Chapter Eight #2
“Oh, yeah. I forgot about that,” Helen said to the ground, getting out of the car. She tossed her bag over her shoulder.
“And I’d like to go back to forgetting about it. If we never talk about trying to kill each other again, it would be fine with me,” Lucas said quietly. He took her hand firmly in his and pulled her up against him so that her shoulder was touching his arm as they walked into school.
Everyone was staring. The halls were lined with blank faces and slack jaws as conversations were momentarily halted and then continued twice as loud when Helen and Lucas passed.
Helen tried to pull her hand out of Lucas’s, but he resisted at first. Finally, he let go when he realized that Helen was not just being modest, she was about to panic.
“Lennie?” Claire called out warily. Helen smiled briefly at Lucas and veered in Claire’s direction.
“Where were you all weekend?” Claire asked, eyeing Lucas suspiciously.
“Did you try to call me?” Helen asked, grateful for an excuse to pry herself away from Lucas and hopefully away from all the stares.
“Like, five times. What happened to you?”
“My phone broke,” Helen said apologetically. Then she turned to Lucas. “I have to stop at my locker before homeroom. Thanks for the ride,” she told him bluntly.
“Okay. I’ll see you later then,” he said, accepting his dismissal as gracefully as he could. When he was no more than three steps away, Claire grabbed Helen’s arm and dragged her toward her locker.
“What the holy hand grenade was that?” Claire practically shouted. Helen shushed her as she wrestled with her locker combination.
“We had a long talk,” Helen said quickly. “We don’t hate each other anymore.”
“A talk? Yeah, right. I’m sure tongues were involved but for some reason I don’t think much language was used.” Claire looked angry, but Helen was suddenly angrier.
“Stop it, Claire! I mean it! I had a really rough weekend. I’m sorry I didn’t think to call you last night but my father was pissed at me for leaving him stranded at the airport.”
“Well, tell me about it now then!” Claire replied defensively. “Not like you have to say anything. Everyone can see that you and Lucas are suddenly a couple.”
“I don’t know what we are, but it’s not something I can sum up with an easy label like ‘couple,’ okay?” Stressed, Helen shuffled through her books and realized that she hadn’t done any of her homework.
“Why can’t you just be honest with me? You slept with him,” Claire accused her. Her eyes were hurt. Helen knew she couldn’t shut her out entirely.
“Honestly? I did sleep with him. Twice. But not the way you think,” she said frankly. She turned Claire around and steered them both to Hergie’s. “We’ve never even kissed.”
“Rubbish!” Claire declared, stopping dead in the middle of the hall.
“Ask him yourself. You’ve got classes with him all day,” Helen responded, perfectly serious. The bell rang and they both had to run the last few steps to make it through the door before Hergie closed it.
Helen had a terrible morning. Several teachers considered giving her detention for not doing her homework and every single girl in school was furious with her for getting a ride with Lucas.
Helen’s relationships with the girls in her class had always been strained.
For years she’d gone out of her way to be nice to them, but she’d finally given up when she noticed that if she kept her head down and her mouth shut she could slide under the radar.
That was all over now that she had been seen coming to school with Lucas.
She had crossed some sort of imaginary line, broken the truce that she had entered into by refusing to compete, and they’d declared war on her.
All day long, Helen found that if she looked anywhere but at the board or her desk she was shot nasty looks.
To top everything else off, Gretchen was whispering vicious rumors about Helen to anyone who would listen, and Claire was still upset.
Helen couldn’t help but smile with relief when she saw Lucas at his locker before lunch. He seemed to be the only person in the entire school who would smile back at her.
“So you like me again, huh?” he said as she made her way toward him.
“Not you too,” Helen moaned. “Is there a sign on my back that says ‘kick me’?”
“It’s just gossip, Helen. It can’t hurt us,” he said, wisely deciding not to tease her anymore.
“Maybe it can’t hurt you,” Helen muttered. She put a hand on her belly. Lucas saw her do it and was just about to ask what was wrong when Hector and Jason joined them.
“Your mom’s here,” Jason told Lucas, who nodded as though he was expecting her.
“What’s wrong?” Helen asked.
“Nothing. We’re meeting with the principal because my mom is going to try and talk our way back on to the football team,” Lucas explained.
“She’s playing the ‘have pity on a poor little woman raising so many gigantic boys’ card and then she’ll beg them to let us beat up kids from other schools instead of each other.
All to the benefit of Nantucket High, of course,” Jason said with a grin.
“It never fails. She’s like the Einstein of guilt. ”
“But should you three be allowed to play football?” Helen said with a disapproving frown. “I mean, you all have an unfair advantage.”
“Keep talking, track star,” Hector replied with a little heat.
“Helen runs because she needs a scholarship for college,” Lucas said, shooting Hector a warning glance. “We play sports because it’s expected of us. It’s annoying, actually, because we have to pretend to be unbearably weak and slow.”
“And we spend as much time making sure no one gets hurt as we do playing,” added Jason with a rueful smile. “The truth is we’d much rather be beating each other up than pretending to beat up mortals, but that wouldn’t look normal at all.”
“Well, good luck on the whole looking-normal thing,” Helen said briskly, stepping aside to let Jason and Hector go past her.
“I’ll find you after school,” Lucas promised her as he followed his cousins. He glanced back and gave her a concerned look. Helen tried to smile for him, but her expression was so phony she wondered if Lucas could feel the lie in it.
Helen slouched into the cafeteria, hoping to duck across the room without attracting too much attention.
She saw Gretchen say something to Amy Heart and then the whole table of cheerleaders started laughing mockingly at Helen.
It took Helen far too long to recover, and by the time she got herself oriented, everyone in the cafeteria was staring at her.
She retreated to her usual table with Matt and Claire, sure she could feel a cramp coming on.
“Would you please just stand up straight!” Claire barked at her. “There’s nothing more pathetic than watching you try to dissolve feetfirst into the frigging floor, and I swear if I catch you doing it one more time I’m going to lose it.”
It was the last straw. Helen spun around on her heel and fled the cafeteria. She tried to eat her lunch in the restroom, sitting on a sink, but the venue was so unappetizing that she gave up on her sandwich after a few bites.
She made it through her last three classes and practically ran to the girls’ locker room when the final bell rang, but Claire was already there waiting for her.
“Sorry I yelled at you earlier,” she said bashfully. She looked so cute when she was apologizing that Helen couldn’t even pick up a grudge, let alone carry one.
“Oh, forget it. I’ve been a flake, and I’d be angry, too, if I were you.” Helen threw an arm over Claire’s shoulder and led her outside after they changed.
“One thing, and then I’m going to leave you alone about it until you come to me to talk,” Claire said as they walked past the football field. Helen didn’t have the patience for any more questions.
“We’ve never even kissed, Gig,” she said, cutting Claire off.
“Really?” Claire practically shouted. Helen nodded and bumped Claire playfully with her hip.
“Really, really. I almost kissed him once, but he told me to lie down and go to sleep.”
“No way!” Claire shouted. Helen grabbed her, clamping a hand over her mouth.
“He’s right over there,” she said, gesturing toward him with her chin. “I told you I’d tell you if anything happened. I’m not trying to keep secrets from you.”
Claire gave Helen a knowing smile.
“You’ve always kept secrets. But it’s okay.
When you’re ready to tell me you will,” she said patiently.
Then she tackled Helen, trying to wrestle her to the ground.
Helen went along with it, pretending to be overpowered by her pint-sized pal, both of them laughing hysterically. The fun only lasted a moment.
“Get a room,” said a boy’s amused voice.
“You wish,” Claire answered back. “Wait. How’d you get over here so fast?”
Helen rolled over onto her back, blew her tangled hair out of her face, and saw Lucas and Jason standing over them.
“We saw you go down so we ran over to check it out,” Lucas said, ignoring Claire’s question.
“Thanks. She is pretty ferocious,” Helen replied, allowing Claire to flip her over one more time before Lucas helped her up.
“Five feet and two inches of pure terror,” Claire boasted as she held out her hand, expecting Jason to help her. He folded his arms across his chest deliberately.
“Is that how tall you are without those ridiculous shoes?” he said derisively. “I think I was born bigger than that.”
“I bet you were. Five feet of fat head and two inches of ass,” Claire muttered, standing up.
“Claire!” Helen blurted out, shocked. Lucas’s shoulders were shaking with laughter. Jason pretended to take the joke okay, but Helen suspected his feelings were hurt.
Helen bit back her own laughter and gave Claire a little pinch as punishment. Claire yelped in protest, pointing out that monkey bites had been off-limits since they were ten, and was about to say something else to Jason when the Delos boys were called back to practice by their coach.