by Bailey James
“No, I never was mad. My fault. Remember? I just—” I break off with a sigh, “I need time to myself. I haven’t had a lot lately.”
Liar, liar, liar. Guilt wraps around me like a mud-drenched blanket, practically suffocating me.
Ty frowns even more. “I thought you didn’t want alone time.”
“To be honest, Ty, I really don’t know what I want, and I think that’s why I freaked out so much yesterday. I need time to think about it and everything else going.”
That same impatience and irritability from yesterday taints the rest of my emotions, pushing me to get back to Jackson, but I keep my voice and tone neutral.
Ty nods slowly. “Okay. But can I take you out to a movie tonight?” He steps closer. “I won’t push you for anything you’re not ready for.”
Space! I want to yell. I need space, but the look he gives me would melt the iciest heart, and I sigh.
“I guess,” I hedge. At this point, I’ll say whatever it takes to get Ty to go away.
I’m pretty sure Jackson’s freaking out about how long I’ve been gone. I can almost feel it. I wonder if he can pass on his emotions to other people, too. And that thought makes me even more panicky and desperate to get back upstairs. I have to find out what Jackson is doing to me.
Answers. I need answers.
Ty grins at me, utterly oblivious to the war of emotions in me, which makes me sad for some reason. “Call me when you wake up, and I’ll come to get you.” Ty kisses me gently and saunters off, the familiar swagger back in his step.
I watch him walk away. I need to get to the bottom of these switch-back emotions. They’re making even me dizzy.
I stand and enter the house and go back to my room, passing Mom, who sits at the kitchen table. A pot boils on the stove; its enticing smell permeating the room. She glances up from the magazine she’s reading. “Did you guys work it out? Ty seemed much happier.”
No. Not even close. I think, but give her a huge smile, hoping it’s convincing. “Yeah, he’s taking me out tonight. For right now, I’m going to get some sleep. I’m exhausted, and I want to be able to give him my best.”
Mom’s smile drops. “Oh, you poor thing. You were up all night worrying about him, weren’t you?” She kisses the side of my head. “Go, get some sleep. I’ll make sure no one disturbs you.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“Oh, I’m making pot roast for dinner. Why don’t you invite him to stay for dinner?”
“Okay, sure.” I don’t even try arguing. It’ll only take time away from talking to Jackson.
Since pot roast is Ty’s favorite and he’s never been able to resist hers, I know why she’s making it. To be honest, it kind of pisses me off. Isn’t she supposed to be on my side? Even if she doesn’t know what’s going on?
I force myself not to run up the steps, but I take the last three steps in a jump and see Rose give me a smile from where she stands in her doorway. “Made up with Ty, did you?”
Does everyone think Ty and I had a fight? Geesh.
Knowing what she expects from me, I nod and smile. “Yep.”
She laughs and shuts her door while I slip through mine, feeling more lost than ever.
Jackson is still waiting, pacing his room. The relief when I see him is almost mind-blowing. It’s like I haven’t seen him in years, not just a few minutes.
He runs over when he sees me. “What happened?”
I show him the flowers. He glares at them. “He brought you flowers?”
I tighten my fingers around the stems and sit on the floor. “Jackson? Are you manipulating my emotions?” I blurt out.
He raises an eyebrow and looks over at the bed. “Aren’t you going to put them in water?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what I’m doing anymore.” That last bit comes out as mumbles. I stare at the flowers, then return my gaze to his. “You didn’t answer my question.”
“Go,” he says with a sympathetic look. “Get them some water. I know this is just a giant mess, but it’s not the flowers’ fault. I’ll explain what I can.”
With a sigh, I run down the stairs and dig under the kitchen sink for a vase, smiling to myself.
Mom and Dad smile at each other when they see me, and Dad whispers to my mother, “Someone’s forgiven.”
For some reason, this pisses me off. This isn’t a joke. Something insane is happening, and my world is crashing around me. Of course, my parents don’t know that, so I force a chuckle and fill the vase before walking as fast as I can back up the stairs before I say something I’ll regret. I toss the flowers into it—not caring how they’re arranged—and place them on my windowsill before plopping my butt down in front of the mirror again.
“Better?”
Jackson shrugs a shoulder, but his eyes twinkle with amusement. “I guess.”
I roll my eyes. “Aren’t easy to please, are you?”
“What’s the fun in that?”
I laugh, crossing my legs into a pretzel sit. “Nothing. I suppose. So, are you manipulating my feelings for you? Or not?”
He sighs, and he just looks sad now. “No. I’m not. But I know why you think that.” He drags a hand through his hair. “My…gift doesn’t allow me to manipulate emotions. Whatever you feel for me is real. The only thing I can do is place a thought that may influence how someone responds, but in the end, it’s only a suggestion.”
“Can’t you just give me a suggestion for me to think of you when I’m with Ty?” I carefully cross my arms over my chest.
A slow grin pulls at his lips. “You think of me when you’re with Ty?” Jackson asks, looking both surprised and elated at the thought, so I believe him when he sobers and says, “No. I wouldn’t do that to you. I want you to like me, yes, but I’m not going to force or manipulate you into it.”
“Is it the mirror, then? The portal? Is something wrong with me,” I whisper, meeting his eyes. “I’m in love with my boyfriend. I’m in love with Ty.” My voice takes on an almost hysterical quality to it, and I feel like I’m trying to convince myself that it’s true.
“You’re supposed to be sleeping, young lady, not talking to Ty,” Mom calls through the door.
“Yes, Mom,” I call back, and fight the urge to roll my eyes.
Preparing to ignore her, I open my mouth, but Jackson beats me to it. “She’s right, Tiger Lily. You need to sleep. You’ve got shadows under your eyes again.” A weird look crosses his face, and he mumbles something about shadows in his mirror.
“I don’t want to go to sleep. That means I’ll have to go with Ty later.” Then I bite my lip when I realize what I just said.
The grin that alights Jackson’s face burns through most of the guilt I feel at my declaration. “You could…oversleep,” he says.
Relief pours through me, and I can’t even drum up the energy to feel guilty about it, which means I have so much to think about.
“Yeah, I guess I could.”
Jackson stands as if that’s decided everything. “Try to sleep for real, Tiger Lily. I’ll be waiting here for you.”
With a yawn, I smile, feeling more peaceful than I have since the accident. “I know.”
I crawl onto my bed but sleep at the end of it, facing toward my mirror. Jackson only smiles. “Sleep tight, Tiger Lily.”
I fall asleep watching him.
My phone wakes me, but I ignore it. The ring tone says it’s Ty, probably trying to see if I’m awake. I roll over and pull a pillow over my head, seconds before Mom sneaks into the room. From the sounds of her footsteps, I can tell she’s trying to be quiet but move fast at the same time. She’s probably trying to get to the phone before it wakes me.
Too late, I think, watching her through cracked lids.
She grabs the phone and runs into the hall with it. “Hello?…No, Ty, I’m sorry. She’s still asleep
…yeah, if she wakes up, I’ll make sure she calls you. Okay… yes…of course…goodnight.”
I drift as she’s stopped by Rose, and they talk about how pretty the flowers look on my windowsill and how sweet Ty was to bring them.
A few hours later, I sit up and stretch, glancing out the window. It’s dark. I really need to start sleeping at night, or people will think I’m a vampire or something.
I glance over to the mirror and smile. Jackson is sitting on the floor, writing in something like a notebook. He’s so engrossed in it he doesn’t even notice me until I sit in front of him.
He glances up and grins. “Hey, you.” His hand immediately flies to the glass even though it doesn’t appear necessary anymore.
My own hand rises to meet it—in habit as much as in the hope I’ll feel something more than the warm honey feeling of the glass under my palm. “Hey.” I give a pointed look at the flat device in his hand. “What’s that?”
He blushes and tosses it behind him. It lands with a thunk near his desk. “Nothing.”
For a moment, I stare at him wide-eyed but then shove my bottom lip out in a pout. “Please.”
He smiles. “That won’t work on me.”
I purse my lips, then smile, crinkling my nose. “Please.”
He laughs. A deep full belly one that makes my blood heat.
“All right. All right,” he says. “It’s a song.”
“A song?”
“Yeah, I write songs when I’m bored.”
“Why?”
He shrugs. “I don’t know. I just like to.”
“Can I hear one?”
He blinks. “You really want to hear it?”
I nod quickly. “Yes, please. You’ve heard me sing. It’s only fair, after all.”
He gets up slowly and retrieves the notebook, a look of incredulity still on his face. “Are you sure?”
“Yep.” I pop the ‘p’ but frown when his Adam’s apple bobs as he swallows. “Hey, if you don’t want to, it’s okay. I know what it’s like to be nervous about something. Especially something you don’t want anyone to know about.”
Like my singing, I think with a small smile.
He looks into my eyes. “I want you to hear it.”
Now it’s my turn to swallow as his words resonate in my belly, his gaze never wavering from mine. His voice is a surprisingly clear baritone that’s doing funny things to my nerve endings and gives me tingles all over.
The moon is so full,
and all I can think of is you,
as the house creaks quietly around me.
I toss and turn and think,
Almost afraid to blink,
Afraid that I’ll find out that all this is a dream,
That you’re nothing more than shadows in my mirror.
I listen all the way through, creeping closer to the mirror with each verse. He reaches out but only ends up touching the mirror where my hand lies. The mirror shimmers but stays intact.
With a smile, I say, “It’s lovely. Thank you. No one has ever sung for me before.” But lovely does nothing to explain just how amazing I feel. My heart has completely turned to mush. I’ve never felt like this with anyone. Not even Ty. And that pretty much answers everything.
Jackson grins, his dimples winking and turning on all the froggerflies in my stomach. “You’re welcome.”
Our hands stay pressed together as we watch each other. I’m afraid to say anything, afraid to break the spell. Terrified that if I even move, Jackson will disappear, and all of this will turn out to really be nothing more shadows in my mirror.
Chapter Nineteen
“Tell me a secret?” Jackson asks.
“A secret?”
“Yeah. Tell me something no one else knows.”
I shake my head and give him a coy smile. “It won’t be a secret if I tell you.”
He creeps closer to the mirror. “Please, Tiger Lily, I promise not to tell anyone.”
I giggle. “Who would you tell?”
He grins. “Exactly.”
“All right.” I take a breath. “I still have my baby blanket.”
He smiles at me. “Really?”
“Um, hmm.” I get up and tiptoe to my dresser to pull open a drawer. Inside is my pink baby blanket. It’s ratty and torn in a few places but otherwise intact. I hold it up. “See?”
He laughs as I tuck it back into the drawer and sit again.
“That’s very interesting,” he says.
“Your turn.”
He thinks for a second and then says, “My mom has this fake flower arrangement in the front room. She likes it to be just so. It drives her crazy if it isn’t. Every night before I go to bed, I turn it a quarter of a turn to the left. When I get up in the morning, it’s always back to its original position.”
I burst out laughing. “Oh, that’s bad. Does she know it’s you who’s doing it?”
“Probably. Who else would it be?”
“True.”
“Give me another,” he says, sending me one of his heart-stopping smiles.
How can I resist? “I count the steps if I’m going up the stairs.”
“But not down.” He winks. “Toilet paper has to be over the roll, not under.”
“You’re a monster to have it any other way,” I say with a roll of my eyes. “I know what I’m going to wear for three days in advance.”
“I have to let my ice-cream melt a little before I can eat it.”
“I never step on sidewalk cracks.”
“Neither do I,” he gasps. We’re both laughing so hard we can’t catch our breath or finish our list. Every time we stop, we look at each other, and it starts all over again.
Finally, when we manage to stop, he says, “Tell me another secret. A real one.”
“Like what?”
“How about what do you secretly want to be? Everyone has one.” He grins at me.
I bite my lip and glance at the door. “I’ve always wanted to be a singer.”
He raises an eyebrow, and a strange look creeps into his eyes. “A singer?”
“Yeah, but I’ve never been brave enough to do anything about it. That’s why you always hear me singing in here. It’s the only place I’m brave enough to do it. I never realized anyone could hear me. I’ve wanted to be a singer ever since I was a little girl and Jewel came on the radio. I know it’s the smart thing to go to college and get my degree, but what I really want to do is audition for American Idol.”
“What is that?” he asks, frowning.
“Uh, it’s a show where people from all over the country audition in front of people who’ve been in the business awhile; then they go on TV and sing in front of the whole country. People vote to keep their favorites. By the end of the season, whoever is in first place, wins a recording contract.”
“So, why don’t you do it? Your voice is beautiful. You’d win for sure.”
I laugh. “I doubt that. I’m sure they’d chew me up and spit me out.”
“I don’t think so, Lily. I’d bet he’d be singing your praises when you finished. No pun intended. You’d be rich and famous.”
I shrug. “My parents wouldn’t like that at all. They’d never let me.”
“Yeah, I know the feeling. I tried starting a band once. My mom put the brakes on that one immediately.”
I chuckle and scoot my legs underneath me. “You tried starting a band? That’s so cool.”
“Yeah, I wanted to be the next Ricky Solano.”
“Who’s that?”
“Only the best lead singer for a rock band there is. Hold on.” He runs over to his desk. A few seconds later, music flows from his speakers, a male voice crooning in direct contrast to the edgy beat.
After a few bars, I find myself bobbing my head along with it. “Y
eah, okay. I’ll agree with you. I think he’s better than a lot of the ones we have here,” I say, when he turns it off.
He saunters back toward me, a massive grin on his face, but stops when his mother pokes her head into his room. “Jacks?” she asks. “It’s almost midnight. Why are you still awake? You have a meet in the morning.”
He glances at me. “Nervous, I guess.”
She gives a light, tinkling laugh that makes me smile. I’ve never seen her before, and it’s impossible not to stare. She’s beautiful, and Jackson looks just like her, down to the green eyes that sparkle in the lamplight. “I would be, too. This is a big one. You want me to make you some warm milk? It’ll help you sleep.”
My smile grows bigger. Mom makes me warm milk, too, when I can’t sleep, and it always works. Jackson’s mom reminds me of my mom, especially when she walks over and ruffles his hair. Mom still does that with Alder, but unlike Alder, Jackson only grins up at her instead of batting her away.
“No, Mom. I’ll be fine. I’ll go to sleep in a few minutes.”
She kisses him. “You’ll do great. You always do.”
She glances over at the mirror, and her eyes narrow. She shoots a look over at Jackson but says nothing as she walks out the door.
When she leaves, he comes back over, making himself comfortable on the floor again. “So, you like the band?”
“Does your mom know about me?” I blurt out.
He frowns and shakes his head. “No, why?”
“She glanced over here, and I could have sworn she saw me.”
He twists his head to peer at the door. “Hmm, I didn’t notice. I don’t know how she could have. Besides, I’m sure she’d have said something if she had. I mean, really, remember how you handled it? Do you think she’d have handled it any better?”
I draw my eyebrows together. “I guess not,” I mumble.
He runs a finger down the mirror between my eyes. “So, what other secrets would you like to share?”
“Jackson,” I say with a stern expression and a shake of my head. “You have a meet in the morning. Go to sleep.”
“No. I haven’t gotten to talk to you all day.”
I glance at my clock. “We’ve talked for over an hour. Besides, I’ll be here when you get back.”