A Grave Problem

41. Almost Honest

Mia sat down to lunch feeling better than she had in a long time. The banshees had been taken care of, and she'd found out that Zev really wasn't a dangerous person; everything seemed to be working out. Now all she had to worry about was doing one more thing for Summer before she could ignore that girl once and for all and start worrying about more normal things.

"So how's Heath been?" Anna asked, looking over at Carmine.

Mia had forgotten all about him. She'd had so much going on lately that he'd completely slipped her mind.

"Yeah, I haven't heard you mention him in a while." Mia said, pretending that she wasn't the type of person who could forget what was going on in her friends' lives.

"Oh. Yeah." Carmine said, but she didn't sound very happy. "I haven't talked to him in a couple of weeks."

"Why not?" Mia asked. "What happened?"

"You two seemed to get along well together." Anna told her, sounding disappointed.

"Did you know that Heath is Summer's cousin?" Carmine asked, sounding annoyed at the mere thought of whatever conversation she'd had with him.

"Really?" Mia asked. He always struck Mia as being so calm - not at all demanding and ungrateful like Summer!

"Yep." Carmine said, turning back to her homework.

"So he's like them, isn't he?" Anna said, more thinking out loud than actually asking a question.

"Exactly." Carmine told them. If anything, she looked even more upset.

"So what happened?" Mia wanted to know.

"We were talking, and I said something about Summer - I don't remember what. And he said, 'Oh, I know her. She's my cousin.' So I asked if he knew what Summer had been telling us about banshees and the Dullahan."

"And did he?"

"Yep. He'd actually known about it since the beginning!" Carmine said, almost yelling. She took a deep breath to calm down. "Sorry." she said, her tone normal again.

"He never mentioned that he knew about all this before?" Anna asked, surprised.

"Nope." Carmine said. "He knew about everything we had to do this year, and he never mentioned it. Never offered to help, or talk to Summer, or anything. He was actually fine with the way things were! So, I haven't talked to him since."

"Wow." Mia said. "I'm sorry it turned out so bad."

"Me too. He seemed so nice." Anna said wistfully.

"Well, don't be." Carmine told them. "I didn't know him that well - obviously. And now I have time to worry about more important things."

"He wouldn't have been able to help much anyway - even if he had offered." Mia told Carmine, trying to cheer her up.

She knew it was bad that he hadn't even lifted a finger for them, but what could he really do? After all, he wouldn't have been able to catch the banshees with them - if he was part of Summer's group, they would have run away at the sight of him. And if Luke and Zev's reactions to Summer were any indication, he'd be more of a distraction than a help when it came time to deal with the Dullahan anyway.

"Yeah, you're right." Carmine said. When she saw that both her friends were still looking like they felt sorry for her, she laughed.

"Come on, it's not that bad." she told them. "It's not like I even really liked the guy - he just seemed nice."