Page 11 of Ominous: Part 1
No one is there.
After I drain the water,blow out the candle, towel off and pull on my pajama shorts and top, brush my teeth, and wash my face all while avoiding looking into the mirror, I open the bathroom door.
And clamp a hand over my mouth to stop the scream from bubbling up my throat. A strangled gasp comes through instead when I see a shadowy figure in the hallway.
“Jesus, it’s just me.”
My chest is heaving, my phone clutched tight in my hand, I slide my palm away from my mouth, down to my throat as I try to breathe, try to see.
Slowly, in the dim glow from the light of his bedroom, his features come to light. Shaggy blond hair, light eyes, a lip ring, T-shirt and gym shorts over his short, bony frame. Sebastian is only a few inches taller than I am.
My breathing evens out, but my heart still races.
“Maybe don’t take baths in the dark?” His tone is condescending. I can smell cigarette smoke and maybe something stronger on him. “I gotta pee.”
“Yeah, sorry,” I manage to say, edging around him toward my bedroom. When my shoulder brushes his, he speaks again.
“Who dropped you off?”
I freeze, staring into the shadows of the hallway, Mom and Reece long asleep. “A friend,” I manage to say.
Sebastian is quiet as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder. Then he says, his voice low, “Don’t let them distract you.” And he walks into the bathroom without another word.
Eli
I watchher mom hug her in the mint green minivan she always arrives to school in. Even from here, I can see the thick, ugly scar along the back of her mom’s arm. I wonder where it came from; if Eden saw her get it. With the thought, I feel the ache in my shoulders, along my solar plexus.
Partly from wrestling, partly from Dad.
I shake the thought as I watch Eden. One of the few students at Trafalgar to be carpooled, and I think she knows it, the way she closes the door quickly and trots off without a glance back, her slender fingers wrapped around the straps of her bag, the dozens of black bands on her wrist slipping down her arm.
Beside me, Dominic nudges my knee with his, the two of us sitting together on one of the stone tables in the courtyard, the September sun blocked by thick, gray clouds. “There she is.” Lust is thick in his words. Smoke curls from between his teeth, his wrist resting on his knee, cigarette dangling from his fingers, the scent of nicotine heavy between us.
“You’re a pig,” Luna snaps from behind me. I hear Janelle, beside her, sigh heavily. A few people call out to us on their way up the stone steps to the double red doors at the entrance, both propped open, missing posters for Winslet Landers curling at the edges, taped to both doors.
Dom waves back to our so-called friends, mainly people on the swim team, for him, and wrestling, for me. “Baby, I’m not interested,” he responds coolly to Luna, dropping his hand and elbowing me with a grin. “ButEliis.”
I glance at him, his dull blue eyes glassy from what he smoked before he drove to school. He takes a drag from his cigarette, and I imagine putting the cherry out on his pale temple. He asked if I’d seen the “weird new girl,” told me about the way she pronounced“The Canterbury Tales”in class yesterday.“I want her lips wrapped around my dick while she tries to say it three times fast.”
I let him know she’s in my first period. Latin.
I shouldn’t have said anything. That one sentence alone tipped him off.“You wanna fuck her, don’t you? You never notice anyone, man.”
He’s wrong, but Dominic is wrong about a lot in life.
Luna reaches between us, jerking Dominic’s black tie and yanking him toward her as he twists around, a smile on his lips. “I only share you with Eli,” she says, and I can see her knuckles blanch white with her grip, but I keep my eyes on Eden.“No one else.”
“I really think you both need to see a therapist,” Janelle says lightly, and I know she’s talking about Dom and Luna, because she’s aware Idosee a therapist.
Luna laughs, a loud, sharp sound as she releases her sometimes-boyfriend and Eden heads up the cobblestone walkway, closer to us, her dark hair coiled into braids on top of her head. I want to take all the pins out, tangle my fingers in her long strands. Looking at her is like looking at sin.
“I don’t trust anyone that much,” Luna declares.
I arch a brow, unseen by my friends.If she only knew all the secrets that keep Dominic up in the night.But I don’t say anything because I have secrets of my own.
And as Eden walks by, her hips swaying, the fabric of her uniform pants pulled tight around her round ass, I still keep quiet. She’s either oblivious to me sitting here with my friends, or she’s pretending to be because she’s nervous. I think I know the answer when I see the corner of her cherry red lips pull into a slight smile, her platform boots clomping up the three steps perpendicular to the table I’m sitting on.
Don’t worry, baby girl. I’ll chase you.
