Imposter
Jill Hathaway
Be afraid of your shadow…Vee Bell has witnessed murder. She nearly died trying to track down the killer, all because of her secret condition. When she passes out, she slips into the body of someone else. She’s dying for someone to tell, but no one seems to be interested.All of a sudden life is happening in reverse: Vee is waking up in weird places not knowing what she’s done. The only thing she’s sure of is that someone is messing with her. And when a prank goes horribly wrong, this time the hands with blood on them might be hers.Imposter is the super-slick killer thriller and sequel to Slide.
For J, S, and F—
the men in my life
CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE (#ulink_608d1aa6-236f-5cec-9040-a507afe645f6)
DEDICATION
CHAPTER ONE (#ulink_95df002d-3cce-54ae-9014-503a48f3f763)
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_6298b5ea-5881-57df-89a5-330f707e1c77)
CHAPTER THREE (#ulink_75bafef4-47ed-5501-989e-923ac35a402b)
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_555c3120-0107-5a40-ac0d-8483a64d0ceb)
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_bda76fdc-e157-5f1c-adc7-6a52678ec668)
CHAPTER SIX (#ulink_cd887b25-a308-5236-bb7b-34eb44417455)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#ulink_01ecf5d9-ef0b-5009-9c9c-e7852a4c465b)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_e26c7aeb-4980-5687-8b99-e9a8d311a5bb)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS (#litres_trial_promo)
ALSO BY JILL HATHAWAY (#litres_trial_promo)
COPYRIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
ABOUT THE PUBLISHER
(#ulink_c870eb7b-4cb0-5f17-96e2-8ef1f4c6870a)
he dream always goes like this:
I’m in the passenger seat of a car, racing down the interstate. The smell of gasoline stings my nostrils. My lips are moving, and sound is coming out, but my words don’t make any sense.
And I know what’s going to happen, but there’s nothing I can do about it.
The woman with white hair and death eyes is behind the wheel. She won’t stop laughing. When I try to tell her to stop the car, that she’s going to kill us all, my words are all backward and inside out and she just laughs and laughs. She turns her face toward me, and there are worms and spiders wriggling out of her mouth. I’m so distracted that I almost forget—
We’re going to die.
There’s a grinding noise, and we both look out the windshield at the same time. The road curves to the left, but we go straight, flying off the road, the headlights illuminating stalks of corn.
The tree comes out of nowhere.
The screams make my ears throb, but I can’t cover them with my hands because they’re holding the plastic container of gasoline.
An explosion of light and heat.
And then we are no more.
My limbs go rigid as I find myself awake. My mouth is open, but I’m unsure whether the screams stayed in the dream or followed me into my darkened bedroom. When the door pushes open and my sister, Mattie, pads inside, I know that I must have awakened her. My father, a pediatric surgeon with a huge surgery slated for tomorrow, must have his earplugs in. At least I didn’t wake him.
Mattie lifts the covers, and I scoot over to make room for her. “Was it the dream again?” she whispers, and I turn to look at the ceiling. Mattie knows I dream of Zane’s death, but she doesn’t know that in the dream it’s me dying. That I was actually with him when his psychotic mother crashed the car, killing them both instantly. That I was . . . inside him.
There is no technical term for what I am, what I can do. At least not that I know of. The moment Zane died, I was in his mind the way I’ve slid into the minds of so many others when I’ve touched something they’ve left an emotional imprint on. That night, I was purposely trying to get into Zane’s head to locate my missing sister, so I tapped into him using one of his beloved Fitzgerald novels. People can leave bits of themselves on all sorts of things—jewelry, clothing, furniture, money. It all depends on what they’re touching when they feel a surge of emotion.
I wasn’t always able to slide. In fact, I was pretty normal until I turned twelve. That’s when I started to slide. In one particularly upsetting episode, I was taking advantage of the fact that Billy Morgan was out of the classroom and hiding his Cubs pencil case behind the teacher’s desk, and the next I found myself using a urinal in the boys’ bathroom. It was pretty traumatic. Since then, I slide into others whenever I touch something with a strong emotional imprint. Sometimes I can stave it off by munching caffeine pills, trying to stay alert and focused, but most of the time I have no control. Only over the past year have I learned how to manage my power. There are still times, however, when I’m exhausted or distracted—and I just can’t help it.
But Mattie doesn’t know all this. All she knows is that my first love was killed in a horrific car accident six months ago and he keeps haunting my dreams. She reaches her arm across me and squeezes. She gets how dreams can seep out of your head into reality. She lost her two best friends around the same time that Zane died—one to murder and one to suicide. I imagine her dreams are as bloody as mine.
“It’s only three thirty,” I say, after peeking at my alarm clock. “Let’s just go back to sleep.”
Mattie nods, her eyelids already drooping. I watch her drift off, and then I roll over and stare out the window. Sometimes I can see my mother’s face in the shine of the moon, but not tonight. The clouds are too thick.
The smell of bacon pulls me from my restless sleep. My father must have gotten up extra early to make us breakfast before he leaves for the hospital. I glance at the alarm clock. Not even six yet. Mattie’s mouth is wide open, and she lets out these sporadic snores that sound like a little dog yipping. I roll out of bed without disturbing her and turn off my alarm clock.
Downstairs, my father stands at the kitchen counter with his back to me. His dark hair lifts in adorable little spikes. Though I know full well he’s made Denver omelets enough times to be able to recite the process backward and forward, he traces his finger gently over an orange cookbook lying open before him.
It was my mother’s.
I retreat into the front hallway and approach the kitchen again, shuffling my feet loudly so he can hear me coming. When I enter, I see that he’s closed the cookbook and returned it to its home between the extra virgin olive oil and canisters of exotic spices.
“Good morning,” he booms. “How did you sleep, Vee?”
I could tell him about my nightmare-riddled sleep, but I don’t want to worry him before he goes in for a big surgery. He needs his mind clear when he works on the babies. He has to be able to forget about everything, including his girls at home.
“Fine,” I say, plucking a piece of bacon that’s been cooling on a paper towel and popping it into my mouth. The crispy meat melts into salty deliciousness against my tongue. “Yum.” I grab another piece.
“Is Mattie awake yet?” he asks.
“Uh, no,” I say. “I’ll go get her.”
Upstairs in my bedroom, I stand for a moment, hesitating. Mattie could get another half hour of sleep if I leave her alone. From the dark circles that are permanently under her eyes, I know she’s been as sleepless as I have. Still, I’m sure she’ll want to see Dad before he leaves for work. I bend down and squeeze her shoulder.
“Mattie,” I say gently. “Breakfast. Dad made bacon.”
She doesn’t move.
I put my hand on her leg and shake. “Mattie!”
“What? What’s wrong?” She bolts upright, staring at me with wide eyes. I wonder if she was dreaming of Sophie, lying motionless in a puddle of blood on her bed. Or Amber, sprawled on the football field with a hole in her head. Mattie’s had horrifying luck with best friends lately. I don’t blame her for being jumpy.
“Nothing, Mattie.” I tousle her hair. “Breakfast.”
Mattie is still shaking when we sit down at the table. My father has set out three placemats, three plates, three glasses. It’s been a long time since there were four of us. It hardly even hurts anymore to look at the chair by the window, the one where she used to sit.
Under the table, I pull a tattered picture out of my pocket. My mother is young in the picture, smiling broadly at the camera, under the shadow of a sombrero. She and my father were on their honeymoon in Mexico when the picture was taken.
With my blond hair and blue eyes, everyone who knew her says I’m the spitting image of my mother. I push the photograph back into my pocket. I know it’s dumb to carry it around, but ever since the horror of last fall, it makes me feel like she’s with me. A little.
“So what are you doing today, Dad?” Mattie asks, grabbing a piece of toast and smearing some butter on it. I spear a forkful of eggs and lift them to my mouth.
“It’s a case of polydactyly,” he says. At our blank expressions, he goes on to explain, “The girl was born with an extra digit on her right hand. Today I’m going to remove it.”
I put down my fork.
“I tried to explain to the parents that it would be best to wait until she’s a little older,” he says. “But they aren’t comfortable living with the deformity. I can’t say I blame them, exactly. People can be cruel. . . .”
“The parents are willing to risk surgery just to get rid of an extra finger?” Mattie asks, voicing my own question. It seems wrong to cut a baby just to make her fit into a mold that society is more comfortable with. They’re uneasy with her appearance, so they’ll make her fit in. I wonder what would have happened if I’d been diagnosed with my sliding condition in the womb. Would my parents have thought I was a freak? If there were an operation to make me normal, would they have requested it? I suspect my mom wouldn’t have because I think she was able to slide, too. She regularly suffered fainting spells. I bet, just like me, she found herself sucked into other people’s heads, other people’s lives. Too bad she died before I was ever able to ask her. Now I’ll never know. Whenever I try to broach the subject with my father, he starts talking about something else.
My father doesn’t believe that I can slide. I tried to tell him when it started happening, but he sent me to a shrink who said I was just trying to get attention after my mother died. I’ve tried hard to forgive him for that, for thinking I was lying, for pushing me away when I needed him the most. But sometimes the anger creeps up inside me and I just have to get away from him.
“The parents want to take care of the problem before she’s old enough to remember it,” my father explains.
“I’m going to take a shower,” I say, pushing my chair back from the table. My father and sister watch me grab my plate and glass, which I rinse off and put into the dishwasher before trudging upstairs. My sleepless night has started to weigh on me, and I wish I could just crawl back into bed.
Rollins, my best friend, will be here in a half hour, and that lifts my spirits a bit. He always knows what to say to cheer me up.
“You look like hell,” Rollins says when I open the door of his old Nissan and slide in. He hands me a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “Decaf,” he says. “Just like you asked. I don’t know how you drink that shit.”
After taking a sip of the steaming liquid, I lift my middle finger. “Excuse me if I haven’t been sleeping well. I thought cutting the caffeine might help.”
His face goes serious. “The dreams again.”
Unlike Mattie, Rollins knows what really happens in my dreams. That I’m reliving the moment of Zane’s death. He knows what torture it is for me.
“Yup,” I say, taking another sip. “In full Technicolor.”
“Ugh, Vee. I’m sorry.”
At that moment, the back door swings open and Mattie throws herself inside. The whole car fills up with her too-sweet perfume, and I start to gag. “Jesus, Mattie. Did you empty the bottle?”
“Hey,” she snaps. “Someone hogged the shower, so I didn’t get a chance to wash my hair this morning. Do you have any idea who that might have been?”
I give her a sheepish look. I kind of fell asleep a little between washing my hair and putting in the conditioner. Mattie woke me up by pounding on the door and shrieking that she was going to pee her pants if I didn’t open up right away. The only way I was able to appease her was by letting her borrow my black scoop-neck sweater.
“Sorry,” I mutter.
Rollins shifts the car into reverse and backs out of the driveway.
I let my gaze flit from house to house, lawn to lawn, as he maneuvers through our neighborhood, toward the school. Gone are the leaves that littered the lawns months ago, when I was in love with Zane. Snow has been here and melted away, leaving the grass shyly green, the way it is in April, with flowers starting to push up toward the sun. I wonder if I’m taking too long to get over the hurt of Zane’s betrayal, the fact that he knew his mother wanted revenge on my family and let her move forward with her sick plan, even after he fell in love with me. Sometimes I wonder if he ever did really love me. Or if what I felt for him was true love. Because if it was, it just makes me really sad. I always thought that love was supposed to be this pure, renewing thing, but what Zane and I had turned out to be rotten on the inside.
Rollins’s voice slices through my thoughts, bringing me back to the moment. He’s got the White Stripes playing on the stereo, and the doors and floor of the car seem to vibrate with the sound.
“Did you hear what I said?”
“I’m sorry. What was it? Something about the radio?”
“I got the internship,” Rollins says excitedly. “At KRNK, the university station? They want me from ten to two on Tuesday and Thursday nights. It’s perfect because I’ll be able to—” He stops himself midsentence and glances at Mattie in the rearview mirror. I know what he’s worrying about: that he almost spilled his big secret, that he has to take care of his mother every night—make her food, give her baths, and even tuck her into bed. He needn’t have stressed, though. I peek in the backseat, and Mattie is thoroughly consumed with her cell phone, probably text-ing Regina, a freshman on the cheerleading squad who Mattie’s become close with in the last couple of months.
Rollins continues, “I’ll still be able to work at Eternally Vinyl on the weekends.”
“That’s great,” I say.
“Yeah. I’m starting tonight. You’ll listen, right?”
“Of course,” I say. “You need at least one listener for your big debut, right?”
Rollins reaches over and punches my shoulder playfully. I massage the place where he made contact and pout, pretending to be hurt. His eyes meet mine, and I hope he knows, despite my joking, that I would do anything for him. Ever since he pulled me out of a burning building last fall and confessed his feelings for me, there’s been this growing thing between us. It’s like neither of us wants to explore it just in case it ruins our friendship. And, truthfully, after the way my relationship with Zane ended, I’m not sure I can handle another heartbreak.
We pull into the school parking lot, and Mattie leaps from the backseat the minute Rollins cuts the engine. She’s been hanging out with Rollins and me more since her best friends were killed, but when she’s at school, she’d much rather be with the rest of the girls on the Pom squad. They all banded together closely after losing two of their cheerleaders, almost as if they’re grasping for some sort of normalcy during such an insane year.
I hoist my backpack over my shoulder and follow Rollins across the parking lot. As soon as I step inside the school, I freeze. The place looks nothing like it did when I left yesterday. Pink and gold streamers are strewn everywhere. Across from the front entrance, there’s a long, rectangular folding table. It, too, has been decorated with gold paper and pink balloons. Above it all hangs a sign that says IT’S THAT TIME AGAIN! BUY YOUR PROM TICKETS HERE!
Ugh. I totally forgot.
Mattie was yapping on and on last night about how prom tickets were going on sale today. She was all depressed because she was sure no one would ask her to the dance, which is totally ludicrous because not only is Mattie one of the most popular girls in the freshman class, but all the freshman guys are in love with her. Why wouldn’t they be? She looks like Cheerleader Barbie.
I used to be like her, naive and wrapped up in the delusion that my reputation was everything, relying on my looks to garner attention. But then something happened my sophomore year that turned my perception of the popular kids on its head.
My best friend at the time, Samantha Phillips, and I both had a crush on the same guy: Scott Becker, the hottest football player in our class. I was the one he asked to Homecoming. And I said yes, even though I knew how much it would hurt Samantha. The night was going beautifully until I felt myself get woozy in the middle of the dance floor. Scott asked me if I wanted to sit down, and I nodded. By the time he pulled me down the steps to the boys’ locker room, I had completely passed out. When I awoke, I found my skirt around my waist and Rollins punching Scott in the face. I never found out exactly what Scott was doing while I was unconscious, but I have a good idea.
After that, my so-called friends ostracized me. Samantha passed around a rumor that I did it with Scott (nicknamed Scotch after he threw up all over the dance floor) in the locker room. None of the cheerleaders would talk to me, so I dropped out. I dyed my hair pink in some sort of defiant gesture. It made me feel more like I was rejecting everyone instead of the other way around.
Since then, I’ve dyed my hair back to the original shade that matches my sister’s. I’ve even started talking to some of the cheerleaders again. But it’s not the same. Once I saw behind the curtain, I couldn’t go back to thinking that crowd was worth my time. But Rollins has been by my side through it all. Just as he is now.
“Look, Vee! It’s that time again!” Rollins says, grabbing my arm in mock excitement.
“Oh, joy,” I say, my face twisting into a grimace.
The long line of students clamoring to buy prom tickets is kind of surprising, really. I thought more people would be scrambling for dates at the last minute. But the way the guys are digging out their wallets and making small talk with one another while they wait makes me think that people have been obsessing about this stupid dance for weeks, if not months.
Prom.
Bah.
I’m about to push past the table and head to my locker when a familiar voice makes me freeze.
Scotch Becker.
He leans over the table, winking at Samantha, my ex–best friend, who is presiding over the money box. “Hey, Sam. What are you doing tonight? Want to go to the bonfire with me?”
Samantha bats her eyelashes. “I might be persuaded.”
“Awesome. I’ll talk to you at lunch,” Scotch says, spinning away from the table and running smack into me. His breath stinks, like he ate an onion bagel for breakfast. Or maybe he just forgot to brush his teeth. It makes my stomach turn.
“Get off me, Vee,” he says, leering. “You had your chance.”
“Screw you,” I spit.
“You wish,” Scotch says.
I feel Rollins’s hand on the small of my back. He leans down and whispers in my ear. “Come on, Vee. Let’s go.”
As we walk away, Rollins mutters, “Asshole.”
(#ulink_ac0238c2-67bf-524f-a0c2-014fa1c43745)
omething strange happens during English class.
One minute, Mrs. Winger is at the board, scribbling the definition of motif onto the whiteboard, and the next . . . she isn’t.
There’s just nothing. It’s not like I fell asleep. I can still feel myself there, but somehow I’m not anymore. I’m floating in a big sea of black. There are muffled noises, and every now and then I can make out a word or two. Time seems to speed up or slow down. Minutes pass, or an hour. I don’t know. And then I’m back again, in the same chair, my notebook with a half-finished definition of motif written down in purple ink.
I look around me, wondering if anyone noticed anything odd. Across the room, Samantha is staring at me. Out of everyone, she would know if I was acting strangely. Before the Homecoming Debacle of Sophomore Year, we did everything together, from painting each other’s toenails with zebra stripes to dancing to Lady Gaga on my bed.
She hasn’t spoken to me since the fire during a party at her house last fall. Not even to thank me for trying to pull her out before she was consumed by the flames. Unable to drag her by myself, I fainted. Rollins was the one to save us both.
Now Samantha sits there staring at me, like she knows something weird happened but she can’t quite put her finger on it. She takes a lock of her red hair and wraps it around her index finger again and again. Finally, she shrugs and goes back to her notes.
I look down at my hands.
They’re shaking uncontrollably.
Attributing the whole incident to a lack of caffeine, I pick up my pen and finish copying down the notes on the board.
By third-period study hall, I am feeling positively drained. Caffeine withdrawal is no joke. My head is pounding, and I want a cup of coffee so badly I feel like every vein in my body is crying out.
I tuck myself into the back of the library and lay my head on the desk, shutting my eyes. I’m even able to get a few seconds of sweet rest before the librarian rudely awakens me, tapping her garish red fingernails on the desk.
“The library is not your bedroom,” she says. “You need to keep your head up. If you don’t have any work to do, find something to read.”
I bite my tongue before saying something that would probably land me in detention, and watch her walk back to the front desk. Sighing, I stand, wander over to the magazine rack, and grab a Sports Illustrated. I paint a fake smile on my face for the librarian’s benefit and head back to my desk.
For a few minutes, I turn the pages, not really seeing the pictures. The tiny black type swims in front of me. Before long, I feel my head bowing again. But this time I’m not falling asleep. This is different. I can feel something on the pages of the magazine, a force compelling me to give in. I am about to slide.
The walls of the gymnasium pop up around me. I’m slowly jogging beside Randall Fritz, a junior on the football team. Air pumps steadily in and out of my lungs. The person I’ve slid into opens his mouth: “Tonight is going to be insane.”
Scotch again.
Ugh, only he would leave an emotional imprint on a tattered copy of a sports magazine. I briefly wonder what I did to piss off the universe so much that I’m forced to encounter this Neanderthal twice in one day. Though when I’m inside him, it’s hard to smell his stink breath, so that’s something.
I’m guessing Scotch is talking to Randall about the bonfire I overheard him mention this morning, the one he asked Samantha to attend with him. It’s all anyone’s been discussing this week. Not that I’m going.
“I know, dude. I’m stoked.”
Before I can hear any more of their conversation, I am swiftly transported back into my own mind, which is kind of a relief. I don’t need to hear Scotch and Randall talking about how wasted they’re going to get tonight.
At lunchtime, I lie on the ground underneath the bleachers, waiting for Rollins. This is our private space, among the trash and the leaves that have blown under here since fall. It’s not much, but it’s better than sitting in the cafeteria that mysteriously always smells like cabbage, watching the jocks compete to see who can eat the most slices of greasy pepperoni pizza.
I hear footsteps and open one eye.
“I brought you something,” Rollins says. He holds out a Mountain Dew.
“You’re so evil,” I say.
After a long internal debate, I rationalize that Mountain Dew isn’t as bad as coffee, and I might just need the drink to get through the day. I unscrew the cap and take a long swig.
Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I say, “Thanks.”
He shrugs. “Thought you might need it, the way you looked this morning.”
“You know me too well. I actually slid into Scotch Becker during third period. Today has been made of suck.”
Rollins looks at me with concern. He is the only person who knows that I can slide. When he found out, he was definitely freaked, especially when he learned that I’d slid into him while he was giving his wheelchair-bound mother a bath, but since he got over that he’s been amazingly supportive. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I just overheard him talking to Randall Fritz. They were making plans for that bonfire tonight.”
“How fascinating,” Rollins says.
“Exactly,” I reply. “So are you nervous for tonight?”
Rollins chews on his lip ring. “No.”
“Bullshit,” I say.
He sighs. “It’s not that I’m nervous, per se. It’s more that I’m apprehensive. What if no one calls in? What if I spend the whole night just talking to myself? What if I suck?”
I offer him a drink from my Mountain Dew. His fingers brush against mine as he takes it from me, and a shiver goes up my spine, as cliché as that may sound. It really, actually does. I pull my hand back, hoping he didn’t notice.
“You know me too well,” he says, handing the bottle back to me.
“It’s true.”
Dinner is my favorite—homemade pizza with green peppers on top.
I watch my father and Mattie bow their heads to pray. My sister’s cross necklace, the one that used to be my mother’s, reflects light from the old chandelier hanging above the table. My mother picked out the chandelier, along with most of our other furnishings, at a flea market.
I search for the comforting feeling of the picture of my mother that I stashed in my pocket this morning, but it’s not there. I reach deeper. Nothing. After checking the other pocket with no luck, I start to worry. Did I drop it somewhere?
“So how was the operation?” Mattie asks when they’re finished praying.
To my relief, my father doesn’t go into detail, as he sometimes does when discussing a particularly interesting case. He takes his oath seriously and never tells us the names of his patients, but he usually can’t resist raving about how well a surgery went or ranting about how a nurse nearly botched the whole thing.
“As well as could be expected,” he says. “I just hope the parents made the right decision.” I think about the baby recovering from the surgery. My heart clenches for her.
“How was school?” he asks.
Mattie cuts in before I can even say a word.
“I got terrible cramps during first period,” Mattie moans dramatically. “I had to go to the nurse, and she gave me an Advil and let me lie down for a little bit.”
My father looks a bit like he regrets asking. He turns to me. “How about you, Vee? Did you have a good day?”
I nod, taking a big bite of pizza. Hell if I’m going to tell them about the weird experience I had during English class today. Or about sliding into Scotch. I’m attributing both of those occurrences to caffeine withdrawal. Neither my father nor Mattie knows that, up until a few weeks ago, I was swallowing twenty to thirty caffeine pills a day, trying desperately to stay awake so I wouldn’t slide.
“I learned what motif is,” I offer.
My father bobs his head, looking almost like he’d rather hear about Mattie’s period than about the literary terms I’m studying. “Good, good.” He lifts his slice of pizza and takes a big bite.
“Hey, have either of you guys seen that old picture of Mom, the one where she’s wearing a sombrero?”
Both of them shake their heads.
After that, we eat in silence.
Long after the dishes have been rinsed and loaded into the dishwasher, I’m sprawled on my bed. My alarm clock says it’s three minutes past ten. Earlier this afternoon I found a dusty old radio in my father’s study, and now I’m twisting the dial, looking for KRNK. All I hear is static. Spinning it the other way, I finally locate the right channel—and hear a familiar voice.
Rollins.
He’s talking about the ridiculousness of prom—how dumb it is for guys to spend weeks of paychecks to fork out sixty bucks a ticket, not to mention a hundred on a tux and another twenty on a corsage. Some idiots even rent a limo for the occasion. It’s a rant I’ve heard a million times. The corners of my mouth turn up into a smile. I close my eyes and sink into the familiarity of his voice, his words.
“My colleague Anna disagrees with me on this point,” he says.
My eyes fly open. Who is Anna?
Rollins continues. “I mean, I get where she’s coming from. There’s the whole romance aspect of it. You’re supposed to make the girl feel like a princess and sh—crap. But the thing is, if you’re really into someone, you shouldn’t have to spend a ton of money to prove it. Why not just rent a couple of scary movies and make some popcorn?”
I grin. That’s what we do every Friday night—watch horror movies and eat junk food. We call it Friday Night Fright. I can’t help but wonder if there’s some deeper meaning to his words. Is he trying to tell me something, hint that he still has feelings for me? Or is this all hypothetical? Just banter for his radio show?
I grab my pillow and hold it to my chest.
“Anyway, I’m sure you’re all tired of listening to me go on and on. Instead, I’ll play a song that, to me, screams true romance.” I hear him clacking through CD cases, looking for the right one. “Here it is. ‘Everlong’ by Foo Fighters. Okay, all you naughty kids, staying up late on a school night. This is what a rock song should sound like.”
As the opening chords rattle the old radio, I close my eyes. Is this song meant for me? This song about waiting and wishing and wanting someone for so long? Could Rollins still feel the same way about me that he did that night in October? Or has he met someone else, someone who is ready to love him back?
The music rolls over me, and a silly image pops into my head. Rollins, in a vintage tux, and me in a glittery black dress. We sway together to the music, moving too slowly for the fast song.
This dream is not like the others.
Instead of the passenger, I’m the driver. The steering wheel is hard and unwieldy beneath my grasp, and there’s the distinct scent of vanilla in the air—the smell of the air freshener my sister put in my father’s car when he started taking her for practice drives.
I’m not on the interstate like I usually am in my dreams. I’m on some strange country road I don’t recognize. The gravel crunches beneath the tires. Cornfields race by, a blur of shadows in the night. For some reason, the car is going faster and faster. It takes me a minute to realize my foot is pressing hard on the accelerator.
The moonlight shining down, the detail on the wooden fence that pops up on the left, the sweet smell in the air—everything is too real. I try an experiment and yank the wheel to the right.
The car veers, and I feel my stomach lurch as inertia claims me. The car rolls into the ditch, but it doesn’t stop there. I see a telephone pole in my peripheral vision, and when it slams into the side of the car, pain shoots through my arm and chest where the seat belt tightens. My head slams against the window, and everything goes black.
When I wake up, I search for the comfort of my room, my telescope, the old rocking chair that used to belong to my mother. Instead, all I see is the vanilla air freshener, dangling inches away from my face, spattered with blood.
I sit up, wincing at the pain that sears through my head. Shaking, I reach for the rearview mirror and adjust it so I can see myself. My face is pale in the moonlight, with rivulets of black-red blood snaking down.
It wasn’t a dream.
This is really happening.
How the hell did I end up here? The last thing I remember is falling asleep, listening to Rollins’s voice on the radio. How could I possibly have risen, unaware, snuck down the stairs and out the door, and climbed into my father’s car?
It just doesn’t make any sense.
Scrambling, I look around for my phone. If I was able to somehow get into the car and drive myself into the middle of nowhere, maybe I had the sense to grab it. But there’s nothing in the center console or on the floor. I open the glove compartment and shuffle through my father’s registration and insurance papers. Nothing.
I push open the door and stumble out into the chill that is Iowa on an April evening. The wind slices through my thin T-shirt. I duck my head into the car and grab a University of Iowa sweatshirt that my father tossed in the backseat at some point. It does little to warm me up, but it’s better than nothing.
Where am I?
The gravel road seems to stretch on forever in both directions. In the sky, Ursa Minor shines brightly. The mama bear constellation. It makes me feel a little less alone. I turn around and see the glow of the city. I start walking down the road, heading toward the light. My mind races as I try to make sense of it all.
Strange occurrences certainly aren’t new to me. I’m used to sliding into people unexpectedly and having to figure out who the hell I am and what I’m doing. But this is something else. This isn’t sliding. I’m not in someone else’s body. I’m in my own. It’s almost like . . . someone else took over my body and forced me to steal my father’s car and drive out into the country.
It’s like someone else slid into me.
(#ulink_fb1bd6dc-1db7-58ec-bd83-47df4b27602a)
ventually, the gravel road turns into a paved one, and a sign looms ahead.
Highway 6.
I seem to be a few miles south of town.
My vision goes fuzzy for a moment, and I have to hold out my hands to steady myself. Perhaps I lost too much blood in the accident. I take a few deep breaths and then, feeling better, I carry on. My bare feet, not up to the task of trudging mile after mile, have become numb. I wince, imagining what they’ll feel like tomorrow.
I keep racking my brain, trying to figure out who could have slid into me—and why. Ever since I learned to steer people’s actions during a slide, I’ve been wondering what happens to the original inhabitant of the bodies. Do they go somewhere else? Do they just kind of black out?
I remember this time I slid into my father when he was jogging. I was so surprised to find myself in his body that I lost my balance and caused him to trip and fall. He landed on the pavement hard. And then I slid back into my own body.
I ran downstairs to find my father limping in the front door, looking dazed. He pointed to his ankle and said he must have fainted during his run. One second he’d been finishing his lap around the block, and the next he collapsed on the street. Now I wonder if there was a point in between, when everything turned murky and strange. Like how I was in English today.
Is it possible that someone slid into me while I was asleep and brought me here? How could it be possible? I’ve never heard of anyone else with the ability to slide—and, trust me, I’ve spent plenty of time Googling. What’s the likelihood of there being another slider out there? One with access to something I touched and left an imprint on? Because that’s what it would take for someone to slide into me.
No. It’s not possible. It has to be something else.
Something up ahead shines into my eyes. Headlights! I wave my hands over my head, praying that the yellow sweatshirt I’m wearing is bright enough to make me visible to the driver.
“Hey,” I shout. “Help!”
The car slows down beside me, and I see that it’s a cherry-red, vintage Mustang. The sight of it brings back sickening memories. I’ve ridden in a car just like this before—the night of the homecoming dance last year, to be precise.
My fears are confirmed when the driver rolls down the passenger-side window. Scotch Becker leans toward me. “What the hell are you doing out here, Vee?” He’s not alone. In the backseat, Samantha Phillips is sprawled drunkenly singing the school fight song, her eyes half-closed. The pungent scent of alcohol wafts from the car.
“Need a ride?” Scotch asks, smirking.
All of a sudden, I flash back to last year’s homecoming dance. Scotch has the same look on his face that he did when I awoke with my skirt around my waist—at least, until Rollins punched him.
I back away from the car, feeling like I’m going to puke. I turn and stumble into the ditch. Little spots swim before my eyes. I hear a car door open, and I panic. On instinct, I start to run, slipping into the maze of corn. I’m only vaguely aware of the husks slicing into my bare feet. I don’t slow down.
“Vee!” Scotch calls. “Vee, are you insane? I’m not going to hurt you!”
I ignore the voice and keep going. All I know is that I’m stranded in the middle of nowhere with a boy who may or may not have tried to molest me last year. I’m bleeding and confused. I just want Scotch to go away.
“Stop!” I hear Scotch panting. His footsteps slow, and then cease. “I won’t chase you. If you want to stay out here all night, fine. It’s your choice.”
My feet are killing me. I quit running and listen to myself breathe. Long, jagged mouthfuls of air. I look up at the sky and wish on the North Star that he will just leave.
“Crazy bitch,” I hear him mutter, and then more footsteps, moving farther away. Before long, his car starts up. Scotch revs his engine a few times and then takes off. Relieved, I sigh and head back toward the road. His taillights become smaller and eventually disappear.
I start to walk toward town, forcing my feet to keep moving, even though each step is agony. I fix my gaze on the city lights ahead. My destination seems a million miles away, even though I know it can’t be more than five. Still, that’s an awfully long way to walk on bare feet in the middle of the night.
A few minutes pass, and I hear a car somewhere behind me. I turn and watch the headlights come closer. Shielding my eyes, I try to decide whether I should try to flag the person down. Scotch was bad enough. What if the next driver is a serial killer?
In the end, my feet win out, and I wave my arms to get the driver’s attention. The car slows and stops beside me. It’s a blue station wagon. There’s a woman with a bun and kind eyes behind the steering wheel. She reaches for a button, and the window goes down.
“Do you need some help, sweetheart?” she asks.
I hesitate.
It seems like a terrible idea to get in a car with a stranger, but I’m pretty sure I could take this woman if it came down to it. She’s at least sixty years old and looks like she’d weigh about a hundred pounds soaking wet. And there’s just something about her that seems reassuring.
“I was in an accident,” I explain. “Could you give me a ride into town?”
“Of course,” she says, pressing another button. The doors unlock.
I pull open the door and sit in the passenger seat. Warm air from the heater blasts my face and legs, and all of a sudden I feel sleepy. I raise my fingers to my face, which is all sticky. Gross.
“Oh no. You’re bleeding,” the woman says. She reaches out hesitantly, as if to touch my forehead, but she stops before making contact.
“It’s okay,” I say. “My father’s a doctor. He’ll be able to fix me up. Besides, I think it’s stopped bleeding.”
She opens the glove compartment and takes out a package of Kleenex. “Why don’t you press some of these on your cut, just to be sure?”
I grab a few tissues and hold them to my wound. “Thanks. I really appreciate you giving me a ride. What’s your name?”
“Diane,” she says, returning the package to the glove compartment. After looking over her shoulder, she pulls the car back onto the road.
“I’m Sylvia,” I say.
She nods, keeping her eyes on the road.
We ride in silence for a bit. I start to doze.
Before long, we pull into my driveway. Every light in my house is blazing. As I get out of the car, the door opens and my father’s silhouette appears. He steps onto the porch in his slippers and robe. I know that I’m in deep trouble.
“Thanks again,” I tell Diane.
“Anytime,” she says.
I shut the door, and she pulls out of the driveway.
It is only then that I realize I never gave her directions to my house.
(#ulink_8f41ffb6-59e1-5d8b-a12f-5e13d76b74e1)
ithout a word, my father holds the door open for me.
“Where the hell have you been?”
I stop and turn to face him. I haven’t seen him this angry since the time he found out Mattie went to an all-night kegger instead of going to a movie.
“Do you know how worried I was? I called the police. They asked whether I wanted to report my car stolen. But—they wouldn’t go out and look for you until you’d been gone for twenty-four hours.”
I think of how mangled my father’s car is and wince. “I’m sorry.”
He crosses his arms. “I can’t wait until you have kids of your own and you wake up to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night and realize one of your kids has snuck out of the house. And taken your car. Jesus, Vee, you don’t even drive.”
“Dad. I didn’t sneak out.”
“Then what happened?” he demands.
“Maybe we should sit down so I can explain,” I say. Sitting down might be a very good idea for this conversation.
He eyes me warily, then follows me into the living room. I fall onto the comfy plaid couch, and he perches at the edge of his recliner.
“Now. Tell me.”
I take a deep breath, knowing how crazy my story is going to sound, even if I leave out any references to sliding.
“I fell asleep in my room, listening to the radio. When I woke up, I was driving. I thought it was a dream. But then I realized it was your car, and it was all real. That’s when I . . . sort of lost control and crashed into a telephone pole.”
“Oh. My. God.” My father lifts his hand to his mouth.
“I’m really sorry, Dad. About the car, I mean. I don’t know what—”
I stop talking when he rushes over and sweeps me into a hug.
“Vee. My baby. Are you all right? Are you hurt? Let me see you.” He holds me at arm’s length and looks me over. “Your head.” He brushes my hair away from the gash and inspects it carefully. “You might need a stitch.”
I wiggle out of his grasp. “It’s okay, really. It’s stopped bleeding.”
My father stares. “So who drove you home?”
“This woman who happened to be driving by.” I neglect to tell him the creepiest part, that she knew where I lived without any directions. He’s already freaked out enough as it is. Besides, I was so out of it on the car ride home, it’s possible I told her my address and don’t remember.
“Sylvia,” my dad says firmly. “You shouldn’t have gotten into a car with a stranger. Why didn’t you call me?”
“I didn’t have my phone,” I say weakly. “I didn’t know what else to do.”
“My God. I don’t know what I would’ve done if you had been . . .” His voice trails off, and we avoid eye contact, each of us thinking about what could have happened.
“You’re my heart,” he whispers, and I’m startled to see that he’s crying. I reach over and wipe away a tear that’s trickled down by the side of his mouth.
“Don’t worry, Dad. I’m okay.”
He manages a shaky smile.
“Is it okay if I go up to bed now? I’m exhausted.”
He kisses my forehead. “Of course, honey. Go get some rest.”
I leave him alone on the couch. He doesn’t follow me up to bed. That’s good because I have no intention of resting right now. Not after the night I’ve had.
Upstairs, my phone is right where I left it, on my nightstand. I grab it and punch in Rollins’s number. He answers before the phone even finishes its first ring. He sounds frenzied. “Vee! So glad you called. The show was so amazing. You listened, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, you were really great. But I’m actually calling about something else . . .”
Rollins is suddenly all business. “What is it? What’s wrong?”
I suppose I can’t blame him for assuming the worst after the craziness I put him through six months ago. I called him one night, begging him to help me save my sister from the killer who’d already murdered one of her friends.
“I’m okay,” I say, making my voice calm, trying to reassure him. “I just . . . kind of . . . crashed my father’s car.”
“WHAT WERE YOU DOING DRIVING YOUR DAD’S CAR?” Rollins bellows into the phone. I have to hold it a few inches away from my ear.
“I don’t know how to explain it. I fell asleep listening to your show. And then I thought I was having that dream again . . .” I swallow. “But it wasn’t a dream.”
“What are you saying, Vee?”
“I thought I was dreaming about riding in a car, but this time I was driving . . .” My breathing becomes labored as I find myself living through it all again. “I pulled the wheel to the right and went off the road. Right into a telephone pole. Slammed my head into the window.”
“Wait. So you woke up driving your father’s car?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you think this is a symptom of your condition? Like sleepwalking or something? Sleepdriving?”
“It’s never happened to me before,” I say, pulling at the hem of my sweatshirt. “It was so strange, how I blacked out and found myself in the car. It was almost like—”
“Like what?”
I shut my eyes tight, knowing how crazy I sound.
“Like someone slid into me. Like someone forced me to get into that car.”
I can almost see Rollins frowning. He only recently learned about my sliding. I suppose it’s a little much to expect him to believe there are others like me out there, much less those who live in Iowa City.
“That doesn’t make any sense,” he says. “Don’t you have to be touching a physical object that someone’s imprinted on in order to slide into them? If what you’re saying is true, someone in this town with the same power as you would have had to touch something of yours to force you to take your dad’s car. And they’d need a motive to do such a thing. It just seems a little far-fetched to me.”
“I know it doesn’t make sense. It’s just a feeling I had.”
He rushes to say, “It’s not that I don’t believe you. I do. I’m just wondering if you’re misinterpreting exactly what happened tonight. I know you haven’t been sleeping well. Maybe you started to have that nightmare about Zane dying, but this time you acted it out. In your sleep.”
I think about it. Rollins’s explanation seems plausible, but I just know that’s not what happened. Something deep down inside me keeps insisting that I was manipulated somehow tonight.
“So how did you end up getting home?”
“That’s another weird thing. This woman . . . Diane, she said her name was. She happened to be driving by and she gave me a ride home. But . . .”
“But what?”
“But I don’t think I gave her directions. She just seemed to know where I live.”
Rollins digests this information. “Are you sure? You did hit your head in the accident, right? Maybe you forgot about telling her.”
“Maybe,” I say.
After getting off the phone with Rollins, I lie in bed with my eyes wide open for a long time.
(#ulink_8e1a6909-72f0-5466-8ddb-b7e2356b0060)
he next morning, my phone buzzes with a text, waking me up. I glance at my alarm clock and realize I’m running late for school. Rollins will be here to pick me up any minute.
I peek at my phone. The text is from Rollins.
U AWAKE?
My thumbs fly over the keypad as I respond.
YEAH. BE READY IN 10.
Rollins texts back that he’ll see me soon. I pull on some jeans and slide the phone into my back pocket before heading downstairs. I find my father sitting at the kitchen table, reading the newspaper.
“How are you feeling?” he asks. “Do you have whiplash? Feel like you want to see a doctor?”
I grin. “I’m seeing one right now, silly.”
The anxiety in his eyes melts away, and he snorts. “Ha. But really. How does your head feel? Any dizziness? Nausea?”
Patting my father’s hand reassuringly, I say, “I’m fine. Promise.”
I sit down at the table, and my father pushes a glass of orange juice my way. I drink half of it in one long gulp.
“Well, I’m glad you’re okay. I know you don’t want to go to a doctor, but if this is a new symptom, we should really get you checked out. We can’t have you sleepdriving at night. You could have been killed.”
Sleepdriving. Is that even a thing?
“I seriously think it was a fluke, Dad. But if it makes you feel better, you can lock me in my room at night.”
He rolls his eyes. “I might take you up on that. Now can you tell me where I might find my car?”
“It’s a little off Highway 6. About five miles south of town,” I say, remembering the road signs I encountered on my hike.
“Ugggggggggggggggggggggggh.” My sister shuffles into the room, looking even more disheveled than I feel this morning. She must have been having nightmares about dead girls again. “Thank God it’s Friday.” Mattie grabs a coffee cup and fills it to the brim. I look on with envy. Perhaps I could have just a little caffeine to get through today. I’m operating on about three hours of sleep.
But before I have a chance to act on my impulse, I hear a car pull into our driveway, the radio so loud I can hear the opening notes of a Chevelle song from where I sit.
“Rollins is here,” I tell my dad. I gulp the rest of my orange juice and stand up. “Are you riding with us today?” I ask Mattie.
She nods and takes another sip of coffee before dumping the rest down the sink. Something in me dies a little as I watch the black deliciousness swirl down the drain.
“You sure you’re okay, Vee?” my dad asks.
“Yeah. Totally fine. If I start to feel sick, I’ll go to the nurse. Okay?”
Reluctantly, he agrees. I swoop down to give him a quick kiss and then dart out the door with Mattie following close behind.
Rollins doesn’t even wait for me to fasten my seat belt before he starts in on me. “How are you this morning, Vee? Are you sure you should go to school?”
Mattie drops into the seat behind me. “Dude, why is everyone so concerned about you today?”
Rollins throws me a curious glance. “You didn’t tell her?”
I shrug. “It’s not a big deal.”
“What’s not a big deal?” Mattie asks. In the rearview mirror, I see her checking her cell phone. She’s obviously very worried about my well-being.
“Oh, nothing. I just totaled Dad’s car in the middle of the night.”
I probably shouldn’t get so much satisfaction from the shocked look my sister gives me. “What? How did that happen? Are you okay?”
Feeling sort of bad for springing my accident on Mattie, I turn around to face her. “Calm down, Matt. Look at me. I’m all in one piece.” I make a split-second decision not to tell her about the whole driving-while-sleeping thing and the bizarre encounter with the woman, because she looks so alarmed already. At least, I’ll stay quiet for now. “Don’t worry. It’s no big deal.”
When I turn to face the front, Rollins gives me a questioning look. I mouth the word later at him and then fiddle with the radio. He growls and swats my hand away. Melting back into my seat, I welcome the normalcy of the scene. Rollins, rocking out behind the wheel. Mattie, in the back, scrutinizing a text message on her phone.
Then there’s me, wondering if there was someone else in my head last night.
An impostor.
(#ulink_95949462-4413-5ad0-82c9-2dbdccc2a90d)
here’s a girl waiting for Rollins at his locker. She’s curvy with black, choppy hair and a tattoo that runs the full length of her right arm. As we come near, I let my gaze trace over the tattoo. It’s full color and totally gorgeous, a depiction of Alice from Alice in Wonderland chasing the white rabbit. The girl’s eyes light up when she sees Rollins.
“Aw, hey.” Rollins gives the girl a hug. Jealousy prickles up my spine. He turns toward me. “Vee, this is Anna. She’s been training me at the radio station.”
I lift my face to hers and somehow manage a smile. The most distinctive feature of Anna’s face is her eyes, which are the most startling purple color with eyelashes that seem to go on for miles. I wonder if she’s wearing contacts because I’ve never seen eyes that color before. She’s wearing a lacy baby-doll dress over rainbow-striped tights and combat boots.
She is everything that I am not.
Suddenly I start to feel sick, remembering the song Rollins played last night. I’d kind of assumed he was thinking of me when he played it. But what if, the whole time Dave Grohl was singing, Rollins had been staring at this beautiful girl? The thought is so uncomfortable, I banish it from my mind. I am the one he loves. He told me as much that night he rescued me from the fire. True, that was six months ago, but still—could his feelings have changed that much?
“Hi, Vee,” Anna says, holding out her hand to shake mine. I pump perhaps too vigorously and then feel like an idiot.
“Hello,” I say. “Cool tattoo.”
Can she hear the envy in my voice?
She touches her arm gently. “Thanks. The artist is a good friend of mine. If you ever want to get a tat, let me know. I can get you a special deal.”
Rollins laughs. “I don’t think Vee is exactly a tattoo kind of girl.”
I scowl at him. “I like tattoos. Why would you think I’m not into them?” I turn to Anna. “I used to have pink hair, you know. I only recently dyed it back because . . . because I was bored with it.”
I don’t know why I said that. I guess it’s because I feel out of place somehow. Anna and Rollins just look like they belong together with their piercings and tattoos. And then there’s me . . . former preppy cheerleader turned narcoleptic slider.
Anna nods politely. “Well, Rollins, I’ll catch you tomorrow night if I don’t see you before then.” She disappears into the crowd.
I stuff my hands into my pockets so Rollins won’t see how my fingernails are digging into my palms. “She seems nice,” I say in a strained voice.
“Oh, yeah. She’s really cool. Knows her music, too.”
“Oh.” I don’t dare say anything else, in case the jealousy I’m feeling will come through in my words. How can I be feeling jealous? This is Rollins, my best friend. Of course he can have another friend. He should have other friends. I’m so ridiculous sometimes.
But then I wonder, as I watch him slam his locker shut and head toward first period, what if he likes her as more than a friend? What would I do then?
The five-minute bell rings, saving me from my thoughts. I rush to my locker and grab my books for English class. As I reach into my backpack to grab a pen, my fingers brush against an old bottle of caffeine pills I stashed away for emergencies. I let my hand linger for just a moment and then pull it away.
My head throbs from lack of sleep. As Mrs. Winger works her way up and down the aisles, picking up homework, I feel my eyes droop.
“Look alive, Sylvia,” Mrs. Winger says, stopping at my desk. “Do you have the assignment?”
I open my folder and pretend to look through the papers, even though I know I didn’t do the work. I’d planned to do my homework while I listened to Rollins’s show, but I ended up falling asleep instead. Perhaps I could bring up the car accident for sympathy points. But, no, then everyone would just think I’m weirder than they already do. Add sleepdriving to my narcolepsy and I’m a Grade-A Freak.
“Sorry, Mrs. Winger. I must have left it at home.”
She shakes her head as though she doesn’t believe me and moves on to Samantha, who looks even worse than I feel. Her hair, usually perfectly straightened, is swept back in a messy ponytail. She’s not wearing any makeup, and there are huge circles beneath her eyes. Remembering how she was drunkenly singing in the back of Scotch’s car, I wonder just how hungover she is today. But Sam doesn’t just look dehydrated. She looks regretful or something. Her demeanor unsettles me, reminds me of how I felt the morning after the homecoming dance last year. I wonder if something happened to her. I wouldn’t put it past Scotch to take advantage of an inebriated girl. If Rollins hadn’t burst in on us in the locker room, who knows what would have happened?
“How about you, Samantha? Did you finish the assignment?” Mrs. Winger hovers over Samantha, tapping her foot.
Samantha doesn’t even pretend to look through her things. She just glares at Mrs. Winger wordlessly until the teacher gets uncomfortable and moves on. Sam must sense my eyes on her because she then levels her gaze at me. I don’t look away.
She continues to give me her patented death stare while I scoot into the empty desk between us so I can talk to her without Mrs. Winger, who has moved to the back of the room, hearing our conversation.
“Hey, Sam,” I say, using her nickname for the first time in ages. It feels strange on my tongue. “Everything okay?”
Samantha crosses her arms over her chest. “What do you care?”
I hesitate. Samantha was so out of it last night. Unless Scotch told her about our encounter, which I’m thinking is highly unlikely, she probably has no idea that I saw her in Scotch’s car. If I explain, I’ll have to tell her about the car crash, which I really don’t want people finding out about. But if I don’t tell her, I’ll just look really nosy.
In the end, I choose nosiness over freakishness.
“Did you have a rough night?” I ask, hoping to sound sympathetic.
She narrows her eyes. “Why? What did you hear?”
I try to look innocent. “Nothing. You look kind of tired this morning, that’s all. Just wanted to make sure you’re all right.”
My neighborly concern doesn’t seem to be winning Samantha over. She pulls out a notebook, flips to a clean page, and writes the date at the top. I realize that she’s ignoring me.
“Samantha, we don’t have to be enemies,” I say, thinking how false the words sound even as they come out of my mouth. Nothing has changed since I tried to save her life. I am still the girl who went out with the guy she had a crush on. She is still the girl who told everyone I was a slut. She is still the girl who watched Scotch drag me into the boys’ locker room and didn’t do a thing to help me. A few words aren’t going to change that. Still, I want to try. “I don’t hate you.”
Samantha makes a disgusted noise and sets down her pen deliberately. “Vee, I don’t give a shit if you hate me or not. You are, like, the least of my concerns this morning.”
Her outburst wasn’t exactly what I was going for, but it’s something. At least she’s admitting that there’s something going on with her.
“What is your biggest concern this morning?”
The look Samantha gives me could freeze Satan himself. “None of your effing business.” She picks up her pen again, and I know I’ve been defeated.
Mrs. Winger moves to the front of the classroom and starts to talk about the Puritans. Reluctantly, I return to my seat. The rest of the period crawls by. I keep sneaking peeks at Samantha, but she is either really immersed in Mrs. Winger’s lecture or completely determined to pay no attention to me whatsoever. At the end of the period, she stuffs her notebook and pen into her oversized purse and rockets out of the room, never once looking my way.
I sit in the back of the library with the tattered copy of Sports Illustrated lying open before me. Before I try to slide, I wait for the librarian to take attendance and then sit down with her own magazine.
I’ve gotten to the point where I’m almost always successful at triggering slides, except when I’m amped up on caffeine. Thank God I didn’t give in to the pills in my bag this morning. Otherwise I don’t think this would work.
I’m going to slide into Scotch and see if I can figure out exactly what went down last night. He’ll be in gym class. If I’m lucky, he’ll be gossiping with his jock friend again. If something did happen with Samantha, I’m sure he’ll be bragging about it to the whole school.
Once the librarian settles down with her copy of Crock-Pot Adventures or whatever the hell she’s reading, I run my fingers over the glossy pages of the magazine. I’ve opened it to an article about some NFL player who overcame great adversity—family problems, health problems, academic problems—to get where he is today. The page has been turned down, as if someone wanted to return to it for inspiration. I wonder if that person was Scotch.
I rest my head on my desk as the bookshelves of the library melt away, turning into basketball hoops and banners in our school’s colors. Just like the last time I slid into Scotch, the students are doing laps.
Scotch’s sneakered feet slap against the wooden floor. His breathing is more labored than it was the last time I was inside him. He’s probably feeling the ill effects of the alcohol from last night’s party. Serves him right.
“So how was it?” a voice to my right asks.
Randall Fritz.
Here comes the part where Scotch brags about his conquest to his friend. I brace myself for a detailed description of Scotch’s sexual prowess. And then a troubling thought occurs to me. There’s no way for me to verify whether Scotch is telling the truth. If he says he had sex with Samantha, it could be true or it could be a lie. If it is true, having sex with a practically unconscious girl makes Scotch a date rapist. If it’s a lie, that just makes him scum.
Before I can think about what I’ll do if Scotch does say he hooked up with Samantha, he throws a curveball.
“Oh, man. Last night was so freaky. So Samantha and I were driving out in the country, looking for a quiet place to have some privacy if you know what I mean . . . and who do you think we came across, just walking along the side of the road?”
Oh shit. Hold everything.
“Who?” Randall asks, panting for some juicy gossip.
“Vee Bell.”
“Damn,” Randall says. “She is hot. Especially since she dyed her hair back and doesn’t look like such a freak anymore. Tell me, did you get some of that?”
Scotch stops running for a second. “Do you even need to ask? Vee’s had the hots for me since freshman year. I went out with her last year, but then I had to cut her off when she went through that weird goth phase. But she was begging for it last night.”
Scotch stops speaking and starts grinding his teeth together. Without my realizing it, the rage brewing inside me has taken over. “Asshole,” I mutter.
Randall looks confused. “Uh, did you just call me an asshole?”
“Misogynistic douche bag.” I can’t help it. The words just fly out of Scotch’s mouth.
“Wait. Miss-oh-ginous . . . what?” Randall scratches his head.
“You want to know what really happened last night?” I ask. Since we’ve stopped running, more and more people are slowing down to listen to our conversation. The gym teacher has disappeared into his office.
Randall looks seriously freaked out now. “Um. Okay?”
I take a deep breath. “Last night, I dropped Samantha off so I could go home and watch some Golden Girls. That Betty White gets me hot, if you know what I mean.” I wink at Randall twice, and he turns bright red.
A couple of girls start to laugh.
“What did he just say?” asks a guy with a fauxhawk.
“I think he just said he whacks it to Golden Girls,” a girl in a pink Juicy Couture sweatshirt answers helpfully.
Considering my job done, I slide back into my own body. I lift my head from the desk and realize I’ve drooled a little bit on the copy of Sports Illustrated. I wipe the corner of my mouth with my sleeve. The librarian didn’t even notice me appear to fall asleep.
(#ulink_c766558c-10db-5c42-ad99-08c6a699d1f3)
fter school, Rollins waits for me in his car. He’s got his radio turned up and is beating his hands on the steering wheel, but the minute I open the passenger door, he shuts off the music.
“So I heard an interesting rumor today,” he says, crossing his arms. “I thought you might know a little something about it.”
“Oh yeah?” I ask innocently, arranging my backpack on the floor.
“Evidently Scotch Becker announced his fondness for Betty White today in gym class?”
I’m unable to suppress a smirk. The rumor had spread like wildfire, and almost everyone was talking about it by lunchtime. I overheard Scotch in the hallway, bewildered, trying to explain to his football buddies that it was all a joke. I almost felt sorry for him. Almost.
“Not that I’m Scotch’s biggest fan, but why would you do that to him?” Rollins asks, sounding genuinely flabbergasted. “Yeah, the guy’s an ass, but you don’t need to be messing with his head.”
It occurs to me that, in the confusion of last night, I never did tell Rollins about running into Scotch or how Samantha was wasted in the back of his car. Quickly, I fill him in, explaining how distraught Samantha seemed in English this morning and how I slid into Scotch to find out what really happened between the two of them. When I get to the part about Scotch claiming that I came onto him last night, Rollins holds up his hand for me to stop. He looks like he’s going to puke.
“Okay, okay, I get the picture. I guess it served him right. Do you really think he took advantage of Samantha?”
I shrug. “There’s no way to know. Scotch is a lying sack of shit, and Sam doesn’t trust me enough to tell the truth. I hope he’s all talk. For her sake.”
Rollins shakes his head. “If I ever hear him talking about you that way . . .”
“Hey,” I say softly, reaching out to grab his arm. “I can take care of myself.”
Rollins stares at me for a moment and then nods, starting the car.
“So. Friday Night Fright?” I ask, mentally thumbing through my DVDs, wondering which horror flick we should watch.
“Uh, yeah. I have some things to do first, though,” Rollins says vaguely.
“Oh,” I say. “Okay.”
It’s not unusual for Rollins to have to run home and give his mother supper and get her ready for bed before he comes over, but he’s usually pretty up-front about it—at least, he has been since I learned about his mother’s condition. However, something about the way he’s avoiding my gaze makes me feel like he’s trying to hide something.
We don’t say anything more until he pulls into my driveway. I grab my backpack, trying to think of something lighthearted to say to ease the awkwardness between us. “I, um, guess I’ll see you later.”
“Later.” He barely waits for me to close the door before he’s backing out into the street—a definite contrast to the way he usually waits for me to get inside before he leaves. As I watch him disappear around the corner, I feel a bit queasy. If he’s not going home, where is he going?
Some part of me wonders if, wherever he’s going, Anna will be there.
Onscreen, Jason Voorhees chases some poor girl through the woods. Mattie and her friend Regina are sprawled on the floor, devouring a bowl of popcorn.
Mattie started hanging out with Regina a lot after Sophie and Amber died. She’s a sweet girl, but she kind of reminds me of Eeyore. Her older brother, Todd, was killed in a boating accident a few years ago, and she brings him up all the time. One minute she’ll be talking about how hot the new band teacher is, and the next she’ll be in tears because she remembers how her brother used to play the clarinet in elementary school. It’s exhausting to spend time with her, but I think she gets Mattie in a way that few other people do.
Rollins sits inches away from me on the couch. Almost everything about him is familiar—the scent of leather that lingers on him long after he takes off his jacket, the way his lip ring shines in the light from the television, the warmth that emanates off his body in our otherwise chilly living room.
But there’s something about him that’s changed. There’s a tension in his shoulders, as if he isn’t completely comfortable sitting this close to me. I wonder if it’s because he’s thinking about Anna.
God, these thoughts are torturous. And I feel ridiculous, getting so worked up over practically nothing. So he has a new, hot friend. So he might have gone to see her tonight before he came over here. Why is it any of my business? Why did it take Rollins possibly being interested in someone else before I came to my senses and realized what a freaking amazing guy he is?
A loud noise causes Mattie and Regina to shriek. In the movie, Jason has jumped out at the girl, his knife blade flashing. I take the opportunity to pretend to be startled and move a bit closer to Rollins, setting my hand next to his until our pinkies meet. Almost imperceptibly, he moves an inch away from me, so we’re not touching. Did he mean to do that? Can’t he stand to be close to me anymore?
I look around the room, searching for some way to get Mattie and Regina to leave us alone. My eyes fall on the popcorn bowl on the floor, nearly empty. I grab the remote control and hit the Pause button.
“Hey, Mattie. Way to eat all the popcorn. Rollins and I didn’t get any.”
Mattie glances at the bowl and then looks up guiltily. “Oops. Sorry.”
“Maybe you and Regina could go make some more?” I raise my eyebrows and tilt my head slightly toward the kitchen, hoping to convey that this is an order, not a request.
Mattie looks at me and then Rollins, and she smiles. “Oh, sure. Come on, Regina.” Mattie scoops up the popcorn bowl.
“Hey, do you have any of that flavored powder to sprinkle on top?” Regina asks, following Mattie. “Todd used to love that stuff. He could go through a whole bottle in two days.”
With the two gone, I turn toward Rollins. “I was hoping we’d get a moment alone to talk,” I say, my heart banging so hard I’m afraid he might hear it.
I know what I have to do now. Somehow, I have to find the words to tell Rollins how I feel, before this thing with Anna gets going. Otherwise, I might lose him forever.
Rollins looks down at his hands. “About what?”
“About us,” I say, my voice small.
Finally, he looks up. “What do you mean?”
Jesus, this is hard. So hard that I’m tempted to just let it go, leave things the way they are. I mean, we’re best friends. Do I really want to mess that up? What if I confess my feelings for him, and Rollins denies them? What if we never speak again?
After a long moment of racking my brain for the perfect turn of phrase, I decide maybe words are overrated. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and lean forward, my lips in a loose pout.
Nothing happens.
I open one eye. Rollins is staring at me like I’ve grown another head.
“What are you doing, Vee?”
Heat rushes into my cheeks. I pull back and try to act nonchalant. “Nothing. It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
His eyebrows knit together in concern. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah. I just—I don’t know what I was thinking.”
A buzzing noise interrupts the moment.
Rollins pulls his cell out of his pocket. It’s clear that someone has called him, but he turns away slightly so I can’t see who’s on the other line. After a moment, he stuffs the phone back into his pocket.
“You know,” he says, rising. “It’s late. I should go.”
“Sure,” I say, standing to walk him to the door. “No problem.”
“Hey, you don’t need to get up. Sit down. Enjoy the movie.”
“Oh, yeah.”
Rollins grabs his jacket from the back of the couch and pulls it on. “I’ll call you later.”
“Okay,” I say, mumbling. I hope it’s dark enough that he can’t see the tears welling up in my eyes. I’d like to think, if he did see them, he would stop. But he doesn’t.
A few seconds later, I hear the door open and close.
I’ve locked myself in the downstairs bathroom while Mattie and Regina finish watching the movie. Pathetic. Here I am, weeping on the toilet like some stupid girl who’s just had her heart broken. And the worst part is I should know better by now. Things like relationships just don’t go well for me. I should just accept it and move on. And become a nun or something.
The thought of me in a habit, dancing around a mountaintop and singing or some crap, makes me smile. I hold on to the image as I blow my nose.
The doorbell rings.
He’s back.
He’s changed his mind and has come back.
I peek in the bathroom mirror and make sure my face isn’t too blotchy. Then I hurry out into the foyer. The light is on outside, but through the sheer curtain, I can barely make out the figure standing there.
I throw the door open, ready to tell Rollins what an idiot I was being and that we should just stay best friends and that’s totally cool with me.
But it’s not Rollins standing on my front porch.
It’s my dead mother.
(#ulink_87703f8e-33bc-5a82-af5d-1cf4d4679a3b)
don’t say anything. I can’t say anything. I feel my jaw drop open, but I can’t force my lips to move or exhale the breath required to make a sound.
Logically, I know this can’t be my mother. I was there the day she died. I attended her funeral, dropped a single white rose onto her coffin as it was lowered into the ground. It’s as though my eyes are betraying me. She’s just as I remember her—long blond hair, now wet from the rain that started up soon after Rollins took off. Her eyes are bright blue, just like mine. Only her clothes are different. Instead of the ripped jeans and band T-shirts my mother wore when I was little, this woman is wearing khakis and a button-down blouse under a peacoat. She is completely soaked. Mascara trails down her cheeks, but I can’t tell if it’s from the weather or if she’s been crying.
After a moment, I realize this must be my mother’s sister, Lydia. She’s the aunt I never met. My father explained she moved to California a long while ago and lost touch with the family.
“You must be Sylvia,” the woman says. “You look just like your mother.”
I clear my throat. “So do you.”
“Who’s here?” My father’s voice emerges behind me.
“Hello, Jared,” Lydia says, almost businesslike. “It’s been a long time.”
I turn to examine my father’s face. He looks like he’s in shock, just as I was a moment ago. He’s probably struggling with the very same emotions that flooded me—longing for his wife, who passed away years ago, confusion that someone who looks so much like her could just show up on our doorstep, unannounced. He opens his mouth and then closes it again, like he’s not sure what to say. I reach out and touch his arm.
“I’m sorry to just show up like this.” The woman gestures to the yellow Toyota parked in the driveway. “I can leave if you like.”
“No,” my father says quickly. “No, don’t go. I’m sorry. I just . . . wasn’t prepared. Come on in. It’s raining buckets outside. Don’t you have an umbrella?”
I notice a small suitcase on the porch beside Lydia. She stoops down to grab the handle and then walks through the door that my father is holding open for her. I take a step back. It’s so strange to see my aunt here, in my house. She honestly looks like my mother’s ghost.
“I didn’t bring an umbrella,” Lydia explains, pulling off her soggy coat. “It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment-type thing.”
My father takes the coat from her and hangs it on the coat-tree. “You must be freezing. Would you like some coffee?”
Shivering, Lydia nods. “That would be great.”
I hear a thump come from the living room, followed by giggling. If Mattie were to walk into the room right this second, I realize, she would be in for a shock.
“I’m going to go let my sister know that you’re here,” I say.
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