A few people snorted. Some of my classmates glared at the ground, and some grimaced. I couldn’t tell what from. Hopefully sympathy.
“I don’t want to hear about those things,” snapped a haughty, blonde-busty-and-bejeweled girl. Her friends nodded their agreement.
My teacher—oh, what was her name! Hopper or something—frowned. “It’s a disability; they had heart disease. It’s a classic example of poorly tested medical equipment—”
“Yeah, well, I think they should have just died.”
I wanted to hit her. How could she say that? How stupid could someone be? My memory went back exactly seven and a half months, but at least I wasn’t so…so naïve. And—and bigoted.
A kid named Garrett stood up. “My sister died of cardiomyopathy—she was eighteen. Are you saying that you would rather she stay that way instead of be able to live with some disability?” My respect for Garrett skyrocketed.
The girl shrunk just a little bit. “Disability? They have to inject human blood into their veins, and you call that a disability?”
“What if it were you?” I blinked. Had I spoken out loud?
The blonde turned her washed-out eyes on me, razor-sharp. “Do you remember me asking you? Oh, that’s right, I guess you wouldn’t know the difference, consi-dering you forgot fifteen years of your—”
“Katie, hallway,” Ms. Hopper-Or-Something commanded tightly.
“This is bullshit!” The girl Ms. Hopper-Or-Something had dubbed “Katie” screeched.
“Get out,” she repeated tightly.
I stared at my desk. “What if it were you?” I muttered again, tracing the spot on my desk where someone had hacked “bich” out of the fake wood. It had made me laugh at first—you’d think if they were going to carve nasty words into school property, they’d at least spell it right—but now it was just a single permanent fixture in this place. It meant nothing to me anymore.
“I didn’t realize we had such strong opinions on this topic,” Ms. HOS (that’s “Hopper-Or-Something”, shortened) said stiffly, raking her hands through her slick dark hair.
“No,” Garrett told her, “You just didn’t know that Katie Maher’s middle name is racist.”
Ms. HOS gave him a quelling look. “I’m going to pretend that I didn’t hear that.”
“She was out of line.”
“I know that, Mr. Smith.” She paused, seeming lost for words. There were a few of us in class who weren’t at least a little bit irritated by Katie Racist Maher’s out-burst, except for the girls that sat around her empty desk and several of the boys that had been too busy checking her cleavage to understand what she was saying.
Well, truthfully, this left exactly four of us:
1.
Ms. HOS
2.
Garrett Smith
3.
Me
4.
Tess
“What exactly is a vampire, Ms. Leapor?” Tess wondered quietly from behind me, inadvertently reminding me of Ms. HOS’s real name. I could feel Tess playing with my curly hair, springing the links so they bounced back up. She was silly, but she was all right.
“That’s what we were going to talk about in class today, actually. If you read your articles…”
I glanced down at mine and raised my hand. “Um, Ms. Leapor?”
“Yes, Anna?”
I flashed the paper up at her—a shopping receipt to some online store. Obay or something.
“Oh, damn,” she hissed.
We raised our eyebrows.
“Sorry, forgot to turn the filter on.” She buzzed her lips like a horse. “We’ll just have to skip to the CNN Student News.”
She pulled the tab up on her computer/projector thing and played. A paper air-plane zoomed across the screen, around a globe.
“Welcome to CNN Student News. This is Carl Azuz. Today we’re broaching a heavily debated topic, the vampires.
“In literature, they appeared as…”
I tuned out. Instead, I thought about Garrett. Garrett was now, officially, the only guy in this school I respected at all. And he was kind of cute, now that I was thinking about him, with curly brown hair and bright, blue-green eyes. I wondered how I’d never noticed before. Maybe I should try talking to him after class today. Although, I doubted he wanted to talk to me—no one ever did. Although, if I was confident enough…
The bell rang. I jumped a little in my seat. Showtime, I thought, without ever actually deciding to talk to Garrett.
I ran my fingers through my hair a couple times and fast-walked to catch up to him. “Are you okay?” I blurted. Stupid mouth…
“Yeah, I’m fine…why?” He demanded, suddenly checking himself for bodily harm. Finding none, he raised an eyebrow.
“Your sister—it can’t be easy.” I offered a tentative, sad little smile.
“It was a long time ago.” He paused. “Look, what Katie said to you was way out of line.”
I shrugged. I got jokes like that all the time. I just didn’t cry where anyone could see me. “I’m used to it.”
“You shouldn’t have to put up with crap like that—it’s not your fault.”
“Thank you for that.” I bit my lip. Having someone—someone other than Tess, who, admittedly, I took for granted more than I should—be nice to me about my entire life being missing appeared to produce a stronger urge to cry than people being mean about it. Or maybe it was just the way he said it—defensive, protective. I liked that.
Garrett stopped at his locker, twirled the combination in with a few quick swipes, and dumped in his books. “Where you headed next?”
“American Lit. You?”
“P.E.” He grinned. “Flag football unit.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath, suddenly feeling awkward. “So…bye.”
“Bye. Wait—let me walk you to your locker.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said quickly. Though, it would be so nice to have a body-block…
“I want to.”
“Well, then. Okay.” I headed for my locker; I had to try my combination four times before my shaking hands got it right. What was wrong with me?
“Look, Anna, I’m sorry if I ever did anything to you.”
I glanced up from the stack of notebooks in the bottom of my locker. “What?”
“I’m sorry if I ever…you know…made fun of your memory.”
I frowned, trying to remember. “I don’t think you ever did.”
“Okay. Okay, good.”
Silence. Or as much silence as there ever was in a high school hallway. I knelt and picked up my notebook. This one had a cocker spaniel and the color blue on it. Figures. I chewed my lip again.
“Why do you do that?” Garrett asked suddenly.
I glanced up, startled. “Huh?” If Karen was here she would have told me, very pointedly, not to say “huh”. She said it made me sound uneducated…whatever that meant. “Do what?”
“You always chew your lip—I sort of wonder what you’re thinking about.”
He noticed that my lips were usually being chewed on? I hardly even noticed that anymore. How flattering. Or maybe that was a bad thing. What if my lips were bleeding? I put a finger to them unconsciously. “I don’t even notice it anymore. Habit, I guess.” I could hear something—a sort of thud, thud. Maybe it was my heartbeat. Why would I hear that?
“So what were you thinking about?”
“Kind of pushy, aren’t you?” I smiled a little and shrugged. “Just kidding. I was thinking that I would really rather have a different notebook.”
“You don’t like puppies?”
I studied the cocker spaniel, all blonde and scruffy with black eyes. “They make me sad”, I wanted to say. Instead, I went with: “Guess I’m just not a dog person.”
He raised an eyebrow, but didn’t call me on that. Good of him. “Well, bye, I guess.”
I tried not to feel a little bit disappointed (why was I disappointed? Oh, who the hell knows?), reminding myself that if I was late to Lit again Mr. Schroon would have my head.
“Bye,” I told his feet.
I could feel his eyes on the top of my head, at the messy part in my hair, like a cool breeze to disturb the flyaway tendrils. I glanced up, unnerved.
“See you after school.”
“What?”
“I’m giving you a ride home.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Oh, really?” He couldn’t be serious. No one but Tess—and sometimes Lucille—ever talked to me, let alone gave me a ride home. Let alone a boy.
His mouth quirked up at the corner. “Yeah, really. Unless,” he added, suddenly uncertain, “you already had a ride…?”
Lucille was probably supposed to drive me. “Um…no.”
“Great. See you at three-ten, sharp.”
“But school gets out at three-eleven—”
His funny eyes sparked. “I know. Now, shh.”
I closed my locker, reminding myself of the time. The bell was sure to go off any second. We only had four minutes of passing time. “Bye, now. Flag football’s calling you, and Steinbeck is calling me.”
“Steinbeck?”
I waved and turned in the amlit direction, wondering if any of that had just happened. I was crazy already, so it stood to reason that I would hallucinate—
Iron fists grabbed my shoulders and spun me so I slammed into a locker, my head clanking on the metal. Ow. My pile of stuff—notebook, folder, book, pencils—clattered to the floor and scattered in every direction.
My eyes focused on a pair of washed-out blue ones, painted with black eyeliner and mascara, glittering angrily.
“What the hell is your problem?”
Bubblegum spit spattered my face. I coughed. “What?”
“Get me sent out of class and then make moves on my boyfriend? What the freaking hell, you bitch!”
Deep breath. Grow a backbone, Anna. “I’m pretty sure neither of those would have happened if you weren’t so racist. Or so insensitive. His sister died—wouldn’t you have known that if he were really your boyfriend?”
My head slammed into the lockers again. The lines of Katie’s furious face swam and blurred. It felt like my head was about to crack open. Bad move. I blinked sleepily. “Tired…” my tongue felt swollen. It took too much energy to form words; I slouched. The last things I felt were Katie’s ten manicured claws digging into my shoulders.

My head hurt.

That was the first thing I felt—my head. My hands ached, too, and the right one was cold.

I blinked.

Grandpa was behind the office desk, shooting me curious glances. I waved at him, and winced—my knuckles started to bleed again when I bent them.

Wait, what?

I stared down at my hand in bewilderment. The knuckles were scraped, and bruises were blooming on my fingers. Ouch. What did I do?

Several things flashed back to me. Blue eyes. Lockers. And a puppy simpering up from the floor. Although that was probably my notebook…

“Grandpa?” I blinked a few times to bring his face into focus. “What happened?”

“Took a nasty knock to the head, you did.” He shook his head.

“How? Katie was—I mean, I thought—”

“You were fighting with her, remember?”

No. “Um. How did I get here?”

He raised his eyebrows. “The nurse didn’t think you had any head drama…do you honestly not remember?”

Did he mean trauma? “No.” I shook my head. Bad move. I brushed the tender spot at the back of my head with a wince. Ouch. “Why am I in the office? I’m missing English…” I trailed off at his incredulous look. “What?”

“You’ve been suspended. Your mother is coming to pick you up.”

Karen is not my mom! “Oh.” I wished that he would call me “hon” or “honey” or “sweetheart” or even “biscuit”—any of the pet names that usually turned my face red would have been so comforting now. Are you mad at me? I tried to shoot the thought across the room.

He remained oblivious.

“How long?” I asked.

His face refused to soften. “Just through tomorrow. You can come back on Friday.”

That was a pretty light sentence. I voiced this to Grandpa.

“First-time offender,” he almost smiled. “You got off easy, kid.”

It wasn’t quite what I’d wanted, but I smiled at him. My lip tore. I put a hand to it. “Ouch. Crap.” I used one of Lucille’s favorite words. I didn’t realize it was split. Although, under my fingers, it did seem sort of bigger than normal. I plotted re-venge on Katie.

“Watch your tongue, young lady,” Grandpa reprimanded me. But he offered me a Kleenex.

“Thanks,” I murmured, standing up to retrieve it. I caught a glimpse of some mottled creature in the nurse’s office—eventually the hair and the thing mouthing something that looked a lot like “tuck bee itched” did I recognize it as Katie.

Had I done that?


Maybe revenge wasn’t in order, after all. Although, if she kept stealing more of Lucille’s “angry words”, I’d have to be irritated. Actually, I honestly thought that Lucille had made those words up, since Tess never said any of them and neither did Brian or Karen…I made a mental note to—um…word? Aha!—Google them later.

The door to the office burst open. Karen—pale-faced and scared looking—shot through it. “Oh my God.”

I blinked. Was my face peeling off? Would I be able to tell? Did I really look that bad? “Hi, Kay.”

“Are you okay.”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

The worry ebbed, replaced by something that left her looking angrier than a hornet in a beehive. (That is the expression, right?) The new look she shot me made my face burn. Well, burn more. I got the feeling that I looked pretty terrible anyway, and I could feel a nice scrape on my cheek. That woman was going to give me whiplash.

“Anna. Let’s go.”

I shot a look at Grandpa. “Do I need to talk to the counselor, or the principal…?”

He gave me a worried look. “You already talked to them, hon.”

Yes! Pet-name regained! “Oh. Um.”

“Maybe you should get your head looked at,” he muttered, shuffling some papers and stapling some files.

“Bye, Gramps.” I picked up the bag at my feet—pretty sure it was mine, it looked familiar (plus, it had an A embroidered on the front—who else could it have belonged to?)—and scuttled out of the office, the death grip Karen had on my arm making my fingers go numb. Who knew that a teacher, and willowy Karen to top it off, could have such a grip?

Well, not me, but that was obvious.

“Um, Karen? You’re hurting me.”

She scowled at the front doors as she shoved them open. I wondered if maybe she was going to say good, but then the vice loosed. I rubbed my arm
reproachfully. “Um, ow.”

“No. Don’t. Just—don’t.”

I tried to remind myself that Karen had every right in the book to be mad at me. Furious, actually. I’d been fighting.

It didn’t make it hurt any less.

I wanted to tell her that it wasn’t my fault—that I didn’t remember any of it, that I was as clueless as she was as to how I had beaten Katie up as badly as I had, and, also, that I was sorry, even though Katie had very thoroughly deserved to have her tail beaten.

No. I was just sorry. Not just because I felt like crap, either. “Karen…”

“Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in? That we’re in? If you can’t keep it together, clean up your act, you’ll get transferred. Moved to a different foster home. It will screw up your high school education, because you’ll be at a different school—”

“What?” I gaped. “They can’t just—they can’t move me, can they?”

Karen’s eyes were steel. “They can, Anna, if they don’t think we’re taking good care of you.”

“That’s ridiculous! I couldn’t have asked for a better—”

“You tell them that.”

Silence.

I felt each second tick away, felt them skittering along my skin, leaving trails of goosebumps. I counted to ten, and back down, expecting to hear myself saying the words "I blacked out again. I need help."

But I didn’t.

I got home, slammed the door to my room and stared at the ceiling for almost five seconds before I realized what I’d forgotten to go along with the whole fight with Katie.

Garrett had been being exceptionally nice to me before it all went down, and he was going to give me a ride home.

I buried my head in my pillow and cried. How could I mess everything up?

And, equally important—why couldn’t I remember doing it?



The door rattles.

I sit bolt-upright in bed, startled, my hair flying around my face, an unsaid “what?” clinging to my lips. My heart pounds so loudly it hurts to hear.

Bang, bang, bang, bang!

Just the wind, I think, taking deep breaths. Just the wind. There’s nothing to be afraid of.

Bang, bang, bang!

The door creaks open, followed by a hiss. “We missed you.”

Bang.



“Tess!” I gasped, flicking on the lamp by my bed. I sat up and put my head on my knees, kneading my forehead with my knuckles.

Lucille moaned and rolled over in bed, pulling a pillow up over her mess of tangled cinnamon curls. Toto, sleeping on her bed—illegally—yipped unhappily, burying his head under his paws.

“Sorry, Cilla,” I whispered, trying to calm my hectic pulse. Just a dream. Just a dream. Just a dream.
My gaze fell to the sleek black phone on my bedside table. I snatched it off of its charger—it made a loud beep of protest—and thumbed through my few contacts, not even stopping to think of what to say.

“Anna?”

Relief washed through me, so strong as to be painful. “Oh, Tess, thank God.”

“What’s wrong?” She yawned groggily.
“It’s—like—two in the morning.”

“I just—” what was I supposed to say? Bad dream? “—I woke up, and I forgot that I didn’t tell you—I—I was fighting with Katie, and—”

“Anna, I heard about that. It was all anyone talked about eighth hour.”

“I’m not going to be in school tomorrow.”

“Okay. Um, thanks, honey. Anything else?” Tess got a thousand brownie points for not yelling at me and/or throwing a pillow at me the way Lucille did. Not that she could have, but it’s the thought that counts. I gave Lucille a reproachful look and tossed it back, mouthing “sorry”.

It was just a dream, right? Nothing to be worried about. “This is going to sound weird, but…watch your back, okay?” Fine. I cared about Tess a lot more than I let on. Admitted it.
Happy now?

“Oh. Okay.” Beat. “Is there something wrong?”

Yes. “Only that Lucille is going to strangle me if I don’t hang up soon.”

“’Kay, then. Night, sweetheart.”

“’Night, Tess.” Be safe. I hung up.
Lucille was full awake and glaring now. “What the hell, Anna? It’s two-oh-eight!”

“I’m sorry,” I said automatically. “I just—I had a nightmare.”

“Again?” Lucille’s “worried-face”—a face that would have done Karen justice, by the way—replaced her “angry-face”. Toto snuggled up into her lap; she petted him absently.

“Um, they were—”

“Was it about that blonde girl? The one that keeps showing up—in your dreams?”

A blonde girl, yes. But not the usual one. “Not really, no. It was about Tess.” I swallowed. “I just—I had to call. I had to make sure she was okay, you know?”

Cilla’s face softened. “Anna, it might have been a normal nightmare this time, you know? People have dreams about people all the time—it could just be, you know, a normal nightmare.”

My teeth chattered. It didn’t feel normal. It felt real. No black-outs, no foggy vision, no nothing to give it away as a dream. “Yeah. Yeah, I guess.”

“Try to get some sleep, Banana.” Cilla smiled when she said my pet name. She shooed Toto off her, lay back down and rolled over. “And turn off that light.”

I could do one, if not the other.



The light in our room clicked on at six-oh-three sharp, which only intensified the light starting to seep in through the windows.
There were some downsides to sharing a room with an older “sister”.

Normally, though, there wasn’t really a problem with the lighting. We had to get up at the same time, and if I had nightmares, usually I just huddled in the dark.

Then again, normally neither of us got suspended and, thus, didn’t have to go to school in the morning. I pulled a pillow over my head and moaned. My headache was better after sleep, but the light still made my eyes smart. Also, normally Toto slept in, unlike this morning, when he seemed intent on licking my fingers and my face. I pinned my blanket down around me instead, hoping that would work better than the pillow.

At half-past, Lucille yanked the blankets back. It truly was amazing, I grumbled, how bright and awake and…and perky she could be before seven a.m. Maybe being in a coma for a year had made me sleepier, or maybe nightmares just made me tired. Either way, I shot her an evil look, which she shrugged off. Toto, wound between her ankles, stuck out his tongue at me.

“Karen says to get dressed.”

“Why?”

“You’re going to go talk to…um…what’s her name…Sandy! That’s it. You’re going to go talk to Sandy this morning.”

I groaned. “My new violent streak does warrant serious counseling.”

Lucille gave me a sad smile. “Anna, I know you don’t like going to see her—I don’t really, either, some days—but Karen really’s just…she’s worried about you.”

I rolled onto the floor and examined Lucille's boots. “Cute cowgirl gear, by the way.”

“Thanks!” She grinned. It faded, and she raised a suspicious eyebrow. “Changing the subject?”

“My mental deterioration isn’t really a subject I care to discuss.” I bounced up and examined the rest of Lucille’s outfit. Her white-ish—ivory, maybe? Was that a color?—skirt swirled above her knees, and a bright blue, thin-strapped top brought out coppery shades in her tanned skin, making her eyes look lighter, like gold. “You look—hot.” That was a word that I normally didn’t associate with people, but Cilla liked to use it.

She blew a stray bronze curl out of her face. “I know, right?”

“Won’t you get cold?” I wondered.

“It’s nice out. Plus,” Cilla added with a wink, “I’m wearing thermal underwear.”

I gaped. “You are not.”

She gave me a look.

“Oh. Ha, ha. You’re funny.” Sigh. “Why are you so dressed up?”

“Oh, this? I just threw it together.” She patted her springy hair, laughing. “Aiden’s coming over today.”

Groan. So that was why she looked like…well, like she was making use of one of those weird push-up thingies. I thought for a second about where mine had gone…and then turned red, because it’s not like I’d actually wear it anyway. “Ah.” No need to mention, again, that her boyfriend wasn’t really a person I liked very much.

She pursed her lips. “C’mon. I’ll help you pick out an outfit.”

I thought longingly of the sweatpants in my dresser. Apparently, those would not be an option today. Grr. “Why help the fashion-crippled?”

“What can I say? I’m a sucker for lost causes.” She wrinkled her nose. “Go take a shower, shave. Shoo! And brush your teeth. Then come back. I need some time to think.”

Twenty minutes later I was showered and wearing a few unmentionable items that may or may not have had polka dots and bows underneath my skirt-and-blouse ensemble. Ugh. I was never letting Lucille dress me again. I stomped downstairs and glared at Lucille. “Happy now?”

She grinned. “You like your new clothes?”

“What happened to my old clothes?” I had searched--and found nothing of my relaxed, well-worn t-shirts and blue jeans.

“I went shopping while you were napping yesterday.”

Oh, no. “You got that much bought in one trip?”

“Not counting the others I made this month, yes. I just got the stuff moved in last night. Happy birthday, Banana!”

“It’s not my birthday.” No need to add that I didn’t want or need more clothes. But Cilla was obviously excited, so I tried to be, too.
Even if the stupid undies had a bow on the front.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t do so well on your last birthday.”

“You got me a new chain for my necklace.” The old chain for the one thing I had from my old life—a long loop of copper with a lion-shaped charm dangling from it—had snapped last year before my birthday. Cilla, knowing that I never took the thing off, had replaced it.

“Oh, yeah.” She paused. “I bought some earrings to go with it—you never wear those, though.”

“My ears aren’t pierced, Cilla.”

“They aren’t?”

I shook my head and walked to the kitchen, pulling out a chair and sitting down. I crossed my ankles, the fabric of the boots Cilla liked making a funny squeak-crunch sound.

“You want some coffee, Anna?” Then Karen turned around. “Oh, honey.”

My cheeks burned. Could she tell? “I’ll go—”

“Your face!” Karen set down the mug she was filling with coffee and came over, placing her cool hand against my bruised face. I flinched.

Lucille suddenly appeared with a pink tote that said Lucy on the front and dumped it out on the table. Plastic cases clattered everywhere. “I’ve got it covered.”

“Lucy, do we really have time to—”

“Yes, Karen. Anna isn’t going to visit the lovely Sandra until nine, and I have open first hour. I just go normally because I want to talk to people.” She studied the labels of a few glass vials colored a peachy shade and shrugged. She unscrewed the cap and dumped some runny stuff onto what looked like a small white sponge. She smeared it around with her finger, and then smoothed it over my face with more gentleness than I thought she’d have in her.

“Be careful.”

“Kay, I am being careful.” Cilla winked at me. “Aren’t I, Anna?”

“Sure.”

“You earned yourself a bruise-poke for that.” She finished smearing the tacky goop over my face and shook a black-topped container.

“Lucille Valerie Anderson!”

Lucille winced. “Not that I actually would.”

“I have no doubt that you would, young lady. Don’t even think about it.”

I laughed. Karen and Cilla bickering was funny to me, for some reason.

“You get another face-poke if you won’t hold still.”

“Is that a pencil?” I demanded, sighting the rounded thing on the table. Cilla brushed what looked a lot like colored dust on top of the gummy stuff and picked up the pencil thing. She poked it at my eye.

I blinked. “What the hell, Lucille?”

She giggled. So did Karen. “It’s makeup, honey. Eye-liner.”

Oh, right. Whoops. Forgive me for never using the stuff.

“So hold still, and keep your eyes open,” Lucille added.

This was easier said than done, and I was more than glad when Lucille left my eyes and drew back with a sigh. “Not much I can do about her mouth. Although, a little lip gloss can do wonders, now that I think about it.” She picked up a tube and smeared some on my bottom lip. “Rub that around.”

“It’ll get on my hands!” I protested.

“Like this. Pucker up.” Lucille demonstrated something that I would never have tried, except that Cilla and Karen were watching me expectantly.

I wondered if lip glass—no, wait, I mean gloss—was supposed to taste sweet. Or if it was supposed to be tasted.

“Thanks, hon.” Karen smiled at Lucille. “That looks a lot better.”

“You want to see?” Cilla brandished something that might have been a compact mirror.

“No!”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I mean, thanks, but—”

“Anna, come on. You look hot.”

With all my bruises? Didn’t think so. “Um. Yeah. Right.”

“Just look.” Lucille flipped open the mirror and held it up to my face.

Shockingly, I didn’t actually look that bad. I’d had better days, too, but the eyeliner made my eyes…what was it…explode? Soda? Oh, pop. Right. Plus, the lip stuff covered up the split, so my mouth just looked sort of blown-up. “Nice. I approve.”

“Oh, come on, you sexy—” Cilla caught Karen’s look and cut that sentence short. “You really do look hot. Just stay away from Aiden, okay?”

Like that would be a problem. “’Kay.”

“And now, my darling, I bid you adieu,” Cilla drawled, shoving her makeup back into its bag. “I have people to see, classes to attend, homework to ignore—” Karen gave her another look “—or to definitely, definitely do so I can go somewhere with my life, bla, bla, bla. Enjoy your day off.”

“It’s hardly a day off—” Karen began.

“Whatever. She’s not going to school. That’s a day off in my book. I should pick a fight—never mind. Leaving. Love you, dolls!” And with that, she swept out of the kitchen, leaving me blinking stupidly and Karen looking less than thrilled.

She sighed. “We should go, Annabelle.”

I blinked. “What did you call me?”

Karen’s eyes flicked up from her purse, fingers frozen in the act of pulling something—keys?—from its leathery depths. “What?”

“Just now. What did you call me?”

“Oh. Annabelle?” She frowned. “Sorry. Do you not like that? I can stop.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s just—why did you call me that?” It seemed sort of random.

Karen tilted her head. “I don’t know. It sounds like your name, I suppose.”

“Oh.” I got up and headed for the door. The humid outside air hit me like a slap. “Ew.” I hate any form of warm weather. It didn’t help that my hair was still a little damp and that the water in it heated up as I raced for the car.

Karen followed me, locking up, and started the car. She adjusted the…radio, and she hummed along to a song she obviously remembered. I got the feeling that it meant something to her when she smiled a little at the end. “That’s my song, you know.”

“Your song?” I frowned.

“Brian always sang it.” She sighed wistfully. “He still does, a little, when I see him. He’s so busy now.”

Love wasn’t something I even pretended to understand. I could pretend, if I was reading a good book, or if I was talking to Cilla or Tess about their latest…infatuation? Tess’s changed a lot, and Cilla pointed out cute guys in between talking about Aiden. The most I understood about love was that Karen and Brian kissed each other both hello and goodbye, and that Karen loved her big house and her pool, but she loved Brian more. Any house is too big when there’s no one in it with you. “I’m sorry.”

To my surprise, she laughed. “I’m not. He enjoys what he does.”

There was some sadness in her voice.

“He loves you more, you know.”

“I know.” Karen sighed again. “Why are we talking about this? Shouldn’t we be talking about you?”

“Lucille picked out my clothes today.”

“I meant—you know—your problems.”

“I consider that a problem. Also traumatic. Very, very traumatic.” I shuddered for emphasis.

“Come on. That’s not what you want to talk about.”

I thought briefly about the underwear riding up my butt. “True.”

“Why were you fighting? Are you angry at me? At Brian?” I hated it when Kay’s voice got all strained and pinched.

“No!” I sputtered. “That’s not it!”

“Then what is it?”

How much could I tell her? “That girl…” Deep breath. “That I was fighting with? Katie? I know what you’re going to say, but she started it.”

Karen didn’t snort; she didn’t look at me, either, though.

“I was talking to this guy—Garrett—before that. He was going to give me a ride home. We were talking.”

“This was over a boy?” she sputtered. “Oh my God—”

“Maybe. I guess she got sent out of class partly because of me, though I can’t see that making her so…mad.”

“You didn’t try to talk her out of it?”

Something like that. “Um, Karen? She was hitting me. Kind of hard to be coherent around that.”

“I know. It was a stupid idea.” She glanced over at me as she parked in front of the nifty counseling office. “But I still want you to talk to Sandy.”

“I figured that.” I sighed. “When forever has drawn hence to a close, when time has stopped and drips but faintly from the hourglass of sand, you will find but words of greeting upon my pale lips.” I thought for a second. “Well, swollen and split lips.”

“You were reading Romeo and Juliet again, weren’t you?”

I winked. At least she was smiling a little now. “What would give you that idea?” And with more courage then I felt, I shut the car door behind me and pushed through to my counseling session, trying very, very hard not to think of Romeo’s death lines.

“How was session?”

I shut the car door behind me with a huff. “Fine.” I refused to tell Karen about my “breakthrough”, in which I poured out every detail of the fight, my dreams, and yesterday’s second black-out. “I see you got lunch without me.” I raised my eyebrows pointedly at the McDonald’s bag.

“If you don’t tell Lucille, you can have the French fries.”

I agreed to this, happily eating the funny things. French fries were greasy, and salty, but they were hot, and—well—pretty damn good. “How was your hour of doing nothing?”

“Actually, I went uptown to the furniture store. That couch needs replacing.”

I pretended to know which couch needed replacing, nodding my head as I slurped up another fry. Who invented these things? “Did you see any you like?”

“There was a leather one—of course that was too expensive.”

I wasn’t generally aware of anything “too expensive” for Brian and Karen, but, then again, I wasn’t generally aware of anyone’s financial business, except that if they left money in their pockets and I was doing laundry, I got to keep it. (Score!)
Although I usually had to return any and all checks… “I’m sorry…?”

“Don’t be. It’s not your fault that I ended up a teacher.”

“Did you want to teach?”

She shifted uncomfortably. “Yes. I did.”

“Then I think that’s all that matters.”

She smiled. “Thanks. For that, you can finish off my soda.”

“If it’s diet, I don’t want it.”

“What’s diet about McDonalds?”

The answer was too obvious. “The soda.”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t have a response to that. I kicked my feet up onto the dashboard, humming tunelessly.

“Feet off the dash.”

I sighed and took them back off, pouting as the house came into view.

It was pretty, I guess, in a country sort of way. It had three main sects—a porch, a garage, and the house-house—plus a pool and what certainly could have been a machine shed, but the inside had been made more into a clubhouse Cilla and I hung out in and people used to celebrate their birthdays. Cilla said the interior was “very country”, too, and I guess that with the dark wood and floral wallpaper, one could think that. I liked it, though. It was beautiful, and it was the only home I’d had.

I gave Karen a tight squeeze, which she reacted to with a startled “oh!” and stalked off to my room. The pool looked really good right now.
I’d sort of forgotten that Lucille had replaced all of my clothes.
Apparently, that went doubly for swimsuits.

Lucille had, somehow, managed to replace my swimsuit with something that looked distinctly like ruffled underwear. This might just ruin my pool time.

I sighed and shrugged out of my clothes, pulling on the two-piece suit—bikini? Bikini—that Lucille thought was a viable substitute for my sturdy Speedo. Ugh. It certainly made applying sunscreen a longer process. To make up for it, I grabbed a book with YA typed onto the spine that Lucille had recommended. She’d said it would make me cry; although, considering the cover picture was a bowl of peppermints, I had my doubts.

I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and an apple from the kitchen, not really intending to swim. I laid my towel on the rough surface of the diving board and stretched out, face down, Lucille’s book in my hands. I blinked sleepily—sunshine did that to me sometimes—as I started to read.
"Michael burst through the door…"

And quickly gave up on keeping my eyes open.


Nelly.

The hands on my back were gentle as they kneaded away the knots. My eyes fluttered open, falling to the brilliant crystal blue of the pool water. “Nell,” I sighed. If I look up, the blue will get brighter, and brighter...

“Hey, babe.”

I froze. The voice was familiar, but not in that way. Not in the right way. Aiden? All thoughts of turquoise flew from my mind. “Aiden—what the hell—?”

“Who’s Nell?” he went on conversationally, as if his fingers weren’t trailing along the bare skin of my spine, raising goose bumps. My breath hitched and caught in my throat. What the hell was he doing? What the hell—

“Get off of me.”

He laughed. I could feel it through my back, through his fingers, thumbing up under the strap of my swimsuit top. I struggled, Lucille’s book falling in with a splash, trying to roll over, fall into the pool, maybe—

His fingers snagged in the ties, jerking my top open. That I’d managed to roll over meant that I could see his eyes. Creeper. I spit in his face. His mouth twisted, eyes flashing, and he banged my head into the diving board. My brain rattled in my beaten head—for a second, the world went white, and then—

“Hey, now, what’s this? Who banged up your face?” Those sick green eyes came closer to mine. I yanked a numb hand free and slapped him, swearing and squirming. Maybe if I screamed…

A filthy hand caught my free arm; his fingers became iron manacles around my wrists. My chewed-short nails scrabbled against the diving board, knotted in the towel, wishing it was his stupid face. Those eyes came closer and closer until I felt his lips at my hair.

“Don’t scream.”

I went rigid. I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted to black out and beat his ass like I had to Katie, and then I wanted to drown the bastard in the pool. Mostly, though, I wanted him off of me. “Then get off of me.”

His hands snaked up and slid under the half-undone bikini top. He held his fingers there for a moment, whispering in my ear: “You’re prettier than your sister.”

I only needed that moment. I reached up and shoved at his bastard chest, with enough force to knock him into the rails of the board. I wriggled free—finally—and fell into the water, swimming with enough speed to rip at my hair.
No. The water wasn’t ripping at my hair.

His fingers contracted into hard knots. I screamed. “Karen!” The end of my shriek met the pool water. I choked and tried not to inhale. Oh my God. Lucille’s boyfriend is going to drown me…

My head broke free of the surface and I coughed, sputtering. How stupid was it to try and flee an attacker in a pool? Some hair ripped from my scalp and stayed in his meaty hands. My hands beat at his arms, scraping against his stomach, though logic told me he’d hold me under again if I didn’t stop.

Logic was right.


“Why do you want to look like that?”

She pats her dark curls absently; the light glancing off of them is blue.

“What do you mean?”

“Why not blend in?”

“You mean like you?” She laughs. “You don’t blend, darling. You’re too cute. Although the braces are a nice touch.”

“But why not look…real?”

She grins then, sharp teeth glistening. “Because—I like to be scary.”


My lungs were burning. Black spots danced across my vision.

I also really needed to hurl.

Acid—or something that burned like acid—spurted up my throat in a fit of coughing. I blinked at my hands, covered with water.

Water.

Swimsuit. Blue. Diving board. Green. And Cilla’s book, sinking slowly to the bottom of the pool…
A small hand pounded my back. “Cough it up. Get it out.”
Karen.

I tried to nod, but my head hurt too much. Throbbed with a sharp intensity centered on the base of my skull.
“Kay—”

“Anna, honey.” Karen’s arms wrapped around me, holding so tight I couldn’t breathe. Her chin dug into the top of my head and she cried, cried until I couldn’t remember if she’d ever done anything else.

“Anna, oh my God,” Lucille’s voice chattered. “Aiden told us what happened—”

He’d told her? What?

“—and how he pulled you out of the pool, and—”

“Huh?” I sputtered.

“Do you not remember?” Karen’s voice was bewildered. “Anna, honey, you went for a dive—Aiden said you hit your head on the board, and you didn’t come back up. He went in after you…”

My head spun a little faster, my stomach contracting. I threw up again—this time all over poor Karen’s shirt. “S’ry,” I whimpered. “S’ry.”

“Don’t worry about it. How do you feel?”

Dizzy. Sick. Like my head was about to split open—again. “M’ine.” I squinched my eyes shut and moved my tongue up and down, thinking that might make it work a little better. “Mmfeye.” Ugh.

Some fleshy thing swung in front of me. “How many fingers am I holding up?”

“Free?” I tried. The world around me swung and dipped, shuddering. What was that thing…in…chem…no—history—and…San Francisco…the sunlight turned gray. My eyelids fluttered a little. Like butterflies.

“Why is she shivering?” Lucille’s voice drifted, high and round, like a balloon. Or a kite…

“Call Brian,” Karen instructed tensely.

“But—Karen—it—”

“Now.”

Unnecessary. I just…”Leap,” I mumbled.

“Don’t go to sleep just yet, sweetie, okay?” Karen whispered. “I really need you to stay awake. How was Sandy today? What did you talk about?”

“Bareams.”

“Bad dreams?” Frost stroked my face; a chill crept down my spine. “What were the dreams about, honey?”

“Tess…”

“Tests?”

I tried to shake my head. Mistake.
Oh, ow. “Tess.”

“She means her friend Tess,” Lucille’s balloony voice explained.

Karen shifted, and her voice took on a different tone. “Anna hit her head on the diving board. What do I do?” Pause. “I don’t know how hard—she passed out, Aiden found her in the pool. Yes, she’s conscious. Well—semi-conscious.”

Brian’s phone voice crackled and quaked.

“Anna, sweetie, open your eyes a little farther.”

I pulled on my eyelids, trying to force them up.

“They look the same—well—I don’t know—”

Crackle-buzz-garble.

“Okay.” A sigh. “Do I call—or take her in, or—” Pause. “Don’t move her? We already did—she was in the pool, I mean, honey—”

The world went utterly and completely black.


When the world lightened up a little…well, actually, the sun was setting, so it wasn’t a whole lot brighter.

Also, my stomach hurt. A lot.

I staggered up out of my bed and bolted for the bathroom. I made it, which was some small relief as I coughed up anything and everything left in my stomach. It was mostly water and something that burned and stung like acid.

The sound of fast footsteps and a knock on the door burned in my head.

Ow. What the hell was wrong with me?

“Anna?”

Karen. Go figure. “Yep?”

“Are you okay?”

“Yep. Super-dee-duper.”

“Anna.”

I groaned. “Yeah?”

“Seriously. You have a concussion.”

“A what?”

“Um—it’s like a bruise on your brain.
Gives you a headache…? Are you queasy?”

A little slow on the uptake this evening. “Not anymore.” Plus, I had a weak stomach. I threw up a lot.

“At least you’re coherent again.”

“What?” I thought back; all I could really remember was a blur of colors and voices. And before that…there was…

I ducked over the toilet, heaving again. Oh, my God. “Aiden—” it was all too horrible to say out loud.

“He went home hours ago.”

“What time is it?”

“Quarter to eight. You only just fell asleep an hour or so ago.”

“Where’s my phone?”

“Lucille plugged it in for you; it was dead.”

I rubbed my forehead with my hands, waiting for the floor to stop tilting. “Uh-huh.”

“Why do you need it?”

“Where’s Cilla?” I had to tell her.
But how could I?

“She’s watching T.V.—do you need her?”

Yes. “Um. No. I just—wanted to know.”

I pitched forward into the toilet bowl, hacking violently. My head pounded and my ears roared. Ow. Plus, some of my hair fell into the water.

Yummy.

“I’ll get Brian.”

“I’m fine. Something I ate.”

“But you haven’t—”

I pushed myself up and flushed the toilet, only barely stopping myself from tripping into the shower. I ran some water from the sink and rinsed my mouth out, wiping off my hair with the towel Lucille probably used for her face. I threw it in the hamper and took a few deep breaths before pulling open the door for Karen and trying very hard to smile.

“You’re supposed to lay down and not move too much. Also, we can take you back in—”

“I’m fine. Really. I feel awesome.” I knelt down to lay on my bed. It felt so good to close my eyes. “I love you, Karen. Good night.”

“See you in an hour.”

“What?” Were we going somewhere? Had I heard her right?

“We’re supposed to wake you up every hour.”

“Cilla?” I murmured groggily.

“Can put in earplugs or sleep on the couch.” She answered smoothly.
Except that wasn’t what I’d meant. I’d meant—Does Cilla know that her boyfriend is a complete and total ass?

I waited for Karen to leave the room and reached for the phone and dialed. Tess. I had to call her, and tell someone—

“Hi, y’all. This is Tess. I can’t talk right now, or maybe I lost my phone, but, anyway, leave a message at the beep.”

“Hey, Tess,” I said heavily. My sister’s boyfriend almost killed me and I dropped Cilla’s book in the pool and I haven’t heard from you in a while and I dreamed about you and I really just want to hear your voice—“It’s Anna. Um. Call me back.”
It wasn’t like I’d be getting very much sleep tonight, anyway.


I didn’t actually need Brian or Karen to wake me up every hour.

I sort of accomplished that same thing on my own, with a few extra times thrown in. Once it was because the phone was ringing, but mostly it was because I was having less than relaxing dreams: Tess staring into a mirror, her whisper--I like to be scary--echoing against the walls; A faceless woman pushing hair off of her forehead with the edge of a knife; a boy with bright eyes saying that it was always me, and leaning in to kiss my lips; my hands covered with something black and sticky; a woman—so beautiful it hurt to look at her—waiting with a question in her unfathomable eyes; a dark car on a flaming road; Tess with dark eyes warning me to wake up; and another boy, a different boy, with a hundred dark flyaway curls and eyes that smoldered and burned like coals, who said nothing at all.

Nevertheless, Brian and Karen couldn’t be persuaded to go to sleep already, whether or not they both had to work in the morning. I started to worry for their mental health.
The sixth time Karen woke me up (tenth time I’d been woken up, total), I was instructed to “stay awake”. I groaned when I looked at the clock. How was it seven o’clock already?

Crap. It was seven o’clock? Dammit. I sat up—a little too quickly—and reached for my phone, Tess’s mantra—I like to be scary—echoing through my mind. I dialed and got her voicemail again. “I wish she would pick up.”

“Who?” Karen asked, over-bright. I shot her a look—what was up with her?

“Tess. She hasn’t been picking up. It’s making me mad.”

Karen gnawed her lip, ran her hands through her hair. I’d never seen her look so tired. Poor thing. “Lucille picked out your clothes again. I’m not sure whether you want to wear them or not, but…” she shrugged.

I glanced at the pile of clothes on my dresser. Somehow even a “Lucille Approved” outfit appealed more than picking out my own clothes.

Although, if those shorts could get any shorter, I’d be surprised.

I tugged a brush through my hair on the way down the stairs, hoping it wouldn’t look too bad, since Karen hadn’t woke me up in time to shower.

The sight of Lucille at the kitchen table made me sick to my stomach. She was dressed up again today, looking cute and fluffy and girly, eyes bright. “Is…your boyfriend coming over today?” I couldn’t say his name. I felt goose bumps crawling up my arms, dread knotting in my stomach. Calm down. Calm down. Calm down.
She glanced up at me. “Oh, morning, sunshine.”

I stared at her, trying to clear my throat enough to speak. I wondered if I was having a panic attack. Answer me.

“Anna?” Cilla straightened up. Karen glanced over at me, half-way through the act of pouring a glass of orange juice.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. “Morning.” I sat down at the table and picked up a banana and examined it carefully. The top was turning sort of brown. I wondered if that was bad. Probably.

“Are you okay?”

I swallowed a couple times. I have to tell her. “Just…tired.”

“Brian told you?” Karen whispered. “We thought we’d wait, and—”

I blinked. “Told me what?” At least my voice didn’t sound breathy anymore. Panic attack averted.

Karen and Cilla exchanged a look.
“Anna—it’s Tess.” Lucille braced her shoulders and ignored Karen’s “shut up!” look.

I like to be scary. “What?” My voice made no sound. I frowned and jerked the top off of the banana. It looked all right.

“She’s missing, honey. Her mom called.”

My eyes flashed up to Karen’s brown ones. She really did look like a mom, with her pale hair straggling around her concerned face. The orange liquid was still in her hand. I wondered what it was made out of. “Oh.” I like to be scary. I like to be scary.
Lucille cleared her throat. “It’s not like she’s legally missing. You have to be gone for forty-eight hours, and it’s only been like a day and a half—”

“It’s late,” I said stiffly. “We should get to school, right?”
Karen stared. “Are you sure you’re okay? I mean, we could call Sandy—”

“No,” I insisted. “I’m fine.” Actually, I was cold. Cold enough that walking out into the muggy day didn’t make me sweat or even warm me up at all.

The drive to school was long, and quiet, and I could only think of one thing. One of the few things I could remember about Tess, something she’d told me on my first day at Trica when she’d found me crying in the bathroom about not being able to call my mom.