Shadow Girl

Book Two: Soul Searching

[Chapter Seven: Emotionless]

            Everything around me feels surreal. I don't know what the truth is, because I'm just realizing that my whole life is a lie. I don't know what to do. I need help.

            I ran home in pain, crying. Tears clouded my vision, and I was hyperventilating. My ankle was swollen and turning a really nasty shade of purple, but I couldn't stop. I had to get home.

            I stumbled through my front door and ran up the stairs, crying out in pain on the way up because of my ankle. I slammed my bedroom door shut and crumpled to the floor, sobbing.

            Jordan is a witch. And he almost killed someone. I lay there, thinking about this. Thinking about everything. Jordan had lied to me. Jordan was dangerous. I thought about my mom and Cal Blaire, her first boyfriend. Cal had lied to Mom. Cal had been dangerous. He'd tried to kill her when she refused to be a part of his mother's dark plan.

            Then I thought of my biological grandparents, Maeve Riordan and Ciaran MacEwan. Ciaran never told Maeve that he had been already married with three children. Ciaran had lied to her. Maeve had refused to stay with Ciaran, and he had burned her to death a little over a year later, locked up in an abandoned barn.

            Was this my destiny? Love, lies, and death?

            "Moira?" Mom poked her head into my room. I looked up, surprised. "Moira, what happened to you?" she asked, sounding alarmed. She knelt down, looking at my ankle. "I'll go get an ice pack."

            She left, and I sat myself up, wondering how horrible I looked. My hair was messy and snot was probably all over my face. I wiped my face with the sleeve of my sweatshirt.

            Mom came back, holding a plastic Ziploc bag full of ice. She sat down next to me on the floor, balancing the bag on my ankle. "Tell me what happened," she said, holding me with her free arm.

            What could I tell her? I was attacked by a bunch of goons who sprained my ankle, and then my boyfriend came and shot white witch fire at them? "I-I was running and I twisted my ankle but I kept running anyway," I told her, trying to stop crying.

            "Sweetie, why were you running? Weren't you meeting Jordan?"

            The sound of his name felt like a dagger plunging through my heart. "J-J-Jordan and I broke up," I cried. "I don't want to talk about it. Just, please, leave me alone."

            Mom looked shocked at this. But I pulled away from her grip and curled up on my floor, crying. Eventually she left.

            I cried until all I could do was sniffle. I stared up at the ceiling, pressing the bag of ice against my swollen ankle. I felt empty; something inside me was definitely missing. There was a hole in there. And the longer I stared up towards the ceiling, the less emotion I felt. Emotions, who needs them? I thought bitterly. They only mess with your life. Without emotions, I wouldn't feel pain, wouldn't feel sadness, wouldn't feel anger. Sure, I wouldn't feel happiness either, but I've lived fourteen years without any real happiness. I can live without it.

            My ankle felt numb. And so did my heart.

*  *  *

            I spent the rest of the day lying on my floor. I asked my mom to lead the circle with Stellaluna, but since Dad was still sick, she had to handle Kithic, too. She told me that in the end, she brought Kithic over to Claire's house, where Stellaluna was meeting. According to Mom, when Claire opened the door and found my mother and her entire coven on her doorstep, her eyes got very round and she muttered something in French in a dumbfounded tone. I might have laughed if I still had emotions, but I replied to Mom with silence, and she actually opened my bedroom door to see if I was still alive. At some point, I fell asleep, still on my floor, and Mom must have come into my room when I was sleeping, because I woke up on my bed.

            I stayed in bed all day on Sunday, and by that evening, my ankle wasn't swollen anymore. It still hurt, though, so on Monday morning my mom wrapped it up in an Ace bandage, and she dropped me off at school.

            The minute I stepped into the main corridor, there was an unearthly silence. Everyone stared at me, only it was different from what I was used to. They looked at me as if I was about to keel over and die.

            And I knew what happened without even asking. Jordan's secret had gone school-wide.

            A girl with shoulder-length dark hair walked up to me and gently touched my arm. "Moira. How are you?"

            I blinked at her, trying to place her. She looked familiar. "I'm…fine."

            She leaned in towards me until her forehead lightly tapped mine. "Oh…I guess you didn't hear…"

            I took a step back, wondering what exactly she'd heard. "Enlighten me."

            Her voice took on the soft tone used to explain death to four year olds. "Moira…it's about your"—here her voice dropped to a whisper—"boyfriend."

            "…Uh huh." Hurry up and tell me what I already know.

            "It's all over the school," she told me. "Derek Boles and some of his friends ran into him in the woods. Jordan flipped out. And…well, Moira…you're not the only witch on the block, honey."

            I blinked. Typical Derek. Skip the part where he's trying to hurt somebody and call him Mr. Big Victim. "Right," I told her, turning and walking away.

            People were giving me fish eyes, like they expected me to start throwing things in an emotional fit. If they kept this up, I was going to set something on fire.

            "Moira!" Claire and Jamie ran up to me. Jamie started hugging me to death, while I squeaked out a warning about my bruised ankle. "Moira you should hear what's going on, everyone's saying Jordan's a witch and he attacked someone…"

            "I know," I told her, stepping back a little. "I was there."

            Both girls' mouths dropped open. "What?" Claire exclaimed. "Is that why fifteen people showed up at my doorstep Saturday night instead of just you?"

            "Your mom mentioned you had a sprained ankle," Jamie remembered. "What happened?"

            I glanced down at my bandaged ankle. "It just sort of happened…a lot of crap happened on Saturday." I looked at Claire. She had told me from the beginning to take it slow with Jordan. I hadn't listened to her. I felt so stupid. "I should have listened to you," I told her. "I was so stupid about Jordan, and now…"

            Claire just looked at me. "Oh, shut up. You're so schizophrenic. You have to be who you are. Yes, ultimate corny, but do I care? No. Be true to yourself. If you are, you'll come out of this with a smile on your face and a lollipop in your mouth."

            I blinked at her, and then I turned to Jamie. "Translation?"

            "She was being sympathetic."

            "Oh." I walked down the hall with them towards my locker saying, "You know, Claire, it's amazing that you don't make people cry with the way you are."

            "You haven't known me that long," she replied with a grin. I actually smiled back, and was smiling until we reached my locker. It was then that I remembered how things were a week ago, Jordan and I kissing, everyone being jealous.

            I guess no real happiness can ever stay.

*  *  *

            The rest of the morning felt strange, as if I was watching this girl on a black-and-white screen, drifting through her classes, her facial expression emotionless, her eyes always looking straight in front of her.

            In English, I was listening to the teacher discuss the use of symbolism in The Joy Luck Club when I heard whispers behind me. The voices belonged to Marissa Conley and Alexa Harper.

            "…One week," Alexa was telling Marissa. "Moira and Jordan only lasted a week. That's like, the shortest relationship at Widow's Vale high in years." Great. Now I was part of the latest love gossip.

            "No, Rob Munser and Kaila Abbott's second try at their relationship lasted only two days," Marissa disagreed.

            "Well, that one doesn't count; no one expected that to last."

            There was a short pause. "No one really expected Moira and Jordan to last either, did they?" Marissa pointed out.

            "Yeah. I guess their days were numbered. Moira's, like, not allowed to have that great of a life. It's like, against the laws of nature."

            I whirled around in my seat to look at them. Alexa and Marissa's eyes widened, and they looked shocked, embarrassed, and worst of all, sympathetic. I was sick and tired of people giving me pity looks.

            I opened my mouth, but then closed it. What was I supposed to yell at them for? Telling the truth? It was impossible for me to have a nice, normal life. Instead, I gave them an empty stare for a few minutes, then turned back around. Alexa and Marissa didn't say anything else for the rest of the period. I have a gift for killing conversations.

            At lunch, I ate silently, surrounded by my friends. None of us spoke much. I felt Rusty's eyes on me, and I wondered how long he'd wait until he said, "I told you so." If he knew what was good for him, he'd keep his mouth shut for another week. I wasn't ready to deal with his gloating.

            Suddenly, the whole cafeteria went silent. I looked up to see Jordan walking through the doors on the other side of the room. He was like Moses, parting the stormy waters of a high school cafeteria. Everyone backed away from him, as if his skin was acid, his breath poison, his very gaze deadly. Everyone used to stare at me like that. It felt strange to watch the same kind of scene from an observer's point of view.

            I tore my eyes away from Jordan. I couldn't look at him. I felt his presence walk slowly to our table. He stopped in front of the table. Most of the coven just looked at him. Claire put an arm around my shoulders, and Jamie sat closer to me on the other side. I poked at my school cafeteria meatloaf and desperately wished freshmen were allowed to go out for lunch.

            "You're not welcome in the coven now, Jordan." I snapped my eyes to Rusty, shocked. Even though it seemed inevitable, I couldn't believe Rusty was actually exiling Jordan.

            "What?" Jordan asked, sounding a little stunned, himself.

            Rusty looked at him cynically. "You're dangerous, Jordan. You lied to the coven, and you especially lied to the coven leader. Moira." He gave a short, dry laugh. "Not that you were ever really a member of our coven, anyway." My eyes drifted away from Rusty, back to my lunch tray. It hurt to hear Rusty take this tone with Jordan. Even if he did almost kill someone.

            "Moira's the coven leader," Jordan told him evenly. "Shouldn't it be her choice, who stays in the coven?"

            Everyone's gaze turned to me. I couldn't believe Jordan had just done that. How could he put me in that spot? I couldn't look at him, couldn't speak.

            "I think," Rusty said smugly, "that answers that."

            "Moira." I flinched at Jordan's voice, soft and familiar and now hinted with pain. "Moira, look at me."

            I slid my eyes to the left and looked at Claire. Her eyes were narrowed in defiance, like she would gladly drag Jordan outside and fight him. I tried to imitate Claire's face, squinting up at Jordan like I couldn't see him clearly. You can't hurt me, I thought. I've already cried. You can't hurt me anymore.

            Jordan's light green eyes stripped through me, like they had so many times before. He made me feel so vulnerable, made that wall crash down. My mind flashed back to our first kiss, and I blinked rapidly. No, you can't hurt me…I'm stronger than this…

            I got up from the table abruptly, muttering, "I have to go to the bathroom." I walked past Jordan, brushing his arm with mine. In that contact I felt a jolt of emotions, shooting through me like static electricity. I snapped around to look at Jordan, gasping shortly. I'd felt what he was feeling: Anger, confusion, pain. But, overwhelmingly, love. He still loved me.

            God damn it.

            I walked quickly out of the cafeteria, wrapping my arms around myself. I was breathing fast, still feeling dazed from the exchange of emotions. I literally felt sick, like Jordan's still-present feelings for me were making me physically ill. I'm stronger than this, I kept telling myself. Get a grip, I'm stronger than this, I'm stronger…I'm stronger…

            I pushed through the bathroom door and went straight to the sinks. I looked hard at my reflection in the mirror. I looked so much like my mother. And somehow, I was living her own mistakes with Cal. No, I thought defiantly. I am not my mother, I am not my mother…

            I turned to the wall and slammed my fists into it, anger shooting through me. Then I slid down to the floor and cried, letting my bottled-up emotions be free.