CHAPTER SIXTEEN PRESENT DAY
I have never had to pee so badly in my life.
The class goes quiet when I raise my hand, and I try not to fidget. I haven’t made a peep in class in almost a month. “Yes, Mina?” Mr. Frank asks, a hopeful note in his voice.
“May I use the restroom, please?”
“Oh. Yes, certainly. Take the key with you.”
I shoot out of the room, the key-shaped bathroom pass clutched in my sweaty palm.
The huge copper key barely fits in my pocket.
Mr. Frank made it unwieldy to discourage students from trying to steal and copy it.
Mr. Hale, the hall monitor on duty this week, despises his job and despises anyone who makes it even a smidgen harder for him.
The school has four levels, with the administrative offices occupying the first floor.
The third level has been under construction for over a year, mainly due to Canyon High’s abysmal lack of funding.
It remains off-limits to students, but the warning sign hasn’t stopped anyone.
Thanks to Rainie’s graphic description of what eating freezer-burned sushi did to her, I know for a fact the plumbing works up there.
The third level is also my best shot of not running into anyone in the bathroom.
I rush up the stairs. Traffic cones block the top step, and a sign taped to the wall cautions me away. I crane my neck to check for any faculty members on my heels before I skirt the cones.
The area behind the cones unfolds into a colossal health hazard.
Stacks of wooden planks line walls riddled with black scratch marks.
Flakes of white powder drift from the rim of abandoned paint buckets.
The rooms have been boarded shut. I grin at Rainie’s initials carved into the board on my right.
At the far end of the hall, a blue tarp hangs over the unused stairs to the fourth floor. Beneath the tarp, a pair of work boots tap against the unfinished tiles.
I roll my eyes. Of course he’d be here. He hasn’t picked up my calls since yesterday.
Though I’m about as silent as a drunk raccoon as I make my way around the obstacle course of nails, tools, and boxes littering the floor, Jesse’s boots don’t budge an inch. I could be a teacher coming to catch him in the act, for all he knows.
What is his central nervous system made of? Steel and sarcasm?
I pull the tarp aside and immediately start coughing as smoke envelops me.
“Fancy seeing you here.” Jesse exhales plumes of gray. I stare at the small pile of ash by his elbow.
The ghost of Khalto Safa rises in the smoke, her red nails tapping the ash from the end of her cigarette.
“You smoke?” The wisps of white curling from his nose trouble me. Baba might not be the most attentive father in the world, but he’d certainly know if I started smoking. He’d at least smell it. “Does your dad know?”
The look Jesse offers can only be described as insulting. “Sure, Mansour. He buys me a pack from the gas station every day.”
I purse my lips, wishing I had a better gauge on sarcasm. I never used to think my struggle to detect it was a problem, even though Rainie would always tease me about being too earnest. You’re so painfully sincere, Eenie Meenie Mina. It makes you easy to trust, but also easy to prank.
I snatch the pack of cigarettes by his backpack and give it a shake. “Your dad does not buy you cigarettes.”
A smile stretches around the cigarette dangling between his lips, and I loathe the shiver that runs through me at the sight. “You got me, Sour Patch.”
Jesse leans back against the stairs. He flicks the cigarette to the tile, twisting his boot over the lit end.
Mastering the art of minding my own business continues to prove impossible. “How long have you smoked?”
I am well aware that the last thing Jesse wants is to be interrogated on his life choices.
In the best of circumstances, people think I’m too much—too competitive, too sensitive, too literal.
With others, I’ve learned to amend myself to suit their taste.
Cracked the code on how to be nice and palatable, no matter who stands across from me.
None of those rules seem to apply to Jesse.
With a few words, he can pare me down to the core, to the truest version of myself, and the truth is I don’t get him.
He found out I was cursed, and instead of running in the opposite direction, he started taking notes.
He hangs out in haunted train yards and lives above a mortuary.
I’m not sure how he has any energy to get through the day, considering the only grocery in his fridge is a month-old lasagna.
He treats his life like it’s a plant he never remembers to water but can’t quite bring himself to throw out. Yet he has the audacity to tell me to prioritize the curse over prom or my graduation speech. To take care of myself.
I might be cursed, but Jesse Talbot is a walking tragedy.
I repeat the question, and his eyes narrow. “Why do you care?”
An excellent question. Why should it bother me how little regard Jesse has for his own well-being? We’re business associates. As soon as I get my curse broken and he gets his soul, our paths will diverge again. I’ll forget all about this. All about him.
But as Jesse studies me, his unkempt black hair mussed around his ears and a tear at the bottom of his profanity-ridden shirt, I can’t convince myself of a future where I forget him.
“Because I need you,” I say. “For the curse, of course.”
Velvet dark eyes brush over my face like a caress. Jesse’s lips quirk. “Of course.”
He stands abruptly, sending me back a step. “No need to hunt me down, by the way. A text would have sufficed.”
I roll my eyes. My bladder howls, reminding me of our original mission. I barely clip out, “Come stand guard in front of the bathroom,” before dashing off.
“You say the sweetest things to me,” Jesse calls, following at a leisurely pace.
To my immense relief, I haven’t been misled about the plumbing.
The toilet flushes without trouble, and I wash my hands in front of the brand-new rectangular bathroom mirror.
I have been up here for so long, Mr. Frank and the others are going to think I ditched.
Worse—they might think I have diarrhea. Freaking Jesse and his death sticks.
A knock on the door startles me into dropping the paper towel. Jesse murmurs a single word that drops the temperature in the bathroom to the negative degrees.
“Incoming.”
Incoming? Who—
“Talbot! Again?”
Oh no, oh no, oh no. Mr. Hale.
“How’s it going, Ron? Lovely weather we’re having, isn’t it?”
I shake my head, once again marveling at the pure steel in Jesse’s spine.
Steel, spite, and sarcasm: the ingredients responsible for Jesse Talbot’s chemical composition.
Meanwhile, I’m about to puke my lunch into the sink, and Mr. Hale hasn’t even seen me yet.
“Why are you standing outside the girls’ bathroom?”
“Seemed strange to stand inside.”
“Is there someone inside the bathroom?” A pause. “Move aside, Talbot.”
“ ‘Fraid I can’t, sir. Wouldn’t look great for you sneaking into the student bathrooms, would it? On account of us being teenagers and all. I’m saving you from yourself.”
God. Jesse has really done it now. Mr. Hale’s fragile temper is as fundamental to Canyon High as its poorly weeded lawns, and Jesse just verbally slapped him into overdrive. I have to intervene. Jesse can’t take the heat for me. It’s not fair.
“This is your last warning. You can’t hide your delinquent friends.”
When Jesse answers, his tone changes, losing the mocking edge. “Mr. Hale, I’m serious. I can’t let you in. Someone’s been puking in there, and it sounds real rough. Can you go get the nurse?”
Right. The second Mr. Hale leaves to get Ms. Sorben, Jesse will stow me in the empty stairwell or hide me under a pile of wooden boards. Mr. Hale must come to the same conclusion, because he scoffs. “You must take me for a real fool. That’s it. I’m going in.”
I rush forward. If Jesse assaults a teacher, he’ll get expelled. Possibly arrested.
“Mr. Hale!” I boom, tossing open the door. Mr. Hale and Jesse are nose-to-nose, and both startle at my appearance.
“Mina? What are you doing up here? With him?” Mr. Hale looks aghast. “Mina, this behavior isn’t like you.”
I glance at Jesse, expecting to find him gathering up these Good Girl Mina morsels to tease me over later. But Jesse’s lips are pursed, a hand fisted in his pocket.
“Someone had an accident in the downstairs bathroom.” The lie falls from my tongue like water, smooth and almost thoughtless. “I wanted to get back to class quickly, so I came up here. I’m sorry.”
“Oh. Well, I suppose I understand. You always follow the rules, don’t you? Sweet little Mina and her perky ponytail.” Mr. Hale giggles. Jesse and I glance at each other.
The smell hits my nose with the force of a truck, sending me back a step.
No! It can’t be here! Jesse’s with me—I’m not alone with Mr. Hale. How is it here?
The harshest truths carry the worst timing, and each one hits me like a bolt of lightning.
Ms. Diaz was still possessed when Jesse rescued me, and Jesse is immune to possession.
It doesn’t count him as a person.
He was telling the truth about his soul.
Jesse’s nostrils flare. He understands what the smell means.
He understands we’re out of time.
Mr. Hale’s voice changes, becoming deeper, harder. A million echoes scraping together to form a single, hollow sound. “Do you break the rules like your Mommy did?”
I raise my arm, but it’s too late. Mr. Hale’s fist catches me in the jaw, smashing me against the door. It swings open with my weight, and I crash to the ground.
In seconds, he looms over me, blotting out the weak light. “It didn’t have to be so bad, Yasmina,” Mr. Hale croons. His orange eyes widen in mock sympathy. “It doesn’t have to this way at all.”
The single bulb bursts, shooting electric sparks over Mr. Hale’s head. I cover my head with an arm and curl my knees into my chest.