by Claire Vale
I wet my lips. I should pull back. I will. It just feels like such a monumental effort right now. The space between us is charged with a million microscopic magnets pulling me in the wrong direction.
“Please don’t,” comes out on a breathless sigh. I pray to God I mean it.
“Relax,” he murmurs, “I’m not going to kiss you.”
That’s what he says. But my skin feels kissed from head to toe with awareness. He is so male. Testosterone and heat and primal energy.
“You keep asking me why I care.” His gaze skims to mine, burning silver. “Do you feel this?”
I feel it.
It is not gentle.
It is fire and ice, clashing inside me like a tempest storm, a bolt of lightning slashing the air around us.
It is a river of hot honey rushing through my veins.
“This isn’t love, Senna.” His lips are a heartbeat away from mine. “This is chemistry. Damn good chemistry.”
I feel it.
It’s a slow ache of loss as he draws back.
“That…” his mouth tucks into a hard, sardonic grin that doesn’t quite match the heat still baking in his eyes “…is what I mean by a healthy relationship.”
I should slap him.
I will.
In just a moment.
24
I’M A FAST study.
I asked Gabe if we could eat alone tonight, talk, and as I sit here with him at a table near the cafeteria door, as far as we could get from the others, this is what I’ve learnt from Kane’s science experiment: I’m attracted to him. Devastatingly, impossibly attracted to him.
But Kane doesn’t touch my heart.
He doesn’t have the power to shatter me the way Gabe is doing right now.
“You said you love me.” My hand goes to the Celtic cross at my throat. “You made me feel like family.”
“You are family to me,” Gabe says, elbow on the table to hold his head up with one hand, pushing peas around his plate with a fork in the other. His eyes lift to me, full of the soulful depth and warmth that feeds into his voice “I haven’t stopped loving you. I never will.”
“You’re throwing me away!”
“You’ll be safe,” he says. “That’s what I care about right now. That you and Josie and Maddie are safe.”
“Safe isn’t enough.”
“You could still have Chris.”
“I’ve already refused Chris!”
“Yeah, so he said, but we know it’s a lot to take in. You don’t have to decide anything right now. Chris will be there for you when you’re ready.”
“I don’t want Chris!”
“Don’t do this,” he says, his voice gentle, as if that can soften the harsh words. “You’re acting like a selfish brat.”
“Me? I’m selfish?” I splutter. “I’m just one of many, Gabe…you have all these people who love you desperately, and you’re taking yourself out of our lives.
“And what about Chris? Can’t you see how much he’s risking just to keep his stupid word to you because he loves you and wants to make this easier for you even though he totally hates what you’re doing? There’s only five days until we Tithe and Rose won’t wait much longer.”
I reach across the table to cup his wrist, wishing he’d put the fork down and really listen. “Chris is going to end up Tithed if the two of you keep waiting for me to be ready—which is never going to happen.”
His gaze falls away from me. “I’m not going to change my mind, Senna.”
Withdrawing my hand, I push my plate of food aside and fold my arms on the table. “Neither am I.”
“Why not?” His eyes lift to me. “Why are you being so stubborn about Chris?”
I consider my response for a moment, give him the half-truth with the most impact. “Because maybe you’re right, maybe we could possibly find some kind of happiness together and I won’t allow that. How can I ever be happy with you gone, Tithed to the wall? I can’t. I don’t want to be happy.”
My scowl digs into him. “You’re not the only who gets to make awful decisions about your life, Gabe. I choose to live a life of misery without you.”
He sighs, squares a sober, painful look on me. “So you’d rather choose any other guy except the one you might be happy with just to spite me?”
No, you idiot, it’s my last ditch effort to save you! “Yes.”
Gabe shovels a forkful of peas into his mouth so he doesn’t have to respond.
Tears sting the back of my eyes.
My heart is trying to stay strong, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult.
When he goes for another forkful of peas instead of acknowledging my desperate plea, I jump up from the table and storm out.
He’ll come around, I tell myself.
He has to.
I go straight to the dorm, hating the useless frustration building up inside me.
My hands curl into tight fists. The urge to smash something is overpowering and I do it, smash my fist into my locker door. The wood cracks and pain blossoms from my knuckles into my wrists.
I don’t cry out, but I do allow the tears to come, and that’s what Jessie walks into a few minutes later. Me crumpled on a heap on the floor against the wall of lockers, sobbing uncontrollably.
“Hey…” She closes the door behind her and come to sit on the floor beside me. She doesn’t say any more, just puts an around my shoulder and draws me against her.
Once the last sob has been choked from me, I pull away, bring my knees up to hug close to my chest.
“I don’t know what to do.” My voice is rusty, my eyes waterlogged. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“What did Gabe say?” she asks. “Did you tell him you’ve refused Chris.”
“He acts like it makes no difference.” I peek sidelong at her. “I hope it’s just an act. It is, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know, Senna, I honestly don’t.”
My smile is a weak, flimsy thing. “You could at least try to lie to me.”
“You don’t want to hear this now, but you need to think really hard about your options.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but I don’t have options.”
“You can let Gabe go.” She scoops her long honey-tinted hair forward and runs her fingers idly through the loose curls. “Chris hasn’t offered for Rose yet, but she’s got her eye on him and I wouldn’t be surprised if she gives him an ultimatum tonight or tomorrow. She has alternatives. He doesn’t, unless you give him a reason to think otherwise.”
“I can’t,” I mutter. “I’m not ready to give up on Gabe.”
“Will you ever be ready?”
My throat thickens. “Maybe I won’t have to be.”
Jessie stops fiddling with her hair. Her mouth pinches tighter and tighter the longer she looks at me.
“What?”
She shakes her head at me. “I’m not going to sweeten this for you, Senna You have a habit of sticking your head in the ground. That’s not going to work this time. Our Tithe is coming, whether you’re ready for it or not. Just don’t take too long, okay? It’s not a game. There are no do-overs. Once Chris lodges with Rose, you will lose him. If you lose Gabe as well, that will be your life—stuck with some guy you hardly know and may end up never even liking.”
I have nothing to say to that.
She’s right.
“You don’t have to keep me company,” I say after we’ve sat for a while in silence.
“You shouldn’t be alone.”
“I’m tired. I just want to sleep, really. I’ll be okay.”
She haggles a bit more, but eventually leaves once I’ve climbed beneath the covers. It’s not an excuse to get rid of her. I’m bone tired, mentally drained, and I fall instantly asleep. I don’t wake when the others come in.
I’m still exhausted the next morning and plead a sore stomach to stay in bed.
My room is like the market place.
Jessie comes to check on
me, worried I’ll get myself into trouble by skipping FT. I don’t care about demerits.
Mac pops in to find out what’s going on. She doesn’t quite buy my sore stomach, but I’m too tired to talk about it. I roll away from her and pull the covers over my head.
Jessie returns. “Gabe’s asking about you.”
“Has he changed his mind?”
“He didn’t say, but if you get out of bed, you can ask him yourself.”
“My stomach’s sore.”
“No, it isn’t.”
Some time later, it’s Mac again. “Come on, let’s get you to the infirmary.”
“No thanks,” I mutter. “People don’t seem to come back from there.”
“Don’t smart mouth me.”
I turn around sluggishly to glare at her. “I don’t need the infirmary, I just need to be left alone.”
“What has happened?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re under my care, Senna.”
A tear pushes to my eye. I don’t feel very well taken care of right now. “Please go.”
She goes and doesn’t come back. I suppose Jessie talked on my behalf.
An hour later, I know Jessie talked when Georga flies through the room to grab something and casts a scathing look over me. “You’re not going to fix anything with Gabe in that bed. Grow a spine.”
I don’t have the energy to fling back a bitter retort.
I don’t actually know what’s wrong with me. My limbs feel like lead. My heart weighs a stone. My head is cotton wool.
I can barely keep my eyes open, I’m so tired, but I can’t fall back into sleep.
So I just lie there, staring up at the ceiling, thinking nothing.
I have no idea what time it is, early morning or late afternoon, when Rose waltzes in to announce, smile beaming down on me, “Chris and I just lodged our pairing.”
An ember of life sparks within me. “That’s great.”
“For him, it certainly is,” she says with her usual self-importance. “I was considering Devon, you know. He may be apprenticed at the mines, but he has the potential to become a supervisor one day.”
I just look at her. We both know she’d never consider Devon over Chris.
“Chris is incredibly lucky I took pity on him,” she goes on in that preening tone.
Rose is unbearable on a good day. This is clearly a bad day, although I can’t imagine why. She wanted Chris and now she’s got him. “I’m sure you’ll never let him forget.”
“Without me,” she declares haughtily, as if I need convincing, “he’d be Tithed.”
Fair enough. But if she keeps pushing this savior complex, she’ll make Chris wish he’d been Tithed.
Scrambling out of bed, I slide down to the floor. “I would have paired with Chris in a heartbeat.”
“Oh, please…” She steps out of my way. “Everyone knows you and Gabe will get back together.”
My pulse gives a mighty kick. That’s exactly what I’m hoping, now that Gabe can’t fall back on Chris to make me happy. “There’s also Georga.”
“She has no intention of pairing.”
“What Georga says and what Georga does is not always the same thing,” I say as I swing open the locker to grab my toiletry bag.
“She already turned him down days ago.”
My eyes flash wide to Rose. “He offered for Georga?”
“Twice,” she says in a thin voice.
Well…Well… I did not know that.
It also explains why Rose is extra bitchy today.
I soften toward her a fraction. This will be her life with Chris, knowing she wasn’t his first choice.
“He’s not in love with Georga,” I tell her, as much for Chris’ sake as hers. “He’s not in love with anyone, but I think he would like to be and there’s no reason it can’t be you, if you give him a solid chance.”
“Whatever.” Rose rolls her eyes and waltzes out.
I follow on her heels and veer off toward the bathroom with my toiletry bag. Suddenly I’m starving. I glance at my watch to find lunchtime has come and gone. Thank goodness the cafeteria has sandwiches available throughout the day. I’m hungry enough to wolf down an entire tray.
Gabe’s sitting on the grass in the quad when I exit the dorm. He jumps up to walk with me, a worried frown riding above his blue, blue eyes. “I was about to break the ‘no boys rule’ and come inside to get you.”
“My window’s wide open,” I tell him, a small smile trembling on my lips. “You could just have climbed in.”
His frown eases. “You’re feeling better, I see.”
“I’m getting there.”
“Senna…” He grabs my hand to swing in his. “I really am sorry about what this is doing to you, about everything. I never wanted to hurt you. I don’t like seeing you so upset.”
I glance at him. “I hear Chris and Rose lodged their pairing.”
The frown slides back. “They did.”
“Did he talk to you before?”
“Yeah,” he says with a dry laugh. “I wanted to ask him to wait. I know you would have come around before it’s too late. But I thought about what you said last night and I can’t keep trying to play God in other people’s lives. I told him I was good with whatever he decided.”
My heart lifts. This feels like progress, it really does.
Outside the door to the facilities building, I tug him sideways, up against the wall, and reach on my tiptoes to press my mouth to his. He hesitates at first, but then his arms go around my waist, scooping me closer as he deepens the kiss.
The horror of the past few days slowly slips away into his touch, his taste, into the warmth of his body and the memories of that night we slept in each other’s arms. When he pulls out of the kiss, his arms stay looped around me as he looks into my eyes, looks and looks like he’s done so many times before, as if he could look forever and never get enough.
I’m melting at the knees, weak with desire, swollen with love.
He brushes a whisper of a kiss across my mouth as he leans in to press his forehead to mine. “Does this mean we’re done fighting?”
“Yes,” sighs out from me.
“But this…” He pulls back to look at me. His eyes drift lower to my mouth. “We can’t do this anymore. I want to,” he says, his voice packed with emotion. “But we can’t.”
“Why not?” I say softly, carefully, but then the raw frustration spills from me. “What are you afraid of? That’ll you remember how much you love me? Why you cannot leave me?”
His eyes lift, stripped bare, sinking into me. “I’m afraid I’ll hurt you even more than I already am.”
My heart sags into my stomach like a bellyful of rocks.
Nothing I do…
Nothing I say…
I have never felt this useless.
Gabe and I have never felt this hopeless.
My heart can’t even break properly because the way he’s looking at me, the pain laced into his face and his voice and his eyes, is filled with the depth of his love for me.
I wish he didn’t love me anymore.
I wish he’d look me in the eyes and tell me he’s sorry, it was all a big mistake, he never really loved me.
No.
I don’t.
25
IF KANE THINKS fondly (or at all) of his little science experiment by the pool, he doesn’t show it. I catch the occasional glance from him at our next FT session, each time followed by a sardonic half grin. It’s a damp day with a light, constant drizzle and we’re indoors.
My knees rattle hollow as I stare up at the activity Kane has elected for the morning. The swaying wall of knotted rope extends all the way from the top of the triple volume ceiling in the gym. Gabe and Chris and Daniel were the first to volunteer and it’s turned into a typical boy fest of too much testosterone and ego.
My stomach dips as Daniel surges ahead and misses his footing. He slips, one leg going wide. The net tugs and sways with the miss a
nd the activity from the other climbers. His entire body swings out and he’s holding on with one hand and a tightfisted grip.
“Free fall,” some guy whoops from behind me.
Idiot.
I lose my breath for the long moment it takes Daniel to swing back and grab another fistful of rope with his other hand. According to Kane, rope climbing is an excellent exercise for muscle tone, strength and stamina. Personally, it looks like an excellent opportunity for plunging to an untimely death.
My eyes snap to Gabe. He’s gained the lead now and is past the halfway mark. Kane had the decency to make this an optional activity, but Gabe, of course, keeps going until his hand can touch the ceiling. Followed in quick order by Chris and then Daniel.
The climb down is slower, the challenge over. And, I guess, their limbs are feeling the strain.
I skip out of my position in the line and rejoin it at the back. I’m pretty sure I’m going to join Jessie and Olly and the handful of others sitting it out on the bench, but I’m holding on for a smidgeon of courage. I’m not even sure why. It’s not like I have anything to prove to myself. I know my limitations and I’m okay with them.
Kane starts a slow stroll in my direction, a seemingly aimless stroll—his attention remains on the activity at the rope net—that casually brings him within a breath at my side. If I flinch, my shoulder will brush his. If I breathe, I will inhale his presence. If I—
“Afraid of heights?” he says without looking at me.
I take a carefully measured side-step to put some inches between us. “I’m afraid to find out.”
“Most people don’t know what they’re capable of until they’re pushed to their limits.” His gaze flicks to me, drifts over my mouth on its way back to the climbers. “You may surprise yourself.”
My lips tingle, the ghost memory of a kiss that never happened.
I crush the memory with a hard voice. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He doesn’t respond.
Doesn’t look at me.
I wait for him to ask if Gabe and I have patched our pair. It’s not inconceivable. We’re the polar opposite of Chris and Rose, who appear to be avoiding each other like the plague. Gabe and I are done fighting. We’re done kissing. We’re platonic lovers without a future.