No Aliens Allowed

- Twelve -

Two weeks passed, agonizingly slow.

I didn't hear from Penn that whole time. I mean, I saw him a lot, but he was always doing something when I came over, and he sort of just looked at me and I went away.

Monday, the week before Halloween, I caught him smoking, wearing aviators and a leather jacket. He brought the deathstick up to lips, which were quirked in a stupid smirk. As he released the cancer smoke, he looked my way.

My mouth jerked up into a half-grin, almost on instinct, even though we still needed to talk about that night. Since teenage boys just love to talk about awkward moments where they showed weakness, we still hadn't gotten around to it.

I started over towards him, but Penn shook his head, almost impossible for me to catch.

I assumed he was busy, and found Catelin instead.

Tuesday came and I tried again. But when I went looking for him, I found him in a very...ahem...intimate moment with one of the soccer players from the girls' team. I kinda shuffled back around the corner to the main entrance, where Allen commented, multiple times, on what he called "a facial expression of pure disgust and regret."

I couldn't agree more.

Penn continued to be a jerk and avoided me like I had the Plague, (which I didn't, just to clarify for those aliens out there) and I continued to seek him out like he'd stolen something from me (which he had, but not currently).

So, I turned to the friends I knew I could count on. Eason, his boyfriend Jackson, Catelin, Allen, and I had all gone to Lake McConaughy for a picnic after school on Wednesday that had been a lot of fun -- Jackson, whose father owned the best bar-slash-grill in town, not to mention a brewery, had managed to smuggle a few bottles. Eason, who was huge and strong, had thrown everyone into the lake except for Jackson so they could go make out somewhere while Catelin, Allen and I had to run back to my car and blast the heat, our teeth chattering from the cold. Allen had made a funny comment, but I can't quite remember-

"You still haven't answered," Cate said irritably, breaking me from my thoughts, the more troubling ones being about Penn. "Are you coming to the Halloween carnival or not? And if so, are you going to the party afterwards?"

"The carnival, yes. The party, no." I thought about what had happened at the last one. I had no desire whatsoever to go through that ridiculousness again. "The last one was a disaster," I said.

Catelin raised a brow. "Really? I didn't think it was that bad."

"That's because you hooked up with Ben and didn't puke from all the alcohol you drank."

"I'm hooking up with Ben," Cate corrected. "Present tense."

"I knew that stink was sex," I muttered.

"Shut up. So, you're going to the carnival. Are you gonna wear a costume?"

I wrinkled my nose. "No." I did plan on wearing a scanty little devil costume or some black leather thing and cat ears and pretend I was a cat. That's not how I worked.

"Aww," Catelin said, pouting. "Have you seen some of those costumes?"

"No," I said. "Because they're so miniscule." I snickered at my own joke.

Catelin gave me a flat look. "That wasn't funny."

"It was hilarious," I said. "Oh, hi Allen." He'd come up behind Catelin just a second ago.

"Allen," Catelin said. "Did you hear that joke that Kali just made?"

"What joke?" Allen asked, his brows furrowing.