9.12

Broken Glass

Nothing.

It was a long, dreamless sleep, the first I’d had in a long time.

When I woke up, the window was closed. No mud in my bed, no mysterious songs on my iPod. I checked twice. Even my shower just smelled like soap.

I lay in my bed, looking up at my blue ceiling, thinking about green eyes and black hair. Old Man Ravenwood’s niece. Lena Duchannes, it rhymes with rain.

How far off could a guy be?

When Link pulled up, I was waiting at the curb. I climbed in and my sneakers sank into the wet carpet, which made the Beater smell even worse than usual. Link shook his head.

“I’m sorry, man. I’ll try to dry it out after school.”

“Whatever. Just do me a favor and get off the crazy train, or everyone’ll be talkin’ about you instead a Old Man Ravenwood’s niece.”

For a second, I considered keeping it to myself, but I had to tell someone. “I saw her.”

“Who?”

“Lena Duchannes.”

He looked blank.

“Old Man Ravenwood’s niece.”

By the time we pulled up in the parking lot, I had told Link the whole story. Well, maybe not the whole story. Even best friends have their limits. And I can’t say that he believed all of it, but then again, who would? I was still having a hard time believing it myself. But even if he wasn’t clear on the details, as we walked up to join the guys, he was clear about one thing. Damage control.

“It’s not like anything happened. You drove her home.”

“Nothing happened? Were you even listening? I’ve been dreaming about her for months and she turns out to be—”

Link cut me off. “You didn’t hook up or anything. You didn’t go in the Haunted Mansion, right? And you never saw, you know… him?” Even Link couldn’t bring himself to say his name. It was one thing to hang out with a beautiful girl, in any situation. It was another thing to hang out with Old Man Ravenwood.

I shook my head. “No, but—”

“I know, I know. You’re screwed up. I’m just sayin’, keep it to yourself, dude. All this is on a strictly need-to-know basis. As in, nobody else needs to know.” I knew that was going to be hard. I didn’t know it was going to be impossible.

♦ ♦ ♦

When I pushed open the door to English, I was still thinking about everything—about her, the nothing that had happened. Lena Duchannes.

Maybe it was the way she wore that crazy necklace with all the junk on it, as if every single thing she touched could matter or did matter to her. Maybe it was the way she wore those beat-up sneakers whether she was wearing jeans or a dress, like she could take off running, any minute. When I looked at her, I was farther away from Gatlin than I’d ever been. Maybe it was that.

I guess when I started thinking, I stopped walking, and I felt someone bump into me. Only it wasn’t a steamroller this time, more like a tsunami. We collided, hard. The second we touched, the ceiling light shorted out over us, and a shower of sparks rained down on our heads.

I ducked. She didn’t.

“Are you trying to kill me for the second time in two days, Ethan?” The room went dead quiet.

“What?” I could barely get the word out.

“I said, are you trying to kill me again?”

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“That’s what you said last night.”

Last night. The two little words that could forever change your life at Jackson. Even though there were plenty of lights still working, you would’ve thought there was a spotlight on us, to go with our live audience. I could feel my face going red.

“Sorry. I mean—hi,” I mumbled, sounding like an idiot. She looked amused, but kept walking. She slung her book bag on the same desk she had been sitting at all week, right in front of Mrs. English. Good-Eye Side.

I’d learned my lesson. There was no telling Lena Duchannes where she could or couldn’t sit. No matter what you thought about the Ravenwoods, you had to give her that. I slid into the seat next to her, smack in the middle of No Man’s Land. Like I had all week. Only this time she was talking to me, and somehow that made everything different. Not bad-different, just terrifying.

She started to smile, but caught herself. I tried to think of something interesting to say, or at least not stupid. But before I came up with anything, Emily sat down on the other side of me, with Eden Westerly and Charlotte Chase flanking her on either side. Six rows closer than usual. Not even sitting on the Good-Eye Side was going to help me today.

Mrs. English looked up from her desk, suspicious.

“Hey, Ethan.” Eden turned back to me, and smiled, like I was in on their little game. “How’s it goin’?”

I wasn’t surprised to see Eden following Emily’s lead. Eden was just another one of the pretty girls who wasn’t quite pretty enough to be Savannah. Eden was strictly second string, on the cheer squad and in life. Not a base, not a flyer, sometimes she didn’t even get on the mat. Eden never gave up trying to do something to make that leap, though. Her thing was to be different, except for, I guess, the part about being different. Nobody was different at Jackson.

“We didn’t want ya to have to sit up here all by yourself.” Charlotte giggled. If Eden was second string, Charlotte was third. Charlotte was one thing no self-respecting Jackson cheerleader should ever be, a little chunky. She had never quite lost her baby fat, and even though she was on a perpetual diet she just couldn’t shed those last ten pounds. It wasn’t her fault; she was always trying. Ate the pie and left the crust. Double the biscuits and half the gravy.