Sweet Evil (The Sweet Trilogy #1)(11)

I couldn’t hide the physical side effects of everything I went through, but Patti nurtured me through it all with no questions. She brushed my long hair with care when my sense of touch developed; it felt like each tangle would mangle my scalp forever. It hurt to move my arms because of the sensitive skin and muscle.

When a plague of migraines came and I couldn’t keep food down, Patti somehow got her hands on serious prescription-strength painkillers that would supposedly knock out a grown man and have him sleeping for hours. After the first one, I felt a blessed sense of drowsy relief for about twenty minutes, then the blistering pain broke through again. Patti was horrified when she found out I’d taken six in one afternoon. The label warnings said to take no more than two per day. After she took them away, I searched the house with a blind obsession all week, but never found them.

Each physical sense got easier to rein in as I gained focus. Eventually I was able to use my normal sensory levels at all times unless I chose to strengthen them, which might have been fun if there was someone to share it with. Only there wasn’t.

The hazy little clouds were everywhere, following people. Every person had one. I stared at them outright all day, which I’m sure made me seem even weirder than usual.

I watched Jay’s move around him as I switched books at my locker.

“What’s up, birthday girl?” he asked, glancing around himself. “Do I got a spitball on me or something?”

“No, nothing. Sorry.” I forced my eyes to his face. “I’m getting my license today.”

“Sweet. Good thing Patti’s car is a stick shift. That means you can drive mine, too.”

“Good thing,” I agreed. Jay’s car was a clunker. It made Patti’s old sedan look mint.

I slammed my locker and we let ourselves be herded by the crowd to our classes. When Jay wasn’t looking, I discreetly reached out to touch the white cloud in front of me, and my hand went through it. I turned to Jay.

“Want to go to that end-of-the-year party next Friday?” I asked him. He bumped knuckles with the president of the drama club going the opposite direction. A girl from the dance team swung her locker closed and gave Jay a flirty look as we passed. He stared over his shoulder at her before returning to our conversation.

“The one at Gene’s? You really want to?”

“Yeah, I think so,” I said. “If Patti will let me.”

We were at my class now. Jay hitched his thumbs under the straps of the backpack on his shoulders.

“Listen.” He hesitated. “Just... watch out for Scott, okay?”

Huh?

“Wait a sec,” I said. “How can you get all excited about someone like Kaidan Rowe, but warn me about someone like Scott McCallister?”

Jay looked down and scuffed the floor with the toe of his tennis shoe, making it squeak.

“You don’t hear him in the PE locker room when it’s just the guys.”

“Oh.” I pondered this. “Does he say things about me?”

“No, not you. You think I’d let him do that?” He pulled his eyes away from me. “Look, never mind. Just forget I said anything.”

I wondered whether Jay was jealous of Scott—not over me, but just in general. Scott was popular, but then again, so was Jay in a different way. I’d never sensed jealousy from Jay about anything. His color now was only a mild grayish brown of worry.

“I’ll be careful,” I promised. “And you’ll be there, too. And I bet Kaylah will go....”

“All right, all right,” he said. “We’ll go.”

He left me, running down the hall to his class before the tardy bell. His white cloud trailed close behind him.

I slipped into my own class just in time, blinking at the roomful of floating mists around my classmates. Those were going to take some getting used to. It was World History, and we were assigned group work. I had this class with Gene, so I decided to take advantage of the mild chaos of desks being moved and people shuffling places.

“Hey, Gene?” I whispered.

He looked up and gave me a nod. He was short and muscular, like Scott, from wrestling, though Gene was in a lighter weight class.

“My mother, um... she kind of wants to talk to your mom about the party. To make sure it’s going to be supervised and all that.” I tried not to cringe. His eyebrows went up for a second.

“Yeah, I hear you, girl.” He tore off a corner of his paper. “Have her call this number the day before the party. Just tell her that my ma works crazy hours, so that’ll be the best day to reach her. Cool?”

I felt giddy as I thanked him, slipping the paper in my pocket and heading for my group.

CHAPTER FOUR

LAKE PARTY

The next Friday was our last day of school, and it was sticky-hot. Dusk brought little relief from the muggy heat. The air conditioner in Jay’s car pushed out lukewarm air even on its coldest setting. My feet were propped on his dusty dashboard on our way to Gene’s lake house. I fanned us both with an old french-fry box from the floor that still smelled like grease.

I’d never been to a lake house, though I’d been to the lake plenty of times for church picnics, or afternoons with Patti. I always enjoyed the serenity of the winding drive thick with trees.

We turned down a bumpy gravel road and made our way toward the lights of other cars and a beautiful, massive log cabin. It was getting darker now as we parked and got out. Crickets, frogs, and cicadas serenaded us from all directions in the moist, warm air.