Chapter 50

If asked later, Aleda would not have been able to say which part was harder. The confrontation and subsequent arguments with her father were gut-wrenching and horrible, but at least with him she had Seth and Mom to calm him down a bit. Seth stayed at their house that night, then caught a ride with Papá’s boss to the nearest airport. He was going back to Spain with Aunt Fioralba and her companion. Mom, of course, was always around and had a little more influence over Papá. It was enough that Aleda didn’t have to actually worry about her Papá killing her for real.

If all of that was awful, though, she didn’t even know how to describe the next morning.

The next morning was Friday. She had to go to school.

She had to see Nate.

The day started like any other. She got up at a damnable hour, grateful to at least see the light of day when she woke, and took a shower. Got dressed. Ate breakfast. Walked to school. Mara met her at her locker and talked to her for a few minutes about her new lighter before she disappeared to her own homeroom. Aleda was one of the first people in the classroom. She had her pick of seats. She debated, for a minute or two, where to sit. While they didn’t have assigned seating, they did have usual seats. Her usual seat was right next to Nate’s usual seat, far in the back of the classroom.

Merciful heaven, she did not want to have to deal with Nate. She found herself wishing she had just gone ahead and left with Ryan the night before. They could probably be a few states away by now, if not in some other country. Hop an airplane and hide in the luggage and arrive in… Guatemala, maybe. Or Fiji. Although that would be an awfully long flight.

She succumbed to tradition and sat down in her usual place. The quicker she did this, the quicker it would all be over with, right? Except… she really didn’t want to have this conversation in the middle of a classroom, in the middle of a whole lot of other kids.

She dropped her head onto the desk and tried to think. It didn’t work.

Nate eventually walked in. Of course. She kept her head down. Maybe she could pretend to be asleep. Maybe she could keep her head down all day and avoid him until after school and then she just wouldn’t have to deal with it. At least she wouldn’t have to deal with it until after school. Tell him to come talk to her in the library. Nobody ever went in there.

She felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Hey, Leda, can we talk?” said Nate’s voice. He didn’t sound too happy. She refused to look up.

“Right now?” she mumbled. Okay, so obviously he had heard about what happened yesterday from his parents. She’d just have to bank on his instinct to keep up appearances in front of people to leave her be until they could talk somewhere less public.

“I guess not,” he replied. “Later, then. Lunch?”

“We have different lunch periods,” she protested to the desk.

“I’ll skip out of Spanish. No biggie.”

“Fine.”

And that was that.

Homeroom didn’t take very long. In first period she tuned out completely. In English class, Nate went back to where he used to sit, in the back corner in the middle of all his friends. Mara, sitting behind her, immediately demanded to know what was going on and pestered her throughout the period in order to get her to fess up. Aleda finally distracted her with a doodled and unflattering portrait of the pre-calculus teacher.

Chemistry, fortunately, took up all of their combined attention anyway. The solution they were experimenting with that week had Mara completely rapt, and, as always, Aleda spent the entire class making sure that the girl didn’t burn or dump acid on anything important.

Then it was drawing class.

Then lunch.

She picked at her sandwich nervously. Nate hadn’t actually said where he was going to meet her, although she assumed he’d come to the cafeteria. Val tried to ask her about spring break, but Aleda wasn’t paying her any attention. She just kept looking towards the entrance to the cafeteria. After a couple of minutes she finally saw Nate poke his head around the corner and glance into the large room.

“Hey, Val?” she said, looking at the pink-haired girl at last.

“Yup yup?”

“Do you think you could go distract the proctors for a minute?” she asked. “I gotta duck out of here for a minute.”

“Yeah, sure,” Val said. “No problem. Where’re you headed?”

“I’m… ah… meeting Nate.”

Val grinned knowingly. “Nice,” she said. “Have fun! Just give me a minute…” She got up and walked towards the table where the few unlucky teachers assigned to that duty were watching the cafeteria from one end. Aleda didn’t notice what it was she did to draw their attention. She just got up and walked as quickly as she dared past the table and through the cafeteria door. Nate met her in the hall.

“Want to go to the library?” he asked. “Nobody in there, at least on the second floor.”

“Yeah, sure,” Aleda said.

They walked in awkward silence to the library, ducking in and up the stairs while the librarian was turned away so that they didn’t have to sign in. Nate stopped when he got to ‘S’ and walked all the way down the aisle to the wall.

“So, what happened yesterday?” he asked, quietly so that the librarian wouldn’t hear them.

“I stayed home, for the Spring party,” Aleda said evasively. “You know that.”

“Yeah, but what happened at the party?” Nate asked impatiently.

“Well, geez, there was food, and cousins, and Mom made punch. I got to see Great-grandpa Seth and Aunt Firi, and your parents were there, so they must have told you all about it.” She was feeling a little snappish.

“They told me Seth and Uncle Mike had a huge fight, yeah,” he acknowledged. “And then that b*****d Ryan got involved and a bunch of people left the party. Including you.”

“So?”

“So, what did you do?”

Aleda crossed her arms and leaned back against Sn–St. “We went hunting.”

“What!?”

“Shh!” she scolded him. “Do you want us to get in trouble?”

“You went hunting!?” he hissed, dropping to a harsh whisper. “But it was broad daylight!”

“Didn’t stop us,” Aleda said, and shrugged.

“I can’t believe you’d do something so stupid! What were you thinking?” Nate rubbed his eyes, hard. “Uncle Mike is going to be pissed.”

“You sound like my dad,” Aleda sneered. “And here I thought you’d be impressed. Hell, I killed four of the bloody things!”

“What? How?”

Aleda held up her hands and wiggled her fingers at him. “Wooden claws. Custom-made. Nice and sharp, too.”

Nate paused. “Four? Out of how many?”

“Thirty, I think,” Aleda said, tapping her chin thoughtfully. “But to be fair there were five of us.”

“…Okay, that’s not bad, I guess. So, what? You hunted… a nest, I guess… and then came home and had to deal with your dad?”

“We-ell… I didn’t go home right away…” Aleda admitted. Nate frowned.

“Well what else did you do?”

Aleda hesitated. She wasn’t sure how good of an idea it would be to tell Nate, of all people, about Ryan’s discussion with Zak. If nothing else, because he was Mike’s grand-nephew. Probably not the best idea to tell him how they went to talk to somebody about getting Mike transferred. “Stopped in Philadelphia,” she finally said. “Had dinner.”

“Well, fine. So you went out hunting and had dinner in Philadelphia. I guess it’s not the craziest thing anybody’s ever done. Even if you are only seventeen.”

Aleda glared at him.

Nate sighed, and appeared to come to a decision. “You know what? Whatever. These things happen. Let’s just not worry about it anymore. Hey, speaking of dinner, it’s Friday night.”

He crossed to where Aleda was leaning against the bookshelves. She winced imperceptibly.

“Yeah, so?” she asked.

“So do you want to go out tonight? We could get Italian food or something.” He tried to put his hand on her waist but she backed away.

S**t, s**t, and s**t. Or, as Ryan would say, bloody fecking hell.

She’d known this was coming. That was her whole goal that day. Tell him and get it over with and be done with it. The end.

“Leda?”

She closed her eyes. “I’m sorry, Nate,” she said. “I don’t think we should go out anymore.”

“What? Why not?”

Aleda looked at him helplessly. How could she explain? His eyes narrowed.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” he asked, spitting the word.

She grimaced.

“I knew it! I knew that b*****d was going to screw something up! Why did you have to do that stupid training bullshit with him, anyway?”

“Hey! I’ve got to train! You know that! It just… happened.”

Nate shook his head. “You knew from the beginning,” he accused. “I saw the way you looked at him at that stupid birthday party.”

“I did not!”

“Admit it, I was right!”

Aleda threw her hands up. “Fine! Yes! You were right! I hope you and Right are very happy together!” she yelled at him, no longer caring who heard her. She turned and stormed towards the stairs before he could get in another word.

She walked quickly back to the cafeteria. The period wasn’t over yet. With any luck, her lunch and backpack would still be where she’d left them.

Unfortunately, Nate wasn’t quite done yet. He caught up with Aleda just before she made it into the cafeteria.

“Hang on a minute!” he said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her back into the hallway, out of sight of the bored eyes of the teachers on lunch duty.

“Hey!” she protested. “What are y—”

“Do you even realize what you’re doing?” Nate hissed at her, not bothering to loosen his grip on her arm.

“I’m trying to go back to lunch, that’s what I’m doing!” she retorted. She jerked her arm out of his grasp.

“You’re breaking up with me for a jackass hobo, are you serious?”

Aleda’s jaw dropped. “Hobo? What the hell are you even talking about?”

“Are you kidding me? He never stays in one place longer than a few weeks, and you really think he’s going to stick around for you?”

She felt her skin tighten at his words. She didn’t want to be hearing this. It was just a little too true. She turned from him and walked determinedly through the cafeteria doors. He followed close on her heels.

“Don’t walk away from me!” he said, a little too loudly. “Are you even going to answer me?”

“Drop it, Nate!” she growled. She kept walking towards her table. “Go back to Spanish class.”

“No! I want an answer!” He chased after her and stopped her halfway through the cafeteria. “I’m not going to just let you break up with me over something so stupid!”

She whirled on him, a look of fury on her face. “And what,” she said in a dangerously low voice, “Makes you think…I need your permission?”

The teachers looked up from their meals and watched them with interest, having finally noticed the two teenagers. One put down the sandwich he had been holding. A few yards away, Val had also seen Aleda return and got up tentatively to see what the matter was.

“Five months!” Nate yelled. “Five months we’ve been together, and you know I liked you before that, and you’re just going to throw that away!?”

“Bullshit!” Aleda exclaimed. “You hardly noticed me!”

“What? Yes I did! I asked you to Homecoming, didn’t I!?”

She sneered. “Yeah. After Halloween. Then, suddenly, guess what? You were all over me! Explain that!”

“So it took me a while to work up some nerve! You’re really going to hold that against me?”

“Oh, please,” she scoffed. “I’ve heard all about your ‘reputation’. Try again.”

Val edged over to the two of them, looking warily over her shoulder at the increasingly restless teachers. “Hey, guys…?” she said, moving between them and the front of the cafeteria and trying to edge them towards the table. “Come on, let’s sit down, before one of the teachers spazzes.”

Nate waved her off. “I’m not done with her yet,” he told Val.

“That’s a shame,” Aleda shot back. “Because I am really done with you!”

“What the hell, Leda!? Seriously! You’re just going to leave me for some a*****e drifter? We’re a perfect match, Leda, think about it!”

“You’re a perfect a*s, is more like it! You never would have even thought to do some of the things he’s done for me!”

Val caught Aleda’s arm and attempted to drag her rather more forcibly towards their lunch table. One of the teachers had already gotten up to investigate. Aleda saw. She just didn’t care anymore. She pulled her arm back, more gently this time because it was Val and not Nate.

“It’s cool Val,” she said. “Stay out of this. I don’t want you getting in trouble.”

“Me? I’m worried about you!” Val protested, but finally backed away. She shook her head. If Leda wanted to get her a*s sent to the principal’s office, that was her thing.

“Yeah, you’ve said what he’s done for you,” Nate interjected, not willing to let her have the last say. “Thirty damned feeders in the middle of the day!

“Is there a problem here?” a middle-aged teacher asked sternly. Aleda looked up at the man in annoyance.

“Only if this jerk won’t let me get back to lunch,” she said.

“Hey!” Nate protested. “Don’t put this on me! You’re the one who’s being a total b***h right now!”

Aleda’s eyes narrowed. “And you wonder why I dumped your a*s?” she snarled.

“Come on now, kids, break it up,” the teacher insisted. He put a hand on each of their shoulders and pushed them apart. By now, half of the cafeteria had seen them arguing. Most were watching. A couple of kids fighting in the middle of the cafeteria was pretty good theater for the middle of a school day.

“Just think about it, would you?” Nate insisted, a whine entering his voice. “It’s too much of a coincidence that we’d both move here and be the same age and everything and it’s too perfect not to be right!”

She shook her head, almost in pity. “Nothing’s perfect between us, Nate. It never was.”

The teacher holding them apart sighed impatiently. “Are you two done? Fantastic. Let’s take a trip to the principal’s office, shall we?”

“You bet,” Aleda said dryly. She raised an eyebrow at the man. “Can I get my backpack, first?”

He nodded and led Nate to the door, where they waited while Aleda grabbed her backpack and the remnants of her lunch from the table. Val looked at her wide-eyed and worried. Aleda gave her a reassuring half-grin.

“Well, this is an exciting day, huh?” she remarked, and left.