“It kinda is,” Gemma corrected him. “I think they wished you’d ended up with Harper instead.”
“Maybe,” he admitted. “But I didn’t.” He shrugged and pulled up a stool next to her, so he could dig into his leftovers.
“How come you and Harper never did hook up or anything?”
“I don’t know. Neither of us ever wanted to,” he said between bites of food.
“I kinda always thought you guys would end up together, too.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked over at her. “Always?”
“Well, until I started crushing on you,” Gemma clarified. “But then I was kinda afraid you might.”
“Hmm, and when did this alleged crushing on me begin?” Alex asked.
She’d known Alex for so long that it was hard for her to say when she stopped thinking of him as just the boy next door. But when she thought about it, it was hard to remember her life without him at all. He’d always been there, whenever she or Harper needed him.
He’d walked her home from school dozens of times, and he’d once gotten a bat out of their house while their dad was at work. When Gemma had been babysitting and thought she saw someone outside, Alex had come over to make sure it was safe. He’d gone to her swim meets, always cheering her on from the sidelines, even when Harper or her dad couldn’t make it.
After the car accident, when both her mom and Harper had still been in the hospital, her dad had fallen to pieces. Gemma had gone out to the backyard to cry, and Alex had come over to her. He put his arm around her and promised that everything would be okay, and in that moment, she’d believed him.
No matter what, he’d always been there for her. Other than the ocean and her family, Alex had been the one good constant in her life, and when the sirens threatened to take everything away from her, he was still here.
“Was it when you gave me that steamy Valentine?” Alex asked, drawing her from her thoughts.
She propped her chin on her hand and looked over at him. “What are you talking about?”
He pushed the spaghetti away, apparently done with it, and wiped his mouth with a paper towel, then took a long drink of his soda before telling his story.
“You must’ve been like twelve, ’cause you were too old to be handing them out to just anybody. And you gave me one that had a green dinosaur on it, and it said something like ‘Don’t take a bite out of my heart. Be my Valentine.’ And then you signed it ‘xoxo, Gemma,’ which I thought was awfully forward.”
“What? I don’t remember that.” Gemma laughed. “You’re making it up.”
“I most certainly am not,” he insisted. “I still have the card upstairs.”
“You still have it?” she asked in disbelief.
“Yeah. Want me to prove it?” He pushed back his stool and got up. “Let’s go.”
“Fine. Let’s go. But there’s no way you still have this thing,” Gemma said. “I’m not even sure it really exists.”
She followed him to his room, and it wasn’t until then she realized how long it had been since she’d last been up here. The walls were the same shade of blue they’d always been, but everything else was different.
His old twin mattress had been replaced with a full-sized bed. A chic black dresser and desk matched his new bed set. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Blade Runner posters were both gone though his astronomy ones were still up. A sharp-looking computer sat on the desk, and a flat screen was mounted on the wall above his dresser, on which an X-Box and a stack of games sat.
“Whoa,” Gemma said as she looked around. “You redecorated.”
“Bought new furniture with money from my job. My parents were pissed ’cause they thought I should be saving for school, but it was time I got out of those Transformers sheets, you know?” Alex said.
He opened a drawer in his desk and started rummaging through it.
“I don’t know. I liked the Transformers sheets,” Gemma said, but she understood. Alex had grown up a lot this summer. She admired the strong line of his jaw and the way his T-shirt pulled taut over his arms as he opened the desk drawer and rummaged through it.
“That’s how I know I still have this card. I just moved it from the old desk to the new one, and yep! Here it is!” He held up a card half the size of a postcard with battered edges and faded ink.
“Oh my gosh.” Gemma laughed as she took it from him, and it appeared exactly as he’d described it. “I remember this now. You and Harper had just gone on some brainy decathlon, and you’d lost.”
“It was the Knowledge Bowl,” Alex corrected her. “And that was the only year we lost when I was on the team.”
“You were superbummed, and I felt bad, so I got this for you. You always looked so cute when you were sad.”
“I don’t think ‘cute’ is the usual way that people describe sadness.”
“But you are. Your eyes get all big, and you’re like an adorable little puppy.” He pretended to look offended, so she tried to save it by adding, “Like a sexy puppy.”
“That’s a little creepy actually.”
“No, it’s not,” she insisted, and handed him the card. “You know what I mean.”
He put the card back in the drawer and leaned against the desk. “Yeah, I do. I am pretty adorable.”
“I can’t believe you kept that all these years,” Gemma said, and she was kind of amazed. “I don’t even think I have any of my birthday cards still, and that was only in April. You kept that for four years.”
“It was really sweet. And I may have already had a crush on you.” He reached out, putting his fingers in the belt loops of her shorts so he could pull her closer.
“Really? How long have you liked me for?” She looked up at him as he wrapped his arms loosely around her waist.
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Remember the day I moved in?”
It had been ten years ago, and she’d only been six at the time. She and Harper had been watching from Harper’s bedroom window as the new family unloaded the moving truck all day long. They’d seen Alex running around, but when Harper went down to say hi, Gemma suddenly had a bout of shyness and hid behind her mom’s legs when her family introduced themselves to the Lanes.
Harper had started teasing her, calling Gemma a baby, which she’d denied vehemently. Then to prove that she wasn’t a baby, Harper had dared Gemma to run over and kiss Alex. And even then, and despite her bashfulness, Gemma would never back down from a dare.
So she’d run over, planted a big wet kiss on his lips for exactly one-half of a second, then dashed back to her own house, giggling like a madwoman.
“You were my first kiss,” Gemma remembered, and she was ashamed that she’d forgotten it. It had hardly even counted as a kiss, so she’d let the memory slide, until now, when it carried so much more weight.
“You were mine, too,” Alex said.
“So you’ve had a crush on me since the day we met?”
He shook his head. “Not exactly. I don’t think it really started in earnest until we were older.”
“You told me you’d been in love with me for years,” Gemma said, referring to what he’d said a few days before, when they got back together outside the Paramount Theater. “Is that true?”
“Why are you asking me all this stuff?”
“I don’t know. Just curious I guess,” she said, but she knew why.
She wanted to get lost in their memories, to immerse herself completely in him, so she didn’t have to think of all the darkness that went on outside him.
Gemma pulled away and sat down on his bed. The new comforter was satiny and dark purple, a much more mature choice than his previous bedding. And she wondered, not for the first time, why it had taken her so long to realize how much she cared about him.
“The homecoming dance my junior year,” Alex said, still leaning against the desk. “So you were a freshman.”
“The homecoming dance?” She shook her head in confusion. “I went, but you didn’t go wit
h me.”
“No. I didn’t even go at all,” he said. “But I was outside when you came home.”
“You were in the front yard with Luke Benfield, doing something with a telescope, which I thought was really weird because the sun was still up,” Gemma remembered.
Her dad had insisted that she be home by nine. It was still light out then, so she thought the whole thing was ridiculous.
“A comet was supposed to be passing near the sun. But that’s not the point.” His mahogany eyes were wistful. “You had on this dress, and it was the first time that I’d seen you where you really took my breath away. You were so beautiful.”
A wonderful, warm feeling fluttered through her belly as she listened to him. Overwhelming love and appreciation for him filled her so much, she thought she might explode.
“And this guy was with you,” Alex said.
“Derek something,” Gemma filled in the blank. “His breath smelled like garlic, and he spent the whole night talking to his friends and ignoring me.”
“I tried to pretend like I wasn’t watching, but I saw him walk you to the steps, and he tried to kiss you, and you told him to get lost. And he walked away all defeated, and you caught me staring at you, and you blew me a kiss.”
“Oh my gosh.” Her cheeks burned with embarrassment, and she laughed. “I can’t believe I did that. I’d forgotten, and now I’m so mortified. I was just being sassy or something, ’cause I thought Derek was still watching.”
“So you only did that to spite someone else? Wow.” Alex pretended to be upset. “Our whole relationship is a lie. I kinda feel like I need to question everything.”
“Oh, come on.” Gemma got up and walked over to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her body against his. “It might have taken me a bit longer than it took you, but I love you now, and I’ll love you forever. And that’s all that matters.”
“How much longer did it take you?” Alex asked as he wrapped his arms around her.
“To fall in love with you?”
“Yeah. When did you actually know that you loved me?”
“I’d liked you for a while, but I think I knew I loved you the first time we really kissed, when we were in the backyard under the stars.”
“Wow. It did take you a lot longer,” he said, and Gemma wished it hadn’t taken her so long. She’d missed out on so much time with him, and so many kisses.
“Yeah, but I’m here now.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him, pulling herself close to him. But just kissing him wasn’t enough, and maybe she’d known that when she came over here. She loved him completely, and she wanted to be with him completely.
Still holding on to him, she took a step backward, and he followed, unwilling to stop kissing her, even for a second. Then she turned him around and pushed him back to the bed. Before he fell back, she grabbed the bottom of his shirt and peeled it off.
His skin felt warm, and his muscles were firm and smooth underneath her. His hands roamed all over her, and he had her halter top up over her head in seconds. She’d had the foresight to skip putting on a bra today, and he took a moment to appreciate that.
Then they were kissing again, only this time her bare skin was pressed to his, and it was amazing how intimate that felt, how close she felt to him, and yet she still wanted to be closer.
The monster inside her threatened to surface, but she wouldn’t let it. She wasn’t doing this to feed her cravings or satiate her hunger, and she refused to let the siren in her have any part of this. This was about her and Alex, and how much they loved each other.
After she’d undone his pants, he rolled her over, and with surprising dexterity, he slid off her panties and shorts. For a moment, nothing more happened. The two of them lay naked together, kissing, and he took of one her hands, pressing it to the pillow above her head. His heart was pounding so hard, she could feel the rapid beat of his pulse in their entwined fingers.
Then he stopped. Her free arm was around him, holding him to her, and he stared down into her eyes.
“What?” she asked, afraid he might not want to continue.
“I just want to remember this moment,” he said softly. “I want to remember everything about being here with you now and how utterly in love with you I am.”
“I love you, too,” she said because she was afraid to say more.
Then his lips found hers again, kissing her desperately, and when he slid inside her, it hurt, but there was a strange beauty in the pain. In knowing that it was with him, that they were together in a way they’d never been with anyone else, and when he let go of her hand so he could wrap his arms around her, crushing her to him, she couldn’t imagine being able to feel this close to anyone.
Afterward, she lay in his arms. He kissed the top of her head and rubbed the bare skin of her back, sending pleasurable shivers down her spine. He lay on his side, and her head was pressed against his chest, listening to the sound of his heart, and their legs were tangled together.
For a moment, she wasn’t entirely sure where she ended, and he began, and there was something wholly perfect in that. She clung to him, savoring the moment and wishing that it would last forever.
THIRTY-EIGHT
Disillusion
Gemma and Brian were talking beside her at the kitchen table, and Harper heard them. She was even nodding along and saying “mmm-hmm” in all the right spots. But she wasn’t really listening. Her head and her heart were a million miles away, wondering what she was going to do about Daniel.
After he’d told her about his plans to become a siren and join Penn last night, she had spent a very long time trying to talk him out of it and debating with him. But his mind was made up, and in the end, she wasn’t sure that she actually disagreed with him.
She didn’t want him to do it because she didn’t want him getting hurt, but in all honesty, if she were in his position, she’d probably do the exact same thing. To protect the people she loved, she’d be willing to sacrifice anything.
But Harper was going to make damn sure that they’d tried every other option first. If there was a way to break the curse before Daniel got trapped into a life with Penn, then Harper was determined to find it.
As soon as she’d gotten home last night, she’d pulled out the scroll. Diana had told her the curse was in the ink, and Pine had thought that the ink might consist of blood. It had reacted to water, Red Bull, and a number of other liquids that she’d exposed it to. But according to Gemma, it reacted strongest to a combination of the same liquids that made Gemma a siren.
Gemma had told her about her failed attempt with Marcy to combine their blood and ocean water to erase the scroll. It hadn’t worked, but the scroll had a particularly strong reaction to these elements. It wasn’t until last night, when everyone was in bed, and Harper was struggling to sleep, that something occurred to her: They’d never tried just human blood on its own. It could be that simple.
She hid in the bathroom and locked the door behind her. Using a sharp knife, she sliced along her finger deep enough to bleed. It wasn’t as much as she would’ve liked, but it was enough. The symbols began to glow beneath, shining brightly through her blood in a vibrant crimson.
With her arms hugging herself tightly, she began to pray under her breath, hoping against all the odds that this might finally be it … and then the ink changed back to its usual color.
“No, no, please. That can’t be it,” she murmured in a frantic whisper. “Dammit. This has to work. Please.”
Her attempts at squeezing out more blood failed miserably, and she only succeeded in rubbing off the dried blood instead of adding more. The ink didn’t glow again or disappear. The curse hadn’t been broken. She’d failed.
In frustration, she threw it across the room. Then she sat back on the floor, leaning against the bath and sobbing quietly into her arms.
So now, as her dad and a surprisingly cheerful Gemma talked, Harper found it impossible to concentrate or follow any
thing they were saying. All she could think about was that she’d failed her sister, her boyfriend, and, in a few days, everything would be gone.
“Well, that all sounds fantastic then,” Brian said, responding to Gemma’s telling him about Pine’s translation of the scroll. “When you go see him, you can take the scroll with you again, and with his translations and what you know about the ink, you’ll be able to figure out what to do. Right?”
“Yeah.” Harper forced a smile and tried to sound convincing. “Right.”
“Yep,” Gemma agreed, but she stared down at the table.
“How come neither of you sound excited about this?” Brian eyed the two of them. “Is there something you’re not telling me?”
“No, I’m excited.” Gemma smiled at him. “I’m just tired. Going away really took a lot out of me.”
It was hard to tell exactly how much things affected Gemma. Even when she claimed to be feeling terrible, her skin never paled, her eyes always twinkled, even her smile never lost its luster. The siren kept herself constantly camouflaged behind a mask of beauty.
“What about you, Harper?” Brian asked.
“Yeah. Everything’s great.” Her voice cracked a little when she said that, and she hoped that they didn’t notice.
“It’s getting late.” Brian glanced up at the clock. “Are you girls going to visit your mom today?”
It was Saturday, which meant it was time for their weekly visit to Briar Ridge, and somehow it had completely slipped Harper’s mind. She’d been making that same trek almost every week for the past eight years Nathalie had lived out there, and this was the first time she’d completely forgotten.
“I don’t think so,” Harper said. “I have so much going on, and I saw her on Wednesday.”
“You saw her this week?” Brian asked. “You didn’t tell me that.”
“Yeah, she’s been kinda anxious lately, so I just stopped in.” Harper tried to play it down since she didn’t want to worry them. “She calmed down some, but Becky says the doctors might have to reevaluate her meds if she doesn’t relax.”
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