Cherry Red Summer (Emely and Elyas Book 1)

by Bartsch, Carina

  “What’s so funny?” asked Domenic when he reappeared.

  “Elyas!” I said between bursts of laughter. “Need a clown for your next party? Hire Elyas!” Even the hammering in my head couldn’t dampen my amusement.

  Domenic clearly had no idea what I was talking about, whereas Elyas had had enough. He spun around and disappeared back into the crowd. I couldn’t resist and called after him, laughter in my voice, “Thanks again for the tip!” But he didn’t respond.

  “What’s going on?” Domenic asked, looking from Elyas back to me. I inhaled a few times and tried to calm down.

  “Oh, nothing,” I said. There was a certain appeal in telling Domenic the whole thing, but I decided not to. The last thing I wanted to do was rekindle the whole peacock show between them.

  “It was just an inside joke,” I explained.

  That seemed to arouse his curiosity, but he apparently felt inhibited from digging into it further.

  “All right. Well, if that’s settled, shall we get going?” he asked. I nodded and walked out with him. The whole thing with Elyas had cheered me up, but as far as my headache went, all the laughing hadn’t helped. In fact, the pain had gotten dramatically worse. Everything in life had its price, though, and this had definitely been worth it.

  All the same, I didn’t say much during the half-hour drive home, and Domenic seemed to understand.

  When he dropped me off, he handed me a slip of paper with his cell phone number on it. The blue ink formed a spidery scrawl, but I could still just make out the numerals. “If you feel like it, give me a call sometime. We could meet for coffee or whatever you like.” He smiled and I stuck the paper into my jeans pocket.

  “My schedule is crammed with finals, but I’ll try.”

  “That’s more than I’d hoped for,” he said, winking at me. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  “See you later,” I said. “And thanks for the lift.”

  “No problem,” he said, still smiling as I opened the door and climbed out. As I shuffled across the huge courtyard in front of my dorm and struggled up the steps to my room, I wondered for the umpteenth time why I’d been so dumb as to drink all that rum. The only positive to come out of it was that the next time rum was offered to me, I was determined to say, “I still can’t touch the stuff; I won’t be ready to try it again for at least ten years.”

  I unlocked the door and quietly sneaked into the room. As expected, Eva was already asleep, and I knew better than to wake her. I went into the bathroom and massaged my temples in front of the mirror, wanting nothing more than to go to bed. I halfheartedly brushed my teeth, slipped off my clothes, and took a quick sponge bath. I put on a T-shirt, left the bathroom, switched off the light, and crept under the covers. As agreed, I texted Alex before setting my phone on the nightstand and finally closing my eyes.

  Something was ringing. Barely awake, I rolled over and mumbled. I couldn’t have been asleep for more than five minutes, but I squinted at my watch and realized otherwise: 5:43 a.m. The phone on my nightstand blinked in time with the ringtone, vibrating mercilessly on the wood surface. Who on earth would be calling so early?

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Like a robot on remote control, I fumbled around on the nightstand for the phone and pressed the green button to take the call.

  “Yeah?” I answered, half asleep.

  “Hi” came from the voice on the other end, which I recognized after sorting through the jumble in my brain. Oh my God, is this a nightmare?

  I sighed, plopped back on my bed, and buried my face in the pillow. “Where did you get my number?” I mumbled.

  “Trade secret.”

  God, who gave him my number? There was only one possibility, only one person who was actually capable of such audacity. Alex was in deep shit with me—royally.

  “God, Elyas,” I moaned. “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to wish you a good night, dearest,” he said with fake innocence, although I could see his devious smile.

  “Night,” I snarled into the phone and hung up.

  Jerk.

  I pulled the covers over my face and tried to go back to sleep, which, despite the excitement of the call, fortunately didn’t take too long.

  CHAPTER 6

  LOVE LETTERS

  Hey Emely,

  Sorry it took me so long to reply. I was out late with some friends last night, and I didn’t get to bed until early in the morning.

  Did you have a nice night? I hope you stayed faithful to me! ;-)

  I’m super embarrassed to admit it, but I hardly know a thing about any of your favorite authors. Edgar Allan Poe wrote poems, right? And Chuck Palahniuk sounds like some infectious disease, which I desperately hope it is not. When it comes to Franz Kafka, however, I have mostly bad memories. Back in school I had to read a couple of short stories by him. By the time you get to the end of a sentence, you can’t remember what happened in the previous sentence anymore. Let alone understand it. After that formative experience, it remains a mystery to me why people voluntarily read that stuff.

  You’re laughing at me, right? Well, you’d be justified.

  Isn’t it enough that you’re pretty and have good taste in music? No, I also have to bow before your superior intelligence, too.

  Is there anything else you’re hiding? Maybe you’re working on some quantum physics on the side? Or maybe you’re the only human alive who can keep their eyes open while sneezing?

  If any of those things are true, you should probably just keep them to yourself for now and, if you’d like, tell me a little more about your favorite authors.

  Now, as far as your “fair warning” goes:

  Is your alleged klutziness just another cover for the fact you’re actually a dancer with the Berlin State Ballet? Or are you really a complete klutz?

  Because if you are—don’t think I’m weird—that’s totally cute.

  I’m looking forward to the day you introduce me to the staff at the emergency room! (I hope you don’t take that the wrong way.)

  Also, you wrote this:

  “Let’s just say when klutziness was being handed out, I got way more than my fair share. I’m guessing I was in line for boobs but tripped and ended up in the klutz line twice. So no boobage here, just klutziness.”

  I’ve already noticed your tendency toward self-deprecating sarcasm, which I enjoy, actually. But sarcasm always hides a kernel of truth.

  If you seriously think you’re lacking curves, Emely—you’re mistaken!

  It’s true you don’t have conventional good looks. But what does “conventional” even mean? And why would you want to be that? You have something much better.

  Of course, I’ve only seen you a few times, and our e-mail exchanges aren’t enough to really get to know each other—not by a long shot. But if there’s one thing I can assure you of, it’s that there’s something very special, tender, and feminine about you.

  Anyway. I’m sure you expect another question, and I don’t want to disappoint, so here it is. Obviously, don’t feel you have to answer it, but I hope you will.

  Emely, how many times have you really fallen in love in your life?

  Hope to hear from you soon.

  Yours,

  Luca

  Geez, this Luca guy had to be a beekeeper or something, because every word was dripping with honey. He exaggerated everything and sounded too ingratiating—but, whatever! The flattery was working.

  I liked him more with every e-mail. The only absurd thing was that I liked him even though I had no idea what he looked like. But that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. Wasn’t setting aside someone’s looks basically the only way to get to know that person fully, impartially—and authentically?

  I sighed. Perhaps. But maybe I was also putting off discovering he was nice but unattractive.

  Hi
Luca,

  Oh, wow, now I not only have a stupid smile on my face after reading your e-mail, but I’m blushing as well. In the event you were trying to embarrass me, congratulations! You did it!

  It sounds like you had fun last night—I’m glad. My outing was better than expected. The only thing I would have been happy to do without was the awful headache I got. But no matter—I’m already feeling good again.

  You needn’t worry about my faithfulness, either. I came home with only a phone number. Otherwise, nothing to confess.

  I had to chuckle reading your comments about my favorite authors. Not because I was looking down on you or anything, but because of your funny phrasing. So don’t worry.

  You’d like to know more? Well, you asked for it . . .

  Let’s start with Edgar Allan Poe, my personal writing god, so to speak. You’re right; among other things, Poe wrote poetry. I like poetry, but liking it and understanding it are poles apart. I’m the best example of that. Picture twenty-nine kids in a class having the same interpretation of a poem while one kid with a totally off-the-wall idea sinks down in her chair and blushes. Guess who that one kid was.

  So my passion is more for his short stories than his poems. I can’t really describe his gloomy and romantic stories; you have to read them yourself.

  You can get immersed in them as though you were there yourself.

  Now, with Chuck Palahniuk you guessed wrong. He isn’t an infectious disease, though his name is odd. He’s a contemporary writer. The term gaga applies very well to my feelings for his work. Do you remember that movie Fight Club? It was based on his book of the same name—and I love it.

  As far as the length of Kafka’s sentences goes, I’d have to agree with you, but believe it or not, I often read him just for fun. I like his sobriety, the way he calls things by name, and his sense of irony.

  How many times have I really fallen in love?

  Honestly, that’s hard to answer, but I’ll try.

  Let me start by saying that I don’t fall in love quickly or often. (Unlike my best friend—but that’s a topic for another time.)

  I’ve learned that there are differences between love and Love. If you asked simply how often I had fallen in love, then I’d say three times in my twenty-three years.

  But you want to know how many times I’ve really fallen in love.

  You’re asking about Love, not love. And sad as it may seem, the longer I think about it, the clearer it becomes that I’ve only been in Love once in my life. Getting soft in the knees whenever the person enters the room, or going crazy and gasping for breath merely from eye contact—I’ve experienced all of that only once.

  As it so happens, I experienced that with someone who didn’t feel the same way.

  C’est la vie, you know.

  That was quite a while ago, and even though at the time I didn’t think it would ever be possible, I’ve been over it for a long time now.

  So, do you think something like that happens to a person only once in life? Once in a while I still harbor a minuscule spark of hope that I’ll have that experience again, but I’m realistic enough to shake myself out of that daydream and not waste my life waiting for castles in the air.

  Are you going to tell me how many times you’ve really fallen in Love yourself?

  Yours,

  Emely

  I sent the e-mail and stared at the screen for a while. Sometimes things become clear only when you write about them. When you keep things to yourself, it’s easy to gloss over, distort, or suppress them. But when you express them, you discover the truth, standing there, undeniable, in the middle of the room, laughing in your face and screaming at you about what you refuse to accept. I became lost in thought, the black letters on the screen dissolving and becoming one with the white space of the background.

  A loud bang tore me from the other world with a wince. Eva. I blinked and looked up from my screen, back in the present.

  “You’re here already?” I asked, turning to look at her. She closed the door behind her as loudly as she had opened it, took her shoes off, and threw them in the corner. “Oh my God,” she moaned. “My feet are killing me.” Without addressing my question, she headed for her bed and plopped onto it with a sigh.

  “I think the bastard who invented high heels should have to wear them and spend a whole day running around town, just for fun.”

  “Why do you wear high heels when you’re running errands? Haven’t you ever heard of sneakers?”

  “Yes, but . . . but heels make my legs look so nice and long and lean.”

  I rolled my eyes and held back my comment.

  “What about you?” she asked after a brief pause. “Did you e-mail that weirdo again?”

  Shit. She had noticed the e-mail on my screen. I hated when she caught me.

  “Maybe,” I mumbled.

  “God, Emely,” she said. “This is getting ridiculous. You have no idea what he looks like; you have no idea how he is in bed. What kind of future is that?”

  The worst thing was that Eva meant every word she said.

  “Eva, honey,” I said, smiling. “You don’t understand.”

  “No. No, I really don’t,” she replied. Neither of us said anything for several minutes. “Say,” she said, breaking the silence. “Did your cell phone ring last night?”

  I was about to shake my head when the unpleasant memory shoved its way back into my mind. Yes, in fact, that jerk Elyas had called at an ungodly hour and woken me up.

  “Could be,” I grumbled, looking for my cell phone, which had lain undisturbed on my nightstand since the previous night. I navigated to Answered Calls on the menu and found the jerk’s cell number. Grimly, I saved it under the name Don’t Answer so I wouldn’t repeat the mistake of answering his calls again.

  Then I remembered something else I had to do. I grabbed the room’s landline, dialed, and listened to the ringing until that piece of shit answered.

  “Yes?”

  “Alexandra Schwarz. How could you do something like that?”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked, noticeably thrown off guard.

  “You gave Elyas my cell number! That is a serious breach of trust!” I snarled, while all I heard on the other end was muffled giggling.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “I’m sorry, but he blackmailed me.”

  “Very funny.”

  “No, really,” she said. “He threatened to tell Sebastian about my Smurf panties. I had no choice.”

  The line was silent for a moment. “You have Smurf panties?” I finally said.

  “Oh . . . ,” she said. “Um . . . maybe?”

  Inevitably, a perverse image formed in my head of Alex in Smurf underpants. Which Smurf, I wondered. Grouchy Smurf?

  “What was I supposed to do?” she continued.

  “Anything! Just not give him my cell number!”

  “Emely,” she pleaded. “I’m seriously sorry. I was a little buzzed, and I wasn’t thinking. It was wrong, and I apologize.”

  I grumbled.

  “Seriously,” she implored. I hadn’t planned on forgiving her so quickly, but then I sighed and changed the subject. “So, now, tell me how things went with Sebastian.”

  Alex’s mood improved at the speed of a metronome in three-quarter time. “It was incredible!” she said. “We spent the rest of the night talking. Emely, Sebastian is as nice as he looks! He’s relaxed but not boring. He seems so grown-up—unlike all the barely postpubescent crap I normally find myself dating.” She took a deep breath. “He just radiates masculinity, but with feeling, you know? And he’s funny. Not crude-funny but smart-funny. I couldn’t stop smiling at him. And do you know what his major is?”

  I didn’t.

  “Psychology!”

  “Psychology?” I repeated.

  “Yeah, isn’t
that great?”

  That depended.

  “I guess,” I said. “Maybe he studies stalker types. Then we’ll know he’s found the right subject.” I smiled at my joke.

  “Har, har,” she said. “I’m laughing myself to death.”

  “You’ve promised as much before.”

  “You are just full of jokes today.” She sighed. “Anyway . . . he’s closer to Elyas’s age, twenty-four, and—the most important thing—he’s single!”

  “He sounds great.”

  “Really great,” she said enthusiastically.

  “And? Have the two of you already made plans to see each other again?”

  “Unfortunately we forgot to arrange anything,” she mumbled. “I chickened out and didn’t ask, and he seems to be a little shy. Or maybe he just doesn’t like me.”

  “Now don’t go all glum, Alex. Even a blind man could see he likes you. Believe me. He probably just chickened out, same as you. I’m sure the next time you see each other he’ll ask for your number. I’m certain of it.”

  “Since when are you so optimistic?” she asked.

  “As long as it’s not about me, I’m usually optimistic.”

  “You? Optimistic?” She laughed. “You are a total pessimist—and not only when it’s about you.”

  “I am not a pessimist,” I corrected. “I’m a realist.”

  “Isn’t that the same thing?” she said, and I couldn’t decide whether it was.

  Anyone who thought Alex had already revealed everything about her night with Sebastian would be mistaken. She had only just scratched the surface. And I got to experience the true meaning of “going into details” during the next half hour. It was painful. She recounted every minuscule detail of their conversation and analyzed every twitch of the corners of his mouth. Even though I found her puppy love kind of cute at first, it started to grow taxing. Plus, she needed to look up synonyms for the word great—which seemed to come up mostly with the words “Sebastian is so . . .”