Page 18 of Ominous: Part 1
It’s why he told me any of this. I think he thinks it’s like some kind of bro code. I make a note to throw him a bone with Janelle at some point. We’re not close. We never will be. But I’ll take the loyalty for a little longer.
Regardless, I still get him in a quick pin. It’s mindless, really. We’re hovering around the same weight class, but I don’t have to think about going for a sweep, dragging his feet out from under him as my shoulder connects with his solar plexus. It’s over faster than it should be considering my head isn’t in the game. Then again, maybe that’s why it’s so fast. Maybe this is the flow state Dad’s business gurus like to talk about.
Either way, even after five consecutive takedowns and pins of five different wrestlers on Trafalgar’s team, I’m still on edge after I shower, catch a freshTrafalgar Dragonstee from Ms. Pensky in the hallway as she grins at me, and pull it over my head, grabbing my duffel bag and heading toward the parking lot. Our mascot is a dragonfly. Someone, probably a man, didn’t think it looked too good on our athletic gear, so they shortened it. Guess what’s on the back in blue?
A dragonfly. Personally, I feel it makes us look stupid, like we don’t know the difference between a very real insect and a very mythical creature, but I didn’t make those decisions.
I grab my phone from my sweats, the warm feel of the mid-September sun heating up my bare arms and the back of my neck as I stare at my screen and see Luna has texted me several times.
Her: You didn’t say anything, did you??!
I roll my eyes, and I don’t bother texting back as I dial her, holding the phone to my ear and heading to my car, double parked behind the gym.
She answers on the first ring. “What thefuck,Eli?” Her words aren’t angry so much as panicked.
I press the button on my key fob, unlock the doors to the G35, open up the trunk, and toss my shit inside. Then I close it and slip into the driver’s seat, shutting the door softly after I’m in. Once I start the car, my phone connects to Bluetooth, and I throw it into the passenger seat, the scent of coconut enveloping me in here. It’s from one of the air freshener bags Mom used to make. They’re full of essential oils and some organic beads or some shit, I don’t know, but she had a whole stock of them put away in the attic. One week straight when I was a kid, it was her nightly project. I don’t even think she slept.
I wonder if she intentionally made them smell like…me.
I grit my teeth as I put the car in gear and start to drive off, lifting my fingers from the wheel as a few of the guys wave at me, and Dominic, coming out from swim practice, offers me his middle finger.
I smile at him, and drive around the castle of the school, glancing up at the gray turrets stretched out into the darkening sky.
“I’ve sent you like, five texts—”
“Seven,” I correct Luna under my breath, but I know she hears me because she starts going off.
“Yeah, because last night you sneak into my bedroom and today you act like I don’t fucking exist so you can go after that weird fucking—”
“What do you really want, Luna?” I downshift as I coast to the red light leading out of school, past the gates. But after waiting several seconds while Luna sighs loudly on the phone, I see there’s no traffic in either direction. Biting my tongue and glancing in my rear view—no one behind me—I curl my fingers around the shifter and shoot through the red light, changing gears smoothly as a smile graces my lips and Luna keeps talking through the speakers of my car.
“Did you tell him?” Her voice is quieter now, her swallow audible through the line. Luna has a lot of friends, won from fear. Her and Janelle both play lacrosse, and while they’re friendly, they couldn’t be more different.
Janelle knows exactly who I am, and she won’t let me get too close because of it.
Luna thinks because she’s known me for years now, she owns a piece of me, despite the fact this week her and Dom are “on.”
She’s constantly disappointed when she realizes… it’s never going to be true. She doesn’t like to lose things. It’s what drew me to her in the first place, back in middle school.
I know she knows I didn’t tell him; she just wants to ensure I’m still thinking about her.
I rarely ever am. “Why would I do that?” I ask her as I shift gears, feeling my adrenaline spike as my speed does. I feel free like this.Alive.I wonder what makes Eden feel alive.
In my head, I see her downcast eyes, the way she’d look up at me in Latin as if she didn’t know I had ever noticed her. How could I not? It’s like… it’s like she called out to me without saying a word. I don’t believe in fate. Life doesn’t care enough to be anything more than random. But something about her, it fits with something in me. I don’t think she’d care about my secrets. I don’t think she’d judge me for any of the terrible things I’ve ever done. Even the ones Luna and Dom don’t know about.Even the ones they do.
Maybe it’s just a fantasy inside my head, but I think I can make it true.
“I don’t know, Eli, because you like to… fuck shit up.” I can picture Luna shaking her head, raking a hand through her bright auburn hair as she sits in her white Mercedes, tapping manicured nails against the steering wheel. “Dom is pretty vulnerable right now and I know you said some petty shit to him on Tuesday in the hall. Just… don’t ruin this.”
I smile to myself. “You mean don’t tell him we’re getting each other off every night he’s at home having a breakdown?”
Luna groans. “Eli, I’m serious!”
I smile to myself. “Good talk.” I end the call with the buttons on my steering wheel, biting the inside of my cheek as I turn up Landon Tewers, glancing at my GPS to ensure I’m headed the right way.
5
Eden
