Page 29 of I'll Be Waiting

“You—you brought drugs on a plane?” I say.

Now I’m the one getting the eye roll. “They’re just mushrooms,” she says.

I bite my tongue. Hard.

“Anyway, the cousins used theirs in a tea before our séance that night, and it didn’t affect the one, but the other one had this incredible experience. She says she saw—”

Someone yanks my ponytail, jerking my head back. I turn to glare up at a blond guy. Cody, with his buddy Mike right beside him. Anton is about ten feet away, pausing to talk to someone before joining his friends.

“Hey, Red,” Cody says. “Got a question for you.”

“And the answer hasn’t changed,” I say, because he asks this question at least once a week, as if it’s the most hilarious—and original—thing ever. As if guys haven’t been asking me it since I was in a training bra.

My friends cast me sympathetic looks. They don’t say anything. Like my daily CF therapy, this is just something to get through, a lesson most teen girls learn, even if we later realize we shouldn’t have needed to.

“Does that red go all the way down?” Cody says with a leer, his gaze lasering in on my crotch.

“And, once again, the answer is…” I nod to my friends, who say in unison, “You’re never going to find out, asshole.”

“I don’t want to. That’s why I asked.”

“Hey!”

Anton has caught up and he gives Cody a shove, paired with an apologetic look at me.

Part of me wants to give Anton credit for that, and part wishes he’d react more strongly. But guys never did. At worst, they laughed along. At best, they did this show of protest.

The boys move on, Anton herding them away. And I move on, too. That’s what you do when boys remind you that the only thing you’re good for is fucking, and you personally fail to even interest them that way. You accept it as part of teen-girl life, as unpleasant but predictable as menstrual cramps.

I lean over the table. “So the one cousin had an experience.”

“Janica?”

The voice startles me far more than the ponytail yank. I knew the yank was coming because even asleep, I recognized this as a memory, like a play I’d seen before and could predict every line of. But this isn’t part of the script.

I glance over my shoulder. Anton’s there, one corner of his mouth quirked in a half smile, a little self-conscious.

He bends down, voice lowered to a whisper. “I’m really sorry about that. You’re right. He’s an asshole. He has no idea how to treat girls.” His face is right in front of mine now, that tentative smile hovering on his lips. “But I do.”

He leans in closer, and my eyes half shut, my lips parting, the adult me seeing past teen Anton tomyAnton, my face rising for a kiss as he leans in, hands braced on the back of my chair—

Anton yanks my chair backward, and it hits the floor with a slam loud enough that I bolt upright in bed, gasping.

I lie there, catching my breath, coverlet bunched in one shaking hand.

Then the door rattles.

I turn fast, tangling in the bedsheets, heart jammed in my throat. Across the room, I can just make out the closed door. Everything is still and silent—

The door rattles again, enough to make me jump.

I clutch the covers and curse at myself. It’s a rattling door. Someone’sthere, trying to get my attention. In my dream, Anton yanked my chair over, which never happened. What I remember is that crash. Is that what I heard in real life, and my brain did something weird with it? Was the “crash” just a knock at the door?

I take a deep breath. “Hello?”

No answer. I slide one foot from bed. My bare toes touch down on the cool hardwood—

Another rattle has me yanking my foot back into bed as I twist to watch the door.

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