The Unquiet (28 page)

“Ask me what?” I demand after she hangs up.

“Tasha gave you some yearbooks? And one of Millie’s scrapbooks?”

My stomach sinks. “Uh, yeah.”
And Tasha promised me she’d never miss them.

“Well, Millie wants them back.”

“Okay,” I say casually, rooting around for cereal. Mom forgot to buy Cocoa Puffs. In fact, there’s no cereal left at all. “What am I supposed to eat?” Not another soft-boiled egg, I hope.

Mom ignores that. “What were you doing with them?”

“Just looking. I never saw
your
yearbook,” I add defensively. “I was curious, that’s all.”

“Is that why you took that scrapbook, too?”

“I didn’t
take
it. Tasha let me borrow it.” I feel like a traitor.

“She had no business doing that. Those books belong to her mother.”

“Fine! Okay! I’ll give ’em back.” Wow, you’d think I committed a federal offense.

“Bring them to me,” Mom says sternly.

“Now?”

“Now.”

Ticked off, I march upstairs and dig the yearbooks and Annaliese’s scrapbook out from under a pile of clothes. Then I march back down and thrust the stack at my mother.

She thumbs first through the yearbooks, then through the scrapbook. Then she repeats the whole process, examining every page. “Is this all?”

“Yes!” I viciously pop bread into the toaster. “I don’t see what the big deal is.”

“You didn’t find any pictures? Anything in an envelope? Because Millie swears she’s missing some pictures.” I shake my head. “Are you sure they didn’t fall out?”

“There were
no pictures
! Why would I lie?”

“I’m not saying you are,” Mom says patiently. “But Millie’s beside herself.”

“What are they? Nude pics of the cheerleading squad? One of those
Girls Gone Wild
things?”

She presses her lips shut. Then: “She didn’t say. But they’re very important to her.”

My toast pops, barely browned. I slam the lever again.
“Well, I don’t have them and I don’t know anything about them.”

Mom stacks the books on the table, Annaliese on top. She fingers the cover like she’s reading Braille.

When she says nothing else, I paste on a cheery smile. “Mom, I’m not traumatized. I just wanted to find out about Annaliese.
You
didn’t tell me much.”

“It was so long ago,” Mom murmurs. “I try not to think about her. It’s over and done with. I’d like it to stay that way.” Before I can question this, my toast pops again, this time black and crispy. Mom scowls. “We need a new toaster.” Then she grabs her coat from the hook in the back hall and gathers up Millie’s books. “I’ll drop these off to her now. See you at school, honey.”

“It was the weirdest thing,” I tell Nate on the way to school. “She completely freaked out. And she wouldn’t even tell me what kind of pictures they
were
.” I grab his arm when I slip on a sneaky patch of ice. “I mean, I know she was kind of wild, but—Nate, what if they’re porno pics? And they’re floating around town?”

Nate laughs as he steadies me. “Your mom? Nah. She’d never be that stupid.”

She got knocked up with me. That was pretty stupid
.

“Want to go riding after school? Dad and I are off for our annual hunting trip Thursday, and, well, I won’t see you till next week.”

“Thursday’s Thanksgiving. What about Millie’s pig fest?”

“Oh, don’t worry. She already sent over a truckload of goodies.”

“I can’t believe you
hunt
,” I complain. “How can you watch those poor little bunnies bleeding to death?”

“They don’t bleed to death, Surf. I’m a pretty good shot.”

“And I’m so not impressed.”

No PE today because the teacher’s out sick. Apparently there’s no such thing around here as a last minute substitute. So Tasha and I sit in the back row during our impromptu study hall, avoiding the eagle eye of Mrs. Schimmler. Tasha calls her Frau Schimmler; she has her for German.

“Did your mom find the pics?” I whispers.

“Nope, and she was up all night tearing the place apart.” Tasha props her German book up on end so Schimmler will think she’s studying. “Man, she went
ballistic
on me. You’d think we ripped off a Picasso or something.”

“
You
said she wouldn’t miss that stuff.”

“Well, now she’s planning some dumb reunion. That’s the only reason.” She lowers her voice when Schimmler clears her throat. “Anyway, who cares? She’s gonna be even madder at me tonight.”

“Why?”

“Because I made up my mind. I’m not competing anymore.” She recites this monumental decision so casually, my jaw drops. “I’m tired of it, period. And I’m telling her that tonight.”

“But what about the Olympics? You told me a thousand times—”

Tasha sticks out her tongue. “Kid stuff. I’ll never make the Olympics. Just like Meg’s never gonna cheer for Dallas.”

“You can’t just quit because one bad thing happened.”

“Oh yes I can,” she snaps.

It’s happening to her, too. I can feel it.

“Tash,” I whisper. She buries her face behind her book as Mrs. Schimmler sniffs the air, searching for the source of the whispering. “You said yourself you think Annaliese might be getting to you. But now that we
know
what’s happening, maybe we can stop it.”

Tasha snorts without trying to be discreet. Schimmler cracks her palms together. “Silence back there!”

Tasha won’t look at me. I sigh, open Lindsay McCormick’s
Twilight
—I’m halfway through it—and pretend to read, but my churning stomach makes it hard to concentrate. Tasha blew
one
crummy competition, so now she’s giving up diving forever?

Is it because she’s upset about Meg? Could that be clouding her thinking?

I hope that’s it. And not something else.

After horseback riding, I laze on the couch in the stable lounge while Nate nukes water for cocoa. “Who’s taking care of the horses if you’re gonna be gone for four days?”

“Got a couple buddies from school lined up.” He hands me my cocoa and sits down. “How’s Tasha doing?”

“Okay, I guess.” I don’t mention Tasha’s decision. “She’s upset about regionals. And about Meg, of course. She doesn’t really talk about her, though.”

“Neither do you,” he says gently.

I sip from my steaming mug. No, I don’t. But that doesn’t mean I don’t remember the blood on her, or how she stared
at me with that strange, dead expression. “You don’t want to hear what I have to say, anyway.”

“Which is?”

“That what happened to her makes one
more
bad thing that’s happened around here.”

Nate groans. Before I can jump all over him for his maddening indifference, he takes my mug away and then jumps on
me
, pulling me to the floor. He rolls me onto the big dead bear by the fire and kisses me lightly.

Then, less lightly.

Breathless, overwhelmed, I forget to be mad at him.

When things start to get
wa-a-ay
too hot, I reluctantly pull my cardigan back on. Nate watches with one of his hands resting on my knee.

It’s too soon.

How unlike the “old” Rinn Jacobs to think such a thing.

His teasing fingers trail further up my thigh. “Are we finished here?”

“Yeah, it’s late. I need to get home and—”

The rest of it hits me like a bullet to the brain:
TAKE MY PILLS!

Why didn’t I put it together before this?

“I’m stupid. I am so, so stupid!”

“Little hard on yourself, eh, surfer girl?”

“Nate, it’s the pills! Miss Prout sat by that pool every day and never said a word about Annaliese till she stopped taking her pills.”

“What pills?”

“I don’t know! Antidepressants? Bennie said she cried a lot after, and talked to herself, and then she got all hung up on
Annaliese
.” Words tumble out of me. “And Bennie takes stuff for seizures! You said yourself he hangs around the tunnel and nothing happens to him. Nothing happens to me, either. Because
I
take stuff, too.”

It makes so much sense! All those mind-altering drugs to block out the Voices, to jolt my brain chemicals into alignment—how could anything, even a ghost, penetrate that fortress?

“Like a safety shield, a gate,” I muse. “Bennie and me, we’re perfectly safe.”

“You’re perfectly out of your skull.” Nate adds in a sexy growl, “I mean that, of course, in the most adoring way.”

I stare at the popping embers in the hearth. “What about Jared?” Disgusted at my indifference to his attention, Nate scoffs, but with a tight, evasive expression. “What?” I tug his T-shirt and then straddle his lap when he ignores me. “You
know
, right? What does Jared take?”

He rests his chin on my shoulder. I feel his muscles relax, and then I know, at last, he’s crossing over to my side. “Jared’s ADHD. He’s been taking stuff since kindergarten.”

“I knew it!” Then I’m speechless, stunned by the clarity of the situation. The pure, absolute understanding of what I need to do next.

Nate grasps my chin. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Aha! So you
do
believe me.”

“Who cares? Don’t you dare stop your pills.”

“But what if it proves …?”

“Proves
what?
That you don’t have a brain in your head? I mean it, Rinn. Promise me.” At my disbelieving look, he warns,
“You want me to tell your mom? You want her to count every pill?”

“Then do something for me,” I beg. “I want to get back into that pool room.”

“Why?”

“To prove I’m immune. But I need you nearby in case … well, just in case.”

Nate drags his shirt down over his head. “No way.”

“If you
don’t
believe me, what are you worried about?”

“Oh, where do I start?”

“You don’t have to come in with me. I don’t want you to, anyway.” Yeah, just what I need: something to happen to Nate. “Just watch and wait. Tie something around me in case you have to pull me out.”

“Tie something? No. No way.”

“Nate,
please.
”

Rigid, he moves away from me then. “I’m not gonna be a part of this, Rinn.”