Unraveling Isobel (26 page)

Nate pulled me into his arms and buried his head in my neck.

“You are the best thing to happen to me in a long time,” he said.

“It's going to be okay,” I whispered back. I wasn't really sure how, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

Nate pulled back and smiled. He brushed the hair out of my eyes. “We're going to figure this out.”

“Of course we are. We're going to figure it out together.”

He leaned in and kissed me. He smelled like shampoo. Apparently, I find that smell very sexy, because as soon as I took a deep breath of it, I found myself pulling him back to me, kissing him harder and deeper. The cologne companies could make zillions if they knew the average teen girl was so excited by the smell of clean. It wasn't that I wanted to kiss Nate; I wanted to crawl into his lap and melt into his body. It seemed like he must have been feeling the same thing. He had one hand wrapped in my hair and the other was on my side, moving into boob cupping territory. If there hadn't been the parking brake between us, we would have had to have a conversation about using protection. It was amazing.

Then everything went to hell.

Chapter 35

D
espite the facts that I was practically straddling the parking brake and it was getting cold in the car, the kiss might have been the best one I'd ever had. You read in books stuff about “waves of passion” and “burning loins,” but I'd pretty much figured that was fiction. Who even talks about their loins in normal life? But this kiss was making me very aware of my loins, and they were definitely on fire.

The sight of Nicole staring at us through the windshield with her eyes and mouth wide-open put my loin fire out quick. I yanked back from Nate. I don't know why. It was already too late. She'd seen us. There was no way to make this situation look casual. What was I going to say? Nate was looking for his car keys in my mouth with his tongue? I sat back, frozen in my seat.

“Oh shit,” Nate said, summarizing the situation perfectly.
I could see Nicole standing there in the rain, taking these deep breaths like she was trying to keep from blowing up or was a yoga teacher gone rabid. She looked to me like she was at risk of hyperventilating. Without saying anything, she spun around and started marching toward school. I jumped out of the car and ran after her.

“Nicole, wait a second, I can explain.” I reached out and grabbed her by the elbow. She turned around, her face screwed up into a grimace.

“Don't touch me. Well, I guess I know now why you didn't want to help me hook up with Nate. You're the kind of person who likes to keep things in the family,” she snarled. I stepped back as if she'd slapped me. “I thought we were friends, and then you stab me in the back.”

“How did I stab you in the back?”

“Do you throw yourself into the arms of all your friends' boyfriends?”

Nate walked up. “Chill out. You and I never dated. She didn't tell you about us, but we weren't planning on telling anyone.”

“That's incest, you know. And it's disgusting.”

“We're not actually related,” I stressed.

“Don't feel like you have to explain anything to her. We haven't done anything wrong.” Nate stepped closer to me, his hand resting on my lower back.

“The fact that you don't recognize how wrong it is shows just how messed up your family is,” Nicole said to Nate. Then she
turned to me. “I guess I shouldn't be too surprised at anything you do. The crazy are supposed to be unbalanced.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“You think I didn't know you were seeing my dad? The heating vent in his office is connected directly to my room. Most of the time I can't stand to listen to all his whiny patients talk about their feelings and how life is so hard because their mommies were mean to them, but I have to hand it to you. Your story is better than cable TV. Crazy dad, shaky grip on reality … You're more screwed up than anyone on this island.” Nicole barked out a laugh. “Well, I guess you're no more fucked-up than the guy you're fucking.”

Nate stepped closer so his face was in Nicole's. “Shut your mouth.”

Her lips slammed together. She tossed her hair over her shoulder.

“You don't need to tell me to shut up. I don't have anything to say to either of you.” She looked us both up and down as if we were something nasty she found on the bottom of her shoe, and then she spun around and walked into school.

“We are totally screwed,” I said softly as I watched her walk away.

“No, we're not. We haven't done anything wrong.”

“That's not how it's going to sound when she tells everyone.”

I noticed that Nate didn't bother to disagree with me. Even he knew nothing was going to stop Nicole from telling the entire student body—heck, the entire island, maybe most of the
Northwestern US if she could—that he and I were together and that I was certifiably crazy.

“It doesn't matter.” Nate took my hand and started to walk toward the door.

I took a deep breath and told myself he was right. We weren't related, and while dating your stepbrother might not be exactly “common,” it wasn't illegal. It wasn't like we'd grown up with each other. And who listens through the vents in their house to their dad's office? Sounded to me like Nicole was the one with issues. Besides, with the exception of Nate, I didn't care what anyone thought of me.

Chapter 36

H
ow to tell if you have social leprosy:

 

1. When you walk into a room, instead of smiling and saying hello, your fellow classmates all stop talking and stare at you like they've never seen anything quite like you. When you walk away, you can hear them all talking again.

2. If you accidentally trip in gym class and do a face-plant on the basketball court, instead of anyone helping you up, you'll hear them snicker. Someone may say, loud enough for you to hear, “nice one.”

3. As you walk down the hallway, there's a three-foot
barrier between you and everyone else, as if your loser status were as contagious as Ebola.

4. Even the hot-lunch lady shakes her head in disgust when she sees you, and she's been wearing the same pants with crusted-on baked beans since the beginning of the year.

I had to hand it to Nicole. She was better at spreading information than the emergency broadcast system. Near as I could tell, by third period everyone in school knew Nicole's version of events. I took my lunch tray from the hot lunch lady (who had no business judging me) and stood looking out over the cafeteria. Anyone who met my eyes looked away.

“Come on. We can sit over there.”

I felt a huge wave of relief as I realized Nate was behind me. He motioned to a table near the window, and I trailed after him. There were two juniors sitting there, but when they saw Nate and me come over, they jumped up from the table.

“You don't mind if we join you, do you?” Nate plopped his lunch sack down and, without waiting for them to answer, dropped himself into the seat. They scurried away without saying anything, looking over their shoulders as if they thought we might be chasing them down. “Guess they were done with their lunch.” Nate pulled his sandwich out and then looked up at me. “Are you still getting hot lunch? Talk about a slow learner.”

“I didn't make anything this morning. I had other stuff on my mind.” I shifted from foot to foot. “Maybe we shouldn't eat in here.”

“Why not?” Nate asked, his mouth full of sandwich.

“Are you telling me you haven't noticed we've become the social lepers of Nairne High?”

“I noticed. I just don't care.” Nate pushed the chair next to him away from the table with his foot so I could sit down. “If you ask me, what that lunch is going to do to your internal organs is a much bigger concern than what people here think of you.”

I looked down at the tray. There was some sort of square piece of grayish meat covered in gravy. I poked it with my fork. I couldn't think of a single animal that came in a square shape, which left me with the uncomfortable image of some sort of meat press that stamped out uniformly square chunks of meat made out of things like beaks and hooves. Nate tore off half of his sandwich and passed it to me.

“If you keep this up, I'm going to have to start making extra sandwiches for my lunches so I won't waste away,” he said.

“You had to give me your lunch twice. It's not exactly a radical starvation program I've got you on.” I shoved the sandwich in my mouth before he could take it back.

Nate looked over his shoulder and then leaned in. “About what we were talking about in the car, I think we should go to the police.”

The sandwich stuck in my throat and I had to force it down. “The cops? Are you sure?”

“No.” Nate ran his hand through his hair. “The whole situation makes me sick, but I don't know what else to do.”

I chewed on the inside of my mouth. “I don't think it's a good idea. If we go to the police, they're going to talk to your dad and he'll deny everything.”

“We'll show them the bank statement and the email.”

“And your dad will have an answer for it. He's a big guy on this island. They're going to look at me and see someone who has a lot of crazy in the family, is already seeing a therapist, whose parents are taking her for an evaluation with a residential treatment center, and has made it pretty clear I didn't want to move here. The cops are going to blame me.”

“We'll tell them how you found the stuff.”

“Oh, that will convince them. Make sure you mention how I'm getting messages from your deceased sister. The police love stuff like that.” I rubbed my temple. I liked Nate, but we saw the world differently. He came from a background where the police were all Officer Friendly types. It wasn't that I was on the wrong side of the law, but I knew enough to know that cops were influenced by stuff like how much money you have and if your parents donate to the Police Charity Drive. There were plenty of times in Seattle when I'd be doing nothing more than walking down the street, and a cop car would slow down and follow me
for a while before they got out to ask me where was I headed and what I was up to.

I knew exactly how a meeting with the police would go. Dick would shake his head sadly and mention my mental difficulties and how I didn't seem to be managing the transition well. My mom would disown me for causing more trouble in her perfect marriage, and it would be the final nail in my coffin. I'd be locked up before the day was over. Nate would stick up for me, but everyone would decide that he was blinded by sex and depression over losing his mom and sister. The fall guy in this situation would be me. No way they would believe me over Dick, no way.

“If you don't want to go to the cops, what do you want to do, confront him?” Nate asked.

“I don't see that going well either. He's just going to say he had nothing to do with it.”

“We can't ignore the situation either.”

“We need proof,” I insisted.

“Okay, Sherlock Holmes, what are we going to do? Try out some forensic techniques? Maybe go through the attic and see if we can find my uncle's old college microscope? Look for fingerprints?”

I sat back in the chair. Nate was pissed. His hands were clenched in fists, and I could see his lips pressed into a tight line. Suddenly the saying about not shooting the messenger was making sense. “Don't be mad at me,” I said.

“I'm not,” Nate spit out.

“Could have fooled me.”

“Okay, I'm pissed. Not at you; at the whole situation. Do you realize what we're talking about? About what all this means?” He looked around the cafeteria to make sure no one was listening in and then leaned closer. “If we're right, my dad, maybe with help from your mom, murdered my mom and sister. Murder. We can't sit on that information. We have to do something. I know Deputy Burrows. He used to coach my Little League team. He'll listen to us.”