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But it isn’t, and when I don’t see anyone of note behind me, and no one looking at us whatsoever, I keep walking.
Where could he be going? To the mask shop we’d just passed? It’s notjustmasks of course. Mrs. Williams makes a ton of crafts and small, handmade favors that are popular with a ton of people my parents’ age. But Halloween is where she shines, and she makes or buys some of the coolest masks I’ve seen. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nic had gotten the cat skull mask there, now that I think about it.
But Phoenix doesn’t double back. He doesn’t go into the pop-up costume store either, and doesn’t stop at the farmer’s market currently being set up for tomorrow morning, as it is almost every week.That had been my next guess, since his parents regularly have a stall there to sell some of the produce they grow in their small gardens. It’s never a lot, but Phoenix’s mom has always made the absolutebeststrawberry jam. Hell, it’s an institution in Hollow Bridge. One a lot of people are willing to fight over.
He pauses and so do I, just before the parking lot where vendors are unloading or setting up. A man I don’t know smiles and gives me a small nod, while a woman brushes past me, staggering to keep a hold of the box of apples in her arms.
Absently, I lift my hands to rub my arms, trying to look like I belong here, like I’m actually doing something instead of being a creep.
But yet again, Phoenix doesn’t notice me. He only waits to cross the street, twenty feet from the nearest crosswalk, and his long legs eat up the distance effortlessly until he can step up on the opposite sidewalk. His hands are jammed into his pockets once more, then he stops, head swiveling back and forth as he looks around.
Is he waiting for something? That’s definitely the look of someone waiting for something to happen, I think.
He doesn’t make me wait long, at least. There’s a whistle that I can hear from my side of the street, and the door of a small diner opens, showing the face of the guy who had been at the fairgrounds with him. The one that I’m certain has never lived in Hollow Bridge before.
The brunet walks to Phoenix quickly, though not as quickly as the latter had crossed the street, and as I watch, hooks one arm over Phoenix’s shoulders, dragging him down, mouth open, to—
“Good morning, Miss Bailey.” The voice is familiar and creaky with age. I turn to see a friend of my mom’s, someone in her book club whose name I’m blanking on, walking toward me from a booth, her smile wide. “How’s your mom doing these days? She’s been hit or miss coming to book club this month.”
“She and Dad have been busy,” I tell her, an awkward but automatic smile on my lips. “I know she’s been pretty put out about that.” That’s a bit of a lie. Mom would rather do Halloween-related things than her book club, though it is a close second. “She’ll be back full time after this month.” Because that’s how it always worked, and I have a hard time believing this woman doesn’t know that. More likely, she’s trying to create polite conversation.
Which is wasted on me, when I barely ever appreciate it, but I’ll be nice and not tell her this time.
“Well, tell her I say hi. We’ve missed her,” the lady informs me, coming close enough to reach out and touch my shoulder in a friendly, neighborly way.
But all I can think of is how much I want to slither away from her touch. I hate when people act this familiar, and my hackles rise even as I grin back at her, feet itching to move. “I’ll tell her,” I promise, counting to three before stepping away and toward the curb, as if insinuating I have somewhere to go. “Have a good Saturday.”
Or whatever.
She doesn’t look put out. Or that she’s even realized the lengths I’ll go to in order to avoid the awkward touch of her hand on my shoulder. I don’t shudder, which is a big win for me, as I continue my leisurely stroll down the sidewalk and turn my head back to where Phoenix and hisfriendwere a minute ago.
Except…they’re not there anymore. Naturally. There’s no sign of them, even as my eyes travel up and down the road, and for twenty more steps I look for them, thinking that they can’t have gone far on foot.
At last, though, when the sun crests the top of the buildings and the farmer’s market is more set up than not, I sigh and stop walking, hands gripping the edges of my sleeves as I grind the toe of my sneaker into the cement of the sidewalk under me.
It’s useless. Phoenix is gone, and I have to admit defeat, even though it was never my right to be following him in the first place.
Hell, I didn’t even have a good reason for it, though now I figure I should take responsibility for that. I can’t just follow him, or anyone, around town like a creep. There are names for those kinds of people, and I don’t want to be one. And, as I remind myself, I don’t have a reason to be doing it.
Just a weird, creeped out feeling in the pit of my stomach and a years-old, unrequited crush that drives me to say something,anything,to the brother of my dead best friend.
So really, no reason at all.
Chapter10
It gets easier to avoid my parents’ concern when they start to believe that maybe, just maybe, I’m telling the truth. Emily’s deathisn’ttearing me up inside. At least, not how they think. The only thing it’s done is make me curious and dragged up thoughts of Daisy that I thought I had under better control.
But what can I do about it in the long run?
When I step out the front door, the evening October breeze smacks me in the face. It pushes my dark hair back over my shoulder as I fumble to pull the door completely closed, pulling it past the place it likes to stick.
It’s not as cold as it could be, but I still shiver in my hoodie, dragging the sleeves down over my fingers so I can clutch the soft fleece against my skin. I’ll get over it when I get moving, so I force myself to take a few steps off of the porch and onto the sidewalk, not making for the alley between two houses this time, but instead following Pine Street to the stop sign.
Surreptitiously I look around, knowing it’s unlikely and unreasonable for me to see Phoenix when he has no reason to be here. His family lives a few miles from us, on the other side of town, and it’s more than likely that he’s here visiting and staying with them.
Do they wonder, as I do, if he killed Emily? They have to know how he’s felt about our former ‘friends’ just as much as I do.
I even seem to remember him saying a few unkind things that could’ve been construed as threats after everything happened.
