Not Quite Dead

Chapter Eight - Not Quite Smooth

Artemis

I laid in bed, thinking about what Kyler said only hours earlier, about me and Dawn, replaying every second of it in my brain. 

Man, that kid was the best.  Sometimes I wished Darien and Damien were like Kyler.  I never really played with the twins because they were always playing video games or sports. 

You didn't want to see me, a science nerd, play sports.  I never wanted to see that again. 

Where was Dawn?   When did she leave?  Why was she gone?  Why did I care so much?  She was just some dead person that couldn't be explained by science.  Sure, she was pretty, but Rachael was beautiful. 

I wished I could stop thinking about her.  Dawn, I meant.  Kyler was under the absurd impression that I liked her.  Liked Dawn.  Dawn.  I didn't know what to think. 

I didn't like Dawn whatever-her-last-name-was.  I would never like her like that.  I was utterly, impossibly head-over-heels for Rachael. 

Just then the other spirit girl -- Avery, her name was -- phased through my door.  She floated over to me, and pushed her whole hand through my chest. 

A cold unlike any other cold surged through my body like wild fire.  I felt like every nerve, cell, whatever inside of me, every place where I could possibly feel something -- it felt like they were burning at a rate of I-didn't-know, because I couldn't think.  Then she took her hand out, and the horrible feeling subsided instantly. 

"What was that for?" I nearly yelled at her, shooting up out of bed.  I stood a good few feet away from her in case she did anything like that again.  I remembered there were other people on the house and I didn't know how they'd feel about a scrawny boy like me screaming to no one but himself. 

"What did you do to Dawn?" she demanded.  Avery's eyes narrowed, and she had never looked madder.  I had only ever seen her happy, so this alarmed me. 

"What do you mean?  I was looking for her everywhere yesterday and I didn't find her.  I hadn't seen her since, like, two days ago.  What could I have done?"

"I don't care what you think you did or didn't do because I have a feeling I know what you did or didn't do because I am an expert on finding out what jerks like you did or did not do."  She spat the last words like poison. 

"Why do you think I did something, Avery?"  I asked. 

Avery snapped her fingers.  "No, nuh uh, cutie, you are not allowed to call me that."

"But it's your name."

"Don't call me anything at all.  Dawn is more mad than me whenever I got mad at my boyfriend.  She's more mad than the Jews when---"

I interrupted her.  "Let's not get into the Holocaust," I said.  "Just tell me why you think Dawn's mad, and why I, of all people, would be a part of it."

"Easy.  You're cute, probably have a girlfriend, and Dawn saw you both and got mad," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world.  "I would be mad, too, you know, if you were macking on some girl right in front of me."

Was that it?  Did Dawn see kiss Rachael last night?  Was that what this "avoiding Artemis" deal was all about?  Because she was jealous?  She was a spirit, she didn't need to get jealous.  Ghosts couldn't get jealous, could they?  Rachael wasn't even my girlfriend anymore, not officially anyway. 

But Dawn probably didn't know that. 

Did she like me?  No, she couldn't.  I'm Artemis Alexander, the boy who probably annoys her half to death.  Dawn couldn't like me.