Chapter 250
“Are you all right, Cassidy?” Tara asked, and I realized I’d slipped off again. “Sometimes you get this look in your eyes, like you’re not really here.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just—Jamie was the one who saved me, you know. I was thinking about that.”
“Right,” Tara said, but I don’t think she quite got it, and I wasn’t exactly sure what she knew and what she didn’t. I definitely didn’t want to talk about it.
“Well, I know why I’d want to stay here,” Mika was saying as she got dressed. “And it’s nothing to do with that doctor man.”
I cocked my head to the side and looked up at her as her damp, curly hair sprung out of the top of her T-shirt. “What is it, then?”
“Yeah, why do you want to stay here?” Tara asked, her forehead as crinkled as mine.
“Seriously?” she asked in her thick Spanish accent. “Who wouldn’t want to have a boss as hot as a supermodel? I mean, I don’t care if he is marrying the other woman. I don’t mind looking at him.”
“Right,” Tara muttered, and I just stared at her. I know that Aaron is probably the most attractive man many of these women have ever seen, but most of them don’t say stuff like that to me, or in front of me. I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything at all.
Mika giggled. “You see him as a brother, I guess. I see him as… a goal.” She finished dressing, gathered up her stuff and headed for the door.
“What a weirdo,” Tara mumbled, finally moving to take off her tennis shoes. “Who says something like that about a person’s soon to be brother-in-law?”
There were still no words. Luckily, Addy was back. “What? Mika going on about Aaron again?” she asked, opening up her locker and pulling some clean clothes out of her bag. She had her towel wrapped around her but was still dripping a little. “It never ends.”
“She could at least drool over one of the guys in our group,” Gina offered. Her dark hair was also dripping on the floor, and I wondered why these people even bothered with towels if they didn’t know how to use them.
“Yeah, I don’t know. The guys in our group are all lame. Except for when Brandon joins us.” Addy said my boyfriend’s name like he was a certain type of candy bar she’d been longing for and couldn’t wait to devour. I didn’t like it.
“He’s not even in our group, though.” Gina finally seemed to know how to use that towel and dried off her ebony skin before she began to dress. I tried not to stare since it made me very uncomfortable that she was so free about her body.
“True. But he trains with us a lot. I wonder why he does that. I’m not complaining or anything. It’s nice to have someone attractive to look at. He looks so good in those blue shorts he sometimes wears….” Addy was dressed now, and she leaned back against the lockers, her face tilted to the ceiling.
“Seriously?” I finally asked, realizing I was going to have to speak up if I wanted this to end. “You do know you’re talking about my boyfriend, right?”
Addy and Gina both turned to look at me like this was brand new information. “Boy, for people who like to gossip, you don’t know much,” I muttered, grabbing what I needed in order to shower and dress in the other part of the locker room.
I was almost around the corner when Gina called out, “Brandon Keen is your boyfriend?”
“You sure about that?” Addy shouted after me.
“Pretty sure!” I shouted back, stepping into a damp stall and turning the water on with my clothes still on. I probably didn’t want to hear what else they had to say anyway. Both of them were older than me by a few years, older than Brandon, even, but one of the things Aaron is constantly reminding me is that age doesn’t matter so much after you Transform. That’s probably a good thing since my sister isn’t even twenty-one yet, and he’s a hundred and seventy something-or-other. Still, it’s no secret those girls intimidate me. Yet another reason to complete my training and get away from them.
I showered longer than I intended to. I knew they’d be gone by the time I got out even if it was a quick shower, but the warm water running over me seemed to clear my head a little bit. My IAC was on, but I wasn’t paying attention to anything coming over the newsfeed, and I knew Brandon was working on his homework. He tried to do our Pre-AP Algebra before I did so he could help me with it. Yet another reason I was glad he was my boyfriend.
Eventually, I turned the water off, dried, and grabbed my clothes from where I’d stashed them in the one corner of the shower that wouldn’t get wet. When I was fully dressed, I went out to put my shoes on and saw Tara sitting on the bench, brushing her almost dry hair. “I thought maybe you’d drowned,” she joked.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “I didn’t know you were waiting on me. You could’ve sent me an IAC.”
“No, I wasn’t. I mean, maybe I was. I just… those girls are so stupid, you know?”
“I do,” I replied, slipping my sneakers on with my most comfortable pair of ratty jeans. One thing I did like about being here was I could wear whatever I wanted to and didn’t have to worry about looking cool or even what the temperature was. Out in the real world, we had to dress for the weather, but here, we could wear shorts in January without anyone raising an eyebrow. Humans had no idea what they were missing out on with this temperature adjustment business that happened once you Transform.
“Do you want to know what else they had to say, or would you rather not?” Tara stared at me intensely, and I couldn’t decide whether it was better to know or just forget it even happened. What difference did it make anyway?
“What?” I asked with a sigh, finishing packing my gym back.
“Addy said she guessed Brandon knew how to suck up to the Leaders, and Gina guessed that’s why they’d put him on the team so quickly. Then, Addy reminded her that he’s Elliott’s son, and she didn’t know who that was—who Elliott was--so Addy said that he’s Aaron’s best friend, and called him ‘the dead guy.’ I’m not sure what that means. Anyway, Gina said at least we are lucky that Brandon comes to train with you then or else there’d be nothing to do but check out a bunch of little boys, and Addy laughed and said, ‘It won’t last. She’s too immature.’ Then, they stared at me for a really long time, and I just sat here like an idiot and didn’t stand up for you. Sorry.”
The entire time Tara was talking, I was shaking my head. “I thought I was done with high school,” I murmured. “Thanks.” I wasn’t sure if I really needed that information or not. It was kind of cool to know that older girls were jealous of my boyfriend, but I didn’t really need their opinions.
“Sure,” Tara replied with a shrug. She put her hair up in a ponytail, and I decided to wait for her, even though I just wanted to get out of the locker room and go work on my assignments. Hopefully, Brandon would come over for a late lunch—I was sure he’d already eaten at least once since it was past noon—and we could forget about those stupid girls. One thing was for sure, neither of them would have a spot on our team if I had any say in it. And I didn’t, but I liked to think I had a little sway.
“What are you going to do the rest of the day?” Tara asked me as we walked out.
“I have homework,” I replied with a groan. I wished I could double up my classes so I could finish high school early, but Cadence wouldn’t let me do that when I had so many other things going on.
“Oh, yeah. I forgot. You’re in high school still, right?”
“I am.” I wasn’t embarrassed about it. After all, I was only sixteen. “What about you? Are you taking any college courses?”
“No, not right now,” Tara replied. “I think I will, but I have to do this first.” She said it with a determination about her, and I wanted to ask more, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to get too close to her when she was likely leaving, so I just nodded. “Hey, why did they call Elliott that dead guy? Do you know him very well? I’m not even sure which one he is. But he’s your boyfriend’s dad?”
“Yeah, it’s complicated,” I replied. No one knew about the Blue Moon Portal except a handful of people because Aaron didn’t want anyone to use it. It would’ve been impossible to keep the fact that Elliott had died and come back from the dead from people who had been here a while and knew him the first time and went to his funeral, so Aaron and Cadence had confirmed it was really him, back from the dead, and refused to explain further. “There are some things that we’ll just never know,” was about all I could say, and I shrugged.
“I see,” Tara replied. “I won’t ask you more then.”
Because we could walk super fast, we were almost to the apartment building where the new recruits stayed, which meant I’d be saying goodbye to Tara and heading over to the permanent residence apartment across the street. “It was nice chatting with you, Tara,” I said as she started up the drive.
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t live here,” she laughed. “It was nice talking to you, too, Cassidy. Maybe we could hang out some time, if you want.”
“Sure,” I said, but I knew I would never want to do that because there was no sense in making friends with someone you couldn’t keep. I had enough friends to miss right now without adding Tara to the list. I waved and headed on across the street, glad to be done with training for one more day and praying that part of my journey would be over soon.
