Absorb: Book One of the Forgotten Affinities Series

by Analeigh Ford

  It takes me a few seconds to realize who it is jogging up the sidewalk toward me.

  “Kendall?”

  His face swims into view in the darkness. I realize I subconsciously prepared to fight back in case it wasn’t. Geeze. I have to relax. Can’t I develop a flight mode instead of fight? Last time didn’t end so well.

  He stops in front of me and shoves his hands deep in his pockets.

  “Sorry, I just couldn’t stay out there.” I nod apologetically down the block towards the massive house at the end of the street.

  Rather than admonish me, he just stands there a second. When he finally speaks, his voice is lower than usual. “Did he hurt you? If he did, I’ll kill him.”

  I blink several times. “Who...oh, no...no! Not like that. I just, I don’t fit in with his people.”

  He stares at me a moment, as if trying to decide if I am telling the truth or not. Then he nods and we start slowly walking back down the street. I try not to look into the windows of the mansion, but I can’t help it. I catch the smallest glimpse of silk at the top of the stairs, and all the anger I felt minutes ago comes rushing back.

  Kendall, somehow, is able to sense this.

  Rather than push me for more information, his hand slides into mine. It is surprisingly warm and soft. I can feel the slightest callouses on the palms of his hand, but they are not rough like I imagine Draven’s to be, or clammy and cold like I bet Cedric’s are. Flynn would never even be able to hold my hand since his are always already occupied by a stack of books.

  These images in my head make some of the anger inside me start to fade away.

  Kendall has never been much of a talker, but he always has this kind of soothing presence that makes me feel safe when he is around. I guess I never really noticed it before, but even as we step down into the subway I don’t feel that rush of anxiety I did the times before. He squeezes my hand tighter as the train arrives, and we step on.

  Kendall rests his head on the pole we share and closes his eyes.

  I forgot to use my special card to get us back quicker, but it doesn’t matter. I am actually looking forward to a little time to process everything that just went on before Wednesday is going to bombard me with questions when I get home.

  “Did you change your phone number?”

  Kendall’s eyes flutter open and he glances down at me. “No, why?”

  “I definitely thought...” I trail off. “I thought Draven was coming to pick me up.”

  “Oh,” he brushes some of the hair out of his face and tucks it behind one of his ears. “I don’t think we’ve ever talked on the phone before.”

  I could have sworn I had his number, but now that he says it, it’s true. I guess any time I have needed to get in touch with him before, I asked Wednesday. I feel like I’ve known him forever, but now I wonder if I know him at all. I glance at where our hands almost touch on the metal bar. The small brand on each of our wrists glows bright blue. Bright enough to reflect off the brown of his irises when we lock eyes again.

  I wonder how things would be different if just the two of us had been paired.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice barely loud enough to make out.

  His brow furrows. “What for?”

  I shrug. “I just, I feel like we haven’t really gotten to know each other as much as we should. I mean...” I gesture at the glowing brands. “It isn’t your fault you got paired up with a girl like me.”

  “Like...you?”

  The car starts slowing. The wheels screech and groan as it comes to our stop. We should be getting off, but we don’t. Kendall continues staring into my eyes, his gaze darting between them, searching for something.

  “I’ve never been good with words,” he finally stammers. He clears his throat, then moves his hand down until it covers mine. The touch of his hand warms me. He is leaning closer now, his breath teasing at the cupid’s bow of my lips. “I meant what I said the other night. I don’t want to be paired with anybody else.”

  “But, it isn’t fair is it? What if...”

  He stops me there. “What if what? You don’t choose me?”

  I draw back a second. “Wait, how did you know about that?”

  His eyes shift to the side, and when he looks back at me, I see guilt. “The statues told me the first night we were here.”

  “The statues?” I am almost too distracted to understand what he says. So I was right. The principal had decided even before the subway incident that they were going to make me choose. This has nothing to do with my own abilities—and everything to do with their inane traditions and prejudices.

  Kendall reaches over and tucks my hair behind my ear. “All that matters right now is that I choose you. Whatever you need, whenever you need it, I will be here.”

  My eyes blink too fast and I think I begin to tear up a bit. He is too good for me.

  I would be lying if I said I have never imagined Kendall saying something along these lines to me. There was a time once when I had a huge crush on him. This last week I’d been so caught up in my own world, my own struggles, that until just a couple days it had never occurred to me Kendall might have felt the same way.

  Still feel the same way.

  His hand remains close to my face, so I press the side of my face into it.

  Kendall has always been there, and he always will be. And so, against my better judgment, I close the gap between us.

  20

  Octavia

  The memory of my kiss with Kendall, my very first kiss, still lingers on my lips when Wednesday bursts into my room moments after I arrive.

  “Well?” she says, out of breath with impatience. “How did the dinner party go?”

  I flop back on my bed and stare up at the ceiling for a moment. I have been so consumed with the kiss, with Kendall, that I totally forgot about the whole debacle leading up to it. Try as I might, the warmth that spread from the soft graze of his lips on mine quickly fades into the memory of the disappointment that is Cedric.

  I roll over onto my stomach to face Wednesday, who is leaning forward in my chair as if it will somehow make me get to the juicy details faster. But before I can even get to the part where Whitney arrives, I am interrupted by a faint knock.

  Wednesday’s voice drops to a whisper. “Camilla keeps trying to find me to talk about her stupid theories,” she says. “Don’t tell her I am here.”

  But there is no one outside the door when I open it.

  “Weird,” I say as I shut the door and Wednesday tumbles out of the wardrobe where she was hiding. We are just settling back down and am about to start up again when we hear it a second time. Before either of us can get to our feet to check the door, we hear it once more. This time I see it too—a tiny pebble hovering outside the window.

  I move Wednesday aside and lean over the table to wedge the window open. Many stories below, far too far down for me to really hear his voice, is Cedric.

  “What’s he doing here?” Wednesday asks, squeezing in beside me to see what is going on.

  “I have no idea,” I say. “Probably here to tell me I ruined somebody’s coat or something.”

  “Octavia!” His voice is so faint I seriously consider pretending I can’t hear it.

  The rock continues to hover at eye level outside my window. For some reason it annoys me, so I focus on it and try to make it drop. It doesn’t take much to break Cedric’s concentration. It plops out of sight and I listen for the faint smacking sound of it bouncing up off the pavement.

  “Ouch,” I hear instead. Crap. I hadn’t considered it might hit Cedric.

  Wednesday must see I am about to apologize, because she nudges my shoulder to stop me, “He deserves it.”

  I guess that’s kind of true, but it doesn’t stop me from leaning out the window a little further to see if he is alright. All I can make out is his faint figure getting up from a crouched position on the ground, one hand to his head.

  He shouts something back up at me, but I really
can’t make it out this time. Then I feel a pressure on the inside of my head. I resist on instinct. I clear my mind and put up a wall until the pressure disappears. Out of curiosity, I push back. I meet no resistance.

  Octavia.

  His voice inside my head startle me. More accurately, it is his voice inside his own head. I am the guest here. I can feel the press of emotions, catch flickers of thoughts, pieces of memory pressing in around the words. I briefly see the moment when I arrived at the door. I see Whitney at the top of the stairs and feel surprise. I catch a glimpse of what appears to be him staring a moment too long at my butt.

  I gasp aloud.

  “What is it?” Wednesday asks. She jostles in to get closer, but I put out an arm to stop her. We might both fall out the window if she tips me out a smidge further.

  “My leggings are totally see-through,” I mutter. My face turns red hot as I imagine the view when I stormed out of the formal dining room.

  Wednesday ducks behind me a second. “Oh honey...have you worn these a lot?”

  “Only like every day.”

  I groan.

  But there are more memories floating towards me. They are crowded out with a single, overwhelming emotion. Regret.

  Octavia, he says in his own mind. Please, come down to me. I have something I need to say to you.

  “What is going on?” Wednesday asks.

  “I have to go down,” I say, climbing back away from the window. I look down at my clothes. It’s too late to undo the damage that is already done, so I rush out without changing. I feel an odd cocktail of emotions brewing inside me. Anger, frustration, confusion, disappointment...all these things make me twitch anxiously the entire ride down to the ground floor.

  Cedric is waiting for me outside my window still.

  As soon as he spots me, he runs over. That connection between us erupts with the close proximity. I feel him even before he is close enough to reach and take both my hands in his. For the first time, he does not recoil from my touch.

  “Octavia, thank you for coming down to speak with me.” His words, as dry and polite as ever, are overwhelmed with emotion ebbing out from inside him. It is all I can do to remain standing. I’ve never felt something so strong before in my life. I summon the words I planned to say to him, but they come out all in a jumble.

  “You used me,” I say. “You invited me to upset your father. And then you embarrassed me by inviting Whitney over? I thought...I really thought you were going to give this...us...a chance.”

  A stabbing pain runs through me. No, it runs through Cedric to me. It tangles with my own emotions, muddling the invisible line drawn between us.

  “Everything I said, everything that I am—it isn’t what I mean it to be.” He stops a second to clear his throat. I think for a second that he might be fighting back tears. And then, all of a sudden, I am too. This emotional connection between us is too much. I draw back, exit his mind and place the walls up around my own again. Suddenly the night is darker, and Cedric becomes his old self again—at least visually. The ghost of that tempest of emotions still lingers.

  He continues. “Octavia, of course I am excited by every opportunity to remind my father I am not just a puppet he can control. He and I are so very different. The life he wants for me is not the one I want. But it was wrong of me to pull you into the middle of it.”

  “Yeah, it was.” Slowly, my own emotions are coming back to me. They are different now. It’s like I am able to see his perspective better; the strength of his feelings dulling my own. “But Whitney—”

  He interrupts me. “I asked her to come so I could make it very clear to her that we are over. I broke up with her well before you and I got paired, but she is completely unable to comprehend that.”

  “It didn’t look like it was that kind of visit. You guys were together for a long time. I could understand if you needed time to get over it, but I am not okay with you lying to me. And I don’t like having to compare myself to her.”

  “You don’t compare to her!” I immediately see frustration cross his face. “No, that isn’t what I mean to say. Whitney does not compare to you. You are...you are so much more.”

  He reaches for my hand again. I feel that pressure in the front of my brain.

  “Please,” he says. “Everything that I say comes out wrong.”

  “It’s too much.” I shake my head.

  “What if I promise to tone it down?”

  I consider a moment and then take his hands again. This time I feel a soft swell of emotions rather than a tumble of all of them at once.

  “The important thing is, I don’t want Whitney,” he says. “I want you. You bring out a side in me that no one else ever has.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Cedric clears his throat, and for a moment, the emotional link between us swells again. He lets go of one of my hands and slowly cuffs back one of his sleeves. I can’t help but catch my breath. Red bruises encircle his forearm. They are fresh, most likely from this evening. Soon they will turn a dark, painful purple.

  “Your father?”

  Cedric pulls down his sleeve before my curious fingers can touch the bruises. “I am not the frightened child I once was. This is all he can do now.” He fiddles for a second with the cufflinks he still wears from dinner. I feel a wave of embarrassment. I reach out to touch his chest, his shoulder, to comfort him—but then I remember how he stiffened at my touch before, at the bruises, at what physical touch must do to him—and I stop.

  Cedric slowly and gently takes my hand and presses it to the middle of his chest. I can feel the muscles spasm below my hand. They strain against the touch, rejecting it for a moment until slowly, so slowly, they relax. “My past gives no excuse for my behavior. I treated you poorly tonight. I have not been as forthcoming as I should have been. Can you forgive me?”

  “I...I don’t know.” The honesty of my own words stings me. “You really hurt me. I’ve never done...this...before. I don’t know what I am doing.”

  “But I haven’t either.” Cedric steps closer to me. He takes my hands and interlaces his fingers with mine, taking a moment to admire how they look together. “You are an anomaly. It’s about more than your multiple affinities or the fact that there are three other men vying for your attention.”

  I cough a little out of embarrassment, but he continues anyway.

  “I couldn’t care less about that all. Octavia, you are different. You are worth it, because you are the only one who has ever been able to make me feel.”

  And he lets his emotions go again. He does nothing to restrain them. I feel all the same emotions as before: pain, confusion, regret, embarrassment. But I also feel something else. It rises to the surface and overwhelms all the others. Overwhelms me. Wraps around my own feelings of anger and rage and disappointment and clouds them out.

  Cedric looms over me. He lifts our entwined hands and tilts my chin up to face him. “Do you feel it?”

  “I feel it.”

  And suddenly his lips crush mine with an intensity I did not expect. Not from him. I feel the perfect, polite façade crumble. He pushes against me, making me stumble back until I am pressed against the wall. His hands pin mine above my head.

  This kiss is so different from my kiss with Kendall. His was so soft, so sweet, so...innocent. It was exactly what I expected of him.

  But this...this passion is a surprise.

  I feel a wave of guilt. Here I am, getting kissed by Cedric and thinking about Kendall. And Draven, and Flynn...and how each of them might kiss me differently.

  I break away from him before I lose myself completely. This time I throw up the wall in my mind so hard that I see Cedric take a physical step back.

  “Is everything okay? Did I do something wrong?”

  Each of us is panting, our breath lost in the frantic kiss we shared just a moment earlier.

  “No,” I catch my breath a moment. “No. You...me....I have to go. I have to go, now.”

  “Wait
! Before you go...” he fetches my backpack from around the corner. I take it and try to swing it over my shoulder as gracefully as I can. When I do, our hands graze for a brief second and all those feelings come rushing in again.

  “Thank you,” I say, and I know from the look on his face that he knows it is about more than just the bag.

  But before I disappear back into the building, I dare a final glance back. This time, for just the moment, I let him into my head. And then I shut him out again. But I leave him with a satisfied expression that leaves my face burning red all the way up to where Wednesday is waiting to meet me.

  “Woah, what was that all about?” I can tell from the look on her face that she watched everything through the open window. Then I remember how much of that conversation took place inside my and Cedric’s head...and I realize how confusing it must have looked.

  I groan and flop back onto the bed. This time I grab my pillow and pull it tight over my face.

  “I don’t know!”

  “What do you mean?” Wednesday says. “It’s pretty obvious you’re totally into Cedric, so why is it a problem?”

  I roll over cautiously. “I mean...I am...”

  “Then dish!” Wednesday hops onto the bed beside and pokes me. “That was your first kiss, right? What was it like? What did you think?” She pauses a moment and wiggles her eyebrows naughtily, “Was there tongue?”

  “Gross. No. Well, maybe a little.” I cover my face with my hands while she squeals.

  “Cedric is going to look so handsome in a tux. Have you guys discussed plans for Homecoming?” She knows me too well, because she immediately reads my hesitation without any Psychic powers. “What’s the problem?”

  Right. I feel my face grow pensive. I purposefully left out any mention of my earlier kiss with Kendall for a reason.

  “Um...” I let the pause hang in the air as long as possible before admitting, “It actually wasn’t my first kiss.”