Oblivion (22 page)

“Give me some fucking room.”

“You want space? Room to feel up some other girl right in front of me? You got it, Elijah. You can have the whole fucking planet.”

The lock gives way. I shoulder my way into the apartment, dig for a lollipop, but turn up only my new pack of Lights. I wander into the kitchen. Maybe the stove still works, maybe I can burn through the rest of this pack instead of eating tonight.

“Look, I took things too far last night.” He takes the pack from me, helps himself to a cigarette, which he lights with a purple lighter produced from his pocket.

I lock my gaze on it. Purple. Probably belongs to a girl.

“How’d you know to come here?” I turn the knob on the 1982 stove, the newest thing in the place. It hums. I smell the gas; the utilities are on the same meter as the café below. But no flame is produced. Old appliances. Out of use for too long.

“I’ve been checking back here all day, waiting for you.” He offers the purple lighter, which I refuse on principle. “Saw you and Mr. Tight End cleaning up last night after the bash, counted every second of the seventeen minutes he took to service you—”

“Shut up.” I want to correct him, to explain that nothing
happened on that boat, but I bite my tongue. Explaining would imply that I think he has a right to know the details. And as of last night, I don’t think he does.

A smile plays on his lips. “Callie, I get it. I understand why it happened. It’s what you do when I run around on you, and I deserve it, yeah. But you chose the wrong guy this time. This is Lindsey we’re talking about.”

“That’s what you think this is? Revenge? You think I’d sacrifice Lindsey to get you back from Ms. D Cup?”

“Did you enjoy it? Was he good?” He offers me the smoke.

“Yes.” I steal the cigarette from his grasp and look him in the eye. “God, yes.”

“All seventeen minutes of it, huh?”

“That was round one. You didn’t stick around for the finale.”

He presses his lips together and looks away. I see the twitch in his jaw muscle. It’s the same tension I see when he’s about to wallop some poor soul in a fistfight.

I retort with a sniff and: “Did you enjoy her D cups?”

“No.” He glances at me.

“Right.”

“This doesn’t have to be over between us, you know.” The muscles in Elijah’s forearms tense when he pulls himself up onto the countertop. “We both fucked up. It happens.”

I exhale a long stream of smoke. “I guess.”

“Love you, baby.”

I roll my eyes, wipe away tears.

He kicks his heels against the white, aluminum cabinets.
Dink, ding, ding
.

“You have a connection with this guy?”

Dink, ding, ding
.

My glance hardens. “None of your business.”

“You still love me?”

I weigh responses in my mind and settle on “Yeah.” I don’t know what I’m going to do about that love, but I know he’ll always be in my heart.

“Then, yeah, it is my business. Think about it, Callie. Does it make sense? Does it make sense that suddenly he’s into you, just when you happen to be into him?”

“Not sure it made sense that you were suddenly into me, either. I mean, how does it happen for anyone? Paths cross, flames ignite, right?”

“God, Callie. Don’t make him out to be more than he is.”

Is that what I’m doing?

He takes the smoke. Drags. “So, what’re you gonna do? Go back to Lindsey’s?”

“I don’t know. Probably not. Not tonight.”

He returns the cigarette, which I don’t really want anymore. But I bring it to my lips, anticipating it might carry a trace of him. His lips were wrapped around it, after all. But there’s no remnant of his kiss, which I suddenly, fiercely miss.

Elijah is slipping out of my grasp, like fine-grained sand. Slipping away.

“Well, if you’re going to stay here for a while,” he says, “lock the door when you’re in. If you accidentally lock it on your way out, call me, and I’ll come let you in again. You need anything else? Cash? Food?” Before I can reply, he says, “Think you can sneak back home for some clothes? You’ll need a blanket. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thanks.” I flick some ashes into the sink.

I stare at the cinders of tobacco against the faded pink porcelain receptacle, and my peripheral vision begins to darken.

Something’s familiar.

Visions dance in my head: cold water raining down on me. Muddy water circling the drain in a pink tub.

I showered when I came here the night Hannah disappeared. What evidence did I wash down the drain?

I
’m almost late to school. While everyone was preoccupied last night—Lindsey in the shed, Mr. and Mrs. Hutch still gone, doing whatever it is they were doing yesterday—I sneaked home to gather as much as I could carry back to the Vagabond.

Our old apartment is only a temporary hideout. I know I can’t stay there indefinitely. Someone’s going to catch on if I keep coming and going, for one thing. But until Lindsey cools off, there’s nowhere left for me to go.

And make no mistake: she’s pissed. So pissed, in fact, that she hoarded every last one of my uniform skirts. I managed to scrounge an oxford and a sweater, but I couldn’t turn up a skirt for the life of me, so I had to snare one of hers. It is,
of course, an inch or so too short, and I can’t get the button to close, but it’ll have to do.

Elijah came through for me. He brought me an old
Star Wars
comforter with Yoda front and center. He brought a large brown paper bag containing a few books of matches, two pillar candles, some snacks, two packs of smokes, and toiletries. Additionally, he lent me a heavy, wooden baseball bat that I’m supposed to keep next to the door when I’m out and next to me while I’m in. Now that I have my small reserve of cash, clothes, and my most recent notebooks, I’m set for a while.

I stow my coat in my locker and head to homeroom. Along the way, a group of girls laughs as I pass. I have the distinct feeling they’re laughing at me. Maybe they’re amused that I took a Pace bus to get here today, when they’re all driving Daddy’s luxury sedans. Maybe they’re snickering because I’m showing more thigh than Jesus in his loincloth. But I have bigger worries.

By the time I arrive at homeroom, however, I’ve dodged more than a few dirty looks. It seems Lindsey’s done some damage in the twenty-four hours I’ve been gone from her life.

“Where’ve you been?” John’s inquiry is upon me before I even take my seat.

“Surviving. What’s going on here?”

“If you’d return a damn text, you’d know by now. Damn it, Callie, people worry about you, you know.”

Marta Atwood is whispering to Gianna Watson behind me. I hear my name: “Lindsey says she’s a lesbo. She tries to crawl into Lindsey’s bed all the time.”

Gianna retorts, not so quietly: “I hear lots of lesbians, if they’re trying not be a lesbian, sleep with lots of guys. You know, to snap themselves out of it.”

“Well, that certainly fits the description of her.”

One guy.

I’ve slept with one guy at Carmel, and one guy before him, and these idiots classify that as “lots.” Not to mention, wasn’t I the only girl on the boat not acting like a lesbian this past weekend?

I’m not surprised at their feeble attempts to bully me. Lindsey’s queen to their court, after all, and she doesn’t do her own dirty work. I dart a glare in Marta’s direction.

She presses her lips together, but when I turn away, the two of them giggle at my expense.

I sigh. Finally meet John’s gaze.

He subtly brushes the back of my hand. “I’ve been worried, you know. I didn’t hear from you at all last night, and I called you a hundred times.”

“I’ve been a little confused.” It’s my best attempt at explaining, but I know to unknowledgeable people, it appears I’m talking about the one thing about which I’m not confused: my sexuality. Marta’s giggle erupts into a boisterous laugh.

John’s blue eyes penetrate me. Memories bedazzle my
every nerve, flushing my system with warmth, like a fluffy blanket and a blazing fireplace.

“See me tonight,” he whispers.

I part my lips to answer in the affirmative, but the bell tolls, silencing everyone.

Mrs. Kenilworth gives me a slip at attendance. Dean Ritchie wants to see me. Big fucking surprise.

“During your study hall,” she tells me.

Cleanse
.

God, not another day of this. Sweat breaks on my brow as the familiar drumming inside my head commences. Black spots float in my line of vision. It hurts to keep my eyes open.

I feel seasick, as if I’m bobbing and swaying in the middle of a whitecapped lake in a tiny boat.

“Callie, come on!” Yasmin Hayes taps me on the elbow. I follow her to chapel.

I sit for the welcome message. The word pounds my brain:
cleanse
.

The chapel fades, overtaken by the image of a vast, silvery lake. The waves spray against the side of the boat. I’m lying against my mother’s belly. She’s sniffling, maybe crying, while someone rows the boat closer to shore. I fixate on the dark blue duffel bag near his feet. What’s in the bag? I want to ask. What’s in the bag?

Nausea hits, and blinding pain cracks through my brain like lightning, jolting me back to the chapel at Carmel
Catholic. I look down at my notebook, which is open on my lap:

Cleanse the body, the mind, the soul. Cleanse cleanse cleanse.

A note folded into a tight square lands atop the words.

John discreetly withdraws.

In French class, Gianna Watson raises her hand. “Madame? What’s the French word for lesbian?”

Hushed giggles and chuckles follow.

I know the snarky comment is meant to seclude and humiliate me, even before Gianna purses her lips and raises her brows at me.

I open the note John chucked over the pew at me. It says:

Calliope
,

Meet after school. Strictly business
.

John

I wonder if there is such a thing as strictly business between us. Maybe he wants to break it off with me. After all, he isn’t into the lesbian scene.

I write back—

John
,

Can’t. Appointment with Ewing
.

Callie

—and hand it to him during the passing period between French class and what should be my study hall.

Today, however, I don’t have a study hall. Dean Ritchie has summonsed me to appear in his office in lieu of practicing the conjugation of French verbs, and staring at theorems I don’t understand.

The words won’t leave my head, even though I’ve written them down:

Christen the flesh with heavenly rain.

When I arrive, Ritchie’s pacing his office, patting his belly, studying me. “You know your skirt isn’t regulation length.”

Cleanse cleanse cleanse.

“Callie.”

I blink up at him, away from my notebook, although I’m still forming letters with the pen in my hand.

“Is this insubordination going to become a habit?” He reaches for a file on his desk. “It seems you were missing from some of your classes the other day.”

Cleanse the body, cleanse the mind, cleanse the spirit. Bodymindspirit. Cleanse cleanse cleanse cleanse cleanse cleanse.

“Callie.” Ritchie slaps a hand onto my notebook and yanks it away.

“I need it,” I tell him.

“I need your attention, Callie.”

It feels as if my heart is sinking in my chest, bottoming out in my gut. My fingertips tingle. “Please. I really don’t
feel well.” I’m sweating, clammy. It’s as if the words are stirring up the sins sleeping inside me, as if the sins are bleeding through my skin, desperate to escape me. “I need my notebook.”

“I. Need. Your. Attention.”

Sobbing now, I shove up my sleeve, press the tip of my pen to my forearm, and let the words go. I draw in a breath, but Ritchie pulls the pen from my hand before I exhale. “Please.” The word comes out on a wheeze. I fumble through the caddy of pens on his desk. Please have a red felt-tip, please. “I need it. Going to be sick. Going to be sick.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

I’m tearing through my backpack now, in search of my spare pen. “It’s my condition.” Pen! I bite off the cap and continue to write on my arm.

CLEANSE YOUR SOUL SINNER SINNER SINNER SINNER CLEANSE YOUR SOUL CLEA

Ritchie disarms me again.

“No!” I reach for the pen, and while I can’t reach it, neither can I stop staring at it.

“Look at me, young lady.”

“I … I’m going to be sick if I can’t—”

“Graphomania makes you queasy.” Ritchie’s lips curl up at the corners.

It does, actually.

“I’ve had it with this excuse! I wasn’t born yesterday.”
He glances in my direction before opening the file he now holds. “I spoke with the Hutches. They said they’d deal with you at home, but there also will be a consequence here at Carmel.”

“I’ll pay it. Just give me my pen. Please, I have to. I need it.” I try to hold his glance, but the room is spinning out of control. It doesn’t help with the impulse to upchuck, but I manage to hold it off.