Kelly Creagh - Nevermore

“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter as long as he has you to make excuses for him.”

Now he was making her mad. “You know what—” But he didn’t let her finish.

“If you’re not bailing on the project, I’ll be at the main library tomorrow,” he said, his voice hushed.

She could hear a crackle on the other end, like he was moving around. “After one.”

“But it’s Saturday.”

“Christ,” he hissed, “you’ve got to be kidding me.”

Isobel started to say fine, whatever, she’d meet him. She paused, though, at the sound of someone calling for him in the background—a man. “Never mind,” he snapped, “I’ll do it myself.” The line went dead.

Isobel bit down on the insides of her mouth hard. She drew the phone away from her ear and squeezed it. She wanted to scream. She wanted to smash the phone to pieces or cram it into the disposal.

“Turn it down,” she yelled to Danny as she stormed through the living room. “I’m going to bed!”

“I can’t hear you,” he shot over one shoulder.

She mounted the stairs, her steps pounding hard enough to skew the picture frames.

What exactly was his type, anyway? Bride of freaking Frankenstein?

Isobel checked her cell for missed calls first thing the next morning.

None.

Texts? None.

Apparently, the usual crew antics had all transpired without her and, perhaps worse, they had all gone on without a single “Hey, where are you?” or “How come you didn’t show?” Nope. No Brad, no Mark. Not a single call from her squad—no Nikki, Alyssa, or even Stevie, who was usually the peacekeeper in their group.

Haters. All of them.

She set her phone aside, deciding to forget about the diss, but after taking a shower and a downing a granola bar, she gave in to the itch to call someone. Still not ready to talk to Brad, she dialed Nikki instead.

Nikki’s familiar ringer buzzed in Isobel’s right ear, a bad pop song about some player sweating some chick. Isobel sat back against her headboard, listening as she stretched out. The song went on, and she rolled onto her stomach, facing her pillow. She grabbed the Magic 8 Ball off the bottom cubby-hole. Shaking it, she peered into the black circular window.

Will Nikki answer her phone?

The little triangle bobbed to the surface through the murk, bearing one of its cryptic one-size-fits-all messages. “Ask again later,” it read. Isobel snorted. She was just about to hang up when the song stopped mid-chorus and Nikki’s voice broke through, chipper and bright.

“Izzy!”

Isobel sat up, letting the Magic 8 Ball roll aside. “You’re such a snitch. Did you know that?”

“Hey, where were you last night?” Nikki asked, her voice staying breezy. “Stevie finally beat Mark’s score on Fighter Borg X.”

“Nikki, I told you not to say anything about yesterday. Brad totally freaked out, and we had a fight.”

Quiet fizz filtered through from the other side and Isobel waited, picturing Nikki in deep thought mode. No doubt she was using the dead air time to Photoshop, airbrush, and gloss-coat a good response.

“No,” she said at last, “you told me not to tell Brad. And I didn’t.”

“So you did the next best thing and told Mark. Why?”

“Why not? What is with you, anyway? Brad said that all he did was talk to the guy and that you were the one who freaked out.”

“Nikki, no one would have freaked out in the first place if you hadn’t said anything!”

“Whatever,” Nikki said. “Listen, we’re going out for Chinese at Double Trouble. Brad’s coming too.” Nikki’s voice adopted gooey sweetness as she said, “I’m sure if you caaaaalllled him, he’d swing by and pick you uuuuppp.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I have to . . . I have a dentist appointment.” The lie was out before she could stop it.

“Eeww. Bummer,” said Nikki after a beat, though Isobel could hear in her voice that she didn’t buy it. No, Nikki knew her better than that, and Isobel knew that they both knew that it all boiled down to her keeping the holdout on Brad.

Of course, there was that little thing about not being able to tell Nikki that she’d made other plans.

Or, more important, who she’d made them with. Even though she hadn’t really made them per se.

Isobel shook her head, her brow creasing. This felt weird, lying to her friends, sneaking around over some stupid project.

“Oh, well,” Nikki said, breaking the awkward silence.

Isobel frowned at the rumpled folds of her pink comforter. Since when had they ever had an awkward silence?

“Anyway,” Nikki went on, “if you get out early or something, give me a ring on my cell.”

Translation: Call me if you change your mind or whenever you decide to stop sulking.

“Okay, later,” Isobel mumbled.

“Later.”

There was a pause, like neither of them really wanted to end the call.

“Bye,” Nikki said.

“Bye,” replied Isobel, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt.

She waited, but this time, Nikki hung up.

That afternoon Isobel got a ride to the library from her dad. He dropped her off by the side entrance, near the old solemn-faced statue of Abraham Lincoln, saying he’d be back to pick her up some time around three, after his haircut appointment.

Isobel hurried up the stairs and barely waved good-bye to her dad before heading inside to begin her search for Varen. After spending nearly fifteen minutes scouring through the stacks and checking the study rooms, she finally found him on the second floor.

It was obvious he’d purposely picked a spot well out of sight, sequestered away in a far-off corner just beyond the 800s. Feeling more than just a little agitated by this, Isobel made a point of dropping her purse on the table right in front of where he sat reading, lost in the open spread of some gigantic tome.

He glanced up with his eyes only, glaring at her past the ridge of his leveled brow. A soft glint from the desk lamps ran liquid smooth down the curve of his lip ring.

She twiddled her fingers at him in a wave. Ha, the gesture seemed to say, found you.

He stared at her as she lowered herself into the cushiony swivel seat across from his, and in turn, she eyed the enormous tome he’d been absorbed in.

“So.” She cleared her throat. “What are we doing?”

He did the prolonged silence thing again, like he needed the time to contemplate whether or not to banish her from his sight.

“We,” he said at last, “are doing our project on Poe.”

He shifted the huge book around and scooted it toward her, one finger indicating a black-and-white thumbnail photograph. The image portrayed was of a gaunt, deep-browed man with unruly hair and a small black-comb mustache. His eyes looked sad, desperate, and wild all at the same time. Sunken and pooled by enormous dark circles, they seemed to ache with sorrow.

To Isobel, he looked like a nicely dressed mental patient in need of a nap.

She sank farther into her chair, picking at the pages. “Didn’t he marry his cousin or something?”

“The man is a literary god and that’s all you have to say?”

She shrugged and grabbed a book from the stack on the table. She opened it, then flipped through the pages, glancing up at him. He leaned forward over the table and scribbled something onto a yellow steno notepad, which sat atop his black hardbound book. Her eyes fell to the book. She couldn’t help wondering if it was some sort of journal or something and why he seemed to carry it with him wherever he went.

“Who’s Lenore?” she asked, turning another page.

He stopped writing, looked up. Stared.