Part 6 (1/2)

As I said the words, I knew I was lying. Logan would not like this at all. In the 11 months we'd been dating, Logan had shown himself to be very jealous of every guy who came near me, even Victoria's boyfriend Thomas.

”Logan,” he said, narrowing his eyes. ”I don't think I like that dude very much.”

”I'm sorry for how he acted. I know Logan tried to make you feel small, with the money and everything. He shouldn't have done that. He's actually a nice guy. I think he was just, I don't know. I'm sorry, though.”

Demetrio laughed out loud again. ”Listen to me, mami. Ain't a man on earth can make me feel small. Right? Not even mister hotshot Logan. Money don't mean nothin' to me now.”

”Well, good,” I said, awkwardly. ”I'm glad. You deserve to feel big.”

He laughed at me again. ”Yeah, okay. Cool. It's all good. Listen, mamita, it's getting late. I gotta jet.”

”Oh, right. The can't-be-out-after-dark thing.”

He pointed at me to confirm I was right, somewhat ironically. ”Good memory.”

”Can I give you a ride somewhere?”

”Nah. I live nearby. Right up the hill here.”

”I don't mind taking you to your house,” I said.

”I know, mamita, but my folks.” He got a worried look again. He looked ashamed. ”They're kind of weird.”

”Weirder than your grandpa?” I joked.

He chuffed a small sc.r.a.p of laugh. ”The old man is a little loco, huh? G.o.d love him.”

We looked at each other in silence. The world instantly grew very, very quiet. The sky had mottled over into a dark gray, the setting sun lost behind the mountains. I wanted him to touch me again, and hated myself for it. Good girls didn't cheat on their boyfriends. Especially not their perfect, impressive, outstanding boyfriends, academic and athletic stars at Coronado Prep and beloved by their parents. What was wrong with me?

”You're a beautiful girl,” he told me. ”I knew you'd clean up good.”

I felt myself blush, even as his poor grammar rankled me. ”Thank you.”

”Inside and out. You're a very good person, Maria.”

”You don't know me.”

”I know more than you think. I know things.” He almost sounded boastful.

”No you don't,” I insisted, even though I believed that he did know things. I could tell by the unnerving, magnetic look in his eyes. He didn't say a word. Rather, he watched me, his eyes moving slowly across every inch of my face, and resting for a moment on my lips, and seemingly quite happy there. He took his free hand and used the finger to touch the side of my face lightly.

”Pretty as a painting,” he said, softly, taking his hand away. I was covered with goose b.u.mps from just that one, light touch. I'd never felt this way with Logan, or any other boy.

The s.p.a.ce around us grew silent once more. I entertained all manner of unsavory thought about him, and hoped he couldn't read my mind. I knew it was wrong, so very wrong, to want this guy so badly. I held my breath, and didn't know what to do.

”This is awkward,” I said, finally, looking at his mouth and - to my great surprise - moving closer to him almost as though I couldn't stop myself. He responded, to my great surprise, by backing away.

”No, mamita,” he said, crus.h.i.+ng my spirit. ”Let's not do anything we'll regret, huh?” He glanced around in that paranoid way he got sometimes, at the darkening sky.

”But I thought you liked me,” I whined.

”C'mon. Stop looking at me like that, mamita. It ain't you. I'd love to kiss you. I would. But I can't, Maria. I just can't. It ain't you, okay? Listen to me. I - I gotta go. The dark.”

”What are you, a werewolf?” I joked, stupidly.

His nostrils flared with frustration, as he tried to calm himself down. ”Nah, man. I ain't a pinche werewolf. It's bad enough shaving a face every day, but can you imagine shaving everything? Dang.”

In spite of my sense of rejection, I cracked a grin.

”That's better,” he said, perking up. ”I'll see you soon, okay?”

”When?” I asked.

”I'll find you. Be well.”

With a tormented look on his face, almost as though he were fighting with himself internally, he trotted up the dirt road on the hill, without looking back. I got back in the Land Rover and felt tears flood my eyes - tears of frustration and confusion. What the heck was I doing? What was happening to me? And why did this gangster guy just reject me?

I leaned across the pa.s.senger seat and watched him through my tears, and the growing darkness. He sprinted past the church and up a small hill to the east. One of my contact lenses popped out from the crying, and his image blurred. There was a faint electric glow of light beyond the hills, as though there were houses down in the valley beyond them. He probably lived there, I thought, in a rundown trailer of some kind. He was probably ashamed to have me see his house. How sad that was.

He stopped at the top of the hill and glanced back toward me. Then, silhouetted by the faint golden glow from below, he began to literally soften and fray around the edges, melting the way a spoonful of honey melts when placed into a cup of hot tea. His body, a gray shadow in newly dark evening, seemed to flow into the air around it, merge with it, and ignite. Where Demetrio had been, there appeared spots of fast-fading, twinkling light, like the tiny short-lived stars that burst off the ends of sparklers on the 4th of July, like the sun on the snow this afternoon.

I rubbed my eyes, and blinked repeatedly, refusing to trust what I thought I'd seen. I couldn't trust these eyes. Or my heart. Or my mind. There was no question anymore that I was losing it, that my mom might have been right about post-traumatic stress, that the accident had somehow done something to scramble my brain. I was imagining things, and I was literally blind without my contacts.

I fished through my backpack for my spare pair of gla.s.ses, put them on my face after removing the remaining contact lens and tossing it to the floor of the car. Able to see clearly again, I looked up the hill. There was nothing. Just the church, and the small graveyard in front of it, and the hill with a few houses scattered beyond.

”See?” I told myself as I started the car and took a few deep breaths, s.h.i.+vering with cold and nerves. ”It's nothing but your imagination.”

I pulled the Land Rover off the shoulder and, through a veil of tears and confusion, began driving north, toward my dad's.

As usual, I was the only one out on this road at this hour, night coming quickly over the San Pedro mountains to the East. I wished I'd heeded my mother's advice and taken the Interstate. It was so not worth it to have spent the afternoon chasing dead ends in Golden. Now that night had fallen - at five-thirty, no less - I was creeped out and a little too shaky to manage the twisty little Highway as well as I should have. I took some deep, calming breaths, and tried to focus.

When I got to the mile 21 marker or so - near where my crash had taken place - strange shapes started to appear in the periphery of the beams from my headlamps. I couldn't blame them on the missing contact lens anymore, though I could blame them on my unwell mental state. They were dark, gray and shadowy, and loped along. Animal. Every time I'd think I saw one, it would disappear as soon as I focused my eyes on the spot where it had been - only to return moments later. I promised myself to tell my mom I was willing to see the therapist she'd suggested, after all. This wasn't normal.

I sped the Land Rover up, thinking that if it were the coyotes from my recurring dream, there'd be no way they could keep up with me at fifty or sixty miles an hour. I was mistaken. The apparitions continued, and in fact began to grow clearer, until, at last, they did not disappear for a split second when I looked directly at them. I could have sworn I actually saw them, that they ran alongside the car, on the shoulder of the road, a large pack of coyotes, and the largest of them all met my gaze with its own yellow laughing eyes. But as soon as the image registered in my mind's eye, it was gone again.

I shuddered, sick with fear. I wasn't so much afraid of the coyotes as I was afraid for my sanity. I knew, logically, that I could not possibly be seeing a large pack of animals, however wily and cunning, cantering along at such high speed alongside a Land Rover. It was absurd. And yet, as soon as I thought I'd regained control of my mind, the specters appeared in my peripheral vision again, and remained visible for a brief moment after I turned to see them. This time, the lead coyote seemed to smirk cruelly at me before dissipating. It had tremendously strong shoulders, and a thick, broad neck. Its hackles were raised menacingly, and its fanged mouth hung open, dripping saliva down the front of itself.

”This isn't happening,” I mumbled.

Trembling, I reached into my pocket and extracted the laminated prayer card Demetrio had given me. I didn't know why, exactly, only that it felt rea.s.suring to hold it in my hand. As long as I held it, the animals did not appear again.

As an experiment, I set the card down on the pa.s.senger seat. Again, the coyotes loped into my peripheral vision. I tried in vain to speed past them. At 70 miles per hour, all of them dropped off expect the enormous one, the leader. It stuck with me, and seemed even to enjoy the challenge of the sprint. At eighty miles per hour, I looked at it directly. Its eyes were lit with sanguine pleasure, as though this were exactly what it wanted. Then, as before, it rippled into darkness and was gone.

Realizing how foolish I was being, driving like a maniac, I stepped on the brakes, and slowed back down to 45 miles per hour. I picked the prayer card up again - and, again, nothing chased me. I set the card down once more, and again the lone coyote cantered alongside me in shadow, its posture suggestive of patient disappointment. I refused to look at it, though I felt it wanted me to. Within moments, the thing gave up trotting alongside me, and began to smash its body into the side of the Land Rover. Thump after sickening thump. I felt it, and I heard it.

”OmiG.o.d, omiG.o.d, omiG.o.d,” I chanted. I could understand visual hallucinations, but physical and audible ones?

I looked at it, and this time the coyote did not disappear. The act of hurling its body against a moving Land Rover had no obvious physical repercussions on the coyote. In fact, it seemed to grow larger with each furious leap against my car. Before I knew it, the coyote had leapt onto the hood of the Land Rover, and was standing in my line of vision, blocking the road.