all the paperwork if it’s not necessary.”

She stood and gathered her folders and purse.  “Two days.  The weekend.  I’m back on Monday, and you’d better not hide from me.  I’ll call the police and get them involved, and then your clean record will go bye-bye.”  She stood there, gripping the folder to her chest and staring at me, making sure I knew she was serious.

“Yes, ma’am.  I get you totally.  I hear you.  One hundred percent.  See you Monday after school.”

“Be here, or I show up at the school on Tuesday making a big stink.”  She walked herself out without another word, shutting the thin door behind her with a bang and leaving me with a sense of dread so heavy it felt like I was suffocating under a blanket of it.

My heart sank and I slumped over on the couch, arms dangling uselessly off to the side.  I stared at the stained and sagging ceiling.

There was no way of getting out of this.  I’d made it all the way to seventeen years and nine months, and yet despite doing everything right, doing everything I could to keep people safe, I was going to get fucked during the home run stretch.  People were going to get hurt.  People might even die.

Today was seriously not my day.

I felt something hard jabbing into my ribs.  I reached around my side and dug the phone out of the cushions.  Hitting the green button, I saw the last number dialed.

Rae’s number.

Chapter Eighteen: Rae

AS SOON AS WE GOT home, I ran upstairs to my room.  I ignored my mom standing in the front hall wringing her hands, knowing my father would fill her in on the details and keep her from freaking out too much.

His voice followed me into the upper hallway.  “Be sure you’re down soon to spend some time with us before dinner.”

I didn’t answer.  I just went into my room and shut the door.  I didn’t bother locking it because they have a doo-hickey that would open it anyway, and they always got really upset when I locked them out.  It made them kind of desperate, knowing I really didn’t want to be with them.

I pulled my phone out of my purse and then hit the power button on the stereo that rested on my desk, filling my room with the sounds of Lana Del Rey’s soulful, sad voice.  I needed her music to take the edge off the Rainbow madness that I knew waited for me downstairs.  Something about her songs always made me feel slightly anesthetized to all of it, making it easier to bear, making the thought of tomorrow seem not quite so terrible.

Kicking off my boots, I looked at my cell.  The texts from my father were still showing on the screen.  As I laid on my bed on my side, my hand tucked under the pillow that was beneath my head, I cleared them off, one-by-one.

I let my mind wander to the better part of my afternoon.  The part when Malcolm asked for my number.  I couldn’t believe it had actually happened.  Just seeing his name there on my phone made me grin like a fool.  Butterflies flitted around in my stomach at the idea of hearing his voice over the line.  I committed his number to memory, even though I knew I’d never call it, never press that green button on my phone when his number was on the screen.  He’d probably never call me either, but that was okay.  Just giving it to him at his request had been thrilling enough.  For now, anyway.

Worried I was getting a little too nutty over a stupid phone number, I scrolled through the contacts until found Jasmine’s. Two people in one day had given me their numbers or had asked for mine.  It was some kind of miracle.

I laughed softly to myself when her number came up.  I hadn’t noticed before, but she’d put in
Jazzy Butts
as the name.  I pressed the message button before I could second-guess myself and typed out a text.

“Everything go ok with the tire?”

My face burned a little as I pressed the Send key, my fear of losing my new friend making me think that maybe I should have waited for her to text me first.  I didn’t want to seem too eager to be her friend, scare her away.  I was so out of my element talking to another teenager about mundane things.  With me, everything meant so much, even what should have been meaningless stuff.

My phone beeped and a new message popped up, sending my heart racing with anticipation.

“If by ok u mean I listened to K bitch 20 minutes straight then yeah.  Stellar.  U?”

I answered back, forcing myself to wait ten full seconds before pressing the button to send it off.  I’m cool.  I don’t have to speed-type at warp speed and send it before she takes another breath.

“Got in an accident.  Got a ride from mr holder. Chemistry?  Home now.”

Two seconds later my phone rang.

“Are you frigging kidding me?” Jasmine said without preamble.

“Yeah.  I mean, no.  I’m not kidding.”  I rolled over onto my back, staring at my pristine white ceiling.

“An accident?  In the
Porsche?”

“Yes.  The front side is a little smashed.”  I lifted my legs up and practiced pointing and flexing my toes.  My feet were so sore from all the running around.

“Hoooly, shit.  Brody must be furious.  That car is his penis.”

I barked out a laugh, my legs dropping.  “What?”  I was pretty sure I’d heard her wrong.

“His penis.  The Porsche is his sorry-about-your-penis car.  You know, overcompensating…”

“Okay, I get it.”  My hearing was just fine, apparently.  I cringed.  “I hate that word, though.”

“Would you prefer I use dick?”

“Uh, no.”  I was still laughing.

“Schlong?”

“No.  Not really.”

“Trouser trout?  Baloney Pony? Cock-a-doodle-doo?”

“Please, no!  Stick with the first one.”

“Penis?  You want me to stick with penis?  You’re sure about the penis thing?”

I was holding my stomach with the giggling now, rolling back over onto my side.  “Okay, stop.  You have to stop or I’ll pee, and I don’t want to get up.”

“Fine.  How’d it happen?”

“We were going through a stop sign and some guy named Dan ran his sign on the other side and hit us.”

“What kind of car was it?”

“The other one?  Red.  Something red.”

“From our school?”

“Yeah.”

“Dan the stoner.  He was probably toasted.  He always is.”

“He didn’t seem like it.  He was freaked out, but not wasted-looking or acting.”

“How’d you end up getting a ride with Holder?  He’s a freak.”

“Yeah, he was a little freaky.  He happened to be riding behind Dan, I guess.  He just showed up, kind of.”

“Did you check the comb-over?  Wicked, right?”

“I didn’t notice.”  I’d been too busy flipping out over his probing questions.  Or maybe I’d been too gassed out by the stench in his car.

“How can you
not
notice it?  It starts at his ass crack and ends at his upper lip.”

My stomach was cramping with the laughter.   I hadn’t had this much fun on the phone in years.  Maybe ever.  “Malcolm rode with me.”

I held my breath, realizing I might have said too much.

“That’s cool.  Kind of strange, but cool.”

“Why strange?”  My laughter faded quickly.

“He never goes anywhere with anyone.  Then all of a sudden he’s insisting he go in the Porsche today?  I’m pretty sure he hates Brody.  He must like you.”

My heart skipped a beat.  “Nooo … he was just being nice.  And he had to get home.”

“If you say so.  But I’ve seen more of him today than I have in the last year.  The ghost has materialized … and whaddya know, he’s a real boy.   Anyway, I gotta go.  I need to go throw a rock over the fence at Kootch.”

I half-laughed.  “Are you serious?”

“A little.  Talk to you tomorrow.”

“Okay.  Bye.”  I pressed the red button to end the call and tried to stop smiling.  It was impossible.  She said she’d talk to me tomorrow.  Tomorrow is Saturday, which meant she wanted to hang out or at least connect on the weekend.  I hugged the phone to my chest, my face lit up with the joy of friendship.

The door to my room opened and my mom’s face was there in the crack.  I erased my smile and any sign that it had even been there, letting my phone slide down to the bed.

“Hi, honey.  How was your first day?  Mind if I come in?”  She waited patiently in the hallway, working hard at not pissing me off.  But even with her restraint, I could tell from her eager expression that she wanted nothing more than to come into my room and sit right next to me, touch me and soak up the Rainbow vibe she craved.  The poison she was addicted to.  She was worse than Dan the stoner could ever be with his drug of choice.

My parents make me feel like I’m a monster teenager who throws tantrums and makes her parents jump through hoops just for the fun of it.  No matter how many times I try to explain to them that they force me into putting up these ridiculous boundaries, they never understand.  They can never see that the things they do aren’t normal, that their obsessions over me are unhealthy and downright freaky.  And even after almost eighteen years of it, I still could never get used to it, never be okay with being smothered.  I had to put limits on our contact and break their hearts in the process, just to keep us alive.

I couldn’t wait to be free of that guilt, be gone from this place that was nothing more than a gilded cage filled with bribes for touches and apologies for needs they could not and did not want to control.

“Yeah, you can come in for a minute.  I was just about to come down.”  I sat up in the bed, drawing my legs up to my chest, tucking my phone under my pillow behind me.

She came in and shut the door, like she always does.  I think she does it to keep my father out.  They get jealous of each other sometimes, hoarding alone-time with me like it’s gold.

She sat down on the edge of the bed next to me, her hand hovering just above my knee.

I gave her the look that said,
Don’t do it.

She pulled her hand away and rested it in her lap, a small sigh escaping before she smiled at me again.  Nothing ever keeps a Rainbow down for long, not even a daughter’s rejection.

“So, about your first day …”

“It was fine.  Pretty much like normal.  Just went to my classes, kept to myself, and then had detention.”

She frowned.  “I don’t understand.  Detention?”

I couldn’t help but smile.  “I know, right?  It was awesome.”

“How can being punished be awesome?  And who sent you there?   I think we should have a talk with whoever it was or the principal.”

“No, you don’t need to talk to anyone.  I was fine.  I had to sit at a table and study for an hour.  It was very … peaceful.”

“Did anyone bother you?”

“No.”

“Get too close?”

“No.”

“Act too interested?”

I sighed.  “No, Mom.  No, okay?  Everyone was fine.  Everything was fine.  I got a ride partway back and walked the rest.”

“Who did you get a ride with?”

The heat rose up in my neck as this friendly mother-daughter talk started feeling more like an interrogation.  My annoyance found its way into my voice.  “A guy.  Just a random student who I barely talked to.  It was no big deal.  I got out of the car when I was close and walked.  No story.  The end.”

My mother pressed her lips together, battling herself.  She wanted to say something but was trying really hard not to.