“Smoking on school property is naughty,” Vincent said, wagging his finger. “Are you being
My first instinct was to scramble away from him as fast as possible, but I tried to control myself. I didn’t want to show him fear. Digging my palms into the asphalt beneath me, I felt the sharp sting of tiny rocks and hard cement.
“This isn’t a spectator sport,” Cyn said. “Get lost, asshole.”
His hair was still blond, like Caspian’s. And although it wasn’t flat-ironed and lying across his face like it had been when he’d been on the bed in my bedroom, the streak of black was still there. It sent a shock wave through me. How closely he resembled Caspian.
Vincent sat down between us, and I was too scared to move.
“I like your hair,” he said to Cyn. “Red is
“Don’t care. Move the fuck on,” she replied.
My senses were starting to flood with awareness, and I knew I couldn’t sit there-
Cyn turned to stare at him, and I flattened my palms on the ground, readying myself. I had hit him once before. I could do it again if I had to.
“Did we invite you to sit here?” she said. “Who the hell are you?”
“Oooh, spicy! Abbey knows how much I like the spicy ones.” He leaned into my ear and whispered, “
I pulled away, horrified.
Before I could stop him, Vincent reached over and laced his hand through mine. “As to who I am? I’m Abbey’s boyfriend. Didn’t she tell you? My name is … Caspian.”
I jerked my hand out of his so hard and so fast that I fell forward off the curb and landed against the street. “No-no you’re not,” I managed to say.
Cyn gasped, and Vincent laughed. Then he stood up.
“Don’t smoke too much, girls,” he called, sauntering away. “Naughty, naughty, naughty!”
A minute later a black Mustang roared away from us, turning around a corner and racing past a stop sign. I rocked back and watched him go.
And then I leaned forward again, and puked.
Cyn helped me get cleaned up in the school locker room, and I kept apologizing to her. She kept telling me to stop, but I couldn’t help it. I didn’t know if I was apologizing for making such an idiot out of myself, or apologizing for feeling so helpless. Either way, it sucked.
“I can’t
“It was probably just the cigarette,” Cyn replied. “Or the fact that that guy was a
I rinsed and spit. “Major douche bag” was only the half of it.
“Is he an ex?” she asked hesitantly.
“No.”
I didn’t say any more, and she didn’t prod. I gargled and spit again, then turned off the water. We went back outside, and an old white Honda was sitting there.
“Come on,” she said. “You’re getting a ride.”
“I can walk. It’s not that far.”
She pointed to the car, and her eyes went wide. “Get. In.”
Her tone told me not to argue, so I followed orders. Cyn’s mom didn’t say anything as I got into the backseat, and Cyn was the one to ask for directions when she got into the front.
They dropped me off, and the house was silent when I walked in. That made me nervous.
“Caspian?” I called. “Are you here?”
There was no answer.
I headed to my bedroom as fast as I could, trying to quell the rising panic in my stomach.
Pushing open the bedroom door, my heart sank straight to my feet when I saw someone lying on the bed.
I thought I was going to have a heart attack. My knees threatened to give out, and little black spots sprung up at the edges of my vision.
It almost felt like my heart was going to seize up again, only this time out of relief when I saw that it was Caspian.
“Abbey?” he said. “What are you …? Are you okay?”
I clutched my chest. Caspian rubbed his eyes, and then he got up and came over to me. I put up a finger in response. “Just a minute. Just give me a minute. I think I’m having a heart attack. Twice.”
He looked around. “What time is it? I was supposed to meet you at school. What happened?”
“I waited for you, but you never came. And then …” I glanced back at the bed, putting two and two together. “Were you
Caspian ran a hand through his hair, messing the back up a bit, and he glanced at the bed too. “I don’t know. I don’t remember what happened. One minute I was here and it was eleven o’clock. Then the next …” Realization dawned, and his look of confusion turned to anger. “I can’t believe I fell asleep!”
The sleeping thing concerned me, but I needed to wash off the remnants of seeing Vincent again before I could think about what it all meant. “It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it. I’m just going to go take a bath.”
A strange look crossed his face as I passed by. “Is that smoke?” he asked. “And vomit?”
Embarrassment filled me. “Yeah. Cyn was waiting for her mom too, and she was smoking outside. I shared her cigarette and it didn’t agree with me. Hence the hurling.”
I limped into the bathroom and started pulling towels down from the cupboard.
“I didn’t know you smoked,” Caspian said.
“I don’t. I mean, I never did before. This was just something new I wanted to try. Figured I wouldn’t get another chance, so why not?” I turned on the faucet and adjusted the water temperature.
“Is this … going to be a permanent thing?” he asked slowly, a worried look on his face.
“God, no. Once and done. Now, can we please not talk about it anymore?”
He nodded, and I shut the door behind me. All I needed was a good soak in some hot water, and then I’d be ready to tell Caspian the important part.
About Vincent.
* * *
It wasn’t until later that night that I was able to work up my courage to tell him about what else had happened. He’d just finished reading three chapters of
Closing my eyes, I took a breath and then said, “There’s something I need to tell you, but I don’t want you to get upset. So please don’t, okay?”
Would he be even more upset with himself that he’d fallen asleep and missed the chance to make sure Vincent didn’t do anything to me?
He closed the book and put it down on the bed. “On a scale of one to ten, how bad is it?”
“Probably a nine.”
“Okay …”
“Just remember that I had a really bad day today, and I threw up in front of someone at school, and there was puke on my shoes,” I said in a rush of words. “And Vincent Drake was there.”
