The Stranger Inside (20 page)

I rubbed my forehead. This was crazy. Either he was messing around, or … Kenzie did all that.

“I actually
said
I wanted to make changes to the email?”

Sawyer nodded. “You said you wanted to get the words right—you said you’d change it later—then you attacked me.” He smiled. “It was nice.”

Ugh, ugh, ugh! I hadn’t planned to make changes to that email. I didn’t. I just wanted to send it off and get a quick response. And I didn’t suddenly start making out with Sawyer that day, either. I’d been all traumatized, upset about Dad.

 All I could remember from that day was writing the email, being satisfied with it, then … nothing. I couldn’t remember anything else, just waking up the next day, confused.

The blood drained out of my face.

’Cause I knew. Kenzie did all that. She must have.

After writing the email, I must have instantly turned into her—and she’d made out with Sawyer, pretending to be me. Why though? She never did that before, pretended to be me. Why would she start now? Besides, I thought she didn’t like Sawyer anymore. I thought she was all into Jeremy. Only Jeremy.

It must have had something to do with that email. She didn’t want me to send it. Why though? It didn’t make sense. But it seemed that was why she all of a sudden made out with Sawyer, to get his mind off the email—so she could delete it before it was ever sent.

But why?

CHAPTER 16

I was restless. Lonely. Sawyer was at his cousin’s wedding in Las Vegas. The rest of the band was—well, I didn’t know where they were. I didn’t hang around them without Sawyer. So, I was alone. And lonely.

I went into Jeremy’s room and closed the door. I put on old CDs that reminded me of him and looked through his closet, fondled his clothes. I did this a lot when Mom wasn’t home. I don’t know why exactly, since it really hurt. It was just something I did. In some ways, I guess it helped me feel close to Jeremy, and tonight I seemed to need that closeness.

I’d just watched an old DVD mom had of the year I lived here before—back when Jeremy and I were “a couple.” It made me miss him. More than usual.

I got out one of Jeremy’s sweatshirts and put it on. It was warm, comforting.

Restless, I moved on to his drawers. They were pretty empty. He’d taken most of his things to Sara’s. It made me realize how pathetic this was. Anything that honestly held any significance for Jeremy was gone. Still, I had to go through it. It was part of the ritual. Essentially, I had no choice.

His top drawer had a few socks, boxers and t-shirts. I undressed and put on a pair of his old sweats. They were big, and I was psychotic, but I didn’t take them off. Instead, I slipped on one of his old concert t-shirts.

In his top drawer, stuck to the bottom, was an old picture-strip of him and me taken from a photo booth. I already knew it was there, since I’d done this many times before, but still, finding it filled me with conflicting emotions. True, it was the only picture I found anywhere, but maybe Jeremy had a whole photo album of his other girlfriends. Maybe he brought them to Sara’s with him. So, in that respect, I couldn’t get too excited. But still, he cared enough to keep the picture all these years. That said something . . . didn’t it? I tried telling myself that it did, but I wasn’t sure. It was stuck to the bottom. It was possible he had no idea it was even there.

Tired, I crawled into Jeremy’s bed. This was where my mother found us two years ago—this was why she sent me away. Tears started pouring down my cheeks—surprising me. I didn’t even know I was going to cry.

***

There’s so much blood. It’s squishing out of her, gushing onto me.

Dad’s yelling, “Push down harder, Jodi!”

I push with all my might, push and push, but it’s not helping, it’s no use. I can’t stop it. There’s too much blood. It’s pouring and pouring and pouring …

I woke sopping in sweat, startled to realize someone was in the room.

“Jodi? Are you okay?”

He was leaning over me, looking concerned.

I rubbed my eyes. “Jeremy?”

He stepped back. “I’m sorry. You were … screaming.”

 “What time is it?”

“I don’t know, around two. I just needed to get something. Look, go back to sleep,” he said gently.

It was weird he didn’t say anything about me in his bed, wearing his shirt. Why didn’t he ask—or laugh? Then again, maybe he understood. Maybe in some ways, he did the same thing, like back when he tried to date girls that looked like me.

His eyes were on me, intent and lingering. It was as though he was going to say something—something important. I waited, holding my breath, but then he seemed to change his mind. Instead, he backed further away. “Go back to sleep,” he said again softly. Then he was gone, shutting the door behind him.

I stared at the closed door for a long time, unmoving, unless my shivering counted. It wasn’t just from seeing Jeremy, of course. My nightmare of the car accident had me freaked as well. But seeing Jeremy here, alone, in the middle of the night, it had me spazzy—’cause though he hadn’t said anything aloud, his eyes had said volumes.
I love you. I want you. Come to me.

Okay, it was probably totally all in my head. All of it. Totally. But still, there was no way I could go back to sleep.

***

Without Trista in our chemistry class to help us with our labs, Micah and I weren’t doing too well. But it was kind of fun, sort of. We both went about our lab work in a confused frenzy: measuring, stirring … and praying.

“This reeks,” Micah said, holding our test tube over the Bunsen burner. We were supposed to be making citrus oil, but somewhere something went wrong—as usual. Our mixture somehow turned thick and dark and globby—totally the opposite of what the lab manual described, and what the rest of the class seemed to have.

I held back a laugh, reading over the assignment again. “It’s supposed to have a pleasant, tangy scent—like citrus.”

Micah gave it another whiff. “That is definitely not pleasant.” He rubbed his chin. “We did something wrong.”

“No way,” I laughed.

Other than Chemistry, though, things were going pretty well. People around school were nice. Not that I exactly made friends with any of them. I didn’t. But everyone smiled and said “Hi” as I walked down the halls—people that I didn’t know, people I’d never even seen before. Everyone was really friendly. But I was afraid to get too close. I mean, it was nice they were so friendly, but what if Kenzie showed? How friendly would they be then—when they found out I was bonkers, when I started chopping up people?

Besides, I had Sawyer and the band. Like Trista said, “They’re the best friends a girl could ask for.” And Sawyer liked keeping things tight—me away from other people, only letting the band near. Okay, yeah, he was a little controlling. But I didn’t mind. Much. Like I said, I was worried about Kenzie popping up at school, making a scene. Killing. So I liked living under the band’s shelter. I felt safe. Protected. And me being crazy—it didn’t seem to matter to The Clutch. They embraced me as part of them.

The five of us were sitting around at Sawyer’s house after The Clutch practice, studying for a pre-calculus test when Micah mentioned something about the concert my band class was putting on Thursday night.

I raised my eyebrows, surprised Sawyer mentioned it to them, and even more surprised learning they were all planning to come hear me play. “You don’t have to,” I said, flushing at the thought of them sitting out in the audience with everyone’s parents. They’d be bored out of their minds.

“No it’s cool,” Zack said. “We want to come.”

“Yeah,” Micah added. “Sawyer says your folks will be out of town. We’ll be there for you.”

“I’m not playing a solo or anything.” I was pleased they wanted to come, but nervous as well. I mean, they were talented musicians. And our school band wasn’t that good. I couldn’t even begin to imagine them sitting through the whole hour. Just thinking about it made me want to laugh.

“Jodi, we’re going,” Sawyer said, resting his head on my shoulder.

I looked at Jeremy, the only person who hadn’t actually said anything. His eyes stared into mine, sending a wave of warmth through my body. He said nothing, only nodded. But that was enough to get my heart pumping all spastic and wild. I’m not sure why. Maybe because of the other night—waking to find him watching me.

“Oh, hey,” Jeremy said suddenly, having no idea what he did to my heart. “Let me see the paper you asked about.”

A little nervous, I handed it over. Jeremy was “Mr. Editor.” We all came to him for proofreading and “A” making. The guy could seriously write. He wrote all the songs for The Clutch. I watched him as he read my paper, pleased to see him smile in the places I wanted the reader to smile, and look up at me intently in the parts that were sad.

It was a paper about my dad, basically; about what a good guy he was, how he was a hero and tried making me one too. I wrote a lot about the car accident, the one where we tried saving those people. But I wrote about the blood and stuff, and my nightmares too. Because the paper was on “side-effects.”

I’d cried while I wrote it, big, wet tears, but it was mostly an uplifting story, mostly. Jeremy kept looking up at me questioningly though as he read on—’cause towards the end it was kind of disturbing, a little bit.

“This is really good, Jodi,” Jeremy said when he finished, gazing at me curiously. “I didn’t know you could write like this.”

“Well, it’s not as good as anything you write,” I said, fighting back a blush.

“No, it’s better.” He looked over the paper again, then up at me. “You were dreaming about this accident, huh? The night I woke you up?”

I bit my lip, then nodded.

“You kept saying, ‘Blood, blood.’” He raised his eyebrows. “It was spooky.”

Yeah … spooky.

***

The night of the concert I was nervous, and looking out into the audience, seeing The Clutch sitting together in the back of the dark auditorium, just made me more nervous. But still, at the same time, seeing them did a funny thing to my heart—made it flutter—actually flutter—with happiness and all that kind of stuff. Because they cared enough to come. Everyone’s family was out there to watch us perform, but it kind of seemed like mine was too. Felt like it.

It was comforting having them there. Filled me with warmth.

Before tonight I felt like an orphan. Like I had no family. Dad was dead, Mom barely spoke to me, and my step-dad acted like I didn’t exist. I felt all alone, with no family at all.

But tonight was different. I felt like my family was out in the audience the same as everyone else’s.

Just like Sawyer, The Clutch was my family.

CHAPTER 17

Sawyer really did not want me to go to the Psychic Center. Really, really,
really
didn’t want me to go. He was always talking me into things. And out of things. Always. It bugged me. Today I’d had enough.

“Okay,” I finally sighed after another irritating disagreement about me seeing a psychic. “Let’s go out to eat then instead.” It was my sneaky way of letting fate decide. But I didn’t tell Sawyer that.

He brightened at my quick change of heart, raising his eyebrows. “Really? Okay, let’s go.”

He drove to The Pancake House. We didn’t discuss it. That’s just where he went.

When we parked, I gave a sidelong look across the street. “Go in and get us a table,” I said. “I’ll be there in a second.”

“What?” Sawyer looked quizzical, following my gaze. Then he tilted his head, seeing the tiny building across the street, the one between the dry cleaners and Chinese restaurant. The one I was looking at. “Oh. I never noticed that place before.”

He trudged out of the car when I did and groaned. “Hold on. Don’t go alone.” He followed me across the street to The Read Palm. “You’re really sneaky.”

“I’m not. It’s fate.”

Inside, the place was dark … and small. “Come in,” the lady said. I hadn’t noticed her sitting at the table. “Sit.”

“Well, no.” I felt awkward. “I just had a question.”

“You may ask, but you must understand, this is my living. My answers—they cost. You see?”

Sawyer gave me a look and I rolled my eyes. “Yeah. I see.” I was going to turn around, leave. I didn’t know how to ask about the dreams anyway. But as I was turning, Sawyer reached out to get the door for me and accidentally tugged on Dad’s ring, yanking it a little on the chain.

“Oh, sorry,” Sawyer said.

But the lady was beside us now. She saw the ring, eyed it. “I will tell you about this ring,” she said. She didn’t touch it, only gazed at it, steadily. But she seemed to know something. She really did. Or maybe she simply saw how I handled it. I wasn’t sure.

“I only have a twenty.”

“Then I shall only tell you a little,” she said. “Come, sit down.”

Sawyer shook his head at me, mouthing the word, “No.” But I followed the lady anyway. And, reluctantly, Sawyer followed me. We sat at the table and I took off the necklace, handing Dad’s ring to the lady. She held it between her hands, clasping it tight. She closed her eyes. “It belonged to your father, yes?”

Whoa! Tingles ran through my body. I swallowed and nodded, though her eyes were closed.

“I see great tragedy and … violence. Your father was murdered, no?” She widened her eyes. “Wait! No, that is not it. Your father,” she tilted her head, looking perplexed. “He killed himself … to save you…. How could this be?”

All the hairs on my arm stood on end as Kenzie’s words slammed through my brain, through my soul,
He did it to protect you, Idiot.

My heart ricocheted off my chest. He did it to protect me! He did. Kenzie knew that. She was right! Only … how? How did my subconscious know?

I rubbed my moist hands on my jeans as thousands of questions raced through my head. What did it mean? Why did he have to kill himself to protect me? Protect me from what?