Never Let You Go
Authors: Emma Carlson Berne
Tags: #Juvenile Fiction, #Love & Romance, #Social Themes, #Friendship, #Horror, #General, #Social Issues, #Horror & Ghost Stories
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CONTENTS
For my mom
PROLOGUE
The party had been going on for hours. Megan knew she shouldn’t have anything more to drink. Already, the edges of the dark basement room had grown fuzzy, the knots of sophomores and juniors lining the walls and lounging on the floor retreating into a vodka-induced haze. Music pounded from two huge speakers, and shadowy couples ground together like contortionists, clogging the space in front of the drinks table. Megan looked down at the big plastic cup in her hand and swirled the orange liquid before tilting a little more down her throat. Vodka and orange soda. You’d think it would be nasty, but it wasn’t too bad.
She stifled a burp against the back of her hand, slowly sliding down the wall until she was sitting on the cream carpet. She could feel the bass vibrating through the floor. She edged herself over a few inches to avoid a large puddle of salsa seeping into the expensive wool and carefully propped her cup against the wall. At least she wasn’t standing by herself anymore. Megan glanced
at the clump of juniors sitting to her right—Kelsey, Logan, Maya, all with heavy, silky long hair, the kind that always fell into place. Megan resisted the urge to smooth her own thin, wavery strands and the cowlick that always rose up into a stubborn curl in the front. She aimed a tentative smile at Logan, who stared back blankly, as if she didn’t recognize Megan.
Whatever. They were all Anna’s friends anyway.
Megan picked at the carpet, willing the hotness in her face to fade. Anna was in Europe with her mother. “Promise me you’ll go to Mike’s party,” she’d insisted before she left. “He’s so sad I’m abandoning him for Europe.” She and Megan had been sitting on the wall outside Anna’s house, eating Funyuns. Anna delicately poked her hand into the bright yellow bag. Even eating greasy onion rings, she’d still managed to look like an Irish princess. “Promise! He wants everyone to come—even you.”
Even you.
Megan tried to wrap her mind around the words, but the moment had passed. Just like always. “Okay,” she’d said. “I will.” Of course she would. She always did what Anna asked. Which was why she was here, at Anna’s boyfriend’s party, alone. Megan gulped the rest of her drink down in one swallow and paused, coughing a little, as the girls sitting beside her seemed to grow larger, then smaller.
Kelsey looked over. “Nice, Megan,” she said, grinning and patting Megan on the back.
“Yeah, go crazy!” Maya jumped up, pumping her hips back and forth as she chanted, “Go, Megan, go, Megan, go Megan. . . .”
In a far corner of her mind, the sober corner, Megan knew
they were making fun of her, but it didn’t seem so shameful right then. Just friendly and funny. She giggled and climbed to her feet as the rest of the girls started dancing in a circle, swaying and waving their arms in the air. The heavy, insistent beat of the music pounded in Megan’s bones. The space grew more crowded. People pressed in from all sides and Megan gulped for air like a goldfish. Sweat trickled down the side of her neck and into her bra. Surreptitiously, Megan swiped at the front of her shirt just as Mike’s bulky figure loomed in the semidarkness like a panther.
“Hey!” Logan greeted Mike with a squeal. The girls widened their circle, making a space for him, but instead Mike slipped behind Kelsey, putting his arms around her waist. They danced like that for a second before Kelsey broke away, laughing. Logan grabbed her by the hands, whispering something in her ear.
The other girls drifted into the mass of people. Not that it mattered. The music was hypnotic now, not jarring. Megan closed her eyes, extending her hands out as she danced, imagining herself as some high-cheekboned hippie chick twirling in front of a stage at Woodstock. In another level of her mind, she congratulated herself for not dancing around like an out-of-sync gerbil.
Someone touched her waist. Megan turned as a thick pair of arms slid around her middle. She looked up into Mike’s face, floating above her, grinning and sweaty. “Having fun?” he shouted over the music. His hands rubbed the small of her back. Megan tried to keep a few inches between them.
“Yeah!” she shouted back. They were practically screaming. “Do you miss Anna?”
“What?” He cupped his ear.
Megan shook her head. It was probably a stupid question to ask at a party anyway. Mike pulled her closer as they danced. His belt buckle dug into the waist of her jeans.
Hang on.
Megan darted a glance left and right. No one was paying attention to them.
Don’t be so uptight.
“Hey, you look really pretty,” Mike shouted.
Megan glanced down at her white tank top. It had taken her an hour to decide what to wear. “Thanks!” She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling idiotically.
Mike nodded along with the music and ran his hands up and down her back.
Is he coming on to me? Mike? Anna’s boyfriend. What is he doing?
His hips ground against hers.
Definitely coming on to me.
He was holding her really close now. She could see the blond stubble on his chin. She’d never danced like this with a guy, not with a big, sexy guy like Mike. It was beyond nice. Actually, it was so beyond nice that Megan could barely keep a coherent thought in her head.
Megan could feel people looking at them now. They were watching her grind with her best friend’s boyfriend. Megan knew that with certainty. This was wrong in every sense and she couldn’t care less, much less stop herself, because Mike’s breath was on her face, and every fiber of her body, which had completely divorced itself from her mind, was reaching up toward him as he leaned down.
Then it was happening. It really was. Mike was kissing her. His tongue was in her mouth. Her legs were shaking. She felt like hot oil was running over every inch of her skin.
You are kissing Mike!
her mind screamed, but her stubborn, rebellious body refused to listen. It just kissed him back with her arms locked around his neck.
Then his grip changed. Mike’s hands weren’t around her waist anymore, they were around her neck, wrapped around her throat. His thumbs pressed insistently on her windpipe even as he kept kissing her. Megan wrenched her head back and her eyelids flew open like a startled sparrow’s as she choked, but he would not let go.
Why is the room so dark?
Her lungs were tight, screaming for air as he squeezed harder.
Why is his face so blurry?
It didn’t even look like Mike—his features looked smaller, softer. It wasn’t Mike at all, it was Anna. And Anna’s hands were around her neck, squeezing harder and harder as Megan gasped for air, Anna’s berry-painted lips stretching in a wide grin because she’d found out, she knew what Megan had done. . . .
CHAPTER 1
The bus bumped over a pothole and Megan woke with a start, jerking her head from the hot pane of glass where it had been resting. She eased the twisted strap of her canvas bag from across her body. It took her a minute to get it off, then she laid her head back against the blue plastic seat. Her heart was hammering like a scared rabbit’s.
What a dream.
She sat still, trying to recover, staring at the metal ceiling of the bus, where a red and white square was marked
IN EMERGENCY, PULL HANDLE, THEN PUSH DOOR OUTWARD.
Megan briefly pictured herself standing on the seat, pushing the hatch open. It would be cooler with the wind whipping past.
Mike.
God, why was she thinking about
that
debacle? It was over, finished, done with last summer. Megan reached into her khaki messenger bag and pulled out a stainless-steel water bottle. She took a long drink, grimacing at the warm, flat taste.
Don’t play dumb
, she told herself. She knew why she was thinking about
that night—it was exactly one year ago today. One year ago that she made the biggest mistake of her life. And almost lost her best friend forever. Almost.
To distract herself, Megan focused on the back of the bus driver—straight coffee-colored neck, neat blue polyester collar. The other bus riders seemed practically comatose, beaten into submission by the stench of the clogged lavatory at the back. To Megan’s right, a young blond woman cradled a sleeping toddler, the child’s head flung back. A girl about Megan’s own age sat in front of them, slumped down. Behind Megan, someone was snoring rhythmically, with a sound like a small chainsaw.
The sun beat through the windows, filling the coach with the smell of hot gym shoes, despite the best efforts of the asthmatic air conditioner, which whistled through the vents over their heads. It had been four hours of corn and soybeans under the whitish sky, broken by the occasional truck-stop exit full of belching semis and minivans stuffed with sticky children. But at least Anna was waiting for her at the other end.
Megan dug out her phone and thumbed through Anna’s last e-mail, sent yesterday.
Pick you up in front of the restaurant on the main street. I think it’s called the Leaf. The farm looks gorgeous—I can’t believe it’s been three years since I was last up here. You are going to love it. I’m so excited we get to work together!!!
Megan stared out the window. The landscape was starting to get more hilly now, with patches of lush woods flashing past. When Anna asked Megan to work with her at her uncle Thomas’s farm this summer, Megan had been so excited. Anna used to go down there every summer, back before her dad left. Then, a few months ago, her uncle called and said that her aunt had started using a wheelchair because of her MS and he needed some extra help. Anna had arrived last week to get started.
Megan gazed apprehensively out the window at a giant green tractor trawling slowly up and down a sea of waving corn leaves. No—it wasn’t going to be like that. She scrolled through the e-mail again.
“—ten pigs, chickens, a big garden, and horses!”
Anna had written. That didn’t sound too bad. More like the Richard Scarry books she used to read when she was little. She scanned the rest of the e-mail.
And we get a separate place to sleep too, just for the two of us. Oh, yeah. There’s a surprise too. I won’t say too much now, but it’s definitely going to make this summer way more fun.
The bus swayed as the driver guided it around a hairpin turn. They were going into some sort of valley now, with trees crowding right up against the road. Megan caught a glimpse of a rushing creek, more like a little river. She wondered what the surprise was. Anna’s surprises could be odd sometimes. Like the time she’d made T-shirts for Megan and her with Mr. O’Gorman’s
picture on it. He was their eighth-grade history teacher, and they both had crushes on him at the time. Anna thought they should wear the shirts to school. Megan had told her that would be way too embarrassing, which Anna didn’t understand at all. She’d said it would be funny. Megan had refused and Anna shredded both shirts with her mother’s meat scissors.