“What?”
“Repeatedly.”
“Why?”
“Because I was drunk and pissed off.”
“Because you were drunk and pissed off?”
“Yeah. Apparently, I’ve got anger issues.”
He’s lying.
He doesn’t drink. He doesn’t get pissed off. And he absolutely does not have anger issues.
“No, you don’t,” I tell him. “You don’t get drunk. You’re not even drinking right now and you’re in an establishment called a bar.”
“If I get a drink, will you leave me alone?”
“And you absolutely do not have anger issues either,” I say, ignoring him.
At my vehement answer, a surprising thing happens.
His lips twitch and I swear to God, my witchy heart jumps in my chest for making them.
“Well, then you should’ve been there,” he says in an amused voice.
His amusement is making my heart pound faster. “Been where?”
“When my coach signed me up for anger management therapy.”
“Your coach signed you up for anger management therapy?”
I know. I know I’m repeating most of his stuff. But honestly, I can’t keep up.
Because it’s the most bizarre thing I’ve heard in my entire life.
Arrow and anger management.
Arrow, punching a door. Arrow, kissing a strange girl at the bar.
What the fuck is happening?
“Yeah.” He nods, his amusement still in place. “Your glowing endorsement could’ve saved me.”
“Why did he sign you up for anger management therapy?” I ask, as if this question is the holy grail of all questions.
“Because I punched a door,” he deadpans. “Aren’t you paying attention?”
Before I can say anything to that, he leans toward me.
He not only leans but he sniffs me too.
I draw back a little. “What are you doing?”
Keeping himself hung over me, he rumbles, “Smelling you.”
“Why?”
“To see if you’re too drunk to have this conversation.”
I open and close my mouth for a few seconds. “I’m not drunk. I don’t drink.”
Well, not a lot.
I mean, I have had a few drinks here and there, mostly with people back in my old high school.
“Is that right?”
I raise my chin. “Yes.”
“Surprising. Given the fact that you don’t care about rules.” Then, “What about getting high?”
“W-What about it?”
“Do you like it?” He looks me up and down. “I’m sure a girl like you must enjoy something like that once in a while.”
I swallow at the look in his eyes, at the fact that he’s still looming over me. “No, okay? I don’t do drugs either.”
“So if you don’t do drugs, as you said, and you don’t drink, why the hell did you come here?”
To distract myself from dangerous thoughts. Of you…
“I came here to dance,” I snap.
He sweeps his eyes all over me, taking in my messy, curly hair, my painted lips, my sweater and my cargo pants, before standing up straight. “Well then, by all means, don’t let me keep you.”
Finally, I shake my head.
Enough.
Enough.
I frown at him and another surprising thing happens. A shocking thing.
He smirks at me. At me.
After eight years.
After eight fucking years, I finally get what I’ve been wishing for. His smirk.
And my stupid fucking heart can’t handle it. My stupid fucking heart swells and swells in my chest until it’s aching, and I know it’s a rather drastic reaction to a simple smirk, and people might call me crazy.
But they don’t know.
They’ve never been in my position. They don’t know what it feels like when a guy you’ve loved for eight years, who loves someone else, smirks at you, and his eyes shine because of it.
You lose your breath. You lose your sense. You lose all your goddamn goodness and almost tell him that you want him.
But somehow, I pull myself back.
Somehow, I dig my nails into my palms and remember that he’s Sarah’s boyfriend and I’m here for her.
And he’s lying.
He’s trying to distract me. That’s what it is, isn’t it?
He’s playing with me and he’s enjoying it.
So weird.
So glorious.
“You’re trying to distract me,” I accuse.
“It’s not my fault that you’re so easily distracted.”
“And you’re lying to me, aren’t you?” I squint my eyes at him, trying to control my heart. “You’re making this whole thing up. You didn’t punch a door.”
“Yeah? What did I punch then?”
“I don’t know. Whatever it was, it wasn’t a door.” I stab a finger at him. “You’re trying to distract me from the real question.”
“And what’s the real question?” he asks in a whispered, almost mocking voice.
“Where’s my sister?” I snap out.
His eyes bore into mine then. And maybe it’s the trick of dismal light or whatever, but his features glow, as if drawing attention to themselves.
Attention to how sharp and harsh they look.
How tight.
“Told you. She’s probably back in LA.”
“But that’s impossible. You’re injured and…” My eyes go wide and something makes me ask him, “You are injured, right?”
I look down at his feet.
He has a washed-out pair of blue jeans on. I stare at the spot where his knees are. As if I’ll be able to tell if he’s injured or not by staring at his jeans.
“I know that you tore your knee.” I glance up to find him still looking at me with heavy, intense eyes that are wreaking havoc on my breaths. “That’s why you came back, isn’t it? You’re not finishing out the season and you said you were going back home. I saw the press conference.”
“You saw it.”
I swallow, nodding. “Yeah. O-on TV.”
I grimace slightly.
That’s a lie, of course.
I saw it on a forbidden cell phone, but he doesn’t need to know that. Somehow though, he already does and his smirk comes back.
And my breaths run away.
“So sneaking out in the middle of the night to go to a bar for dancing isn’t your only crime. I’m not sure if sending you to a reform school was a good idea. You might be a worse influence on the girls who’re already in trouble for being bad.”
My embarrassment jacks up a thousand times and I mumble, “Hey, I’m not that bad.”
He flicks his gaze all over me again and my lips part.
“I’m starting to get that,” he murmurs. “You’re worse.”
It’s not a compliment. I know that.
But the way he says it, and the way he’s staring at me with eyes that possess a shade of blue that I’ve never seen on him, it feels like it.
It feels like a compliment.
But I can’t focus on all of this.
“So?” I ask instead, keeping my control.
“So what?”
“Did you… you tore your knee, didn’t you?”
“Why?”
“Because I…” I pause to gather my thoughts.
There are many ways I can answer this. Many, many, dangerous ways.
Because I love you and I need to know you’re okay.
Because I love you and I want you to be safe.
Because I love you and I can’t see you injured.
Because I love you…
But I decide to go with the safest, the only option that I have.
Looking into his new-colored eyes that are strangely watching me in the same way that I’m watching him, I say, “Because soccer is your life and I
know that it must be awful for you that you can’t finish out the season. It must hurt. It’s hurting me…”
Damn it.
I shouldn’t have said that.
That kinda slipped out, and obviously he catches it.
He catches it with both hands, his eyes narrowed and roving over my face. Curious.
“Why?” he asks again.
“Why what?” I stall, my heart in my throat, on my tongue even.
“Why is it hurting you?”
Great going, Salem.
Just fantastic.
We’ve been talking for ten minutes and I’ve already fucked up.
“Uh, because.” I look at his glinting chain, the V of his gray t-shirt. “You’re my sister’s boyfriend. She loves you very much. Of course I’m hurting. I’m worried. For her and for you. And that’s why I can’t believe she’s in LA when you’re here. Besides, why are you here? Why aren’t you resting that knee? Shouldn’t you be like, recovering instead of bar hopping or whatever? And…” I swallow, looking up from his chain. “Kissing strange girls who’re not your girlfriend.”
At this, his jaw clenches again.
“For a girl who’s just the little sister, it’s very touching. That you’re hurting and all. But I’ve got a doctor’s note that says it’s okay for me to bar hop and kiss strange girls. So you can relax.”
His voice is cutting and sarcastic. It clearly means I should back down.
But I don’t. There’s no way that I can.
“You said that my sister was in LA. Why didn’t she come with you? She would never leave you alone at a time like this.”
He pushes his tongue into his cheek before saying, “Isn’t this the first conversation we’ve had that’s lasted more than a minute?”
“I…”
“It is, isn’t it?” He lets out a mock sigh. “I think we should stop. Because I have to admit, I’m starting to miss that time.”
The time he’s referring to is the past eight years.
He’s right.
This is the first conversation we’ve had that’s lasted more than a minute. Because as an attempt to keep him safe from my witchy ways, I’ve always kept my distance from him. I’ve always kept my head down around him. I’ve never even made eye contact with him, I think.
So yeah, this is the very first time we’re talking like this.
And when he takes a step back, ready to leave, I don’t want him to go.
So I blurt out the stupidest question in the history of all questions.
The only question that I’ve been wanting to ask ever since I saw him.
The real question.
“Are you cheating on my sister?”
Oh God.
I said that. I really said that.
I used the c-word. I used the most horrific word that can’t be true at all. There’s no way, no way, it could be true.
It’s crazy. It’s insane.
It’s impossible.
But then… But then why was he kissing another girl?
Why has he been distracting me?
Why has he been acting so fucking strange?
“No.”
His answer is short and clipped.
And completely true.
I believe that. I can see the truth of it in his dark blue eyes, on his sharp angry features.
“Then why were you kissing her?” I ask with complete faith in his loyalty and complete confusion about the turn of events. “Why were you kissing someone who’s not your girlfriend?”
“Because I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“What?”
“Your sister and I are not together anymore.”
I think he punched me.
He did.
Because I feel jarred. I feel like I’ve been pushed out of my body and I’ve hit the wall behind me. The brick pillar that sort of makes this into a secluded corner.
Where I found him kissing a strange girl.
But he’s leaving now. He’s leaving this corner and walking away.
After punching me in the stomach with his words, he’s leaving and I don’t even have the energy to stop him.
To ask him what the fuck is he talking about?
Why would he say something like this?
My thoughts break when he stops and turns around to face me. “One last thing.”
I look at him strangely, barely able to breathe.
“Don’t ever let me catch you where you’re not supposed to be. Because when a student breaks a rule, it’s my obligation to report it to their assigned counselor. And I hear Mrs. Miller doesn’t take kindly to rule-breakers.”
My heart jumps. “What? How do you…”
“How do I know?” He shakes his head once, his lips tugging up on one side in a cold smile. “I’ll give you a hint.”
Then, his gaze drops low, lower, down to the ground.
Like a puppet, I follow the trail and realize he’s looking at my feet.
My shoes.
Why would he be…
Oh.
Because my shoes are not really shoes. They’re soccer cleats. Neon yellow and worn even though they’re sort of new. I got them a few weeks back when my old ones got too weathered to use after only a month or so.
I burn through my soccer cleats pretty quickly, abnormally quickly.
Mostly because I play a lot of soccer – yes, I play soccer too but it’s a story for another time. And because I wear them everywhere. They’re not meant to be worn off the soccer field, but when have I ever listened to logic?
My new neon-yellow soccer cleats are the reason I didn’t have enough money that night to run away, and so I had to resort to stealing. Because I’d blown my savings on buying a new pair.
Standing a few feet away from me, Arrow looks at them for a few seconds before lifting his beautiful eyes.
“Make sure you’re not late for your soccer practice on Monday. Because like Mrs. Miller, your new coach doesn’t like rule-breakers either. And you don’t want to find out what happens when you break his rules.”
I don’t call him by his name.
At least not in front of other people.
Because his name has a power over me. Like the name Sarah has a power over him.
Every time I say it out loud, I flinch. As if Arrow is an incantation from olden times. A dark spell. It pricks my lips and covers them in tiny delicious paper cuts.
A spell that bites at my tongue.
I only say it when I’m all alone in my room and no one is there to witness the small spasms of my body and hear the tiny gasps that escape me.
In public though, I usually refer to him as my sister’s boyfriend or the love of my sister’s life.
So I don’t know what I’m going to call him now.
Because he’s not with my sister anymore.
He’s not my sister’s boyfriend.
How’s that possible?
How is this real life?
How am I supposed to cope with this?
So it’s during the group activity that I decide to take a drastic step.
I’ve been thinking about it ever since last night, ever since we came back from the bar and I found my roommate sleeping soundly in her bed.
Anyway, I think I’m going to do it.
I’m going to take that drastic step or I’ll go crazy.
I’m already going crazy during the group activity.
Which is gardening by the way.
Because it’s Saturday and at St. Mary’s, we plant gardenias on Saturdays.
It’s in the school crest and it’s there because gardenia represents purity and innocence. It has an inherent goodness to it. So it’s basically an example for us girls. Bad girls, I mean.
To become good and leave behind our rule-breaking ways.
But that’s not the only thing that gardenias represent.
“Secret love,” Poe tells me while clipping dead
leaves. “It also represents secret love.”
“Yup. They just don’t know it.” Callie snickers, looking at the teachers loitering around, keeping an eye on us; Miller is one of them.
“Which is so weird.” Wyn shrugs. “Because you can just Google it.”
Secret love.
I’m growing secret love.
I could laugh at this.
I should laugh at this.
It’s funny, isn’t it? It’s a joke.
The universe is kidding.
The girl in secret love is growing secret love.
How tragic and poetic and totally not funny at all. And somehow it gives me the strength to make the decision. “I wanna call my sister.”
Because I need to know what happened.
I need to know what was so horrible that they would break up when they were on the verge of getting married.
I need to know.
But the thing is that I can’t call my sister.
I don’t have the privilege of making outgoing calls yet. But then, I have access to an illegal cell phone. Which its owner herself, Poe, reminds me about.
“You can totally use it,” she tells me and Callie nods for emphasis.
Wyn nods too, in fact.
I think it’s because they have sensed that something is up. Moody silences after the press conference video; disappearing in the bar and then returning with a pale, shocked face will tell people that. But like that day in the classroom when they gave me space and let me keep my secrets, they do the same now too. They don’t ask questions.
So I find myself inside the third-floor bathroom, with Poe’s illegal phone in my hands, while they stand guard at the door.
Tightening my chunky sweater around myself, I psych myself up to dial my sister’s number.
I tell myself that I can do this.
I can call my sister.
I mean yes, we haven’t talked in months and I don’t usually call her or email her, except on her birthday and special occasions when I send her cards and gifts, because she doesn’t like when I bother her.
But this is an emergency, right?
A breakup is an emergency and I wanna talk about it. I wanna ask her how she’s doing.
I can ask her that, can’t I?
She’s my sister, for God’s sake.
Even though we’re different.
We’re so, so different and she doesn’t like me very much.
But I absolutely love her and admire her.
Like I loved and admired my mother, who was also very different from me. The only thing is that my mother – as exasperated as I made her – loved me back.
My Darling Arrow Page 5