by B. F. Simone
She ignored everything he had to say if it wasn’t how to punch straight or get more range when throwing a knife. When they were in the same room, he treated her the same way he used to—like she was going to laugh at one of his jokes at any moment. But he was finally starting to get the hint.
“He’s a jerk,” Allison said, sitting across from her at Jimmy Bean’s Coffee shop. They were sipping on hot chocolate with marshmallows at a table next to a window. “But that’s expected of him.”
“Why?” Katie said. She had been patiently waiting to see if Allison was bigoted like Brian and everyone else at the party. She wanted to know if her best-friend would look at her the way all those eyes were looking at Tristan.
“Because that’s just how Tristan is. Mean and jerky.” She took a sip of her hot chocolate. “Too bad you didn’t get to make out first. I’m really sorry I interrupted.”
“Allison, are you serious?” This was her chance. “He’s a halfbreed.”
Allison cut Katie a look that could have drawn blood. “Shut up, Kay. You don’t even know what that word means. And if you do, you’re not the person I thought you were.” Allison’s face was just as red as her hair.
“Allison…”
“No. No one should ever be called that. Like they’re some sort of animal. How would you feel? I’ll never forgive Brian for what he said,” she spat. “Just because his parents are elite…it doesn’t make him royalty. Him and his stupid friends strut around like they’re better than every one—and you. Using that word.”
“I didn’t mean to…I didn’t know it would bother you that much. That was stupid.”
“Yeah, it was.”
“I’m sorry.” Katie couldn’t help but smile to herself. She should have known better. Then again, she thought she knew Brian, and she thought she understood Tristan. They had fooled her, she didn’t know who they were at all.
She finished her hot chocolate and pushed the cup to the middle of the table.
“I love her boots.” Allison stared at the feet of someone behind Katie. She turned and saw a black girl wearing a thick, but form-fitting, black sweater and pretty black boots over dark denim skinny jeans—that she knew Allison would have also killed for because they looked designer. She had tiny braids that went down to her butt and—was staring directly at Katie. The girl looked familiar. Did she go to their school? Whether she knew her or not she was about to, because the girl walked straight to their table. Allison’s eyes were still glued to her shoes.
“You don’t remember me do you?” the girl said. Her skin was smooth like a slowly melting milk chocolate. She had a heart shaped face with full lips and perfect eyebrows. “It’s okay, I hardly recognized you. You look much better now than you did before.” She pulled up a chair and sat down.
“Where did you get those boots? Those are the hottest things I’ve ever seen in my life.” Allison said, looking at the girl for the first time.
“I don’t remember. I think a small boutique in Manhattan,” she said, looking Allison up and down. “You have good taste. In everything.”
Allison blushed.
The girl looked back at Katie and a jolt shot through her. It was the eyes. They were beautiful; hazel, with long lashes and just like the werewolf from the alley. The girl laughed and it sounded like music. She pulled her shirt and sweater to the side to show a tiny scar on her shoulder.
“It’s almost all gone now. I’m going to be really pissed if there is so much of a spec of scar left.”
“You’re a werewolf? The one from the alley?”
The girl nodded and side glanced at Allison. Allison scrunched her brows.
“She’s a guardian,” Katie said, thinking the girl might have thought talking in front of Allison wasn’t safe.
“I know she is,” she said. “And it was me. Tristan and I weren’t too far from here when he flipped out.”
“Mercedes,” one of the guys behind the counter said. The girl stood up and excused herself. The barista handed her a cup with a hand warmer and she came back to the table.
She knew Tristan. She was with Tristan. Katie felt a rush of jealousy. This girl was beautiful. She was graceful and she was beautiful.
“What exactly are you guys talking about?” Allison knew Katie was keeping something else from her. Allison was told that Brian had an accident during a training exercise with Will that put him in the hospital. She didn’t know anything of the alley.
Katie shrugged it off. “I was meeting Lucy and Tristan here the other day to—uh—see a werewolf. She was the werewolf.”
Allison didn’t believe one word. It was written all over her face.
Mercedes sat down and looked between them. “Anyway, I’ve been looking for Tristan for the last few weeks. He stopped dropping by the pub,” Mercedes said, crossing her legs.
Tristan went to pubs? And met up with girls like this? Her heart sank. She knew nothing about him.
“How do you know I’m a guardian?” Allison said abruptly.
“Because you smell like one. Pleasure with a hint of caution.” Did Katie imagine the way she looked at Allison’s shirt like a piece of rich chocolate? “That perfume is to die for, and that shirt—it’s a ZaneFlo fall collection isn’t it?” Allison’s eye’s lit up like stars.
“You’re good,” Allison said, jaw dropped. They raved about designers Katie never heard of and fabrics she didn’t know existed.
“Why have you been looking for Tristan?” Katie said.
Mercedes paused and looked at her. “To be honest in that shirt you’re an eye sore. How could you let her out in public like that?”
Katie frowned and wrapped her arms over her baggy faded blue and green stripped sweater.
“You should have seen the yellow one she had on before I made her change,” Allison sighed.
“Yellow? With that complexion?”
“That’s what I said!”
“Guys!” Katie nearly yelled. The last thing she needed was two Allison’s picking on her. Mercedes’ face shifted from confusion to contemplation. She was considering her words carefully.
“Just wanted to catch up with him.”
Katie was as still as stone. She tried not to give away her desperation.
“Anyway, if you see him can you let him know Mercedes has an answer for him?” Katie stared at her blinking. An answer to what? What had they been talking about that required an answer? Katie didn’t need to ask. She knew. You don’t go to bars to talk about the weather.
Mercedes winked at her before, getting up to leave.
“Wait,” Katie said. Mercedes saved her life that night. Even if she was some secret Tristan was hiding from her, Katie owed her.
“Yeah?” she said, arching one of her perfect eyebrows. Why didn’t Katie have eyebrows like that.
“Thanks. For that night—uh, for showing me what a werewolf looked like.” Katie shifted her eyes towards Allison.
Mercedes took another sip of her coffee and left. Both Katie and Allison watched her walk across the street and disappear out of view.
Katie got up to get another hot chocolate. A tall man bumped into her nearly spilling coffee on her sweater.
“My apologies,” he said, staring at her raising an eyebrow. He was handsome for an old guy. What? Could he see the look of utter defeat on her face? Katie nodded and moved past him back to her table.
Allison looked at Katie with a little pity. “I’m pretty sure they’re just friends.”
Katie hated that Allison knew what she was thinking. “She said he stopped seeing her. It was around the time you guys got pretty chummy right?” Allison said.
Katie glanced around the coffee shop, trying to hide from Allison’s gaze. The man who’d nearly seared her with coffee was looking at her again. Even from here she could see how his leering eyes were watching her. Do I look that pathetic?
“You’ll never guess who just walked in.” Allison said.
Katie turned around but snapped right back aroun
d when she saw Tristan. “He can sit here if he wants. I’m not talking to him.”
“Even if he apologizes ten more times?”
“Whose side are you on?”
“What? I said he was jerk, but you can’t say you didn’t know that from the beginning.”
She heard a chair scoot against the floor behind her. Allison shrugged and Katie took a peek. He was siting behind her, as if he hadn’t noticed she was there. He was reading the book she got him for Christmas. He’d have to do better than that. She rolled her eyes at Allison and sipped more of her cocoa.
Something soft hit the back of her head. She ignored it. Again she felt a soft projectile smack against her hair. A tiny sugar packet hit the ground. Gripping the cup, she thought of all the ways she could beat him up without causing a scene.
Another packet hit her head, but this time it snagged onto her hair. That was it. She’d give him what he wanted. She’d say something to him. Something witty that would make him feel stupid. Another packet smacked the top of her head.
She turn around and faced him. “You know what. You’re gonna have to pay for those packets you wasted. This is a coffee shop. People use those.”
He threw a packet at her forehead. “That wasn’t witty.”
She stared him down, mad that she’d said something so stupid. He smiled that crooked smile she hated. He smiled bigger.
“I hate you,” she mumbled.
“Don’t say that.”
“I hate you.”
“Think of what the divorce will do to the kids. Think of the kids, Katalina,” he said, scrunching up his eyebrows.
Allison stood up. “I’d love to stay and watch this, but it’s kind of uncomfortable.”
Katie eyed her as walked off toward the counter. So much for being on her side.
“Katalina.”
She turned back to him. Trying to keep a straight face. Trying to keep her mind quiet. But his eyes kept probing her and she missed that stupid smile that was easing onto his face right now.
“I knew you missed me.”
“Almost as much as I miss school.”
“Don’t be cruel.” He pulled the sugar packet from one of the curls in her hair. She’d forgotten it was there. “Do you really hate me?” He fiddled with it in his hands, turning it over and over. When she didn’t say anything he looked up at her, eyes wide like the world wouldn’t continue to spin without her answer.
“No.”
“Then you forgive me?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope,” he said, staring at his sugar packet.
“Then I guess we’re friends again,” she slapped his arm, because that’s what friends do, not girls who are still a little angry at a giant idiot of a guy.
“You guys kiss and make up?” Allison said, walking up to the table. Katie shot Allison an evil eye.
“I’ll make it up to you,” Tristan stood up. “How about we ditch practice?” He smiled. “Let’s all go to a movie instead?”
“Oh, I want to see the one about the zombies,” Allison said way too excited. Whose side was she on?
“Come on, Katalina. I’ll meet you there at six.” He stood up not even waiting for her answer. “Six!” he smiled again and left. She couldn’t help but watch him until he disappeared from view. She would have preferred he’d stayed than go wherever he was going.
“You’ve got it bad,” Allison said, digging through her purse—that could have easily housed two families and a dog.
“I do not.”
“Kay,” she stopped and looked at her. “You’ve had that same dopey look on your face for almost a month now.”
“And look where that got me.”
Allison shoveled in the purse, half her arm consumed by it. “No one ever said you had good sense,” she said, pulling out a stick of gum.
They walked around downtown to kill time before the movie. It was getting late and Katie hated being out past dark. She was always more deliberate with where she walked, more aware of her surroundings. She took note of who was on the street and where, like the couple arguing across the street. The odd man sitting in his parked car looking down at—maybe a cellphone? A weird looking boy slouched over a bike rack down the alley they’d just passed. She saw them all.
Allison sighed. “My dad was supposed to call, like ten minutes ago. I swear, it’s like he doesn’t even have a daughter.”
“He’s not that bad. At least he didn’t erase your memory.”
Allison laughed, a short, humph. “He tried once.”
“What?” Katie looked at her profile, half her face covered by her sun glasses. There was an easy smile and it made her stomach knot. It was the smile Katie never liked. The one Allison used to mask the part of her she never let anyone see. Not even Katie. Katie’s eyes stayed forward on the road and she waited for Allison to go on.
“It was last year. Right before the school year started, he asked me over and over if I was sure about the decision I’d made a year before. Half way through the school year I was already the top in all my classes, Mr. Carver even asked me if I wanted to start preparing for my entrance exams for the Elite Force,” she glanced at Katie. “That’s a big freaking deal. I told my dad as soon as I got home, and all he said was, ‘Carver’s always been a teacher never a doer. I’m surprised they let him pick the students for the exams’. That night, after dinner, he said if I wanted, he’d take me to an omitter. That I still had a chance to be, ‘just a girl,’ that the Elite Fore wasn’t for everyone.”
“Seriously?”
“No, I made it all up,” Allison frowned.
“That’s not what I meant. I just can’t believe it.
“I can’t believe your dad erased six years of your life.”
“I know,” Katie breathed.
Allison moved her sunglasses to the top of her hair as they passed by the entrance of a spaghetti restaurant. “We should eat there after the movie,” Allison said, sniffing the air.
Katie agreed not really listening. She wondered where Tristan went. Had he seen Mercedes before he came in? Was he with her now? She hated herself for caring. For being excited that he invited her to a movie. It wasn’t really a date because he’d invited Allison too, but still it was the first time they’d really do something outside of practice.
Tristan was waiting for them at exactly six o’clock when they showed up at the theatre. He smiled when he saw Katie and she pretended she didn’t see him. They stood in line for tickets and Tristan announced that he’d pay for them all. Katie wondered where he got the money but realized it would always be a mystery, like his trips to the pub.
Tristan shot her a look and the smile dropped of his face.
“That’s thirty-dollars, please—excuse me—”
Tristan tore his eye’s away from her and paid.
As they walked toward the concession stands a girl older than Katie approached them. “Hey, you. How’ve you been?” she said to Tristan. She was tall, she had sweet brown eyes and more breast than Katie could ever hope for.
Tristan looked behind him as if she could have been talking to someone else.
“Tristan?” she said, smiling. She turned to Katie and Allison. “Oh hi, I’m Nicole.”
Katie tried to hide how much she wanted to die. She had no choice but she smile and introduced herself. No wonder it creeped him out when she tried to be pretty, he was hanging out with girls like this.
“I’m sorry, I really don’t know you.” Tristan looked between them.
Don’t lie for my sake. Katie excused herself and walked off to theatre number five. She seethed and even wanted to cry. He should have ran after her. He didn’t. Of course he didn’t. She was the idiot still wishing for him to make some romantic gesture.
The movie was crap. That was what Allison said. Katie didn’t watch it. She sat there ignoring how Tristan looked at her every five minutes. Allison tried to talk through the tension, but it didn’t work. Katie just wanted to go home.
“Katalina—” Tristan said after ten minutes of silence.
“Don’t talk to me.”
“What have I done?” Tristan spat.
Are you kidding me?
“I didn’t do anything. I—uuughhhh. You drive me crazy.”
Katie got pleasure out of that.
“I didn’t even know that girl. If I did, why is it a big deal. We’re friends.”
Katie walked faster.
He grabbed her hand and she yanked it away. She hated it when he touched her. It made it worse. He knew that. He had to know that.
“Katalina—”
They were at the corner of her house. “Just go home. Leave me alone, Tristan.” His name came out weak. She couldn’t start crying now. Not in front of him.
“Katalina—”
“Go.”
He stopped following her. “Fine,” he sounded defeated. He was walking away she could tell. She could always feel when he wasn’t close anymore.
A boy, who was in love with the girl who’d just told him to leave her alone, would have followed her—forced her to hug him. He wouldn’t have walked away.
She sat on her porch. Tristan didn’t have the right to be upset. This was all his fault.
It was cold outside but she took off her sweater. She wanted to feel the cold on her skin. She wanted most to stop loving him. Because she did. That was what made her hurt the most. The fact that she loved him, he knew it, and he didn’t care.
She welcomed the numbness, climbing up her body, as new snow flakes danced from the purple sky and into the white dense fog surrounding her.
She closed her eyes and breathed. The night was quiet and lonely…
Crunch.
A footstep? She opened her eyes and a bearded man stared back at her from across the yard. He smiled. The numbness turned into sparks of fear. She didn’t move and neither did he. Just the fog between them.