Forbidden Fruit (9 page)

On my way downstairs, I peeked into Bailey's room and found her with her mouth wide open, hair splayed across her face and limbs hanging off the bed. If it weren't for her snoring, I would have thought she was dead. I pulled the door closed quietly and chuckled to myself. It must have been a rough night for her too, though I doubted she would remember much. I wished I could say the same.

I reluctantly peeked into the room I suggested Jason take. When I saw the bed made and no one there, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had no desire to see him today.

In the kitchen, I ran into Ginger who was pulling fresh muffins out of the oven. "Good morning! You're up early," she observed.

"Yeah, I couldn't really sleep last night." I poured myself a cup of coffee and brought it to my nose, inhaling the aroma, trying to perk up. I could feel a headache coming on from exhaustion.

"Something bothering you?"

I shrugged and sat down at the table. Taking extra time to stir my coffee, I contemplated how to breach the subject of last night with her. "Ginger?" I started. She looked over at me. "Has anything strange ever happened to you in this house?"

She seemed surprised by my odd question, "Strange? Like how?"

"Have you ever had anything…scary happen to you, like…feeling like you aren't alone here?" It was extremely vague, I knew, but I couldn’t very well ask her if she had ever been attacked by monsters and stalked by the grim reaper.

She smiled, "I often feel like I'm not alone here, but then again, I rarely am." She sat down across from me sipping her own coffee. She pierced me with a motherly, knowing look, "You know, Charleston is known for being haunted, and this is a really old house…" She let the insinuation hang in the air before she held her hand up, "But I have never found
this
house to be scary," she added.

I thought about that for a minute. Maybe the cloaked man was a ghost come to haunt me. But why? Last night's strange events replayed in my head, and I shivered involuntarily.

"Are you okay honey?" Ginger’s eyebrows bunched with concern.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine. I think my imagination has gotten away from me recently," I lied.

She smiled as if she understood. Ginger exuded a maternal warmth that reminded me of my own mother. I wondered if she would ever be a mom. She would be a great one, I thought.

Bailey walked into the kitchen rubbing her eyes. Her hair was a messy nest of knots and her mascara was smeared.

"Good morning sunshine!" I teased.

She swatted her hand in my direction and went straight for the coffee pot.

"Oh, I didn't know we had company," Ginger grabbed another plate from the cabinet, always happy to feed people.

"It was a sort of last minute arrangement," I explained. Ginger caught my grin and smiled with a perceptive nod. It couldn't have been too long ago that she herself was a teenager.

"Are we late for school?" Bailey asked in a croaking voice, still blurry eyed.

"No, you have plenty of time to get a shower," I assured her.

"Ah, thank god. I could already see the referral to Ms. Hippy if I showed up like this," she said before she turned up her cup. ‘Ms. Hippy’ was the name she dubbed our counselor, Ms. Harris. I think Bailey may have held the record for referrals. I frequently listened to her complaints about how obnoxious the old woman was, and how she was a ‘dirty hippy.’ Bailey swore she was always tanked on opiates and never bathed.

Ginger placed muffins and fruit in front of us. I usually didn’t eat this early, but technically, I had been up so long it was kind of like lunch for me. I pulled a warm blueberry muffin open, letting the steam escape before I took a savory bite. "This is awesome, thanks Ginger! You're the best." Ginger smiled in gratitude.

On the way to school that morning I decided to hit up Bailey to see if she experienced anything strange last night. "So, did anything happen to you last night?" I asked cautiously.

"Hell yeah, you want details?" she asked knowing I would say no.

"I don't mean with Eric. Did anything strange happen last night?"

"I don't follow."

That confirmed it for me. If something even half as strange or scary happen to her she would know exactly what I was talking about.

"Never mind."

"Okay..." she gave me a worried look.

"I think I just had a bad dream that seemed real, that’s all."

"I have those all the time, like, I wake up and I'm confused, and I think I'm still in the dream but I'm not," she chattered as she applied blush in the mirror.

I would have loved to convince myself it was all a dream, there would be comfort in knowing nothing really goes bump in the night, but deep down I knew what I experienced was real. I shivered involuntarily. I was being haunted, and I had no idea why. Hell, I didn’t even know
what
was haunting me. If only I could get a look under those black folds to glimpse what the grim reaper had in store for me.

"Yeah, I'm sure that’s all it was," I lied.

School started out normal that day, except Jason was absent. I guessed he had gotten in trouble after all. So much for trying to save his ass.

I walked into good old Mr. Brody’s class not at all looking forward to the boring lecture that was as sure to come as the sunrise. He was nothing if not consistent. The man wore the same tacky cardigan, with dull khakis and penny loafers every single day. The only article that changed was the color of the collared shirt beneath the disastrous argyle sweater straight from the seventies.

Last night was another sleepless night, and the exhaustion was finally hitting me. All I wanted to do was go home, curl up in my comfortable bed, and take a year-long nap.

I lazily slid into my seat, and started rifling through my backpack to find the essay due today. I pulled it out, happy to turn it in and never see the horrid thing again. Mr. Brody collected the mini novels and then sauntered to the board to write our daily agenda. A few dates and events let me know that we would be discussing some war of sorts a few hundred years back, Mr. Brody’s specialty.

Several giggles and a few whispers had me turning with curiosity to see what all the commotion was about. Of course, how could I forget? It was the super delicious new guy, Michael. He strode through the room with a presence that broadcasted that he owned the place. He wasn’t brooding, but he exuded a confidence that radiated power and therefore dominance. It was a simple fact. And it was so hot.

When I realized I was practically drooling over him, I gave myself a much needed mental slap and promptly looked toward Mr. Brody, who apparently was not at all effected by Michael’s presence. Then again, I am pretty sure he doesn’t often notice anything unless it’s talking or chewing gum. I began jotting down the events he wrote, hoping I appeared to be nothing more than a studious, eager learner, instead of the ogling, boy crazy person I truly was at that moment.

Michael folded his large body into the seat next to mine. A darkly exotic fragrance tickled my nose. I forced myself to keep a passive, hopefully indifferent expression on my face. I mentally chanted to myself,
don’t look over at him, don’t look, don’t look
…then I looked.

Busted.

Damn it!
He caught me. The second I looked over those black eyes locked onto mine. A jolt of energy sizzled through my chest. Wait…he caught me looking at him…but then that would mean he was looking at me. Why did he always look at me?

Those bottomless eyes bore into mine for several seconds more, hell maybe it was years. I could feel the heat of my cheeks reach what had to be an unattractive shade of maroon. Was I embarrassed? No, not really. He made me feel…nervous, yes, but also special, beautiful, worthy… My mind wondered how he could make me feel so much without doing or saying anything. I didn’t even know him.

Mr. Brody’s unnecessarily loud throat clearing brought me back to the present. He was staring at me with arms crossed over his chest, a disappointed expression on his face.
Great
. I glanced around and found everyone else staring at me as well, most with knowing smirks on their faces. “I take it you need the question repeated Miss Grace?” he asked impatiently, and then added to Michael, “Unless
you
can answer?”

Michael gave a nonchalant smile to Mr. Brody and said, “The French Revolution,” in a deep, somewhat arrogant tone.

Mr. Brody’s eyebrows cocked up, he had clearly assumed neither of us had heard the question. Then he produced a humph noise and said, “At least one of you was paying attention. I expect more from you Ms. Grace,” he chided. I hated disappointing people; it cut me like nothing else could.

If there was a shade of red darker than maroon, my face was that color. Mr. Brody always liked to humiliate students, but generally speaking, I was in good standing with him. I bet that act of idiocy combined with the oh so physical display of embarrassment really impressed the new guy. I wanted to crawl under a rock.

For the rest of the class, I didn’t look toward Michael. Actually, I didn’t look toward my left at all, employing extra cautious measures. I diligently took notes on what I assumed was the French Revolution. My mind wasn’t really there, I was still dwelling on the obvious ogling the entire class witnessed, but my hand was playing out the motions of the attentive student routine.

As the classes went by that day, I felt like I was in a game of wills. I could feel the heat of Michael’s eyes on me for most of the classes, and I tried to ignore the rush of excitement it caused me. I refused to look his way, though I could see him out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t want to recreate the scene in first period, especially not while Lacy was watching.

I did hear her speak to him once in her whispering,
I want to take my clothes off for you
, voice. I cringed inside. I hated the idea of him with her, though I had no claim of my own to him. Something about the two of them together made my blood boil with jealousy, a feeling that was foreign to me. I was always the girl who assumed no guy was worth warring over. What was wrong with me? Why on earth was I having these possessive thoughts about him? He wasn’t mine. He wasn’t anyone’s as far as I knew. Besides, a guy like that could get any girl he wanted. Why would I even entertain the idea that I would have some sort of stake?

At lunch, I pushed my way through the gawking girls surrounding Michael’s table and sat with Bailey and Eric. The new lovebirds were too interested in each other to notice I had sat down. Without anyone to distract me, my eyes began to wonder, naturally falling on Michael. He was suffocated by girls desperate to get the slightest reaction out of him. Apparently he wasn’t just quiet around me, he didn’t really say much to anyone. When our eyes met, I found myself once again locked into the inescapable depth of his. I was jarred back to reality when Jason slid into the seat beside mine, blocking my view.

“
Hey pretty girl,” he purred. His cute face was grinning at me and sitting far too close for friends. “Not going to join the fun?” he asked nodding toward Michael.

“
No, I don’t like to share,” I quipped, successfully sounding completely uninterested. Impressive for someone who was a terrible liar.

“
Ah, neither do I,” he smiled. Jason’s gaze was similar to Michael’s, not in meaning or intention, but in the feeling it gave me. It was as if there was something stirring behind his eyes, something tempting, waiting to be discovered.

But then I recalled Jason’s behavior the prior night. I was supposed to be mad at him, well sort of. “So, did you get in trouble last night? What time did you leave?”

Jason seemed caught off guard by my line of questioning. “Oh, um…I guess it was around 5:00 or so this morning.” He didn’t sound very sure of himself.

A thought occurred to me then, if he was there that long, then he had to have been in the house when the crazy shadow monsters and grim reaper were there. Maybe he saw something. I opened my mouth to ask and then promptly closed it. What was I thinking? I would sound like a lunatic if I asked him that. It was one thing to ask Ginger or Bailey. I knew them, and they wouldn’t laugh at me, or spread malicious rumors. As for Jason, I had no idea where he stood with me. If I told him about what happened, it was likely that the whole school would know I was a hallucinating freak.

At some point during my mental tirade, Jason reached his hand to my face and caressed my cheekbone, “Are you okay? You seem a little wired.”

I opened my mouth to deny it when I felt a sudden jolt of energy. I glanced in the direction of the source and caught Michael’s glare. Well, glare was an understatement. He was looking at Jason with the same fury I saw yesterday. It appeared he was trying to tear him limb from limb with his eyes.

My initial reaction was shock. Without a doubt, I was frightened of that look, yet I also harbored a curiosity that was eating at my very soul. I wondered what made him hate Jason, and how they knew each other? And I needed to know where I fit into their game. A theory formulated in my mind, and as any curious teenager would do, I tested it. I was tired of no answers.

I closed my mouth and tried to quickly come up with a new direction to take with Jason. Instead of swearing nothing was wrong, I played the damsel in distress. I pouted a little and sighed, “I just didn’t sleep well last night.” It was no academy award performance, but he took the bait.