For Your Heart (Hill Dweller Retellings) (37 page)

    
I don’t speak because more is coming.  We’ve begun the hot chocolate pow-wow.

    
“When I was in L.A.,” she clarifies.  “When I got there, I was this outcast.  I didn’t fit in with my cousins, so the first thing they did was make me over.  They took me shopping – taught me how to do my hair and make-up, how to dress like I belonged.  I felt beautiful and dangerous, nothing like I used to be.  I felt confident – like everyone was looking at me and wanted to be me.  I was a new me.  I met this friend of my cousin’s – Fernando was his name.”  She stops, swallows, and when she continues her voice is strained.  “I thought he was so handsome, so smooth, you know?”  Her eyes flash to me, but evade just as quickly.

    
I look at my own hot chocolate and start stirring as well – just to give my hands something to do, just to not look at her because I sense she’s uncomfortable telling me this. 

    
“This new me, she caught his eye.”  She shrugs, her hand compulsively stirring.  “So, we started going out.  Went on dates, stayed at each other’s place, hung out at parties.  My aunt and uncle didn’t care.  I’m an adult in their eyes.  I did things I shouldn’t have – because I wanted him to like me, because I knew that if I didn’t I’d lose him.  And I didn’t want that.  He was everything to me.”  She falls silent.

    
I frown, confused.  She used to send texts, call me while she was there.  They got fewer and fewer until they stopped all together.  “You never said anything about any of this.”

    
She shrugs.  “Guess I didn’t want you to know.”

    
That stings.

    
A long moment passes and I peek up at her.  She’s staring at me, eyes so wide and intent, face so serious.  “One night,” she continues, “we were at this big party.  We were drinking and dancing.  There were so many people.” A bitter scoff escapes her lips – which are now trembling.  “We got separated.  It was okay though, that’s what I thought anyway, these were his friends – I could trust them – and Fernando wouldn’t let anything bad happen to me.”  Her eyes begin to water and she breaks my gaze.  “I was so stupid.”

    
She doesn’t need to say it, I can tell in her eyes what happened.  Ice.  My blood is ice.  I can’t move.  And out of the ice comes fire.  At the back of my throat, the back of my neck.  My cheeks.  I feel Celeste’s shame like something permeable. 

    
She sucks in a deep breath, wipes the back of her eyes and does a valiant job of holding it together.  I couldn’t hold it together, not in her place.  “My younger cousin found me a couple of hours later in a back room.  She thinks it was some kind of roofie or whatever.”

    
I clench my spoon, willing her not to tell me the gory details because I feel sick.  So very, very sick.  Sick for her and sick at myself because I wasn’t there for her when she needed me.  I want whoever hurt her to hurt, too.  I hope they got a long time in prison.  “Did the cops get them?”

    
She bites her lip and looks away.  “I didn’t go to the police.”

    
My eyes go wide.  “What?  Why?  You should have gone to the police, Celeste.  Did you at least go to the hospital?”

    
A smile crosses her face and she shakes her head at me.  “See?  This is why I didn’t want to tell you,” she barks.  “It’s why I didn’t even tell you about Fernando and me.”

    
I close my mouth, bite my tongue.  My heart is hammering in my chest.

    
“You’re always so high minded, always so certain of the way.  Well, I’m not like you.  For me, it wasn’t so easy, so black and white.  When that happened to me, I was scared.  Those people were friends of my boyfriend.  He didn’t believe me when I told him.  He told me I was a slut, that I was easy, that anything his friends did to me I deserved and was asking for.  He said I shouldn’t have cheated on him and then he broke up with me – this boy I thought I loved – this boy I gave my virginity to because I thought he was my forever one.” She cuts herself short and glares at me, her eyes molten.

    
I look down at my hands, unable to stare into those eyes.  Celeste’s pain isn’t just from the violation.  It’s from the betrayal of someone she loved so much.

    
I lick my lips.  “Celeste,” I breathe, “I-I’m so sorry.  I-” I don’t know what to say.  What do you say to that?  I want to leap over the table and hug her tight, tell her I love her and she never deserved something like that – never deserved
someone
like that.  But she’s so ridged, she doesn’t want to be touched.  I can tell.  And she doesn’t want my pity or my words that tell her it’s not her fault.  Deep down, she knows it, can see that, too, but sometimes it’s hard to unhear things…harder still not to let them get under your skin.

    
She lifts her mug and takes a big sip.  Then she says, “I’m not done.”

    
I clamp my teeth together because I’m not sure if I can handle anything else.  On top of becoming aware of all the evil things lurking in parallel worlds, Celeste has reminded me there are terrors in my own.  Terrors that other humans commit on each other.  Is nothing safe?

    
“I got pregnant.”

    
Shock?  Surprise?  I don’t know what…it hits me in the gut and settles there like a bitter hollow.  I can’t help glancing down at her stomach, wondering where the baby bump is.

    
“I got rid of it,” she says hastily, too sharply.  Her chest hitches a couple of times and she stares at the cute couple across the aisle.  “They teach us it’s a sin – to kill a fragile little life.  It’s not the baby’s fault after all, right?”  She glances at me, as if expecting some kind of response, but I’m too frozen to respond.  She looks away again.  “But I figured, what the hell?  I’m already a slut, I’m already damned, I deserve anything that befalls me…and I felt so
dirty
.  I felt like it was evil inside me.  I had to get it out.” She cuts her hand down, making me jump.  “But that dirty feeling didn’t go away.  No matter how many baths, no matter the abortion, no matter anything.”

    
I swallow hard.  Too big eyes, too stiff.  I will break into a thousand pieces.  How could I have not known any of this?  No wonder she’s a completely different person.  How could I have ever been mad at her?  How could I have not seen, not understood?  All the things she’s done that have gotten under my skin since school started, it makes horrible sense.

    
She looks up and stares at me for a long time.  “I didn’t want to tell you any of this,” she admits.  “I hated you.  I came back this broken sinner and there you were miss vanilla golden girl.  The girl who never broke rules and would always do what was right.  I knew you’d judge me if I told you.”

    
I shake my head at her, denying it.  “No, Celeste, I would never judge you for making a decision like that.  That’s a very personal decision.  No matter what I think personally, your consequences are different.”

    
She shakes her head.  “I regret it.  I regretted it even before I did it.  But I felt like I needed to do it.  I didn’t think I could deal with it.  A girl like me?  A slut?  With a baby her senior year of school.”

    
I bite my lip.  A girl like her.  A girl like me.  A girl who loves a boy.  A girl who fell into a strange world filled with strangers.  Strangers who wielded mind-altering substances that made the girl do things she shouldn’t, substances that led to consequences and decisions.  Magic and reality, they’re both horrible.  I look down at my lap. 

    
She laughs then and I hear tears in her voice.  “I came back and wanted it to be like it was.  To be the me I was.  But I wasn’t me anymore.  No matter where I went, I felt hollow and empty.  Even with you guys, my friends.  Logically, I know it’s because I changed, not you.  But I couldn’t help resenting that innocence, especially in you.  You who lives with her head in the clouds, doesn’t see or understand the evils in this world.  So, I pushed you away.  I put on these clothes and this make-up, trying to feel pretty despite the dirty.  I told myself I could go on, I could feel something again, that I could be loved again.  But no matter who I get with, the touches feel bad and I’m still dirty.”

    
“But,” I flounder, trying to find something – anything – that will make her understand that I am not this untouchable princess that she thinks I am.  That I understand.  “I’m not innocent.  You know that Tam and I-”

    
“Yeah,” she says, tears streaming down her face.  “Big, dumb Tamrin who stared at you like you were the entire world.  Even if he did the screw and dump, at least he loved you.  He loved you for real, what you did together was real.  And your baby isn’t evil.”

    
I stare at that.  “Amber told you?”

    
Sniffling, she nods.  “That’s why I decided I needed to tell you all this.  I wanted you to know what I did and how I feel about it.  I wanted you to see your situation in the grand scheme of things…before you make your decision.”

    
I touch my stomach.  She doesn’t want me to get rid of it.  She wants me to know that doing so won’t take away the hurt.  “I’m keeping it.”

    
She smiles then, something lost and sad.  “That makes me happy, Nett.  I only wish that Tamrin had stuck around for you.  You two were good together.”  She nods to the blond couple.  “Disgusting in that way-that-makes-you-happy way, like those two.”

    
I can’t help but smile in embarrassment and stare into my untouched hot chocolate.  It’s not fair.  How can some people have so much goodness happen in their lives and others have so much turmoil? 
But, I have turmoil, too
.  I could lose the man I love tonight.  And wasn’t it not too long ago that I thought I was tainted by evil, too? 

    
Celeste is hurting, trying to find love in all the wrong places, trying to hide herself behind what she thinks is beautiful so she can hide the ugly she feels inside, trying to put meaning back into her life, to dodge a judgment she doesn’t deserve.  Guilt, fear, self-hatred, remorse.  I could have easily become like her if I didn’t have all the right tiles set into place beforehand…if I didn’t have wonderful people to guide me.

    
I had Amber to set me on the right path.  But Celeste’s situation is different than mine, not easily solved by faith because Celeste was never as strong a believer as I am.  We’re all different, we all heal differently.  So, what does Amber plan?  And why am I waiting to see?  This is Best Friend #3 I’m talking about, I can’t just sit back and let someone else fix it, even if Amber says she’ll do it.

    
I take Celeste’s hand and squeeze it.  Celeste needs to find faith.  Not in God like I did, but in herself and the purpose in her existence.  She needs a reason to live and to be a force of good.  She needs someone who will love and rely on her, someone to force her back on a positive path.  And then it hits me.

    
“Celeste, I have a really good idea.”

    
She bats her eyes, uncertain.  “We’re not going kickboxing are we?  ‘Cause Amber already suggested that and my abs are killing me.”

    
I laugh at her, then try to be serious again.  “No.  No kickboxing.”  I stare into her eyes.  I never would have thought I’d do this.  Emily had always been the obvious choice, but this feels right and I know Emily will agree.  “I-I think you should be my baby’s godmother.” 

    
Celeste’s eyes wobble in their sockets and she opens her mouth.

    
Mine opens, too. “I think you’d be even more kickass at that.”

    
She throws herself at me, arms around my shoulders, spilling hot chocolate all over the place, and she starts to sob.

Jeanette

    
Halloween. The faerie court will ride tonight.

    
But what does one take on a journey to confront a world that isn’t supposed to exist?

    
“Maybe you should just call the cops,” Emily says from her perch on my bed.

    
I refocus my eyes in the mirror, switching from staring at my reflection to staring at Emily’s.  “And tell them what, Em?  That a crazy queen has been keeping Timothy Rhynn captive for the last seven years and plans to sacrifice him in some crazy pagan ritual?”  I roll my eyes and look away.  “Yeah, because that will make them send out the SWAT team.”

    
I hear her shift on the bed.  “At least let me go with you.”

    
Shaking my head I say, “No.  It’s too dangerous.”

    
She comes to stand next to me, her eyes fierce behind her glasses.  “That’s exactly why I should come.”

    
I put my hand on her shoulder and grip it hard.  “That’s exactly why you shouldn’t come.”  Raising my other hand, I grasp both her shoulders.  “If this doesn’t go right, someone needs to be there for Amber, Celeste, and my dad.  They’ll need to know what happened.”