Lilith (4 page)

Then
again, that gave Lexie the weekend to plain more horrible methods of causing me pain. It was a toss-up, I'd just have to wait and find out. I was startled when the phone in my hand vibrated.

G
etting the FO, chill, I'll call you later.

I threw myself down on my bed and groaned in horror. Great even
Rhiannon didn't have any answers yet. My stomach started gurgling in pain. I was just going to have to play the waiting game.

Chapter
Four

Just Friends

I untangled from the strange twisted position I had fallen asleep in. I was still wearing my clothes from the night before. My bracelets were digging uncomfortably into my wrist. Rhiannon never called me. I waited up all night in dread. I reached for my cell and checked my call log.

Nothing...not a missed call from anyone including Dean. He'd texted though, said goodnight. I jumped in the shower and stood under the hot water for longer than I should have. When I got back to my
room, my cell was ringing. Rhiannon had finally called.

"Yea?"

"Hey
bitch
what's taking so damn long?" Rhiannon's voice was high in annoyance.

"Uhh, I was showering, thought you'd appreciate me being funkless and all. Sorry if yo
u'd rather me reek like you."

"Ha, ha ha, look who's got the smart mouth, if I wasn't so damn proud of you for putting Lexie in her place I'd be
kicking your bony little ass." Rhi said.

I towel dried my hair an
d put the phone on speaker.

"Hello are you freaking ther
e, of all the damn annoying?" Rhi said.

"Rhi, I can hear you ya know. You're just on speaker."
I said.

"Oh great, fine, whatever, anyways I had the girls do a few drive by's last night and they found nothing. Not a damn thing. Lexie just up and disappeared. Liv tried to call her parents but they hung up on her. No one knows where she is, or what she's planning. It's a little spooky. She didn't say a word to anyone yesterday, not even her fellow bobble heads. I'm here though so I'm gonna come up whi
le you finish getting ready."

I heard the dial tone and realized she hadn't even waited for me to answer before she hung up. That’s my Rhi, always the considerate. I was
blow-drying my hair when she walked into my room.

"Spazz
, why are you running so late?"

I shot her a dirty lo
ok and yelled over the noise.

"Uh I waited up for my best bitch of a friend to call me. Funny thing, she never eff
ing did. What happened to you?"

Rhiannon
smiled secretly.

"Bad Girls official business. If you ac
tually made it to another damn meeting, I'd tell you the rest. Speaking of which, did you ask your dad to----"

I interrupted her words.
"No, it's been a little crazy lately so, no I haven't had a chance. But I promise I'll get around to it this weekend"

Rhi
exhaled and flopped down on my bed. I brushed through my hair with my fingers, and started doing my usual scant amount of makeup.

"So now that we have a chance to have some very needed girl talk. What is going on with you and
Dean." She asked.

I sighed and rolled my
eyes, I wish I had an answer.

"Honestly I don't really know. He hasn't exactly a
sked me to be his girlfriend or anything, so right now, I guess we're 'just friends'."

Rhi snorted out a laugh.
"Please, you want me to believe that boy looks at you as just a friend. Are you blind, or just stupid?"

I finished gathering up
my stuff and put on my grey chucks.

"Gee thanks, no it's just, we barely know each other Rhi, what do you expect? Us to run off and elope or someth
ing. It's new, give it a rest."

Rhiannon
rolled her eyes and opened the door to leave my bedroom. We walked down stairs and went straight out the front door. I was going to have to figure out how I was going to get to school now. Other than Rhi, I could probably rely on Dean to give me a ride.

I could feel the muscles in my stomach spasm in fear. What would be waiting for me when I got to school? Was Lexie going to immediately begin torturing me, or was she going to wait, until the timing felt just perfect. I could feel my
heart start beating rapidly.

"Oh God Rhi, what d
o you think she's going to do?" I asked.

Rhiannon
laughed and shook her head.

"You mean what else is she going to do right? Did you already forget that she
messed up your car. Seriously Pace you're too damn nice, I don't know what we have in common."

I snickered. She was right about that when it came to commonalities we had few, and at certain times many. I was the good one, with the good grades, and the usually good manners. She was the rebel, I w
as just her trusty sidekick.

My throat constricted tighter with every foot we got closer to our school. I could feel the heat start creeping up my neck again. I shook my head and pulled the shirt away from my throat trying to make my breathing easier. Of
course, nothing worked, I was just being paranoid, letting my mind construct crazy scenarios of what waited for me.

I mean, there was nothing that said for sure Lexie was going to try to get back at me. Just her previous actions. There were so many my chances of escaping unscathed were worse than winning the lottery. Too bad my 18th birthday was still a few weeks away, if I bought a ticket
I'd probably win millions.

When we pulled into the parking
lot, I couldn't breathe. It seemed like everyone in school was standing out there waiting for us. I received a few cheers as I exited the car. Guess they hadn't all gone home and forgot about it. They trailed behind me and Rhi as we entered the school. Dean was waiting for me by the North Buildings entrance. He hugged me when I reached him and whispered in my ear.

"Hey, are you feeling any better today?"

I sighed and breathed in his familiar musky scent.

"Yes and no, has she been here already?" I tried to control the flipping f
eeling in my stomach.

"Nope, no one has seen or heard from her since yesterday. It's a little creepy,
it’s almost like she's fallen off the face of the Earth."

I let out a nervous breath. Maybe today wasn't
going to be so bad after all. I looked around me and noticed all of the eyes watching me and Dean closely. Everyone was still so interested in us it was surprising. I could feel them following us into the hallway. All of the attention was getting a little creepy. Did they know something I didn't?

School
went surprisingly normal. Except for the fact that Lexie was missing and everyone seemed to watch me in some weird stalker-ish fascination. I hated it. I'd lived a normal invisible teenage experience in High School for three years, and I was more than happy with it.

Now people I'd never met before were nodding to me in the hallway or saying hi to me in class. Overnight everyone knew my name, and all I wanted was for everything to go back to the way it was before. It was as if by opening my mouth this huge
spotlight flicked on, and all I wanted was to be left alone.

I spent most of my time with Dean.
Rhiannon tried, unsuccessfully I might add, to get me to attend another Bad Girls meeting. Word was the other members were banding together and requesting my presence. It bugged the hell out of her, so she bugged the hell out of me. Dean and I spent Saturday at my house.

We watched movies on the flat screen and played guitar hero with my dad. It probably sounds like a completely tragic
day but we had fun. My parents were in no way
conventional
they cussed, fought, and laughed their asses off. Every friend I'd ever had has always loved them. My mom made us junk food, and cheered us on.

I'd
always enjoyed being an only child. I never had to fight for attention or share any of my stuff. And because I was a slight introvert, I never really got lonely.

On Sunday we
spent part of the day with Dean's mom. She took us to the beach and out to lunch. We ran with his dog Fred through the sea foam and sand. Fred was a grungy haired mutt they'd adopted back in San Diego. He was friendly and sweet natured, and one heck of a runner. Dean's mom was pretty easy going.

She wasn't as outspoken as my parents but she was still fun to be around, well for a vice principal. The one drawback was trying to watch my mouth the whole day. It would just be weird to cuss in front of one of th
e High Schools staff members.

Things with me and Dean were going well. I was
supposed to be getting ready for our date. I got up and walked over to my closet. We were going to go see a movie, then get some food. I didn't want to look trashy, but I didn't want to look like just his friend either. I grabbed my cell and called Rhiannon.

"What?" Her voice was laced with annoyance, great, she was still pi
ssed off I didn't want to hang out with the Bad Girls. She could give a girl a break I'd had a bad week.

"Nice to hear your voice too
Rhiannon."

"Yea, yea, yea, I love you too, hugs and kisses, get to the God d
amn point."

I smiled into my phone.
"Ahh, see that didn't kill you now did it?"

"Again, the point?"
She said.

"Ok," I stuck my tongue
out at the phone and continued.

"I have a date, well I guess it's a date, with Dean, and I need to know what to wear. See I
don't want to stay in the
friends zone
I'd like to you know be sexy without being trashy. What do I wear?"

The phone was silent for a few seconds and I cleared my throat.
"Rhi?"

"Yep, I'll be there in t
en." And the phone went dead.

It took her less than ten minutes to get to my house. She only lived a few blocks away, and knowing her she drove over people's la
wns to get here even quicker.

"Ok so, you're afraid Dean is going to put you in the friend category instead of the girl I wanna hump slot.
So we need to wow him."

"Rhi, I don't want him to hump me."
I said.

"U
hh yea you do. I can see it right there in those purple lying your damn ass off eyes. You want him to hump you. Say it Pacey own it. It’s perfectly legal, well almost anyways, and we are teenagers. We are supposed to be having unprotected, irresponsible, crazy monkey sex."

I groaned in frustration, that may be what she wanted, but I didn't
at least not yet. I nodded along to get her to jump off of her soapbox.

"Ok so what do I wear to get out of the possib
le friend category?"

Rhiannon
walked over to my closet and looked inside. After an hour, I was finally done getting ready. Rhiannon was smiling like a lune.

"Wow I feel like a proud momma sending her daughter off to
finally
lose her virginity."

I
choked. "Who said anything about that. Seriously Rhi that is NOT happening. No way."

She rolled her eyes and studied
my reflection in the mirror. I was wearing my tightest pair of black skinny jeans, black strappy low-heeled sandals, and a slinky deep red top. It looked good against my pale skin and complimented my red curling hair. I looked pretty good, and not trashy, I wasn't showing any cleavage or an excess of skin.

I threw on my black leather jacket and let
Rhiannon finish doing my makeup. She put a small amount of charcoal eye shadow on my eyes and a little blush and lip-gloss. It was more than I was used too, but the effect wasn't bad. I put on my usual bracelets and rings, and my skull and cross bones necklace. The necklace had been a gift Rhiannon had bought all the Bad Girls over the years, of course mine and hers were the first.

I started to get nervous when I walked down stairs to wait with my parents. My dad inspected my outfit with a frown, while m
y mom grinned from ear to ear.

"Wow Pacey,
it’s like looking in a time machine. Lovely." Mom’s voice was proud. My dad shook his head but didn't say anything.

"Come on Dad."
I said.

He
grinned and kissed me softly on the cheek. "You're beautiful, just like your mother."

Mom laughed
. Rhiannon waved a quiet goodbye and motioned for me to call her later. My hands started shaking when the doorbell rang. I'd only known Dean for five days now, and something about him struck me. As the door opened, my tummy fluttered with butterflies. Deans smiling face went slack with shock.

"Wow, you look
...wow." He stared at me for a really long time without speaking.

His eyes roamed over my face then down the front of my body and then stopped dead at my freshly painted black
toenails. My dad cleared his throat behind me.

I giggled like an idiot, it was pretty funny,
and if I wasn't feeling as confident as I was, I might have taken Dean's reaction another way. It wasn't like I looked bad when I wasn't dressed this way. I just didn't want to put in this much effort every single morning. Dean glanced over my shoulder towards my father and frowned. Lord knew the dirty looks my dad was throwing at him. My mom spoke next trying to ease the strange tension.