Spiral (Spiral Series) (11 page)

“Wow,” said Maxie. “Brad Pitt here I come. This is better than Christmas,” she muttered. I tried to grin, but I still felt sick.

“Well, well, well, isn’t this an interesting development,” said Haley, eyeing my protector with something close to hatred.

“Call it whatever you want,” Pierce snapped, not taking his eyes off of my tormentor, “but leave her alone.”

Haley gave Pierce a dirty look and crossed her arms. “Whatever you say. As you know, it’s only a matter of time.” With a toss of her hair she turned on her heel and stormed away down the hall. With every step she took away from me I felt better, so much so that before she was even out of view I was standing on my own again.

“Well, hello,” said Maxie, stepping forward. “I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to meet you. And thanks for dealing with her.” She turned her head to indicate Haley.

I hadn’t noticed while it was happening, but we had developed an audience. They were now quietly dispersing, giving Pierce strange speculative glances as they passed.

“I’m Pierce,” he said, smiling at my friend. “I’m new around here.”

“So, maybe someone should have explained to you, but we don’t need help,” said Jill, her voice hostile.

Pierce raised his eyebrows at her. I crossed my fingers that he would be careful. If he said the wrong thing to Jill now she might beat him up.

“Never said you needed help, just thought I’d offer. I’m new around here, so still trying to learn the way of things. Sorry if I upset you.” He didn’t look remotely sorry. In fact, he looked pretty pleased about something.

My mind had gone from one sort of shock to another: first, Haley and the physical pain I had felt just from being near her, and now, seeing Pierce. All I could do was wonder what he was doing here and was I more happy or shocked.

“Well, thanks,” said Jill gruffly. “I guess we appreciate it. And I don’t get emotional.”

I stared at Pierce in wonder as he stuck his hands into the pockets of his jeans.

“He could be a Calvin Klein model,” Maxie whispered to me. “Awesome.”

“I should get going,” said Pierce. “I need to find my classes, but this isn’t goodbye. I’m sure we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

I couldn’t quit wrap my head around the fact that he was looking at me when he said it. The last month of school was going to be very interesting indeed.

I came to with a jolt when Maxie grabbed my arm and pulled me towards class.

“Come on,” she said feverishly. “There’s still learning to be done.”

I looked over my shoulder, watching a pair of broad shoulders make their way quickly through the crowd. I couldn’t help it. My eyes followed him until he disappeared around a corner.

By the end of that week in school my mind was blown. Not only was the new guy almost as popular as Andrew, but he talked to me. Every day.

“I don’t like it,” said Jackson, sitting hunched over at lunch.

“That’s like the eight millionth time you’ve said that this week,” Maxie scolded. It was Thursday, and I couldn’t wait for the week to be over. I was tired and I was sick of school and every time I saw Haley I flinched. Jill had taken to calling it Natalie’s Personal Twitch, but I knew she was only joking to try and make me feel better. It was pathetic and I knew it, but I couldn’t help it. I was afraid of Haley.

This was the first time all week that Jackson had eaten lunch with us. We had different schedules, and the only lunches we even had a chance to eat together were on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Lunch days were very competitive. You wanted a good lunch day, and we had it. Mostly seniors ate first, so there wasn’t a long time between breakfast and the next time we got to eat. On Tuesday there had been no sign of Jackson, even though I had texted him to ask where he was. As had become common over the past few weeks, he hadn’t answered. If he kept this up I had every intention of cornering him and making him tell me what was going on.

Even though I was mad at him when he slipped into a seat next to mine on Thursday, I couldn’t help but smile a little.

“Hi,” I said. “How are you?”

He glanced at me and shrugged, the tension clear in the set of his shoulders. “Fine,” he said. He didn’t seem fine, and Maxie had been insisting that in addition to whatever else had been bothering him, he wasn’t happy about Pierce. I didn’t know how she knew it, but she was convinced.

“Jackson,” said Maxie. “You’re still one of the cutest guys at school. Don’t worry. Pierce is just in a category of his own.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Thanks, Maxie. Now I feel better.”

“You’re most welcome,” said Maxie, grinning as she took a big bite of her sandwich.

“It’s great having the gang all together,” said Jill, looking around the table. “We don’t have many more high school lunches like this.”

It was a rare sentimental moment for Jill, and I knew she was right. I didn’t like change, but I had also spent the week confused and stressed.

I had had another dream the night before, and it had been the worst yet. It had consisted of blackness pressing in on my face and nose while I listened to the brown-haired girl’s screams and the slithering laugh of the Snake Man. I had awakened in a cold sweat and stayed awake the rest of the night, not daring to move.

“I don’t know why he’s just showing up here and acting like he owns the place,” Jackson grumbled. Pierce and I didn’t have any lunches together, which was probably a good thing. I could barely handle it when he said hi to me every time we passed in the halls. Seeing him at lunch too, surrounded by a pack of senior girls, would have been too much for me.

I returned my focus to my three best friends and tried to enjoy the little time we had left together, because I had a feeling that everything was about to change.

I tried to ignore Pierce at school, mostly for Jackson’s sake, but it was impossible. Maxie had decided that we were all going to be friends, and she invited Pierce anywhere we went.

For classes, I had only one with Pierce: history. I wasn’t sure I could have concentrated if I’d had any others. My eyes flipped to his dark hair and pale skin more than I wanted to admit. I had noticed at the romance slam that he was attractive, but people in Siberia would have noticed that. Now that I saw him every day it was harder to ignore the flutter in my stomach.

On Friday, waiting for history class to start, I realized that for once - now that it was almost time to graduate - I was glad to be in school. The weather outside was nasty, with rain lashing the windows and trees. Periodically there was lightning, followed by very loud thunder. Even Haley looked upset by the noise.

“This weather sucks,” Maxie whispered to me. I liked this class, because all my friends were in it. I also disliked this class because everyone - read Haley - was in it. Without her it would have been bliss.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Maxie went on. “I like picking out rain outfits as much as the next girl, but seriously.” She was wearing dark blue rain boots with pink kisses all over them. She had a lot of pairs of boots, so I knew that she had deliberately matched up these particular ones with dark wash jeans and a black top. She also had a white rain jacket and an umbrella - also dark blue with kisses.

“Think about me yet today?” Pierce asked, sliding into the seat in front of me and grinning.

“Yes,” I said. I kept my face straight. “I thought, I wonder if that new guy could help our history teacher and me move some furniture.”

“Humm, not really what I was hoping,” said Pierce, smiling. “I was thinking more along the lines of. . . . ”

“Pretty sure that’s my seat,” Jackson interrupted, striding into the room and straight up to Pierce.

“No, it isn’t,” I said. He never sat next to me. He always sat in the very back of every class.

“It is today,” said Jackson, his eyes hard.

“Sorry,” said Pierce, “but I’m not moving.”

The entire class fell silent, everyone fascinated to see what would happen next. It couldn’t hurt that the town weird girl was the cause of a fight between the hot new guy and the hot familiar guy.

“Lots of girls dream about this moment,” whispered Maxie.

“What moment?”

“The moment two gorgeous guys are fighting over them? Hello. They’re fighting over you.”

“They are not,” I said. “They’re fighting over the seat.”

“Seat. Read, Natalie.”

“I’m with Maxie on this one,” said Jill dryly.

“Oh, are you?”

“Yeah,” said Jill. “I have to agree with you every once in a while. Keep you on your toes.”

“They aren’t fighting over me,” I said again. But my eyes were fixed on the two guys, afraid of what was about to happen.

“Teacher’s coming,” Emma called. Instantly they broke apart, breathing hard. I wasn’t sure who had won, but I was pretty sure in the draw the victory went to Pierce. He was not only a little bigger, but faster. Besides, all the girls in the class would have voted for the mysterious new guy.

Our history teacher, a dusty man named Collins, had barely started the lesson when the principal’s voice blared over the loudspeaker.

“All seniors are to come to the gym at noon,” she said in her best authoritative tone, which no one ever took seriously.

Mr. Collins barely glanced up from his notes. “Ah, we’ll have to end class a little early,” he murmured, more to himself than to the thirty students sitting in front of him. “That’s too bad. Too bad indeed.”

A little before noon he dismissed us. It was a wonder half of us weren’t asleep. Between the noise of the steady rain outside and Mr. Collins droning on about the Napoleonic wars, there wasn’t much to keep us awake.

On our way to the assembly I found myself walking next to Pierce.

“How are you?” he asked, as Maxie and Jill fell into step behind us.

“Good,” I said, nodding like that confirmed it. I had noticed a strange trend at school, that whenever Pierce talked to me people gave me weird looks. I didn’t understand why, because Pierce had slipped easily into the social fabric of the school. He could do no wrong in the eyes of anyone, but especially the girls. Even Andrew, who could have died that day and still won the award for most popular student, now had competition.

But Pierce still talked to me. At least, when he got the chance he did.

“Hi, Pierce,” said Haley, walking up to him and smirking. I was relieved to see that Pierce disliked Haley almost as much as I did, but that didn’t stop her from talking to him almost constantly. I couldn’t figure it out. She didn’t flirt. She clearly did it to annoy him. And it worked.

Haley,” he said, nodding once. She wiggled her way in between us so that I was forced to walk on the outside, almost bumping into open lockers while she strutted in the middle.

“Haley,” said Maxie from behind us, “you know the world wouldn’t come crashing down if everything DIDN’T revolve around you. You understand that, right?”

Haley ignored her.

“So, Pierce, the dance,” Haley started in. “Do you have a hot date?” She eyed me speculatively and my face started to heat. “Or any date at all?”

“Nope,” said Pierce, keeping his eyes forward.

The dance she was referring to was the prom. For reasons best left forgotten, our prom was traditionally held on the Friday before graduation, which was on a Sunday. It was like one big party all weekend. Only seniors were invited, but they could ask a junior to go with them. The year before I hadn’t gone, but Maxie had been invited by Evan Evens - a victim of mean naming on the part of his parents if ever there was one.