Stay With Him Tonight

KELLY P.O.V.

The teacher was busy with roll call while everyone talked. The room was noisy, being the last class before lunch, as everyone chattered over each other to talk to their friends. I was looking around for my best friend Allie, and wasn’t having any luck finding her. Katie was talking to me, and I got pulled into the conversation (nothing unusual there—I loved to talk). Allie hadn’t been there first period, either. I sighed.

I scooped some more cereal into my mouth. Yum, breakfast for dinner. My phone buzzed, and it wiggled on the table in funny circles. I wished again that the vibrate mode on my phone wasn’t so loud; it was inconvenient when I texted in class. I saw that it was Allie’s dad. I figured that she must want me for something and just be texting from his phone. I swallowed my cereal.

“Hi! Who’s this?” I asked into the receiver. I heard a laugh, and it was actually her dad.

“It’s David, Kelly. Is Allie around? I can’t reach her on her phone.” Now I wasn’t stupid. I had played the “oh yeah, so-and-so is here like they said they would be” game before. Although I never knew Allie was using me as her scapegoat that night. I thought quickly.

“She’s taking a shower right now. Is it important?” I asked. I swallowed nervously. I hoped he wouldn’t think it was weird for Allie to be taking a shower here when she lived just down the street.

“It’s nothing important. I’m just calling to let Allie know to make sure the house is locked. Since she’s at your house tonight, her mom and I figured we would go out with the staff at the restaurant. Just make sure she doesn’t stay up late watching movies, okay?”

“Okay, I’ll tell her when she gets out.”

“Thanks. Good luck on that project.” We said goodbye and hung up. I sat for a minute looking at my phone.

“Who was that?” my mom asked as she walked into the kitchen.

“Oh, nobody. When are you leaving?” I deflected the question. She looked at the clock on the microwave.

“Five minutes. Anything you want to talk about?”

“Nope. How’s work?” I asked.

“Busy. But nothing I can’t handle. How’s school?” I shrugged. It was no secret that my grades weren’t the best. They weren’t the worst, either, but I didn’t test well.

“It’s fine. I have to go do some homework. Good luck at work.” I washed my bowl out and went upstairs. I lay on my bed wondering what she was doing, because she was not here.

*

“Michaels?” the teacher called. She looked at me and clicked on the computer.

“Al’s still not here?” Katie asked. I shrugged.

“We can call her before next period.” The teacher gathered our attention, and we began reading chapter 5 of Huckleberry Finn.

*

The phone rang and rang and rang, and still Allie wasn’t answering. “No luck,” I told Katie. I thought again of her dad calling me the previous night. He had assumed she was staying at my house, which meant that was where she told him she’d be, which meant she was . . . where? On a hunch, I dialed another number- my brothers.

“This is Tyler. I’m unavailable at the moment; leave a message and I might get back to you.” The message machine beeped, but I hung up. Allie wasn’t answering. Tyler wasn’t answering. Tyler was either with Allie or in class, and Allie was either with Tyler or at home or wherever she was last night. I made a face and walked to my next class, parting ways with Katie.

“Kelly!” the voice belonged to Rachel and I turned to watch her thread her way through the people to reach me. We stood on the fringe of the hall. “Allie came to second period,” she told me. I was confused.

“Then why wasn’t she in third?” I asked.

“She was in second period. She got sick partway through, and she left. She was throwing up and stuff. I think she mumbled something about pink sausage.” She glanced back the other way, where I knew her next class was. “Just thought I might tell you. You were wondering where she was, so I might as well. Greg’s waiting for me, so I gotta go.” She smiled and ran off to find Greg.

“But she would never make pink sausage,” I said to myself on the way to class.

“What? You are not a sausage,” Ryan said as he came up behind me. I jumped.

“I almost lost my socks just then. When did you get so sneaky?” I asked suspiciously. He took my hand and laughed. “Oh. And I wasn’t calling myself a sausage. Allie ate pink sausage, but she would never make it pink. Her sausages are always delicious and cooked. Pink sausage actually sounds more like my brother,” I realized.

“So? They ate breakfast together. They usually do that anyway. Sometimes. I guess?” he didn’t see my point.

“Yeah, but when else does she lie to her parents to say that she was at my house? And then eat breakfast with Tyler?” My suspicion was growing.

“She’s stayed over there before, and they never did anything,” Ryan pointed out.

“True,” I acquiesced. “But she’s always told me when she’s used me as an alibi.”

“Hmmm. Kell, if they do something it’s their business. They don’t go prying around in our lives,” he leaned against the wall next to the door of my classroom. He didn’t have a class this hour, but I was stuck listening to a total fail of a teacher. I tried not to pout. I knew I was nosy, but that was just me. Ryan sighed. Another trait of mine is that I think of all the worst possibilities. For example, right that second I was scared Ryan was getting put off by my need to know everyone’s’ business. It had been a problem in past relationships. Luckily, Ryan was a good guy, and he offset my irrational pursuit of everyone’s personal lives with his natural un-nosiness. Or so I figured. He put up with me.

“We can always . . .” he waved his hand, and I saw the moment he thought of something. “We can always go see her at lunch. Right?” I grinned.

“You’re so great! I love you!” I squealed. I gave him a big hug. I was sure some people were staring at my outburst, but he was putting up with me. “Okay, I have to get in class. But meet me as soon as I get out, okay? Okay! Bye, love you!” I turned and skipped into class. I had just sat down when the teacher called my name.

“Present!” I called back. I made the mistake of looking at him. He was directing a stern look at me.

“Miss Michaels, do you see that clock on the wall?” I glanced at it.

“Yeah . . .” I trailed off uncertainly.

“And can you read it?” he asked condescendingly. I had to restrain myself from snapping back or using the same tone on him.

“Yes, I can read it,” I said calmly. I mentally raised an eyebrow, waiting for him to continue treating me like I was five.

Then you should know that you’re late,” he said pleasantly.

“But there’s still other people who haven’t gotten in here. Half the class isn’t even sitting down. How am I late?” I debated. I regretted the words, because he pretended to be shocked. Man, this teacher was such a bully.

“Oh, a smart-aleck. We can fix that in detention. Today. And at least the other half of the class wasn’t saying long goodbyes to their beaus right outside my door. So what will it be? Detention is available at both two and three o’clock.” He smiled at me.

“Three,” I grumbled. He nodded, smiled rudely again and began teaching the class. Midway through the period he dropped an official pink detention slip on my desk. I spent the rest of the hour mentally cussing him out.

*

Lunch didn’t work out. I had to make up a test in Chem for being gone earlier in the week (I vaguely wondered if I got Allie sick, but I never puked. I discounted the idea.). After I finally finished the teacher on duty wouldn’t let us out of the lot because it was ten minutes until lunch was over. I told Ryan about the detention incident, to which he apologized for even though it wasn’t his fault.

We went back inside and shared the news with the rest of the group. Jason was missing from the table and from the room, which was unusual since Allie was gone. The two avoided each other perfectly, seemingly without trying; when one was here, the other was conspicuously absent. I could tell Ryan kept looking around for Jason by the way he glanced around every few minutes.

“He might just be with his other friends,” I suggested. He put his arm around me. I smiled to myself and he grinned at me.

“What am I doing? He’s old enough to take care of himself.” Ryan still looked worried.

“Did something happen?” I asked. He shrugged, which I felt with his arm around me.

“Kind of. I confronted him about how insane he’s been lately. He told me to f—screw off and left.” He looked around the room again. I decided to change the subject, try to get his mind off of it.

“You can cuss, you know. Allie is a thousand times worse when she’s in the middle of a video game. And my brother went through a phase where every other word was an expletive.” He laughed when I mentioned Allie and her intense video game playing.

“Allie resembles a sailor when she’s playing Left for Dead.”

“It’s her favorite game,” I explained simply.

“I can’t imagine Tyler cussing too bad. I mean I’ve heard him cuss, but . . .”

“Tyler is practically perfect,” I supplied. Ryan thought for a second and shook his head.

“Not perfect, I just don’t think he needs words like that to explain most things.”

“Speaking of Tyler,” I realized suddenly. “He was talking about a group date earlier. Can we go?” I asked him. The seat on the other side of Ryan scraped the ground. Jason fell into it and ran his hand through his hair. He looked angry and somewhat confused.

“Hey man,” Ryan greeted him. “I thought you ditched,” he said bluntly. Jason shrugged and cracked open a pop can he had in his hand. He lifted it to his mouth and drank for twenty seconds straight. He set the empty can on the table and smashed it with the palm of his hand. Everyone gave him looks but otherwise continued conversing. Ryan slid his uneaten slice of pizza over to Jason, who picked it up and dug in. Amazingly, Jason ate twice as much as Ryan and was still skinnier than Ryan. Ryan wasn’t fat at all—it was all muscle. Considering the volume of food Jason inhaled, he should have been a balloon by now.

“Fast metabolism,” Ryan said in an aside to me. He grinned when I gave him a look.

“Do you sparkle in the sunlight?” I whispered back. Katie heard me and laughed.

“What? Of course not,” Ryan looked at Katie for help.

“Just checking,” I laughed. He eventually got the Twilight joke and began teasing me about my former-obsession with the series.

The ten minutes until class felt much longer. When the bell eventually rung Jason sprung up from his chair, looked around the table, and took off, seemingly satisfied. I wanted to tell him Allie had gone home, just to poke fun, but I wasn’t quite that mean. I always had my doubts about his intentions two months ago (although Ryan had repeatedly told me Jason was serious about Allie), but I couldn’t call him out on his obvious check for Allie.

What did I know of his feelings for Allie? I berated myself for always doubting Jason. He was a good guy, and had proven it to me multiple times already. Maybe he was loose with girls, but other than that he was Ryan in a different body. Only less attractive (of course I was biased).

Jason left, and Ryan ran off to go to his next class as soon as he dropped me off by my locker. I remembered Allie, supposedly at home. I reminded myself that if I could just make it until 3 I would be able to see her and ask about last night.