“That’s what I’m talking about!” Ashley exclaimed excitedly, her voice drawing me back.
A hush had fallen over many onlookers. That wasn’t your typical tackle. It had seemed malicious. Eric hadn’t even had the ball anymore!
The guy who’d tackled him scrambled to his feet and followed the ball down the field, but Eric lay still, face twisted with pain, buried under his forearm. His friend Jonah jogged over and extended a hand. Eric let Jonah haul him to his feet but took one step and nearly collapsed. They exchanged harsh words, pointing sharp glares up the field.
Eric tested his step carefully while searching for me on the sidelines. Jonah patted him on the back as he began hobbling toward me. A few players yelled to him, urging him back to the game, but he waved, calling out, “Next time.” He worked hard to hide a limp as he made his way to the sidelines.
“That fall was excellent, Eric!” Ashley cheered.
He exhaled a strained laugh. “Awesome. Glad to entertain.” He turned to me, not quite looking in my eyes. “I’ve got to shower before supper.” He started to walk away, and I hurried to follow.
“Are you alright?” I asked.
“Yup. Fine.”
Once we were out of sight of his friends, his pace slowed and his limp worsened. He stopped by a tree, leaning against it for support while rubbing away bits of grass on his leg. “Jackass got my bad knee.”
There were shoe marks on Eric’s skin, scrapes from cleats, and dirt. Blood seeped from the tears in his skin, trickling down his leg. I felt queasy at the sight.
“He did it on purpose?” I pressed. “He Tonya Harding-ed you?”
I’d hoped my reference would at least draw a tense smile, but I got nothing.
“I don’t think it was to win the game. We were on the same team,” Eric stated darkly. He hesitated, blue eyes boring holes into the ground. “He’s Mike’s friend.”
Mike. My blood ran cold.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’s not a big deal.”
Not a big deal? He was limping and bleeding. Of course it was a big deal. “Does it hurt?” I asked. Dumb question, Sandy. Of course it hurts.
He shrugged. “It’s a little sore. I’ll get him back for it next week. Uh… in a non-violent manner,” he added with a wry smile, assuring me there would be no hospitals or police involved in this revenge, as he’d promised. His expression was tight as he rubbed down the side of his knee. I heard something pop, and I cringed.
“You should keep this in mind,” he added.
“What do you mean?”
“You know.” He glanced up at me, eyes dark and grim. “For next time. I couldn’t walk right now, much less chase you down.”
For the next time that he kills me. A biting shiver raced through my body at the thought. I turned away from him, crossing my arms with a curt huff.
“Don’t expect an apology,” he said. “I have a weakness. I have a lot of them. You should keep them in mind for when she gets out.”
Why did he have to remind me when I’d finally gotten it out of my head? I paced in a tiny circle and looked up at him, squinting from the halo of sunshine glowing behind him. “She’s not getting out any time soon, so can we just not talk about it?”
He nodded solemnly.
“Should we ice your knee?”
He nodded again and pushed away from the tree, hobbling to me. I took his lacrosse stick and wrapped my arm around his waist. He draped his arm over my shoulders, pressing lightly as I helped him limp back to the dorms.
CHAPTER 3
START, STALL, REPEAT
Eric was right beside me, but he was a world away. He stared blankly at the TV screen, supposedly checking the weather, but from the look on his face he hadn’t heard a word the meteorologist said. I knelt behind him on his bed, shifting closer until my knee nudged his back.
“Did you pick your classes for next semester yet?”
“No,” he mumbled emptily.
“They’re offering Mythology 2. We could take it together.” I paused for a response. “You have a free elective, don’t you?”
“…Yeah.”
“So… will you take it with me?” I waited. “Eric?”
Nothing. He was so trapped in his head, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. I hated when he got like this. He’d said we were still together, but it felt like he was pushing me away. I couldn’t lose him. Not now, after everything we’d been through.
I combed my fingertips through the short blond hair at the base of his head. “Remember when we used to study together?” Those days had been my happiest in a time of total gloom. I’d been so secretly in love.
I drew up against his back, pressing my body to his. “What would you have done if I’d done this?” I asked, dipping my head to kiss the side of his neck. I sensed something within him stir. “Would you have let me?” I asked softly, adding another kiss. My hands crawled over his shoulders and down his muscular chest. “What if I did this?” I gripped his warm torso, kneading his taut muscles as I inched my way lower.
Tension eased out of his tight back, and blood rushed through my veins, fueled by lusty adrenaline. I pressed in closer, trailing kisses along his warm neck, feeling the thrum of his pulse against my lips.
My eyes locked on his silky white gym shorts, the black ones with white and red stripes up the sides. They had always been my favorite on him. My hand slid lower, reaching the smooth fabric, and I stroked him. He released a hard breath.
“Would you have loved me if I’d done this?”
“Cassandra, I…”
It sounded like the start of the end, like he was about to tell me to stop, so I wrapped my hand around him. He inhaled sharply.
My tongue gently pressed into the soft spot below his ear, and his body tightened in my grip. He leaned back against me, his neck curving to my shoulder as he submitted to my touch. He was heavy. He was mine. And it was a struggle to continue to reach around his broad shoulders and muscular body. He placed his hand over mine, gently guiding me to continue stroking him, up and down.
“You never would have let me do this,” I whispered in his ear.
He exhaled a laugh. “You never would have tried,” he said, his voice husky.
True.
He turned toward me and our lips met softly. We clung to that touch. His hand braced my arm, gently keeping me close. Slowly, we inched down to lay without breaking our tender kiss.
From his back, his hands stroked my limbs, guiding me closer, lifting my leg over his. Chest to chest, our kiss deepened. His tongue traced my lips, wetting our sweet kiss, and our lips molded together. I was putty in his hands, lost to the dreamy touch, body weak with tender thoughts.
Slowly, our kiss ended. My eyes fluttered open, catching a tragic look in his deep blue eyes. “You’re so sweet to me,” he uttered. “So good to me.”
His hand stroked my side, thumb drifting across a place where he had cut me open in a past life. I had bled, I had begged, and he had been asleep, mind lost to darkness. Unaware, under Aurora’s command. I saw these thoughts swirling in his pained eyes, and I felt his body shudder.
“I’ll never understand why you forgave me, after everything I’d done. But thank you,” he said in a choked whisper.
Tears glistened in his startling blue eyes. I laced my fingers with his, drawing his hand from my stomach to my lips. I placed a kiss on each knuckle he had bruised to protect me from Mike. Tears slipped from his eyes. He was quick to wipe them away, but the pain in his expression was carved from stone. It had been written on his face for days. Weeks even. Masked behind a thin veil of well-meaning deception.
I brushed my fingers along his tear-streaked cheekbone to the edge of his pale hairline. “Think if it was turned around and I was the one overtaken by Aurora. If I had killed you, would you forgive me?”
“We don’t have to worry about that,” he reminded me. “She can’t control you.”
“But if she could… and if I did… Could you f
orgive me? Would you still love me?”
“Of course. I love you no matter what.”
I placed our laced hands over his beating heart. His hands were always marked with dried paint or charcoal lately. I studied the stain of navy blue paint clinging to his cuticles. “That’s how I feel,” I told him softly. “I could never blame you for what she forced you to do. I know you would never willingly hurt me.”
“We’re going to get those books,” he stated firmly. “We’ll find our answers. We’ll find a way to keep her out of my head. You’ll never have to worry again. I promise.”
His cell phone rang, cutting both our breaths short. It could be Juliet. He’d called her days ago and left a message. She still hadn’t called back. I rolled off of him so he could snatch his cell from the dresser. He glanced at the caller ID and slumped with disappointment. “It’s just my mom,” he informed me, his tone low as he set the phone back down.
“Have you talked to her lately?”
“Not really.” He rubbed a hand across his face, appearing exhausted. “She knows something’s up with me,” he muttered. “I don’t have the energy to convince her that everything’s okay.”
I studied his look of despair carefully. Was he sleeping at all? He didn’t look like it. In the past week, he’d been appearing more and more ragged.
“You swore that everything would be okay. That after I showed you my deaths, we’d be happy,” I reminded him desperately.
He nodded, keeping his eyes as far from my gaze as possible. “We will be. I just… I’m working on it.”
I missed the way he used to be. He used to make me laugh. He’d break down my cold exterior with little more than a smile, but now any trace of happiness was fleeting, laced with sadness and despair.
I longed for Juliet to call back, but what if she had bad news? What if she didn’t have a clue about any books? What would happen to Eric? He was hanging by that tiny thread of hope. If it broke… I could lose him forever.
The door opened and his roommate, Lucas, stepped inside, ignoring us as usual. Eric sucked in a shaky breath, then attempted a smile.
“Are you ready for our run?” he asked. I groaned in answer and flopped back into his pillows. “I thought you liked it?”
“Kind of, but after the last time, my legs felt like they were on fire,” I complained. I wasn’t a fan of pain.
“We won’t go as far this time.”
“You’re sure your knee is up to it?” I asked with concern. He wore a black knee brace today, but I could still see the scrapes and blue-green bruise peeking out around it.
He nodded, watching as Lucas put his headphones on at his computer, keeping his back to us. Eric turned and faced me.
“I will stop us before you look tired. You push yourself too hard,” he said.
He rubbed my leg, using his palms to massage my muscles gently. His touch felt so good. Something changed in his eyes. He lifted my foot and sensually kissed my ankle. A dreamy flush spread across my cheeks as I watched him trail kisses up my leg.
Déjà vu.
It was right out of a vision, the morning after we’d made love in the cottage. He had stroked my foot and kissed a blazing trail up my leg.
I had always thought of us as completely different people back then, like we had changed so much, but had we? More than a hundred years later, and he was kissing me just the same.
I glanced over at Lucas, a subtle reminder that we weren’t alone. Eric gave me a soft smile, his deep blue eyes sly and slanted. “So you’re ready to run?” Eric asked. “Darn.” He climbed off of me and took me by the hand, gently tugging me up from his bed.
Once we were outside, I sucked in a gulp of fresh air, letting it wipe away my nagging thoughts. They were starting to jumble together lately, crashing into each other. Making sense of them was becoming impossible.
The air was colder than I’d expected. Part of me wanted to go back inside and skip our run. I liked it, true, but only because Eric did. Running made him smile. Todd had explained it to me years ago as endorphins, the brain’s “happy drug.” It was likely the reason my cousin was obsessed with lifting weights at the gym. That was probably the only time he didn’t hate everyone and everything. If only the effect could last. Maybe then he’d answer my phone calls.
Eric stretched his body, doing all sorts of things that had become routine for him. Unsure of what I was doing, I pretended to stretch, mimicking a couple of his moves. He separated his legs, bent one knee and placed his palms to the ground on either side of his foot. I gave my best attempt, but my fingertips could only reach mid-shin. He shifted position, placing his palms on the ground between his stretched legs. Once again, I tried to follow his lead. He noticed what I was doing and released a soft laugh. Then Eric did something I didn’t expect. He squatted down with his hands on the ground, then slowly lifted his legs to a handstand.
“What are you doing? How am I supposed to copy that?” I laughed.
He chuckled, almost losing his balance, but caught himself, keeping poised upside down on his hands like an acrobat. His shirt slid up his torso, revealing his tight abs.
“Cool, right?” he asked in a short huff. He was clearly only trying to impress me.
“Will you be jogging on your hands today?” I challenged. “Because if you are, I wanna race.”
He rolled to stand upright again, grinning mischievously. “You want to race, huh?”
I spun around and sprinted for the sidewalk. I heard him come up quickly behind me, and I was suddenly lifted off my feet. His arm crushed me to his body as he spun me around.
Terror gripped me.
It was fleeting, instinctive. I knew that I was safe. Eric was himself; Aurora wasn’t commanding him. But for a split second, I was at the manor again with him chasing me down, pinning me against his body to keep me from struggling, as he had done not once but twice in lives past.
After a quick spin, he set me back on my feet. I crashed dizzily into his chest, mentally cursing myself. He was trying to be playful. He was working hard to be the person I fell for again. I couldn’t let him know the horror that had just claimed my mind.
I summoned my best acting skills. Come on, Sandy. Keeping my forehead planted against his chest, I sucked in a deep, jagged breath and looked up. I gave him an artificially coy smile and jogged ahead as if nothing had happened, as if we were two normal people with regular problems and ordinary fears.
He fell into step beside me. “I’m sorry,” he breathed in distress.
I shook my head. “For what?” I lied, praying he’d follow my lead. Pretend with me. Please. I couldn’t keep reliving these terrifying feelings. And neither could he.
We were silent for the first block. There was nothing but the steady sound of our sneakers hitting the concrete and the occasional car passing by.
“I forgot to tell you,” he began in a low, dejected tone, “You’re invited to Thanksgiving at my house.”
“Your grandma’s okay with seeing me?” I asked incredulously. That woman hated me and didn’t even try to hide it. What had I done in the fifties that was terrible enough to warrant being hated in this life too?
“Ah, no,” he reluctantly confirmed. “My mom wants you with us, so she’s actually going to cook. She’s never done Thanksgiving in the trailer. Should be interesting.”
“Where would I stay?”
He winced, as if he’d been dreading that question. “The sofa? I know it’s not as fancy as the farmhouse, but… I’d give up my bed, but Ryder…”
I grimaced at the thought of going back to all of the people who outwardly hated me. Really, that was just his younger brother, Ryder, and his grandma. The jury was still out on his grandfather. Gerald Kirpatrick hadn’t said much more than two words to me.
“You don’t have to, but I’d like to spend it with you,” Eric said.
I thought of the alternative: Thanksgiving with my family. Just me, Grandma, and the Aurora lovers, otherwise known as Mom and Dad. That
was worse. No Eric.
“I’ll have to check with my parents,” I said, though I doubted it would go over well. We weren’t on the best terms. Nothing would make them happier than if I broke up with Eric. Well, maybe if I became best friends with Aurora again. They’d love that.
After a short run and a cleansing shower, I rushed to the dining hall to meet Bailey for lunch and get back whatever I had left behind in our room… and apparently not missed.
As I neared the building, my pace slowed. I hooked my thumbs on the straps of my book bag and wondered, “Why now?” Why not when I was in the hospital? She could have gotten in touch with me if she’d wanted to.
I thought back on those lonely, dark months that followed my surgery. I had been so sure that Eric didn’t love me. I had felt abandoned by Todd. My parents, grandma, Tony, and Aurora were the only light back then. The only ones who checked in on me and asked how I was feeling.
I wondered if I went back under the knife tomorrow, who would be there for me? Would Eric stick by me? Would Todd come back into my life, or disappear for good? Would Tony finally realize that being my friend and past-life brother brought him nothing but misery? And what about Ashley? Was I just her new pet project? A new source of entertainment, or an actual friend? It was important for me to know who my real friends were, now more than ever.
I walked into the dining hall and scanned the tables for Bailey. No sign of her. I made myself a salad, loading it up with egg, cheese, chunks of turkey, and enough Caesar dressing for it to officially qualify as “unhealthy.”
I sat at a table by the window and drew a textbook from my bag. My neglected classwork had begun piling up, and if I didn’t turn things around soon, I might not get straight A’s this semester.
“Sandy?” a small voice called.
Bailey appeared before me, nervously shifting her weight and clutching a wrinkled paper shopping bag. So she really did have some of my things. I wasn’t sure why, but that surprised me.
I gave her a reassuring smile and motioned to the seat across from me. She sat down quickly. The legs of the chair made a little squeak, and she jumped at the sound, glancing around anxiously. The cafeteria was beginning to fill up with students now.
Envious Deception Page 3