Ghosts of Christmas Past

Chapter Seventeen

This time, Emily wasn't really aware of waking up. She was just suddenly aware that she was remembering this incident, not just dreaming it. She thought about it a little harder, tried to replay it in her mind. Who was there?

The girls, the locker guy, the teacher, the crowd of guys and girls that made their way from class to locker to class. No one noticed her. No one saw her throw away the invite. Had they?

She sat up in bed, thinking. The girls, were they some kind of lookout for whoever was pulling this prank? They didn't seem to be particularly interested. The teacher? No. She was just monitoring the halls. She didn't even look at Emily. But the guy at the locker...

She zeroed her memory in on that. Was that guy watching her? He sure took a long time getting his locker open. In fact, he never actually opened it. Was that even his locker? Was he watching her?

Emily got up and went to the kitchen. She flipped on the light, sat down at the table and cracked open Leo's yearbook. She found his senior picture quickly and stared at it. Same hair. Same build. Had that been Leo at the locker? Had he been watching her? Had he been the one who left the prom invitation for her? Was that a serious invitation?

She wracked her brain, trying to force the memory clearer. That was Leo, right? It was him at the locker, and it was him passing in the halls, and it was him across the cafeteria. And all those times he was looking at her, those weren't accidents. He was looking at her.

And then she had another thought, another memory—the night of the first choral concert, the solo she was forced to do, the stage lights, the audience filled with parents and others. She could still feel the spaghetti dinner writhing around in her stomach like venomous snakes. She could still feel the terror of expected failure, inevitable humiliation. She could feel it coming up in her throat.

She'd quit choir after that. Dropped out of music class altogether. It was the single most humiliating experience of her life... up until she walked in on Jake and Mika, that is.

She tried to push that memory away, but Leo's smile from the page of the yearbook pulled her back into it. She had been mortified. Mrs. Leighaigh, on the piano had stopped playing abruptly. The rest of the choir was dead silent for thirty seconds. Then half of them erupted in laughter and the other half in groans of disgust.

Miss Cuzak scowled deeply and jerked her head toward the backstage area. Her whisper was heard at least as far as the first two rows of the audience. "Get out!"

As if she'd done it on purpose. As if it were her intention to make sure she humiliated herself in front of as many people as possible, in as public a way as possible. She couldn't even speak from the abject shame. And the smell of spaghetti vomit on the stage floor and on her new green dress threatened to make her spew again.

Emily's eyes burned at that memory and a thought began to niggle at her brain. Leo was there. He had to have been. He was a music geek, wasn't he? If he was there, then he saw what happened, didn't he?

She shut her eyes, tried to remember. The tomato and basil vomit taste, the clammy wetness on the front of her dress, the sound of gasps and gags and derisive laughter from all around. And one last look at the rest of the choir on the risers, all looking down at her as Miss Cuzak further ridiculed with her fake whispered Get out.

Leo. He was there, wasn't he? The top row, middle. She could see him now in her memory. What was he doing? Was he laughing? Gagging? No. No, she could remember it now. He was looking down at her with sympathy. No, it was empathy. He was looking down at her and he was feeling her pain. And then he was looking at Miss Cuzak with anger.

It was Leo who motioned for the stage crew to shut the curtains. It was Leo who told the others to be quiet. She could hear his voice behind her as she ran out of the stage door, crying. He had been there. All along.