I just stood there for a few minutes, trying to remember and hold on to every moment I had spent with Kayla that night. It had been incredible. Well, until my mom came home and killed the mood. But even then, Kayla had trusted me with one of her biggest secrets. That had to mean something.
I finally collapsed onto the couch and noticed something on the floor. I reached down and picked up Kayla's cell phone. She must have forgotten to check for it in her hurry to leave. I turned it on and was surprised to see there was no passcode. I looked at a few of her pictures and notes and then I saw some text messages from Wyatt and I immediately felt sick. As tempted as I was to go through everything in her phone, I knew it just wasn't right, and it would probably just make me depressed. I went through her contacts until I found her mom and called the number.
"Hello? Kayla?"
"Uh, no, this is Frog… Frederick Vonnegan."
"Oh, Frederick! How are you? Is Kayla still at your house?"
"No, she just left, but she forgot her phone here. I was calling you to see how I can get it back to her."
"Oh, that is so sweet of you," Kayla's mom gushed. "I would say just bring it to her at school tomorrow, but I know how attached you kids are to your devices."
"Um, yeah."
"Well, if she just left, she'll be heading to the diner."
"Diner?"
"Yes, Kathleen's Diner on 38th. She'll be in the kitchen."
"Oh, okay. I'll take it to her there."
"Thank you so much, honey. Have a good night."
"You too."
I ended the call, wondering why Kayla would be at some diner this late at night. Just then, my mom came down the stairs.
"Who were you talking to Frederick?"
I held up Kayla's phone. "It was Mrs. Morrison. Kayla left her phone here and I need to take it back to her."
"Oh." My mom looked like she was caught in some private dilemma. "You're going tonight?"
"Yeah. She'll probably be wanting it. Is that okay?"
My mom stared at the wall and took a long time to respond. I didn't know why she was acting so weird. "Yes," she said finally, "just be careful."
"Sure, mom," I said, standing up to get my car keys.
"And take your pills before you go," she added.
I rolled my eyes, but dutifully went upstairs to my bedroom and swallowed down two of the awful pills. I waited for the familiar tingling sensation to subside before heading to the garage. I was pulling out of the driveway when suddenly there was a tapping sound on my window.
"Hi Freddy!"
I flinched so violently that I hit my head on the roof of the car and nearly backed into the mailbox.
"Zane!" I shouted, rolling down my window to scold the neighbor boy, "I told you not to call me Freddy! And what are you doing out this late?"
"Did you know your car antenna isn't functioning properly?" He asked, flicking the antenna and giving me a toothy grin. "You should get that fixed. Or I could fix it."
"You could fix it?"
"Yeah, I do it for my dad all the time. It's easy peasy."
I shook my head. "Um, maybe another time."
Zane leaned in closer, like he was sharing a secret. "It's kind of important."
I stared at the precocious eleven year old, trying to make sense of his behavior. "Okay, you can do it this weekend."
"Hm. There's a million things that could happen between now and this weekend," Zane responded.
I threw up my hands, wondering if this kid's main goal in life was to annoy me. "Like what?"
His eyes shifted to the side. "I can't really tell you."
I was done. "Alright. I've got to go," I said, rolling up the window and pulling away.
"Just don't drive too far!" Zane called after me.
I rolled my eyes. I had no clue how my mom tolerated that kid.
I drove out to 38th and my beat up car seemed to make a lot of noise as I pulled into Kathleen's Diner. It was charming in a run down sort of way, and the only other car in the parking lot was Kayla's truck. The back door was open so I went in and followed the sound of water to the kitchen. I came around the corner and saw Kayla standing in front of a row of dishes, attacking them with a monster sprayer.
"Um, Kayla?"
She turned around and screamed, hitting me with a full blast of water before she rushed to the wall to turn it off. I wiped the water off of my face and looked at her. She was wearing tattered sweats and a t-shirt and she was completely drenched with water and food stains. I'd never seen anyone look more attractive.
"Frog! What are you doing here?" She exclaimed.
"I… you left your phone at my house. I called your mom… I thought you'd want it back before tomorrow afternoon," I said timidly, holding out her phone.
"Oh, I didn't even realize I'd left it." She crossed to me and gingerly took her phone, setting it on a towel near the door. "My mom told you I'd be here?"
"Yeah."
"Hm." She looked at the floor and rubbed her arm. "Well, this is kind of embarrassing…"
"I don't think so. You were demolishing the dirt off of those dishes. It was pretty impressive."
Kayla gave me a small smile, and then chewed on her lip. "It's just that… nobody knows I work here. I'd like to keep it that way."
I frowned. "Nobody? Not even Miranda or Wyatt?"
Kayla's eyes widened. "No. Definitely not them."
"Wow." She gave me a pleading look, and I put my hands up in front of me. "Don't worry, I won't tell anyone."
She seemed relieved. "Thank you. Somehow, in one night, you're finding out all my secrets."
"Honestly, Kayla, you're stressing out about keeping these secrets that I don't really think are that bad."
She sighed. "You don't know what it's like to be popular."
I snorted. "You can say that again."
She winced, but I waved my hand dismissively. She hadn't offended me. It was the truth.
"Thank you again," she said quietly. "I better finish up."
"Sure. See you tomorrow."
I walked out of the diner, thinking about everything I'd learned about Kayla that night. For some reason, finding out about Kayla's secrets only made me like her more.
*****
"So, how did it go last night? Did you guys kiss?"
I rolled my eyes at Milo. "What do you think?"
Milo shrugged. "I don't know. Sometimes making videos can get pretty romantic."
"Well, it wasn't romantic, but it was actually a lot of fun."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah. Kayla is really easy to hang out with."
Milo made a face. "Great, so you guys can be best friends while she ends up making out with that smarmy football player. You've got to step up your game! Get out of the friend zone!"
I decided not to respond and instead concentrated on the leg press. We were in physical education class, which I generally hated, especially when we had to swim, but today we were in the weight room, so it wasn't so bad. Everybody was doing their own thing, so they usually left me alone. Milo was on the leg press next to me, but he only extended his legs whenever our teacher, Mr. Woodworth, looked over at us.
"So, when is she going to come to your house again?"
I frowned. "I don't think she is. We finished everything we needed for our project."
"What? Why didn't you drag it out?"
"Because I don't want to waste her time," I replied, moving over to the bench press. Milo followed me.
"How else are you going to win her over?"
I blew out a breath. "By being sincere?"
"Blech. Sincere. That's for rookies."
I added weights to the bar and positioned myself on the bench.
"You should make something up," Milo said. "Tell her that all the footage got lost and you have to do it over again."
"Nah, that'd just annoy her," I said as I began lifting.
"Maybe, maybe not. You'll never know unless you…" Milo trailed off and stared at me.
"What is it?" I grunted.
"How in the world are you lifting that much?"
I did another rep. "What do you mean?"
"You're lifting 200 pounds!"
"Yeah, I know. I always start with this and then work up to 220 or 230."
"Are you serious?"
"What, can't you lift this much?"
Milo's eyes widened. "I can't even lift half that much."
"Huh, weird." I kept lifting as I considered Milo's shock. I thought maybe all that working out at home was doing something in a roundabout way. But before I could comment, I saw something small and sharp zooming toward my face. I quickly slipped off the bench and dropped the bar, which caused a huge crash when the weights hit the floor.
"What's going on over there?" Mr. Woodworth exclaimed, running over to us.
I pulled out the dart that was embedded in the bench where my forehead had just been. I looked up at the ceiling and spotted a tiny hole where the dart must have come through. "I'm sorry, Mr. Woodworth, but this dart-"
"Give me that!" Mr. Woodworth yelled, snatching the dart out of my hand. "What were you thinking trying to lift this much?"
"I…"
"Do you know how dangerous this is? And you've damaged the floor! You're going to have to find a way to repair that!"
"Yes sir."
"Go see the vice principal, Mr. Vonnegan!"
"But I…"
"Now!"
I realized that trying to explain would be useless, so I shuffled past my snickering classmates and headed to Mrs. Youngblood's office. She was on the phone when I knocked on her window. She furrowed her eyebrows when she saw me, and held up a finger, signaling for me to wait a minute. A few moments later, she finished her phone call and crossed her office to let me in.
The small space was sparsely decorated, with just a modest desk and a couple chairs, and a large, fake plant in the corner. The walls were lacking the multitude of certificates and achievements that most of the other administrators had displayed in their offices, which made the whole room seem a lot cleaner. I sat down in a hard chair on the other side of her desk and stared at the floor.
"Are you going to tell me why you're in here or did you just drop by to inspect my carpet?"
I lifted my head and sighed. "I dropped a bunch of weights in the weight room and damaged the floor."
Mrs. Youngblood inclined her head. "Interesting. Why did you do that? If it was to irritate Mr. Woodworth, I wouldn't blame you. Watching that man lose his temper is pretty entertaining."
I let out a small laugh and then looked down at my hands. "No. I was on the bench press and there was this… dart."
"Dart?"
I winced. It really did sound outrageous now that I was telling her. "Um, yeah. I think it came out of the ceiling."
Mrs. Youngblood peered at me. "Do you have this dart?"
"No, Mr. Woodworth took it."
She made a sound in the back of her throat, her expression stoic. Finally, she turned to her computer and started typing something. "Mr. Vonnegan, I'm aware that a lot of unfortunate things happen to you, but this seems particularly implausible. Is it possible you imagined it?"
I raised my eyebrows. "I could have, but-"
"How are things at home?"
I straightened in my chair, confused by her change of conversation.
"Uh, fine, I guess."
"Is your mother home often?"
"Lately she's been gone a lot for work."
Mrs. Youngblood sat back and nodded. "Sometimes when there's not strong parental interaction in the home, adolescents will begin to fabricate outrageous experiences as a plea for attention. I'm not necessarily saying this is what's happening to you, Mr. Vonnegan, but it's a possibility. Regardless, I would imagine that you're under a lot of stress, and it might be affecting you mentally."
I swallowed hard, not sure what to make of her assessment. Was she saying I was going crazy?
"I'll talk to Mr. Woodworth about this incident, but I would suggest you find some time to relax, Mr. Vonnegan. I'll call you back in next week so we can discuss what to do about the damages to the weight room."
I walked out of Mrs. Youngblood's office more bewildered than when I had come in. I was fairly certain the dart had been real, but the whole scenario did seem pretty far-fetched. Maybe the stress I had been under along with lifting those weights had made me see things. But if Mrs. Youngblood wanted me to relax, it wasn't going to be happening anytime soon. The talent show was in a couple days, and the thought of performing in it still made me a little sick to my stomach.