Waterfell

by Amalie Howard

  “That’s the spirit,” he agrees. I notice that he hasn’t acknowledged Lo but, new student or not, beach-bum surfer-boy is hardly my problem. “Come on in.”

  As I stand to follow Principal Cano to his office, Lo winks at me and sprawls in the chair as if he’s in his living room. He picks up my discarded magazine and flips through it, raising his eyebrow and pointing overtly at the embarrassing-moments article. Unable to help myself, I roll my eyes at him. He’s a piece of work, that one.

  Despite the pretense with the magazine, I feel his eyes on me all the way into the principal’s office. I say hello to the guidance counselor, who’s sitting in the second chair on the outside of the wide mahogany desk. Mrs. Leland is a tiny bird of a woman with dark hair always combed back in a bun, and a quiet demeanor. I smile at her and she congratulates me on the game as I take the seat to her left.

  Luckily, Principal Cano only wants to talk about college choices, something I haven’t even started to think about. I still have a year of high school to go, but for some reason, it’s on his list of priorities. Jenna had told me he’d had a similar conversation with her about sports schools and sports scholarships. She’d mentioned something about it looking good on Dover’s—and by default Cano’s—record so he always took a vested interest in any potentially promising students, which apparently included me. But Cano has always seemed to be interested in my progress at Dover, so his attention is nothing new.

  Lo catches my eye through the blinds of Principal Cano’s office. He’s staring at his phone, completely uncaring of any the rules governing visible cell phone use in school areas. I nod at the appropriate intervals, pretending to listen to Cano but surreptitiously studying the boy sitting outside. Something about him tugs at me. I don’t know if it’s the whole lonely-boy slash bad-boy vibe, but there’s something there that just gets me.

  It isn’t about his physical looks. I mean he’s okay, but nothing spectacular. His tanned face is all hard angles and hollows, and his almond-shaped eyes make him look almost feminine. He’s not bad looking, that’s for sure, but cute isn’t a word I’d use to describe him. More on the slender side than bulky, there’s something resilient about him. I didn’t get to see that much of him in the wet suit, but I’m sure he’s in great shape if his surfing is any indication. He’s strong. I see it in the sharp curve of his jaw and in his long slender fingers tapping away on the phone’s screen.

  Suddenly, my own phone vibrates in my pocket as a smile curls the left corner of Lo’s mouth. He doesn’t look up, just continues to stare intently at the device in his hands. I frown. Coincidence? It buzzes again and, this time, I can’t help myself.

  “Excuse me, Principal Cano, sorry to interrupt but I think I forgot to turn my phone off this morning. I just want to make sure it’s not on.” Cano tosses a benevolent smile in my direction as I slide out my phone with a quick glance at the offending messages. I don’t recognize the number but the words are more than maddeningly identifiable.

  Still enjoying that cherry smoothie, I see. BTW, you didn’t tell me your name.

  I’m so hot with delayed embarrassment that it feels like I’m going to melt into a puddle on the floor any minute. Lo hasn’t looked up but that smirk is still lurking around the corners of his mouth. I’m itching to slap it off his face and figure out at the same time how he got ahold of my unlisted number. I shove my phone back into my pocket.

  Tearing my glance away from the annoyance on the other side of the window, I focus on Principal Cano, who is now looking through my file. Boring. Not much in there other than the usual—transcripts, grades, notes. On paper, I’m an exemplary student, never drawing unnecessary attention to myself.

  My gaze spans the desk, and suddenly, my boredom disappears. Next to a heap of files on Cano’s desk is another open file far thinner than mine. The photo of an arrogant but familiar face is clipped to one corner.

  Lo’s file.

  I bolt upright and forward in my chair, curiosity peppering my brain. It would be so easy to glimmer over the desk without anyone being the wiser. Curiosity gets the better of me, and maybe a little desire for payback. The need to see what’s in that file becomes insistent. In a world governed by paperwork, his file is even thinner than mine, which makes him very interesting.

  Lo obviously has money; otherwise, he wouldn’t be here. Not that it matters, but Dover is a snooty private school that isn’t exactly known for giving free rides. As a student with a royal trust fund and a generous long-standing alumni grant, I had no trouble getting admitted. Dover has been my family’s alma mater for centuries.

  My real family...the nonhuman one.

  Who wouldn’t exactly approve of what I am about to do. Especially my Handlers.

  Shoving the thought of them away, I focus on the task at hand. Glimmering isn’t expressly forbidden so I’m not doing anything too untoward, but it is frowned upon because of the potential exposure. I’ll be careful so there won’t be any risk.

  Taking a breath, I shrug off the nerves, feeling the water inside my body press against my skin in immediate response as a round weightlessness forms in the middle of my chest. I extend the glimmer-shadow outward like a ball of water, hovering over Principal Cano’s desk as he’s speaking and gesturing at some notes in my file.

  From any outside perspective, I’m sitting in my chair and listening intently to what Cano is saying. But for my own purposes, my glimmer-self can now see the pages on the desk as easily as if I were sitting on Principal Cano’s lap. Which is a pretty gross thought.

  Focus, I tell myself, and push slightly to the right.

  The glimmer-shadow almost breaks but I pull it together with a long, slow breath that slivers through my teeth. Glimmering is a delicate business that involves manipulating minuscule amounts of water in the air and connecting those to the source in my body. The technical term for it is hydroprojection, which basically means controlling the energy of moisture to project an invisible extension of myself wherever I choose. But I like the word glimmer better because that’s what it looks like if anyone were to ever envision it.

  As expected, the pages in my file are boring, basically showing my transcripts from my last school, my current grades, my extracurricular activities and all the usual stuff. I’m not interested in any of that. I am interested in the Annoyance. Hovering over the second file, I glance at the sparse notes. Lo is a C student. No surprise—I could have called that just from his don’t-care attitude. Did four sports at his last school including swimming and soccer, and is a Junior State Surf Champion. No surprise there, either. I just don’t get why he’s here and why he had transferred to Dover in the middle of his junior year, from Hawaii of all places.

  A note in red on a yellow Post-it catches my attention on the corner of the manila folder. The words Under Observation are underlined several times. It’s stuck above a newspaper clipping. I almost lose hold of the glimmer at the horrific mangled photo of a boat. Nearly his whole family was killed in a sailing accident during a freak storm. His foster father survived but is on life support in some private hospital in Australia, and it appears that Lo was sent here to live with his biological mother, his only remaining family.

  A pang of pity spirals its way through me, becoming more intense as it touches my glimmer-self, so much so that it ripples outward. Of their own volition, my eyes turn to the boy sitting in the waiting room outside and connect with a pair of liquid blue ones. He’s staring right at me.

  I dissipate in an instant, broken apart by the fierce vulnerability in that look. Or maybe he looks that way because of what I’ve just read. Either way, I feel guilty for my spying even though he couldn’t possibly know what I’d been doing. There’s no way he or any other human would be able to see anything—glimmers are invisible, undetectable to human eyes. Only the Aquarathi—my people—can sense a glimmer, not humans. And Lo is not one of us. If he were, I would k
now him in an instant.

  As an Aquarathi heir, my blood commands any of my kind to declare themselves to me, and it isn’t like they have control over doing so; their bodies respond. It’s complicated to explain, but we work in the same way that water bonds to water. A single drop is but a part of the whole.

  Principal Cano’s voice snaps me back to reality.

  “Sorry, sir?” I say, momentarily disoriented.

  “He asked if you could send Mr. Seavon in on your way back to class?” Mrs. Leland, who is standing next to him, has picked up Lo’s file.

  At my blank stare, Mrs. Leland gently clarifies. “Lotharius Seavon. The boy in the waiting room whom you were speaking to earlier.”

  Lotharius? I nearly giggle out loud but compose myself. We do live in California, after all, where people name their kids after colors and adverbs and feelings. There’s even a kid called Happy on the surf team at Dover. Lotharius is tamer than most. And for some reason, it suits him, probably more so than “Lo” does. Maybe it’s his exotic looks, but “Max” or “Tony” just wouldn’t seem fitting.

  “Oh, of course,” I say just as Mrs. Leland hands me another pile of college brochures. “Is he new here?” I can’t help myself but after seeing Lo’s file on the desk and having him brag earlier that he was a student, I have to know for sure.

  “Yes, today is his first day, and he’s a junior like you.” She stares at me with a thoughtful look, tipping her little bird head to the side. “Actually, Ms. Marin, perhaps you could help to show Mr. Seavon around at lunch. Help him get his bearings a bit.” I want to kick myself in the teeth for even asking about Lo...now I’m going to be stuck with the annoying creature. I make a mental note to try to fail my next English exam just get my name off Cano’s “promising students” list, but with my luck, I’ll get hauled in twice as often.

  I smile graciously through my gnashed teeth. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my world, it’s that etiquette and flawless courtesy will get you anywhere, especially as a teen. It’s as if the adults don’t expect it. “Of course,” I say sweetly. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Marin,” Principal Cano says, parting his lips in an odd grimace that barely passes for a smile. “As always, it’s been wonderful talking with you. Keep up the good work and be sure to let Mrs. Leland know if any of those—” he nods toward the brochures in my arms “—strike your fancy, and we can take it from there.” He presses a button on his desk phone and speaks into the handset just as I’m exiting the office. “Lori, we’re running a little behind. Can you readjust my schedule after Mr. Seavon? Thank you.”

  Outside, Lo stares at me with the ever-present smirk on his face. His eyes, so vulnerable before, are now unreadable. The furrow speeds across my brow and is gone before I can process why his moodiness is even a blip on my radar. I don’t care.

  A twinge of something slices through me as I think of all the tragedy in his life, but I’m not here to fix anyone, especially boys who obviously don’t want to be fixed. And I’m sure he’d be pissed if he knew that I’d looked at his file.

  Guilt stabs me and I stare at him, inexplicably annoyed. “So...after you’re done, I have to, um, show you around later.”

  Lo laughs, the sound of it rich and deep, and crinkling the outer corners of his eyes. The smile softens his entire face, transforming it from sharp to almost pleasant. I pretend not to notice. “Whoa, try not to sound so ecstatic! New-kid babysitter, the job you’ve always wanted.”

  I can’t help but return the smile at his sarcastic comment. “Well, I don’t like to boast but they do call me the new-kid whisperer.”

  “That must be pretty special.”

  “So special,” I say with an exaggerated eye roll.

  As we stare at each other with tentative smiles on our faces and laughter in our eyes, something strange flowers in the middle of my chest. It feels like a glimmer, only more tangible with its butterfly touches extending along my arms and legs, as if everything inside of me is responding to someone else’s glimmer call.

  It’s not like I haven’t crushed on boys before, but this feels different than any of the other times. The unfamiliar feeling is climbing into my neck and making my blood race. I’m breathless and scared, but still want to sink feetfirst into it, letting it fill me up. For a second, I wonder if this is what Jenna feels whenever she talks about the butterflies she gets with Sawyer.

  I’ve never had a real boyfriend, and I’ve definitely never been in love—it’s almost impossible for an Aquarathi to feel a connection with a human the same way we do with one of our own kind. It’s not an abomination or unnatural or anything outmoded like that; it’s just weird, like two pieces working fine together but not really perfectly matched.

  “So what are you here for?” I say into the suddenly weighted silence stretching between us. “Orientation?”

  A wicked grin. “Nope. Had that last week.”

  “So you’re here voluntarily because...?”

  “Not voluntarily. Detention,” he says with a wink.

  “On your first day?” I gasp, shaking my head at his cavalier expression but struggling not to burst out laughing. There’s something about him that is so irritating yet appealing at the same time. It’s exasperating. Lo stands, swinging his backpack to his shoulder. He’s far taller than I expected, but then again I was practically immersed in water the first time we met. I fight the urge to step back at his sudden nearness and the smell of salt that I can almost taste on my tongue. “So what’d you do?”

  “Cut class to go surfing.” He throws a hand out, gesturing at his clothing, but I keep my gaze planted firmly on his face. “Got caught trying to sneak in and get changed. No biggie.”

  “Wow, all on your first day—first period, no less. That takes a certain kind of stupid,” I say.

  “I don’t like to be confined. Or being told what to do.”

  “I can see that, but you know, this is a school,” I say in a mocking tone. “And at school, there are these things called rules. And if you break them, there are consequences.”

  Lo’s smile turns cool, very unlike his earlier ones. The air between us becomes heavy with sudden tension. “Well, guess I’ll know who to ask when I need a refresher on how to be perfect.”

  “Says the guy heading for detention,” I snap back, stung by his taunt even though I’d just done the same to him. I’m not perfect—I just don’t act out as he obviously does. There’s a huge difference between the two. I can’t afford to call attention to myself, and I’m there to educate myself, not push the boundaries. I don’t know why I’m letting myself get so rattled by someone who doesn’t factor into my existence. “Whatever, I couldn’t care less what you do,” I say, stalking out of the waiting area.

  “Sure you do. See you at lunch, Nerissa.”

  3

  IRRITATIONS

  “Ugh, I can’t stand him!”

  “Can’t stand who?” Jenna says through a mouthful of cheeseburger.

  “Lo. Lotharius Seavon. The new kid. I’m surprised you haven’t seen or heard him yet, he loves himself so much.” I can hardly keep the venom from my voice. Two class periods later and almost halfway through lunch and I’m still flustered by our earlier exchange. And by the fact that he hasn’t shown up at the cafeteria, where we were supposed to meet. I saw him in English but he didn’t even look my way, and now I’m supposed to be nice to him and give him the grand tour? I mutter an expletive under my breath and poke viciously at my salad.

  “Wow, that bad?”

  “Jenna, you can’t even imagine how bad,” I seethe. “He honestly thinks he is God’s gift or something. I mean, I swear he has rocks for brains. First of all, who would cut their first day to go surfing and show up not in uniform and make fun of Cano almost to his face? An idiot, that’s who.”

  “
I’d cut to surf,” Sawyer interjects, his streaky brown hair falling into his eyes. “I mean, I wouldn’t get caught, but yeah, not like I haven’t done it before.”

  “Yes, but it’s not the same thing,” I argue hotly. “And if you got caught, wouldn’t you at least act sorry? You know, have some remorse or something? It’s not like he even cares. And then to tell me that I’m so perfect because I follow the rules, what does that even mean?” Jenna is staring at me with a weird combination of hilarity and disbelief, her cheeseburger lying forgotten in her hand. I’m on a tirade now, so much so that I don’t notice the sudden wide-eyed look on Sawyer’s face. “Who does he think he is, anyway?”

  “Talking about me again?” Lo’s voice over my shoulder is tinged with amusement. “You know, I’m going to start thinking that you have a crush on me.”

  “What?” I splutter, every cell inside of me freezing in response. “As if I would ever be interested in you in a gazillion years!”

  “That long?” Lo’s reply is mocking, but even my rudeness doesn’t stop him from sitting down at the table and smiling winsomely at Jenna, who has a very odd look on her face. She’s staring from me to Lo and back again, as if she’s seeing something fascinating. Fighting my stupid reaction to his buttery voice, I still haven’t looked at him, keeping my eyes averted as if that’ll make him disappear.

  “Hey,” she says with a grin. “I’m Jenna, the snarky one’s best friend, and this is my boyfriend, Sawyer. I take it you’re the Antichrist or something.”

  “More like the ‘or something.’” Lo’s laugh must be infectious, because everyone at the table is laughing. Well, everyone except me.

  Forcing myself to look at him, I notice that even though he’s dressed in the required school uniform, Lo still manages to look as comfortable as he did in the hoodie and flip-flops earlier in the office. I also can’t help but notice that the navy blazer brings out the bluer flecks in his eyes. He grins and throws his arm across the back of my chair. “So you like my new look?”