“I can’t remember his name, but he’s definitely older. A senior, probably. Oh my god, what is his name—I know this!” Amy scoffs at herself in disgust. “I swear, my brain is so crammed full of random facts for my philosophy exam on Monday that it can’t hold any more information. Seriously, it’s on the tip of my tongue. Starts with P.”
I feel immediately guilty that I didn’t call Angela last night after my dad told me to watch out for her. My mind whirls. Why would Phen come here? What could he want? What happened to we’re just friends and we know it’s impossible for us to be together and it’s temporary and all that other crap he fed to Angela this summer? I know I probably shouldn’t be butting into Angela’s love life—not again, anyway—but this is seriously bad. Phen claims that he’s not on the side of evil, but he’s definitely not, from what I saw this summer, on the side of good. Angela deserves something better. I’ve always thought so.
“Pierce!” Amy bursts out, relieved. “That’s it.”
Hold up. “Pierce? The PHE? That’s who you think is involved with Angela?”
“That’s the guy,” she confirms. “The one who helped me with my ankle that time. He’s a senior, right?”
This I do not believe. Angela’s all wrapped up in her purpose right now, even more obsessed than usual, it seems. No way would she take time out to mess around with some random guy. Something is wrong, I think. Something weird is going on.
“Why do you think Angela’s been hooking up with Pierce?” I grill Amy.
“Well, because she’s been going out all of a sudden, like almost every night. And two nights this week she didn’t come back to the room at all, and Robin saw her this morning coming out of his room,” Amy reports. “Hair all messed up. Not wearing her shoes. Same clothes she was wearing the night before. Post-hookup, definitely.”
My mind whirls some more. It’s like a Category 5 hurricane inside my brain.
“Pierce is the dorm doctor,” I say after a minute. “Maybe Angela wasn’t feeling well.”
“Oh,” Amy says. “I didn’t think of that. She has been looking kind of worn-out lately.” She shrugs. “I guess she could have been sick.”
“See, let’s not jump to conclusions. There could be another explanation,” I say, but I can tell Amy doesn’t buy it.
I don’t buy it, myself. Angela’s not sick. I know this better than anyone.
Angel-bloods don’t get sick.
“What are you so upset about?” Christian asks later when I fill him in on the Angela situation. We’re sitting in the CoHo (the Stanford Coffeehouse) drinking coffee, our usual Saturday afternoon ritual. “What, Angela’s not allowed to hook up with anybody?”
I really, really wish I could tell him about Phen.
“I think it’s a good thing if Angela’s seeing somebody,” Christian goes on to say. “Maybe it will help her get out of her own head a little.”
I take a sip of my latte. “It’s not like her, that’s all. She’s been acting weird for weeks, but this—a guy, staying out all night—is really not like her.”
But then, come to think of it, maybe it is like her. That’s what happened in Italy. Once she reconnected with Phen, she pretty much disappeared every night, sneaking back to her grandmother’s house in the mornings before anybody else woke up.
“Angela dated guys back in Jackson,” Christian reminds me.
I shake my head. “Not so much. She went to parties sometimes. And prom. But she never even kissed anybody, she told me. She said boys were a complete waste of time and energy.”
Christian’s dark eyebrows furrow, and I can feel him remembering that one party back in eighth grade where they played spin the bottle and he and Angela went out on the back porch and kissed. Then his eyes meet mine and he knows that I know he’s remembering this, and his face starts to get red.
“It wasn’t anything,” he mutters. “We were thirteen.”
“I know,” I say quickly. “She said it was like kissing her brother.”
Christian stares into his coffee cup. Finally he says, “If you want to find out what’s going on with Angela, you should ask her.”
“Good idea.” I pull out my cell and dial Angela’s number for like the twentieth time today, put it on speaker so Christian can hear as it goes straight to voice mail. “I’m busy right now,” Angela’s voice says in the recording. “I may or may not call you back. Depends on how much I like you.”
Beep.
“Okay, okay,” Christian says as I hang up. “I don’t know what to tell you. It’s a mystery.”
I let out a frustrated breath. “I’ll see her in class Tuesday,” I say. “Then we’ll get to the bottom of this.”
“Tuesday is three days away—you sure you can wait that long?” Christian asks playfully.
“Shut up. And anyway, it’s probably nothing. I bet you ten bucks it has to do with her purpose, not some guy. Something about ‘the seventh is ours.’”
“‘The seventh is ours’?”
“It’s what Angela says in her vision. She’s been driving herself crazy trying to figure out what it means. She keeps going to the church to make herself have the vision, but she hasn’t got much beyond the location on campus where it’s going to happen and ‘the seventh is ours,’ at least not that she’s told me lately.”
“That’s cryptic.” Christian’s eyes are thoughtful. “Wait,” he says, officially catching up. “What’s this about church? Angela makes herself have the vision? How?”
I tell him about the labyrinth and Angela’s theory that it will, under the right circumstances, induce visions. Christian sits back in his chair and stares at me like I’ve told him that the moon is made of cheese. Then he presses his fingers to his eyes as if he has a sudden headache.
“What?” I ask him.
“You never tell me anything, you know that?” He drops his hand and looks at me accusingly.
I gasp. “That is not true. I tell you loads of stuff. I tell you more than anybody. I mean, I didn’t blab to you about this thing with Angela, but it’s Angela, and you know how she is.”
“How she is? What happened to ‘there are no secrets in Angel Club’?”