Part 4 (1/2)
I glance sideways at him, but he's focused on the sidewalk, watching as he steps carefully in the middle of each square, avoiding the cracks.
That sounds hard. It's hard enough for us, with just my mom, but at least she's an adult, even if Dad left a cold, empty s.p.a.ce behind when he left us. I wonder how old Gabriel's sister is, if she gave up college for this, where their dad is exactly, and suddenly Gabriel turns his head and looks at me with a sly grin.
”Curious, huh?”
I reel back as if he slapped me. ”Not fair.”
”Well, you're thinking about me, so I figured it was a little bit fair.”
”But you couldn't know that unless you peeked.” I sound like a little kid about to have a tantrum, and I hate it, but as much as I want to ask him about his grandmother, and what he knows about people with powers like mine, I want to scream, Don't look! even more.
Maybe he can feel it anyway, because his grin fades and he hunches into his coat again as the wind sweeps us farther up the street. ”I'm sorry. I was just teasing. Olivia's twenty-four, and no, she never went to college. My dad is, um, another story.”
He looks so contrite, almost shy, that I want to apologize, but I won't. I can't, I realize, as I watch his strange eyes darting over at my face, his hair falling forward.
He's just a boy. A cute boy, yeah, a really interesting boy, but just a boy. And I have a boy. I have a boyfriend, even if the rest of the world thinks he's gone. I have a boyfriend who has nothing but me, and not even all of me, not anymore. I don't have any business with Gabriel, here and now or any other time. And I can't let him think I do.
So I square my shoulders, hitch my battered JanSport up higher, and set my jaw. ”I'm sorry. That sounds rough.”
He blinks, surprised by my tone maybe, but before he can say anything I'm pointing at the sign for Edgewood, my street. My stomach twists, sick-hot, because I hate lying, pretending, and it feels like all I do anymore.
”That's me, and I'm late, so I'm going to run. Bye, Gabriel.”
My Docs smack the sidewalk as I take off at a run, and if he answers, the wind carries it away.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
DANNY SAYS, ”YOU DIDN'T MEAN IT,” AND PULLS me close. I nod, even though it doesn't really work with my forehead pressed against his chest, and he smoothes a hand down my back. Warm, strong, almost big enough to span it with his fingers outstretched.
Warm. Warm? I turn my head so my cheek rests against his breastbone, and there, just underneath the skin, is the st.u.r.dy clock of his heart, ticking steadily.
”Danny...”
But when I raise my head to look at him, it's Gabriel, his smile a sudden flash of white. ”You didn't mean it,” he says, and I nod again, even though I'm not sure what he means.
He smells good, faintly spicy, and he's so warm, so warm, I can feel his blood carrying heat through him, pus.h.i.+ng up through bone and muscle to skin.
”You didn't mean it,” he whispers into my hair, and I close my eyes. I didn't. I know that much. He knows that much.
It's his hand stroking my back now, and I'm almost asleep when I hear the thud.
Danny, his eyes like polished stones in the dark, huddled in the corner, his arms around his knees. Thud. His head hits the wall with a sickening wet gush. Thud.
”You didn't mean it,” he says, and Gabriel strokes my back. Thud.
”Stop,” I whisper, but Gabriel won't let me go. Blood is running down the back of Danny's head, dripping thick and black in the dark onto his s.h.i.+rt. Thud.
I open my eyes, panting, as the wall behind my bed shakes. It's Sunday morning, and lately Robin's been practicing headers in her bedroom, so she can bounce the soccer ball off the wall.
I squint at the alarm clock: 10: 47. Way too late, even on a Sunday morning, to complain to Mom. I bury my head under the pillow instead, but it doesn't help. I can feel the vibrations.
I can see Danny's face. Thud.
I bang on the wall with one balled-up fist and sit up to throw back the covers. I hate Sundays.
Sundays are the only days the salon is closed, so they used to be awesome. Sundays meant pancakes or waffles for breakfast and lingering around the table with the radio on. Sundays were when Mom cut our hair right there in the kitchen, or we convinced her to curl or braid it or put it up in elaborate knots. When we walked to the playground or went to the mall, when we made cookies on rainy afternoons or went to the matinee at the dollar theater on the south side of town. Dad's been gone so long that Robin doesn't remember other weekends, when the four of us went to the park or downtown for pizza, or curled up on the sofa in one big pile on winter days, watching a movie.
I remember, but Dad's been gone so long that the ache of missing him is dull, a vague sore spot that I know not to touch. It's harder not to poke at the memories of Aunt Mari and Gram.
It's different now, anyway. We're older, for one-even Robin isn't into sitting around playing hairdresser anymore. She has soccer practice on Sundays in the fall and the spring, and I sometimes have s.h.i.+fts at Bliss. Mom uses the day to do laundry and clean the bathroom, which she doesn't trust either of us to do right, and usually spends the afternoon sprawled on the sofa with a DVD or a book.
Even last spring, I might have joined her, curled up to watch a cheesy movie or let her quiz me on my French vocabulary. Before Danny died, in other words. Before I had so much to hide.
Now it's the hardest day to get out back to see Danny-even if Mom decides to hit the supermarket, she's never gone for more than an hour or two, and when we're both home, I can feel the weight of her gaze on me like a physical thing.
She's in the kitchen when I go downstairs, and she looks up from folding clean laundry on the kitchen table when I head for the coffeemaker.
”She's doing it again.” I close my eyes as I lift my mug to my nose and breathe deep. If I can concentrate, the dream will fade out, disappear like the steam curling out of my mug.
”I need a little more information than that, babe.” I can hear the smile in her voice. It's a good day, then. I know she's been busy at the salon, and that always makes her happy.
”Robin. Soccer ball. Wall.” I slouch into the chair across from her and set my mug down.
”Hey, don't splash,” Mom says, and then c.o.c.ks her head, listening. Upstairs, there's a distant thud, thud, thud, and she sighs. ”Well, it got you out of bed. I'm not sure I can complain.”
”It's Sunday.”
”Not working today?” Above the T-s.h.i.+rt of Robin's she's folding, her eyes are calm and simply curious, the same gold-flecked green as Robin's. Mine are plain brown, the color of dried mud.
”I worked yesterday,” I tell her, and breathe in the caffeine-rich steam of my coffee again. Mom's always up and out early on Sat.u.r.days, since that's the salon's busiest day. Robin usually has a game, and then spends the afternoon with Mom doing homework and answering the phone at the front desk.
”Do you have homework to do today?”
”Always,” I groan, and pick through the laundry when I spot my favorite s.h.i.+rt. ”But I'm going to see Becker later.”
Mom makes a noncommittal hmm noise, but I can feel her watching me as I finish my coffee and set the mug in the sink. I hate that she doesn't trust me anymore, but I hate more that I know she shouldn't. Half of what I tell her is a lie, and I never meet her eyes these days if I can help it.
Even now, I'm wondering if I can get down Clark and over to Rosewood and to the loft before I come home. I've never left Danny alone for a whole day, and he was strange last night, his fingers too tight where they were twined with mine as I said good-bye.
Thud. I can still hear it, still see his face, smooth as stone, empty, his eyes flat and unseeing. I turn around and paw blindly across the counter for the basket of fruit, anything to focus on.
Robin bangs into the kitchen as I'm peeling a banana, soccer ball balanced in one hand and her practice bag slung over her shoulder.
”Ooh, look, she's risen from the dead,” she says, and I nearly choke on my banana.
”No thanks to you,” I manage a moment later, when Mom frowns. ”Soccer is an outdoor sport, genius.”