The Talents

by Inara Scott

  I’d been eating in the cafeteria for almost two months now, and I’d long since tuned out the incredible view. But today everything was going to change.

  Today I was eating lunch with Cam.

  The minute I walked through the doors, I started to feel light-headed as I considered having to approach Cam and Trevor and Anna by myself. My knees actually trembled, and I looked around anxiously for a table to sit at before I collapsed.

  “Dancia, there you are! You aren’t getting away this time. Come on over here and I’ll introduce you around.”

  It was Cam, looking gorgeous, as usual, as he made his way through the crowd toward me. I watched him take hold of my elbow.

  With the touch of his hand, my throat momentarily swelled shut, but I swallowed hard and gave myself a stiff internal shake. I decided not to risk speaking, and simply nodded.

  We crossed the room toward a table where five other beautiful people were seated. Trevor was there. I had to admit he was handsome in an austere, frightening sort of way.

  “You know Trevor and Anna, and this is David, Claire, and Molly.” Anna jumped up and landed at my side the instant Cam and I reached the table.

  From the look on her face, it became clear to me that Cam might think he was just friends with Anna, but Anna did not feel the same way.

  “Dancia, how sweet of you to join us for lunch. Why don’t you come sit over by me? We can talk about strategy for this week’s meet.” She practically dragged me away from Cam and plopped me down in a chair.

  “Thanks,” I managed to spit out.

  “No problem.” She turned a sunny smile back to Cam. “You probably can’t stay long, anyway, can you? Didn’t you say you had to check in with Mr. Judan before Ethics this afternoon?”

  “I’ve got time to eat,” Cam said. He shrugged apologetically at me. “I do have to leave a little early. But we’ve got time to hang out first.”

  Cam sat down next to me. I nudged my chair closer to his and farther from Anna’s.

  Anna narrowed her baby-doll eyes. “Super.”

  “Hey, you’ve got Mr. Fritz for Ethics, don’t you?” Cam gestured around the table as he spoke. “We were all in his class our freshman year. He’s pretty cool, isn’t he?”

  “Yeah, he’s okay. He sure does love Kant, though.”

  Trevor groaned from the other side of the table. “You aren’t kidding. Too bad you can’t understand anything he’s talking about.”

  It was the most human thing Trevor had ever said, and I found myself actually smiling at him. “I spent twenty minutes just trying to read one sentence the other day,” I agreed. “It’s like the guy was speaking in another language half the time.”

  Anna sniffed. “I didn’t think it was that complicated.”

  Trevor laughed. “Even for you, that’s insane, Anna. No one understands Mr. Fritz’s class. Especially not Kant.”

  “At least the activities are cool,” Molly said. “Like that spaceship thing—did you do that?”

  “You mean the one where we all had to get on a little platform with some medicine to save the planet Earth?” I tried not to think about how I had ended that day in the bathroom, vomiting. “Yeah, we did that one.”

  “I remember that,” Cam said. “Anna and Claire nearly broke my toes when we tried it.”

  Anna gazed at Cam with an air of fond remembrance. “I loved that game.”

  Trevor rolled his eyes. “You loved anything that required standing on Cam, Anna.”

  Claire and Molly giggled. They spent a few minutes reminiscing about how they had tried to get all the girls up on piggyback, but everyone ended up falling down, and none of them managed to get back to Earth with the cure.

  “How did your group end up, Dancia?” David asked.

  I froze. I didn’t want to tell them how I’d gotten sick, or draw unnecessary attention to Jack. “Someone in the class suggested we leave certain members of our group behind.

  Once we did that, everyone else fit on the platform.”

  “Who did that?” Cam asked.

  “Jack,” I said reluctantly.

  “Landry did what?” Trevor asked.

  Why did they insist on calling him Landry? Like he wasn’t worthy of being called Jack? For some reason it bothered me.

  “We tried a bunch of different things, but eventually realized we couldn’t get everyone to fit. Jack said we should leave some people behind rather than giving up our mission and letting everyone on Earth die. I guess it made sense.”

  It did make sense, in a twisted sort of way. I hadn’t wanted to see it at the time, but looking back I could. It was the ease with which Jack had made the suggestion—like it was no big deal to let members of our team die—that had been so disturbing. But it was a game, right? Just a game. I couldn’t remember now why it had seemed so incredibly serious.

  A worried crease appeared on Cam’s brow. He and Trevor exchanged significant looks. The more I hung around them, the more it seemed that Jack was right. They did have something against him.

  I shook my head. Now I knew I was paranoid. I was starting to think like Jack.

  Cam pointed to the tray in front of him. “Do you want anything to eat?”

  His plate of french fries and a huge hamburger did not look appealing. “No thanks. I had a big breakfast. I’ll probably get hungry as soon as lunch is over.”

  Anna had a little bowl of salad on her tray, and she picked at the contents. “You should really eat something,” she said sweetly. “I don’t want you missing practice.”

  I tried not to laugh as I contemplated her ten-calorie salad. “Thanks, Anna. I appreciate the concern.”

  Cam picked up his burger and took a big bite. I looked around the room and saw Esther and Hennie a few tables away. Esther winked and gave me a thumbs-up, which I hoped no one at our table witnessed. On the other side of the room, sitting at a long table with a bunch of people from our team, was Jack. He was cozied up next to Allie, who gazed at him with the same adoring expression that I probably wore around Cam.

  That was new. Jack and Allie were friends, of course, and had been since orientation, but I’d never seen them eat lunch together. And I’d never seen that particular look on Allie’s face before. Like she was staring at Superman.

  Jack didn’t seem bothered by it. In fact, he had a genuine grin on his face, not even his usual ironic half smile.

  Jack could talk to anyone he wanted, I told myself sternly.

  Allie draped her arm over his. He leaned over and said something in her ear. I forced myself to look away, and as I did, I caught Anna watching me. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Jack and me, and a coldly assessing look crossed her face. Then her lip curled into an approximation of a smile. She picked up her fork and stabbed a piece of lettuce.

  “Anything new with the student council?” I forced myself to say cheerfully to Cam, trying to erase the image of Allie touching Jack’s arm. “Aren’t you planning a big dance right before Christmas break?”

  “Random Flashes of Genius is playing.” He spoke between enormous bites of meat. “It’s going to be amazing.”

  The desire to look back at Jack and Allie was almost overwhelming. I bit my lip and resisted. “Where will it be held?”

  Cam dunked a handful of french fries in ketchup. “Here in the cafeteria. But we decorate it. Anna’s in charge of the decorating committee, actually.”

  Figured. I nodded as if I cared, and permitted myself a brief fantasy of slow dancing with Cam. Meanwhile, Trevor kept throwing suspicious glances in Jack’s direction, and then whispering to David, the guy sitting next to him. I wanted to lean closer to hear what they were saying, but Anna seemed to be watching, so I gave her a sunny smile instead and relaxed against the back of my chair.

  “Where do you race this week, Anna?” Cam asked.

  “Saint Mark’s. It’s a tough course. Lots of standing water around the back end. Tons of freshmen didn’t even finish last year.” Anna smirked at me, though s
he covered it up quickly to smile at Cam.

  “Maybe you and Dancia could run together sometime, Anna.”

  Anna picked up a cucumber and nibbled at the edges. “I usually run in the morning, on top of our regular practices. I wouldn’t mind giving you a private lesson, Dancia, if you want to come with me sometime. Maybe next week.”

  I floundered, unable to think of a single excuse. “Wow, uh, thanks.”

  “No problem.” She fluttered her lashes at Cam, even though she was supposedly talking to me.

  Cam looked pleased. “That’s nice of you, Anna.”

  Nice? Granted, I barely knew her, but I had the feeling “nice” wasn’t a particularly fitting word.

  Cam finished his meal and apologized for having to leave early. I waved him off and then told the rest of the group I had some homework I needed to talk to Esther and Hennie about. Not that they cared, but I figured I had to come up with something.

  When I got to their table, Esther could barely contain herself. She was convinced Cam wouldn’t have invited me to lunch if he didn’t like me. She thought this was the beginning of something big. Hennie told me that she’d heard Cam and Anna used to go out, but they’d broken up this summer, and no one really knew why. Esther said that meant the perfect amount of time had elapsed for Cam to find someone new. He wasn’t pining over Anna, because they were clearly still friends, and that was good, but he was definitely single, which was also a plus.

  I just had to shake my head in wonder. The junior class president, most gorgeous guy in the school, and he wanted to spend time with me? I just couldn’t believe it. Something was seriously amiss. I couldn’t stop smiling and looking down at the pink shirt like it was some kind of magical talisman.

  IT WAS a few days later that I realized things really had changed between me and Cam. I was finishing up my longest run yet—six miles—and I was completely exhausted. Rain was falling in a light drizzle high above the trees, though little drops made their way through the canopy of evergreen branches to fall on the path below. Sweat soaked my T-shirt, rolled down my back, and dampened the waistband of my leggings. My legs were trembling, but I had that post-run euphoric feeling.

  That was when I saw Cam walking toward me. He was wearing his soccer shoes and had on track pants and a T-shirt. He had an expression I’d never really seen on him before—fury. Sure, I’d seen him annoyed, even downright pissed like on the day Jack was late for school. But this was something different. His whole body was stiff, and he was walking with a brutal efficiency, like he had somewhere to go and something serious to do when he got there.

  I was almost scared to say hello, but he saw me first and held up his hand in acknowledgment. “How was your run?” he asked.

  “Fine.” I was still breathing hard, so I sucked in a lungful of air before I continued. “You okay?”

  We stopped when we reached each other in the trail.

  “Yes. No…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I guess.”

  “That doesn’t sound okay,” I said, surprising myself with my own courage. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  He hesitated, and then said, “I was just headed somewhere private. Want to come?”

  Private sounded good, though I had a feeling in his current state he wasn’t thinking about me at all. “Sure. We don’t have to be back for dinner for another twenty minutes, right?”

  He nodded. I turned, and we started walking in the direction he had been headed. For a while we were quiet, and I listened to the sound of the rain and wondered if I should say something.

  Esther would know what to say. She’d probably be able to make him laugh.

  Hennie would know what he was feeling. She’d look in his eyes and say exactly the right thing to make him feel better.

  I was clueless.

  “I got a call from my dad,” Cam finally said. “He’s working double shifts over Thanksgiving, so he suggested I stay at Delcroix for the holiday.”

  I digested the information. “That sucks.”

  “I should be used to it by now,” he said. “He’s been doing it forever. I can’t remember the last time he ever has been around for a holiday.” He picked up a stick that had fallen in the path and hurled it into the woods. With him angry like this, his broad shoulders seemed even bigger than usual, and his body seemed capable of doing a lot of damage.

  “Did you stay here last year for Thanksgiving?”

  He nodded. “It was okay. There were a few of us that stayed, and they made us a turkey and everything. The rest of the teachers left, but Mr. Judan stayed. I swear, I see more of him than my own dad.” He stopped where a narrow trail split off from the main one. “Follow me.”

  The trail was barely wide enough to walk down; wet leaves brushed against our legs and soaked my pants. The farther we got from the trail, the denser the forest became, with blackberry brambles filling the undergrowth, and ivy crawling up the trunks of some of the trees.

  We finally came to an old log stretched like a bridge across a spot in the trail. Yards below, a tiny stream flowed at the bottom of a steep ravine. The log was old and decaying, covered with bright green moss. Cam walked across the log and then turned around to extend his hand.

  “Are you coming?”

  “Um, I’m not sure I’m crazy about walking across wet, slippery logs,” I said, only half joking.

  Cam’s shoulders relaxed just a hair, and he gave me a tiny smile. “Dancia the brave, scared to walk across a little log? No way.”

  I put my hands on my hips. “Are you making fun of me?”

  He nodded soberly. “Absolutely.”

  “Well, in that case.” I walked closer to the log and extended my arm, wiggling my fingers imperiously. “You’d better hold my hand, tough guy.”

  He took a step toward me and then started to lose his balance. He wobbled, caught himself, and flashed a genuine grin. “Maybe I spoke too soon. It is a bit wetter than usual.”

  Giggling, I stepped forward and grabbed his hand. We made our way, unsteadily, until we were almost across the log. But then he hit the same slippery spot he had hit before, and tipped to the left and then to the right. This knocked me off balance, and with a shriek, I pitched forward, right into his arms.

  He took two quick steps back, lost his footing, and slid into a puddle of mud at the other end. I landed on top of him. We burst out laughing.

  He held me in his arms for a minute, and we lay there in the mud puddle, smiling. Part of me was desperately hoping something more might happen—I mean, if he did like me, wasn’t this the absolute perfect place to kiss?—but the other part just hoped the moment would never end. His body was warm and strong, with big muscles and arms that enfolded me. I realized I’d never been hugged by someone quite so much bigger than me before, and it made me feel safe and protected.

  “Is this where you were headed?” I asked.

  “Not exactly,” Cam said ruefully.

  “Not that it isn’t nice,” I said. “I mean, it’s a great mud puddle and all.”

  Cam laughed. “You’re a good sport, Dancia. I’m sorry for dragging you out here.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I could feel his heart beating under my cheek, and wanted to bury my face in his chest. “That’s what friends are for, right?”

  Cam was silent, and I started to panic, thinking maybe I’d said the wrong thing by calling us friends. But then he put his hands underneath him and raised his body to a sitting position. Reluctantly, I did the same, and we separated, untangling our bodies so we were sitting in the mud, a few feet apart.

  Cam looked at me intently. “It’s funny, you know? When I got that call from my dad, the first person I wanted to talk to about it was you.”

  “Really? Me?”

  He punched me on the shoulder. “Yes, you. You’re so honest, Dancia. I feel like I don’t have to pretend when I’m with you. I can just be myself. Everyone else around here expects so much from me. But you—well, I feel like you just want me to be me.
”

  “Cam, you’re an amazing guy. How could anyone except you to be more than that?”

  He looked away, a muscle twitching in his cheek. “It’s complicated. I can’t really explain.”

  “Try.”

  “Well, Mr. Judan, for one. I owe him so much, but sometimes…” He extended his hands helplessly.

  “Mr. Judan?” I was having a hard time following him, but I had the feeling he needed to talk.

  “Yeah. He’s always there for me. He gives me a job over the summers, he lets me stay at school for vacations. And he’s there to talk to. I know some people think he’s weird, but he’s actually really great when you need to unload.”

  I couldn’t imagine talking to Mr. Judan, but I figured Cam didn’t need to hear that right now. “But he expects a lot from you?”

  “He just always expects me to do the right thing. You know, the Delcroix Pledge and all that.”

  “He takes that seriously?”

  Cam nodded. “You can’t imagine.”

  “Wow,” I said slowly. “I had no idea.”

  He stood up and laughed, though it sounded forced. “Enough of that. Are you getting cold? We can go back to school if you want.”

  I would jump into the Arctic Ocean with ice cubes strapped between my toes if Cam were with me.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  Cam’s “spot” in the woods was an old evergreen with low branches that you could easily climb. I followed Cam fifteen or twenty feet up the tree before I got freaked out and had to stop. He kept climbing another ten feet above me to a branch that looked barely thick enough to support his weight. He said it gave him a great view of the school and Mount Rainier on a sunny day. We sat there in the tree, not talking, and let the rain mist on our foreheads as we looked up at the sky. It was peaceful and quiet, and when we climbed back down, Cam seemed to have lost his anger. We joked and laughed as we walked back to school.

  Meanwhile, I had lost whatever objectivity and control I once had.

  I was now totally and completely in love.