by Talia Vance
Christy runs over with a bottle of water. “Omigod, Brianna, you completely passed out. Do you think it was the spell?”
“No.” I sit up on my elbows. “I just fainted, I guess.” It doesn’t sound convincing, but I’m trying.
Christy nods. “It happened to me once. Remember when I was on that fasting diet?”
I stand up slowly, grabbing the back of a chair for support. “I’m fine.” 16,807. 117,649.
A bell rings, and the door at the front of the shop opens.
“Omigod!” Christy stares at the front door. “It worked!”
I follow Christy’s gaze.
A group of preps walks into the shop. Blake is leading the way, his shining smile drawing all of my attention. Our eyes meet and my heart leaps to my throat, nearly choking me. But it’s the briefest of seconds before he looks away. To stare at Haley.
His blond hair catches on a silk vine that hangs down in front of him, but he pushes the vine to the side and walks right toward her. I grip the back of the chair harder. It’s nothing more than the same scene I’ve watched play out dozens of times before. The ache in my chest is there anyway. I fight against it, but today there’s no denying the disappointment. I don’t know what I expected. So he talked to me last night. It was inevitable that whatever buzz he had going would wear off and things would go back to normal. But hope is addictive, and I’ve been chasing this particular dragon for over a year.
“Good party last night,” Blake says. His eyes brighten as he takes in Haley’s perfect features, and I can’t help the tide of envy that rises inside. I try to go back to counting. Jealousy and crazy are the psychological equivalent of mixing an acid and a base. Explosive.
“It was okay.” Haley sounds bored.
Blake smiles. “I was thinking you might give me Brianna’s number?”
Only my grip on the chair keeps me from falling over.
“Why don’t you just ask her yourself?”
“Hey,” I say, before I can stop myself.
Blake barely glances at me. Then he does a double take, his eyes narrowed. “Brianna?”
“Last time I checked.”
Blake stares, the question on his face now blatant. He shakes his head and looks at the ground. “Can I get your number?”
My little adrenaline rush is stamped on and squished into a wet puddle of reality. I almost don’t give my number to him at all, but then I do. It’s safe enough, now that he’s seen me in person minus the beer goggles. It’s not like he’s going to call me.
Sure enough, he programs the number into his phone without saying another word. It’s not even a surprise when he walks away.
SIX
There are four or five people in line for coffee, so Haley heads behind the counter to help Matt.
Christy nods toward the line. “Who’s that?”
I only see her from the back, but I recognize the cherry red stripes slashing through Fishnet’s onyx hair. “The girl who was with Blake last night?”
“Eww, no. The hottie on her right.” The guy next to Fishnet catches us looking at him. He flashes Christy a ravenous grin that holds none of the charm of Blake’s smile. A shiver of warning creeps along my spine.
Christy bounces on her heels. “The spell is so working!”
The guy strolls across the shop. Slowly, so Christy has plenty of time to take in the perfect dark waves in his hair and his chiseled arms. He stops directly in front of her, closer than is strictly polite. “Hello gorgeous,” he says, his gaze glued to the point of the V on Christy’s top.
Christy waggles her fingers and giggles.
“I’m Jonah,” he says to Christy’s chest. “I haven’t seen you before. You don’t go to McMillan.” He doesn’t bother hiding the air of superiority in his tone.
She giggles again, and the reservations I have about the guy are instantly confirmed. It’s like Christy has a built-in jerk detector. A good thing, if you know how to use it.
She doesn’t.
“Well, good seeing you,” I say to no one in particular. At least no one who’s listening. I’m not in the mood to watch Christy throw herself in front of a bus. But I’ve seen this particular drama enough times to know there’s no stopping her.
I take my latte over to Mariah, a life-sized stuffed cow with built-in containers offering a variety of creamers and sweeteners. My vanilla latte doesn’t need more milk or sugar; I just want to look like I’m doing something besides standing in the corner by myself. Which is exactly what I’m doing. I examine a packet of Splenda.
Austin’s soft lilt comes from behind me. “Would you mind handing me one of those?”
I freeze, one hand hovering over a little yellow packet. I finally turn my head. He’s looking right at me. My fingers shake a little. His eyes are friendly enough, but it’s still awkward.
“Hi, Juliet.”
I hand him the packet, watching as he rips the little envelope and lets the white powder fall into a cup of dark tea before swirling it with a stirrer. He blows on the brown liquid before bringing the cup to his lips and taking a tentative sip.
“I’m surprised you remember me,” I blurt.
“Why would you think that?” The front of his hair drifts down onto his forehead. “Perhaps I’ve been counting the hours until the exact moment when I would see you again.” His lips curve into a crooked smile. “Just so I could get some sweetener for my tea.”
I laugh. “Glad I didn’t let you down.”
“A good start. But it remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
“I’m not following.”
“Whether you let me down.”
“You’re the one who said this would end badly.” Of course, it already has. It ended the minute I sent Haley into his room.
“Yes, but we’ve a long way to go before we get to the sad part, don’t you think?” Austin takes another sip of tea.
I look around the shop for Blake, almost hoping he’ll see the way Austin is smiling at me. But Blake is standing at the counter, watching Haley make his drink. Joe stands next to him, sipping a black coffee while he fingers an unlit cigarette in his other hand. Blake doesn’t look over. Good. I can’t afford to let myself lose control again.
Christy walks over with Jonah trailing close behind. He’s watching her like he wants to eat her for breakfast. And lunch. And dinner. Before I can even say anything, Jonah extends a hand to Christy. “Walk with me?”
Christy places her hand in Jonah’s. She leans in and whispers, too loud, “I told you it worked!” They disappear outside, toward the park across the lot.
Whatever. I’d rather be by myself anyway. It’s funny. All this time I thought I wanted to be seen, but at the moment, I just want to be left alone. Haley keeps peeking at Austin from behind the counter, but he doesn’t look in her direction. Not once.
Blake grabs his iced coffee and glides across the shop with Joe. Out of sheer habit, my eyes follow Blake as he moves through the front door, his every step more graceful and effortless than the last. It’s almost a crime to waste so much beauty on a boy, especially one who tosses it around so carelessly.
Fishnet leans against Blake’s SUV in a too-short skirt and too-low top. A second girl with round, fake boobs whispers in her ear as they watch Blake approach. The ache inside me mixes with something darker, converging into a stew of emotion that borders on violence.
I’m halfway out the door when Austin grabs my arm, stopping me.
I take a deep breath. 16,807. 117 …
“Leaving so soon?” Austin lets go of my arm as I turn to face him.
“No.” It takes every ounce of concentration I have to keep from running out of the shop, but I hold my ground.
Austin is watching me with a hint of curiosity. “I do remember you.”
�
��We’ve established that.”
“I just imagined things would be different when we saw each other again.”
I feel myself start to blush. “Different how?”
“I’m not sure. I think I expected you to be more … affectionate.”
Wow. Does he think since we kissed once, I’d just throw myself at him? After Haley? “Sorry to disappoint.” I look out to the parking lot, to where Blake leans against his car, angled toward Fishnet.
Austin follows my gaze and nods toward Blake. “Am I late to the party?”
“What?”
“I saw you watching him.”
“It’s not what you think.”
And it’s not. Not exactly.
I have this theory. My hypothesis is that I lack the pheromone that attracts people to one another. Or if I do have it, there’s some major imbalance. There’s been more than enough evidence to support it.
Sure, Sherri Milliken invited me to be on the freshman math team on the fourteenth day of ninth grade, but that was based entirely on the fact that I solved a quadratic equation in my head during trig and the Mathletes were in dire need of a fourth member. It wasn’t like she was much of a friend. We stopped hanging out once I quit the team.
It was more of a shock when Haley stopped me in the hall a few weeks later to ask me about my concert T-shirt. Turned out that the Matches were Haley’s favorite band, and she couldn’t believe I’d actually been to their one reunion shows at Slim’s in San Francisco. She introduced me to Christy, and the three of us have been together ever since. Again, explainable—it was the Matches, not me, that got Haley’s attention. Pathetic as my social life might be, I wouldn’t even have one if it weren’t for Haley.
Last spring, Haley dated a senior from McMillan Prep who hung in Blake’s crowd, so there were plenty of opportunities to see him. And Blake kept coming to Magic Beans long after Haley broke up with his friend, even after he started college at U.R.D. Now he usually has a backpack and a medical textbook with him.
Blake is the perfect test subject for me. He enthralls girl after girl, one perfect smile at a time. And there have been lots of them. He flirts with virtually every woman he meets, young or old, small or large, pretty or plain. All except one.
Blake is my litmus test. My control group. My proof. I am the girl no one sees.
Until last night, my theory was unassailable.
SEVEN
I catch Haley watching Austin again, from behind the counter. She flashes me a nervous smile. As if I need to be reminded that Austin is spoken for.
I blink at Austin. “I should go.”
For a second, his eyes seem almost black. It’s there and gone so quickly, I can’t be sure. I take a step forward and it happens again. His eyes darken so much that the irises almost disappear. “Stay,” he says. The word is an anchor, pulling me along with a force so strong that there’s no hope of my ever making my way back to the surface.
My heart drums out a staccato rhythm, pleading with me to stay with him. Hell, go with him. Be with him. It takes all the strength I have to pull my eyes away. I glance at Haley. She still watches, twisting her hair into a tight spiral.
“I can’t.” I stumble over the words, not chancing a look back at Austin.
“You can’t or you won’t?”
Of course I could. It would be easy to be with Austin. It’s not just that he’s adorable and has an accent that’s romantic as hell, though those things don’t hurt. It’s that he might be the one boy in the whole world who looks at me and likes what he sees. Something must be seriously wrong with him.
I don’t trust myself to resist him a second time, so I just turn away and walk outside. I need to escape. I send a text to Christy. After a couple of minutes staring at my phone, I send another one, in all caps.
I glance back into the shop and catch Austin staring. His smile pulls at me. My hand is on the front door before I catch myself and spin back around. I nearly run through the parking lot.
I move past the group by Blake’s SUV like a wraith. Blake never looks up even though I deliberately move close enough to invade his personal space. So my theory’s not totally dead. There’s a small measure of comfort in that, even if my heart breaks just a little.
I end up at the park on the other side of the parking lot, where Christy and Jonah were headed. I turn down a path that heads to the man-made lake in the center. There are a few lights along the way, but it’s darker than the parking lot.
There’s no sign of Christy, just some chirping crickets and my own footsteps. A cold breeze licks at the back of my neck, sending goose bumps along my arms. The sensation is eerily like the cold I felt when I fainted. Silver light flashes. No, no, no. I rub my arms, concentrating on chasing away the rising tide of fear of what’s coming.
“Brianna,” Blake says from behind me.
I stifle a scream as I turn to face him. He’s standing right next to me, even though I never heard him approach.
“God! You scared me. Where’d you come from?” I shake my head. Everything seems normal. Blake stands there on the path with his hands in his pockets.
He cocks his head, like he can’t believe how different I look without the alcohol buzz. This supports my theory: the vanilla spritzer Haley applied to my hair masked my lack of pheromones. That, combined with the fact that Blake and Austin were both drinking, is the only explanation for what happened. Maybe Austin drank something before he came to Magic Beans tonight.
Blake looks down at the ground. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“Now you want to talk? What’s wrong? Did your date with the Boobsie Twins fall through?”
He laughs. “You mean Sierra and Kendra? You think I wouldn’t mind a break from their inane chatter?”
“Is that what we’re calling it these days? Chatting?”
“If chatting still means an informal conversation with one’s peers.” When it’s clear I’m not going to respond to his comment, he adds, “I didn’t come here to see them. I wanted to see you.”
I want to believe him. I shouldn’t, but I do. “Right. That’s why you ignored me completely and hung out with the stripper sisters. Got it.” I walk away.
Blake follows, his long strides easily matching my hurried ones. We come to a grassy bank at the edge of the lake. When I turn to face him again, he’s staring. It’s hard to breathe when I know he’s watching me.
“Are you going to tell me how you’re doing that?” He asks.
He’s caught me completely off guard. “Doing what?”
“Hiding.”
“I’m right here.”
He shakes his head. “It’s like you’re here, but you’re not. I can’t explain it. It’s brilliant. I would never have even known you were doing it if you hadn’t stopped.”
“Stopped?”
“Last night, when you walked into the kitchen. Not this shadow of you, but you. Thank God I’ve learned to master my impulses. If I’d met you a year ago, I don’t know what I would’ve done.” His expression is dead serious.
“I hate to break this to you, but you did meet me a year ago. And I’m not doing anything. The only person who showed up last night was me.” Which means that you are a psycho schizoid, I almost add. “Don’t blame your drinking binge on me.”
He curves his lips so softly that my heart nearly stops in its tracks. I can’t prevent the out-of-control feeling that follows, the high that comes from the perfect chemical cocktail of endorphins and adrenaline. I can’t let myself imagine his smile is for me. This is exactly the kind of thing I should be avoiding now that my crazy is back.
“You really don’t know?” He asks. “It’s hard to believe. Next thing you’ll tell me is that the fire was an accident.”
Oh my God. I want to run. Yet the smile on his lips keeps me here. “Th
e fire?” How does he know about the fire? It’s not like I told anyone. And the records were supposed to be sealed. Anyway, it was an accident. Sort of.
He looks away. “We lost our house and everything in it.”
The wildfire. He’s talking about the wildfire that burned through R.D. last fall. Not my fire. He doesn’t know.
He steps closer. “You’re not even going to deny it, are you?”
My legs shake, poised to run, but I hold my ground. “Deny what?”
“The fire.” His eyes find mine again, searching. “It doesn’t matter. We know it was you.”
I had nothing to do with the wildfire. I was at a horse show with Marcy in L.A. But it can’t be a coincidence that two people suspect me of starting it. Mom, I get, because she knows about the fire I did start. But Blake doesn’t.
“You don’t even know me,” I say.
He laughs, mocking me. “I know enough.”
“What was the point of your coming out here? To call me a criminal, or to figure out why you can’t even look at me?”
“The latter. Just watching you for more than a few seconds is hard. It takes conscious effort, and a lot of it. Even when I try, it’s hard to see you.”
Ouch. If his accusation about the wildfire wasn’t enough, this proof of my undesirability hits like a bucket of ice water against my skull. Bucket first. I step away from him.
His hand catches my wrist, sending an electric shock of heat up my arm. “Let me explain.” He looks at me then, his eyes vulnerable.
I feel myself melting. Please, no. I may have fantasized about him from afar, but if there was ever any doubt about why I shouldn’t be around him, it’s been confirmed to the hundredth power. He suspects too much. He makes me feel things I shouldn’t. Even as I think this, the heat from his touch is spreading to parts of my body that should not have a direct line to my wrist.
“Two minutes,” I tell him.
“The first thing you need to understand is that I do want you.” He closes his eyes. “The real you. Just the memory makes me crazy. But right now, it’s like you’re not even here. I mean, I can see a girl in front of me. I can even tell you’re pretty, but it doesn’t mean anything. Everything about you pushes me away instead of drawing me in.”