Deadly Little Lessons (16 page)

He’s here again. The door slams shut, a boom that jolts me awake. I feel like I’ve been sleeping for days. Without food, I’ve felt so weak.

At one point, hours ago, or maybe it was yesterday, I woke up and reached through the darkness for the area around the hole. The tape recorder was gone. I must’ve slept through one of his visits.

He moves closer, his feet scraping against the dirt floor, and suddenly I can see. The hole is illuminated by his lantern.

“Are you anxious to hear if I liked the tape?” he asks.

“Yes,” I say; my voice is barely a whisper. I’m beyond hot, and yet I have the chills. I can feel goose bumps all over my skin.

A moment later, I see the tape recorder again. He’s placed it down in front of the hole. The sight of it makes acid travel up my esophagus, burning the back of my throat.

He kicks the tape recorder into my cell, following it with the microphone.

I assume he’s going to ask me to do the recording again, but instead he feeds some items through the hole: a flashlight, some bandages, a tube of antiseptic cream, a box of crackers, and a handful of granola bars. As if all of that weren’t enough, he pushes through ten bottles of water.

“Wow,” I say, almost beyond words. I actually catch myself in a smile. I hate that he can probably hear my happiness.

“Where’s my thank-you?” he asks.

“Thank you,” I say, taking the flashlight, opening a granola bar, reaching for a bottle of water. I try to open the water, but my hands aren’t quite strong enough, and so I feed the granola bar into my mouth.

I turn on the flashlight and shine it over my wrist. My wound looks worse than I expected. The edges are crusty and dark and the skin is unrecognizable.

“I really liked your recording,” he says.

“You did?” I ask, initially feeling proud to have pleased him—a gut reaction, as sick as that is.

“Enjoyed it
so
much,” he continues, “that I’d like you to do another. Only this time, I want you to tell me why you’re here.”

“Why I’m here?” I ask, still eating.
I’m here because you
drugged me, because you took me, because I was too stupid to know
what was good for me.

“This was
your
choice, after all,” he says. The sound of his voice gives me more chills. “You came here of your own free will. You wanted time on your own. I merely provided that.”

“My own free will?” I ask, desperate to know what he’s trying to say. Does he want me to make something up? To say that he did me a favor by taking me? Maybe then if he’s caught, the police will think that I was happy here and not be able to arrest him?

“You know you wanted to come here. You remember begging me to take you, don’t you?”

“Of course,” I say, playing along. “I want to be here. I asked you to bring me. This whole experience has been really good for me.”

“Exactly,” he says; I can hear the smile in his voice. “But you can’t just say the words. You have to make them believable.
Why
did you want to come?”

I nod, totally getting it. I need to pull off my biggest acting role yet. I grab the microphone and the box of crackers, feeling more excited than I have in a long time.

A
FTER TOSSING AND TURNING
for a couple of hours, I sit up, still able to hear the voices of students outside. It’s hot in my room, even with the window open and the slight ocean breeze filtering in through the screen.

I get up and trade my sweats for a pair of shorts and my long-sleeved T for a tank top. Slipping on some flip-flops, I go downstairs and through the lobby, hoping that some fresh air will help me to relax.

Once outside, I notice that the sky is a deep purple color. I cross the back lawn to look out at the ocean. The moon paints a strip across the water. The waves ripple forward in glittering rows, spilling out over the rocks below, producing liquid gold. It’s almost too beautiful to be real.

I start down the set of stairs that leads to the beach, and then I walk out to the water. The incoming tide rolls over my feet, bathing them in an iridescent glow. I spend a few moments wading in the water before turning back and coming to a sudden halt.

I blink hard and shake my head, convinced that I must be seeing things. But he’s there, descending the stairs, coming right toward me.

Ben.

My pulse races and my head starts to spin.

“What are you doing here?” I ask, feeling my face turn as pink as the sky was just hours ago.

Ben is dressed in torn jeans and a T-shirt. His hair is rumpled from the wind.

“How did you know where to find me?” I ask him.

He’s standing right in front of me now, and it’s almost too hard to breathe.

“I have my ways.” His steel gray eyes focus right on mine, turning everything inside me into molten mush.

“I’ve missed you,” he says, taking me in his arms, just like old times. He smells like charcoal and kindling wood.

I melt against him, drinking him in, cementing this moment in my mind forever. “You’ve been talking to Adam, haven’t you? Is that how you knew where I was?”

He moves back to stare into my eyes again. “We have a lot of catching up to do, don’t we?” Ben extends his hands to me, with the palms up.

My fingers trembling, I place my hands on top of his. He grips them tightly. His breathing is heavy. His eyes are closed. He’s somewhere else entirely.

A few seconds later, I almost have to pull away, because his grip tightens. “Ben?” I ask, wondering what he senses. I try to breathe through the stinging sensation, but he squeezes my hands harder. “Ben!” I shout, louder this time. My fingers are absolutely throbbing.

Finally, he releases me. “Why didn’t you tell me about your aunt?” He opens his eyes; they look swollen and sorrowful. “How could you possibly have kept something like that from me?”

I stare at his lips, feeling my bones ache. “Maybe I was protecting myself from opening up too much and getting hurt all over again,” I tell him. “I was protecting you, as well. You’re the one who’s always telling me how much better off I’ll be without you. But maybe you’re better off, too.”

“My life will never be better off without you,” he says.

Without another word, I move closer and press my lips against his mouth. He tastes like sea salt.

We stay on the beach kissing as the sky folds in all around us, changing from plum purple to smoky black. Ben’s hands move over my waist and knead the small of my back.

As much as I’m into the moment, it isn’t long before I’m overwhelmed by a sense of panic, knowing that I’m betraying Adam. I pull away, all out of breath.

“I’m sorry,” I say, staring into his eyes, wondering if he can sense how much I want us to be together.

A second later, my cell phone rings. I check my pockets, startled to find that these shorts don’t have any. And that I didn’t bring a bag. So where is the ringing coming from? I look at Ben, figuring it must be his phone.

But he’s gone now. Vanished. And still the phone continues to ring.

I sit up in bed, gasping for breath, realizing finally that it was a dream. I look at the clock. It’s three a.m. The voices of students still linger outside. And the money clip remains clenched in my hand. I look at my fingers—at the impressions made from the metal tip.

Meanwhile, my phone continues to ring. A blocked call. I hesitate to answer it, still shaken up from the dream. On one hand, I’m disappointed it wasn’t real. On the other hand, I’m completely relieved.

“Hello?” I say, finally answering.

“I saw that you went to the mailbox,” she says. “And did you also go to the address?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not? I was under the impression that you wanted to find Sasha.”

“And going to the Blue Raven will help me do that?”

“It’s a start,” she says.

“And you want
me
to find her,” I say. “If you’re the one with all the clues, then how come you haven’t been able to?”

She doesn’t answer. Maybe she’s thinking of what to say.

“You want her found,” I continue, sensing that she does. “So, what’s your deal in all of this?”

“Go to the Blue Raven.”

“Is that where you got the money clip?” I persist. “Who does it belong to? And what does the
t
stand for?”

“It’s obviously someone’s initial.”

“Do you know who that someone is?”

“I think you’ve asked me enough questions,” she says.

“Should I take that as a yes? Is it a first initial? Or does it stand for a last name? Are you looking for Sasha, too?”

But unfortunately I’ve managed to push her too far. She responds by hanging up.

U
NABLE TO GET BACK TO SLEEP
after my dream—not to mention the phone call—I go back to my in-box to reply to Dad’s video message when I notice a new e-mail from Ben.

Dear Camelia,


I hope your summer is off to a great start or at least that it’s better than mine. I’ve sort of taken a brief hiatus from traveling. Let’s just say I’m stuck in the same place for a bit, but I guess that’s life. We don’t always get to go where we want, and I suppose my priorities have shifted a bit.


I miss you, as always. For the record, it’s 2 a.m. as I write this and I can’t get to sleep. I had a dream about you tonight, and I’m still trying to figure out what it means. Maybe you can help.


In the dream, we were both working on the same fifty-thousand-piece puzzle. The thing is, the puzzle was so big that we didn’t even know that the other was working on it. It was like I was floating above the scene, looking down on us as we worked independently of each other, completely oblivious to the fact that we both had the same goal of putting all the pieces together.


Any ideas?


Love,


Ben


I reread his e-mail, thinking how surreal it is that we each dreamed about the other on the same night, and that neither of us can sleep as a result. I wonder why he’s taken a hiatus from traveling and what he means by “stuck in the same place.” I crawl back into bed, wanting to fall asleep, but my brain won’t seem to shut off. I’m so wide awake that it almost hurts; my head feels like it could explode.

Wondering if Ben might still be awake, I reach for my phone and then notice a text from Dad. He tells me to check my e-mail for the video and that he loves me more than anything.

I reply with a simple thank-you, knowing that my brief response—not to mention my lack of an “I love you, too”—will probably sting. I push send, suddenly realizing that I’m more like Sasha than I thought. When Sasha found out the truth about her parents, she tried to punish them by acting out instead of communicating how she felt. And so I send Dad another text, thanking him for the video and telling him that it’s the first laugh I’ve had in days.

Several hours later, I’m up, showered, and dressed for class. I call Wes to see if he’d like to join me for breakfast.

“Am I to assume that you’re all geared up to go on this glorious day of redemption?” he asks.

“Something like that, which is why I’m off to partake in the most important meal of the day. Care to partake with me?”

“We’re already partaking,” he says; I can hear that his mouth is full.

“We?”

“Just some friends from class.” He pauses to laugh at something one of his friends has said.

“Hello?”

“Come to the student union,” he insists. “Waffles with whipped cream and strawberry drizzle: your mom’s worst nightmare come true.”

“Well, in that case, I’ll be there in five.”