Chapter Two

Chapter Two

I Find Myself Crushing…Again


As soon as I walked into the dining hall, Alice nearly knocked me over. “You slept through your alarms,” she said by way of greeting.

I rubbed my forehead. The pressure seemed to be fading. It didn’t feel like I would get a headache. “You know, I don’t believe what people say about you. You really are smart.”

“Shut up.” Alice lightly smacked my upper arm. Oddly, the skin felt a little tender. Maybe I had a bruise.

With a look of disdain, Alice checked out my outfit. I had changed quickly before rushing to the dining hall. Students weren’t allowed around campus unless they were in compliance with the St. Xavier dress code. “You’re wearing those jeans again?” She was referring to my habit of wearing slightly over-large jeans. They’re way more comfortable that way, and I know it’s not fashionable, but don’t judge. When you’re forced to wear a uniform, a girl has to find liberty somehow.

But I wasn’t really listening to Alice. I nodded automatically, and Alice turned to see who or what I was looking at with such distracted interest.

It was Mr. Rellik, the Assistant Head of School, the man all St. Xavier’s students loved to hate. He was the kind of man who reminded me of a circus ringmaster with his fat gold ring, monochromatic suits, and compact body. His suits were always tastefully colored, but very rarely were they neutral. Today, he was wearing a perfectly pressed dark navy blue suit with a matching navy blue shirt and tie. It was a little mesmerizing to be honest.

But I can’t hide it. I wasn’t just staring at Mr. Rellik. The ringmaster was talking animatedly to his son—a boy I had been in love with like an idealistic idiot since my first month at St. Xavier’s.

Logan Rellik.

Logan is tall, powerfully built, with Sandy blond hair that would make a Ken doll jealous, and he has the most interesting eye color I’ve ever seen: little flashing pools of river green floating in a backdrop of vivid blue. He also has an impeccable sense of fashion, takes singing and acting for electives, and could probably outsmart most of the student body.

I know my description is a little lacking in the personality department, but if there are any imperfections in Logan Rellik, I gleefully gloss over them.

Also, there’s the unfortunate reality of me not really knowing him.

As I was staring, and probably drooling for all I knew, Mr. Rellik saw me. I quickly looked away, but not before I had caught a curious expression on the ringmasters face.

Peripherally, I watched as Logan stormed off, sitting down at a table with a bunch of his guy friends.

With a stab of annoyance, I saw that Mr. Rellik had started to make his way toward us. He was probably coming to chastise me for missing the thrilling welcoming ceremony that I had already sat through last year.

I grabbed Alice by the arm, eliciting a surprised “hey!” and quickly got us in line for lunch. There were only two people in front of us. Because I had slept like the dead through all my alarms, I had missed the lunch rush.

Beside me, Alice was complaining quietly. I was only just now noticing it because of my rush to avoid Mr. Rellik. “I already stood in line. My tray’s over there,” she gestured to her right. “I got you a hamburger.”

I stopped in the middle of placing my tray on the sliding counter, and looked at her. “Oh,” I said in genuine surprise. “Alice, that was…really cool of you. Thanks.”

She shook her head like I should’ve known she was the most thoughtful person on the planet. “Now come on, my couscous is probably already cold.”

I made a face at her mention of the scourge food of the earth, and followed her to the table, leaving my tray behind.

On the way, I could feel someone’s eyes on me, and looked to my left. Logan Rellik was staring at me. When our eyes met, he didn’t look away. I was transfixed. Mainly because he looked mad. Not furious, just sort of pouty. I put one hand in a pocket, and waved mechanically with the other like a dumbass. He looked away, jumping into a conversation with his buddies.

Damn it.

In a bit of a daze, I sat down at our table, my hamburger looking cold in front of me.

Alice giggled a little. “Smooth move, Robot Chicken.”

“Well aren’t you the clever one today,” I conceded, trying to ignore the humiliated little girl cringing inside.

“It’s so obvious you like him, I don’t know why we’ve never really talked about it before.”

I dropped the bun I had picked up. “Because it’s none of your business.”

I can be a real pill sometimes.

Alice shrugged, hardly even phased. Then, in true Alice fashion, she began quietly humming the “K-I-S-S-I-N-G” song.

I picked up the bun and shook my head. “You can be so juvenile.”

Alice stopped humming. “You know you like it. I have to dumb down everything anyway or you wouldn’t understand me.”

“Haha. Have you seen the bottle of Dijon?” There was only one bottle of Dijon on the entire campus of St. Xavier’s. All the money in the world and they can’t afford at least two bottles of the greatest mustard on earth? It was always a hunt to find the elusive condiment loner. For some reason, the staff never put the bottle in the same place, so I never knew where it might be at any given time.

Alice picked at her couscous, a strange expression on her face. “I might be able to tell you where it is if…you admit—out loud—that you like Logan.”

I rolled my eyes. “I like Logan. There. Are you satisfied with your seventh grade nostalgic déjà vu? Can we return to high school, now? Are you even listening to me?” I had kept talking because Alice was laughing so hard. I grumbled until she settled down, pulled the bottle of Dijon out of her coach purse and plopped it down in front of me.

I stared at it for a moment. “You had it hidden in your purse? You are so evil.”

Alice laughed again, stirring her couscous happily.

After we had finished eating, the place was nearly empty. Students had either run off to celebrate the nice weather, gone to meet with a counselor or Headmaster Slater, or to finish unpacking, like I needed to do. There was nothing on the official school schedule until dinner.

I stood up, empty plate in hand. “So what do you want to do? I picked last year, remember?” It was a playful jab, but I was genuinely trying to be nice. I felt a little guilty about kicking her out of her own dorm room earlier.

Alice looked thoughtful for a moment. “That’s right. You made me play sand volleyball. And I hate volleyball. Then you didn’t even make sure we were on the same team. I had just met you, you were the only person who even knew my name, and then you get on the other team and beat mine. I should’ve known then.”

I set my plate in the water-filled return basin, smiling at the memory. “Should’ve known what? That I’m an awesome volleyball player?”

“That you liked Logan.”

I felt my cheeks burn. Damn it, she knew me so well.

“You had to be on his team, so you took the last spot, leaving me to fend for myself. Great friend you are.” Alice dumped her plate in the basin after me, all the while trying really hard not to smile.

We walked towards the exit, me trying to hide my flaming cheeks, while Alice walked behind me, humming You Belong With Me.

When we had almost reached the door, I noticed Mr. Rellik, arms crossed, standing by the emergency exit, talking with Ms. Perry, the Assistant for Headmaster Slater. He was clearly listening to her, nodding a few times, but his eyes were on us. When I turned my head to look at him, he smiled politely.

Still wanting to avoid the lecture, I ignored him and quickly walked out the door, Alice right behind.

As soon as we were outside the dining hall, I started to feel a little nauseated, that pressure in my head returning. I put a hand on my stomach and leaned against the wall for a second. I really felt terrible.

Alice peered at me. “Hey, you look kind of out of it.” She paused, raising an eyebrow. “Are you just trying to get out of sand volleyball payback?”

I managed a tiny smile and shook my head. “I’m fine. Just, distract me.”

Alice looked thoughtful for a moment. “Follow me.” She grabbed my hand and led me away from the dining hall, toward the large double doors at the end of the hall.

I groaned. “Alice, are you really taking me to Mott Hall?” Mott Hall, named after a donor back in the 19th century, was the official name of the old theater. Its unofficial name was “Pot Hall,” due to its popular utilization by students and teachers alike for extracurricular activities. Everyone knew it, but no one really talked about it. Also, it was supposed to be haunted or something. Although the pot thing probably fueled those rumors.

Nowadays, Mott Hall was hardly ever used for anything because in the late eighties they had added on a better, larger theater; Holdings Grove. The administration had decided not to renovate Mott Hall in favor of keeping its historical integrity intact. Or something ridiculously unpractical like that. Alice and me had plenty of theories as to the real reasons, most of them involving extracurricular activities.

Alice just giggled in response. “You said you needed to be distracted. This is me distracting you.”

“I’m not smoking anything in there. And this had better not be your idea of a payback.”

Alice let go of my hand, checked down the hallway for anyone who might be watching, cracked open one of the double doors and pushed me inside.

When she closed the door behind her the darkness was fairly complete, except for the two eerily glowing red exit signs on either side of where I remembered the stage being. The exit signs no longer led outside, but to two different hallways. One of the hallways led to a stairwell going down to the basement, where there were various practice rooms for the students taking musical lessons (Alice was well-acquainted with the basement), the other was a short attachment to one of the housing wings. Because of that, and also because of the easily popped locking latches on the exit doors, Mott Hall was a very popular hangout.

As soon as the sound of the door closing had settled, and the darkness pressed against my face, a most peculiar sensation overcame me. It was a mixture of fear and disorientation. The pressure increased in my head until I felt almost as if I were floating, like my conscious mind was being cradled away from my body, or rather, my body was being suffocated by the blackness. It was, by far, the strangest feeling I had ever experienced.

Well, until a few minutes later.

The lights flickered on, blinding me for a moment. The act of shutting my eyes against the intrusion sort of shoved me back into my body.

When I opened them again, I felt dizzy, like I might puke.

“Fiona? Are you okay? You seriously don’t look so good.” I peered through the gloomy, poorly lit space at Alice. Her oval face looked worried, and ghostly pale in the yellow lights than ran along the walls of the hall in equally spaced intervals.

“I think…I just need to walk for a minute.”

Alice nodded. “Let’s walk to the front row. There’s a cross breeze there from the vents. You look like you might have a fever.”

I put a hand up to my cheek. It felt clammy to my hot hand.

I let Alice guide me down the center aisle. As soon as we reached the front seats, where the lighting was poorest, I heard an eerie, faintly echoing sound like multi-voiced whispering. Seriously freaked out now, and in a near panic, I whipped my head to either side, looking for the source of the noises, but my head seemed to move much slower than I thought it should.

“Fionnnaaaa?” I watched Alice form my name with her lips, her expression concerned, but the movement was in slow motion, and her voice sounded like I was underwater.

My body went rigid. That was when everything sped up. I could feel myself…altering.

I shut my eyes.


Entire Novel
Chapter One
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six