Please Understand

Chapter 13: Blonde Bimbo

I put my ear buds in as soon as the bell rang for lunch, and listened to another one of Amelia's depressing songs on her sad playlist. All day, I avoided Luke, and it wasn't too hard when I was trying to live in Amelia's old life. She wandered these halls and shut out the whole school. Every once in awhile, I could smell her vanilla perfume, so I would adjust my leather jacket to keep myself planted in reality, and to keep my tears at bay. The hallway was starting to clear as everyone made their way to the cafeteria, but I headed down a different hall, towards the left. Locker 119, I've been here a few times when I was waiting for Amelia.

This morning, I ran up to the tree house, and flipped through her notebook until I found what I was looking for.

26. 14. 32.

The lock popped, and I looked down the hall to make sure I was alone. Someone would definitely tell Mr. Winters that I was breaking into a locker, and he wouldn't hesitate to call Mom again. There was a picture of Amelia and Emily taped inside her locker, but other than that, I didn't find anything remarkable. There were textbooks, and a few more notebooks, but I knew the police have already looked through her locker. They took anything that might help in the investigation, so what was I doing? I was looking for proof, or something they may have overlooked. Amelia was in trouble, and I was going to find her.

I looked over my shoulder, and then ran my hand behind her textbooks, looking for something she might have wanted to hide. My hand grazed a small piece of paper, I almost skipped over it, but I grabbed it because having anything would be better than nothing. A crumpled little receipt was the object I was obsessing over, but I straightened it out with shaking hands. September ninth, the day before Amelia disappeared. She only bought one thing, an Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt. My breath caught in my throat, and I looked down at the shirt I was wearing.

One of my ear buds was taken out, and crashed against my shoulder. "Mason? What are you doing?" a girl snickered with an annoyingly light giggle.

I slammed the locker shut, and jammed the receipt into my pocket with guilt plastered on my face. "Hey, Carlie," I murmured as I put the lock back on. What the hell? Why me? Why can't she stalk someone else?

She smiled at me, and twisted one of her blonde curls around her finger, obviously and desperately trying to flirt. "So what's up?" she asked as she batted her fake eyelashes.

"You're still hung up on this blonde bimbo?" Amelia sneered as she appeared once again from thin air. She leaned against the locker next to me with red pants and a tight black shirt. She never would've wore this outfit to school, but she did wear it a few times while hanging out with me.

I looked away from her, and back to Carlie with an electric guitar shrieking in my ear. "Nothing...uh...why aren't you at lunch?" I asked with a half smile and a nervous chuckle. Keep it together, idiot.

She kept smiling and stepped a little closer to me. "Well, I wanted to sit next to you, but you weren't in the lunchroom," she replied as she touched the collar of my jacket. Again, she batted her eyelashes, like that would make me fall in love with her. "So I came to look for you."

Slow clapping, Amelia stepped back into my line of sight. "Wow! You're a lucky man, Mason. Carlie definitely wants you...oh wait! She already had you!" Amelia exclaimed in my ear. I could hear the smile in her voice, like this was all a game to her. She always had fun torturing me.

I gritted my teeth. "Why?" I asked as I crossed my arms over my chest, forcing Carlie to stop touching me.

Her smile twitched, but she kept it on her perfectly tanned face, and withdrew her hand. How was she still tan when summer was turning into fall so quickly? "I wanted to talk about the party the other night. You've been avoiding me for weeks and I really thought we had something special," she rambled with her confident attitude and full lips.

"You would notice her more than me. You could think about me all day, but in the end, you were never going to see the girl standing in front of you," she murmured in a low voice as she stepped in front of me with her hands on her hips.

Go away, Amelia. I tried to force myself to look into Carlie's green and brown eyes. "What are you talking about?" I asked as I knitted my eyebrows together.

She tilted her head to the side, and stepped even closer, so Amelia vanished. All my attention was forced onto her. "You know, at the party, we went up to your room," she whispered as she ran her hands along my chest.

I raised one of my eyebrows at her, and then I actually laughed. "Nothing happened at the party," I replied as I pushed her hands off of me. "You were drunk, and you must not remember right."

She looked hurt, stunned that I disagreed, and her flirty smile faded into an exaggerated pout. "I clearly remember going up to your room," she insisted as she shook her head.

"I was downstairs all night. I remember sending Luke upstairs to help you because I didn't want you to fall down. Justin was trying to start a fight outside, and I was calming him down, so the cops didn't get called," I explained with a small smile even though I wasn't one hundred percent sure if that's really what happened. "You must have hooked up with Luke."

She shook her head again, and patted the side of my face with a mocking pout. "You poor thing. Anyways, we are still on for the Homecoming dance, right? I need ample time to pick out the perfect dress," she changed the subject as she brought her smile back to her face. "I'm thinking black or navy blue. I'll let you know."

I snorted, but resisted the urge to laugh at her again. "Carlie, stop. I'm not taking you to Homecoming and I didn't have sex with you," I bluntly stated. "Leave me alone. I'm not interested."

Amelia held onto her stomach as her laughter echoed off the walls. "You're so dead, Mason. This girl is crazy! She. Is. Going. To. Destroy. You."

I gulped as I watched fire fill Carlie's eyes. Could she have something to do with Amelia's disappearance? I was grasping at anything that could help me, but maybe I was going to complicate this more. Maybe I should get closer to Carlie. What if she got rid of Amelia to get closer to me? There I go being selfish again. There's absolutely no way she would do that. She's too stupid.

She smiled again and flipped her hair over her shoulder, holding her head up high. Again, she stepped closer to me, so our bodies were almost touching, and she practically put her lips to my ear. "I always get what I want, Mason," she whispered. Then, she kissed my cheek, and headed down the hallway with her heels clicking after every step.

I snorted again because I wanted to seem amused, but my heart was still breaking. Each crack spread, and I was waiting for it to completely shatter. I leaned against the lockers, and found my way to the floor. All I could smell was vanilla, but I was alone in the hallway. Amelia was gone. My hand instinctively put the ear bud back in, and I closed my eyes.

I've been up late writing books all about heroes and crooks. One of them saves you from this, the other one steals you.

I forced myself not to cry, but I was in too deep. I surrounded myself with her, and now I couldn't get rid of her. Amelia was everywhere, and it was my fault. I was drowning in the mess she left behind, wearing the shirt she bought for me and sprayed with her perfume, so I wouldn't remember that night.

That night wasn't a dream. Someone hurt Amelia, and she went missing a week later. Someone wanted her gone.