Deadgirl

I didn’t even sit up. My muscles hardened, locking me in a lazy slouch—a slacker statue. Rodin’s Daydreamer. My jaw clicked as my mouth moved, but nothing resembling words squeaked out. I’d been asked the question, more or less, but not in those words. I struggled to find an answer.

“Don’t rush,” Ms. Crane said, still not looking at me. She looked the part of the daydreamer as well. “I just have a feeling no one has put that question to you so…nakedly.”

I shook my head. Apparently my muscle control was returning.

“I’ve been asked, yeah…”

Crane’s eyebrows arched slightly.

“By who?”

I cleared my throat, “Officer Sykes.”

Crane nodded again, and it came with a smug smile. As if I’d provided the answer she’d been looking for. After a moment, she turned toward me.

“So just a police officer…and your guidance counselor?”

I stiffened, and this time it wasn’t surprise. I felt a jet of anger—my fingers curled around the armrests of my chair. She noticed it all right, but she didn’t look particularly stunned. I knew her accusation already.

“My parents are—”

She cut me off. “You don’t understand—”

“No,” I said. I could feel the raw nerves making my voice shake—I wasn’t used to blowing up on adults, much less an adult/semi-teacher. “You don’t. My parents are good parents. My friends are great. Just because they don’t—”

“Wait,” she said, her face still a mask of calm. “Wait. That’s not what I’m saying.”

My breath came in gasps. Leaning forward in the chair, with my lips parted, I could taste her. I could smell her perfume, something light but flowery, but more importantly I could feel her. A dull warmth baking off her. I caught a glimpse of something—a young man, clean-shaven, handsome, his face edged in the dark orange glow of firelight. I took another deep breath, and the image became clearer. I saw what she must have seen—the blurry shape of a hand moving too fast, then a shock of white light.

I closed my lips and leaned back in horror. I tried to purge the stolen thoughts, tried to vomit them out. They wouldn’t go. I was her in the image, I realized. Being violated in first-person perspective. My skin crawled, and I felt the very real urge to lose my lunch.

She took the look of horror on my face the wrong way, I realized. Her face softened, and she leaned forward to put a hand on my wrist. I allowed it, only because I was too shocked to think.

“I’m just saying that you need to share, Ms. Day,” she said, and squeezed my hand. “You have to talk about it to get past it. To overcome it.”

I shook my head—my emotions were a tangled mess. She’d been attacked, sometime in college, I think. Her sense of panic, of stark terror and helplessness…I could think of nothing but the sickly yellow glow of the parking lot. The guys backing me into an alley, cornering me. Laughing. Making fun of me. I thought of the little bald one with his gun, so self-satisfied and yet nervous. A newborn monster, excited and scared and hungry all at once.

I stood up and yanked my hand away.

“Please…I…” I said, skirting towards the door. “I have to go.”

Her face changed—went from sympathetic to…what? Angry? It was a hard look to read. Almost offensive. She ran a hand over her cheek and finally nodded with a tired look.

“All right, Ms. Day,” she said. “But we’ll be here on Monday, you understand?”

I didn’t care. I just had to go. I grabbed the door handle like it was a life-preserver in a hurricane and yanked. Ms. Crane said one last thing, but I didn’t hear it before I slammed the door behind me. I tucked my arms tight to my body and almost ran through the counseling center. Outside, I sprinted for the parking lot at full speed.

I made it just to the gate near the gym when I heard footsteps pounding the grass behind me. Terror spiked my belly, and I picked up speed. The person was faster than me. Stronger too. My pursuer caught me in moments and scooped me up in powerful arms.

I kicked and struggled, but he turned me around like I didn’t weigh a thing. I looked into cool blue eyes. Zack looked down at me, his face a map of confusion and worry. I struggled to break out of his grip, but there was no use. I wasn’t small or short, but Zack was still positively huge in comparison.

He couldn’t see me like this, but he wouldn’t let me go.

“Let go,” I said, struggling against his chest. “Let go!”

He did. I reeled back and went to slap him, but he deflected the shot with a lightning-fast forearm. His face hadn’t changed—he didn’t look mad at the attack. He’d barely registered it—the block had been instinctual.

“What is it?” he asked. “What happened?”

I backed away from him. My back hit the chain link fence at the edge of the grass, and I saw the jaundiced parking lot again. I thought of being cornered, of being attacked. I sucked in huge gasps of air, but I couldn’t catch my breath. I knew I was losing it, but I didn’t know how to stop. My head felt light and my arms and legs oddly heavy. Zack blurred—the school behind him blurred. I couldn’t catch my breath, no matter how much air I swallowed. I couldn’t—

—grey…—

No. I opened my eyes. I was beginning to lose consciousness, something I didn’t know I could even do. If I didn’t get my breathing under control, I was going to be hurtling back toward the Grey Meadows. And if I did that in front of Zack…if I just disappeared…

Well it would be a whole lot worse than just the simple humiliation I was facing now.

I grabbed the chain fence behind me, trying to let it ground me, trying to let its cold aluminum sink into my hand. Breathe, Lucy. Slow down and breathe.

Zack took another step forward and grabbed one of my hands. His touch burned in mine. My heart fluttered in spite of everything—it felt like it was climbing up into my neck. My arms tingled, then my legs. My breath slowed but grew more ragged. He grabbed my other hand too, crushing it into his. I looked up at him.

'Shouldn't you be in class?' I asked, my breath in tatters.

“I saw you bolt out of the counseling office. Seemed more important than the proper use of the formal usted. Senor Halloway's working on his detention slip right now, I imagine.'

'That's not…very honors student of you,' I said, but I sounded more hysterical than witty.

'Stop. What’s going on, Luce?” he asked me. “What can I do?”

I wanted to tell him a hundred things. He gripped my hands with a force that made me feel dizzy.

“Please kiss me,” I said, horrified the instant I said it but unwilling to take it back. “Don’t ask me anything. Just kiss me. Just—”

He did. His lips crushed mine, and the hands holding mine tugged me close to him. I had to crane my neck up to kiss him, and for just a brief second I wondered what an average height girl would have to go through to reach him. I used my toes to push myself into his lips, and I could taste his breath. Like spearmint, maybe Doublemint. I breathed it in. I could see myself, suddenly. I took another deep breath, and saw myself crushed into his arms, kissing him from the other side. Vertigo.

Zack’s hands let up, suddenly, their grip on my hands slacking. I opened my eyes, wondering what was wrong. Zack looked paler, and his hands were going limp. He swayed, his eyes still squeezed shut.

“No,” I said, and yanked myself away from him. I slapped a hand over my mouth.

Zack’s eyes shot open, and his skin darkened considerably. He stood up straight, but a look of dazed wonder painted his face red at the cheeks.

“What…are you okay?”

My hand still clamped my mouth shut. I couldn’t let it go, couldn’t let it hurt him. Couldn’t let me hurt him. I backed away, my other hand held out to him, pleading.

“Just…I’m sorry,” I said.

“Don’t be,” he whispered. He had the look of someone who had just walked clean and healthy out of a car crash. “That was…awesome.”

I felt the tears coming. No. Not now. I shook my head.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I have to go.”

I turned and fled across the grass. This time, he didn’t try to stop me.