A Need So Beautiful (A Need So Beautiful #1)(38)

I open my eyes and Brandon is shaking me, telling me to stop screaming. I hear a loud noise in my ears but it takes a second for me to register my own shrieks. I stop, the sound still echoing in the room. When I look around, the entire class is staring at me, their mouths hanging open. Brandon seems terrified.

“Jesus, Charlotte. It was just a joke. You didn’t have to go all Exorcist on me.”

I’m shaking, every bone in my body feeling hot and out of place. When the teacher comes over and asks if I want to go to the nurse, I say yes and leave.

I walk through the empty halls, fear creeping up my legs and down my arms and I wrap my sweater tightly around me and move a little faster. Off the bridge, that’s how I’ll end—having to leap, just like the people in Monroe’s journal. That’s what happens if I give in to the Need.

But Onika offered a deal. She has a way to stop this, even if Monroe won’t. I’m just not sure if I can trust her. And her face? What happened to cause it to crack?

I shake my head, trying to stay in the moment. I’m losing so much time, time I should be living. So I decide that if that’s my end, falling off a damn bridge, I’m sure as hell not going on one. I have choices still. This is my life.

Chapter 14

I ’m still lying on the cot in the nurse’s office when I hear the sound of a shoe tapping impatiently on the linoleum. I start to smile before I even open my eyes.

“Come to check on me?” I say and manage to sit up. Sarah is there, a Diet Coke in one hand and a bored expression on her face.

“Seriously?” she asks. “You let Brandon One-Brain-Cell Whaler freak you out? I’m pretty sure I kneed him in the balls last year and you gave me a behind-the-back high-five. What happened?”

“It wasn’t him,” I say. “I mean, yeah, he’s a tool, but I don’t know. I—” And I stop because I realize that I can’t really explain. Visions of ghosts and falling off bridges aren’t exactly normal topics of conversation. Even if that’s now my life. “Never mind,” I say. “I think I have a concussion.”

“Probably. You look pale. Hey, you’re still going to go the charity event with me, right?”

I groan.

“Pretty please? It’ll be so boring without you there. I’ll be your best friend.”

I smile at her. “You’re lucky I already know you’re my best friend or my answer would have been a hell no.”

The nurse clears her throat from her desk. “If you’re well enough to make plans for tonight, Ms. Cassidy, I think you’re okay to go back to class.”

I’m a little embarrassed and nod, hopping down from the uncomfortable cot. She hands me a hall pass and I wonder if she thinks I did it all to get out of class. But I don’t say anything and instead follow behind Sarah into the crowded hallway.

As I fall in step next to her, I look sideways, anxiety creeping over me. “Sarah, remember that time last summer when we drove out to the coast to see the beached whale?”

She turns, a blank expression on her face. Please, no.

“Charlotte?” she asks slowly. “Why the hell would you bring that up? You know I puked for like two hours after I smelled that thing.”

I close my eyes, taking in a huge gasp of air. She remembers it.

“Getting hit by cars and screaming in class? I swear, you’re getting weirder by the hour.” She starts walking like she’s in a hurry.

“Where are you going?” I ask as we pass the cafeteria. I’m not a fan of fish sandwiches, but right now, I’m starving. Sarah stops fast and I nearly collide into the back of her.

“I have to meet Seth, and you’re coming with me.”

“Ew, no way. I don’t want to hear the details of your hookup.”

“He won’t, not with you there. But if he’s willing to ask me out with you standing there, looking all judgmental, then I know he likes me.”

I step back from her. “Ask you out? Sarah, he bad-mouthed you to the entire school.”

“I remember,” she says. “But what if—”

“No,” I say, crossing my arms over my chest. “You can’t go talk to him.”

“Why? Did you foresee something?” She looks hopeful.

“No. But I know he’s a jerk.”

She looks disappointed, but then shrugs. “You’re right. He is. But I still think he likes me, and now that I’ve put him in his place, he’s ready to apologize and we can move on.”

“He’s an ass**le.”

Her face begins to darken and for a second I think she might cry. But instead, she just twitches her mouth. “You may be right,” she says. “But it’s all I’ve got.” And then she walks away, leaving me alone in the middle of the hallway.

I’m just about to go double up on tater tots when a burning sensation prickles my skin. I blink slowly, the world around me fraying at the edges. Not now.

I try to turn to the cafeteria, but pain spikes through my joints. Eventually I give in and start walking toward the back of the building.

I stare at the doors where light filters in, thinking I’m leaving the school, but at the last second a rough wind blows through me, stopping me at a wooden doorway a few feet away.

Looking it over, I see everything but the handle lose its focus. I think . . . I’m at the teachers’ lounge. My skin tingles and my body is pushing me, but I don’t want to open the door. I don’t want to give in to the Need anymore.