Scare Crow (2 page)

But I stood my ground. “That’s right. I missed
my
classes.
And?”

“I thought you were on a scholar
ship?”

I was. It was a microscopic, merit-based scholarship that barely covered my tuition
and books. And at one point, a few months ago, this was my only saving grace, the
only way I could be on my own without having to take my parents’ m
oney.

“The school will pull your scholarship if you miss too many classes,” Cassie pointed
out while everyone else watched. “Our ethics class is in a few minutes. We can walk
toge
ther.”

****

I stood outside in a T-shirt and my pajama bottoms while Cassie ran back into the
house, probably to put on another layer of vampire makeup. The great thing about college
was that going to class in flip-flops and pajama bottoms was a completely normal thing
t
o do.

I had agreed to walk to class with Cassie. Ethics, a branch of philosophy, was my
favorite subject. In my first year at Callister University, I had never missed any
of my classes, no matter how boring they were, but philosophy was the sole class that
I actually looked forwar
d to.

Though now, agreeing to go to class with Cassie was just better than trying to explain
to her and all of the other doorway assessors why I had no plans to go back to school,
why that part of my life was over
now.

For the first time since he had come to live with me, I had to leave Meatball. My
dog. He had followed me out of our room to the front door, where I was forced to order
him to stay before I closed the door behin
d me.

While I waited for Cassie, I started kicking at the loose pebbles on our small crosswalk,
trying to block out the sound of Meatball’s whine through the door. My chew toy of
a flip-flop brushed against something soggy, and I looked down to see a humidified
piece of cardboard. It was a business card. It took me a minute to realize it was
the one that had fallen when Carly had tried to hand me a piece of paper with Cameron’s
bank account numbers. Before I had thrown it back at her. That had only happened a
couple of weeks before, and yet, it felt like another life ago. Cruelly, the sun had
been shining, brightly, happily ever since then. No stormy weather. No thunder or
lightning. Not even one damn drop of rain to loyally commemorate Cameron’s d
eath.

I bent down and pried the card off the cement, being careful not to rip it. It was
made of thick, indented paper. The really expensive stuff. Most of what had once been
an accountant’s contact information had been washed away. Just a few letters and numbers
rema
ined.

I pulled my notebook out of my bag and pressed the card under the hardcover. This
sodden piece of cardboard was the sole connection I had left to the underw
orld.

Cassie finally opened the front door, but she never had a chance—Meatball charged
right through her, knocking her into the doorframe. While I was prepared to grab his
collar, my arms extended, he darted around me and ran to the house across the street.
He made his way up the wooden side steps to the second-floor apart
ment.

I didn’t know who lived there. In fact, apart from my own roommates, I didn’t know
and had never talked to anyone on our street. This wasn’t a mingling type of neighborhood,
and I wasn’t a mingling type of
gal.

Whoever lived there, I knew they wouldn’t appreciate having a beast of a dog barking
at their
door.

As I ran across the street, shouting at Meatball, my eyes did a quick once-over above
to the second-floor front win
dows.

I could have s
worn—

I stopped in the middle of the street, my breath cut short. It wasn’t possible. I
knew that I was imaginin
g it.

Cameron’s face had flashed by the window. Hadn’
t it?

But that wasn’t poss
ible.

I
knew
that wasn’t poss
ible.

The week before, I had interrupted Meatball’s private business, pulling him leg up
behind me while I ran after Cameron as he exited a coffee shop. The perfect stranger
I grabbed by the shirt thought I was completely nuts. And he hadn’t even remotely
looked like Cameron. The day before, I had caught myself yelling after a bus driver.
He had also turned out to be not-Cam
eron.

I was slowly losing my sanity. Yet as I ran up the steps and grabbed Meatball’s collar,
I gazed ahead, debated, then peeked through the small window. Inside, it was completely
empty, devoid of any furniture, of any Cam
eron.

I was unequivocally
nuts.

“The landlord’s never going to let you keep the dog,” Cassie said to me as we headed
to school, after I had dragged Meatball away from the empty flat. I practically had
to shove him inside and quickly close the door before he could charge back out. I
could still hear him barking as we rounded the co
rner.

“I could always try to hide
him.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” she said with a s
mirk.

More walking. More silence. But I could feel her watching me with her peripheral vi
sion.

It wasn’t until we were stopped at a light, waiting for the walk signal, that she
confronted me again. “You’re doing a really shitty job trying to hide that big scab
on your
lip.”

I kept my eyes ahead, feeling nauseous all of a su
dden.

“I can give you a hand with the makeup stuff, if you want,” she offered to my mute
ness.

“The light changed,” I answered and crossed the street. We made our way to school
without speaking of what she really wanted to know:
what the hell happened to you? What the hell is wrong with
you?

Last night, I dreamed of Rocco. Again. Almost every night, I dreamed of Rocco—in the
same way that as a child I used to dream of my brother, Bill, for almost two years
after he had passed away. Sometimes screaming in my sleep, sometimes waking up to
a puddle on my pillow. Waking up and not really remembering what I had dreamed about,
but having that lingering, aching feeling that it was about Bill. And now R
occo.

But I never dreamed of Cameron. Not
once.

I needed to see him. To see his
face.

Just one more time, feel him next to me—breathing, even if it were only in my dr
eams.

Waking up with a broken heart, it feels like being stabbed a million times by a jackhammer.
I would wake up when all I wanted to do is sleep and never wake up a
gain.

Being forced to go to class, with Cassie on my tail, was another living-second strike
of the jackhammer. And then Cassie and I actually got to this damn class, only to
see my ex-boyfriend Jeremy chatting with another student outside the heavy classroom
doors. This day was getting better and better. Jeremy darted in, obviously hoping
that I hadn’t spotted him. We had dated for a short while last year. Now one year
seemed like an eternity
ago.

We followed the herd as the students ascended the steps into the auditorium. The classroom
was encased in cement blocks, painted pee yellow, with no air circulating through.
The plastic chairs matched the beige linoleum. Whoever decorated the university’s
classrooms was clearly color-b
lind.

The lack of air and the buzz of student chatter made my head pound, so I took the
first available seat, even if it was at the very front of the class. Cassie shook
her head at my teacher’s-pet choice of seating and made me scoot over so she could
sit next to me. There was an old guy at the front of the class, leaning cross-legged
against the desk. This was the professor. I had seen his picture hanging in the philosophy
department. Then there was another guy swaying in front of him and holding a clipboard,
hands slightly shaking. Picture-day gelled hair, abused Nike runners, Green Lantern
T-shirt. Definitely a grad stu
dent.

“Sophia Jane Ackermen,” stuttered out the superhero T-shirt guy while students were
still filterin
g in.

The professor had his grad student do the roll call, the cattle call, while he chopsticked
his way through something that looked like tofu but smelled like rotten fish. I instantly
regretted my choice of a seat in one of the front
rows.

I bent my head, pretending to be digging in my bag for a pen and willing the gag reflex
to get under control. The attempt was frustrated when my bionic fingers kept getting
caught in the spirals of my notebook. I had injured them after I had managed to pry
myself from Spider’s minions and punch Spider in his ugly face. Now my fingers were
stuck in wedges that looked like metal banana peels, and it made everything I did
clumsy. Clum
sier.

Cassie was observing this struggle to surface a
pen.

“How
exactly
did you break your fin
gers?”

“They’re not br
oken.”

“Eugena Cassidy Goldblath,” the grad student called
out.

Cassie rolled her eyes at him. “Yep,” she answered, then turned back to me. “I suppose
the splint is just a fashion state
ment?”

I sighed. The grad student wasn’t even halfway through the alphabet. It would have
been an extremely uncomfortable few minutes if I didn’t give her at least some sort
of resp
onse.

“One of the fingers
was
broken. But it’s probably fine now. I haven’t had it checked in a while.” This reminded
me that I needed to drop into the school’s medical clinic for a follow-up and get
the stupid thing off my
hand.

“Cameron James Hillard,” the grad student called
out.

My blood pressure dropped to the pee-colored f
loor.

I had heard wrong. Just like I was seeing Cameron everywhere, I was hearing his
name.

“Cameron. James. Hillard,” he called out again, practically spelling it
out.

I hadn’t imagined it. I shot up from my seat and turned around to face the rest of
the c
lass.

“Do you go by Cameron or James?” Green Lantern aske
d me.

I heard a few students chu
ckle.

“Emily, what on earth are you doing?” I heard Cassie hiss. She was tugging at my T-s
hirt.

I looked, waiting for him to speak up, to stand. I searched from row to row, searching
for the face that I would be able to recognize in a stadium in the middle of a rock
con
cert.

The room was spinning. Blurred faces I didn’t
know.

I finally gazed down at Cassie, who looked horri
fied.

“Emily?” she a
sked.

My mouth was covered with one
hand.

I stepped over Cassie, tripping over her legs. I used her shoulder to push myself
out into the aisle and kept running, slamming my body into the push bar of the double
doors. Just as the doors drew to a close, I threw up. Right in front of the doors
to the class
room.

****

I sat on the floor of the girls’ second-floor washroom, holding my head in my h
ands.

He would have been in the same class
, I thought to my
self.

Cameron had once admitted to me that he would check up on me after Bill died. But
to what extent, I hadn’t known. There was so much I hadn’t k
nown.

He would have been in the same room a
s me.

Would I have ever even noticed him if Meatball hadn’t introduce
d us?

He would have been in the same breathing space a
s me.

Last year, in my first year at Callister University, ancient philosophy had been held
in the same oversized auditorium. And there had been a whole shelf dedicated to ancient
philosophers in Cameron’s study, with books that had clearly been read before. Had
Cameron been in that class wit
h me?

Had he been enrolled in any of my other classes just so that he could “check” o
n me?

I could have had more time with Cameron, but I was too blind, too self-absorbed to
notice an
yone.

I realized how very little I knew about his secret
life.

Professors did roll calls at the beginning of every semester to see who had made it
out of summer break alive. Cameron ha
dn’t.

And no one but me cared that he wasn’t coming
back.

When my mind and stomach had cleared, I went down to the front desk. Someone would
have to clean up the mess I had left in front of the auditorium. Hopefully before
class finished and students started slipping and sliding out the
door.

There was another student in front of me, talking to a clerk who was hiding behind
bulletproof glass, typing on her desktop. Why did everything always have to be bulletproof?
We were in the philosophy department. They of all people should be able to talk the
crazies away from their
guns.

When my turn came up, the lady behind the desk never looked away from her sc
reen.

“Student ID card,” she commanded, cupping her hand like a catcher’s mitt up to the
half-moon hole at the bottom of the glass. We were all just another student nu
mber.

A thought occurred to me as she entered my number into the system. But while the plan
was still forming in my head, the administrator waited for my student pro
blem.