Eye of the Beholder (Stone Springs Book 1)

by Gracie Ruth Mitchell

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “But he does love you. I know he does. And situations like this aren’t as black and white as they seem. They never are. But these things can also make you stronger. Find your source of strength, and rely on that strength. For me, that strength is God. Find your strength. Lean on it. You’ll come out of this stronger.”

  Cohen finally looks at me, his expression unreadable as it flits over my face. “Why are you like this?” he finally says.

  I blink in surprise. “Like what?”

  “You’re so…I don’t know. I see Virginia do this ridiculous thing to you, and you don’t yell or snap or anything. You just try to give her the benefit of the doubt. You’re doing the same with my dad. You’re nice to people.”

  I frown. “You should see the thoughts I’ve been having about Virginia. You would recant that statement immediately.”

  His face breaks into a small, reluctant smile. “I don’t think anyone would blame you. And yet my guess is you’re still giving her the benefit of the doubt.”

  A smile! He’s smiling! I can work with that.

  He still looks at me sideways. “You know Virginia doesn’t matter, right?” His voice is casual, but his eyes aren’t.

  “Yeah,” I say, keeping my voice light. “I know.”

  And I do know that. I do. I think of my list—of my promise to remember my worth. My worth is not dictated by Virginia’s opinion of me. I know she’s petty and jealous and not worth my grief. But—

  “Because you don’t need to look like her or be like her,” he says. “You don’t have to have eyes that are the same color or any of that stuff.” He hesitates. “I actually really like your eyes, for what it’s worth.”

  “Thank you,” I say. It’s little more than a whisper.

  He leans his head back against his seat and closes his eyes. “You’re good the way you are. You’re enough.”

  My mind flits to the doodle hanging above my desk in my room, and I smile. “I know,” I say.

  “Good.”

  “And you know the same, don’t you?” I say, not looking at him. I stare out the window instead. “You’re enough. Whatever happened between your parents, they didn’t split because they didn’t love you enough to keep trying.”

  “I know,” Cohen says, his voice quiet. He sighs and finally removes his key from the ignition. “We should go. People are going to think we’re up to no good in here.”

  “There’s no one around,” I point out. “And ew.”

  He grins suddenly, and relief floods me at the sight. Sad Cohen is hard to see. “What, is kissing me such an awful thought?” he says. “It’s the nose, isn’t it. Or is it the scar?” His grin widens.

  I hope the darkness covers how red my face undoubtedly is. Because truthfully? The thought of kissing him isn’t awful.

  Like, at all.

  Where did that come from? He’s not Jack. I like Jack. Right?

  “Um,” I say, because I am a grown, well-spoken woman. It’s incredible how much squeak can fit into just one syllable. “Not an awful thought.”

  His grin widens, and he leans toward me slowly. I try to move, to scoot back, but I guess I don’t try very hard. His face looms closer to mine until he’s only inches away. I’m probably not breathing at this point; I can’t say for sure because I barely even know my name right now. Breathing is well out of my realm of current awareness. What’s wrong with me? It’s just Cohen.

  And fine. All right. I get it. I get why he doesn’t have trouble getting a date. The strength of his jaw, the amber flecks in his dark eyes, his perpetually mussed hair—I get it. But still.

  “Don’t let Jack hear you say that,” he says in a low voice, still grinning wickedly. His eyes dart back and forth between mine, and I feel his breath on my lips.

  I have no response. Not one. All I can think is that my brain and I are going to have a long talk later about how it seems to have deserted me in my time of need.

  I watch, frozen, as his grin fades slowly. The look in his eyes changes as the teasing gives way to…something. Something different, something that makes my heart go as still as the rest of me. His gaze flits to my lips. When he looks back into my eyes, his eyes widen—so infinitesimally that I might not notice if he weren’t an inch away. He leans back quickly, and then he turns around and pushes his car door open, all but scrambling out. He sticks his head back in to say, “Out.”

  “Bossy,” I say, but I get out with a sigh of relief. Outside the car seems safer than inside the car, where I have feelings that don’t completely make sense. The wind whips my hair around my face, and I fold my arms across my chest to preserve even a tiny fraction of body heat.

  Cohen joins me on the sidewalk. I quickly slip out of his jacket and hand it to him.

  “Thanks for that,” I say, praying that he’ll just take it and go. We don’t need to talk about what just happened. We don’t need to talk about anything that has happened today. Ever.

  He takes the jacket, his eyes lingering on me, and then he smiles and shakes his head.

  “What?” I say, looking down self-consciously.

  He just shakes his head again, and his smile fades. Now he just looks disconcerted. “Nothing. I’ll see you later, Mina.”

  “Wednesday?” I say. “I’m not working.”

  “Yep,” he says, already walking toward his house. “We’re learning about one of Jack’s favorite things. Be ready.”

  Before I can ask him for more details, he waves over his shoulder at me and picks up his pace. And then, because I guess part of my brain is still missing, I stand there in the cold and watch him walk away.

  19

  Mina

  The more time I spend with Lydia, the more I like her. I sit with her at lunch every day, despite my initial protests. She and her best friend, Jade, are just really nice, which sort of blows my mind. I guess I just always assumed that pretty people were mean, but I’m quickly realizing how judgmental that was. Lydia is positively angelic. Everyone seems to like her, possibly because she’s involved in a million different clubs and knows everybody. And Jade is about as beautiful as they come—long red hair and a face full of freckles with this incredible bone structure and eyelashes a mile long—but she’s just as kind as Lydia, although she’s got more of a headstrong, spirited vibe about her. I like them both, and I’m not sure how I’m ever going to be able to thank Lydia properly for taking me under her wing.

  On Wednesday at lunch, Lydia nudges me with her elbow. “You have an admirer,” she says, wearing a grin so reminiscent of Cohen’s that I smile. “Jack is checking you out.”

  “No, he’s not,” I say. “He’s basically with Virginia.”

  “I don’t know about that,” Lydia says, tilting her head so that her hair falls in her eyes. She’s as cute as ever today. She somehow manages to look effortlessly stylish at all times. “Cohen says Jack was really annoyed after the whole haunted house thing on Saturday.”

  Ah, yes. The haunted house thing. I’ve been trying not to think about it, because I know how to interpret exactly zero percent of what happened that night. Were Cohen and I holding hands? Yes. Did I like it? Also yes. Did he almost kiss me in his car? I think so. Did I want him to? I think so.

  And is Virginia the worst human being on the planet right now? It’s possible.

  “He was pretty peeved,” I say. “After we got out he wouldn’t even look at her.” It was a relief, actually; if he’d been in on the whole thing, I’d have been beyond upset. But he was just as angry as Cohen and I were.

  “Well, he’s not looking at her now, either,” Lydia says under her breath so no one else will hear. She looks casually at the table where Virginia, Jack, and Cohen all sit. “She’s just sulking. But Jack very definitely keeps looking at you.”

  I risk a glance in Jack’s direction, and Lydia is right. Jack and Cohen have removed themselves from Virginia, and for once, she’s not forcing herself on them. In fact, she seems to have retreated into herself; she
’s running her hands over her hair, sending little looks in their direction, and pushing her food around on her plate. She doesn’t look like the Virginia Cook I know. She just looks…sad. Sad and insecure. Interesting. Maybe I don’t know Virginia Cook as well as I think I do.

  Lydia smiles at me. “See? This whole thing is paying off already!”

  I smile back, trying to pinpoint why I feel slightly uncomfortable.

  “Listen,” Lydia goes on. “You’re coming over tonight, right?”

  “Yeah,” I say, nodding as I take a bite out of my sandwich. I realize that I still have more to say, but I embarrassingly have to wait until I’m done chewing, and Lydia just watches me expectantly the whole time. When I’ve swallowed, I say, “We’re doing reading comprehension tonight.”

  Lydia waves that away. “Great. But what I really want to work on is flirting. I talked to Cohen, and he said you need some work interacting with men.”

  I scowl in Cohen’s direction. Lydia must notice, because she says,

  “Don’t blame him. I annoyed it out of him. How’s he doing, by the way? With all the tutoring stuff?”

  I hesitate. I don’t know how much Cohen has told her, so I decide to keep it vague. “He’s doing well,” I say.

  “You guys get along okay?” she says, cocking an eyebrow.

  My face reddens as I definitely do not think about his face an inch away from mine. “Yeah, we get along great,” I say, nodding. I take a drink of my juice box—because I am five years old and juice is delicious—and look at Lydia. “Why do you ask?”

  She eyes me, then shrugs. “No reason. Just wondering. So tonight after you guys do your school stuff, we’ll work on the basics of flirting. It’s not hard. It’s just a rhythm.”

  “I am rhythmless,” I say. “And I need you to understand that the flirting thing will go very badly.”

  “Oh, it will be fine,” Lydia says, her voice unconcerned. “Cohen and I will teach you everything you need to know.”

  I nod, but I am thoroughly unconvinced. I just don’t want to vocalize my main concerns. I’m pretty sure Cohen being there will render me incapable of flirting. And can you even flirt on demand? Is that a thing? It will just be weird. My goal is to pretend like the car thing never happened—a therapist-approved coping mechanism, I’m sure—and move on. But I’m not sure that’s going to work. We haven’t spoken since, and I don’t know how things are going to be.

  I look back to Cohen and Jack. Jack isn’t looking at me; he and Cohen have their heads together as they talk, and they look like nothing so much as gossiping little girls. I grin. Cohen is wearing a t-shirt that looks like something I’d wear, except on him it’s pleasantly fitted across his shoulders and chest. I would drown in it.

  I pull out my phone and text him quickly: You and Jack look like you’re little girls sharing secrets at a slumber party.

  I watch him as he stops talking to Jack abruptly, pulls out his phone, and reads my text. He grins and looks up, and his eyes find mine. I just shrug and smile, taking a drink. Then I look away again, because I can only justify so much staring.

  My phone buzzes. Says the girl drinking from a juice box.

  I smile and reply. Glorious Grape. Not as good as Awesome Apple, but I still know you’re jealous.

  The bell rings, and I jump, startled. As I throw away my trash and make my way to my next class, I feel a sense of calm and relief steal over me. I didn’t realize how tense I was feeling about Cohen, but if he’s texting me like normal, things can’t be that weird, can they? It will be fine. We’ll ignore the other night and everything will be fine.

  When I get to Cohen’s house later that day, it’s actually Lydia who opens the door. “All right,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about the best—”

  “Tutoring first,” Cohen says, walking casually into the entryway, his bag over one shoulder. “Then we’ll teach her how to flirt. Not you. We. I don’t entirely trust you,” he says to Lydia.

  “Only one of us can boast an unfortunate ex, and it’s not me,” Lydia says. “I don’t think it’s my dating advice that should be held suspect.”

  I wince and look at Cohen. “She’s right, Coco. She wins this round.”

  Cohen looks at me and raises an eyebrow. His lips twitch; I can tell he’s stifling a smile. “I thought we agreed you would never call me that ever again, Willy.”

  I look at him innocently. “I don’t remember that conversation.”

  He grins. “We’ll go over the finer points. Come on.” He jerks his chin, and I follow him up the stairs.

  “So,” I say when we get to his room. “Reading comprehension. Oh,” I say, suddenly remembering. “I brought you something.”

  “Is that so?” he says, cocking his head to the side as he sits on the edge of his bed. “What did you bring me?”

  I put my bag down on the floor next to the desk and pull the zipper open. After feeling around for a second, I find what I’m looking for. I pull out two juice boxes and hand one to him. “This,” I say, unwrapping my straw and pushing it into the juice, “is Awesome Apple.”

  He laughs. It’s a sound I’m coming to look forward to. “All right,” he says, still smiling. “Let’s see if it’s any good.”

  “Of course it’s good. I just could see how jealous you were today, so I brought you one.”

  He grins, eyeing me as he takes a long drink. “It’s good,” he says when he’s done. “But not good enough to warrant bringing to school.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say, sitting in his swivel chair.

  “I know normal people drink bottled beverages instead of drinks made for children,” he says.

  I shrug, grinning. “I’ve never been much for normal.”

  “No,” he says, studying me. “I don’t think you have. Now, are you going to teach me about reading comprehension?”

  “I’m putting it off,” I say, finishing off the last of my juice box.

  He raises his eyebrows at me. “Because?” He holds out his hands, and I toss him my empty drink. He chucks it in his trash can.

  “Because the longer it takes to do reading comprehension, the less time I’ll have to do all this flirting nonsense you and Lydia want to do.”

  Cohen rolls his eyes. “It’s going to be fine. You already know how to flirt. You’ve been doing it. It’s more just some tips for talking to Jack. Or guys in general, I guess. That’s really what you need. Just tips on conversation. That was the only thing wrong with your behavior on Saturday.”

  “I know how to talk to guys,” I say, although that’s debatable, as is the claim that I’ve been flirting with Jack.

  Cohen’s skeptical expression says he agrees with my doubts. “You freeze up. Don’t deny it—you get this sort of panicked look on your face. I’ll just help you with some safe topics of conversation. Lydia might get more into flirting stuff, I guess. But I don’t think you need that.”

  “I haven’t ever flirted with Jack,” I say. “I definitely need the help.”

  Cohen grins. “I didn’t say you’d been flirting with Jack. I just said you’d been flirting.”

  Ah. Right.

  I hesitate and then say the only thing that comes to my mind. “I don’t know what to say to that.”

  He shrugs, his grin widening. “It’s all right. All women find themselves drawn to me. It’s a burden, really.”

  I bite my lower lip to keep myself from smiling. “I don’t think that’s true at all. And now I’d rather talk about reading comprehension than have this conversation with you.”

  ***

  Overall he does well on the reading. We go through several passages together, identifying topic sentences and whatnot, and I do my best to keep my distance from him, because he’s strangely distracting. I end up having to lean awkwardly over his shoulder in a way that sort of hurts my back—close enough that I can see what he’s doing and point things out but far enough that I’m not pressed up against him. It would easier if
he had another chair in his room, but he doesn’t.

  “That’s good,” I say, finally straightening up and massaging my lower back. “That’s really good. I think you’ve mostly got it. I’m leaving you with homework, though.”

  Cohen puts his pencil down and leans back in the chair as he swivels to face me. “I already have homework.”

  “Now you have more,” I say, smiling sweetly at him.

  He grins at me. “You’re mean.” He shifts in his chair and then says, “Okay. Do you want to talk to Lydia now, or do you want to do my lesson first? Choose carefully. You will not like either one.”

  I narrow my eyes at him. “I’m afraid to ask.”

  “Mine it is,” he says. He reaches for his computer in the corner of his desk. He opens it, and I try not to look too interested. But you can tell a lot about a person by what they have as their desktop picture.

  “Blue?” I say when I see it. “That’s it? Your desktop is blue?”

  He shrugs, pulling open his browser. “I like blue. What did you expect?”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “Something more interesting. Or something like a bunch of football players.”

  “Speaking of football,” he says, looking sideways at me. “Jack likes sports. So we’re going to teach you how to talk about football.”

  “Ew. No,” I say, shaking my head. “No sports.”

  No man is worth that.

  “I thought you would protest,” he says with a smile. “So I was going to tempt you with chocolate.” And he pulls a chocolate bar out of the top drawer of his desk.

  “That is a low blow,” I say. “I will not go along with whatever you say just for a chocolate bar.”

  But I haven’t eaten since lunch, and I want that chocolate.

  “You’re not going along with ‘whatever I say.’ You’re just letting me explain football a little bit. And the chocolate is to make you happy where you would otherwise be grumpy about it.”

  Realistically, as much as I protest, I would do the football thing anyway. Anything to increase my database of potential conversation topics. But since he’s offering, I may as well milk it…