Two Birds, One Stone

5. Lake Luck

 Neta there's a reference here you better get it (also mark the switch) 

For the rest of that night, all I saw was my last conversation with Jamie. Every time I thought about it, my stomach leaped to my chest.

     Everything had been so off since the moment I stepped into his house. The eerie neatness of it all, his underwhelming room in the basement, the secretive manner of every action he'd made while there. Then, the things he'd said in the car . . .

     What I needed was Stevie's advice, now more than ever. But for once, she was the one person I couldn't ask. It would be too soon, and the last thing she needed was for that wound to be opened after it had just finally healed. I was on my own.

     I knew one thing for certain; I couldn't leave things with Jamie where they were. I was sure that he never wanted to speak to me again after today. Our little arrangement, whatever it was, had come to an end.

     But I wasn't thinking about hooking up. Or, at least, I was only thinking about hooking up a little.

     I wanted to keep an eye on him. Even if we just resumed as we had before, with him keeping me at arm's length and not letting me any closer, at least I would have some idea of what was going on with him. A boy who worked so hard to isolate himself should never be allowed to succeed.

    Maybe I shouldn't have cared so much. I didn't have any reason to. I didn't like Jamie any more now than I had a week ago. He was still a rude, coldhearted, unambitious, self-important brat.

     But he was still human. 

     Somewhere under that rough shell of his was a good kid who'd been served up too much bad to digest. I was sure of it. I couldn't forget the moments -- the muted smiles and small gestures -- in which the old Jamie Alexander peeked through that hard new exterior. 

     Maybe I had a bit of a hero complex, but from my perspective, Jamie was still just a boy, and he was a boy with very self-destructive thoughts and actions. It was impossible to read him, but it was easy to know that wherever that mind of his was couldn't be anywhere good.

     He drove me absolutely crazy. But I'd already watched someone else go through this -- this numb idea, this recklessness, this door-closed-to-the-world disposition. I had no idea what it was like, but I knew it was bad. I couldn't help but want to do something, even if that just meant watching.

     The problem now would be managing to get on Jamie's good side again -- or, better, his not-completely-bad side, because I'd never really been on his good side to begin with -- when he probably wanted nothing more to do with me. I had prodded too far, and Jamie didn't take well to anyone poking at those titanium walls of his.

     I scanned the hallways for him all day on Tuesday, wanting to speak to him sooner rather than later. I didn't get so much as a glimpse of him, however, until he entered our sixth period class mere seconds before the bell rang, leaving me no room to even try.

    The entire time Mr. Peters was lecturing, I tried desperately to catch Jamie's eye, even going as far as pretending I needed scratch paper from the back of the room so I could pass in front of his desk. Not once did he meet my gaze, and I knew that was no accident. For as hard as I was trying to make eye contact, Jamie was trying just as hard to avoid it.

     When the final bell rang, I finished putting my calculator into my bag before standing, instantly realizing my mistake when his back disappeared through the doorway, the first to leave the classroom. Cursing under my breath, I shot to my feet and hurried after him, ignoring Mr. Peters' call to discuss some theorem or another. It made no difference; by the time I emerged into the hallway, Jamie's body had long been absorbed into the crowd of students.