Boyfriend From Hell (Falling Angels Saga) (22 page)

This time, I searched her bedroom from top to bottom, tearing it apart, but to no avail.

By seven a.m. I had returned my mother’s bedroom back to normal. I knew I should get some sleep, but I was so fired up on adrenaline, sleep wasn’t an option.

I called the hospital and was surprised to hear that mom had had a hearty breakfast and was off for her first round of tests.  I wasn’t aware that hospital days started so early. My thoughts again turned to Armando.
He wants me to know he’s in charge.

Now that his message had been sent, he was allowing her to recover. Face it, nobody wants to kill the woman he plans on marrying and have a child with. At least, not until after the child was born.  

With the tragedy averted, I decided to go to school. School provided a sense of normalcy to my life. I needed that.

#

Matt and Erin continued to avoid me. When they passed me in the hall before first period, I couldn’t help but notice the sadness in Matt’s eyes. I was certain he hadn’t told Erin he’d stopped by my house last night. He wanted to keep up the image of the united front. However, I believed he was cracking. I saw something in Erin’s eyes as well—anger. Her eyes raged at me when she looked in my direction. It caught me by surprise.

As they moved past, she took his hand in hers, moved it to her lips and kissed it.

A twinge of jealousy invaded my thoughts.  I pushed it aside. There was no room for jealousy in my battle against Satan. I reminded myself it was the kind of thought that gave him his power.

I dredged up a healthy dose of empathy for both Matt and Erin. It had to be hard not talking to your best friend. Poor things. I told myself they were having really rough go of it. That’s probably why Erin was so angry. She wanted things to go back to how they used to be. So did I.

The jealous thoughts faded.

In English, I filled Maudrina in on last night’s near tragedy.

“Why didn’t you call me?”

“After I wigged out about the baby magazine? No way. I’m not trying to lose any more friends.” She grinned, and I knew it was because I called her my friend.

“I’m glad she’s okay.”

“Me, too.” I looked over at Erin. While her head was buried in her calc book, I could feel the anger radiating off of her in hot waves.

 I couldn’t remember when I’d last seen Erin angry at anyone. She had always been a forgiving person. I knew it had to be tough not hanging with your best girlfriend.  I’m sure Matt was great with her, but there are some things that can only be shared with a girl. This exile was her choice, certainly not mine. She shouldn’t be mad about it.

#

Maudrina thought it was a good idea for us to go see Aunt Jaz again after school. I didn’t want to tell her she’d taken the words right out of my mouth. As we rode over on the bus, she caught Aunt Jaz up on recent events by cell phone.

When we arrived, Aunt Jaz opened the door, and without a word, slipped back down the hall into the kitchen. “Shh,” she called as she retreated. The subtle, sweet aroma of gingerbread filled the air.

“Walk softly,” whispered Maudrina. “She’ll be impossible if it falls.”

We crept down the linoleum-lined hall, walking into the kitchen on tip toes. When we entered, Aunt Jaz was stooped in front of the closed oven door. It appeared as if she was listening for something. Without looking up, she waved us over to the green dinette.

“Sit, sit, sit.” Her voice was less than a whisper.

“Gingerbread comes out lopsided when it falls. You have no idea how much a lopsided gingerbread can upset my Aunt Jaz,” Maudrina said, rolling her eyes.

I didn’t know gingerbread could fall, so I kept my mouth shut and sat perfectly still.

Bing!
The bell from the timer atop the stove chimed softly.

“There we go,” said Aunt Jaz with a grin. She pulled open the oven door and peered in. “Perfect. I hope you like gingerbread,” she called as she grabbed two oven mitts.

“She’s talking to you. She knows I love it.”

“Oh, I do,” I responded.

She slid a baking sheet with a large gingerbread out of the oven. Setting it down atop the stove, she sniffed. “Maudy, I think I’ve outdone myself this time.”

Maudrina eyed me knowingly. “See, I told you. She always says that.” Aunt Jaz’s bawdy laughter filled the air.

After a few moments, she plopped down at the table across from us. “As soon as it cools, we’ll have a nice slice of gingerbread with whipped cream on top.” She turned to me. “Have you found the gris-gris yet?”

And just like that, she was all business. “No. I looked all over my house. Maybe he’s carrying it on him.”

“Perhaps. But from what Maudy told me, your mother got better as soon as she was away from the house. I think it was there. You just didn’t find it.”

“
Was
there?”

“Oh, yes, I’m sure he’s retrieved it by now. He can’t afford for you to find it. He knows how much power it contains.”

The thought of Armando creeping around my house when I wasn’t there made my skin crawl.

“But I looked everywhere.”

“Well, maybe you did and maybe you didn’t. But if we’re going to defeat him, you’ll need to locate and destroy it.”

If
we’re
going to defeat him?

I wanted to say “the only person doing anything to defeat him is me,”but instead, I nodded.

“I’ve been thinking,” she continued, “Satan granted Señora Marisol eternal youth, is that right?”

“Yes. He said it was for being his loyal servant for over fifty years.”

“That’s what I thought. Sounds to me like old Satan is grooming a new servant. Has anyone come into your life recently, someone who’s suddenly playing a large role?”

It was as if I’d been hit over the head with a sledge hammer. “Do bad boys who get you in trouble at school, ask you to disobey your mother, and have the sweetest kisses you’ve ever tasted count?”

They both stared at me, blank expressions on their faces.

“Stupid, stupid, stupid!” I cried, slapping myself upside the head.

“It’s okay,” Aunt Jaz comforted. “It was that person’s job to keep you from ever guessing they’re in allegiance with him.”

“Well it worked.” I looked at her and shook my head. “It all makes sense now. What a fool I’ve been.”

Aunt Jaz didn’t say a word. She was up and across the room, humming and slicing gingerbread I knew I would not be able to eat.

With a hunk of warm gingerbread and a glass of milk in front of me, I told them about Guy, about how he came into my life just before Armando showed, about how lucky I thought I was that someone as cool as he could go for a girl like me, about how exciting it was to be liked by a bad boy, about how he appeared outside Armando’s house the night I discovered the truth. And finally I told them that now that Armando was getting what he’d come for, Guy had dumped me. I told them everything except that I had fallen in love with him. I could never tell them that. It was too embarrassing.

“Stop acting like that, deary. It isn’t over yet. We’re just getting started.”

I looked up into her sparkling eyes. I wanted to believe her, just as I had wanted to believe Guy really cared for me. At that moment, though, I felt the weight of Satan’s power crushing me. How could I ever stand up to someone or some
thing
who could fool me so easily?

“He had said: ‘I have been doing this for as long as man has walked the earth.’ He’d beaten better men than me.  He told me so.”

I hung my head. It wasn’t that I wanted to give up. I was just being honest with myself. I was overmatched.

“Don’t say that. That’s what he wants you to think. You
can
beat him, and you will.” Aunt Jaz seemed excited over the prospect.

I wasn’t. I sat silently, wagging my head back and forth like a rag doll.
No sense in pretending,
I thought. Beating him was impossible.

Aunt Jaz saw the defeat in my eyes and roughly yanked my hand up from the table. She looked at me, eyes filled with wisdom.

“You can have thirty or forty pairs of shoes, you can have a whole boat load of sisters and brothers, you can have a new boyfriend every week, you can have so many friends you can’t remember all their names, you can get married as many times as you like, and have more husbands and ex-husbands than you can shake a stick at… But, deary, you only get
one
mother. And it sounds like you have a good relationship with yours. In my mind, that alone is worth fighting for.”

Maudrina did her best to cheer me up on the way back home. “We need a plan,” she said.

“I’ve got one. We quit while we’re ahead.” My voice was filled with sarcasm.

“That’s funny,” she said with a chuckle. “Humor is good. But seriously, we need a plan.”

“You don’t get it, do you? It’s over. He won.”

She ignored me. “You burned him with holy water, so he can obviously feel pain. After we find the gris-gris, we need gallons of holy water.”

It was as if she hadn’t heard a word I was saying. I looked at her. What else could I do? If she was fool enough to believe we could beat Satan, let her. She’d find out in time, just as I had.

“It’s my mom’s fault,” I said, my words coming from a darkness in the depths of my soul. “If she didn’t want a boyfriend , none of this would have happened.”

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true. She did this to herself. For all I know, she wants to be the devil’s bride. And if she gives birth to the devil’s child, that’s on her.”

Maudrina didn’t utter another word. I could tell the high regard she once held me in was fading.

Despite how I was behaving, she accompanied me to the hospital to pick my mother up. Truth was I liked having her along. While my emotions had me behaving like a spoiled child, Maudrina remained calm. I needed that.

We arrived just after sundown. As soon as we walked into my mother’s room, we knew something was wrong.

“Why is it so cold in here?” Maudrina said with a shiver. It was as if the air conditioning had been turned all the way up.

I checked the thermostat. The AC wasn’t on. I looked at my mother, lying in the bed; she was as white as a sheet.

“Hey, honey!” she called when she saw me. Her voice was a cracked whisper. “Guess I had a bit of a relapse.”

I moved to her, and took her hand. It was like holding the hand of a dead person. “What happened?”

“I don’t know. I just started feeling really, really weak.”

“He’s testing you,” Maudrina whispered into my ear. “Don’t give in.”

“Say, Mom, what happened with the tests you took this morning?”

“They didn’t find anything.  Supposedly, I’m as healthy as a bear, which is why this relapse seems so strange.”

“They didn’t find
anything?
”

Alarm spread across her face. “What should they have found? What did they tell you?”

“Nothing, Mom. I was just… making sure.” I secretly breathed a sigh of relief that she wasn’t pregnant.  

Okay, so she’s not pregnant. But she’s not out of the woods yet, either.

“Look who I brought,” I said, changing the subject. I didn’t want her questioning me anymore.

“Erin?” she asked.

“No.” Erin was the logical choice before all this had gone down. I was reminded of how close we had been.

Her eyes moved to Maudrina. She smiled. “Didn’t I meet you the other night at my party?”

“Yes. I’m Maudrina.”

“Hi, Maudrina. Sorry you have to see me like this.”

“It’s okay, Mrs. Barnett.” She sat down at the foot of my mother’s bed. My mother frowned. “Oh, sorry.” She got up quickly.

“It’s not that. Mrs. Barnett is my mother. Please, sit.”

“She wants you to call her Suze. Everybody does... but me.”

“You got that right.”

 “Oh. Okay… Suze.” Maudrina sat back down.

“Umm, I’m going to go talk to the doctor,” I said. “I’d like to hear what they think. I’ll be right back.”

That was another lie. I had to get out of there. My mind suddenly seemed as though it was coming apart at the seams, and I didn’t want my mother to see me falling apart.

However, fall apart I did. As soon as I was out of the room, I began bawling and sobbing uncontrollably. All this back and forth with my mother’s health was tearing my emotions to shreds. For days I’d had them under control, but I was like a volcano on the verge of erupting, and eventually I did.

“Why?” I cried through an ocean of tears. “She’s not even your type. You win!” I called.

Fortunately, the corridor outside my mother’s room was empty. There was no one to witness my outburst.

 “It’s all my fault,” I shrieked, continuing my rant. “I know I said it was hers, but that’s because I was angry. Please! Take me!” I cried as I sagged to the floor a crumpled mess. “She doesn’t deserve this. Take me instead!”

Armando knew he had won. All he was doing now was rubbing it in.

After several minutes of letting my feelings out, I regained enough composure to go back inside. When I walked in, my mother and Maudrina were chatting like old friends. They had no idea of the emotional thunder storm that had occurred just outside the door.

“Talk about surprised. I never would have guessed she’d give me such a wonderful party. She’s some special kid.” There was undeniable pride in my mother’s voice.

“I know,” said Maudrina. “She sits next to me in English. She’s so smart, and yet she doesn’t throw it in your face. Did you know she loves dogs?”

“Dogs, cats, birds. When she was little, Megan was always picking up strays—anything she thought needed love.”

Listening to them giving me more praise than I deserved, something inside me clicked.  I can’t explain it. It was like a switch in my head had suddenly turned on. The world that had been spinning out of control slowed down, and I was seeing things more clearly than I had for a long time.

“Uh-oh,” my mother said when she realized I was back in the room. “Your ears must have been burning.”

I looked at her, a smile radiating from deep inside me.  I recalled making light of our friendship. When Matt and Erin told me how lucky I was to be friends with my mother, I tried dismissing the idea.  I was embarrassed to have such a close relationship with her. Now as she lay in bed near death, though, I realized that she was way more than just my mother.  She truly was my friend. I had to pull myself together. I had to save her.