AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I shake my head. “I don’t remember anything before my parents disappeared.”
“Right, the amnesia.”
“You know about that?”
“Eli said something about it.” She nods vigorously. “At the game.”
“You guys have been hanging out a lot lately.”
“Yeah, he’s great. I’m helping him with a school project.” Her eyes dart away for a moment – an involuntary movement exposing her lie. But I’m way ahead of her – she didn’t go to the Colosseum because of a school project.
I’m dying to ask her more about Eli, but I can’t figure out how. I can’t afford to blow it tonight. I need to build up to confronting her, so I change tack. “George, about me and Cleo…”
“I don’t really want to talk about it.” She trains her eyes on the screen.
“I understand. I’ve had the pleasure of making an enemy of Cleo this year. I can only imagine what the two of us were like when we hunted in a pack. It’s just that… my doctors say hearing about my past might help unlock memories, and I thought if I knew about memories with you in them…” I shrug. I’m a genius. “It’s dumb.”
“It’s not dumb.” But George hugs her knees to her chest, gripping a candy bar so tight the wrapper bursts with a POP. “I guess… I met the two of you in seventh grade. I’d already changed schools twice because of bullying. Being the weird kid is great in movies but in real life it kinda sucks. On the first day of junior prep, Cleo heard my dad was a film producer, and I think she thought I could help her get her big break in showbiz. She invited me to sit with you at lunch, and then I came to her house after school. The three of us hung out all the time and I thought I’d finally made some real friends. But there was always this tension. You and Cleo were rich and you had all these fancy clothes and you just seemed so much older and wiser and cooler. I guess I didn’t know why you chose me, and so I always felt like the odd one out. Looking back, I think everything you guys said to me was kind of mocking me. But I didn’t notice at the time.
“Anyway, my dad had a movie premiere for one of his projects and I knew Cleo was interested in being a movie star so I thought she’d like to go. My parents were so happy I was making friends, they said I could bring you both along. So I got VIP tickets so we could sit behind the velvet rope with the movie stars and go to the afterparty and everything.
“The two of you spent hours getting ready. When you walked out of Cleo’s bedroom, you both looked at least eighteen, and I felt like a dumb little kid. You said when we got to the premiere you might not be able to sit with me because I was an embarrassment.”
I wince. “I was a real bitch, huh?”
“Oh yeah.” George smiles, but it lacks her usual color. Telling this story puts things about her on display that she wished she could keep hidden. The fact that she’s doing it because it will help me… I can’t believe she’s working with Eli against me. I can’t believe she accepts the things he says about me. But actually, if Mackenzie was this big a bitch to her, maybe I can. “I started to get nervous that this was a terrible idea, but it was too late. Dad picked us up from Cleo’s house and drove us to the Beaumont Theatre – you know, the weird old cinema in Brawley? There’s no red carpet, and the only press there were from Fangoria magazine. It was actually really cool – the whole cast was there in full monster makeup, and there was a big crowd of musicians and horror industry people and edgy actors and a cake that bled strawberry coulis when Dad cut into it. But you and Cleo in your sparkly outfits looked completely out of place, and everything that I loved about the party you said was dumb or lame or dorky. You kind of laughed it off, but Cleo was livid. She screamed at me in front of my dad and his friends. You both dumped the cake over my head and took pictures on her phone. I started crying. The two of you left.”
Bitch. I dealt with Alec for George, but Cleo still doesn’t know not to mess with me and mine. This might’ve happened years ago, but I remember George’s face as she kicked Alec again and again and again. She might brush it off with a smile, but this stuff has eaten away at her. She’s the nicest person in that shitty school and she’s been eating her lunch alone in a bathroom for years because of Cleo and Mackenzie.
Now her old bully is sitting on her couch, forcing her to relive this story. She doesn’t know that the monsters are on her side now.
“By the time I got to school the next day, you and Cleo had spread the photo around to the entire class. That’s it, one cake on my head and I’m the freak forever.” She clenches her fists. “That part’s okay. I know I’m a freak. I’ve embraced it. I don’t know how to be anything else. But I really, truly thought you guys were my friends. I thought maybe this time things would be different. I admired the two of you so much, how strong you are. Especially you.”
“There’s nothing strong about bullying someone,” I say.
“I know your parents were…” George swallows. “I don’t know what you remember, but you showed me burn marks on your arm once. From your dad’s cigar.”
“He was a terrible human.” It felt like a betrayal of Daddy to say it, even though in all ways it’s true. “He taught me everything I know.”
“Do you remember anything now?” George asks.
“I think I’m starting to.” Only that I’m going to ruin Cleo for hurting George.
“And you really don’t know what happened to you?”
I know exactly what happened to me. I was buried alive and I’ve been squatting in a rich girl’s house for four years, completely alone in the world. And I have to figure out what you and Eli have done and make you not hate me so I can save your asses.
I shake my head. “Nope. It’s all a mystery.”
“Doesn’t it kill you not knowing what happened to your parents?” George bites into a candy bar. “If my mom disappeared, I wouldn’t stop until I had answers.”
“Yeah, well, unlike your mom, my parents aren’t exactly worth finding.” I gesture to the true-crime documentaries littering her hard-drive. “I can see you love to play detective.”
“You don’t know the half of it.” George grins. “I was the one who figured out what Eli’s dad was doing.”
“What?” I plump the pillow behind my head. “Okay, I need to hear this.”
“You know my dad died four years ago.”
