He seemed caught off-guard for a moment, looking up like he’d forgotten anyone else was here. “Uh—” He sat taller and straightened his notebook. “Fine. Why?”
“Why are you late?”
His eyes went to Cal and then landed on his desk. I got the sense that something was bothering him—something he didn’t really want to talk about—so I turned back around and left him to his ‘new guy woes’. He had a tendency to be overly friendly and stare at me a lot, so I didn’t really want to encourage a close friendship with him, which is exactly what asking questions about his bad morning would do.
6
David
I could recall only one time in her life that she was ever so thin, and I hated to think back on it—knowing it was my cruelty that drove her to a state of near emaciation. Now, I had no way of knowing the cause: if it was the recent brush with death, maybe a bout of depression she was hiding from all, or perhaps a speedy metabolism. But I wanted to know. I wanted to be the one that knew her better than any man on the planet—to look at her and know from only a waning smile or a radiant grin what was on her mind.
It was time to get myself back inside her circle. Come hell or high water.
“Hey, new girl!” I called, running lazily toward her, as if it didn’t matter to me whether I caught up or not.
She stopped, the group of girls she was with giggling as I approached. I studied them for a moment, not sure why they were looking at me that way, and then I remembered the many times I’d been inside a girl’s head during my time at high school. They thought I was hot. Ara, on the other hand, barely gave me a second glance.
“Yeah?” she said, flicking her short brown hair off her face. I wanted to reach across and tuck a curl behind her ear, as I did so many times before, but she’d straightened it and flattened out all the curl it once had.
“I need your help with something,” I said.
“Why mine?” she asked, clearly just wanting to leave with her new friends.
“Because you’re new—like me.”
“And?”
“And, you know those videos”—I took her by the arm and led her away from the pack—“where people stand in the street wearing a free hug sign?”
“Um… yeah.”
“Strangers hug them, right, because they don’t want to make the person feel like a disease or maybe because they love to be a part of something unique.”
“Right,” she said in a leading tone.
“Well, if you wore a sign around friends or family, they’d hug you too—because they love you, right?”
“And?” she prompted, losing her patience.
“Well, what if a new kid did it in the middle of a school, surrounded by people they don’t know, who are all trying to uphold some image—hide who they really are.” Hint, hint. “Everyone pretends not to like anyone else, and no one openly gives affection or praise to anyone outside their circle, so if two kids that no one knew stood in a busy street wearing those signs, people would hug them. But would the same happen in the middle of their new high school?”
Her eyes lit up. “That’s actually a pretty good question, and it might help me with my own research.”
“Research?” I asked, watching as she reached into her backpack and drew out a notebook, which I instantly knew was her journal, based on all the scribbles and doodles covering the spine. I wanted to snatch it and run away.
“Yes.” She noticed me looking and quickly folded the book to her chest. “I’m trying to understand human nature a bit better, since it’s all pretty new to me—”
“Why’s it new to you?”
“Oh, um…” She looked back at her friends, who were growing more impatient by the second. “You don’t know?”
“No.” I played dumb, hoping she wouldn’t remember that she’d mentioned it in passing when we met in the parking lot on our first day.
“Oh. Sorry. Most people know now so…”
“So what happened?”
“I was in an accident and lost my memory.” She gave a cute head flick and a sweet smile that I recognized as a self-conscious one. “So I’m kinda learning how to be a person now, and I guess I still haven’t fully grasped the complexities of human emotions—”
“Human.” I laughed, offering my most generous smile. “You say that like you’re not one of us.”
She twitched nervously. Clearly no one had ever stepped so closely to the truth. “Sometimes I feel like I’m not,” she said, and she meant it—on a deeper level than I could comprehend without knowing her better. Her blue eyes sparkled a little then with an obvious layer of tears, and it made me ache to hold her, comfort her and tell her everything would be all right, because I would make it all right.
“Then join me,” I offered. “Do this experiment with me, and we can compile the data together, see if we can’t come up with some answers for you.”
Her smile said it all. Jackpot! This is how I could get close—by helping her understand what’s inside of her. Falcon could guide her through reading, writing, walking, personal hygiene, but she needed me to guide her through the heart. And the soul.
“Okay, so when do we start?” she asked.
“Uh-uh, not so fast.” I wagged my finger at her. “First, I need to make sure you’re a good hugger.”
“Huh?” She looked so pretty when her lip popped out in that innocent, confused little pout.
I opened my arms and flipped my chin. “Come on, let’s sample the goods.”
Her cheeks flushed and she looked at my chest, taking a very subtle half glance around the yard at all the other people, but despite looking like she’d rather run away, the fact that she laid her journal down was encouraging.
“Don’t be shy now,” I persisted, “you can’t be a free hugger if you’re afraid of a harmless little hug.”
And that was it; she relented, won over by the same charms that won her the first time we met. Falcon could insist she was different until he was blue in the face, but this girl was, and always would be, my Ara.
She stepped forward, and my heart picked up ten paces. I held my breath as she entered my arms and they wrapped her up, finally home, her head against my heart, where it belonged. I couldn’t allow myself to think about the fact that this was the first time I’d touched her since she’d laid her pleading eyes on me and begged me to help her. I wanted nothing in the world in that moment more than to hold her, but I was denied, and it burned an eternal hole in my soul.
I had to resist the urge to sniff her and kiss her hair. I couldn’t even hold her tightly, not just for fear of freaking her out, but fear of breaking her. Immortal as she may have been, she was fragile and so tiny I was sure my human arms could snap her in half. I didn’t remember her ever being so small and so delicate.
“Are we done yet?” she asked, her voice muffled in my chest.
I released her instantly and stepped away, flashing a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Too tight?”
She nodded, faking a cough to regain her breath.
“I guess I needed that hug more than I realized,” I said sadly.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t get hugged very often,” I lied. “It’s kind of why I came up with this free hug scheme.”
“Why don’t you get hugged?” she asked, compassion flickering bright blue behind her eyes. She was still the same Ara—still just as empathetic as ever.
I dropped my head and sat down on the low wall nearby. “No reason.” It was a better thing to say than to give her some lie about a neglectful family. Leaving her wondering about me would leave her… well, wondering about me, and if she wondered about me, she might try to befriend me so she can make sure I’m all right. It worked for Callum. It would work for me.
She sat down beside me and waved her friends on—a good sign. “So, was my hug professional enough to join your scheme?”
I turned my head and smiled to answer. “You are a bit skinny, though. Do you eat?”
“Yeah,” she said, shy
ly toying with the hem of her skirt. “But I don’t put weight on.”
“Why not?”
She shrugged, her cheeks flushing with a pink circle of embarrassment.
“Brownies,” I offered.
“Huh?”
“Brownies.” They were her favorite go-to emotional food, guaranteed to put weight on her in a very short amount of time. “My Uncle Mike has a great recipe. Maybe I could make you some—bring them to school tomorrow.”
“Why brownies?” she asked, crinkling her nose across the bridge in such a cute way that I wanted to kiss it.
“My mom says they put a pound on her every time she eats them.” I shrugged. “Might work for you.”
“I’m willing to try anything.”
“Then maybe you should come to my house after school.” I stood up, offering her my hand. “We could talk about the experiment and plan out what questions we want answered by the end of it?”
“I can’t.” She stood up without taking my hand. “I’m going to Cal’s house today.”
“For what?” I snapped, cringing as I tried to reel my words, and my tone, back in.
Ara didn’t miss it either. She regarded me then with a look of disdain. “Homework. What else?”
“So you and Cal are becoming good friends, huh?” I asked casually, trying to brush over the outburst as though it hadn’t happened.
“Yes. What’s it to you?” She folded her arms.
“Nothing. He’s an awesome guy,” I lied, planning all the ways I’d make him suffer. “In fact, I was going to invite him to join the experiment.”
“Why? He’s not new.”
“He’s popular,” I fumbled, making this up on the spot. “He can be the control.”
Her arms unwound themselves from in front of her chest and she opened her shoulders up to me again. “Good idea.”
“So? My house this afternoon then?”
“Maybe tomorrow,” she said, turning away.
“Okay. Tomorrow then,” I called after her like a complete moron. “I’ll hold you to that,” I added, hammering myself deeper into the dork hole. As she vanished around the corner, I found myself scanning the yard for that predatory little punk. It was pretty clear what he wanted from her, and I’d be damned if she gave her virginity to anyone but me. But without my immortality, or any of the power that went with it, what could I do to stop him?
A burning capillary of rage heated the blood inside me. There was something I could do, but I’d have to play nice to be evil. What was that old saying?
Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.
7
Ara
“So, free hugs, huh?” Cal asked, leading me upstairs to a wide space that I had expected would be his room. I was surprised to see a huge living space instead, with a single bed in the corner, a lounge and coffee table pushed off to one side and a few half-empty bookshelves along the walls. And I say half empty instead of half full because it looked like the books and trinkets had been removed and just never put back. In the middle of the room beside an easel, a low set of white drawers sat at an angle, covered in tins and jars that were packed tightly with stained paint brushes, my eyes finding the source there of the turpentine smell that thickened the air. It was a very bright room, but it looked like an empty and forgotten wing of the house that he’d slowly claimed over time. I heard his question, but I couldn’t answer it right away because I was lost in the many worlds he’d created on different-sized canvases, all parked at angles against walls and furniture like this was an abstract art gallery.
“Wow, Cal.”
“You like?” he said, but it was more of a statement than a question. He walked hurriedly to the drawers and picked up a sketch book with a black leather wrap. “This is my problem. This is why I’m in special education.”
“How can this be your problem?” I took the book and opened it carefully, reverently, as though every sketch was a part of his soul, laid bare for me to scrutinize—fragile and as delicate as a whisper in the wind.
“This is my heart and soul—what I love,” he said. “And it’s why my dad hates me.”
“Hates you?” I looked up from the book and watched Cal move to the small round window overlooking the front of the house. His reflective gaze gathered up the light outside, as if maybe there was a world out there to paint, then he moved it onto me, his eyes a very pale blue in this light.
“I moved a bed up here a year ago, and no one even noticed,” he said. “My mom still puts my laundry away in my bedroom.”
I blinked, not sure what to say.
“Bree, on the other hand, moved her drawers across the room and mom went ballistic.”
“So?”
“So they don’t care what I do now.”
“Because you like to paint?”
“No, because I don’t want to be a lawyer anymore.”
I closed the book and put it down carefully, avoiding the blotches of paint and rags of turps around the space. “You wanted to be a lawyer once?”
He nodded. “Like my dad.”
“And then you changed your mind?”
“I’m not sure if I changed my mind or if maybe I realized the truth about it all.”
“The truth?”
“Every son of every son in my family, going as far back as the late 1800s, has become a lawyer and taken over the family business.” He looked thoughtfully out the window again, folding his arms across his chest, and in this light, with the shadows hugging his shoulders, I noticed that he was actually quite muscled. “Of course, saying that, every son of every son in my family, going back as far as the 1800s, has been born with the brains to achieve that goal.”
“And you weren’t?” I leaned on the wall on the other side of the round window, facing him.
“No. I was fine until grade seven, but then the cracks started to show, and no matter how much tutoring they gave me, I was never anything but an average student. I had to either accept that I was different and take another path in life, or torture myself wishing I was more like him.”
I laughed, not really meaning to. “Isn’t being an average student a good thing? And at least a lot better than being in special-ed?”
“Yeah, but still not enough for my dad. ‘Your best is never good enough, son’,” he said in a deep voice, which I assumed was his dad’s, “‘Live by that motto and you will always be a winner.’”
I nodded, quite impressed by the quote.
“And that’s all good and well, right?” he said, moving away from the window to sit on the unmade bed. “When you’re applying yourself to the path he expects you to take, but fall in love with something else”—he motioned around the room—“and suddenly, nothing you do is right no matter how hard you work.”
“So you pretend to be dumb so he’ll get off your back and stop pressuring you to be better?”
He glanced at me, his lips pulling into a soft smile on one side. “You catch on pretty quick for a girl lacking social graces.”
I sat down beside him. “So now he’s washed his hands of you?”
He looked around the room, as if it indicated the obvious. “I know he still cares if I live or die, you know—and he was the one defending me in court—but I’m not the son he wanted. No, worse than that, I’m the biggest disappointment of his life.”
I pouted for Cal, hoping that wasn’t true, sure it couldn’t be. After all, teenagers were prone to melodrama and misinterpretation, right?
“Why can’t he just love me for who I am, not who he wants me to be?” Cal said, but I got the sense that he wasn’t talking to me. “The truth, my truth, is that I’d never be happy as a lawyer, Ara. This is what I love.” He rolled his hand out to present a rather amazing painting of a girl standing by a beach. “This is what I’m good at.”
While he sat lost in thought, I let myself get lost in him. His scruffy hair and slim, gentle face reminded me of someone, but I couldn’t make a connection in my brain. And for the first time since
I woke, I wanted to know something about my past. The connection felt strong—something to do with paint and disappointment—and searching for it but not finding it made me feel frustrated.
“What?” Cal looked at me with a cautious but smiling eye.
“You remind me of someone I knew before, but I can’t make myself remember them.”
He put his hand on my knee, and I felt a sudden warm rush of something oddly resembling hope and excitement mixed together. My heart hammered my throat, and my blood felt warmer. I smiled at him and when he smiled back in the same way, I recognized it—the emotion. We liked each other. Not like friends do, but maybe more. We’d ‘connected’, Brett would say, and from that connection other things could now grow.
I pulled my knee back and Cal stood, clearing his throat.
“So David—the other new kid in our class—he’s coming over this afternoon too.”
“Why?” I asked timidly, still caught up in the moment.
“Uh…” He ran both hands through his hair. “Something to do with that experiment you were just talking about.”
I nodded.
“You hungry?” he asked, offering his hand.
“Starving,” I said, taking it.
He smiled and pulled me to stand, holding my gaze for a moment longer than anyone ever had before.
8
David
Her laughter reached the front door before I did. I stopped for a moment and let it eat me up, consuming every part of me that thought it could cope seeing her with him. She was falling for his act. I knew her well enough to know that much, and as long as Cal was in the picture, she wouldn’t so much as glance at me as anything more than her dorky new friend.
I rapped on the door louder than was polite and stood back, waiting. By the time it opened I’d pasted on a friendly smile, nodding my head in greeting at Cal, then at Ara as she bounded up behind him like an excited school girl. Their cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing heavily, and for a second my blood rushed with anger until I realized they were chasing each other around the house, not making out.
Bound by Secrets Page 5