Nevermore

His face darkened. He glanced away from her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he muttered, taking another bite of ice cream.

Ooookay, she thought. She wouldn’t go there just yet, then.

“Do you know why he wanted my stuff?”

He stopped picking at his ice cream and looked back up at her through the jagged edges of his hair. “I figured you would know that.”

Isobel shook her head. She took another bite of ice cream, then, shivering, set it aside on the sill next to her. She slid off the window ledge and, easing down, settled on the roof beside him, all too conscious that now a space of mere inches existed between them.

“I need to tell you about something,” she whispered.

He stuck his spoon into his ice cream and, reaching over her, set it on the window ledge next to hers. He raised his eyebrows expectantly, maybe even a little curiously.

“I had a dream last night,” she continued, half surprised he’d given her his full attention sans his usual dry remark or disparaging comment. “About Poe— I think,” she added.

His cool expression didn’t change. “Poe?”

“Yeah.” She nodded, biting her bottom lip, afraid she might be alone in this after all.

“What happened?” he asked, seeming to take her seriously enough, though that could have been because of the way she’d been staring at him—wide-eyed, thirsty for him to believe.

His question was the waving checkered flag she’d been waiting for. “Your Poe book,” she said, then stopped when she realized that in order to tell him the rest, she would have to admit to tossing it in the trash. Maybe she could modify the truth a little and say she’d lost it instead.

Then something else stalled her. From inside her room came another quiet knock at her door.

“Isobel?” her mom called. What was this? Parent-daughter conference night?

“Ugh,” she growled, poking her head over the windowsill. Between the two ice cream cartons, she could see her locked door handle jiggling.

“Go,” he said.

She glanced at him, just in time to watch him sink into the shadows, lying back against the roof. His legs outstretched, he crossed them at the ankles, the toes of his boots now the only visible part of him within the line of light streaming from her window. “I’ll wait.”

“Isobel?” her mother called again. “Why is this door locked?”

Trying to be ladylike about it, Isobel crawled back through the window, shutting it as quietly as she could manage. She pulled down the shade once more to hide the ice cream cartons, then opened her door.

“Isobel, what are you do—?”

“I’ve been trying to get ready to take a shower.”

Her mother regarded her strangely for a moment, a basket of Danny’s laundry tucked under one arm. She smiled halfway, then said, “I guess you really are feeling better now that you’re snapping at me.”

Isobel frowned, feeling guilty at seeing her mother’s only lightly masked relief at the return of her daughter from Zombie World. “I’m not snapping,” she said. “What is it?”

“Brad’s here. He brought your homework.”

20 Uninvited

She found Brad at the kitchen table. Her dad sat across from him, the now infamous books and binders from her locker in a pile between them.

After shedding her robe and throwing on an oversize sweater, Isobel had crept down the stairs, her ears tuned to the murmur of Brad’s voice. Above the noise of the TV, however, she hadn’t been able to make out specific words, and now, as she stood in the doorway to the kitchen, glaring at them, she wondered how much Brad had said. Had he mentioned Varen? By the look on his face, that jerky fake smile of his, he’d just been yukking it up with her dad. Listening while her father relived his football days, and maybe that was all.

“Isobel,” her dad started, his tone guarded because he must have read the look on her face.

Her scowl hardened as it became apparent to her that Brad’s year and a half of kissing her father’s butt were about to pay off. And Brad, sitting there with that gleam in his eye, had known this would be the case. He’d known that she wouldn’t have told her parents about their breakup. The thought of Brad being able to read her so well infuriated her to the point of wanting to snatch something off the wall and throw it at him. The feeling only got worse when her dad said, “Simmer down. Brad just brought your homework.”

“Yeah.” Her eyes fixed on Brad’s deceptively handsome face. “Thanks, you’re a real good person. Now please go.”

“Isobel,” snapped her dad in warning. Before, he’d always referred to Brad as “a real good kid,” and perhaps she’d taken a step too far with her sarcastic play on his words. “Now, I don’t know what’s going on with you two,” he said, and rose to lean across the table between them, like a referee calling a foul. “But, Isobel”—he pointed an accusing finger at her, something she hated—“you don’t talk like that to any guest in this house, no matter who it is.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he said, holding his hand up. “Now I’m leaving the kitchen, because whatever this is about, it’s something you guys need to iron out.” He gestured loosely between them. “But you two have been together long enough to do it in civil tones. If I hear any yelling,” he said pointedly to Isobel, “then Brad’ll go home, and it’ll be another week of house arrest for you. Understand?”

Staring stubbornly at nothing, chin up, Isobel nodded, not trusting herself to give a verbal reply.

With that, her father breezed past her and into the living room, where she heard the volume of the TV spike a few notches, and then she was alone with Brad.

They stared at each other and Isobel waited for him to speak first. She wanted to know exactly what this was about before making any assumptions. After a moment, Brad scooted his chair back and stood, his letter jacket still on, she was glad to see. Maybe that meant he hadn’t planned on staying long.

“I figured you hadn’t told them,” he said, grinning.

“Don’t worry, I’ll get around to it.”

“I came to talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you.” She folded her arms close against herself. She didn’t like the way he was looking at her, like he was assessing her for damage.

“Hey,” he said, louder, anger flashing in his features, those sharp blue eyes blazing. “I’m trying to warn you about that freak you’re screwing.”

Isobel felt her face flame. She rushed him, pushed him toward the back door. He stayed rooted to the spot, smirk in place. She spared a worried glance over her shoulder into the living room, then scowled at Brad. She gave up, knowing she’d have better luck in displacing a tree, and strode past him. She snapped on the porch light, then wordlessly opened the back door and stepped out into the brisk night.

Folding her arms, this time against the cold, she huddled into her sweater, waiting for him to follow. He took his time, making a point of closing the door behind him as he ambled out.

She watched him thumb a cigarette from a half-crushed pack he’d pulled from the inside pocket of his jacket. As he lit up, she sneered.

“So now you’re smoking at my parents’ house?”

“You going to tell on me?”

“What do you want?”

He took a long draw from the cigarette, which he kept pinched between his thumb and fingers, his eyes crinkling in thought. He held the smoke in his lungs for a moment, then exhaled in a sigh. “This is getting really old, Izo,” he said, and leaned his back against the brick wall beneath the porch light. “You need to just friggin’ forget it already.”

“Forget what exactly?”