Crazy Ex-Ghoulfriend Page 5

  Wishes

  Chapter 8

  December turned out to be a pretty good month. Even with the cloud of guilt that hovered over me at all times, and the fear of Officer Russell busting me for being at the party, I prevailed. Wayne and I spent more time together than we had since grade school. I came over every day after school and we studied for two or three hours. Sometimes I’d stay for dinner. Then Chloe would call me for an update before bed.

  School went surprisingly well too. The Ds were too busy fighting over the queen bee title to be bothered with me. They were saving all their spitefulness for each other, which meant everyone else’s attention was thankfully redirected too. No complaints there.

  The only person I had to worry about at school was Eddie. His idiosyncrasies were becoming more and more hair-raising. Between requesting raw chicken from the cafeteria ladies and getting caught rummaging through the girls’ locker room, I was beginning to worry about him. I was also beginning to worry about the ill effects having lunch with him was going to have on my reputation, which was saying something, considering the fact that I didn’t have much of a reputation to begin with. It made me wish that Wayne and I had the same lunch shift.

  The semester ended quietly. Wayne passed all of his finals with flying colors, thanks to my tutoring, and we rode home together in my mom’s car on the last day of school before Christmas break.

  Wayne’s family went to Montana to spend the holidays with his grandma, but he left a present for me on my back porch before they took off. It was wrapped in the Sunday comics and tied together with a shoestring. When I opened it, I laughed so hard that I cried. It was one of his Transformers from when we were kids. He had been so mad when I painted it pink and red with my mom’s nail polish. I was sure that he’d thrown it away, but it meant the world to me that he hadn’t.

  Christmas break was depressing without Wayne. I could barely muster enough cheer to convince my parents that I liked the Dr. Who pajamas and the dorm essentials set that they had gifted me. My dad tried entirely too hard to cheer me up by acting obnoxiously thrilled about the socks I gave him, insisting they were a new odor resistant variety. He chased me around the living room, trying to get me to smell his feet to test them. Then my mom made hot chocolate, and we fell asleep watching A Christmas Story like we did every year.

  Chloe came over and stayed the night on New Year’s Eve, while our parents all went to some hoity-toity party for her dad’s art gallery. We drank sparkling grape juice and painted each other’s toenails while watching old Dr. Who reruns. It should have been exciting, but I found the whole evening underwhelming.

  After finishing up the second coat on my toes, Chloe looked up at me and huffed. “You haven’t said ten words all night. What’s eating you?”

  I shrugged and chewed at my bottom lip.

  “Don’t make me do it,” she said, piercing through me with her determined laser vision. Then she closed her eyes and began to hum while massaging her temples with her fingertips. “Oh, wait. I think I’m getting something. You’re... you’re on your period. No, that’s not it. You’re an alien body snatcher, posing as my best friend.” She paused to peek out of one eye at me, just to be sure that I was glaring at her. “No? You sure? Okay.” She closed her eyes again. “You’re moping over your long lost lover boy who’s off in a distant land, never to return.”

  “He’ll be back tomorrow night.” I smiled and began picking the cotton balls out from between my toes.

  Chloe sighed. “Then why do you seem so bummed?”

  I paused, really considering my melancholy mood for a moment. “I guess I’m just worried that he won’t need me this semester, now that his grades are back up. Plus, I’m sure his parents won’t seriously ground him until graduation, and I’m worried that he’d rather hang out with the friends he made through Matilda than me.”

  Now that we were back to the way we used to be, I was more worried than ever that I’d lose Wayne all over again. The fear and uncertainty had even surpassed the hybrid Matilda guilt.

  Chloe squeezed my arm. “I know this is going to sound cheesy and clichéd, but he’d be stupid to let you go so easily. I know he did before, and you forgave him, but if he does it again, I may just have to paint his face onto a snake and display it at the art show.”

  It was little comfort, but I laughed anyway. We changed the subject, and I tried to smile and talk more until Chloe’s parents picked her up in the wee hours of the morning.

  I really didn’t feel better about the situation though until Wayne and his family finally pulled into their driveway the next day, and Wayne rushed over to show me the hideous sweater his dear old grandmother had knitted for him. I couldn’t quite say if it was more green or purple, but it did match his cast, which protruded from a lumpy sleeve.

  “I swear, I’m going to wear it to school Monday,” he said, picking at a loose thread.

  I laughed. “I’ll save you a seat at mine and Eddie’s lunch table.”

  Wayne gave me a crooked smile. “You may actually have to do that anyway. My schedule for second semester was rearranged. I have fourth period gym now, so I’ll be in the second lunch shift.”

  My heart fluttered and then promptly sank. “You’ll have to excuse Eddie. He’ll probably ask for a hair sample.”

  “I’m not sure I’m ready for another haircut just yet.” He laughed. His buzz cut had almost grown out enough to hide the scar that disappeared up his forehead. “I am ready to get this cast off though. It’s killing me.” He stuck a finger down inside it to scratch his hand.

  “Next week?” I asked.

  Wayne nodded and then brightened. “Hey, I almost forgot. It’s supposed to be freakishly warm for January next weekend, and my parents were talking about having a backyard barbeque. I think they’re planning on inviting you all over. We could be totally lame and play horseshoes and roast marshmallows, if you want?”

  “Sure.” I could feel a cartwheel coming on.

  Wayne said goodnight, and I went up to my room feeling lighter and like all was right in the world again. The feeling only lasted until Monday morning, after we returned to Jasper High. By then, a feeling of immeasurable dread had settled into the pit of my stomach.

  It should have improved at lunch, when Wayne followed through and actually sat down at mine and Eddie’s table, but from there it only got worse. I had thought Eddie’s questions and oddball behavior would be bad enough, but that was nothing compared to the stunned stares and whispers that buzzed through the cafeteria once Wayne sat down next to me.

  Wayne sat with us every day for the rest of the week, much to my surprise. Eddie only got weirder, but Wayne didn’t seem to mind. The Ds still hadn’t decided who was in charge, and since the news had traveled about Wayne’s lunchroom faux-pas, they had been eyeballing me more than I was comfortable with.

  If Matilda had still been alive, she would have organized some nasty and embarrassing stunt by now. I didn’t know if the Ds just didn’t have enough brainpower to come up with an evil plot, or if they were brewing up something extra vile. Either way, I was extra happy when the week was finally over and I was officially out of the limelight. Plus, the barbeque with Wayne’s family was on Saturday.

  It really was freakishly warm for January, but I still had to bundle up in a thick hoodie and my fur boots. Wayne’s parents hadn’t taken down the white Christmas lights that lined their fence yet, so the backyard glowed in the fading daylight. The patio furniture had been moved out in the middle of the lawn and positioned in a circle around a small fire pit.

  “Hey!” Wayne waved me over with two marshmallow loaded roasting sticks like an aircraft marshaller trying to direct a plane. “Quick, help me eat these before my mom sees.” He crammed a sticky marshmallow in my mouth and licked his fingers clean.

  “Wayne Nixon Russell, I told you to wait until after dinner.” The screen door slammed as Mrs. Russell nudged her way outside, carrying a dish of baked beans in one hand and scalloped potatoes i
n the other.

  Wayne cringed at hearing his middle name and hid the sticks behind his back. “It was Janie’s idea,” he said with full cheeks. My mouth was too full to protest, so I shook my head and elbowed Wayne in the ribs instead.

  Mrs. Russell laughed at us and handed me the potatoes. “Careful, they’re hot,” she said, smoothing her hand down the front of her paisley print apron. We moved things around on the table until everything fit, and then we moved them around some more once my mom arrived with a pasta salad.

  Officer Russell and my dad came around from the front of the house, and I caught enough of their conversation to realize that they were talking about the Hunt case. I heard the word closed and hoped it meant what I thought it did. They stopped at the grill, and my dad helped load a cookie sheet with steaks and bratwursts.

  Once everyone was seated, Officer Russell said grace and we ate like it was Christmas dinner all over again. Wayne bragged to my parents about how much I helped him through last semester, and Mrs. Russell gushed about how much she appreciated me helping her with the dishes anytime I stayed for dinner. My cheeks were burning by the time the meal was over, but it was a good feeling.

  “I know it’s nice out here, but it is still January.” My dad blew into his hands. “How about some wine?”

  “We don’t keep alcohol in the house anymore,” Officer Russell said, sending a stern look Wayne’s way.

  “Well, we have a nice little selection down in the basement at our house. We could warm up for a bit, and I could get your opinion on that foundation crack we were talking about earlier,” my dad offered.

  “Wine does sound good.” Mrs. Russell batted her eyelashes at her husband, and in turn he looked at Wayne.

  “Will you kids be alright for a while?”

  I could see Wayne fighting the urge to roll his eyes. “Yes, sir. We’ll just roast some more marshmallows.”

  Our parents fumbled through the dark until they tripped the sensor on the porch light next door. They disappeared inside, while Wayne loaded the roasting sticks up with as many marshmallows as they would hold.

  “Wayne, I’m really not sure that I can eat anymore. I’m stuffed.”

  “Oh, come on. They’re mostly air anyway,” he said, handing me the sticks. I sat down on a plastic bench near the fire pit while he piled a few more logs onto the flames. “Man, it feels good to be able to use both of my hands again.”

  I yawned and handed the roasting sticks back to him as he sat down, snuggling in next to me. I was suddenly warmer, and it had nothing to do with the fire. Wayne grew quiet, and each breath I took seemed thicker and more difficult to exhale.

  “Hey, Janie?”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t think my scar looks like Harry Potter’s, do you?” He turned his head down to give me a better view.

  “Nah. It’s more like Bradley Cooper’s.” I grinned.

  “Oh, yeah? So you don’t think I could sneak into Hogwarts with it?”

  “Sorry,” I giggled.

  Wayne smiled and poked at the flames until he caught a marshmallow on fire. “Make a wish,” he said, bringing it up between us. I raised an eyebrow at him and sighed.

  “Go ahead. Blow it out. You know you want to,” he said. It was an old trick, one he’d played on me when we were kids, but I humored him anyway. I sucked in a breath, but just before I blew it out, he beat me to it.

  “You suck.”

  Wayne laughed, tilting the marshmallow to me, and then pulling it away when I opened my mouth for it. But instead of eating it himself, he leaned into me and closed his mouth on mine. His tongue brushed against my bottom lip and slipped past my teeth.

  I froze. Every inch of me tingled, like I had just stuck a fork in an electrical outlet. I tried to relax and enjoy the moment. After all, it had been a scene I had been playing out in my dreams since freshman year. It was everything and nothing like I expected it to be. My heart thumped against my chest, and my brain forgot how to make words. I couldn’t figure out what to do with my hands, but I was only vaguely aware of the fact that they were up in the air like I was being held at gunpoint.

  A guttural howl suddenly ripped through the darkness, and I involuntarily bit down on Wayne’s tongue. He pulled away from me with a start. A trickle of blood ran down his chin.

  “Oh my god! I am so sorry, Wayne.” I jumped up to grab the paper towels from the table.

  “Holy crap, Janie. You could have just pushed me away. You didn’t need to bite my freaking tongue off.”

  “I didn’t mean to. Didn’t you hear that noise?” I tore off a few paper towels and dabbed at Wayne’s chin.

  He took them from me and spit out a mouthful of blood. “It was probably just some stray dog.”

  “Really, Wayne. I am so sorry. That was... a really nice kiss.”

  “Up until you turned into Hannibal Lecter.”

  I was suddenly glad for the near darkness. My eyes began to water, and my cheeks were burning. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to. I think I’m going to go home now.”

  “It’s okay, Janie.” Wayne softened. “I’ll be fine. It’s already stopped bleeding.”

  “Goodnight, Wayne.” I tucked my hands in the pouch of my hoodie and hurried through our backyards, inside to my room, where I could die of humiliation in privacy.

  Nightmares

  Chapter 9

  Sunday morning I refused to come out of my room. I moaned and coughed and let my parents believe I had caught a cold. I couldn’t bear to sit through church next to Wayne so soon after ruining our first kiss. I was already dreading lunch on Monday.

  I waited for my parents to leave before I sulked around the kitchen to fix myself a bowl of cereal. Then I sprawled out across the living room sofa and watched some random trash talk show. There were two women fighting over some fat, balding guy. One of them tore off the other’s wig. Then the show host revealed that they were distant cousins. I still didn’t feel better.

  Chloe’s parents weren’t churchgoers, so I finally worked up the nerve to call her.

  “How’d your barbeque date go?”

  “It wasn’t a date. Well, I didn’t think it was a date.”

  “Ohhhh. This sounds promising. Do tell.”

  “Wayne kissed me. It was awful.”

  “Or I could be wrong.”

  I groaned. “Some... thing made a noise. I freaked out and bit him.”

  “Kinky.” She laughed.

  “Not.”

  “First kisses are supposed to be messy. They’re a rite of passage.”

  “Yeah, but they’re not supposed to be bloody.” I rolled over on the couch and buried my face in the cushions.

  “Bloody? Wow. You really did bite him.” She was so not helping.

  “He’ll probably never speak to me again.”

  “He’ll get over it.”

  The garage door opened and I heard a trash can tip over. My parents must have decided against breakfast brunch with the Russells.

  “I gotta go.”

  Chloe laughed again. “Don’t worry yourself sick. This will work itself out. You’ll see.”

  I hung up and clicked off the television before dragging myself off the couch. I had already decided to fake the plague in hopes of skipping out on school Monday, but when I emerged in the kitchen, there was no one waiting to witness my pathetic theatrics.

  “Hello? Mom? Dad?”

  The floor upstairs creaked. I must have looked more miserable than I’d been shooting for this morning. They were already checking in on me. I headed up to my room.

  “I was just napping on the couch,” I said. Soft snickering trickled down the hallway, and my bedroom door was closed. That was weird. I pushed it open slowly.

  Matilda Hunt’s rotting corpse lay on my bed. Her limbs sprawled out like a rag doll. The stitches along the left side of her face were red and uneven, and I could see the pins that held her broken leg together, pressing through muddy white tights. Her dirty blond curls fanne
d out over my pillows, and Herbert and Gertrude were nestled in under her armpits. They were contaminated now. I would have to give them a proper burning and burial in the backyard, and I wasn’t happy about it.

  The bigger question, the one about how the rotting corpse of my arch nemesis ended up in my bed, was too large and abstract for me to grasp right away. Surely Denise and Danielle wouldn’t have gone through this much trouble to torture me, I thought. Soft snickering brushed through the air again, and then it moved. Matilda freaking Hunt’s corpse sat up in my bed and grinned at me with its filmy fish eyes. I wet myself.

  “Seriously, Janie? What are you, like, in preschool?” Matilda glanced down at my crotch and curled her nose up, tossing one of the tainted bunnies across the room at me. I let it bounce off my stomach and tumble to the floor, too frozen and grossed out to attempt a catch.

  “You’re dead.” It was the most painfully obvious and stupid thing to say, so naturally, I had to say it.

  Matilda rolled her eyes. “You noticed that, did you?” She hopped up off my bed, which I was pretty sure needed to be burned now too, and pressed her face into the mirror above my vanity. She tried out one of her movie star smiles, the kind I’d often witnessed her practicing in the bathroom at school, but her formerly bright whites were dingy and stained with old blood. A little gasp wheezed through her, and she gave the mirror a hurt scowl.

  “You’re dead,” I said again, because I couldn’t think of anything more clever to say.

  “I still look better than you,” she snarled at me.

  I laughed then, surprising us both. “No, Matilda. For once, I can honestly say that you most certainly do not look better than me. I could roll in dog crap—I could go dumpster diving, and I would still look and smell better than you do right now.”

  Matilda struck like a cobra. It was a solid right hook, and it split my lip wide open. I didn’t even see it coming. I stumbled back a step. Matilda followed, tripping over the forgotten bunny, and fell into me, tangling her veiny, mud-caked hands in my tee shirt. I shrieked, trying to twist out of her grasp. I ended up pulling us both to the floor, and I felt one of her ribs crack as I landed on top of her. She didn’t even flinch.