Chaos (Kardia Chronicles) (Entangled Teen) (3 page)

The haze that had clouded my vision dissipated as more questions flooded my already overloaded brain, but I dragged my ass down the hall to my next class, refusing to give in and look over my shoulder to see if
someone
was still watching me.

Who was Mac Finnegan, and why did it feel like he knew me? Like,
knew
me knew me. The way Libby and my mom and my grandma knew me.

And why did it feel like he had so much loathing for me?

It might have made sense if he knew what I was. That I had this power living inside me that had been fighting its way out for the past six months. The thing that had indirectly almost killed a boy…

But he didn’t know that. He couldn’t. Still, the shame that came every time I thought of Eric filled me, and I fought the slick of nausea battering my belly.

By the time school ended, I’d talked myself in mental circles only to come to the realization that I was being paranoid. Mac was a jerk, but it was nothing more than that. Still, I was totally wrung out. I felt like I’d gone to the dentist for ten fillings, stopped by the doctor for a tetanus shot and some stitches, and then took a midterm all in the same day. When I pushed through the heavy metal doors to the outside world, the icy air that hit me was a relief.

“Hey.”

I tensed but then was relieved to see it was only Bink swaggering toward me. I couldn’t take another run-in with Mac right now without imploding.

“Hey yourself. How was your day?” I asked, working up a grin. Bink wasn’t what I’d call intuitive, but he had a sixth sense when it came to my moods, and I wasn’t in any shape to answer questions or discuss a certain arrogant asshole. Not yet.

“Pretty good. Coach says if I ace my English paper, he can start me again next game.” His face broke into a wide smile, and a group of girls walking by stared at him. I could hear their whispers when they passed, and the words “hot” and “dimples” were definitely in the mix.

It was hard to judge objectively after fifteen years of friendship, but I stole a glance up at him as we strolled side-by-side toward the parking lot. At six-one, 210, he was a wall of muscle capped off by a mop of dirty blond hair and the chronic chin stubble that had some girls referring to him as Thor behind his back. He was one of those kids who had looked like a man since eighth grade but whose maturity level hadn’t quite caught up with the rest of the package.

That aside, he was easy to look at. I probably should have been affected by it, but most of the time, I saw him as the same scrawny kid I used to catch salamanders and share PB&Js with during long summer days.

I was no fashion model, but the old Bink hadn’t really cared what he looked—or smelled—like when we were kids, and he was pretty ripe most days. While I didn’t miss that, there was one thing I did miss…

Being able to tell him everything. Because the fear of him knowing? The fear of him looking at me differently? It was more than I could stand. With all the changes going on in my life, he was one of the few constants, and I needed us to be exactly what we’d always been. Only we weren’t.

I wished I could’ve blamed the recent change on our respective social standings at school. Before the “incident,” I was pretty much invisible. Then, I became all too visible.

The past few months, since I’d started the column and some time had passed from the thing with Eric, I’d slipped back into a semi-comfortable state of anonymity. Sure, girls liked the column, but they didn’t know I wrote it, and even if they did, I doubted I’d ever be really popular.

Despite having overheard my mom’s friend say that my black hair and green eyes made for some “striking coloring,” anything notable about my looks stopped there. I had a decent figure, but it wasn’t what I’d call standout. My nose wasn’t small and it wasn’t big. My cheekbones did their job as advertised and held my face up adequately, but they weren’t going to cut glass or anything. My lips weren’t Jessica Alba plump or Kate Middleton thin. I was pretty with a lowercase p. As for standing out in other ways, well…I just didn’t.

I was a decent student, but I was nobody’s valedictorian or any kind of laude. I didn’t play a sport or have the urge to put on a short skirt and shake plastic tassels for anyone who did. In fact, aside from the whole semi-god thing, I was basically regular.

But Bink? Bink was not only gorgeous, he was fun to be around and also the starting quarterback of the football team, which all the girls seemed to like even more than my column. Through it all, though, he hadn’t changed much.

When push came to shove, he’d not only have my back, he’d also keep a watch on the front, side, top, and bottom if I needed him. If anyone had changed, it was me.

I had secrets now that hurt too much to tell. I had done things…terrible things, and the thought of seeing the disappointment in his eyes if I said them out loud made me keep my piehole shut. And this was creating a thin but very real wall between us that I fucking despised but felt helpless to stop building. Maybe some quality time with him was exactly what the doctor ordered on a craptacular day like this one.

“Do you need help with your paper? I have some time tonight if you want.”

He turned grateful baby blues on me and nodded. “That would be excellent, thanks.”

We slowed as we reached his car, a red classic Firebird that looked way better than it ran. We’d had to get my mom to jump it that morning when it wouldn’t start before school, and I crossed my fingers that we didn’t run into the same problem again. It had already felt like the longest day in history.

“So what’s your paper supposed to be about?”

“Jane Austen. I tried to read the books, but jeez, Mags. They’re so boring.” His brow wrinkled, and he looked pained. “How could anyone like that crap?”

I shrugged and tugged open the passenger door. “You’re asking the wrong girl.”

Although Bink and I were the same age, I was a better student and had taken a lot of the classes he was taking now the year before, so I’d already choked down my dose of Austen. My taste ran more toward Veronica Roth and Sarah Dessen, so it hadn’t been fun times.

“But we don’t have to like it to write a paper on it. We’ll make it fun. No worries.”

He slid into the driver’s seat, and we both held our breath as he turned the key. It sputtered but then caught, and the engine roared. Maybe things actually were looking up.

“Sweet,” he murmured under his breath and clicked on his seatbelt.

It wasn’t until we’d pulled out of the lot that I managed to let go of some of the tension that had knitted my neck into knots since I’d found Mac’s little note. I had a reprieve. Another sixteen hours or so before I had to go back there. Before I had to face
him
again.

It wasn’t long enough, but I’d take it.

Determined to make the best of the afternoon, I turned to Bink. “I heard some gossip today. Talk to me. What’s up with you and Ally?”

His cocky smile made his response unnecessary, but I let him crow about it anyway. “I asked her out at lunch and she said yeah. She’s going to see family in Vermont this weekend, but next weekend we’re going to the movies to see
House of Demons
. I figure I’ll pull the old ‘it’s okay, I’ll protect you’ arm around the shoulder move and see if I get a chance to touch her boob.”

He looked at me expectantly, and I gave him the patented deadpan eyes he’d set me up for, which made him laugh.

“Speaking of which, Libby wants to go out tomorrow and see the new
Spiderman
movie. You down?” He turned hopeful puppy dog eyes on me, and I nodded.

“You and Libby, eh? Sure I won’t be cock blocking you?” I teased. Bink and Libby were always arguing, and I’d been teasing them for years it was pent up sexual tension. Neither of them had taken the bait yet, though Bink’s face turned an interesting shade of pink all of a sudden.

“Yeah right. Libby?” He coughed. “Not likely. So you down or what?”

I stared at him hard, for the first time wondering if maybe there
was
something weird brewing between the two of them. I didn’t know how I’d feel about that either. Probably not good.

“Sure,” I said.

I
was
down. It would likely do wonders for my mood to get out and be around people who loved me. And who knew? Maybe today was just a fluke. Not an omen of a lot of crappy days to come, but only one crappy day. Maybe Mac would forget about whatever he’d been trying to pull and leave me alone altogether and tomorrow would be better.

Then again, maybe not.

Chapter Two

When I got home that afternoon, my mom was already back from work, and she and my gram were sitting in the living room watching repeats of
The Golden Girls
on
The Hallmark Channel
.

“Hey, kiddo, how was your day?” Mom stood and ran a hand through her platinum blond hair and gave me a strained smile.

Gram didn’t look up from her nest of blankets, and the house was about a thousand degrees. Already I could tell it had been a rough day at Casa de Raynard, and the stress that had finally started to dissipate on the ride home with Bink came rushing back, tightening like a band around my neck.

For the past year, Gram had been suffering from a form of dementia that came and went, and today had clearly been a “came” day. I think it would have been easier to handle if she’d been able to verbalize what was happening, but along with her memory, she also lost the ability to form coherent phrases when she had an attack. Her ever-escalating whimpers of terror and panicked babbling left everyone in the room exhausted and emotionally shot. Luckily, there were still more good days than bad, and Mom and I had vowed to keep her home with us for as long as possible.

But I knew right away today wasn’t the time to complain about my jumbled feelings for the new guy at school or my advice-column woes. I pasted a grin on my face and waved to the room at large. “Awesome. How are you guys doing?”

The apple fell damn close to the tree and Mom smiled back, the strain around her mouth making my heart ache a little. “Pretty good. There’s a container of peach frozen yogurt in the freezer if you want. I know it’s almost December, but I had a hankering for spring this morning, so I ran out and bought some, then cranked the heat hoping it would put me in a warm-weather mood.”

Gram’s skin was like the translucent peel of an onion, and she was perpetually freezing no matter how hot it got, so turning up the heat was probably a good thing if she’d been outside earlier.

I tossed my backpack in the corner, made my way to the kitchen, and tugged open the freezer door. Comfort food was exactly what I needed right now. It was like the woman was psychic or something. I yanked out the quart of yogurt. Not bothering with a bowl, I plucked a spoon from the silverware drawer and cracked that puppy open.
More than half gone.

Apparently it’d been a worse day than I’d thought. I vowed to hang in the kitchen with her later and make dinner together so we could talk.

As I spooned up a frozen peach, I tried to think of something not weird, infuriating, or depressing that happened at school to entertain her with. I’d settled on making something up when she walked into the room.

“What’s up with you?” she asked, her tired but shrewd eyes drilling into me.

I swallowed and stalled by licking the spoon clean. I couldn’t say “nothing.” My mother’s bullshit meter was a well-oiled machine. And there went my best intentions…

“Someone started another column at school. It’s sort of opposing my views.” Understatement of the year, but it was true and vague enough. I didn’t have to give her all the details, but it would explain my all-too-apparent bad mood. “It’s a guy,” I blurted. Jesus, it was like once my mouth started moving, there was no stopping it. I’d be a terrible spy.
Need secrets? I got ’em right here! Waterboarding entirely optional.
Might as well finish it, then. “This new guy at school.”

She hitched a hip against the granite island and folded her arms over her chest, eyeing me perceptively. “Really? Now that’s interesting. So is it necessarily a bad thing for you, though? Maybe a little competition will get more people reading.”

I started the column to keep me sane and grounded. To remind myself that the world still turned no matter what was happening with me, and that it was still full of good old regular folk problems.

So complex but also so simple in a lot of ways. And it really helped.

Even though people had gossiped about me like I was a Kardashian after the incident, I felt like I had more friends because of that silly little advice column. People who liked me and my scribbles, even if they didn’t know it was me they liked. It was kind of a poor man’s substitute for the feeling of belonging I’d been starving for, but at least it was something. The idea of sharing that or, worse, losing it because of Mac Finnegan made me a little hinky inside.

I set down the carton and tossed the spoon in the sink, where it landed with a clatter. My mother followed it with her gaze and then shot me a disapproving look. I sighed and turned to the sink to get it. “I don’t know. Maybe not, but it sure feels like a bad thing.”

I put the spoon in the dishwasher and turned back to face old Silver-Lining Lorelei. Her forced optimism when it came to my social life was often more annoying than helpful, and I was about to remind her of that but stopped short when I spied the deepening lines around her eyes.
She had a bad day, and it’s not all about you
. “You could be right, though; maybe it will be fine. Either way, not important. That’s all that’s going on with me. What’s up with Gram today?”

Mom looked away and didn’t answer, which sent a cold finger of dread skating down my spine. We both had a habit of putting on a happy face for each other, but I’d asked her a direct question, and she was as silent as Bink during math class.

“Mom?”

Her face was drawn tight, the brackets around her mouth deep little slashes. “I think it’s time, Maggie.” Her voice cracked at the end, and I didn’t have to ask what she meant.