I give him the stink eye. “I just can’t have her grab that freaky thing.”
“You mean the doll,” he mocks.
With my eyes still furrowed, I say, “Can you just stop?”
“Stop what?” he asks innocently.
“You know what I’m talking about,” I snap.
“No, I don’t.” His eyes twinkle with mischief. I wonder if he is this cocky to his brothers.
“Just forget it.” I close my eyes and place the hand that isn’t rubbing Lynne’s back over my forehead.
“No. What?”
“Nothing.” I turn to my side, cupping Lynne in my curved body. “I just need to rest.”
“You’re tired?” Confusion stirs with his words.
“Yes.” Not. I just don’t want him thinking I’m a baby. Pieces of my life before I was brought here flash into my mind as soon as I close my eyes.
“Anyone want to go with me to see Annabelle?” my friend, Owen Goodman, asked, sliding into the chair across from Leigha as we seated ourselves at our usual lunch table. I sat next to her, across from my other friend, Zoe Zuchlensky, careful not to spill my tomato soup that sat full in its bowl on my muggy-blue tray.
“I’ll come,” Leigha said, opening her milk carton.
“Sara, what about you?” Owen and Leigha both turn to look at me.
“Is that the movie with the doll?” I had asked, grabbing my spoon and dipping it into the steamy, watery, orange soup.
“Yeah. It’s supposed to be really scary.” Owen smiled and ripped open his peanut butter and jelly sandwich that he had bought from the vending machine along with a bunch of other junk food instead of getting the school’s lunch.
“Is anyone else coming with us?” Leigha asked, tilting her head back as she brought the open milk carton to her mouth. Of course, no one used a straw anymore but me.
“Sure, why not?” Zoe had said with a shrug.
They all had looked at me again, wanting to know if I wanted to come with them or not.
“Come on, Sara,” Owen coaxed.
“No.”
“Why not?” he asked with a smile. “Scared?”
The tips of my fingers had grown cold because I couldn’t think of anything to say. What had there been to say?
“Are you too scared to go?” Owen teased, his lips yanking up into a crooked grin which always seemed to match his exterior; shaggy, beach-blond hair and sea-blue eyes.
Again, I remained quiet as I chased away the steam from my soup with my breath.
“Owen, leave her alone,” Leigha said to my rescue. Then she turned to me. “I didn’t know you were scared of dolls.”
“I’m not scared of dolls,” I had said in my defense. Then I muttered, “Only the porcelain ones.”
“I don’t think Annabelle is porcelain,” Owen said.
“Even so, she’s still freaky.” Then I had turned back to my soup and drank a spoonful.
When I open my eyes, the cafeteria disappears along with my friends and the tomato soup. Instead, I’m back in the Salmon Room, staring up at myself, Lynne, and Maxwell in the mirrored-ceiling. My chest tightens again, making me feel miserable.
“You have that weird look on your face again,” Maxwell says from where he stands in the room.
“Huh?” I move my head so I can look at him better. “What look?”
“That look you had earlier today.” He looks at me as if he’s trying to figure out a puzzle. “You’re thinking about something, aren’t you?”
“No.” The sound of Owen’s chuckling fills my ears, mockingly. Angry, I sit up on the new blanket Lynne and I lie upon. “No, it’s nothing.”
“It must be something, you look like you’re about to cry,” he notes.
“I’m not going to cry.” But it feels like I’m going to cry now that he mentioned it. Hurrying off the cots, past Maxwell, I walk across the room to the bathroom, where I stare at myself in the mirror above the sink. I still look the same as I had the last time I had looked, but my attitude has changed. I don’t feel pretty anymore. I don’t feel like a princess. I feel like a prisoner. I feel like I’m never going to get out of here, never see my friends or family again. Never see sunlight or clouds or even the moon and stars again.
I continue to stare at myself until I can feel a tear appear in my eyes. With a swipe of my hand, that tear is gone, as if it had never been there.
“Sara?” Maxwell sticks his head into the room and looks at me. He looks genuinely concerned.
“Hey.” I turn around and lean my back against the sink. I can feel myself shake a little.
“Are you okay?” He grabs the doorknob and takes a step in.
“Yeah.” I force a smile. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
Letting go of the doorknob, Maxwell comes closer, his eyes never straying from mine. “Have you been crying?”
“What? No.” I force a laugh. “Why? Does it look like that?”
“You know, you don’t have to keep yourself locked up.” He’s so close now that I can smell the cologne that must have been provided to him. It makes him smell . . . sexy.
“Where did you get ‘locked up’ from? You make me sound like a box,” I say with forced lightness.
A smile crackles across his lips. “Sorry.”
I feel the tiniest smile pull at my lips as I look down at my feet.
“Sara?”
“Hmm?” I tilt my head up and am welcomed by a pair of lips. They are warm and soft, and for some reason it takes me a moment to realize that their Maxwell’s. His coarse fingers skim my chin before he quickly backs away.
“I’m sorry.” He rakes a hand through his hair as he takes just enough steps away to leave a good size gap between us. “I don’t know what I was doing.”
My lips tingle, and it takes all my strength not to reach up and touch them.
What just happened?
The question buzzes around my head like an angry bee as I watch Maxwell, who now seems angry and confused, walk out of the bathroom. Stunned, I slump against the sink, feeling the edge dig into my back. I don’t care though. I know I should be upset, but instead, a jittery feeling tickles my stomach even though the question, What about Caitlin, runs laps in my head. Other questions also run through my head.
Why did he do that?
Did it mean something?
Is he angry that he kissed me?
Did I make him mad?
Why am I so . . . giddy?
Am I happy that he kissed me?
That last question is stupid. Of course I am, but why? It probably didn’t even mean anything. He’s going to go back to Caitlin after all this anyway. It was probably just one of those impulse things where your senses shut down and you do whatever first pops into your head. But the butterflies still flutter around in my stomach, even when I tell myself that it meant nothing. Yeah, that has to be it. It’s the only reasonable explanation. Unless . . . No. That can’t be it. Caitlin is out there, probably crying her heart out, worrying about him.
“Sarwa.” Lynne waddles into the room and looks at me with tired eyes.
“Yeah?” I turn to her, hoping to get rid of the thoughts about the kiss and Maxwell and Caitlin.
“Can you pway with me?” she asks.
“With the figurines?”
“What?” She frowns in confusion.
Small words, small words . . . I have to remember that Lynne only knows words five letters or less. “I mean, do you want to play with Blackie, Princess, and Blue?”
She nods, bringing her fingers to her lips.
“Sure.” It’ll distract me from Maxwell. Plastering a smile onto my face, I follow Lynne into the Salmon Room, where I feel Maxwell’s eyes follow me. Or at least, I think I do anyway. The itchy, paranoid feeling makes my skin feel like a bunch of pin-pricks. I struggle to keep myself from glancing at him while he sits on the cot with a book in his hand, but after a moment, curiosity gets the better hold of me, and I steal a look towards him. He isn’t looking at m
e, making the heavy, depressing brick of disappointment fall inside my stomach. Quickly looking away, I pull the figurines down from the dresser and hold them for my sister to grab.
“You pway with Bwue.” She grabs the cat and dog from my hands then gets down on the floor, crisscrossing her legs as she sets up the game.
I get down, trying to keep my eyes from wandering up towards Maxwell, and lie on my stomach, crossing my ankles. Then we start to play.
I lay on the cots, waiting for the lights to go off. Lynne is already sleeping next to me, but I can tell by his breathing that Maxwell is still awake. No food had come today, so hunger pain nips at the inside of my stomach.
Lying with one hand stuffed under my new pillow and the other resting on my stomach, feeling it rise and fall, I think about the day, like what had rolled out after Lynne and I finished playing our game on the floor. Maxwell and I had avoided each other as best as we could. It was like a silent battle. During the long hours of silence, besides Lynne’s squeaky, little voice, I struggled to keep my eyes off him. All because of the kiss.
Why did you do it, Maxwell? What were you thinking? I want to ask him.
The sound of feet hitting heavily against the floor above us sounds throughout the silent room. Under my breath, I count down from ten like Maxwell had done when Lynne and I first arrived. Then, I near the end. “Three . . . Two . . . One.”
The lights flicker out.
Chapter 9
Day Eight
“Isn’t that a wonderful beginning?”
“Yeah, it’s really good.”
Unfamiliar voices make me blink awake. I see darkness, and for a moment, I think that my eyes are still closed, but then I hear more voices, and from the corner of my vision I see light.
“Nothing gave Buttercup as much pleasure as ordering Westley around.”
“Maxwell?” I moan, my body still heavy and tired.
“Sara?”
Squinting in the darkness, I turn to look at the edge of the cots and see Maxwell looking at me in the dark.
“What are you doing?” I ask sitting up.
“Watching a movie,” he replies. “Wanna watch?”
“Sure.” I yawn. Crawling across the cots, I lower myself onto the floor beside Maxwell. I lean back against the cot and look at the small tube TV that faintly lights up the room around us. “What movie is this?”
“The Princess Bride,” he replies, keeping his eyes on the screen.
I look at the TV, watching the movie. There’s a girl telling a guy (who’s really good looking, by the way) to fetch her a pot.
“Where did you find this?” I ask, still watching the movie.
“I found it a couple days after I arrived here behind those boxes in the corner,” he replies. “There’s a couple other movies, but I remember watching this one at home. It was one of my mom’s favorite movies when she was younger.” He threw a glance at me.
“Oh.”
“As you wish.”
A shiver skitters through me. Something about that line pierces me right in the heart. It’s so romantic.
“Oh, come on.”
“What?” I look over at Maxwell to see that he is looking at me with his eyebrows raised.
“You’re not swooned over that line already, are you?” he asks mockingly.
“What? No.” I shake my head, but it’s a total lie.
“Liar.”
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll admit it; it’s a little romantic.”
Maxwell chuckles and shakes his head.
I roll my eyes at him and focus back on the movie.
We watch in silence as Buttercup becomes a princess and is kidnapped by rogues and is taken aboard a ship. I watch intensely as Princess Buttercup jumps overboard and tries to swim away. Then, a shrieking eel leaps out of the water, ready to bite her head off.
I jump back, frightened.
Maxwell laughs. “Clearly you haven’t seen this movie before.”
I don’t say anything. He’s right; I haven’t seen this movie before.
After a while, when Buttercup is being dragged away by the Black-Masked Man, I slowly turn my head to the side and look at Maxwell. He has high cheekbones and a sloped nose. His hair falls around his ears, and a wave falls across his forehead, close to his eyes. My gaze lowers to his eyelashes that are long and dark. A random question pops into my head: I wonder how many snowflakes they catch.
“What?” He turns his head and looks at me.
“What?” I blink and twist my face into a look of confusion.
“You were looking at me.” The corner of his lips tug upward in a smile.
“No I wasn’t.” I turn my head the other way as a guilty blush creeps across my cheeks.
Maxwell chuckles lightly, but he doesn’t say anything else.
Another heartbeat of silence goes by until the question I wanted to ask yesterday vomits out of my mouth: “What happened yesterday?”
Maxwell turns his head and looks at me. “What about yesterday?”
Hesitation tugs at my head, telling me to stick a pin in this conversation, but the need to know is stronger. “You know . . .”
“When I kissed you . . .” He runs a hand through his hair.
Something hard clouds over Maxwell’s face. It’s the look I have dreaded to see again. I know he knows what I was talking about.
“Yeah.” I ball my hands into fists and stuff them in my lap. “About that . . .”
“I don’t know what came over me.” He sounds grave. “It was like this rush of emotion came over me. And with how I have been feeling lately . . .”
“Wait. What have you been feeling lately?” My eyebrows furrow in confusion.
“You haven’t noticed?” Maxwell looks at me with disbelief.
“What are you talking about?” I don’t understand what he’s saying.
“It’s nothing.” He starts to get up.
“Wait!” I reach up and grab the back of his shirt, holding him down. “What have you been feeling?”
Maxwell twists away and sits back down. He runs his hand through his hair again. He turns to look at me, his eyes serious. “I . . . I don’t know. All I know is that I shouldn’t be having them. Not with you. Not here. Not now. Not when I have Caitlin.”
“What have you been feeling?” I repeat, my voice hushed. I’m afraid to ask, even though nervous/excited jitters zip through me, making me feel antsy.
Maxwell glances down at his hands that he has folded on his lap then looks back up at me, his eyes cold. “How do you not know?”
“Know what?”
“That I like you.” He inhales deeply.
“You–you like me?” The need to wiggle makes me feel like I’m trapped in the box he had referred to me and my emotions the day before.
“How could you not see that?” His voice is hard like he’s frustrated. “Ever since that night . . . When you woke up crying . . . I don’t know. It–it just feels like we had some kind of connection. And yesterday . . .” His voice trails off as he turns to look at me. “Yesterday I couldn’t help it.”
My hands instantly fly to my lips without my control, my fingertips skimming the smooth skin. “Maxwell . . .”
“I’m sorry.” He quickly diverts his eyes. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“I feel the same way,” I murmur.
“What?” He looks at me, shocked.
“That night, I felt it too.” I let my hand fall to my side. I can’t believe I’m going to say this. It’s so embarrassing! Besides, it makes me sound like a hopeless romantic. “And when you kissed me yesterday, I felt something. And maybe it was just me, but it felt amazing.”
The next moment, everything happens so fast that it leaves my head spinning. We had been sitting there with a small space between us, then in a blink of an eye, the space disappears, and Maxwell is kissing me, his tongue sweeping into my mouth. I can feel his fingers cup the side of my face, holding me still as I lean into him, reaching out to grab his
shirt to pull him closer. My breathing quickens as the feelings I’ve been holding in for these past few days unravels out of my control. All thoughts of not wanting him to know how I felt about him vanishes. Now I don’t care that he knows.
“Sara,” Maxwell murmurs, his lips brushing against mine as he leans into me so I have to lean back until my back is against the floor. I can feel him leaning on top of me, his heart beating against mine.
It takes everything in me not to moan, but I think I hear a noise from deep inside Maxwell’s throat. My heart is racing. It’s like fireworks are exploding in my head; Bang! Bang! Bang! The fireworks pop one right after another. Bang! Bang! Bang!
Maxwell’s fingers to the hand that isn’t propping him up, skitters from my chin to the side of my left breast then down past my stomach to my thigh, where he pushes up the end of my dress and runs a hand over my inner thighs.
My head feels dizzy. I can hardly think. But the little part of me that can think pulls out a name from my memory.
Caitlin.
How could I be doing this to her? I have to stop this. Now.
“Maxwell. Stop,” I say breathlessly.
He stops and looks down at me. “What’s wrong?”
“You have a girlfriend.” I look up at him and see a cloud of emotion cross over his eyes. “And . . .” I sigh. “It isn’t right.”
Maxwell sits up and runs a hand through his hair.
I press my lips tightly together as the pesky little feeling in my chest swells. Sitting up, I rest my back against the cots again. “You’re not mine to take. You’re Caitlin’s as long as we’re stuck down here.”
“I don’t belong to anyone,” he says, his voice almost like a growl.
“But you were dating Caitlin before you were brought here,” I state, my voice rising. Why can’t he understand?
“But I don’t like her anymore.” His voice still a low growl.
“That doesn’t matter! You were dating her before, so you’re still dating her now. If you want to end things with her, you’ll have to wait until we get out of here. You can’t just say you don’t like her anymore and suddenly not be dating her anymore. That’s not how it works, Maxwell.” There, I said it.
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