Page 12 of Ominous: Part 1
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Eden
I approach the open doors of Trafalgar and feel the A/C from inside wafting toward me. The perspiration coating nearly every inch of my skin is thankful for it. It’s overcast, buthot.With Eli’s and his friends’ eyes on me back there in the courtyard, I feel even hotter.
As I’ve done every morning since I’ve started, I look at the poster for Winslet Landers. Her photo is in black and white. Long blonde hair, smiling, wearing the uniform of Trafalgar, but the edge of the paper is rolled up, over the top half of her face.
Goosebumps erupt on my arms. The urge to look over my shoulder is strong, like someone could be stalking me. Like I could be Winslet.
Like Eli isn’t harmless.
Then again, I’ve always been a little paranoid. My imagination can be… damaging.
I realize I’ve been staring at the missing poster too long when someone jostles me, and I move my feet, entering the foyer and trying to breathe as I focus on the interior of Castle Hall.
It’s never too thick and crowded here, even at the start of school. There’s a lot of movement, a flurry of laughter, finding friends, slamming lockers, shoes squeaking along polished wooden floors, but it’s not like my public school. There, thirty students in a classroom weren’t against code, and it took half an hour to move through the masses in the commons. Despite the crowd, I was anything but invisible at Shoreside in the end. People I’d been friends with my whole life whispered behind my back.
I could feel their eyes on me like living things, no matter how far I used to pull my hood over my head. Now, I don’t hide as much. I’m justsharper, so nothing can touch me.
And here I can breathe, and I do, inhaling the dusty, transport-you-back-in-time castle scent, the musk of bricks and boys spritzed with cologne, the cleaner used on the floors. I move through the common area, four white columns of brick staking out the points of the crossroads in the hallway. There are so many blue-green and black plaid skirts in here, I’m very aware of my thighs touching in my black pants.
After stopping by the bathroom to check my reflection in the mirror, I duck into room 242, forcing myself not to search every chair for Eli. Most of the seats already full, I head to the back, replaying the various conjugations of “to bury” in my head over and over to prepare myself for the quiz he warned me about.
I drop my bag down, take a seat slowly, and pull out my dark blue pen, matching notebook, and our red textbook before I lift my head, the students chatting around me a nice distraction from straining to hear a distinct voice.
When I look up, determined to plant my eyes on Ms. Romano, to not let them jump around and find a black-haired boy with a pretty nose, I immediately lose.
Three rows up, my gaze taking in the tie around his neck, just below the choker, Eli is turned around in his seat, his eyes on mine. He’s smiling at me, even as a girl to his left calls out his name, her head propped on the arm on her desk, and annoyance in her tone as she says, “Eli,” for the fourth time and pops her gum.
He lifts his hand in a wave to me, moving his fingers as he does. It takes me a second, but finally I feel compelled to wave back. His gaze drops to my hand, and I glance down at my freshly painted matte black nails. Then, I see what it is he’s looking at.
The damn Band-Aid.
Thisis what makes me blush, because of course it does.
I raise my eyes, and he winks at me, then turns to the girl beside him, who doesn’t spare me so much as a blink.
I sit up a little straighter, aware a few heads swivel my way, having seen our interaction as Ms. Romano clears her throat at the front of the room.
Even as I duck my head, my teeth dent my bottom lip to bite back my smile. I have to fight the urge the entire way through the seven question pop quiz, lecture, and reading two paragraphs out loud.
As I flip the page in our textbook to finish the last sentence, I risk a peek at the front row.
Eli has his head propped on his hand, elbow on the desk, his body twisted toward me, sleeves of his white dress shirt rolled up over his forearms, a smile on his lips.
I catch sight of a green vein, one arm draped over the back of his chair.
Somehow, even as my pulse quickens, I don’t stammer across the words I looked away from.
* * *
I take my time leaving.Everything is in slow motion, from the way I pick up my pen to the long seconds it takes to zip up my backpack.
The only thing moving fast is my pulse.
Don’t wait for me, don’t wait for me, don’t wait for me.
I saddle my bag on my shoulder, shake down the black rubber bracelets on my wrist, ensuring the three letters nestled among my veins are covered, but despite how I take deep breaths and drag out the time, I don’t need to scan the room to know he’s waiting. I can feel his presence, and a second later, a question piercing the air confirms it.
