Felix shuffles awkwardly from foot to foot. “I mean, if the problem with reporting it is that no one will believe us… well, you guys, then have someone they will believe do it. Maybe multiple people.” He motions to the mess on the floor. “We can’t do anything about the magic, but Kaleb is right that this is evidence, so why not let this stuff work for us. There are witnesses to what happened, and if we just leave these here, students and faculty are bound to come across it. Then they’re coming to you looking for answers, not the other way around. If they ask why it wasn’t reported, tell them what you told us, Callie. Because of who you think did it, you were sure no one would believe you.”
“What makes you think they’ll figure out it’s related to Callie?” Nolan challenges, gripping the strap of his messenger bag with both hands.
A cruel smirk pulls at my mouth. “Because it’s already all over school that I’m suicidal.”
Disgust sweeps across all their faces, as the magnitude of what a prank like this would mean to someone who was actually depressed and thinking of killing themselves.
After a moment, Kaleb nods his head. “At least the administration would know something happened, and it’s believed Gina is involved.”
“Exactly,” Felix confirms. “By Callie not reporting it, it’ll cast doubt on her outright lying or it being seen as a stunt for attention. Hell, she may even get some sympathy for trying to power through her bullying.”
Donovan, a clear fan of the more direct approach, doesn’t seem convinced, shown by his crossed arms and his lips pressed into a thin line.
I sigh. “If it works, it works, but I’m not holding my breath. Either way, Mr. Sunshine over here and I have Pre-Cal and a teacher to see if we can irritate into a new shade of purple.”
Donovan snorts, but his expression relaxes at the thought of one of his favorite pastimes.
“You know, I think I’d like to see that,” Felix comments, his familiar heart-warming smile once again firmly in place. “I think I’ll follow you guys to class today.”
“Aw man,” Nolan gripes, obviously also trying to get back to normal. “We’re doing quadratics today, and I hate those.”
“Sorry, Cheater McCheaterstein,” I taunt, playing along, because I’m already so done with this morning. “The genius ghost is ours today.”
Felix laughs, running a hand through his brown hair, and Nolan gives him an odd smirk, like he knows a secret the rest of us don’t.Weird.
We all go our separate ways, Kaleb and Nolan to their respective morning classes, and Donovan, Felix and I to the dreaded Mr. Harris’ class.
For a couple of minutes, the three of us walk silently together, most of our fellow students already in their first class of the day, and the few that aren’t take special care to be as far away from us as possible.At least Felix doesn’t have to worry about someone walking through him.
“Sooo, anyone else think an extraterrestrial managed to take over Kaleb’s body back there?” Felix jokes, rubbing at the back of his neck again. It’s probably a good thing he’s not flesh and blood, because he’d probably have rubbed himself raw by now.
“I feel like I should apologize to him,” I murmur, guilt sitting heavily in my stomach. “Saturday, I told him it was okay to be angry, and then the first time he actually shows how angry he is, we tell him to calm down.”
“Leave it to him to get pissed at us, but the assholes we deal with every day? Those he smiles at,” Donovan grunts.
“But if he can’t express himself with us, how do we expect him to speak his mind to anyone else?” I reason, feeling worse the more I think about it.
I was so upset with what he was saying, that I didn’t stand up for him when I should have-- again. First, when we were talking about Romeo and Juliet, and he talked about the beauty and rarity of the feeling of loving fully and knowing that you’re loved in return. Donovan shot him down, and I just let it pass because it touched too close to my own fragile desire to be loved unconditionally. And now, he shares with us how upset he is over what Gina did, and again because it smashed against my past, I let the others shut him down. Every time he walks out on the narrow branch, giving us opportunities to see behind his well-crafted mask, we dismiss it and destroy it-- then we wonder why Kaleb continues to cling to his image of perfection.
“Go ahead and apologize if you want to,” Donovan responds, pulling me from my sinking thoughts. He stops in front of the door to our Pre-Cal class, blocking me from entering. “But you weren’t wrong. Kaleb has to believe that if you do the right thing, then everything will work out as it’s supposed to. It’s all he has to feel like he has control over what happens, since neither one of us has any real control over our future.”
He sighs, and pushes his black hair out of his eyes with a frustration that makes me think he doesn’t normally wear it this long.
“The problem with doing the right thing,” Donovan continues, his expression intense and his voice low, “Doing right and playing by the rules only works if everyone does it.”
Chapter 6
Callie
Gina shivers again, as Felix does another lap through her, and an ugly smirk twists across my lips, as she glares up at the vent that’s currently blowing hot air into our U.S. History class. For the past twenty minutes, he’s been altering between walking through her and trying to knock her pencil off her desk, poltergeist style. The pencil hasn’t moved. However, it’s been amusing to see her so bundled up, a person would think there was a blizzard outside.
This is only one of many antics Felix has pulled today, hell bent on making me smile.
During Pre-Cal, while Donovan continued to irritate Mr. Harris, Felix investigated his desk, informing us there was going to be a pop quiz on Friday, then commenced pantomiming Mr. Harris with exaggerated grumpy faces.
In AP Psychology, he kept asking Kaleb and me to psychoanalyze him, while he made up pretend symptoms. Now that he was a ghost, he swore he could talk to famous dead people, and it turned out a lot of them were assholes. He managed to get a ‘praying for patience’ face out of Kaleb, which strangely made me feel like things were going to be okay.
During lunch, we sat at our tree despite the kind of ambitious mist that still swirled in the air. Not really rain. Not really fog. Just wet. But at least for a little while, the general student body was far enough away to ignore. We all felt Connor’s absence, but did our best to pretend nothing was wrong by trying to decide what we should dress up as for Nolan’s birthday party. Nolan suggested a variety of costumes for me that all had “sexy” in the title, which I promptly shot down--again. Felix recommended I do Lady Deathstrike from X-men, which didn’t sound like a bad idea… until I remembered all the tight leather. We did all come to an agreement that Kaleb should obviously be Captain America. He vetoed Black Panther when he learned it was a skin tight suit.
