Scarlett White (15 page)

"Mom, what...are you doing?"
up? Aren't you expecting a headache...like now?
Scarlett desperately wanted to say the last part, but she bit her tongue.

"Who is this?" Rosa ignored her daughter's question and glared at Tristan.

"Um...I'm Tristan Cox. I go to school with—"

"What are you doing in my house?" Rosa rudely interrupted him, glaring at him with her bloodshot eyes.

"I...uh..."

"Mom, he just saved my life," Scarlett said, hopping down off the counter. "I...uh...tripped over my bed." Wow, that sounded silly.

"I can hardly believe that," Rosa said.

"It's true, mom—"

"GET OUT!" Rosa now yelled at Tristan, completely off the handle and absolutely unexpected. "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE NOW!" Rosa was pointing at the front door and glaring at Tristan angrily.

Tristan looked back at Scarlett, his eyes pleading.

Scarlett shook her head sadly. "Just go, Tristan," she finally whispered.

Tristan shot her a dismayed glance and then looked back into Rosa's enraged eyes and decided he had worn out his welcome, though he thought Rosa would never have even welcomed him in the first place.

When Tristan was long gone, Rosa began screaming at her daughter, "WHY DID YOU LET HIM IN? YOU KNOW I HATE GUESTS! AND AT ONE IN THE MORNING! SCARLETT, WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?"

Scarlett, now engulfed in so many tears, didn't even bother to answer her mother's outrageous questions though it was true that Tristan shouldn't have been there this early in the morning. Wait, scratch that—Tristan shouldn't even have been there any time during the twenty-four hours in a day.

"Mom, I have to finish my homework," Scarlett interrupted her mother in mid-sentence, and before her mother could respond, she ran up the stairs to her room, flung the door shut, and fell onto her bed crying.

This one night had felt like an entire millennium. Watching 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' felt like ages ago, but it had only been a couple of hours ago.

She didn't know how she was going to face Tristan the next day at school. What was she supposed to do? Ignore him like usual? Apologize for her mothers' irrational behavior? Tell him the story? Was it time for that? She had only been holding it in four years now. And if Tristan didn't remember—which, by the way, didn't seem realistic; who could forget something like that?—maybe she should explain to him why she hated him. It wasn't fair to him for her hate him for no apparent reason. But there was a reason. He ruined her life.

Tristan couldn't wait to get to school the next day. He had felt bad leaving Scarlett to deal with her mother, but that wouldn't be the first thing he was going to apologize to her for. He was going to apologize for throwing rocks at her window, for causing her to trip over her bed in her room, for the wound the fall had given her, for making her cry (though he still didn't know why; but he was
GOING
to find out), and then lastly for leaving her with her angry—no, scratch that—enraged mother.

While Tristan waited in the school parking lot for Scarlett, his heart did an odd, little number. When he saw her on the back of a motorcycle driven by none other than Francis Rogers, Tristan felt the blood rush to his face, and his heartbeat sped up some. Francis Rogers was a very popular senior at the school. What the hell had he seen in Scarlett than nobody else had?
The same exact thing that you see in her now,
an annoying voice whispered in the back of his , they were dating. And for some odd reason, his knuckles turned white on the steering wheel of his car from squeezing so tightly.

When the bike came to a complete stop, Tristan marched right up to Scarlett and Francis.

When Scarlett saw him, her face changed. Her completely happy expression from the exhilarating ride she had just taken changed to a horror-stricken look. She looked from Tristan to Francis and back to Tristan. She reminded Tristan of a deer caught in the headlights.

Scarlett gulped and then said, "Um...hi, Tristan."

But Tristan wasn't looking at Scarlett; he was looking—okay, more like glaring—at Francis.

Scarlett sucked in her breath and said, "Are we back in second grade having an eye staring contest?" And this got both of the boys' attention. "Thank you. Now, Francis, can you...um...give us some privacy for just one second."

"What?" he asked.

"I didn't think you had a hearing problem. But if I must, I shall repeat myself. Can you
please
give Tristan and me some privacy? I need to clear something up with him." It was rude, but Francis glanced at Tristan and then left. Scarlett let out her breath and leaned against the bike.

"Why did Francis drive you to school?" Tristan's voice sounded hurt and broken.

"My car is here and...never mind, I don't need to explain myself to you, thank you very much."

"Oh, no you don't. You are keeping too many secrets from me as it is. What is the other reason?"

Scarlett looked directly into Tristan's brown orbs and said, "Francis and I are going out."

Tristan was left speechless. "Why?" he finally asked.

"Why? Did you seriously just ask me that? Well, because he's nice and considerate and smart. He's kind to me and...and...there are a lot of more reasons than just that; it's just my head hurts."

Tristan looked up and saw a large bandage covering her wound.

"Oh, no, Tristan," Scarlett saw the pain in his eyes, "My head doesn't hurt because of that. It hurts because...because I have a lot on my mind right now."

"Are you going to tell me why you hate me?" Tristan finally asked, trying to change the subject to what they had been discussing last night.

Scarlett took a deep breath, "I guess—" But before she could say anything else, the school bell rang. "Um...maybe, later," Scarlett said, grabbing her book bag and walking into the school building after kissing Francis goodbye.

All during English Lit, Scarlett could feel Francis's stare on the back of her neck. God, what had she gotten herself into? Tristan was bugging her to tell him what had happened between them. Scarlett just couldn't believe that Tristan had forgotten. What he had done had ruined her. Nobody looked at her the same since then. And now Francis's stares were turning more and more into daggers.

Scarlett took a deep breath to calm her senses. She just needed a break from all of this drama. And now her head was starting to hurt more. Scarlett gave up on trying to concentrate on what their professor was talking about and put her head in her hands.

And with Tristan pressuring her to retell her horrible past, all of the memories of eighth grade flooded back into Scarlett's mind. Tears were trying to make their way to the front of Scarlett's eyes, but she pushed them back.

There was also another thing that was bothering Scarlett. Why did Tristan keep making those faces all the time? She had never seen Tristan make that kind of face. She had no idea what it meant, but it wasn't any emotion that she had ever seen on his face before, such as happiness, boredom, exhaustion, glee, pride, excitement, coolness, selfishness, and then, of course, was the face of pure giddiness that he always wore after he had just finished doing a girl in some abandoned classroom or janitor's closet. But there was a certain glint in his brown eyes that Scarlett had never seen before that had popped up when he looked at her. There was a certain tranquil, almost kind, gleam that entered his eyes, but then in an instant it was gone.

Scarlett tried again to pay attention to her teacher. And this is exactly what she heard, "Blah blah blah blah, and then Odysseus and So-and-so concocted a blah blah plan to blah blah the Trojans..." Soon enough, the inevitable occurred, and Scarlett's attention span collapsed, sending her back to four years ago.

This is pointless,
Scarlett thought,
just fake sick and go home.

What about that stupid scholarship I have been working to get for the past three years?
Another part of Scarlett thought.

Fine then, relive your horrid memories.

You know, you really need to see a medical doctor. Normal people don't have conversations in their heads.

Scarlett huffed and picked her previously abandoned pen back up and began to copy down what the teacher was writing on the white board about the fall of Troy.

Finally third period ended, and it was lunchtime. Ginny and Scarlett walked into the lunchroom and headed for their usual spot at the table with Kate and Meghan. But before they were halfway across the cafeteria, Scarlett stopped dead in her tracks. Tristan was sitting next to Kate at their table, and Francis was sitting at the 'popular' table, beckoning frantically to Scarlett. Scarlett's face turned into a mixture of confusion and distraction as her green eyes darted from Tristan to Francis. She knew exactly whom she should go sit with—her boyfriend at the popular table, obviously—but what really perplexed her was the longing to sit at her usual, 'loser' table where Tristan unexpectedly was sitting.

Damn it,
Scarlett thought. If Tristan hadn't come over to her house this morning, she wouldn't have thought twice about going over to sit with Francis. But now she was stumped as to where she should sit.

Ginny giggled and said, "It's a good thing you're wearing the jeans that show off your ass because it looks like you have two boys—"

"Ginny, before you say anything that will result in a black eye..." Scarlett let the incomplete sentence settle into Ginny's mind before she added, "Just help me. P.S. the only reason I wore these jeans was because I was going to be riding a motorcycle."

"Don't interrupt me; that's rude. I suggest sitting at the popular table. You haven't had a chance like that since...well, I'm sure you don't want that brought back up again—oops, I just brought it up, sorry—and P.S. How was the ride? And don't try to pull that off with me. You're wearing a tight shirt, too. You're showing off your naturally hot body on purpose."

"Am not."

"Are to."

"Am not."

"Shut up and just agree with me."

"Fine. I agree. But won't Tristan get hurt?"

"Don't you hate him? Ever since, like, eighth grade?" Ginny stopped and looked at her straight in the eyes.

"I...Yes, I do. Good point. Thanks for the reminder. I'm sitting with Francis. Tell Kate and Meghan I'm sorry."

"Will do."

Scarlett headed off to the table with Francis, and he wrapped his arm around Scarlett's waist as she sat down. Scarlett's heart beat wildly. She hadn't sat with this group of people since...the incident. She doubted the 'populars' even remembered her sitting with them...

"Hey, Starlet, right?" Libby asked.

Scarlett gawked at her, but recovered before anyone realized, "Um...not exactly. It's Scarlett. You don't remember?"

"Remember what?" Libby looked slightly concerned as she picked up a small pea from her plate and placed it lightly on her tongue. Scarlett momentarily wondered why she was eating pea by pea, but then she noticed Libby's thinning arms and baggy clothes. The yellowing of her eyes was a big giveaway as well. Libby was becoming anorexic. Scarlett closed her eyes briefly and remembered the happy, chocolate-loving Libby she knew from middle school.
Well,
Scarlett thought,
I guess that Libby's gone now.