08. Broken into, locked out

Leila did jump out of her dream in time, but not to the events of the next day. She was instead awakened by a shrieking pain in her right side, from the crown of her head down to the middle of her back. She fought back tears as she came in touch with her surroundings and the present reality.

This couldn’t have happened! This can’t be possible!

She righted herself in her bed and reached for the bottle of pills. Surely she must have been long overdue for another dose. The pain was creeping into her skull and tearing it apart from the inside. As her shaking hand brought the container toward her with an ironically merry jangle, she blinked in disbelief at her insolent alarm clock, which stated plainly that she was no less than a couple of hours away from her next fix.

Leila threw the bottle back onto the night table. She brought her left hand up to the better side of her head and let the tears flow. She wouldn’t call for help. She’d cry in silence and wait for her body to do its job with as little interference from her as possible.

As soon as she was able to once again think through the pain, a barrage of questions broke through a door in her mind. Did that really happen? Did I dream that? Did I dream it then or is my mind just making stuff up right now? How can I trust my mind when I’m in this state?

Just then, Lola walked in with a milkshake and toast. Leila faked a yawn and rub of the eyes to wipe away her tears so her mother wouldn’t notice she’d been crying. It didn’t seem to fool her, but Leila assured her she was just sore and needed more rest. She agreed to leave her for a bit longer and stepped out of the room.

Once she was alone again, Leila took a slice of toast to cautiously chew on and reached for her open journal, still off to her side where she’d left it before dozing off. After some squinting and more wiping of tears, she was able to make out the events of October 25 and 26. Both entries barely covered half a page, describing nothing but mundane details of her normal routine. No reflections, nothing. When she turned to October 27, a recount of the events of that day was laid before her eyes. It was all recalled from the vantage point of the sour last note of the evening, when her parents had confronted her about the school’s letter.

Surely October 28 had some answers, she thought. As she turned the page and read, something in her wanted to go back in time and drop kick the Leila who wrote this entry, which only stated the following:

October 28

Woke up, did stuff, stuff happened. Wouldn’t you love to know?

I was broken into. It wasn’t a good feeling. I’m gonna have to deal with it, because even with Black Hole Eyes after me, for whatever it’s worth, I think Clay should be played with. When’s the last time I got dirty, anyway?

That was it.

She took a deep breath and felt her insides turning to cold stone with contained aggravation. The notes could match the events of her dream, sure. Black Hole Eyes could very well describe the face in the ocean with the gaping mouth, Clay’s name was there once again, playing with him could mean taking him up on the challenge he posited. Then again, it could also mean any of a slew of other possible things. I could be code for something she was planning with Evelyn, like playing hooky from school. They’d fantasized about it a couple of times before. It could very well have been a seed for a story idea. Her dream itself could have been just a manifestation of a new story she was brewing in her head. She could be fooling herself into believing this stuff, when in reality she should be more concerned with discovering who had pushed her off the stage the night before and why.

She paged forward through the next couple of weeks and found similarly superficial recounts of her days, all of them punctuated with the same message at the end: None the wiser.

Another bolt of pain shot through her, and she had to stop reading. None the wiser is damn right. I feel like I’m going backwards at this point.

It was just past 10 am. She suddenly realized it was recess time at Belmonte. Maybe if she called the school offices they’d let her speak to Evelyn. She felt a lift in her spirits for the first time that day, and although on any regular day she could have never summoned the nerve required to call the Belmonte offices, right now it barely registered on her usual overbearing carefulness, not to mention her pathological dislike of phone calls to anyone other than her friends.

She picked up her phone and silently checked for a tone before dialing. Each ring felt like a little death, and made her heart race a little faster. On the third ring a female voice answered, “Belmonte Junior College, how may I be of assistance?”

Leila collected all the formality the situation allowed her and said as evenly as possible, “Hello, I need to speak with first year student Evelyn Soria, please. It’s quite urgent.”

“Our students are not allowed to receive calls during class hours.”

“Who is this? Miss Young? It’s recess time could you please make an exception? This is Leila from first year I need to ask her something very impor...”

The woman’s tone changed instantly at the utterance of Leila’s name. It became ever so slightly higher and more stressed. “Oh, goodness! Leila? Hold on a second, dear.”

“He… hello?”

But Leila had already been cut off and she was now listening to some new age commuter jazz. After a minute had passed she was considering hanging up and trying again when Evelyn’s voice came through the other side.

“Hello? Leila?”

“Evelyn, you have no idea how happy I am to hear you right now.”

“How in hell did you manage to get them put me on the phone with you? They didn’t even let Hannah speak to her parents when they called to tell her her grandma died!”

“Well… I don’t know, maybe because the grandma didn’t snuff it in their auditorium? Anyway, stop wasting time, I need to ask you something about last night.”

“Oh?” Evelyn’s voice dropped just enough for Leila to notice it, “what’s that? How much do you remember?”

Leila felt the hair on the back of her head bristle as a set of gears in her head crept into action. “Everything, Evelyn. I remember everything.”

“Oh my God… no way. You mean it didn’t work?”

Leila felt a surge of outrage course through her body like lightning. She’d hoped she could keep the façade going, but to know that her friend had some part in the secrecy surrounding the events of the night before sent her into a fit of fury. She’d been broken into, and now she was locked out. And everyone seemed to know more about it than she did. “What didn’t work Evelyn? Who pushed me? Did someone try to kill me?” Evelyn’s stammering on the other side of the line only fueled Leila further, and she dared to ask, “Do you know about Clay?”

“Leila, I’m sorry, you made me… you made us promise… what? Hey!”

The last words weren’t spoken at Leila. There was a sudden shuffling on Evelyn’s side of the line. Leila heard her friend grunting like she was straining against something, and heard Miss Young speaking in the background, saying something like “…not allowed… step out… young man…” and then the call was cut off.