“I was standing on the other side of the willow at my Gran’s grave when I heard your steps. Usually, nobody comes here, so I just had a look around the tree and there you were.” I shrugged, offering a piece of my story in the hope of getting some of hers in return. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“It’s okay, I’m still alive.”
She didn’t seem to be okay at all. Something was off about the way she was looking at me, as if I had disturbed her peace.
“Is it some relative of yours?” I tried to keep the conversation going, pointing at the grave by the angel’s feet. I glanced behind her, trying to decipher the inscription on the gravestone, but the decades had left their mark on it, slowly nagging away the surface and every word written to remember that stranger.
“I have no idea whose grave that is.” Her voice claimed my attention, sounding like everything I had felt before, just enveloped in a layer of caution. Claire shook her head. Strands of her hair danced into her face again, giving her the look of a flower in the wind.
I tore my eyes away from her face and forced myself to walk to the gravestone. Not because I was particularly interested in the battered structure or the mossy carpet around it, but because I couldn’t just stare at Claire like an idiot. She would notice something was wrong—I wasn’t sure if wrong was the right word, but different.
“1873,” I read the only thing decipherable in the most casual tone I could get out of my vocal chords.
After a moment of silence, I looked back over my shoulder. Claire was fashioning a puzzled expression.
“The year of death—1873,” I explained, suppressing a smile. Whatever it was that was capturing her attention, it was messing with her ability to follow my thought process. I went back to the gravestone, but the rest of it was as unreadable as it had been from the distance. “I can’t decipher any more than that.”
I was actually glad. My eyes wanted to go back to Claire, to her face, to her mildly bewildered eyes, her hair. With a deep breath, preparing for the picture I would be seeing, I got to my feet. My hood slid down and I was glad. I had braced myself. Now I couldn’t hide anymore. What if she didn’t like what she saw? What if she didn’t even care enough to think about it? Why was it so important all of a sudden what she was thinking?
“Do you come here very often?” I asked, hoping to disguise my insecurity.
“Occasionally.” She blushed a little as she looked to the side as if she had something to hide, too. “Do you?”
“Occasionally.” I made my lips curl up in a casual smile. I had to make sure this girl didn’t see through my pretenses. She couldn’t know just how important this moment was for me.
Claire’s eyes tore away from mine, pulling my gaze with hers to watch my grandmother’s grave. Ahhh. My grandmother. A moment of bittersweet memories resurfaced. She had believed in the purity of the human heart and that everyone was worth saving, no matter how dark their present had gotten. The girl with the ash-blonde hair was living proof, there was such a thing as a pure human heart.
“She died a year ago,” I explained without looking away from the grave, “Life has been harder since then. She was a great person.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice was thick as if she was going to cry, but then she pulled herself together.
She glanced up at me as the wind tangled her hair, looking indecisive.
“I think I should go home.”
I wasn’t sure if she was asking me if she should stay, or simply telling me that she had to leave. Whichever the case, I couldn’t let her go just now. I had just met her.
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Had I given away my intensity? Had I slipped and shown that she had changed my world forever?
“No, you didn’t. My sister is waiting for me.” She shook her head, face still undecided, then started walking toward the gate without further warning.
A jolt in my stomach made me react and rush to her side. I was failing to appear as if this was just an unimportant encounter with a random stranger in a graveyard. I didn’t care. As I fell into step beside her, my gaze glued itself to her face, trying to read from her features what she was thinking.
I almost ran into the gate and stopped last second to open it for her. Claire didn’t look up. She slipped past me through the gap and was on her way.
“I’m glad I decided to come here today,” I brought myself to speak. “I wouldn’t have met you if I hadn’t.”
Damn. I hoped I didn’t appear creepy.
Claire rewarded my courage with a brief curl of her lips and for a second it felt like there was hope that I would get another minute or two with her.
“Can I walk you somewhere?”
To my disappointment, she shook her head.
“Bye, Adam.” She eyed me for another second. Something in her soft features seemed alarmed.
I pulled up my hood, hiding my face from her piercing gaze. Most likely, I was creepy to her. Too pushy? Maybe just not her type? Anyway, I felt better when I could just hide under the hood of my sweater. She was going to walk away.
No. Something inside of me screamed. I wanted to hug her, feel her warmth once, so I would know what feeling complete would be like, but as my arms wanted to reach for her, I forced them back to my sides. I couldn’t.
“Goodbye, Claire.” I bit back the bitterness of having to hide what I knew was right and watched the last piece of my puzzle hurry off into the setting sun.
As I watched her walk away, something inside my chest fell into place. It was as if a missing piece had been put back where it belonged after decades. I felt old, and young at the same time, wise and a fool. Not at all like the twenty-one-year-old I was. When the golden-orange light had swallowed her slender silhouette completely, I turned and headed to my car, my feet carrying me in swift strides, more quickly, more dynamic than I usually thought myself capable of.
Ben was sitting in the parlor with a magazine on his lap, Antonio curled up on the floor beside his feet. He looked up curiously as I practically floated through the door.
“Anything interesting in there?” I managed to wipe the silly smile from my face.
“Just the fall collection,” he answered and narrowed his eyes.
“Models?” Not that I would care, but it was still odd sometimes to see my brother read fashion magazines rather than the newspaper, but I understood. Research.
He laughed and held up the magazine and a double page full of perfect bodies wrapped in dusty rose stared back at me. “Fabrics.”
“Is that the color of the season?” As much as I wanted to make a joke about it, I knew how serious he was about his art. He probably didn't even notice the girls. I chuckled as a wave of enthusiasm overcame him—and therefore me—and waited for him to explain.
“Not only of the season,” he beamed. “I am convinced, some shade of this color suits everyone. It totally depends on the texture and the cut, but I am pretty certain that I could figure out a way to make even you look dashing in dusty rose.”
We both laughed. His commitment to understanding and applying all aspects of design and visual art displayed in his clothing style as well as in his choice of furniture. While his bedroom represented the classical epochs with brocade and carved wood, his choice of clothes was more modern. Today he was wearing a white shirt with a subtle floral print. He regularly scolded me for my limited wardrobe even though he had managed to make me buy a red buttoned shirt which stood in stark contrast to the pile of white shirts and gray hoodies.
“What's so funny?” Jenna entered the room, a vase of yellow roses in her hands.
“Ben is trying to convince me to wear dusty rose.” I was in such a good mood even something silly like that made me shake with laughter.
“It would make his eyes stand out,” Ben defended himself with a chuckle.
“Those would go with your shirt,” I teased, still laughing, more because I was inexplicably thrilled about having found Claire.
“You t
wo, be good,” Jenna scolded us with a smile as she put the vase on the coffee table.
As the sun had set completely and I had survived dinner with my family without anyone noticing the profound change which had happened in me that afternoon, I settled down on the couch in my room with the very same book I had picked up in the campus library a couple of weeks ago. The anatomy of the human heart was no longer an abstract medical thing to me. It had become tangible, it was filled with life and emotion, and most of all, from this day on, my heart had a name.
4
Supermarket
It wasn’t as if I didn’t know where to go to find her. Intuition had carried me to her once. It would again. The question was if it was wise to show up out of thin air, just like that. It might scare her away. At this point, I had no indication Claire was feeling anything for me. And how could she? For all she knew, I was a stranger she had seen once in the graveyard. She had no idea who I was—even my last name wouldn’t really help her figure it out. My family led a fairly secluded life.
As I parked the car in the farthest place away from the entrance, I smiled to myself. I would see Claire Gabriel today. I simply knew I would. The second I flashed a smile at the mirror, doubt overcame me. What if that was all I was to her? A stranger in the graveyard. She for sure hadn’t had a vision of me the way I’d had of her. I was a freak and she—if only I knew what she was in this picture. My path to sanity?
My former self, the rational one, would have known how to handle this. The head-driven Adam always had known the right thing to say. Despite his shy nature, he would have handled this situation gracefully and without any hint of awkwardness. He would probably never have let anyone have this particular effect on him. The Adam I was slowly becoming was insecure, doubting his own cognitive capacity. That heart inside of him, suddenly so vibrantly participating in every thought and every interaction, was making it difficult for him to steer situations with his rational side.
The morning-shoppers were all focused on themselves and their tasks. Interestingly, navigating through the store was more difficult than I had expected. With every corner I turned, a new sensation hit me. Once it was a wave of stress, once it was impatience, another time it was anger, then this interesting feeling of a thrill… It was as if the corridors were flooded with feelings which weren’t my own.
With a deep breath, I ducked away from the crowded aisles between the shelves—instantly feeling the relief of just my own concerns— and instead simply made a big circle through the outer edges of the store until I ended up at my destination.
I never really had to go grocery shopping. Geoffrey, our butler, did that for the family. No idea why today it seemed to be such a brilliant idea to go shopping by myself. Maybe it had something to do with the strange pull I’d felt ever since I had met the last piece in my puzzle. I didn’t even know what I wanted to buy in particular. Water seemed like a good idea, considering the temperatures outside.
As I peered into the aisle, I spotted a familiar shape hovering on the floor, handling colorful plastic bags of chips. Claire. My pulse quickened the second I saw her. What was she doing?
Before I could decide differently, my feet were carrying me toward her.
“Can I help you up, Miss?” my voice escaped before I could control it.
Her eyes snapped up and locked on mine, two ponds of clear water I could drown in. I saw her, and I didn’t at the same time. The emotional pattern washed over me once more and I was home. Hoping she wouldn’t read my turmoil from my face, I forced myself to smile and I held out my hand. As I was already here, I could be the gentleman my grandmother had always preached I should be, and help the girl up.
“Thanks.”
As she laid her hand into mine, without the hesitation a normal stranger would show, an electric current ran through my skin, leaving my fingers tingling long after she had pulled herself up with a graceful motion. She threw a couple of potato chips bags into her shopping cart with a careless swipe of her arms and started walking.
Once again she left me standing right there, the same as in the graveyard. Was she doing it on purpose, trying to avoid me? I rushed to her side and fell into step beside her, observing her shopping. Chips, juice, stuff for a long evening on a couch, watching movies with friends—or a boyfriend?
“How are you?” I was suddenly eager to claim that time with her. It was an unfamiliar emotion. I had never felt like this with Maureen. And I didn’t even know this girl.
“Fine, thank you.” Claire smiled at me with a somewhat strained expression.
What was she thinking? Was I getting on her nerves? Did she want me to leave?
“I’ve been wondering—” I started, “if you don’t have any plans for tonight, would you—” It was worth a try. She would tell me no if she didn’t want to see me again.
“I already have plans, I’m sorry,” she interrupted. “I’m just doing the final shopping. My sister’s having a party tonight, and I have invited some friends, so I have to be there.”
A party. I was relieved. No cuddle-movie-time with the boyfriend. And then I understood what she had said again. She wasn’t available tonight. She was busy. Or she didn’t want to be available.
While I was pondering whether to take my inner conflict about this girl outside and leave her alone, Claire spoke again. “You can come if you like, there are going to be lots of people, one more or less won’t matter.”
I couldn’t help but break into a wide grin. She didn’t want to be busy in order to avoid me. She really had other plans. It bothered me a little how this tiny detail made my heart race. It shouldn’t have been affecting me at all except for that long history I’d had with her before she’d even known I existed. Now it was my turn to sound less enthusiastic than I actually was.
“Maybe I’ll drop by later. Where is the party?”
The house she described was in a part of Aurora I rarely visited. My life was between Jenna’s house and the campus. Claire seemed to be coming from a less fortunate background than I was. Not poor, but she probably had to work to go to college. Did she go to college? She looked old enough to be a freshman, yet, when she was browsing her wallet for cash at the checkout, she looked like a lost child.
I bit my tongue, refraining from asking any questions for now. I didn’t want to push my luck and freak her out. She had just invited me to her party, there was a good chance I would be talking to her a lot before the day ended.
As I lifted the goods from her shopping cart into the trunk of her car, Claire was watching me. She probably thought I didn’t notice, but I could see fascination between fringes of blonde eyelashes.
“Thanks for the help,” she said and ran her hand through her hair, tucking it behind her ear. She was nervous. That made me smile.
“You are welcome, Claire. So my trip to the supermarket wasn’t in vain.” If I hadn’t achieved anything else, I’d had an effect on her emotional state. Whether it meant she was nervous because there was something there between us, or because I made her uncomfortable, I couldn’t tell.
I opened the door and waited for her to buckle up.
“See you!” She waved and pulled the door shut before I had a chance to close it. “Maybe tonight.”
I had deja-vu, watching her drive away without looking back. And once more, I found myself staring, wondering. Had I just imagined she had asked me to come? She had. But had it been out of politeness? Did she actually want to see me? Her face hadn’t let on what she was thinking.
With the prospect of looking into those blue eyes within a couple of hours, I turned around and headed to my car, completely forgetting why I had come to the store in the first place.
When I returned home, a cheerful Ben greeted me at the door.
“You look unnaturally happy,” he teased and pulled at the sleeve of my hoodie.
“Do I?” I glanced at the hallway mirror and was surprised at the man who was staring back at me. There was a new glow on my face, something I had never
noticed before. Was it purely because I had seen Claire for a couple of minutes today?
“Who is she?”
Why was he automatically assuming it was a girl? Couldn’t I just be happy? Just because? The expression I gave him in return to his question must have been quite amusing because he broke out in laughter.
“Don’t worry,” he patted my arm. “It suits you.”
A wave of amusement flooded the room before he sprinted up the stairs.
“Don’t forget Dad’s dinner plans!” he called over his shoulder before he jumped up the last couple of steps.
“Thanks,” I made a face, feeling a little helpless.
Ben and I usually shared everything. Every secret. It didn’t matter that we were only half-brothers. He was my brother. He was my friend. I knew I could count on him. So it felt a little awkward having something in my life I wasn’t ready to talk about, let alone know if I would ever talk about it to anyone. While Jenna was home most of the days, our father was teaching history at the local college. He was about as patient as the artifacts he was researching and he had been eyeing me with a similar curiosity recently. Had he noticed something was different? Had Jenna?
As I stole myself up to my room and threw myself onto my bed, my head instantly launched into a variety of scenarios how the night might turn out. It all depended on if I got a chance to talk to her in private. It was a party, after all. There would most likely be lots of people around—her friends, her sister. What if there was a boyfriend? Would she even want to talk to me? What if I didn’t know what to say? What if I said the wrong thing? Would I get another chance after tonight?
With a sigh, I rolled to the side and picked up a book from the bedside table. Something on the anatomy of the brain. I desperately needed the distraction. Had I just a couple of weeks ago complained that I hadn’t ever truly used my heart, that it was an organ to me, not the source of my emotions? Now the world looked very different from my perspective. It was as if my brain had traded balance with my heart. My emotions were basically guiding me every second of every day. Whether it was about the vision, about Claire, or about any of the other waves of anger, fear, happiness, or whatever unexpected feeling struck me these days out of nowhere, I stood next to no chance of fighting them. They were there, a part of me as much as my thoughts, my reasons had been before.
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