After Obsession (7 page)

And it answered: “The River Man.”

Hayley finds me outside the door to bio. Her hair is all crazy because she has PE first period. She grabs my hands. “You’re limping.”

I shrug.

“You broke up with Blake this morning.” She makes it a statement.

“Yeah …” I start and stop because Alan’s super-big self is suddenly there. Something flutters in my stomach. His eyes meet my eyes. He takes in the dirt on my jeans and his mouth starts to form a question, but then he clamps it shut again. Instead, he just nods and ducks his head, fast-walking into bio like he’s embarrassed to see me or something.

“Did he hit you?” Hayley says.

I have to do a double take. “What?”

She gets insistent. “Did Blake hit you? You’re walking funny. Your jeans are dirty. And people are, well, talking. Did he hit you?”

“He dragged me out of the car,” I whisper, because I can’t hold it inside anymore.

Hayley’s mouth drops open. Then she grabs me, crushing me to her chest. “Oh, baby … I am so sorry. Oh, that asshole. I never thought he’d be like that—not ever. Oh, Aimee.”

“It’s okay.” I sniff. She smells like rain.

“No, it’s not. It’s not okay,” she whispers as people move by us into class. “It is never okay. You know we all have times where we freak out a little, get moody, whatever, but throwing you out of the car is not okay, Aimee.”

“I know. That’s not what I mean. It’s just … I’m okay.”

She pushes me away to look into my eyes. “You’re crying. You are not okay.”

I have no answer.

“Girls. Class.” Mr. Swanson is totally ignoring my teary face, which is nice of him, I guess, or else that’s just a symptom of what Courtney was talking about.

We walk into the classroom. I’m still limping. Hayley goes to her seat by the window. I slide into my desk behind Alan. He turns to look at me. His eyes are huge and deep and questioning. I try to smile but can’t quite do it.

“You okay?” he mouths.

I do this fast nod. His eyes narrow the tiniest bit. I can tell he doesn’t believe me. Opening my bag, I grab some gum and put it in my mouth. Then I take out my notebook and a pen and write:
Five minutes. I’ll pretend to faint. You take me to nurse’s office. Okay?

When Mr. Swanson turns to the wipe board I reach forward and slide the note over Alan’s shoulder. He catches it.

There. Step one, done.

•
8
•

ALAN

I read the note one more time, then fold it once, twice, and stick it between some middle pages of my biology book before I check out the clock. Five minutes. I try to focus on Swanson, but I’m really just staring blankly at him, thinking about Aimee.

There’s something wrong with her. Her jeans are covered in dirt that looks ground in, and she limped when she came into class. There’d been talk in first hour, talk about her and Blake. Someone said they’d seen him hit her. Someone else said that would never happen. I wondered. Granted, I barely know the guy, but he—

I sense Aimee standing up behind me.

“Mr. Swanson,” she says, “I don’t feel—”

She’s taken a step forward and is beside me when she crumples sideways. I catch her as I’m standing up. Dead silence. All eyes are on us as I hold her up, clamped against my chest, her cheek pressed hard against my medicine bag. The world shimmers and slams just like the last time I touched her. Images swarm into my mind, a river, being pulled deep into the water, a man’s voice … It’s not quite as powerful as last time, but it freezes me for a second. Then I shake myself out of it.

“I’ll take her to the nurse,” I announce, then put an arm behind her knees and scoop her up. She’s so light! I hold her high enough that her feet won’t kick anyone in the face and head for the door.

“Across from the front office,” Mr. Swanson calls as I push through the door. I guess he’s telling me where the nurse’s station is. I don’t know.

The classroom door closes and Aimee whispers, “Go left to the end of the hall and out the door.”

I move fast, passing closed doors with those little slits for windows. I can’t tell if anyone sees us. No one confronts us, and I keep moving until I get to the blue steel door at the end of the hall. I push it open with my hip and step into the cool morning air.

“Okay, you can put me down,” Aimee says.

I look down into her face and think about that. Her skin is so white and flawless, her eyes so green and bright and full of life. A little breeze ruffles her magnificent red hair. I don’t really want to put her down.

“You
were
limping,” I say. “Maybe I shouldn’t make you walk.”

She smiles up at me. What a smile! I mean, it sounds all mushy, I know, but damn, that girl has a smile that makes you want to smile right back at her.

“I’m good. Really,” she says, but she doesn’t wiggle or try to get out of my arms.

“Me, too.” Okay, I have to admit that I’m not usually so bold with girls. Looking into Aimee’s eyes, though, I know there is depth here. There’s already some kind of connection. “Where are we going?”

“You are so not going to carry me all the way,” she argues, but still, she’s not trying to get down. “You’ll get hurt.”

I lower her feet to the ground and let her go, then realize how warm she’d been against me. She crosses her arms over her chest and hunkers against the cool breeze.

“All right, but you start limping and I’m carrying you again.”

“Are you always so gallant, so knight-in-shining-armor?” she asks.

“Just bossy,” I answer, and I’m still smiling because she is.

“Come on,” she says. “Behind the field house.”

We dash across a short stretch of lawn and into the parking lot. I follow her lead, staying low between the parked vehicles. She’s limping, but managing to move pretty fast anyway. We get to the side of the field house and scooch along the wall like SWAT cops until we slide around to the back, where she collapses to the ground, her back against the cinderblock wall.

“You were limping,” I accuse.

“Yeah, but you couldn’t catch me.”

All I can do is laugh.

“What’s in the bag?” she asks, nodding toward my chest.

I touch the leather. “It’s a medicine bag. It’s kind of like a good-luck charm.”

“What’s in it? I mean, you don’t have to tell me. I’m sorry. I guess I’m just nosy. It smelled—” She stops, like she’s embarrassed to finish.

“Probably smelled like sweat,” I finish.

“Well, it smelled like you, but there was more. Kind of … earthy.”

I finger the bag, watching Aimee, but thinking back to Lake Thunderbird. Her eyes, so clear and green, promise me I can trust her.

“A rock,” I say, and my throat is surprisingly dry. I’ve never told anyone, not even Mom, what’s in the bag. “A white rock about as big as a robin’s egg. Some hair. And some dirt.”

Her eyes ask a question, but her mouth doesn’t. She nods.

I change the subject. “First off, Courtney wasn’t good this morning. She told her mom to fuck off and ran out of the house. She doesn’t like me.”

“That’s not normal. She’s not acting like Courtney, you know.” Aimee’s tone is very serious. “She would never say that to her mom … this thing with her dad has really changed her.”

“Tell me,” I urge. A bruise has formed on my spine from the picture hitting me and it hurts as I sit with my back against the wall.

“They were pretty close,” Aimee says. “You could tell he really loved her, like she was everything to him, and she loved him soooo much. Sometimes she’d even skip out on going to the movies or hanging out with us to go for a walk or play Monopoly with her dad. She was a total daddy’s girl.”

I’m listening, but I’m also thinking about my own father. I’m a little jealous. At least Courtney had her dad for fifteen years.

“She hasn’t accepted that he’s not going to come home,” Aimee says.

I nod.

“There’s more, though. Now she’s …” Aimee stops. I’d looked away. I was looking at the grass between my shoes, actually, just taking in what she was saying. Now I look up at her face again and I can see the confusion. Her voice is a whisper. It’s very, very sad. She’s really struggling with something big, struggling to say what she wants. I figure she’s wondering if I’ll think she’s weird.

“Do you know what a vision quest is?” I ask.

She smiles a little and admits she doesn’t, so I make myself man up and tell her about my vision quest and Onawa.

“Oh.” Her bright green eyes are clouded now, confused. I know that look. Usually that comes right before the girl says, “I have to go home and wash the dog, Alan. See ya.” But Aimee doesn’t say anything.

“Onawa showed me things. She showed me the spirit world. It was all dark, with ghosts moving in it. The ghosts were just kind of swirling around, like bubbles in boiling water. I don’t know. That sounds dumb, but that’s what I thought. Then she …” I pause and look away for a minute.

“What?” Aimee asks. “You can tell me. If you want to.”

“She told me someday I would be called Spirit Warrior. She doesn’t usually actually speak to me. She just shows me things, or, I don’t know, puts out a vibe? That sounds lame, but it’s kind of right. She gives me a feeling that sort of means something. That’s the only time she’s actually spoken. She said, ‘Someday they will call you Spirit Warrior.’ I’ve never admitted that to anyone. Why would I have a name like that?”

The clouds are gone from Aimee’s eyes and she is looking at me, steady and clear again. “Spirit Warrior.”

“Yeah. I—I can’t believe I just told you that … Anyway, I would have thought it was all just a dream, or just the peyote and hunger, you know. I’m not stupid. I know you can hallucinate just from being hungry enough. Add the drugs in there and, yeah, you could see anything, especially if …” I pause, but those big green eyes won’t let me stop. “You know, if it’s something you really, really want.”

“I understand,” she says, and I think she really does.

“Well, I would have just written the whole thing off as a weird trip and wishful thinking, but in the vision Onawa gave me a rock. A stone that looked like an egg. She said it was a symbol of me being reborn. When I woke up, I had this little white rock in my hand. It’s all smooth and white, just like a little egg.”

Aimee nods.

“Still, I thought it was a coincidence. You know, I was stumbling around, completely stoned, and found the rock and somehow added it to my hallucination. But then I saw the brown fur on a big rock. It was stuck there, like an animal had been scratching its back against the rock. And there in the mud beside the rock was one animal footprint. A big cat. A cougar. I knew it was a cougar.”

“So you put the hair, rock, and mud in your bag,” Aimee says, finishing my story.

“Yeah. That’s what I did. Most people would think that’s really weird.”

“I don’t,” she says, and I know she’s telling me the truth.

“I know you don’t. And that’s why you can tell me anything. Tell me about your dreams. I won’t think you’re weird.”

“You’ll be my spirit warrior?” She smiles, but it’s a small, hesitant smile.

I have to drop my eyes for a moment. I look back at her and try to smile but fail. “I don’t know. I’ll try.”

“Okay. If Court or anyone hasn’t told you already … my mom died a few years ago.” She swallows. “She was sick. It was a … a mental illness. Bipolar disorder. Everyone says she killed herself.”

I’d heard of that. “I’m sorry.”

“Afterward, me and Court and some other friends had a séance in my house because I missed her so much, you know, and I just wanted to see if she was okay. I don’t think any of us actually expected it to work or anything, you know? My dreams, or ‘psychic visions,’ started for real after that. It got really freaky. I mean, really freaky.”

“Your mom talked to you?”

“No! It wasn’t her. It was … something else. Something dark. I’d seen it before, at the river. It’s shaped like a man, but looks like it’s just a shadow. You know, a shadow that’s thick, like a man, but just shadow. And everyone freaked out. I know that makes no sense.”

I think back to what I saw in Courtney’s bedroom window last night. “He’s tall, with broad shoulders. Just kind of stands there looking at you and makes you feel cold.”

“You’ve seen him?” Her voice is hushed.

A cloud moves through the sky and covers us in shade for a few seconds. She jumps and clutches at my arm. I take her tiny hands in one of mine and squeeze gently.

“I saw him last night in Courtney’s bedroom window.”

“Oh … whoa!” Her hands in mine are suddenly rigid. “She talked about him today. She said I should be careful, so that he wouldn’t notice me again. He … I saw him before my mom died. She was at the river, and I saw him standing with her. Then at the séance …” She pauses and her eyes darken, like a cloud has crossed between them and the life-light that makes them shine. “Alan, I’m scared. I know that sounds really wussy, but I am. I’m scared.”

“It’ll be okay.” I’m not sure what to do. I squeeze her hands and say, “You know the bell’s gonna ring in a few minutes, right?”

“Really?” She slowly pulls her left hand away from me and looks at her watch. “We have to get back inside.”

I get up first and then haul her up beside me. As we walk back to school, I can’t wait any longer. “Is what they’re saying true?”

“What?” Those eyes tell me she knows exactly what I’m talking about. She tries to hide them from me. Her hair flops in front of her face.

“They said in first hour you broke up with Blake. That he beat you up.”

“I broke up with him,” she says. “He didn’t beat me up.”

“Why are you limping then?”

She swallows real hard. “He pulled me out of his car, which is not technically beating me up. Although, it’s probably assault or something and it is not cool. I was not cool with it.”

Her hands move to her forearms unconsciously but I notice. I take her left arm and carefully push the sleeve up to her elbow. When I touch her, there are tiny sparks of something that passes between us, but no visions.

She flinches but doesn’t pull away. The bruises are fresh and finger shaped. “That son of a bitch,” I say.

“He’s never been like this, been so angry or possessive. I think he’d get deranged if he even knew we were talking. It’s weird. I don’t even know who he is anymore. Courtney says that it’s not just him. She thinks everyone is acting strangely, more nasty, and I kind of think she’s right. That doesn’t excuse what he did at all. It just feels like something bigger is going on.” She reaches for the door handle but it’s locked. She gives me a terrified look.

“Crap. Does this mean we have to go in through the front door?” I ask.

Before she can answer, the door flies open, missing us by inches. Courtney stands in the doorway, glaring at us, a smirk on her face. There’s something odd. It takes me a moment to realize she’s broken out in a pretty nasty case of oozing acne.

“Court, what happened?” Aimee asks. “Your f—”

“You’ve been talking about me,” Courtney accuses.

Aimee starts to say something, but Courtney’s eyes roll up into her head and she collapses. She’s like a marionette whose strings just got cut. She sags to her knees, then flops forward, her head smacking the concrete in front of our feet.

“Court!” Aimee screams and drops to her knees. Inside the school a bell rings and people come spilling into the hallway. I crouch beside Courtney and roll her over. There’s blood pouring from a gash in her forehead. The skin around the wound is swelling fast. I grab her up.