For Nevermore Season 1

interfere with.”
    ‘Thank God,” Jen said. “I don’t mean thank God that you don’t have a social life, but thank God you said yes. You have no idea what a relief that is. I’m always worried about Tori, and it would be impossible for me to do my best at work with Tori on my mind. You hear so many stories about all the freaks these days. I’m really lucky to find someone so nice and normal, who I can totally trust. Thank you so, so much, Noella. I mean it.”
    Noella smiled, feeling slightly like a charlatan and anything but “nice and normal.” Jen probably wouldn’t feel nearly as happy, or half as grateful, if she knew she was leaving her only child with Scarella, the girl who stabbed a classmate and has an open invite for a bed at King’s Point.
    Noella hugged them both goodbye, then crossed the street back to her house, feeling a bit guilty that she might be endangering Tori, but trying to shrug the thought from her mind. She didn’t think it possible that she could hurt Tori. There was something special about Tori and the way she made her feel, something Noella didn’t feel anywhere else.
    Significant.
    Necessary.
    Loved.
    And there was no way she could hurt someone who made her feel all those things.

    * * * *

CHAPTER THREE

    3:20 p.m.

    Sam descended the school steps with Becca beside him when his phone buzzed. He drew his phone from his pocket, saw that he had a message, then tapped the voicemail icon and brought the phone to his ear, his eyes widening at the sound of Noella’s voice.
    “ Hey, Sam. It’s me. Sorry I’ve missed all your calls and stuff. Just saw your messages on Facebook . . . Um . . . I just wanted to say sorry, and that I wish things were like they used to be, or better.”
    There was a long pause, and Sam wasn’t sure if Noella almost hung up. He pressed the phone harder to his ear and turned from Becca, wondering what his face must be saying. Noella’s voice returned to the line and lit his eyes, making him glad he had turned his face.
    “I pretty much love you and have since forever, so there’s that, too. Anyway, I’m sorry for everything. Talk to you later.”
    The line went dead. Sam was stunned and for a moment, he was pretty sure he looked paralyzed. And then as Becca turned to him, he was forced to cycle past Noella’s revelation and cleanse his expression before meeting Becca’s eyes.
    “Who was that?” she said. It was obvious from the look on her face that he’d not done a good job of hiding his shock.
    “It was my mom,” Sam lied. “She was saying something about my Grandpa Ray, but I was having a hard time hearing her. The connection was terrible.”
    “Do you have to go home, or can you still come with us to the mall?”
    “I can still go to the mall,” Sam said, suddenly not wanting to at all, wanting to do nothing other than get to Noella as fast as he possibly could, so he could talk to her. He might feel differently if he and Becca were hitting the mall alone. But rarely did they find time alone without one, or several, of Becca’s friends.
    When it was the two of them together, Sam couldn’t get enough of Becca. She was terrific; funny, sweet, and even a bit geeky. They would talk endlessly about everything from movies to Pokemon, laughing about how much they used to love it when they were little. But once Vicky nudged herself into the picture, Becca grew incapable of talking about little more than clothes and makeup, while her tongue grew sharper. It always left Sam starving for the other side of Becca, and wondering how she sorted the two personalities in her head.
    They headed toward the mall, with Sam sitting in the backseat of Becca’s Jetta, feeling like a third wheel the entire way. It didn’t help that he was in the back, but his divide mostly came from the catty banter from up front.
    “Oh my GOD, I know!” Vicky screeched. “He’s such a loser.”
    “I heard that he is still following Brianna around like some kinda creeper. Doesn’t he get it?” Becca added with a laugh, slapping the steering wheel.
    They were dissing on Jeremy Wood, a junior who had been reasonably popular, but a summer’s worth of zits had turned him into a pizza face and pariah. This was coincidentally around the time his father lost almost all their money in some stock scheme. While Jeremy might have been able to get over zits, he couldn’t get over being broke. The combined sins of being imperfect and poor gave the girls in EnvyUs, and