I came to myself with a start. Was I actually considering denying it had happened? I knew what I’d seen. It was not my imagination.
“Holy freak show,” Vee said. “You’re not answering. The deer is lodged in my headlights, isn’t he?
You’re driving around with him stuck to the front of the car like a snowplow.”
“Can I sleep at your place?” I wanted to get off the streets. Out of the dark. With a sudden intake of air, I realized to get to Vee’s, I’d have to drive back through the intersection where I’d hit him.
“I’m down in my room,” said Vee. “Let yourself in. See you in a few.”
With my hands tight on the steering wheel, I pushed the Neon through the rain, praying the light at Hawthorne would be green in my favor. It was, and I floored it through the intersection, keeping my eyes straight ahead, but at the same time, stealing glimpses into the shadows along the side of the road.
There was no sign of the guy in the ski mask.
Ten minutes later I parked the Neon in Vee’s driveway. The damage to the door was extensive, and I had to put my foot to it and kick my way out. Then I jogged to the front door, bolted myself inside, and hurried down the basement stairs.
Vee was sitting crosslegged on her bed, notebook propped between her knees, earbuds plugged in, iPod turned up all the way. “Do I want to see the damage tonight, or should I wait until I’ve had at least seven hours of sleep?” she called over the music.
“Maybe option number two.”
Vee snapped the notebook shut and tugged out the earbuds. “Let’s get it over with.”
When we got outside, I stared at the Neon for a long moment. It wasn’t a warm night, but the weather wasn’t the cause of the goose bumps rippling over my arms. No smashed driver’sside window. No bend in the door.
“Something’s not right,” I said. But Vee wasn’t listening. She was busy inspecting every square inch of the Neon.
I stepped forward and poked the driver’sside window. Solid glass. I closed my eyes. When I reopened them, the window was still intact.
I walked around the back of the car. I’d completed almost a full circle when I came up short.
A fine crack bisected the windshield.
Vee saw it at the same time. “Are you sure it wasn’t a squirrel?”
My mind flashed back to the lethal eyes behind the ski mask. They were so black I couldn’t distinguish the pupils from the irises. Black like … Patch’s.
“Look at me, I’m crying tears of joy,” Vee said, sprawling herself across the Neon’s hood in a hug. “A teenytiny crack. That’s it!”
I manufactured a smile, but my stomach soured. Five minutes ago, the window was smashed out and the door was bowed. Looking at the car now, it seemed impossible. No, it seemed crazy. But I saw his fist punch through the glass, and I felt his fingernails bite into my shoulder.
Hadn’t I?
The harder I tried to recall the crash, the more I couldn’t. Little blips of missing information cut across my memory. The details were fading. Was he tall? Short? Thin? Bulky? Had he said anything?
I couldn’t remember. That was the most frightening part.
Vee and I left her house at seven fifteen the following morning and drove to Enzo’s Bistro to grab a breakfast of steamed milk. With my hands wrapped around my china cup, I tried to warm away the deep chill inside me. I’d showered, pulled on a camisole and cardigan borrowed from Vee’s closet, and swept on some makeup, but I hardly remembered doing it.
“Don’t look now,” Vee said, “but Mr. Green Sweater keeps looking this way, estimating your long legs through your jeans… . Oh! He just saluted me. I am not kidding. A little twofinger military salute.
How adorable.”
I wasn’t listening. Last night’s accident had replayed itself in my head all night, chasing away any chance of sleep. My thoughts were in tangles, my eyes were dry and heavy, and I couldn’t concentrate.
“Mr. Green Sweater looks normal, but his wingman looks hardcore bad boy,” said Vee. “Emits a certain don’tmesswithme signal. Tell me he doesn’t look like Dracula’s spawn. Tell me I’m imagining things.”
Lifting my eyes just high enough to get a look at him without appearing that I was, I took in his fineboned, handsome face. Blond hair hung at his shoulders. Eyes the color of chrome. Unshaven.
Impeccably dressed in a tailored jacket over his green sweater and dark designer jeans. I said, “You’re imagining things.”
“Did you miss the deepset eyes? The widow’s peak? The tall, lanky build? He might even be tall enough for me.”
Vee is closing in on six feet tall, but she has a thing for heels. High heels. She also has a thing about not dating shorter guys.
“Okay, what’s wrong?” Vee asked. “You’ve gone all incommunicado. This isn’t about the crack in my windshield, is it? So what if you hit an animal? It could happen to anyone. Granted, the chances would be a lot slimmer if your mom relocated out of the wilderness.”
I was going to tell Vee the truth about what happened. Soon. I just needed a little time to sort out the details. The problem was, I didn’t see how I could. The only details left were spotty, at best. It was as if an eraser had scrubbed my memory blank. Thinking back, I remembered the heavy rain cascading down the Neon’s windows, causing everything outside to blur. Had I in fact hit a deer?
“Mmm, check it out,” said Vee. “Mr. Green Sweater is getting out of his seat. Now that’s a body that hits the gym regularly. He is definitely making his way toward us, his eyes pursuing the real estate, your real estate, that is.”
A half beat later we were greeted with a low, pleasant “Hello.”
Vee and I looked up at the same time. Mr. Green Sweater stood just back from our table, his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his jeans. He was blueeyed, with stylishly shaggy blond hair swept across his forehead.
“Hello yourself,” Vee said. “I’m Vee. This is Nora Grey.”
I frowned at Vee. I did not appreciate her tagging on my last name, feeling that it violated an unspoken contract between girls, let alone best friends, upon meeting unknown boys. I gave a halfhearted wave and brought my cup to my lips, immediately scalding my tongue.
He dragged a chair over from the next table and sat backward on it, his arms resting where his back should have been. Holding a hand out to me, he said, “I’m Elliot Saunders.” Feeling way too formal, I shook it. “And this is Jules,” he added, jerking his chin toward his friend, whom Vee had grossly underestimated by calling “tall.”
Jules lowered all of himself into a seat beside Vee, dwarfing the chair.
She said to him, “I think you might be the tallest guy I’ve ever seen. Seriously, how tall are you?”
“Six foot ten,” Jules muttered, slumping in his seat and crossing his arms.
Elliot cleared his throat. “Can I get you ladies something to eat?”
“I’m fine,” I said, raising my cup. “I already ordered.”
Vee kicked me under the table. “She’ll have a vanillacreamfilled doughnut. Make it two.”
“So much for the diet, huh?” I asked Vee.
“Huh yourself. The vanilla bean is a fruit. A brown fruit.”
“It’s a legume.”
“You sure about that?”
I wasn’t.
Jules closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Apparently he was as thrilled to be sitting with us as I was to have them here.
As Elliot walked to the front counter, I let my eyes trail after him. He was definitely in high school, but I hadn’t seen him at CHS before. I would remember. He had a charming, outgoing personality that didn’t fade into the background. If I wasn’t feeling so shaken, I might have actually taken an interest. In friendship, maybe more.
“Do you live around here?” Vee asked Jules.
“Mmm.”
“Go to school?”
“Kinghorn Prep.” There was a tinge of superiority in the way he said it.
“Never heard of it.”
“Private school. Portland. We start at nine.” He lifted his sleeve and glanced at his watch.
Vee dipped a finger in the froth of her milk and licked it off. “Is it expensive?”
Jules looked at her directly for the first time. His eyes stretched, showing a little white around the edges.
“Are you rich? I bet you are,” she said.
Jules eyed Vee like she’d just killed a fly on his forehead. He scraped his chair back several inches, distancing himself from us.
Elliot returned with a box of a halfdozen doughnuts.
“Two vanilla creams for the ladies,” he said, pushing the box toward me, “and four glazed for me. Guess I’d better fill up now, since I don’t know what the cafeteria is like at Coldwater High.”
Vee nearly spewed her milk. “You go to CHS?”
“As of today. I just transferred from Kinghorn Prep.”
“Nora and I go to CHS,” Vee said. “I hope you appreciate your good fortune. Anything you need to know—including who you should invite to Spring Fling—just ask. Nora and I don’t have dates … yet.”
I decided it was time to part ways. Jules was obviously bored and irritated, and being in his company wasn’t helping my already restless mood. I made a big presentation of looking at the clock on my cell phone and said, “We better get to school, Vee. We have a bio test to study for. Elliot and Jules, it was nice meeting you.”
“Our bio test isn’t until Friday,” said Vee.
On the inside, I cringed. On the outside, I smiled through my teeth. “Right. I meant to say I have an English test. The works of … Geoffrey Chaucer.” Everyone knew I was lying.
In a remote way my rudeness bothered me, especially since Elliot hadn’t done anything to deserve it.
But I didn’t want to sit here any longer. I wanted to keep moving forward, distancing myself from last night. Maybe the diminishing memory wasn’t such a bad thing after all. The sooner I forgot the accident, the sooner my life would resume its normal pace.
“I hope you have a really great first day, and maybe we’ll see you at lunch,” I told Elliot. Then I dragged Vee up by her elbow and steered her out the door.
The school day was almost over, only biology left, and after a quick stop by my locker to exchange books, I headed to class. Vee and I arrived before Patch; she slid into his empty seat and dug through her backpack, pulling out a box of Hot Tamales.
“One red fruit coming right up,” she said, offering me the box.
“Let me guess … cinnamon is a fruit?” I pushed the box away.
“You didn’t eat lunch, either,” Vee said, frowning.
“I’m not hungry.”
“Liar. You’re always hungry. Is this about Patch? You’re not worried he’s really stalking you, are you?
Because last night, that whole thing at the library, I was joking.”
I massaged small circles into my temples. The dull ache that had taken up residence behind my eyes flared at the mention of Patch. “Patch is the least of my worries,” I said. It wasn’t exactly true.