Uncertainty (26 page)

I blew the flame out, leaving us in darkness together.

CHAPTER 21

I WAS FULLY
prepared for the first few weeks of school to be miserable. Especially with the mess that was the Henry situation, and the fact that I'd pissed off Lainey and ruined her party. She'd never been known to back out of retaliation.

But I just wanted to focus on my school work now. I was a junior. College and getting out of Hell were only two years off. I focused on having a future, because it could have been me that didn't.

I felt a tiny bit of closure for knowing what happened to Jenna. Even if it had been horrible, at least she couldn't remember. I still didn't understand why Warwick killed her. Maybe I never would.

The only loose end was her necklace, haunting me from its box. I'd take it out sometimes, fingering the tarnished, broke letters, then shove it away quickly so no one would see. During Government class, I found myself making a pros and cons list in my notebook, on whether the evidence pointed towards Warwick acting alone. I realized what I was doing and flipped away from the page shamefully.

It was funny how hardly anyone ever left Hell between school years. I watched the same people grow older every year, even though they didn't change all that much. The jocks were still the jocks, the losers found places in here and there in marching band or math club, but stayed quiet and off to the side.

I had more classes on the second floor this year, which was a hassle since I hated going back to my locker on the first floor every time I had to get a book. But it was a small price to pay, and at least the time between classes was a good ten minutes.

All of my teachers were decent, and I enjoyed every part of my AP classes. My English teacher was a bright, animated lady who loved to passionately read paragraphs aloud. She asked questions that actually made our cobwebbed brains think, and more than made up for the personality-free Mrs. Fellows last year.

Between classes in the second week, I was walking in the hall after lunch. I was running late, from getting caught up doing last-minute homework. Math had once again become a hassle for me, but I reasoned that if I really did badly, I would find a real tutor. One I didn't have a crush on.

I heard voices, arguing, as I came around the corner. The closer I got, the more familiar they sounded. Henry and Lainey were standing up against the lockers; engaged in a heated conversation. Their postures were aggressive, Henry standing several feet away from her. I ducked back around, not being able to help spying.

"Please don't tell. They can't know." Lainey pleaded. She was actually begging. Any minute I expected her to drop to her knees and clasp her hands. I'd never heard her sound so desperate.

"I have to," Henry said. It was firm, but not unkind. "I can't go on pretending anymore. It's eating me up too much."

"Please, Henry! You can't embarrass me like that!" Lainey sounded so utterly human that I couldn't help but feel sorry for her. A tiny, miniscule amount, but still.

"I'm not trying to embarrass you, Lain. But I told you before the party that night. It's never going to be what you want it to be, and don't you want better for yourself, if nothing else?"

"You're all I want," she said pitifully. I thought, by the way she was sniffling, she might be crying. Her words were creating a knot in my chest.

I hated hearing her talk about him that way, when I had, and still sometimes did, feel the same. I didn't want to hear how he felt about her, either. I thought it might crush me if I had to witness some sappy declaration of love.

"It's over, okay?" Henry said flatly. "That's the end. Nothing you say is going to convince me otherwise."

Lainey let out a huffy, exasperated noise, and I heard her high heels clicking away down the hall. I peered around the corner, and Henry was leaning with both hands up against the lockers, looking down at the ground.

I walked over to him, way too curious, even as the final bell rang. Coming up with a tardy excuse was the least of my concerns.

"What was that all about?"

Henry actually jumped at the sound of my voice.

"Are you okay?" I asked. He shuffled over and without a word, grabbed my arm. Glancing around for onlookers, he dragged me into the door of an open, empty classroom, shutting it behind us.

"Uh, what are you doing?" I asked. "Controlling much?"

He put his finger to his lips. "Just hear me out for a minute, okay? Then you'll understand what you stepped into."

I set my books down on the nearest desk and crossed my arms over my chest. "Okay. Go on."

"You always wondered why I started dating Lainey so suddenly, right?"

"Yeah, you could say that. It completely threw me off." It had broken my heart, but he didn't need that kind of validation.

"It was bullshit, is what it was." Henry said, shaking his head in a self-effacing way. He sat back on one of the desktops, reminding me eerily of Warwick.

The classroom was very dark, and looked like it had been unused for some time. No school supplies or textbooks or personal effects. Black, sooty damage marred the back wall behind the teacher's desk. I realized this must have been one of the places where a fire was set last year.

"Yeah, you could say that," I agreed. "But we're past it now."

"We've never been past it," Henry said. "It's always been between us, and it always will, unless I tell you why. I could deal, somewhat, with us being friends. As long as you were talking to me, I could cope. But I can't deal with us cutting each other off."

"I really don't want to hear this," I said, my heart sputtering. "Really."

"Please, Ariel," he pleaded. "Last year, after everything that happened, Warwick, and the girls, my father told me that I couldn't date you anymore. I'd told myself that I didn't care what he thought, but he would not take no for an answer. Instead, he told me that Lainey and I had to be together. That it would look good for Thornhill, if we were a couple."

Could I believe what I was hearing? He was still talking, there was still more.

"He made an ultimatum, that night after what we found in the basement. He said you were trouble for me. He can be very —" he tugged at his shirt sleeve, where I could see the purple-blue of a bruise healing on his wrist — "persuasive."

"He did that to you?" I asked, circling my fingers gently around his wrist. Suddenly, all of the bruises I'd seen made a horrible kind of sense. I realized I had been in denial before, not thinking a boy could be abused.

"I didn't want to, Ariel." His eyes were pleading along with his voice now, and he slid his hand through my fingers so that his were intertwined with mine. "I know I acted like a jerk, but that was all for show. I had to make you believe it. And it never went past kissing, and even that was mostly in public. Lainey is a brat, but she's also got a softer side. But we could never be a couple."

"My father thought it would be a good match, and I couldn't argue with him, or his temper. I learned a long time ago not to get on his bad side if I could help it."

It felt strange that an adult would have such a strong opinion of me, when I wasn't fully enough formed to know what I was.

"So what changed?" I asked. The room was suddenly far too small and dim, the only light that of the sneaky sun through the blinds. I didn't like the abandoned feeling of it, the burn mark on the wall, the faint scent of ash. "What made you dump her now?"

"I actually ended things the night of the party, before anyone had gotten there. But she begged me to keep up the pretense at school. I just couldn't do it; it didn't feel right. And I couldn't do it to you."

Our hands were still together. But the whole conversation left me feeling slimy, like everything he was telling me was to manipulate me. I had trusted him before, and gotten burned for it. I hadn't forgotten those feelings of embarrassment and betrayal, and I didn't exactly want to jump back into that. I dislodged my fingers and pulled my hand away.

"I've wanted to tell you so much," he said, seeming relieved to have unburdened himself. "It was never about you. I'm sorry for what I put you through, I can't tell you enough times to get you to understand. This has been tearing me up for the last year."

I bit my bottom lip, and grabbed my books off the desk. He looked at me with confusion, his eyebrows puckered.

"Do you expect me to be happy about it?" I asked evenly. "Jump into your arms and say everything's okay? I just...I don't feel...it doesn't feel right."

I couldn't even process anything right now. I had the rest of the day to get through, I had class that I was skipping and needed to hurry to. If everything had been built on a lie, then nothing was real, and I couldn't handle sorting out that mess.

"But I —" Henry started.

I quietly slid out of the room, and ran to class.

Madison Taylor was my lab partner in Chemistry, which was my new last class of the day. We ignored each other unless it was absolutely necessary for us to interact, and even when we had a lab together, we barely spoke.

She kept her ugly Coach purse on her side of the table, brown with a print of horse drawn carriages in pink. She pushed it to the very edge, like I was going to steal it. We would apparently never grow out of childish games.

I was so used to her silence, that when she spoke to me the day of Henry's revelation, it started me.

"She thinks you ruined her chances," Madison said quietly.

"Huh?" I asked, pulling myself away from the worksheet I'd been filling in.

"That Henry got close to you first. And you ruined her chances."

"That's not even true. She was all over him the first week of school last year."

Madison shrugged, playing with a strand of shiny blonde hair. "I'm just saying watch your back. You know how she gets when she's been crossed. Between that and you finding Jenna's necklace in the lake, she's not happy."

I rubbed my nose at the phantom memory of pain there.

"Doesn't it make you wonder?" I asked her, but she had gone back to ignoring me, her artificially small nose unconvincingly in her Chemistry book.

"All little," she said a few seconds later, so quietly I could have imagined it.

After school, I went to my locker to gather my books. I'd taken great pains to avoid Henry in the halls, in case he wanted to talk more. I wanted to discuss the situation with Theo, but I hadn't gotten the chance. For the only time so far I regretted not taking art class, since she had two this year.

When I opened the locker door, I noticed immediately that someone had been inside. I went on high alert, looking around to see if anything had been taken. Sitting on top of the shelf, among a bottle of water and extra binders, was a copy of the book Henry had wanted me to read long ago. Assassin's Apprentice. It looked brand new, with a sticker from the book store at the top corner.

I picked it up, cracking the cover open. Just don't forget about me. was scribbled on the title page. I shoved it in the bottom of my backpack and slammed the locker shut.

CHAPTER 22

SO MUCH HAD
been going on lately, that I hadn't had a chance to get back to the library to read Other Worlds again. I'd taken notes on what I'd read so far, reading carefully and absorbing every word, every line.

It was especially important to find out more now, since Jenna was growing more despondent and foggy with each day that passed.

The spirit might break away, unable to reconcile the reality of their demise, the text had read. Limbo becomes their dream world...although they can't slumber, they are always sleeping...

Whenever I tried to talk to her, it was as though she had a constant, ethereal version of PMS. She snapped at me, avoiding anything deeper than the most glossy topics. As guilty as I felt, there were only so many times we could rehash the same gossip and memories. I found myself naturally pulling away from her, like a kite from its handle.

If she got caught in the fog, she might never find her way out. And I could tell by the way she'd sit and flick her lighter, staring off into space, that the invisible fog was indeed starting to creep inside the house. I could almost feel it, like a chill in my bones.

On Friday, I walked to the library after school. Callie greeted me on the way in.

"Long time no see, stranger!" she said cheerfully. "I just got in a whole bunch of donations from the woman's resource charity, you should take a look."

A cart full of untagged books stood behind her, the volumes stacked haphazardly. She was putting fresh barcodes on the spines.

"In a second. I'll be right back," I assured her.

When I reached the shelf that was Other World's home, I reached up, not even having to think about where it was. My hand grasped for the familiar shape, but found only smaller books. I couldn't detect it there.

Dragging over one of the stools for shorter patrons, I stood up so I could get a better look at the top shelf. But there wasn't even a space for Other Worlds anymore; all the other books had been jammed together, as if it had never been among them.

I looked through all the books, but it was definitely not there. It hadn't been pushed behind them. I had to stop myself from ripping every one out in a frenzy. Forcing my emotions to calm down, I tried to discern other possibilities. Maybe someone else had taken it into the reading area. Maybe it had gotten misplaced after the last time I'd read it.