Chapter 32: Chapter 32

The stick figures were back.

Looking down at my homework, I realized that I'd absentmindedly drawn grotesque stick figure animations in the spots where I was supposed to write my answers. Paying closer attention to them, I also realized that it wasn't Jesse I was drawing like all the other times—it was Farrah.

I drew her restrained against a tree with a bomb attached to her chest, as well as myself with a detonator. In another, I drew her tied up in a chair in the middle of a freeway during rush hour. And then I used her stick figure body to play hangman in the corner of the page—in which I lost on purpose.

Swallowing, and quite frankly, not really surprised as to where my thoughts had wandered, I crumbled up the paper—knowing I was going to be in serious trouble since it was due tomorrow—and tossed it to the side, scowling at it once it hit the floor.

Where had those thoughts come from?

Oh, right.

Jesse.

To say I was put off by him was an understatement. And to be honest, it had nothing to do with the fact that he lied about what happened at his party to my face.

No, I was put off because he didn't kiss me earlier. I'd given him a clear opening – two clear shots, now that I remember it – and he turned both down to drag me away to roam the city. Not that I was disappointed in how our day had turned out. After leaving the movie theater, we'd scavenged through the mall and ended up getting kicked out; found an arcade and played Pac Man and Galaga for a while; and then spent the rest of the day at a diner until he brought me back to school to retrieve my car so that I could drive myself home. And throughout all of those events, he hadn't made any moves on me—no lingering looks, no cornering me, and no flirting. And I admit it: his change in attitude had me thinking the worst.

Maybe he was finally bored. Maybe Farrah opened his eyes at his party and made him realize what he had been missing out on while he had been pursuing me. Maybe just the thought of kissing me just wasn't worth the trouble anymore.

I straightened up in my bed, unfolding my legs from their crisscross position and stretching them out. As I bit my lip and focused my gaze on the bedroom window to my side, I suddenly felt at a loss.

I bored him. I totally bored him. He's bored with me.

And the strange thing about my disappointment was that I wasn't upset that Jesse not liking me put a strain to Kale's revenge scheme—but because the very thought of Jesse being bored with me actually hurt me somehow. My antics were getting old and it took me only until now to realize it.

Glancing away from the window, I turned my gaze back to my homework on the floor. When my eyes roamed over my vivid fantasies about dealing with Farrah, I couldn't help the deep frown settling over my mouth.

For someone who claims to have not really liked Jesse to begin with, I sure feel like I care more about him than I should.

***

I told myself that I was being paranoid, but I swear I saw the secretaries in the attendance office stare at me a little longer than necessary as I passed them the next day at school. When they looked away from me to a man coming into their office with a basket decorated with happy birthday ribbons and balloons, I took advantage of the diversion and practically ran for it.

That was, until I rounded the edge of the hallway and ran into someone.

"Whoa, I'm s—" I froze when I met the eyes of the person. "Katrina?"

My best friend went stiff at the sound of my voice and instantly backed away from me. I was too focused on being relieved at finally seeing a friendly face that I trusted to give any attention to the fact that her body had went rigid and her lips had pressed into a tight line at the sight of me.

"H-Hey, Carson," Katrina stuttered out in response.

I examined her face for a moment, noting right away that she wasn't meeting my eyes anymore. She averted them toward her shoes and shifted them to the hallway behind me. When the tension around her reached me, it was almost tangible. "What's wrong?" I asked her, following her gaze by looking over my shoulder and then turning back to her when I didn't see anything out of the ordinary.

"Nothing. Nothing's wrong."

Her cold tone made me flinch. "Obviously something is," I pressed, trying to lighten my voice to ease her mood but frowning when I saw it wasn't working. Something in the back of mind reminded me that the last time I had seen Katrina was when she had come running to my house, only to find that Jesse was already inside. "Kat...is this about Jesse? Listen, what you saw was—"

"I know," she cut me off. "It's not that. I just...um..." She peered around me to look toward the end of the hall again and even turned to glance behind her. When she turned back around to face me, her eyes were on the floor again. "Uh..."

"Katrina?" Her eyes met mine, and I had to fight off the urge to back away from the intensity of her glare. "Tell me what's wrong."

"I said nothing was wrong." The way she looked at me would have made people who didn't know her turn on their heel and run sprinting away as fast as they could, but I only stared back, trying to figure out what could have happened to my best friend to make her act the way she was. "I..." she said quietly, her sharp expression faltering. "I'm sorry."

She went around me so fast that when I shot my hand out to stop her, she was already half jogging down the hall. "Katrina?" I called, whipping around to face her. I had only begun to follow her, but a deep, familiar voice made me stop.

"What was that about?"

I turned over my shoulder to find Jesse standing behind me. I hesitated at the sight of him, the things I was thinking about him last night vanishing from my mind as I turned back around to where Katrina had fled. "I have no idea," I answered.

He moved to stand beside me, and I nearly threw myself against the lockers in surprise when he brought his arm forward and took my hand in his. "Could it have been about me?" he asked.

I was too busy staring at our hands to answer right away.

What the hell? What did that mean? Why would he grab my hand out of nowhere like that? Was it out of pity? Or had I been wrong? Was he not bored with me after all?

I didn't know whether to feel relieved or disappointed.

"I, uh..." I throat clogged up when his hand tightened around mine, his fingers pressing softly into the back of my palm. It took looking up and staring hard at the wall next to me to finally compose myself.  "I really don't know," I finally answered him, thinking that someone really had to give me an Oscar for how calm and collected I sounded, in contrast to the tornado of thoughts and emotions whirling around in my head.

"Hm," Jesse let out. "Well, we should go, then. The bell's going to ring—"

The bell went off.

Jesse and I stared at each other for a long moment while the noise resounded throughout the hall around us.

When the noise died down and all we could hear were hurried footsteps and doors slamming, Jesse said, "I'm sure skipping another day wouldn't really hurt..."

I tightened my hand around his now and dragged him with me to our English class.

"Shut up, Jesse."

We made it to class approximately five minutes after the bell, earning a scowl from the teacher and curious glances from our classmates. Our hands were no longer linked by the time we showed up, but as we stood beside each other at the doorway of the class, Jesse's hand constantly brushed against mine, and I had to resist the urge to fling myself through a window every single time it did.

When I noticed that the two only empty seats were on either side of the room, I immediately made my way toward the desk farthest away from the door. I noticed Jesse cast me a fleeting glance when he turned toward the other one, only to have his attention taken by a group of friends who leaned over their desks to talk to him.

All throughout the class, even during the lecture the teacher was giving, I remained sunk back in my seat, staring out the window beside me as I thought about Katrina.

I couldn't remember a time she'd talked to me the way she had. In fact, I couldn't remember a time when she'd talked to anyone the way she had.

Could her mood have been brought on by the boy on the bus that she only rode on to stare at the back of his head? I frowned and brought up my arms to cross them over my chest, contemplating drawing deadly stick figures of him and sticking them on his locker with a note at the bottom that said something like, I'm watching you or something.

Or maybe it wasn't about him. She'd given me the cold shoulder, which must have meant her foul mood had something to do with me. Could she have lied when I asked her if it was because of Jesse? She'd have told me if she had a problem with him - right? All those days I spent with Jesse after I met him, she didn't necessarily tell me she had a problem with him. Now that I thought about it, she only gave off that mine and Jesse's interactions were either funny or inappropriate.

If she had told me that she had a problem with Jesse, I would have...

I paused.

What would I have done? The guy had been following me around since I met him - even when I told him to leave me alone and to never talk to me again. Really, what could I have done?

Or maybe it wasn't even that. But what else could make Katrina act that way?

Was it because I hadn't talked to her? I admit I hadn't really been making a solid effort in doing so. After Jesse's party, I practically devoted my time to Kale and his plans to take over the world. I suppose it had been my fault for letting him divert me the way he had. If he hadn't have dragged me off to Jesse's stupid party, none of this would have happened; I would never have seen Jesse and Farrah together and I probably would have made up with Katrina a long time ago. I would never have felt the need for revenge to badly.

And not to mention I wouldn't feel so conflicted about how I felt about Jesse altogether.

As soon as the bell rang, I started to feel a headache growing. It only got ten times worse as I thought on and on about Katrina until lunch came around and I couldn't find her.

I spent the entire hour looking for her, as well as eating a piece of a chocolate chip cookie and drinking a small fruit punch flavored Gatorade I'd bought from the snack line while I did. When my search came to an end when the bell signaled my lunch period to be over, I resolved to just talking to her in the class we shared at the end of the day. She couldn't avoid me forever. There was only so many places she could hide when her desk was right next to mine. If she thought I was going to let our cold greeting this morning go, then she had another thing coming. I was not going to be put through having a migraine all day without an explanation.

However, when I walked into the class, I froze when I noticed another girl in her seat beside mine. I scanned the class immediately, only to find Katrina on the opposite side of the room at the back of the class, her head down on her desk.

I made a move to approach her, but the teacher's voice stopped me short.

"Everyone take a seat."

I scowled. I guess I'll just talk to her during class.

"We're taking a test today."

I'll just talk to her when I'm done, then.

"It has seventy questions, so it'll take the entire period."

Great. Another subject for my stick figure art.

Deciding to talk to Katrina when the class ended, I made my way to my desk – throwing murderous glares at Ms. Landon, my Biology instructor, while she was turned around – and slid into my seat. Placing my bag on the floor beside me, I turned over my shoulder to cast narrowed glances at Katrina – willing her to look at me as if I had some sort of mind control. When she didn't and instead turned her head the opposite way to examine the inspirational posters along the classroom walls, I turned back to the front of the class and glowered at the dry erase board in front of me.

As soon as the test began, I nearly whacked my head repeatedly against my desk when I realized I knew nothing about Biology aside from what the digestive system did.

I knew for sure I had gotten five questions out of the entire seventy right when the class ended, but I didn't waste any time when the bell rang to double check. I jumped up from my seat, slapped my test against the teacher's desk as I passed and ran for Katrina, who was exiting through the doorway, her small, lithe body squeezing easily through the throng of students crowding around it.

I pushed past a couple of students talking by the door and reached for her, my fingers just skimming the back of her jacket's hood—

"Carson?"

I stopped mid-step.

"I didn't receive your homework."

I bit my lip hard in defeat when I saw Katrina disappear. Closing my eyes in frustration for a moment, I turned around to face Ms. Landon, who was perched against her desk, her face expectant.

"I didn't do it," I answered her coolly. I was too busy drawing on it to pay any attention to the questions.

I knew it wasn't right to put off my homework so carelessly – especially during this time of the year - but I didn't really care enough for it at the moment. Glancing behind me at the door, I thought quickly, and nearly sagged in relief when I remembered Katrina's bus didn't leave for another ten minutes. Maybe I'll have time to run there—

"Oh, well then I suppose you'll have enough time to finish it in detention today. Take a seat, Carson."

I'm going to cut this bitch.

***

Five minutes into my detention, when I was already beginning to consider faking a seizure to be set free, the classroom door opened, and another teacher with balding hair and wrinkles around his lips peered inside. I didn't know who he was, but judging by the multicolored bracelet wrapped around his right wrist that read, "I LOVE MATH," in big bold letters, I only had to assume he was a math teacher.

"I'm sorry to impose," he told Ms. Landon after quickly glancing at me. "But I have an emergency and I was wondering if you wouldn't mind taking in another student?"

Ms. Landon briefly looked at me, oblivious to the eye roll I gave when I looked back down to my work, and responded to him with, "Of course, I don't mind. Send 'em in."

"Thank you," he said, turning back to the student waiting behind him and making enough room for whoever it was to pass through.

As soon as the sound of clicking heels and the shuffling of leather reached my ears, I looked up to my detention partner, and then my pencil snapped in half when my fist clenched.

"Oh, my God," she gasped, frozen at the door.

I could literally feel the demons in me smiling evilly at the sight of her.

Farrah.

***

Two minutes later, she had been forced to sit beside me, and throughout the entire time, I noticed her glancing at me from the corner of her eye. Farrah would turn to Ms. Landon right after, look down at her work like she was witnessing a murder, and then glance not-so-subtly at me again.

I wasn't really hiding the looks I was giving her. I was actually in the middle of finding paper to crumple up to throw at her, when my prayers were answered.

"I'll be right back, ladies," Ms. Landon announced, standing up from her desk and making her way to the door. I didn't care if she was going to restroom or if she was just going to stand outside; all I cared about was the fact that she had left me and Farrah in the same room—alone and unattended.

As soon as the door shut behind her, I shifted so fast in my seat that Farrah shrieked and knocked her knee under her desk. She looked at me with wide eyes, her body angled awkwardly.

"Hi," was all I said.

"Uh." Farrah glanced around uneasily. "Hello."

"I'm Carson," I said sweetly at first, but then allowed my smile to slip into a frown and the gleam in my eyes to dim so that I was scowling now. "Who the hell are you?"

For a long moment, Farrah just stared at me. With her quiet so still, I noticed about a million different emotions cross her face, all ranging from: confusion, panic, fear, anger, and even boredom. I was just beginning to say something else when she opened her mouth and asked, "Who do you think I am?"

"Honestly?" I said. "I think you're sketchy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't like you," I told her bluntly.

Farrah didn't look bothered by the news. "Well, I don't like you either."

"No, no, let me tell you why I don't like you, though—do you mind?" I scooted my desk closer to hers, kicking her purse that was situated on the floor beside her out of the way—on purpose—while I did. "You, Miss Strawberry Shortcake,"—Farrah raised a hand to her strawberry blonde hair as I continued—"are making things very complicated for me."

She scoffed in disbelief. "How am I making things complicated for you? I've never even spoken more than ten words to you!"

"Because that's just it! You don't talk! You act!"

"Act?"

"You don't use words. You use your body, and that," I said, "is why I don't like you."

Farrah raised an eyebrow at me. "Don't downplay it. I know you hate me."

"No." Now she raised both eyebrows. I turned away from her as I continued. "I want to hate you, but I didn't really give you a reason not to do what you did."

A moment passed before Farrah asked, "What I did?"

"What happened between you and Jesse the night of his party?" I suddenly asked, my challenging tone taking a turn. It was the one question that had been eating at me ever since she walked into the room. Somehow, I could find it in myself to forgive Jesse for kissing her—all in all, I hadn't exactly been giving him the time of day (or month) and couldn't blame him for it. But if Farrah told me now that nothing had happened aside from that, then maybe...maybe...

Farrah stared at me again. And just like before, I saw different things cross her face. She took a little longer to respond, and I had a feeling she was having a mental debate with the angel and devil on her shoulders.

And then, she finally said, "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Bullshit you don't know what I'm talking about!" I shouted, but then eyed the door Ms. Landon had left from and lowered my voice. "You kissed him!"

"I did."

"And?"

"And what?" she asked, growing irritated. She straightened up in her desk and stared hard at the worksheet on her desk. It was untouched just as mine was. "What do you think?"

"I'm thinking that if you don't tell me straight out what happened after you two kissed right now, then you're going to end up in the emergency room and I'm going to get sent to prison for aggravated assault."

Farrah's eyes widened when she shot her head to the side to look at me again. I had widened my eyes also, gawking a bit at my choice of response.

Wow, I thought to myself. Where had that come from?

"We kissed," Farrah said, snapping me out of my thoughts. "And we went to his room. That's all I'm telling you. I will not discuss my private life with a stranger."

"Just tell me one thing, though." I waited for her look at me before I continued. "Was he on drugs or something?"

A look of shock settled over Farrah's face. She opened her mouth several times, letting out hisses of breath as she tried to find her words. And then she just stared at me again. "W-What makes you think he was drugged?"

"I don't know," I said, casting my eyes back down to my desk. As I spoke, I started to remember the party in detail. "He had this look in his eyes while he was drinking. At first I thought he was drunk, but now that I'm thinking about it—I'd seen that look in his eyes before. My brother's old friends weren't exactly good citizens. They took drugs sometimes and my brother took it upon himself to hide them in his room until they sobered up so that they could go home. And Jesse had that look. Maybe I'm just hoping he was on something, or maybe I'm hoping he was just drunk, but...something was definitely wrong with him. And if anyone would know what it was—it'd be you, right?"

Farrah bit her lip and looked away from me. "I...I really have to finish this."

I snatched her work from under her hand and held it away from her. "You have to tell me!"

"Why?" she demanded, her eyebrows furrowing.

"I have to know," I told her, almost pleading. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore. I don't know how I feel about Jesse. I don't even know if he really likes me or not. And I think I might have agreed to do something when I don't even have the whole story right. But if you say he was drugged—or if you say that nothing happened between the two of you...then I can finally let this go. I can drop everything and work it out with him. But you have to tell me."

A minute passed before Farrah opened her mouth to say something.

But Ms. Landon chose that precise moment to re-enter the classroom.

I scooted my desk back as soon as she turned my way, but she only frowned at me instead of reprimanding me for moving and returned to her chair, eying both Farrah and I for a long while before she turned her gaze downward and continued grading the stack of tests in front of her. I held onto Farrah's worksheet—keeping it as a sort of insurance.

It felt like forever when Ms. Landon dismissed us. And when she did, my gaze shot to Farrah, who was gathering her things. She stood up, but she didn't leave.

"He's bad," she said, raising her eyes from roaming the floor to staying locked with mine. "I know I'm the last person you want to take advice from—but Jesse's hurt people. The way he's treating you right now? You're like a challenge in a game. Don't forget it. Drugged or not drugged; sex or no sex"—Ms. Landon gasped—"Jesse will hurt you if you don't hurt him first. Your attitude aside, you don't deserve that. So whatever you agreed to do—do it. I don't mean to sound so melodramatic, but you're the only one who can."

She snatched her work off my desk and left before I could say anything.

And as I watched Ms. Landon stare after her, her mouth hung open, mumbling something about a scandal, I took that chance to drop my head hard on my desk.

Why? Why did hearing that make my heart constrict uncomfortably in my chest? Why did hearing that make me feel like I'd lost myself in all of this mess?

Maybe because it was the truth. Jesse had hurt people. And maybe throughout all of this, I had been a challenge. But the cold reminder had me thinking: If I really let him have his way, would he end up hurting me, too?