I let my head lean back against the wall, and we’re silent for a long minute.
“I read the letters from my dad,” I say suddenly into the black.
Huh. I wasn’t planning on saying that, but somehow it’s easier to say when I can’t see Mina looking at me. And as little as I like talking about this stuff, it’s actually been nice having someone to talk about it with, so I brace myself and go on. “He’s getting married.”
“Oh, Cohen,” she says from somewhere above me. Her voice is tinged with…well, not quite pity, which is good, because I can’t stand pity. Sadness, maybe. I hear her shuffling around and then hear her sit on the floor next to me. She places one hand on my arm—probably aiming randomly in the dark—and then slides her hand down my arm until she slips her hand into mine. It’s small and warm and pleasant, and I tighten my grip without really thinking about it. I feel the heat from her body as she scoots closer to me, her shoulder pressing against mine. She still smells like flowers.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly.
I shrug, but the movement is sort of jerky. I try to stifle the anger I feel. “Nothing I can do about it,” I say, rubbing my thumb absently over the back of her hand.
“Maybe not,” she says, her voice still quiet. “But that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
She’s right. And in the darkness, I have the sudden sensation—as illogical as it is—that this room could be not tiny but instead infinitely large, ready to consume us, and her hand feels like it could be all that’s anchoring me to the ground. I squeeze her hand more tightly, and she doesn’t object.
I feel her moving next to me, and then I feel something on my arm, on my shoulder; she’s rested her head there, and I almost smile when I realize it. The darkness has made her bold. She would never do this if she could see me. Of course, I wouldn’t be holding her hand, either. It’s nothing romantic, I’m sure; it just feels like a means of connection, something we probably both crave in a place this creepy.
I let my head rest against her own, and she snuggles in. It’s sort of cute. “You smell good,” I say without thinking.
“So do you. I keep your cologne in my room, you know.” She’s quiet for the briefest second before she says, “Not because it’s yours.” I can practically hear her face turning red. “And not a bottle. Just the cards from whenever I’m in the department store. It’s a calming scent.”
I grin. “Go on—you can tell me. You have a poster of me above your bed, don’t you? You have my face plastered all over your walls.”
“Absolutely,” she says, her voice dry now. “You got me.” She pauses, and I can sense her hesitation. “Actually, though, I did have a thing for you when we were kids. You were always nice to me.”
I turn to look at her before I realize that I can’t see anything. “Really? I just thought you were born in love with Jack.”
“I can hear you wearing that stupid grin,” she says. “Stop it.”
She’s right. ‘That stupid grin’ grows wider. “Look at you. Baby Mina crushing on baby Cohen.”
I feel her shrug. “Yeah, well.” She swallows; I can hear it.
“My face wasn’t off-putting?” I say, interested to hear her answer.
I feel her shrug. “I didn’t really pay attention to that,” she says, and her voice is odd. “I actually sort of thought you were cute. You still are.”
She’s obviously lying. We’re quiet for a second, but the space between us has changed; there’s some sort of tension that wasn’t present a minute ago. “As your mentor—”
She groans. “Not this again.”
“As your mentor,” I say, more loudly this time to drown out her protests, “I can admit that you, too, are…” What word am I looking for?
“Dressed like a skeleton?” she says.
“Beautiful,” I finally say. “You’re beautiful.” I frown, more at myself than at her. “And I never realized it. That’s been sort of weird for me. I feel kind of like a completely shallow idiot.”
We’ve strayed well into the territory of things I would never say if I could see her—and things I will probably never admit I’ve said—but strangely, I don’t mind. This situation almost doesn’t even feel real.
“You’re not an idiot,” Mina says. “I didn’t realize it either. I mean, I wouldn’t say beautiful, but it’s sort of like one of those teen movies where the girl takes off her glasses and is suddenly gorgeous. Only I keep my glasses on.”
“And tibia honest, you’re still pretty.”
There’s a second of silence, and then she’s laughing. I can’t help it; I smile. I knew that would get her.
“You said ‘beautiful’ before,” she says, and I can hear her smile lingering. “And now I will accept nothing less.”
I ignore my sudden and strange impulse to bring the back of her hand to my lips and kiss it. “Duly noted,” I say.
There’s more silence, and I’m aware of every millisecond of it. I hear every breath she takes, am aware of tiny twitch of her hand. Among her floral scent, some sort of clean smell lingers. That might be shampoo or something. Did she take her hood off?
“We’re holding hands,” she says out of nowhere. Her words are quiet.
I hesitate before answering. “Yeah,” I say. It comes out sounding awkwardly strangled. My awareness of her hand in mine is suddenly increased tenfold.
“Is that something we do?” she says. I can’t read the inflection in her voice, although I do detect a slight squeak.
I pause again, thinking of Operation Jack. “I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Silence.
“Should we try to get out of here, since Jack is taking his sweet time?”
I sigh. “Yeah.”
“I wouldn’t want to miss out on the rest of the asylum. Especially when I could be at home reading a book instead.”
I smile and feel a random rush of affection for her. “I’m sorry I dragged you out tonight, little skeleton.”
“You can make it up to me later.”
That sends my mind to worrying places—places where I pull her close and kiss her. Places my mind has no business going. Not with Mina.
We untangle our fingers, and my hand feels cold without hers pressed against it. I stand, and I hear her do the same. I hear her shuffle around next to me, maybe pulling her phone out, but before she can get there, I find myself saying, “Wait.”
She stills until all I hear is her breathing. I reach for her in the darkness, and when I find her, I pull her toward me, folding her into my arms. She slips her hands around my waist without hesitation.
“Thanks,” I say. My voice is gruff. “For—you know. Talking to me. About feelings and all that junk.”
“Of course,” she says, sounding bewildered.
“Well, no one has ever really taken the time to,” I say. I rest my head on top of hers, and it feels intimate in a way I hadn’t expected.
“Of course,” she says again, but now her voice is soft, understanding.
And because I know neither of us will ever mention this again, I give in and press a kiss to the top of her head. I was right; she’s taken her hood down. Her hair is soft against my lips, and it smells faintly of shampoo. I feel her arms tighten further around me, and I don’t mind.
I’m reluctant to let her go, but I force myself to anyway. I step back and feel her do the same, and I say, “Now, let’s get out of here. You have books to read.”
In the end, it takes about ten minutes of combing every inch of the bookshelf before we find a switch hidden in the corner of the very bottom shelf. The door swings open with a low creak, and we step back into the real world—the world where we don’t hold hands or hug, the world where I don’t ever think about kissing her.
18
Mina
It is safe to say that I will never, ever go anywhere Halloween-related ever again.
Ever.
When we finally get home that night, I am exhausted in a way I did not know was possi
ble. It’s a mixture of several different kinds of exhaustion. I’m feeling a little guilty because of my thoughts about Virginia. Jesus would be nice to her; I am not being nice.
She shut me in a hidden room.
At. An. Asylum.
What is wrong with her? Is she nuts? There’s a line you don’t cross, like killing puppies and kittens. Trapping people in hidden rooms with blood-stained beds is on the wrong side of that line.
She said she was just playing around and that she thought we’d be able to get right out again. And I actually believe her about that part, that she thought we’d be able to come right back out. Because that’s what we thought, too. But apparently when they went to go find someone to help with the door, she delayed, making sure they took as long as possible.
And yes, realistically I know that she’s probably just very insecure. She clearly wants every man of her acquaintance, and here I am, suddenly spending time with Cohen. And I wouldn’t be surprised if he was right about what he said in the hidden room; maybe she measures her worth by her relationships with men.
Either way, she is not getting any Christmas presents from me.
Aside from my silent fuming at Virginia, I’m also fuming at myself. And at Cohen, to be honest. All that fuming is tiring. Thus the exhaustion when I get home, scrub my face clean of all the skeleton makeup, and pull on my pajamas.
What were we thinking? Holding hands? We don’t hold hands. We don’t hug. We don’t do those things. But he said that stuff about his dad, and it felt so natural to take his hand in mine. It felt comfortable, not weird—like we’ve been doing it forever. And even when we weren’t talking about his dad anymore, I didn’t want to let go.
It was nice of him to call me beautiful. I didn’t mind the hug, either. And I really didn’t mind his kiss to the top of my head. That I didn’t mind bothers me almost as much as the hand holding.
Of course, I’m never going to bring that stuff up again. My guess is that he won’t either. So maybe we can just pretend it didn’t happen? Does that ever really work?
I’m willing to try it if he is. And if he isn’t, I’ll try it anyway.
I begin to pull my blinds down and let my gaze drift to Cohen’s window. It’s open, but his room is dark. He must have forgotten to close it.
Or so I think until I glance at the gap between our houses and see that his car is still running. I check my watch. We got back fifteen minutes ago. Why is he still in his car?
I war with myself briefly. On one hand, my bed looks lovely and inviting, and I’m already in my pajamas. On the other hand…why is Cohen still in his car? Because there’s no way he just forgot to turn it off. That doesn’t happen.
I feel curiosity tugging at me. The reality is that if I try to go to bed now, I’m going to be at the window in ten minutes anyway, checking if he’s still out there.
Might as well go see what he’s doing. I’m never going to sleep otherwise, because I am far too nosy for my own good—or anyone else’s, I guess.
I leave my room, turning the light off, and pad softly down the stairs. The house is dark; my parents are asleep by now. I slip out the front door and close it quietly behind me. The air is cold and the wind is high, and now I know how Virginia and Marie felt at the corn maze.
I hurry across my front lawn and down the sidewalk until I arrive at Cohen’s car. I lean down, squinting through the window. Sure enough, he’s there, his forehead resting on the steering wheel. He looks utterly defeated. Or dead. It’s hard to tell in the dark. My guess is that he’s alive, though.
I decide against waiting for an invitation. Instead I pull the passenger door open. Cohen jumps more violently than I’ve ever seen a startled person jump before, turning to me with his eyes wide. When he sees me, he looks away, putting his hand over his heart.
“Come on, Mina. Knock or something. You scared me.”
“Sorry,” I say, sliding into the front seat and closing the door behind me. The warmth of his car immediately envelops me, for which I am extremely grateful. It’s cold out there. I hold my hands up to the vents and let the hot air rush over my hands. Then I turn to Cohen, who’s not looking at me.
“Hi,” I say.
“Hi,” he says, sounding reluctant. He’s staring ahead of him as though he’s driving, even though the car is parked. There are several pieces of folded paper in his lap.
When he doesn’t say anything more, I speak again. “What are you doing out here?”
“Hiding,” he says, his voice flat. His elbow is propped against the windowsill, and he runs his hand through his hair.
I frown. “From what?”
He sighs and finally looks at me. “I don’t know.” He seemingly gets a good look at me for the first time; I watch his gaze run slowly over my ensemble, my tank top and boxer shorts. He raises one brow and gestures at me. “I didn’t think I was ever going to see this again.”
I swallow. “I hoped you wouldn’t notice,” I say, because I don’t know how to tell him that I was too anxious to prod into his business to change clothes.
His serious eyes flash with something like appreciation as they take me in. “I’m ugly, not blind,” he says, his voice low.
I shiver. “You’re not ugly,” I say.
He ignores this. He twists around and leans into his back seat, then turns back to me and tosses me a jacket. “Here,” he says, his voice strained now. “Please.”
His words are sort of odd, but I pull the jacket on gratefully anyway. “Thanks,” I say. He just nods curtly and stares out the window.
“You’re in a bad mood,” I say, keeping my voice soft. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not really,” he says, still looking out the window.
I nod, feeling disappointed. I cross my legs. “Do you want me to leave?”
He turns his gaze on me, and something in his eyes makes my breath catch. “Not really.” His voice is low, rough.
I nod again, settling into the seat. “Can I put my feet on your dash?” I say, stretching my legs out.
Cohen eyes them for a second, probably noticing how they’re blindingly pale. “Yep,” he says, his voice light. Then he turns his gaze back out the window.
I close my eyes and lean my head back. I feel better being here with him. I don’t know what’s wrong—something with his dad, if I had to guess—but sometimes just having someone there can help. If he wants me here, I’m not leaving.
We sit in silence for a while. Maybe fifteen minutes later, I feel a tap on my arm, and I open my eyes. Cohen is holding the papers that were on his lap, passing them to me. I take them wordlessly and open the first one.
It’s a letter from his dad.
And it’s hard to read. Not because it’s poorly written but because of what it says. The beginning talks about the upcoming wedding. He asks Cohen to come—good luck with that—and tells him about his fiancée. But then his dad moves on to talk about why things didn’t work between him and Cohen’s mom. They’ll always be friends, but they just don’t love each other anymore, they have trouble working together, and so on—it’s well intentioned, I can tell, and it sounds like his dad just wants to explain, but I can immediately understand where Cohen’s mood is coming from. No one wants to hear why their parents’ marriage fell apart.
I tuck that letter into one of the drink holders and then open the second one. It’s nothing more than a piece of paper folded around the wedding invitation. I look at it. Mr. Alexander looks the same as ever. His fiancée—Linda, according to the invite—is beautiful and young. They look happy. I check the paper that was folded over the invitation. Two words: “Please come.”
I put that letter next to the drink holder and shift my body to face Cohen better, pulling my legs down from the dash and folding them under me in the seat. Cohen looks at me.
“Are these the ones from your desk?” I say, running my fingers through my hair. It’s still tangled from being down and in that hood all evening.
Cohen watch
es me, his eyes following my hands as they move, and he nods.
“When did you read them?”
“A while ago, actually,” he says, sounding tired. “And then I put them in here and tried to forget about them.”
“But you just found them again,” I say, understanding.
He just nods.
“Are you going to go?” I say, keeping my voice carefully neutral.
His eyes come back to mine. “Of course not. I don’t want to see that. She has to be twenty years younger than him.” He shakes his head.
“What about Ian?” I say, mostly thinking out loud. “Do you think he’ll come?”
“I doubt it. He doesn’t live anywhere near here, and he works a lot.”
“And Lydia?”
I sigh. “Yeah, she’s going. She doesn’t seem to have much of a problem with all this. She doesn’t love it, but she’s okay.” He pauses. Then he says, “We didn’t deserve this. And you talk about forgiveness, Mina, but how do you forgive something like this? When people get married, they stay married. They work as hard as they have to to make it work.”
There’s no anger in his voice. Just hurt.
“I don’t have the answers you’re looking for,” I say, my voice soft. “I wish I did, but I don’t. I do know that bad things happen to good people all the time, Cohen. And it sucks. What happened with your parents?” I say gently. “It hurts. And that hurt is totally valid and completely understandable. They split, and now your dad is moving on.”
“Get to the point,” Cohen says, his voice a growl.
“But this anger you’re carrying around? It’s going to drown you in misery.” I hesitate. “What’s making you angry? At the root of the issue, what is it that makes you the angriest?”
Cohen heaves a sigh, his jaw clenching. “I don’t know.”
“Yes, you do,” I say. I hope I’m not pressing the issue too much.
“Fine,” he says, not looking at me. “I’m angry that he gave up. I’m angry that we weren’t incentive enough for him to keep trying to make things work.”
And there it is. My heart breaks for him. I want to take his hand in mine, but I don’t.
Eye of the Beholder (Stone Springs Book 1) Page 14