The Stranger Inside (24 page)

The room spun from that knowledge. I clung to Jeremy to stay on my feet. He held me tight, pressing his lips against my head just to comfort me, calm me down. I couldn’t go, though. Not yet. I had too many questions. I needed answers.

“But—”

 “That spirit is tied to your Karen. They were close. Too close. You must leave.” She flung my money at me, then pushed me and Jeremy toward the door.

My stomach was in knots. She was
afraid
of me. Afraid. Of me. I tried to protest—beg for more answers. But the lady kept pushing me toward the door, terrified.

“Do not return.” She slammed the door in my face. And locked it. Then pulled down the shade. Seriously.

I turned to Jeremy, gazing up at him.

His usually sleepy, carefree eyes were wide and round. “Whoa,” he said. “That was intense.”

CHAPTER 22

As soon as I got home from The Read Palm, I was on the Internet, looking for a new plan. Shaky, but still—searching. The rubber bands had failed me. So bad. When I first got home I threw them across the room, disgusted at them for being useless. But then I felt naked and vulnerable without them. It was kind of pathetic—but I had to put them back on. Had to. They were like an emotional crutch for me, I guess.

After hours of scouring the Internet—hours and hours—I rubbed my eyes, exhausted, but slightly hopeful. I had a new plan. I’d talk to a doctor I’d found on a web-site called “Telecom-therapy.” He claimed he could walk patients through hallucinations
as
they were having them. Now I just needed a cell phone. Had to get one.

The lady at The Read Palm had been afraid of me. She could see what Dad had done. And it seemed I was about to turn violent—just like Dad.

***

Ever since I turned into Kenzie that day at school, a member from The Clutch
always
walked me to every class. Always. Every class. Usually it was Sawyer. But his second and fifth period classes were nowhere near mine, so Zack walked me to second and Micah walked me to fifth. But today there was a problem: Sawyer was home sick. So the guys were standing around, trying to formulate a schedule—who would walk me when.

It was embarrassing. “You guys don’t have to baby-sit me.”

They waved me off, continuing to discuss the problem as though I hadn’t said anything, trying to get a plan. “I can take her to second, third, fourth and fifth,” Micah said.

“I can walk her to second,” Zack said. “I always walk her to second. And I can walk her to fourth. That’s not a problem.”

Micah started to say something, but Jeremy interrupted. “Look, I’ll walk her to all her classes,” he said. “I’ll be Sawyer today.”

My heart pounded, like spastic.

But somehow, it got settled—Jeremy was walking me to all my classes. He was very punctual about it too. I don’t know how he did it, since none of his classes were near mine, but he was always at my class door, waiting for me when I was ready to leave. He must have left his classes early or something.

At lunch, he wrapped his warm hand around mine as we were walking to the cafeteria, leading me in the other direction.

A jet of warmth shot through me and my breathing accelerated.

“Where are we going?” I asked, trying to act nonchalant about the fact he was holding my hand, leading me places unknown, but just having his warm hand in mine was sending sparks of electricity through my body. Suddenly it was hard to breathe.

“I’m not like Sawyer,” he said. “I don’t want to share you.”

Hearing him say that did all kinds of craziness to my heart. But I scolded myself. Being so happy by his words wasn’t fair to Sawyer.

We didn’t go to the cafeteria. Jeremy found an empty, unlocked classroom and we ate there instead. It was nice, intimate. This was the way it used to be, always. Just the two of us, Jeremy and me. Alone.

Always.

We had this thing we used to do at lunchtime. We used to find an empty classroom and—okay, well, we did a lot of kissing—a
lot
of kissing—but we also used to work on songs together, in between the kissing. We had a notebook full of them. Two, really. One was full of love songs, the other was called “Owed to Alice.”

Alice was our school’s lunch lady back then. She was old and seemed really lonely and sad, so we came up with this idea. We wrote songs to cheer her up. Then every Friday when we got home from school we would use the phone in the den and call Alice and sing her our latest “Owed to Alice” song. We did it every Friday. Every single one. Anonymously. She never knew it was us. But it was so fun. Just like everything with Jeremy. It was … wonderful.

We didn’t talk about that now though. Just thinking about “Owed to Alice” made me teary—sweet Jeremy, before he was in a cool band. When he was all mine. When I could trust him with anything.

We talked about the old times, though. But just a little, just surface stuff. Because things were different now and we both knew that. And it hurt.

Jeremy turned sort of serious. “I wanted to tell you something,” he said. “You know, explain.”

I took a sip of my water, not sure I wanted to hear what he had to say. It had been so nice being here with him, talking with him. I didn’t want things to get all messed up like they did the other night at the mall.

Reflexively, my hands went to my rubber bands. “Explain what?”

“What you said—about me being mean to girls.”

He stopped in mid-explanation, watching me fidget with my rubber bands. He cupped his chin in his hand leaning it against the desk, just watching me. Until I finally stopped.

His voice held a note of gentleness. “You don’t do that when Sawyer talks to you.”

Because Sawyer doesn’t make me feel as though my heart is going to explode. But I didn’t tell him that. Instead, I said, “I don’t?”

He shook his head. “You do it whenever I look at you.”

I swallowed. Sounded about right.

But to prove him wrong, I placed my hands in front of me on the desk and laced my fingers together, blatantly letting him look at me. All the while, not touching my rubber bands. Oh, the willpower.

Jeremy flashed me a weak smile. “Hard huh?”

I sighed and nodded. It
was
hard. His sensual hypnotic eyes, staring straight into mine, had my pulse on fire, had me itching to grab the rubber bands, start whacking on them. For protection. To keep my heart from pounding out of my chest.

I still itched to grab them, even now.

Jeremy looked slightly amused. “Then go ahead, play with them.”

I didn’t.

He grinned, drawling, “Give yourself a rash, a terminal infection—I don’t care.”

Only, I knew he did—it bothered him. “Jeremy, it’s just from stress.”

He groaned, “It’s to keep spooks away from you.” But he was smiling, his sleepy eyes sparkling. “Go ahead and fondle them, Jodi—doesn’t matter—I’m not leaving.”

I laughed. “It’s not so you’ll leave.”

His lips quirked and he raised an eyebrow. “You sure?”

He turned serious then and ducked his head, his finger tracing the yellow rubber band around my wrist. “I don’t really like that you’re afraid of me.”

“Then stop being scary.”

I was only teasing, but he turned somber. He slowly traced the yellow rubber band. “Jodi … you really messed me up.”

My heart jack-hammered. “
I
messed
you
up?”

He gave me a sober look, his answer a slow nod. Then he didn’t look away.

I dug my fingers into my rubber bands, my heart getting all twisty. I had to look somewhere else, anywhere but at him. Instead of his eyes, I focused on the demented rainbow around my writs. I had a varied array of colors now. People would randomly give them to me—like I’d walk into class and kids I didn’t even know would say, “Here’s a purple one.” Like I was collecting them—for fun.

I could still feel Jeremy’s eyes on me, willing me to look at him, but I wouldn’t. He wanted to explain about being mean to girls? Really, I didn’t want to see his eyes for that. And I didn’t want him to see mine.

 Finally, he exhaled and gave in, probably realizing looking at him would cost me too much. He proceeded slowly, gently. “When you left—when your mom sent you away—I was miserable. I wanted you to come back. That’s all I wanted, really bad. So I tried to make you come back, you know? I tried to find a girl like you—and when they weren’t—when they couldn’t be—I’d get frustrated.” He ran his hands through his shaggy hair. “I’d move on. To someone else—try again.”

 He leaned into me until I looked up at him, cupping my chin in his hands. “But Jodi, it didn’t work—trying to find someone like you.” He drew his face near mine, so close our lips almost touched. “No one’s like you.”

Tingles ran through my body. My pulse raced. But Jeremy let me go, rubbing his lips, slowly backing his head away.

Still, his eyes lingered on mine.

Ugh!

His words, his hungry eyes—they had me on fire. Made me want to take him into my arms. Hold him tight. Never let him go. Ever. But I couldn’t put myself in that kind of emotional jeopardy. Not again. What I felt for him—everything I felt for him—it was too much. Too intense. I couldn’t risk that pain, not again.

I tried to steel my heart, breathe. Remind myself I was with Sawyer now. Sweet Sawyer. Remind myself Jeremy didn’t love me. Whatever he was saying now—it wasn’t that he loved me. Or wanted me back. He just didn’t want me to be afraid of him. To need the rubber bands to be around him.

He was trying to soothe me. Feed me what he knew I wanted to hear, to try to keep me sane.

Poor Jodi. Crazy Jodi.

Screw him. I snapped my rubber bands, just slightly, just a tap.

Jeremy let out a frustrated breath—maybe thinking he should have gone ahead and kissed me, though he knew it would be wrong. Still, I would have been oozing putty, easier for him to manipulate. To keep sedated. He rubbed his face. “What I’m saying is—it wasn’t easy for me, Jodi. It wasn’t easy getting over you. Don’t act like it was.”

My heart caught. I knew he didn’t say what he just said to hurt me—had no idea it would—but I could feel my bottom lip tremble. I whirled away from him, praying he didn’t see. I couldn’t take him knowing how much that hurt me—hearing him say he was over me. I’d rather die than have him know.

My brain scrambled, fumbled to come up with an excuse to get away from him—need a book from my locker, notes from a teacher, a janitor’s closet to curl up into a ball in. Just as I was about to croak out a lie, Lindsey—the girl that kept writing Sawyer strange notes—breezed into the classroom carrying a stack of books.

When she saw Jeremy and me together, she made a face. “You two—again. Can’t keep your hands off each other, huh? Anytime Sawyer’s not around.”

I squinted my eyes at her, wiping away a tear. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh, come on—I saw you at The Game Shop last night, remember?”

My heart jolted. “What?” I looked at Jeremy.

He clenched his jaw and shook his head at me … slightly. Not like no. More like what she was saying was true, but he didn’t want to tell me. He hadn’t planned to let me know.

Suddenly, I remembered last night. I’d gotten into a fight with Mom about a cell phone. I needed one desperately, to have ready to call Dr. Burk (from the Internet) and end my hallucinations. Of course I couldn’t explain that to Mom—and she didn’t see the need for me to have a cell phone. After our argument, I stormed out of the house. That was all I could remember. I must have turned into Kenzie right after that, and hunted down Jeremy.

Super.

Jeremy tried denying it though. At least to Lindsey. He shook his head. “That wasn’t Jodi.”

Lindsey scoffed, like good try. “Oh, it was Jodi. She practically ripped Chloe’s hair out for talking to you.”

Jeremy gave me a sideways glance, like to make sure I wasn’t going to fall apart. “Lindsey,” he said warily. “Go away.”

She huffed, then turned toward the door, like she was going to leave, but then she didn’t. She turned back to us, putting down her stack of books. “I saw you Jodi—saw you all over Jeremy, even though he tried to hide you. You obviously don’t care about your boyfriend.”

I flinched. Saw me all over Jeremy? I was all over Jeremy—again? My hands automatically went to my wrists.

Jeremy clenched his jaw. “Lindsey, you obviously don’t care about
yours
,” he muttered, referring to her boyfriend. I could tell he was only doing it to make me feel better—like stick up for me. Jeremy had zero interest in people’s relationships. Even his own.

But Lindsey blanched, like it was a big deal. “What do you know about my boyfriend?”

Jeremy gave her a look—like the conversation just took an unexpected turn. A stupid one. “Nothing,” he said. “But what were you doing at The Game Shop last night—looking for Sawyer, right?” He raised his eyebrows. “Far as I know, Sawyer’s not your boyfriend.”

Lindsey glared at me. “Not yet.”

Whoa. That raised my pulse. Got my blood boiling. “Brody knows you’re cheating on him, Lindsey. How many guys
are
you sleeping with?” The words flew out of my mouth.

“One,” she said. Then she smirked. “And it’s not Brody.” She raised her eyebrows. “Guess who it is?”

Jeremy and I looked at each other. Neither of us cared. Even slightly.

“Fine. I wasn’t going to tell you anyway.” Lindsey smirked. “But believe me, it’s interesting. You’d care. Big time.” With that, she smirked again and left the room, slamming the door behind her. And then it was just me and Jeremy. And a tense silence.

 He flashed me an apologetic look. “Jodi … Okay, Kenzie came to the store last night. But don’t worry, if she did something you needed to know, I’d tell you. But you have enough to worry about right now. I can handle Kenzie.”

So, that’s why he walked me to all my classes today. Why he didn’t have us eat in the cafeteria. He was worried Kenzie would show. That he’d have to “handle” her.

I swallowed, trying not to be hurt. I squared my shoulders, not letting Jeremy see I was wounded—I couldn’t take his sympathy—not any more of it. Not today. Instead, I took a deep breath and tried to act totally unscathed. “Kenzie got into a fight?”