Temptation: A Novel (4 page)

8. A Night Like This

The sound of the motorcycle wakes me up. I feel the breeze against my head and face and know I’m riding back home.

The problem is that the world keeps spinning sideways and doing a tilt-a-whirl around my head.

“Don’t let go of me, or you’ll seriously die!”

I tuck my arms and hands back into something both soft and hard. I’m dizzy and wondering if I’m standing with my arms wrapped around someone. But then I realize that no—I’m on my bike—I assume it’s my bike—it better be my bike—with my arms around someone.

“I swear if you’re faking this just to be able to grab me all over, you’re seriously going to get your butt kicked on Monday.”

“Joss—” I say, but the wind swallows the word before it makes a sound.

Strands of thick curly hair whip against my face and forehead.

It’s not Joss. It’s Lily.

But of course, it’s another dream. Like those I used to have of Jocelyn.

“We’re almost home, kid,” she tells me like a parent. “Come on—hang on tight.”

Even though this is a dream, she feels real. She even smells real. She smells like—flowers.

Of course she does. And when you get to her house she’ll have a bed of roses waiting for you.

I see streetlamps and lights and realize that we’re downtown in Solitary.

“Why are we here?”

“You told me to get you downtown. That you forgot how to get home.”

“I don’t want to go home.”

The voice in front of me laughs. “Yeah, well, you’re not coming home with me. That’s for sure.”

“I know of a barn somewhere.”

Another thought suddenly pops into my delirious head.

How’d I get this way?

I didn’t have
that
much to drink. I know it. I know it for a fact.

“What happened?” I say with a major slur.

A silver sports car comes out of nowhere. It looks expensive and snazzy, and I see Harris behind the wheel. He asks Lily something, and she answers, but my head can’t keep up.

“Okay, think you can tell me how to get home from here?”

She says this with her head half turned. I see the profile of her face, the full pouty lips and the narrow cheekbones.

“You’re beautiful,” I say.

She laugh. “You sure don’t get out much, do you, Chris Buckley?”

My head hurts. “I would if I could.”

“That so?”

“Yes. Drive anywhere you want.”

She nods. “That’s nice, but you, my boy, need to get some rest. Maybe another time. So tell me. Where do I go from here?”

I look around and then mumble directions to my house. I hear the sports car following us.

This was definitely
not
how this night was supposed to go.

9. Like Mother, Like Son

I wake up around ten Sunday morning and drag myself downstairs. My head throbs, and my mouth is dry. For a few moments my brain can’t even manage a straight thought. I go to the fridge and open it to find very little inside. I get a glass and fill it with water from the sink, then sit on the couch.

My mom strolls out of her bedroom, looking hungover and groggy. She sits on the other couch and for a while says nothing.

Her hair is messy and her eyes are bloodshot and she looks like New Year’s Day.

Just like you probably do.

I wonder if this is what they call irony. I don’t know. I can’t stretch that word out long enough to grasp its meaning.

When Mom finally notices me, she looks puzzled. Her lips almost go to say something. Almost.

Then they close again, and she squints her eyes the way she does when she has a migraine.

Here we are, just the two of us.

“Hungry?” she eventually asks.

I nod.

Mom slowly gets up and heads into the kitchen.

Eventually I follow.

10. You Owe Me

Six other students, and I’m ashamed to show my face in our class.

It’s the Monday after the party, and I’m still just as hazy about what happened as I was twenty-four hours earlier. At least I finally feel more like myself, but I don’t understand what happened. I can’t even remember being dropped off. My last memory is being downtown in Solitary and seeing Harris pull up beside us in his fancy car.

There’s no way I can get out of this class or that I can undo what happened at the party. Or afterward.

When I get to class, everybody is already there. As if they planned on coming early in order to mock me.

“There he is,” Roger says with the same dynamic smile as always. “The wild child of the party.”

I laugh nervously. I look at Lily and Harris next to her.

“How you feeling, buddy?” Harris asks.

“Fine. A lot better.” I notice that Mr. Taggart hasn’t slid into class yet. “Parts of the night are a bit foggy.”

Lily laughs. “No, really?”

“How’d I get in my bed?”

“Oh, it was right after we had to undress you and give you a sponge bath.”

Lily says this loud enough that everybody can hear. They all laugh at her joke. Of course, it really
better
be a joke.

“I helped you in,” Harris said. “You were gone.”

I sigh. “I swear—I didn’t have that much to drink.”

“Man, it happens to the best of us,” Roger says to me like an older brother.

Brick asks Roger if he had a party and why he didn’t invite him—that gets them talking about the party and the focus off of me.

“I swear—really—I had a few beers,” I tell them. “That was it.”

I’m convinced of it. But Harris and Lily just look at me like I’m in junior high.

“I had fun,” Lily says to Harris, then looks at me. “I got to drive your motorcycle. It was awesome.”

“Thanks.”

Her green eyes don’t look away. “You owe me,” she says in a playful way. “Especially after what you said.”

“What I said when?”

Steps shuffle behind me, and I hear a voice bark out, “All right, hush up everybody; Chris, sit down.”

I start to head over to my regular seat, but Lily taps the seat in front of her.

“Sit,” she says. “I won’t bite. At least not today.”

I nod and take a seat in front of her. I wonder if there are any pimples on the back of my neck and whether she’s examining them. Mr. Taggart is talking about the handout he’s giving us when I feel her hair brush up against my right shoulder.

“This guy is even more bored than we are,” she says.

I turn and nod and then keep looking ahead. I hear whispers between Harris and her but can’t make out what they’re talking about.

It’s week two of summer school, and I’ve managed to make a connection.

Whether it’s based on friendship or pity—I guess we’ll have to see.

11. Just a Shadow

I’m walking out of the school into the bright sunlight, following Harris and Lily. I can’t help but notice Lily and those jeans. The jeans and the top that looks like half a top with tiny little straps. I can’t help watching her even as she occasionally says something and glances back at me. I try to keep my eyes at head level and am reminded again that I need some sunglasses.

I don’t see the cop car until we’re standing on the blacktop of the parking lot.

“Uh-oh,” Harris says. “Someone’s in trouble.”

Sheriff Wells is leaning against the car, looking at us. “How’re you guys doing today?”

We nod and say fine and keep walking.

“Chris—do you have a minute?”

Harris and Lily look at me.

“Sure.”

I can’t help but think this has something to do with Saturday night.

“See you later,” I tell them.

I won’t confess. Not that I really have anything to confess to anyway.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen the sheriff. He’s on my To Avoid list. It’s a pretty long list.

He scratches his gray goatee and then clears his throat. “Summer school, huh?”

I nod.

“Your grades that bad?”

“Guess so.”

He nods, not really sharing what he’s thinking. Then he glances around, even though the parking lot is basically empty.

“That your bike?” he asks.

“Yeah.”

“That used to belong to your uncle.”

“Did I do something wrong?”

Calculating eyes cut into me. “Oliver Mateja was found dead this morning.”

For a minute this doesn’t mean anything to me.
Ma-tay-hah?
Not just the name, but the fact that the sheriff is telling me that someone was found dead.

Jaded to the core. Most kids might freak, but you stand there still thinking about Lily’s jeans.

“Oli,” the sheriff says to clarify.

I want to shake my head as if I have water in my ears and didn’t quite hear that right.

No.

Gus’s ugly, fat face comes to mind, and I know that in some way he was involved. He, or his father, or all of them together.

There’s no way.

I suddenly feel guilty, though I haven’t had any sort of interaction with Oli since the incident in the art room.

When he stuck up for you.

“How’d he die?” I ask.

Trying to stay cool and trying to keep from screaming.

“Drowned.”

That makes as much sense as Oli being dead. I try and think of the places around Solitary he could have drowned.

“Lake Toxaway. I don’t know all the details yet—they’re just coming in.”

Didn’t even know his last name.

“When was the last time you saw him?”

“School. That was it.”

I’m feeling a bit woozy, like the sky above me is going back and forth the way it does when you’re on a swing.

“He was part of the crowd giving you a hard time, right?”

I’ve had several conversations with the man in front of me. I’m used to seeing him and his badge and his edge.

They don’t scare me anymore.

I’ve learned there are bigger things to be frightened of.

“Am I a suspect?”

The sheriff shakes his head. “No. It’s being categorized as a drowning, Chris. Not a murder. Do you know anybody who would want to hurt Oliver?”

The guy who moved here with his mother after the divorce happened—that guy would have told the sheriff everything he knew.

The guy who rushed for justice and answers after Jocelyn’s death—yeah, that guy would have told the sheriff everything too.

“No,” is all I can say.

I don’t trust this guy any more than I’d trust Santa Claus if he showed up to teach me summer school.

“Anything you know can help.”

“I don’t know anything about drownings or lakes.”

The sheriff lets out an annoyed curse. “What’s with the attitude?”

“There’s no attitude.”

His face grows grim. “Chris—listen to me. I’m on your side.”

“There are sides?”

He shakes his head, looks around again. “You seen much of Gus this summer?”

“Nope.”

“Any of his friends?”

“Somehow they all managed to escape summer school.”

“Yeah, I see.”

I stand there and wait. Not offering anything. Not sharing the story of how Oli stuck up for Kelsey and me in the art room. How he threatened Gus.

If the sheriff asked me point blank, I’d probably tell him that yeah, sure, I think Gus might’ve killed him.

But that’s not my problem. Oli. Gus. The sheriff. Kelsey.

All on the To Avoid list.

“You staying out of trouble?”

I look at him.

There’s a part of me that has started to hold him responsible for what happened to Jocelyn.

“Have you seen me any this summer?” I ask.

“I’m just trying to help out.”

I nod. “Kinda late to be a hero, isn’t it?”

Sheriff Wells glares at me but doesn’t say anything. I walk away from him.

I feel goose bumps and chills and adrenaline coursing through me as I get on the bike.

You just told off a sheriff.

But I know the guy’s a scared little mouse. He’s not going to do anything to anybody.

I start up the bike and see him still standing by the car.

Just a shadow of a man.

A shadow you can walk straight through.