Spellbound - Cara Lynn Shultz [29]
The rest of the weekend seemed like a never-ending ocean of time—all I wanted to do was get to school and see Brendan again. I distracted myself with homework for most of Saturday—even emailing Mrs. Urbealis a pretty big history paper about a week before it was due. My lack of a social life was turning out to be great for my grades. But thanks to Aunt Christine, I didn’t have to worry about filling the rest of the hours with distractions. I padded into the kitchen where Aunt Christine was sitting at the table, perusing takeout menus and working on Uncle George’s martini. (She drank both cocktails on Saturdays.)
“You need a haircut,” she surmised, swishing her martini around. “You’re starting to look like that girl from that movie you made me watch.”
I looked at her confused, then my eyes widened in horror. “The Ring?” I asked incredulously, touching my hair. It had gotten long and my ends were screaming out for a trim. But really, that bad?
“Yes, that’s it, dear. You look like the girl from The Ring. And not the blonde one,” she said, pointing a manicured pink fingernail at me. “The wet one. You need a haircut. Hand me the phone, dear. I’m going to see if I can sweet-talk Melissa into seeing you tomorrow afternoon. She sometimes takes special appointments on Sundays and with the amount of clients I’ve sent her way, I think she’ll squeeze you in. You can’t go around looking like you’re about to climb out of my television set.”
I chalked that last comment up to the martinis, pleased that when I did see Brendan, I’d have a nice new ’do. And it was a few more hours of diversion—where I didn’t have to think about how his shampoo smelled, or how he felt pressed up against me.
Monday morning, I carefully hung his hoodie in my locker, since it wouldn’t fit into my overstuffed backpack. It still smelled like that fresh, clean-rain scent, now mixed with the light beachy perfume my cousin had sprayed on me. I touched the sleeve and sighed—then stifled a giggle. What must I have looked like, standing near my musty basement locker like a gremlin? “My precious,” I snickered in an awestruck, strangulated Gollum-like way.
My thoughts continued to be unfocused throughout the morning. Absentmindedly, in math class, I was tap-tap-tapping my pen on the coils of my spiral notebook, not really paying attention to anything Mr. Agneta said, until Jenn whipped around and slammed her hand on top of my pen. I was taken aback.
“Too…loud,” she hissed in a raspy voice, and I noticed her eyes were bloodshot.
“You okay?” I whispered.
“Long night.” She grimaced, then paused. “Did I… I saw you this weekend, didn’t I?”
“Yeah, Jenn, by the Met, on Friday.”
She looked dumbfounded. “Oh. I don’t really remember.” She turned back to her notebook, then whipped back around at me. “Wait, did I do anything stupid?”
“I wasn’t there that long,” I said, realizing this wasn’t what she wanted to hear. “I mean, while I was there, you were fine.” I considered my statement and amended it. “Well, fine-ish. You were having fun. It’s okay. Most people were drunk.”
“Well, that’s a relief. I remember nothing.” She paused again. “Hey, haircut!” Jenn exclaimed. “It looks nice.”
“Girls, is there something you’d like to share with the class?” Mr. Agneta interjected, staring at us and tapping the large chalk protractor against the board.
“No sir,” we both replied.
“Well, since you’re already done with your work, Miss Connor, perhaps you can tell me the answer to this equation?” Mr. Agneta glared at me.
I looked at the jumble of x’s and y’s on the board and tried to bluff my way out of this.
“Uh…pi?” I asked, hopefully.
He grimaced, his mouth set in an angry line. “It would be nice if you paid attention, Miss Connor.” All discussion was clearly on hold until later.
I slid into my desk in English, where Cisco greeted me warmly. Jenn, for her part, was looking greener by the second. Suddenly, all those times when she kept her head down and didn’t talk to me made total sense: she was completely hungover. Often.
“You guys, I really gotta get out