From Bad to Cursed

Kasey stared up at us, her eyes wide. “Please.”

“You know what?” I said. “Fine, Kasey. You want to fix it yourself? Go ahead.”

My sister hesitated. Across the table, Megan was watching me.

“She’s right,” I said to Megan, shrugging. “They’re her friends. Go ahead, Kasey. Get them out of it.”

Kasey swallowed hard. Her fists were tight balls pressing into the counter. “I will.”

“Fine,” I said. “Then it’s handled.”

“Whatever,” Megan said, giving me a wary glance. “I’d better get going.”

“I’ll walk you out,” I said.

Once we got outside the front door, she stopped and looked at me.

“You aren’t serious,” she said.

“No, of course not,” I said. “But there’s no point in arguing with her.”

Megan sighed. “Okay, thank God,” she said. “Because for a minute I thought you’d lost your mind. Now, could you please explain to me what this thing is that you keep talking about? A mystery animal? When were you in the woods? And why didn’t you tell me about it before tonight?”

“It’s not important,” I lied. The last thing I wanted was Megan suggesting a late-night trip to Lakewood. “It was a coyote or something.”

I’d hurt her feelings. Her eyes were too bright, and she looked like she had something to say. But she didn’t say it. “Fine. So what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to go to their next meeting,” I said. “And we’re going to get the book and destroy it. And no one is going to get hurt.”

“Right.” Megan glanced at the time on her phone. “Except me, if I don’t make it home by ten thirty.”

MONDAY MORNING, I found Carter sitting on a low brick wall in the courtyard, bent over a copy of Moby Dick. When I stepped into the sun, casting a shadow over the pages, he marked his place with the dust jacket and set the book down.

“Good morning,” he said, squinting up at me.

“Hi,” I said. “Sorry I missed your calls yesterday. I was doing a photo shoot with my sister and things got…hectic.”

“No worries.”

“But I missed you,” I said, scooting next to him. As soon as I said it, I meant it. I closed my eyes and pressed my forehead against his sleeve.

“You’re coming this afternoon, right?” he asked.

“What?”

“To my poster party?”

“Refresh me on what a poster party is again?”

“A campaign thing. Zoe Perry arranged it. She’s the girl I was talking to at the party for like a half hour. Keaton Perry’s little sister.”

I tried to remember her, but I couldn’t recall her face, just a voice and a bunch of political buzzwords: alignment, empowerment, proactivity. “The boring one?”

He laughed. “I hope not. What would that say about me?”

“That you’re good at humoring boring people?”

“Anyway, I need you there. I can’t be alone with her and her friends. They seem to be confusing high school politics with real politics.”

I put my hand on his shoulder. “I can’t come.”

“Seriously? Why not?”

Honesty is the best policy, right? “I’m hanging out with my sister and her friends.”

The corner of his mouth went up in confusion. “The Sunshine Club?”

I shrugged. “You don’t have to call them that.”

“Why not? Everyone does. They’re like a cult.” His shoulders pressed back. “And when did you decide this? Because I asked you about the party last week and you said yes.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I forgot. Any other day except today. I need to do this for Kasey. She’s having some problems fitting in.”

“Are you joking?” he asked. “Does that look like someone having problems fitting in?”

I followed his gaze to the picnic tables, where the Sunshine Club had claimed a spot under the mottled shade of the school’s big oak tree. They sat close together, like sisters, talking and laughing among themselves. And Kasey was right smack in the center.

“You don’t understand,” I said. And he couldn’t. Because if he knew the truth, he’d flip out.

“Maybe I don’t,” he said. “You’re one of the people who really wanted me to run for president this year, and now you’re disappearing when my campaign needs you.”

“I’m not disappearing,” I said. “I’m missing one little arts and crafts party thrown by a bunch of boring preps.”

His laugh had no humor behind it. “Thanks, Lex. I love being called names.”

Just like I love being expected to make campaign appearances like some lame wifey with no life of her own. “That’s not what I meant!”

“Okay, well, I wish you could stop saying things you don’t mean. Like that I’m one of a million boring preps—or that you’ll spend time with me.”

“Where’s all this coming from?” I asked.

“I guess I don’t like being lied to,” he said.

“Who’s lying?”

He enumerated on his fingers. “You said you’d come today. You’re not going to. You say it’s because Kasey is having problems. She’s clearly not. If you’re somehow suddenly too cool to help with my campaign, I wish you’d just say it.”

“I’ve never been too cool for anything in my entire life,” I said, bristling at the accusation of lying. “I forgot about the stupid party, Carter. Sue me!”

“All right,” he said. “When you can clear some time between cult meetings, let me know.” He checked his watch. “I have to go find Zoe and tell her we’ll need extra help.”

“Stop. Please. I hate this,” I said, reaching out to him. “Can’t we just not be angry?”

“I’m not angry, Lex…I’m sad.” And he walked away.

We spent the morning exchanging terse text messages.

First, I apologized, and he said he accepted it.

The rational, grown-up thing to do would be to let it go. But I could feel the tension behind his words. So I texted him back that he didn’t have to accept my apology, and he replied that I was the one who couldn’t accept that he could accept it perfectly well…and then my fourth-period teacher made me put my phone away.

We managed about twenty words between us during lunch. Nobody noticed. Emily would have, but now she sat with the Sunshine Club. They’d moved inside to a table in the center of the cafeteria—not the prime real estate by the window, but creeping closer.

Certainly not the Janitor’s Table or the Doom Squad’s courtyard exile anymore.

So we sat like a pair of cordial strangers. We’d never had a disagreement this serious before. Some small part of me kept trying to suggest that maybe he’d overreacted and it wasn’t my fault. But it was shouted down by the rest of me, the part of me that wanted things to go back to normal as soon as possible, even if that meant taking all the blame.

Because without Carter, I didn’t even have a normal to get back to.

WE WERE EARLY, so Megan parked a few doors down from the enormous, well-manicured Laird house, and we sat in the car with the windows down, listening to the contented sighs of the engine.

After about fifteen minutes, a group of happy-go-lucky girls, including Kasey, turned the corner, coming from the direction of the school. We watched from the safety of the car, like tourists on safari.

“Look,” Megan said. “They’re all wearing skirts.”

“Kasey told my mom they’re more flattering than pants,” I said.

“Only if it’s the right skirt,” Megan snorted, staring out the window. “But they all do seem to be wearing the right skirts.”

“They do everything right. Haven’t you noticed?”

Adrie

Another girl crossed the street in front of the car. She looked familiar, but it took me a moment to place her.

“Megan!” I gasped. “Is that Lydia?”

For three years, Lydia Small had prided herself on being the gothiest goth ever to stomp through Surrey in her giant steel-toed boots. But this…this was…