“Christ. You would have thought staff would have a more effective way of announcing that there’s no school today,” Caine said, clearly annoyed. “Private investigators have been hired to dig up further information about the fire yesterday. Apparently it was no accident.”
“How did everyone else get the message?” Ryder asked.
Caine shrugged. He looked tired. Bags had started to form under his droopy eyes, like he hadn’t slept in a year. A shadow of stubble had formed on his chin and his dark hair was a mess- and not the styled mess either.
“Apparently there was some announcement on the radio this morning at seven, but I was dead to the world. Damn community service had me up all night,” Caine answered, scrubbing a hand down his face. “Hey, mind giving me a lift? Didn’t drive here this morning.”
Ryder nodded towards the back seat and Caine opened the door, threw his things onto the floor and climbed in. There was something about him that was off. He smelt of ash and wood, earthy. I turned and looked at him as Ryder reversed out of the parking slot. Caine just looked irritated and exhausted. He was silent as he stared out the window.
“You look beat,” I said, turning back to the front but looking at him through the rear view mirror. “What were you assigned to last night anyway?”
Caine caught my gaze through the reflection of the mirror and sighed. “Crisis hotline. I didn’t even know we had one of those things.” He shook his head. “Some dude called last night, panicking about something,The kid was a damn mess.”
“Sounds rough.”
He groaned. “He talked way too much for a guy.”
“Kind of like how you are now?” Ryder teased.
Caine shot him the finger, but they both exchanged smiles. It seemed as if the previous day’s conflict had dissolved and I was glad. Caine decided he needed caffeine so we made a breakfast stop for the best hash browns and coffee the city could offer. And since we had our books, we decided to go to the library to do a bit of studying done.
It seemed that quite a few people had the same idea we had. We saw students from school clustering around in study groups or by themselves. People had laptops and earphones, others with stacks of books and pieces of paper scattered everywhere. A lot of the people I recognised as the top students of school. People with the best grades or the most stubborn parents demanding the best grades. Then there were the occasional juniors just hanging around for the free Wi-Fi.
Ryder, Caine and I found a large table at the back of the library, enough that the three of us could scatter our things without being too cramped. We all had different subjects to study, so we pulled out various textbooks and exercise questions. Caine was focusing on his business assignment about management and finance, Ryder was studying for a law exam and I was reading through my notes for an English presentation. That left barely any talking.
As I was highlighting important facts and key points, trying to summarise a million pages into about two, Caine swiftly slid a note into the corner of my folder. He was sitting across from me, with Ryder next to me. I looked over at Ryder who was engaged in his studies, earphones in to block out distractions. Then I looked up at Caine who just stared at me. At first I thought he was staring at me to pass the note over to his friend, but when he made no further indication, I just assumed it was mine.
The note was a messily torn piece of lined paper from the corner of his notebook. Written in a messy guy-scrawl in black pen was:
I have something to ask you.
I looked up at him, but he was already back to his books, silently mumbling things to himself as he transferred his summary notes onto a fresh piece of paper. Picking up a coloured pen, I wrote back:
What’s this about?
I folded up the same piece of paper and tossed it over to his books. He kept the pen he was using in his hand and unfolded the note, reading it quickly, then bending his head down to scribble down a reply. His hair fell into his eyes and his hand ran like lightning across a fresh piece of paper.
I had absolutely no idea what he could be asking about. I dreaded it would be about his business assignment because I had absolutely no idea about entrepreneurship, management and organisation. Unless he wanted a quick Googled answer I searched up on Yahoo answers or a dodgy response copied and pasted straight off Wiki, then I knew I’d hardly be much of any use to him.
However, as Caine was frantically writing something down, I noticed something. He had rolled up the sleeves of his senior hoodie and out poked a piece of white fabric. At first, I thought it was just a T-shirt he was wearing underneath, but as he shifted, I realised it wasn’t. It was a piece of dirty fabric wrapped around his forearm and tied up to secure it…like a bandage. A really hastily wrapped bandage. As I examined it further, I saw a patch of dried blood on it.
Quickly, I tore off a piece of my notebook and wrote:
That injury on your arm looks like it hurt. What happened?
I crumpled it up and with my poor aim, blindly threw it in the direction he was at. It didn’t exactly land by him, it kind of bounced off his forehead and landed on the papers in front of him. He looked down at it in confusion and didn’t move for a moment. Then he found me staring at him intently and smoothed out the wrinkles on the paper. Once he read what I had written, he looked extremely uncomfortable as he tugged the sleeve of his hoodie down.
He took more than a moment to respond, but eventually, he abandoned the piece of paper he was previously writing on and ripped out a fresh piece. Then he tossed it towards my side of the table.
Nothing.
I frowned, but he just shrugged and grabbed the piece of paper to add something. When he flicked it back, it read:
Doesn’t matter. Don’t worry, okay?
I shook my head and wrote:
That is a serious injury. Looks like someone slashed you with a knife.
He tensed as he read my reply and it took him a while to respond. I waited patiently for a reply and even tried to do some of my work while I waited, but I was way too out of it to concentrate on anything but that cut on his forearm. It didn’t look very accidental either. It couldn’t have possibly been Caine himself that made the slice. From where it was positioned, there was no rational excuse. I mean, if it was a finger or even hand cut, then I guess there could have been the reasonable explanation that he had accidentally cut himself while cutting the vegetables for dinner. But with a cut that serious and on his forearm, there just had to be someone who had done this to him.
When I got his reply, it said:
I went out into the woods near my house last night. There’s some pretty sharp crap out there. Ha. Should have been more careful.
I raised an eyebrow. Although it did explain why he smelled like the woods, no tree could scratch into his skin that deep. Not wanting to push him any further on the subject, I folded the note into my pocket and said nothing more. I pretended to become absorbed into my studies, but my mind kept flicking back to Caine’s injury. I stared blankly at my Shakespeare notes completely distracted.
Then Caine slid another piece of folded paper into my notebook.
Can I ask that question now?
I just nodded. Caine gazed down at a pre-written note in his hands. It was small and already crumpled and damp-looking as if his hands were all sweaty. He took a deep breath and placed it in front of me.
Before I ask my real question, can I ask…are you and Ryder together?
I stared at his question for a long time as a million thoughts ran through my mind and I got a headache. Eventually, I picked up the same coloured pen and wrote the truth.
No.
I could feel him looking at me. Reading me.Studying me. A second later, another note appeared.
Do you...do you like him?
I took a deep breath.
Yes.
Caine stared at my answer for far longer than I stared at his. It was only a word but he seemed to study it, as if there was a hidden meaning behind those three letters. At first, he sh
owed no sign of emotion, then there was a glint of… disappointment. But it quickly bled to something that looked a lot more like anger. Caine packed up his books and shoved them into his bag, crumpling pieces of paper as he zipped it up and swung it over his shoulder.
He took one look at me, then turned and walked away, crushing my answer in his fist and tossing it into the trash. I felt horrible.
“Caine,” I called out, but he was already lost in the aisles of books.
A person to the side of the room hushed me and I sunk into my chair, feeling like I had just murdered a puppy. Ryder pulled out one of his earphones, oblivious to what the past twenty minutes had just been about.
“What just happened? Where’s Caine?”
“He left,” I answered, looking where he had just walked off, hoping he’d come back.
“Nora.”
When I turned to Ryder, he had a note in his hands and he slid it over to me. I recognised the black ink of Caine’s pen and the messy handwriting. Then, after a moment, I realised it was the essay-long question he had been writing before I interrupted him about his arm. He must have dropped it on his way out.
So, I have this confession. Before we properly met, I would have never considered you as anything more than just a girl. But now that I've kind of gotten to know you, I've seen you in a whole different way. I've seen beauty and talent and greatness and I really want to see more. I’m not so great with romance so this already kind of sucks, but I’ll just get down to the point and ask: Will you go out with me?
I rejected him before he could even ask.
Twenty Two
The day proceeded with mostly silence. Ryder didn’t say much after he read the note from Caine. He kind of just sat there, staring at the carpet and tapping his pen against the table absentmindedly. Eventually, it became too much and we decided that our concentration was broken and that we should just head home. It was midday then and when we arrived at my house and we were greeted with a seriously insane Eve.
It was one thing coming home to a pregnant, hormonal sister. But it was a whole other thing coming home to see your pregnant, hormonal sister dancing on top of the dining table while Single Ladies blasted from the television. She clutched a celery stick in one hand as she awkwardly shuffled around, looking extremely uncomfortable with the huge mountain of belly poking out as she danced.
Patrick stuck his head out from the kitchen. “I seriously hope our baby inherits my tranquillity,” he said to us, a grin plastered on his face before lovingly looking back at his girlfriend. “Why are you two home so early?”
“School wasn’t on today,” I explained, picking out a slice of cucumber from the salad, to which Patrick scowled at me and told me to wash my hands. He had become a serious hygiene spaz since Eve’s pregnancy. “We went to the library to study for a bit.”
“Well, you’re just in time for lunch,” Patrick answered, sliding a plate piled with thick beef patties to us. “Help set the table, yeah?”
“Okay,” I said, grabbing the fresh bag of buns while Ryder grabbed the stack of meat and the tomato sauce. “How did she even get up there?” I nodded towards my sister.
“Beats me. Never underestimate a pregnant woman.”
I shrugged at Ryder and together, we walked into the dining room. Patrick drizzled some ranch dressing over the greens and soon joined us at the table, where Eve was jabbing Ryder in the chest with her stick of celery, announcing that she wouldn’t get off the table until he sung a line from the Beyoncé song.
Ryder sighed and then into the celery microphone he sung unenthusiastically, “All the single ladies, all the single ladies, now put your hands up.”
After her final hip wriggle, Patrick took her hand and together, they struggled to get her off the table. How she got up there in the first place was a complete mystery and how she had so much energy was beyond my comprehension. She was pregnant and I had heard, in the embarrassing moment of the sex talk from my parents, that pregnancy sucked and you hurt and got fat in weird places and you developed foreign habits and tastes. But with the way my sister was acting, it was as if her baby bump was nothing more than a cushion under her shirt.
“Don’t you get back pains and whatever?” I asked as Patrick took some bottles of fizzy and glasses of ice back to the table.
Eve shrugged, blowing a piece of hair that had fallen from her clip. “Usually. I’m just in an incredibly happy mood today.”
“Why?” Ryder raised an eyebrow. My sister exchanged a quick, secretive smile with her boyfriend, then looked back at us. “We went to the doctor’s today and found out the sex of the baby.”
My eyes widened. Ryder congratulated them. Then I blurted, “So is it a boy or a girl?”
Eve kept a knowing smile on her face, then took a butter knife to slather mayonnaise on her bread. Patrick didn’t answer either. He just distributed some salad across the table, looking insanely proud.
“You’ll find out on Saturday,” my sister said after she made her burger and took a bite. “Like everybody else.”
“Why Saturday?” I asked.
“We’re having our baby shower then,” Patrick announced.
“Since guests don’t know the sex of the baby yet, they’re just going to bring neutral colours, like orange.”
“Are you seriously considering dressing your baby in orange?” I questioned, watching as Ryder helped himself to lunch and built a tower of a burger.
“What’s wrong with orange?” Eve asked, crinkling her nose up. “I like orange.”
“I don’t know. Just, you don’t really want to see your baby dressed as a tangerine, do you? Or as bright as a road cone? Do you seriously want to embarrass the kid when it looks back at its baby photos and sees that its parents dressed them up as a goldfish?”
Eve rubbed her belly, in that motherly way. “I think my baby would make an adorable goldfish.”
Patrick leaned over and kissed her bump. “It’d be a pretty cute road cone too.”
I rolled my eyes but we continued to make our lunches. I had just finished making my sandwich when there was a knock on the door. Before Patrick could scrape back his chair to answer it, Mel and her cheerful head of red curls bounced into the room. She was always comfortable with coming over.
“Oh, burgers,” she said, dropping down into the spare seat. “Mind if I steal one?”
Patrick motioned towards the bread. “Help yourself.”
“So,” Mel said, squirting tomato sauce into her sandwich. “Heard anymore news about the fire?”
“What fire?” Eve asked, looking startled.
It occurred to me that I hadn’t actually told them about the real reason we weren’t at school. Patrick looked concerned, Eve looked freaked. But Mel answered confidently, either happy to be gossiping or not noticing how worried my sister or her boyfriend was.
“Oh, this fire at school. Burned down about a classroom or two, but it didn’t grow much more after that. No one was harmed. But I heard the fire wasn’t an accident,” Mel explained. “Apparently there have been police and private investigators swarming the area. But I’m pretty sure school is back on tomorrow…” Mel babbled on, but paused, and looked at us. “Hey, isn’t it Wednesday tomorrow? Wednesday is your one week mark. Wednesday is when the chief officer gets back from holiday and you guys get to be set free!”
I had been so preoccupied with other things that I had completely forgotten that the due date for us to be set free was less than twenty four hours away. My stomach twisted in all sorts of directions. Happiness to finally remove the discomfort weighing on my wrist, relief to finally use the bathroom by myself and excitement to finally be, well, alone. But I had developed an attachment to not only the handcuffs but to Ryder too. And our friendship had grown, our relationship strengthened and I felt a wave of worry wash over me. What if once we were set free, everything will change?
What if Ryder goes out and meets a girl and realises that what we had was just an act of boredom? That he had only
kissed and confessed because he needed entertainment. A million thoughts ran through my mind. It wasn’t like that kiss was a contract. It’s not like we were actually together now either. Whatever he did when the handcuffs came off was his business and his only.
But I still couldn’t help feeling sick.
My lunch suddenly didn’t look very appetising. I looked down at my half eaten burger and salad and pushed my plate away. Ryder didn’t seem to be very hungry either. He just stared at his food, deep in thought.
It had been an intense few hours. From absolute happiness, to heartbreak and now a mixture of a million other emotions. I was a hurricane of confusion. An unidentifiable concoction.An unsorted mess.
A complete and utter disaster.
What on earth was I going to do?
Twenty Three
That night wasn’t much different from the entire day. Ryder and I still kept talking to a minimum and Eve was still being her pregnant self. She decided she wanted to be the next Katy Perry, so Patrick, like the patient and loving boyfriend he is, drove down to the supermarket to buy two giant lollipops so she could turn it into a candy bra. I think Patrick did it more for his pleasure rather than hers, which was completely disturbing.
So while they were late-night shopping after dinner, Ryder and I stayed up in my room. He had the laptop running, typing up an essay with one hand, while I held up a book and concentrated on trying to understand the words on the page. But all I could think about was how awkward we were being.
At some point, I placed a scrap piece of paper in the section I was up to and placed the book on the bed. Ryder didn’t seem to notice my shuffling around. He was way too preoccupied with his writing. Although the new stage in our relationship was still foreign territory to me, I tried to brush away my uncertainties and before I could back out, I placed my hand against his.
Handcuffs, Kisses and Awkward Situations Page 13