The Cemetery Boys (10 page)

The walls of Cara's room were covered in posters—mostly bands, but a few horror flicks—and behind the posters I could see she'd painted the walls a dark purple. Amid the posters were a few gravestone rubbings. A black, ornate vanity sat near the window, and across the room stood a matching, overstuffed bookcase. And there . . . at the center of the room . . . was a queen-sized bed to match. A bed. Cara's bed. Where she slept. Possibly naked.

Lying on top of her purple velvet duvet were her Tarot cards. She'd apparently been doing a reading for herself, as three cards lay faceup on the bed: the High Priestess, the Lovers, and the Magician. My eyes lingered on the card in the middle, and Cara's words echoed in my memory:
“These three cards, from left to right, represent your past, your present, and your future.”
The Lovers card was sitting in the present position. I sat on the edge of the mattress and pretended to look around, disinterested. “So . . . what do you want to do?”

Cara smirked. “Is that a line?”

“It might be. Is it working?” I cocked an eyebrow at her, trying my damnedest to be charming.

Cara moved closer and sat next to me on the bed. The
mattress sank down slightly and every cell in my body screamed in bliss that I could now say I'd been on a bed with this girl. Even if we hadn't done anything. Even if we never did.

She leaned closer and whispered in my ear, her hot breath tickling my skin. “Kiss me. Like you kissed me in the rain.”

I didn't breathe, didn't hesitate, didn't give her even a microsecond to rethink her words. I pressed my lips to hers and we fell back on the bed, our mouths moving, our tongues exploring. I dared to put my hand on her waist, and she didn't push me away, so I slid it under her shirt and up her rib cage. She moaned softly, the way she had that day, the way I wanted her to moan again. Just to be sure it hadn't been a creation of my imagination. Just to relive the feeling that her moan had sent through me.

The lace on her bra was softer than I'd imagined. Softer than the sensation of her fingers gliding over my back. Softer than the feeling of her skin on my skin. Softer than my palm pressing anxiously against the lace itself. The tiny gold cross that hung around her neck gleamed in the low light, like sin coming out of the shadows. I kissed her hard on the mouth, feeling her heart race under my hands. Mine was racing, too. Mostly out of want, but partially out of fear. What if she didn't like the way I kissed? What if everything I was doing was wrong, and she never wanted me to do any
of it ever again? I shut that inner critic up and placed a kiss on her chin, her neck, her collarbone. She moaned softly and tugged at my T-shirt until I sat up and removed it. I don't know where I threw it. I didn't care. She could take my clothes, my soul, my everything. As long as she didn't stop kissing me, touching me the way I needed her to. Gently, I caught her left hand in mine and placed a soft peck on her inner wrist. I moved up her arm, tasting her skin slightly on my lips, hungering for more, but afraid to press the issue without express permission. When I reached her shoulder, Cara caught my eye. Placing a hand gently on my chest, she pushed me back and sat up.

It was over now, this thing that had never really begun. Frustration and doubt and disappointment filled me, and I couldn't help wondering what I'd done wrong.

Then Cara slipped her shirt off over her head, dropping it to the floor. She beckoned me to her with a crook of her finger as she lay back on the bed with a smile that said that I'd had it all wrong. I was fine being wrong. I could always be wrong. So long as we kept kissing, kept touching, kept taking off our clothes, I could be more wrong than any man had ever been.

I didn't know if what I was feeling was love. It might have been. It might have been hormones, or even temporary insanity. I just knew that when Cara was around, I felt right.
When Cara looked at me, I felt like I mattered.

“Wait,” she whispered, and I immediately paused. When a girl says “wait,” you wait. Especially if she's letting you touch her in a way that makes your heart rattle the way that mine was rattling inside my chest.

For a moment, I thought that she'd changed her mind about what we were doing, but then she moved to her nightstand and opened the drawer. She placed her hand inside and when she withdrew it, my breath caught in my throat for a moment. Cara was holding a condom.

This shit just got real.

Cara returned to the bed and straddled my lap, facing me. She dropped the condom on the bed beside us and kissed me hard, sliding her hands down my chest, my stomach. With every inch, I thought for sure that I was going to explode. Mostly from happiness. In a bold move, I slid my hands around her back, my fingertips brushing the clasp there. Pinching the fabric, I felt one hook give way. I couldn't believe this was really happening.

“YOU'RE GONNA BURN!”

Shit.

Cara's eyes opened wide with shock and my attention shot immediately to the now-open door. Martha stood there, filling the frame. In the low light she looked like a giant banshee, her nightclothes billowing out from her in
the soft breeze from the window. Her mouth was open wide as she shouted; her spindly arm raised with one long finger pointed accusingly right at me. She smacked her lips together, as if tasting the air. Then she spoke in a low growl that sent a shudder through my core. “You, boy. You're gonna burn.”

I don't know how I got out from under Cara without knocking her to the floor. Or how I made it across the room and out the window. I was sliding down the porch roof, shingles scraping against my palms, the night air raising goose bumps on my bare chest, before I realized that I was outside. Something was stuck to my skin, so I peeled it off and dropped it to the ground. As it fluttered toward the front lawn, I recognized it as a Tarot card. The Lovers. The irony didn't escape me.

Still scrambling, I reached the edge of the porch, planted my right hand, and swung over, dropping to the ground and breaking into a sprint. Behind me, drifting out the window, Martha's declaration echoed. “You're gonna buuuuuuuuurn! Yoooouuuu'rrrre gooooonnaaaaa buuuuuuurrrrrrnn!”

As I ran for home, the wind blew my hair back from my forehead. Beads of sweat dripped from my skin. My lungs were on fire, and for a moment, I thought that Martha had been right. I was burning, burning up from the sinful deeds I'd been coaxing her daughter into.

I didn't know what would happen the next time I saw Martha, but I was relieved that I'd gotten out of there right away. I hoped that Martha would be directing all of her anger at the boy in her daughter's bedroom, rather than at her daughter. I hoped Cara wasn't dead right now, or grounded for as long as she could be contained. Maybe I wouldn't get to see her for a few months. Maybe we were over. I didn't know. All I knew was that my grandmother's house had never been a more welcome sight.

I reached the door breathless, and when I opened it, I found my father there, midnight snack in hand. My mouth dried completely, and any explanation that I could have offered him evaporated into the air between us. Just as I was about to brush past him without a word, he chuckled and said, “So . . . still seeing that Cara girl, son?”

I grinned. Sometimes my dad was all right. “Yeah, Dad. You could say that.”

I headed straight to my room, and every step I took filled me with guilt. I'd left Cara without even an apology. Just left her there, with her crazy mother shrieking. I hoped she'd find a way to forgive me. And that I'd find a way back to her as soon as possible.

I'm pretty sure that nice guys call a girl after they fool around. So, since I spent the next three days rearranging my bedroom and actively avoiding the outside world, I guess you could say that I wasn't a nice guy. But in my defense, as much as I'd enjoyed being on her bed—oh god, being on her bed—the whole experience with Cara had freaked me out a little. Not that I'd ever admit to that in a court of law.

Unfortunately, the longer I waited, the weirder it was going to be the next time I saw her. And I couldn't stay at home forever.

The corner store in town was probably one of the most
miserable little markets known to mankind, but it was just about all Spencer had in the way of places to buy caffeine. The glass door had been covered with stickers over the years, and it was pretty clear that the owner never bothered to remove old advertisements before applying new ones. Right next to an Xbox sticker promoting the latest flavor of Mountain Dew was a Dr Pepper ad from who knows when saying that the girl with feathered bangs in the ad was a Pepper. Liar, I thought. You're not a Pepper. You're just some stupid girl advertising soda. Crappy soda, at that.

The inside of the shop was just as run-down as the outside. There were two aisles: one for booze, the other for candy, cigarettes, and candy cigarettes. In case there was any doubt about what the good citizens of Spencer did in their leisure time.

I grabbed a Mountain Dew (because advertising works . . . although I still wasn't a damn Pepper) and set it on the counter by the cash register. Even though I'd drunk enough water to drown every fish in the reservoir over the past few days, my mouth felt like sandpaper. My grandmother had Dad and me cleaning out and organizing her garage now, and my dad had this strange idea that consuming mass quantities of H2O would be enough to combat the intense heat of a Michigan summer. Obviously, Dad didn't understand much about staying cool, literally or
metaphorically. Or, you know, saying no to his mother.

The old man behind the counter reeked of tobacco and something else, too, something just as sick.

I'd heard about how dogs can pick up on cancer in their owners, and how people train them to smell the sickness inside. Now I'm not saying this old man had cancer, although maybe he did. I just knew that something was wrong with him, and I hoped that whatever it was, it wouldn't be wrong with me someday.

He coughed into a handkerchief and said, “Dollah fiddy.”

Assuming that this was some kind of monetary amount, I pulled my wallet from my back pocket. The bell above the door jingled as the door opened. Lane stepped inside, acknowledging me with something between a scowl and a “'sup” nod before heading to the candy/cigarettes/candy cigarettes aisle.

He grabbed a Snickers bar and came up to the counter beside me. I started to say,
What, no drinking and driving today?
But decided it was better not to engage. I could see Holly outside in his car, and I hoped like hell he wasn't going to raise the subject of me hanging out with his little posse again, because frankly, I didn't have it in me to say no politely. For a moment, I thought I'd lucked out and he-who'd-been-named-after-a-small-road had come down with a terrible case of laryngitis, but then, like an idiot, I
made eye contact. It was all over. “Hey, Stephen. What are you up to?”

“Buying a Mountain Dew?” I had no idea why it came out like a question. I guess I was in awe of his observational abilities.

He nodded and glanced at the bottle on the counter, as if to confirm that I was indeed purchasing a caffeinated beverage.

“I heard you were hanging out with that Cara girl.”

My jaw tightened. I didn't like the way he said
hanging out
. “Yeah. What of it?”

Lane shrugged, a smart-ass look on his face. “Nothin'. She's just kind of a sk—”

I had a pretty good idea what he was about to say. I also had a pretty good idea that Lane was about to get punched in the face.

But then the bell above the door jingled, and Lane went quiet. I turned to see Scot and Cam step inside. At first they didn't notice me. Cam was texting as he walked, barely looking where he was going. After he put his phone in his pocket, he glanced my way and smiled. “Hey Stephen. What's up?”

“Not much. Just trying not to die from the heat. You know.”

Scot chuckled. “If you think this is hot, just wait till the humidity really kicks in. This is nothing.”

As if I needed another reason to loathe Michigan summers. But it felt good to joke about them for a change.

Cam and Scot headed for the cooler. They looked at what was inside for a moment before Cam called to the guy behind the counter, “Got any Diet Pepsi?”

The man narrowed his eyes and grumbled, “If it ain't in da coolah, I ain't got it.”

Scot shrugged and tugged Cam out the door again. On their way, both offered me “later” nods and smiles, rolling their eyes at the guy behind the counter, as if the three of us were in on the same joke. Register Guy snorted and before the door could even close all the way, he said, “Fags gotta keep their girlish figures, I s'pose.”

Lane laughed like it was the funniest thing he ever heard. I froze. An angry heat crawled up my neck to my face. I was insulted on Scot and Cam's behalf, but I'd be lying if I said I was surprised. This was exactly the kind of bullshit I expected from a town like Spencer. I tossed a glare at Lane and then threw it at the old man. “Doesn't it bother you that you're furthering the stereotype of closed-minded hicks?”

They both just stared at me like I was an alien, until I said, “Those guys are my friends. Lane, you're an ass.”

Without an ounce of shame or regret, Lane scoffed right in my face. The old man leaned forward and in a gravelly voice said, “Well, if you're so bothered by it, Sally, why don't
you hike up your skirt and follow 'em on outta here?”

In my mind, I wished something horrible on the old man. Something I couldn't picture specifically, but horrible nonetheless.

Suddenly, the man behind the register began to cough. But he didn't
just
cough. His entire thin, aged body racked with such violent spasms as he coughed that I thought he might die right then and there. The old man—still coughing—stretched out a hand so I could presumably put a dollah fiddy in his palm. Another cough sent his hand straight into the bottle of Mountain Dew, knocking it to the floor. The plastic bottle hit the tile with a thud and Mountain Dew burst out of the seam around the cap, spraying everywhere. Dropping my wallet on the counter, I bent down and grabbed it, covering the busted seam with my hand and trying to stop the sugary onslaught.

When I came back up, I half expected to find the old man dead on the counter. But no such luck. He wheezed one last wheeze, then he took a deep breath and just stared. “You still gotta pay for dat.”

I stared back at the old man. He had to be kidding me.

Holding out his hand once again, he said, “Dollah fiddy.”

Reluctantly, I reached for my wallet on the counter. But it was gone.

The bell above the door jingled and I watched as Lane
dashed outside, my wallet in hand. To say I was pissed didn't even begin to cover it. I ran out the door as fast as I could, but it was too late. Lane's car peeled out, Holly laughing her head off in the passenger seat, and I was left standing there, breathing in the smell of exhaust and burnt tires, not knowing what I was supposed to do.

“You left me!” The words came suddenly, and so did the shove on my shoulder as Cara whipped around to face me. She was wearing my shirt—the one I'd abandoned on her bedroom floor. It looked incredibly sexy on her, and I wondered if I would ever get it back again. But mostly I didn't care. Smacking me on my arm, her eyes wide with incredulity, she said, “I can't believe you! It's bad enough you just left me there with my crazy mother, but then you don't even stop by or call or anything? For three whole days!”

“So . . . you're mad?”

Cara rolled her eyes. “No.”

I sighed in relief. At the same time, a smirk settled on her lips. Her perfectly kissable lips. “I just can't believe you left like that. I didn't know what to think. I've never had a guy run out on me before. You should've seen the look on your face. Priceless.”

I was immediately tempted to ask just how many times she'd had a guy in her room like that, but I managed to resist. It wasn't any of my business. Besides, Spencer was a small
town. Going by math alone, how many guys could there possibly have been? “I'll have you know your mother can be a very intimidating woman.”

Cara nodded, her voice dripping with what I hoped was sarcasm. “Yeah, she frequently scares boys out my window and down the roof.”

Screw resistance.

“What boys?”

Grinning, she shoved me again, but lightly this time. I had the undeniable urge to pull her closer and kiss her throat. As she turned and headed down the sidewalk, she said, “You are so aggravating. Why did I sneak out to see you?”

“Does that mean no more grope-fests?” She rolled her eyes at me over her shoulder, but I stood my ground. My shaky, hormonal-boy ground. “No, seriously.”

“Maybe. We'll see. For now, I'm still grounded. So I'd better get home.” She stopped on the sidewalk, turning back to face me, and shrugged. “For a few more days at least. Till Martha forgets what she walked in on.”

“I know I won't forget it.” It sounded like a line—maybe it was—but I meant what I'd said. I'd never forget the way that Cara's skin had felt against mine, or the way that she'd made my heart race. Some moments in life were etched into your memory. Some were burned into your soul.

“You're sweet.” She stood there on the sidewalk, looking conflicted about leaving. She said, “I'd better get the hell out of here before I kiss you again.”

She turned, and as she walked away at a good clip, I called after her, still hopeful, “That would be a bad thing?”

She kept on walking.

A few hours later, I found myself bored and alone in the oh-so-exciting downtown area of Spencer, Michigan, where the top summertime activities consisted of people watching and car watching. And there weren't that many cars on the road. After returning home to borrow a few bucks from my dad, cursing Lane the whole time, I'd finally grabbed that Mountain Dew (dollah fiddy), along with a bag of Doritos (dollah turdy), and parked myself on a bench across the street from the gas station. I'd swiped Devon's journal from my nightstand and shoved it in my back pocket, but couldn't even muster the energy to flip through its pages. Like I said, I was bored. Too bored to even entertain myself. But not bored enough to hang out with my grandmother or my dad. I don't think anyone in the history of man has ever been that bored.

“What's goin' on, dude?” Markus plopped down on the bench beside me, just as I was crumpling up my empty Doritos bag.

I offered him a shrug and washed back the Doritos taste
with a swig of pop. “Not much. Just sitting here. Wishing I was somewhere else.”

“You've basically described the entire adolescent experience.” He chuckled, and then followed my gaze across the street. “Seriously, what's up?”

“I don't know. I'm still trying to figure things out around here. What do people do for fun in Spencer? I mean, I've been sitting here for twenty minutes, watching these old men across the street, and they haven't done anything. They've only moved to use the restroom or grab another cold one.”

“So let me get this straight. You've been sitting on this bench for half an hour, staring at some old men in front of the gas station. And you're wondering why they don't seem to have a life?” Markus raised a sharp eyebrow at me. “Somebody please call the irony police.”

“Okay. Point taken. But what about the kids?” I gestured around at the empty sidewalks. “It's a sunny summer day and no one's outside. It's me, you, and the old men. And they just sit there. Every day. For hours.”

“They're not just sitting there. They're waiting.”

“For what?”

“Just . . . waiting.” He shrugged, his eyes on the old men. “Since the auto parts factory two towns over closed down, it's all most people in Spencer can do. Wait for the factory
to reopen, or for a new one to open in its place. And in the meantime, wait for the unemployment checks to show up in the mail. Times are pretty tough for everybody right now.”

“That I do know.” Sweat rolled down my forehead and I wiped it away with my arm, wondering if there would ever be a break in the heat. “But I don't know, it just seems like no one is really doing anything about it around here. It's like everybody's given up. Is that bad luck, or is this place just cursed?”

“If you have nothing better to do, why not go see a movie or something?”

“Can't. No cash. My dad is as broke as everybody else, and that douche bag Lane stole my wallet.” I'd thought about reporting it to the cops, but really, this was between Lane and me. Tattling on him to the authorities was no way to show him what a dick move he'd made. Egging his car, on the other hand . . .

“Did he, now?” Markus grew quiet for a moment, his demeanor chilled. Then he slid his thumbs in his front pockets and shrugged. “Don't worry about Lane. The boys and I will take care of it.”

Right. Take care of it. As if they were the mafia of small-town Michigan or something.

I watched as one of the old men across the street nudged another and nodded in my direction. I chuckled. “It
would
be kind of funny if they were staring at me wondering why I don't do anything all day. An endless loop of ‘what the hell,' y'know?”

“You really are sad here, aren't you, Stephen?”

A heavy sigh escaped me. “Yeah, to be honest. Hanging out in the Playground is great. You and the rest of the guys are great. Devon's great. Cara is . . .”